Nick Kringas’s Latest SEO Software Review
Today, I was over at My Link Building Reviews and I was reading Nick’s Backlink Beast Review.
Man what’s gotten into him? He was skeptical about this new product.
I wish he would actually buy the software and write a review after using the software. He gave the product a bad review because of an experience he had with the product creators the last time they released a product. I understand they may have not responded well to the Google update that was happening at the time but give them a break. Their products are usually good.
Take a look at his skeptical review over here.
URL to actual review: http://mylinkbuildingreviews.com/backlink-beast-review
How to Find Your Passion
A great question surfaced after watching Blake Griffin hit a lefty, one handed jumper in the lane against Costas Koufos and Jeff Van Gundy says, “That doesn’t happen by accident. That comes from repetition, repetition, repetition.”
What are you willing to do over and over again, thousands of times, just to get it perfect?
Because the money won’t do it. It won’t get you through the tough times when you want to quit.
It takes passion and this question will help you get closer to what you are most passionate about.
And before you say, “Nothing. Nothing makes me that excited to do just to do it and not for financial reward.”
Personally, I like writing and can see myself doing it every day for the rest of my life.
And that doesn’t mean that I must be a professional blogger. Writing can be combined with other interests and passions to create a personally rewarding career.
I also like business and systems and marketing, communicating an organization’s message to the public, positioning and differentiation.
Can you see how the two can be combined together?
I’ve also learned from a mentor and then through introspection (by writing, of course) that knowing what you do best and what you like to do, want to do, with your time takes work and sitting down and thinking things through for yourself.
I used to get this wrong. I used to search for what other people thought or what others have done before me in a similar predicament. That’s not thinking.
Thinking involves strengthening your thinking muscle, your capacity to work through options and concentrate on a question until you have a crystal clear understanding of what’s going on.
With time and repetition comes greater clarity and knowing yourself better. Answers to deep questions such as “What is my passion?” don’t come instantly… they seem to gradually arise from this constant digging and prodding.
Clarity is critical. Work on it a little each day or each week. Somehow, money does tend to follow as a byproduct.
What can you do thousands of times without tiring?
Merry Christmas
[Video] Tony Robbins, Frank Kern, John Reese – Belief First Then Potential, Action, Results
This video is great!
I have no idea what the website sells (the URL pops up a few times)… it doesn’t belong to Tony Robbins, Frank Kern or John Reese (it doesn’t appear to, anyway) and I usually don’t like to embed videos that promote other websites but…
This video really hit home with me and I think it will do the same for you.
It got me re-focused on visualizing and working on my beliefs before going out and taking massive action in my business.
Enjoy and leave any comments below.
Recent SEO Success and Thoughts on Serving More
I believe it happened because I am implementing what I am learning in Bring the Fresh and OMG Machines. Getting this new website and traffic generation client was too serendipitous… and I don’t believe in coincidence.
I think this is the first step to a long journey of serving people and adding tremendous value to their lives.
You know the question, “If money weren’t an issue what would you be doing every day?” Or the advice to focus on doing something that you love to do, something that you would do even if you weren’t getting paid for it?
That’s how I feel about SEO and making money online. I was working on my craft even while not getting paid for it. Now that I am getting paid for it, I should work even harder, right?
It wasn’t only the how-to advice of Bring the Fresh or OMG Machines that caused the attraction of a new client. I recently read a book called The Go Giver that changed the way I look at the world and at my business.
I used to think in terms of what’s in it for me and how can I make a million dollars?
This book taught me to focus on creating value and serving others and putting other people’s interests ahead of my own.
After practicing this for about a week, that’s when my long-time family friend called to ask if I was interested in helping his wife with an upcoming judicial election… she is campaigning to become a local judge… I won’t say which court or what level of judge but if you stick around long enough, you will soon find out… it’s not much of a secret.
How can I “spiderweb” this opportunity and serve even more people because of the quality referrals I get from this base client?
How can I serve the most people?
How can I serve them so well that they gladly pay me large sums of money and tell all their friends and associates how happy they were with my services?
How can I show up differently? as Dan Kennedy puts it.
So, Bring the Fresh and OMG Machines gave me the how-to and The Go Giver gave me the mental attitude that brought upon my recent success.
Now it’s my job to “spiderweb” this opportunity and serve as many people as possible.
Not to worry, the money will always follow.
