Interesting thing I discovered today. One of the forums I’m involved in has a new member (for a few weeks) that has introduced herself twice now and I’m convinced she is just promoting her own forum and Hosting site…

Anyway… She also has a directory on her forums website. It’s actually integrated into the forum.
So she posts a few weeks ago about this directory and says, “Go on, it only takes a few moments to sign in and submit your sites!” Well, one of the the first problems is you have to register in the forum in order to submit your site (unique and strange)…

BUT the bigger problem is this:

She posted again today and I thought I would go in and take a look at my listings in the directory. They weren’t there!… Did she decline them?

So I signed in and sure enough they are there! I have to be signed in to view them. You know what that means? That means so do the Search Engines… Oh, that’s right! Search Engines don’t know my password! I guess they won’t see my links. So needless to say THAT was a waste of time.

The forum says there are over 200 members… well that’s not accurate. That’s just people signing up to submit their sites that no one will see! The real truth is that this person is just selling her own services. She is basically spamming our forum in a unique way…AND it’s very possible the reason my Hosting Website doesn’t show up in her directory is because SHE has a hosting site or some of her buddies do and they don’t want the competition… She displays one in her signature at the forum I’m at…

So that just goes to show you what people will do. Wasted my time for sure… but gave me an opportunity to educate!

Post from: SlamBlogger

Forget that stuff people. If you think it’s that easy, you’re in for big disappointments.

It’s not only important to realize that it doesn’t happen over night however. You must also understand the opportunity that works for you today might be gone tomorrow.

The internet is changing and developing so fast that you must prepare yourself and anticipate the storms to come…

You must have a “Success Strategy” that is not only going to allow you to be successful today with your opportunities, but tomorrow as well.

“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will.” - Vince Lombardi

This is a quote from one of the greatest and most respected coaches ever.

If you have the will or as Napolean Hill would state it, the Burning Desire, you will succeed. Not you might! YOU WILL.

Your knowledge and everything else will fall into place if you have the focus to achieve your goals no matter what your obstacles may be.

You could be in the most competitive market on the internet and surmount your competition with this basic principle. It might be hard work and a long road, but if you have the will, it will be done.

Light the Fire Inside You!

Post from: SlamBlogger

Post from: SlamBlogger

Besides the obvious (like working out and shaving those holiday pounds), you can use this holiday season as an opportunity to step back from your project(s) and view everything from a wider angle. Now is the time to slash what doesn’t work and to invest more time and energy into things that do work. For example… maybe you stop spending money on adwords and put some of that money into buying Entrecard credits. Little things like this will cut your bottom line.

Don’t sit there doing the same things over and over again. I for one am in the process of potentially making a HUGE decision… one that will likely supplement my online income greatly… more to come on that in the near future.

So for now, take a step back and re-assess your online strategy. Sometimes time is just as good as money - don’t let it go to waste!

Post from: SlamBlogger

Yeah… just roll with me on this one. I have found a connection between the early days of Seinfeld and The Online Business.

The show really went through a transformation while establishing the characters and setting the pace of the show. As the Creators of the Show were talking they were trying to figure out what they were thinking at the time. “Why did we have those people in that scene?” “That character we decided to recast because…” “Knowing what we know now the pace was way to slow here…”

And on and on. And I realized it’s not unlike what we’re all doing online!

You choose your opportunity. You might throw up a website. And especially if you’re new, you have know idea what you’re really doing? Every product and market is different. You don’t know if what other people are doing is really working or not. You don’t see their pay checks. And even if you did and see their making oodles of money… you don’t know what went into that and what they had to do to get their. It’s not all about design.

The most important step is to, like in Seinfeld, create your pilot episode. Cast your actors, put together the set, write the script, target your market and go! You don’t know if it’s going to work at all. There are no guarantees. There are a lot of variables involved. Is what you put together going to create an audience or will it go no where?

It’s probably a little easier online. You do have a little more control. You don’t have to find a studio that will even run your pilot…. but there is a parrallel.  As time goes on you’ll learn what works and doesn’t work. You test and test again. If you learn something new, you apply it.

If you’re lucky, the audience will love you and you’ll pick up another season. Otherwise, back to the drawing board. You may create a 100 pilots, different shows and ideas before you find the one that seals your success.

There is something that you can learn from show business. The most successful producers, writers and actors went through a lot of growing pains. They failed, sometimes for many years, before they found the perfect script, show or movie.

We have to do the same. You have to jump in with your pilot and see how the audience reacts. Go with the flow. The producers of Seinfeld really had no idea in the first few seasons that they would eventually become such a hit… Heck, Larry was freaking out when he had to come up with more and more material… More material about nothing! I can’t do this… well obviously he did.