Headline Ideas for My Latest Small Business Report
Here I will brainstorm as many headlines as I can for my next report aimed at helping local business owners with their Internet Marketing.
They (Ted Nicholas comes to mind) say that over eighty percent of any buying decision is made at the headline! Eighty percent!
I guess that’s why the great marketers spend so much time on them and why all successful blogs have great headlines.
Derek Halpern of SocialTriggers.com says that he goes through this headline brainstorming process for each and every blog post that he writes.
The Goal of The Report I’m Writing
To help business owners get setup online in order to attract and capture people searching for what they have to offer. Also, to help them identify who exactly they want to attract to their website.
A side benefit is that when they hire me on the back end to handle Search Engine Optimization or Pay Per Click Management, they will be prepared to capture and convert the traffic we send to their website into paying clients, customers, guests.
Headline Ideas
Local Business Internet Marketing Report
Setting Your Small Business Up for Online Success
Getting Your Business Started Online
The Essentials of Internet Marketing for Local Business Owners
Setup Your Local Business to Attract Customers from the Internet
Are You Setup Up to Attract Business Online?
Is Your Small Business Setup to Attract and Capture People Searching the Internet for What You Offer? (Way too long but it’s a good start… I like the angle/hook)
People Are Online Looking for What You Have to Offer – Are You Prepared? (- Is Your Business Prepared?)
Is Your Business Set Up to Capture Clients from the Internet?
Online Essentials for Small Businesses
Small Business Internet Essentials
Setup Up Your Online Net
Online Infastructure
People Are Searching Online For What You Offer – Are You Prepared?
Your Prospects Are Online – Are You?
Online Spiderweb
Internet Spiderweb (TM)
Sidenote: from this list I can use one of the headlines not chosen and use it as my subhead.
GKIC Manhattan Local Chapter Meeting – All About Newsletter Marketing
Tonight, I attended my very first GKIC local chapter meeting in Manhattan on 23rd and 6th. Every month when I read Dan Kennedy’s Gold Marketing Letter I look to see when the chapter meeting will be but for some reason, I’ve never attended.
I guess it was just easier not to go.
So today I took the train from White Plains down to Grand Central and jumped on the local 4 train downtown to 23rd street.
When I got there around 5 after 4, everyone was just settling in and the meeting had not started yet.
Here’s my overall impression of this group…
The Independent Business Adviser who runs the group is excellent. She knows her stuff and was great at facilitating connections between people in the room with complementary businesses.
Today’s two hour meeting was all about newsletters and how to implement them effectively as a marketing piece.
We spoke about electronic vs. printed and stamped, why they are so effective, sources of content, layout, personality in copy and much more.
I really didn’t think we could talk about newsletters for two hours but we did and it was great.
I think it’s important to implement things that you learn right away so I took notes on the train ride home about the things I want to take action on.
In my Internet Marketing business, I will begin to send out a weekly ezine/tips and strategies hot sheet. This one will be strictly via email and will be kept to a few paragraphs about something a business owner can use right away in his/her business.
Secondly, I will commit to sending out a PRINT newsletter once a month. This will be accompanied by an email version of the exact same thing.
You may be thinking to yourself, why not just email it? Why go through the trouble and cost of mailing out a physical copy?
Newsletter 4/29 (Photo credit: Christopher S. Penn)
Print newsletters are so effective for a few reasons.
- They have a longer shelf life than email – People keep them for a while and show them to friends, read them on the train, and keep them in their bag or briefcase to read when they have time. Email is quick to be deleted or never opened because it is among many other messages. Print is always more valuable.
- Print newsletters add to the allure that you are the expert in your industry
- They help build brand recognition
- Most importantly, people begin to know, like and trust you after receiving your newsletter the same time every month, week, day for a few months
- Newsletters can remind your clients to buy more frequently and to spend more
What happens when you send out newsletters on a timely, scheduled basis is people start to expect it to arrive and believe it or not, look forward to it coming.
When I used to write the newsletter for our family restaurant, people would love it. I would hear people at tables with their friends talking about some story that I had told or a picture that I printed in the newsletter.
I have to say that the newsletter really was the greatest marketing piece I used at our restaurant. Even when it was only electronic it was effective but once I started spreading our message through multimedia channels, our readership multiplied!
If you have a business, I urge you to start a periodic communication with your list in the form of a newsletter or hot sheet. If you can’t commit to monthly, send it out bi-monthly or quarterly.
Any action is always better than no action.
If you are interested in finding out more about our monthly GKIC meetings, shoot me an email and I will get you in contact with Lisa for more information.
Create Great Looking Profile Pics with These Free Tools
I have to admit that the profile pictures I’ve been using on Twitter, Facebook and Youtube have not been the greatest… alright, they’ve been awful.
But, who wants to take the time to take good photos and then edit them, right?
Well, it’s a must so make it happen and move on!
Even better, have someone do this for you. Send this post to your virtual assistant along with your photo and a description of what you want done so that you don’t have to worry about $10 per hour tasks.
The biggest barrier to sales online is people don’t trust you. There is no way around it. Photo and video makes you more real to your audience, period!
Show you’re a real person, less likely to be a con man and portray a quality image online…
Here are the two free tools that I used today to create the profile picture that you see in the sidebar (as of today July 30, 2012)
Pixlr.com
I’ve been using this one the longest, usually for quick resizing of images for when a website won’t allow an image over a certain size. When you hit resize image and then hit save, it will show the size of your image in kilobytes at the bottom right corner of the dialog box. For example, Twitter will only allow photos of 700kb or less so this tool will be useful for that.
Paint.net http://download.cnet.com/Paint-NET/3000-2192_4-10338146.html
Downloading paint.net can be annoying because each page has two or three other products they try to trick you into downloading but I think it’s worth the aggrevation if you want a quality free software you can use to do things like chroma key. That’s where you can take the green screen out of the picture and replace it with another color or an image to make it look as though you are standing in front of a building or on a beach or whatever your little heart desires.
In order to mess with Chroma key, you will need a separate plugin called Chroma Key (Green) 1.0 which you can find here.
For help getting this going you can visit the following site that helped me out quite a bit: http://oakdome.com/k5/tutorials/green-screen/
and One Paid Tool
Snagit (paid tool) http://www.techsmith.com/snagit.html
This is one of my favorites for editing photos. I use Snagit Editor mostly for creating banner ads that can go in your site’s sidebar or even for use in banner ad networks or on other sites.
The link above is not an affiliate link because I don’t believe they have an affiliate program. They also have a free trial you can take advantage of before you buy.
Related articles
Start a Blog that Matters: Questions to Consider When Choosing a Niche
Stand out from the crowd (Photo credit: sparkieblues)
In this post you will learn about burning questions that I finally had answered regarding which topic I would create a blog in. I was stuck for the longest time because I have always wanted to work in the Internet Marketing Niche but I always thought I did not have the track record yet, there was too much competition and if I did enter the niche, what would be my Unique Selling Proposition. Read More…
My Newest Website: Entering a Competitive Niche I am Passionate About
Online Hundreds
Studying How to Start a Blog That Matters and thinking hard about how I would enter the Internet Marketing, make money online niche…I had a thought while writing down a bunch of different topics and domain name ideas that I got really excited about.
I quickly went over to Blue Host and registered the name OnlineHundred.com!
For some reason it really resonated with me.
- It serves a huge market.
- It solves a problem (making your first hundred online) and then later on, for more advanced people we can also focus on making your first hundred grand online
- I am passionate about the subject.
- I have made money online and can now personally focus on repeating and doing it faster each and every time.
I am excited to get started and to move on to week two of the course, How to Start a Blog That Matters.
My Personal Struggle with Choosing a Niche
At first, I really didn’t know what I would be using this blog for… frankly speaking.
I have a blog/review site in the search engine optimization niche because I do SEO every day and love it. It’s also how I was introduced into the world of Internet Marketing.
However, there are a few holdups that are constantly stuck in my mind when I think about moving forward in the small(er) niche of SEO.
My Goals for Joining the Financial Independence Virtual Mastermind group
Why did I join the Financial Independence Virtual Mastermind Program?
Developing goals for the program up front will only help me get the most out of my time and investment in it.
I want to meet a handful of great internet entrepreneurs, exchange ideas with them, personally complete one hotseat and double my SEO Spartan business in the next SIX months.
Notes from I Love Marketing James Schramko Interview
Great new episode of the I Love Marketing Podcast where Joe Polish and Dean Jackson interview one of my Internet Marketing Heroes, James Schramko.