The internet is nothing more than a stage. You need to put together your business, open the curtains, and begin talking… you never know what could happen.

Post from: SlamBlogger

Naturally there are a few other ways (like Adsense) to make some money on your blog. In fact, you’ll see my adsense at the bottom of this post. This is kinda cool because it looks nice and isn’t abrusive to what I am writing. However, there are ads that are very annoying … such as in-text ads.

Some of you out there reading this are probably thinking: “What the hell SlamBlogger, I’ve seen blogs that link some words in their posts using their affiliate ID for whatever it is they link to… in fact, I’ve seen YOU do that! It’s exactly the same thing as in-text ads!”

Nope. It isn’t. Let me clarify for you. When a blogger includes a link or two in their post with an affiliate ID, they are usually blogging about something relevant to that particular product/service they link to. However, with these automatic link bots that create in-text ads, the most RANDOM words will be underlined, usually insignificant words to the post. These bots spider through your posts and link a bunch of these words… and man does it look ugly… and to be honest, it kinda makes the blogger look desperate.

And let’s talk about how annoying it is to navigate on these lame-o websites. You move your curser around and before you know it you accidentally brought up some bogus ad trying to sell you fish… or wallpaper, or something extremely irrelevant… this shit is about as annoying as those pop-up banners that appear when you put your curser on the back or close button on your browser.

When I was in college, there was an advertising company that would pay students to put an ad on their forehead using those fake tattoos. Man, did they look like complete dumbasses, and so do the bloggers who have these ads sprinkled throughout every-single-gosh-darn-post on their blog.

Post from: SlamBlogger

The online version AND the print version are 100% free (unless you don’t live in the U.S. or Canada, then the print version is $49/year).  I enjoy the physical version myself, it just seems more substancial and I like to flip the pages when I read on an airplane or something.  The only thing missing from the magazine?  Well, me!  I think that Website Magazine could really benefit from a “SLAMMED” section, don’t you think??? 

Speaking of which, I’ve been way to nice lately, I think I’m going to have to slam something, or someone in the upcoming days.

Stay tuned.

Post from: SlamBlogger

One thing that was pretty refreshing to see was that T3leads does not resell generated leads.  According to their website, their affiliate program “directly cooperates with a large network of banks and other financial institutions.” They claim that they sell generated leads through a unique auction system that allows all the affiliates to make a great deal of profit.  T3leads will pay for each customer sent to them when they respond to offers on your website or blog for qualified products and services.

So that sounds pretty cool… but they make it sound so easy, and we all know that generating substancial funds through these things can be difficult at times.  I think it will be quite difficult because you essentially have the same resources as everyone else that becomes an affiliate… so differentiation becomes difficult on a single user level.  However, the good thing is that t3leads claims that they will provide their affiliates with an “arsenal of promo tools” that are constantly being refreshed by their creative team for maximum performance. You as an affiliate have the option to work with both public web sites, and/or private web sites.

I’m sure you’ve seen other promo tools for similar programs… they tend to be pretty shitty at best.  Usually very generic lacking any real professionalism.  T3leads seems to do well with this.  Their research has shown that their promo tools ensures high conversion rates to the affiliate network.  They have a personal guarantee of conversion rates ranging from 1:6 to 1:9.  Pretty impressive if you ask me, but again, would like to know how these conversion rates are affected as more affiliates join the system.

Last, it is nice to see that t3leads has a community forum so users can help each other out (but why help your competition?)… Unfortunately, the english portion of the forum is lacking activity at the moment.  But hey, I guess now is your chance to establish yourself as an expert in the forum!

If you want to know more about t3leads, you can go watch their video that explains how everything works.  If you are with this program and have had success/problems, then we would all like to hear your comments.

Post from: SlamBlogger

I hope that the winners spread the word about this great blog… I will update this post with links to the winners’ websites once they have been confirmed.

1ST PLACE: MakeMoneyOnline.com

2ND PLACE: Thumlog.com

3RD PLACE: Origena

Post from: SlamBlogger

Anyway, the free ebook is called the MBA System. It doesn’t really get into anything new, it simply explains how to effectively sell websites (even if you don’t own one). Like many free reports, it does have some affiliate links and offers scattered throughout.. but it generally isn’t that bad… In fact, I ended up clicking on one so I could try out the system (The total was $17 I believe).

So, I can personally say that this MBA System works. I may try it out again in the near future. If anyone else has a review of this report, comment below.

Later Haters.

Post from: SlamBlogger