Here are my notes from listening to the audio:
Episode 77, I Love Marketing – the one with James Schramko
Listen to the entire interview here
Speed of Implementation, General Patton style, is something all super successful entrepreneurs have in common.
“A good plan executed today is much better than a perfect plan executed next week”
Good, fast or cheap
Since trying to be the cheapest solution is a race to the bottom, good or fast is the answer to our company… are we going to lead with good or with fast?
Episode 22 – I love marketing – I know I’m successful when
Marketing is creating an environment where the sale occurs
People don’t buy unless they think they’ll be better off
Marketing leads the prospect down the road where they decide to buy because they know they will be better off from making the decision
The better the marketing, the less you’ll have to work on the sales component
Selling is only exchanging one situation for another better situation
Good sales training: Psychology of Selling by Brian Tracy
Selling is not about price, it’s about solving problems
Hand written follow up after person leaves dealership is a simple idea James implemented at Mercedes Benz that not many other dealers do, even to this day
James’s philosophy on business and selling is focusing on solving people’s problems. You can tell all his success comes from that focus
Don’t take the customer’s word for it! If a doctor took your word for it and didn’t ask questions, would you let the doctor diagnose you? No, you would leave!
“So that we only spend time talking about things that are important to you, do you mind if I ask you a few questions and take some notes?”
Three things to do today to grow your business and make more money:
- Absolutely focus on the customers you already have
It’s a lot easier working with existing and past clients than it is to get new ones
- Find any way to create recurring subscription products for your clients
Talk about what’s coming, add tremendous value to get people to stick month after month
Most people that teach about continuity, the focus is on creating pain of disconnect
But the reality is if you’re really going to focus on recurring income and lifetime clients, you can’t do that from creating pain of disconnect. You have to create something so great that it’s a no brainer that people want to stay forever
If your membership pays the community members $2,000 for every $1,000 they invest, why would anyone want to leave that continuity program? Right! They would stay forever or for as long as that payout continues.
- Be clear about the results you want
Work out the natural steps in getting it
Work every day on your part time business – James worked from 9pm to 2:30am every night while working during the day at Mercedez Benz
Write down where you left off the night before and the next day, get right back into the zone knocking off to-do lists
Start and end goal with steps in between and keep ticking away at it… take cracks at it every day
And… you gotta want it badly enough
Wave the magic wand and create a life in your mind without compromise
Know where you’re headed, the clearer the better… and you will start to become discontented with your current situation and moving forward toward the life you envision
Local Business Internet Marketing Consultants, This Site Will Be Especially for You
In Information Marketing especially, it’s super important to choose a niche as your audience, as opposed to trying to be all things to all people.
It’s just as important to decide who you are not serving as it is who you are serving.
After much contemplation, I’ve decided to serve the Local Business Internet Marketing Consultant niche.
How’s that for specific?
I read in a “How to Find a Profitable Niche” report published by the people at Early to Rise and the Financial Independence Monthly Newsletter that you should get into a niche that you have intimate knowledge of and experience in.
I have been in the restaurant business my whole life so I could probably teach people about starting, operating and growing a successful restaurant but I frankly, don’t like the restaurant business and I think it’s an antiquated industry that has been in a steady decline because of ever shrinking margins, increasing competition because of the popularity of reality tv shows and stricter government regulations.
I’m not completely sobbing because the business has been great to me and my family through the years but I would just rather not be involved.
Marketing and growing businesses is something I love so I decided to document and share the story of how I started and how I will grow my Local Business Internet Marketing company.
So far, SEO Spartan is in its infancy with only a few organic SEO (search engine optimization) clients but I have made a commitment to grow it into a full service online marketing agency for local businesses.
A few great things about this business… the ability to outsource most of the work while still providing great value… healthy profit margins… high demand… recurring monthly income, to name a few.
Stay tuned as I work on getting new clients, develop systems to handle the business with decreasing personal involvement and teach others how to do the same.
Cheese and Whiskers Get Clients to Seek You Out
If you haven’t yet heard the Cheese and Whiskers presentation by Dean Jackson, stop what you’re doing and listen to it now… http://ilovemarketing.com/episode-055the-one-where-dan-sullivan-talks-with-dean-about-cheese-and-whiskers/
You will learn, more than anything else, how to change the relationship between you and your prospect from salesman that they run from to someone that they call and seek out.
I love this!
