I know, I know. It’s been awhile since my last post. I intended to go back to posting more often, but then I got distracted. You know what they say about intentions…you don’t? Okay then, I’ll tell you. The road to hell is paved with good intentions…just ask Tiger…heh. So anyway, there I was intending to go back to posting every day, when I suddenly realized that I was just writing the same stuff everyone else does. I just found it hard to go back and keep regurgitating the crap everyone has read a hundred times all over the internet.
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Blogging, Internet Marketing, and More
What You Can Learn From Yaro Starak
Thursday, March 11th, 2010 | 7 Comments
If you blog, chances are you have heard of Yaro Starak. Not only is he well known within the internet marketing community, he has a cool name. A name that you don’t easily forget. But here’s the more important thing to know. His extremely successful site Entrepeneurs-Journey.com isn’t his first site. Yaro has a business timeline on his site. You should read it. It’s quite illuminating.
The Primary Lesson
The primary lesson you can take from Yaro is to never stop thinking. Think about your business if you have one. Think about how you can promote it. Think about how you can improve it. If you don’t yet have a business, then think about what interests you have that might be turned into a business.
Yaro Loves Business
Reading Yaro’s timeline you really start to understand just how much the guy loves business. And that’s another lesson you can learn from him. One of the reasons he has been so successful is that he really loves what he does. That love is what keeps him motivated. There is a reason that those of us who have or have had real jobs find that we need vacations. The constant focus on something that you really don’t love is tiring. Over time you find that your mind wants to wander. Your thoughts turn to what you would rather be doing. Yaro and those like him that work at what they love find that it isn’t work. Of course every now and then everyone needs some time away, but that need is diminished greatly when what you would rather be doing is exactly what you are doing.
Interests Change
Another lesson from Yaro is that as your interests change, so can your business. Yaro’s first online endeavor was his MTGParadise.com site. A site dedicated to his passion at the time, Magic The Gathering, a card game. Eventually he found that his passion for the game had diminished to the point that he no longer wanted to work on it. He found buyers and was ready to devote his time to other interests.
How To Learn From Yaro (and others)
There is a tremendous amount of information on Yaro’s blog. This article encompassed just Yaro Starak’s blog. There is a lesson in that too. The lesson is that time spent examining the sites of successful bloggers or internet marketers can be valuable. Take some time and spend it on the sites of people like Yaro Starak, or Darren Rowse, or any number of other successful internet personalities. Try to see what they are doing to be successful. Analyze the content of their articles. Analyze things like the colors they use in their design. The list is endless. The point is that you should examine everything that you can think of that might help them to be successful, and think about how you can make use of that information.
If you liked this article let some other people know about it.
As always, comments are encouraged.
Thoughts On Success Instead Of Failure
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 | 7 Comments
photo credit: pasukaru76
Do you sometimes feel like Sisyphus? Who? You know. The Greek story of the man condemned to forever push the rock up the hill only to have it keep rolling back down?
I did not accomplish everything I set out to yesterday. I failed to get the photo of Rosey’s picture that I wanted to. I didn’t leave comments on as many blogs as I had planned to either. Kinda makes my day sound like a failure doesn’t it
Wrong! That isn’t how I am taking it. And that’s what this post will address. When is failure not failure? The answer is that it’s not failure when you don’t give up. Yes, I failed to achieve the goals I had set out to accomplish for the day, but I am not giving up, and I am changing the time frame. As I have written in the past, sometimes you have to adjust your goals.
I will still achieve the 20 comments, and taking the picture. It’s just going to take another day to get it done. This blog has been progressing nicely up the Alexa ranks. It could go faster if I devoted more time to it, but at this point I am satisfied with the steady progress I have been making. This also allows time for other projects.
My point is that if you fail to achieve a goal, don’t let it stop you. Until you’re dead, you always get another chance for success tomorrow. Never give up. Seth Godin wrote a short book on this very concept. He suggested that “the Dip,” as he called it was valuable. The dip being the barriers to success. The bigger the achievement, the bigger the dip.
Vince Lombardi, the famous football coach, called it “second effort.” Are you beginning to see a common thread here? What I want you to take away from this article is this: Don’t give up. Winners win because they refuse to accept failure. Sometimes you may need to modify your plan, but the important thing is to keep the goal front and center in your thinking. If one way of getting there isn’t working, then find a way that will work.
As always, comments are encouraged.
If you liked this article or any of the others you may find here, spread the word.
What’s Next? In An MMO Kinda Way.
Sunday, March 7th, 2010 | 2 Comments
photo credit: Steve Snodgrass
I am going to be starting something new here very shortly. As I have mentioned in previous posts, I want to pursue online marketing. Originally I saw this activity as something separate from this blog. Now I have come to the realization that you, my readers, might like to see what I’m doing.
I have not started any of the projects so far, other than form some rather nebulous ideas of how I intend to pursue the ever-popular Make Money Online (as you read that, imagine it being said with a sonorous voice with a little reverb…kinda like it might sound if God said it…in a movie). Of course this means that you will be able to see everything I do right from the beginning. Did I say, “see?” Well, maybe not see, but I will tell you about the steps I am following. I would show you, but there are going to be keywords involved, and, frankly I don’t need any more competition than I am already going to have.
Here are some of the ideas I’m sort of kicking around in my head. I’m thinking about building a site to promote a picture my beloved Roseann made to help her teach her kids about Jesus. When the site is up I’ll tell you about it. Also on the table is hubpages. I’ve read a few articles lately about making money with hubpages. And then, of course there are the usual ideas about finding keywords and then creating websites along with the requisite linkbuilding.
Those are some of the ideas I’m going to try. I’ll keep you updated on my progress here every step of the way. If anyone would like to contribute any information in the comments that would be great. You can help me and help the other readers at the same time. In the near future I’ll write with more specificity.
As always, comments are encouraged.
Never Take Counsel Of Your Fears
Saturday, March 6th, 2010 | 10 Comments
photo credit: rvaphotodude
Okay. Back home from Phoenix. 
I love road trips. I didn’t post much in the last week. Which brings me to a question. How often does a blog need to have new content?
I have noticed that there is a very wide variety to the frequency of posting on some very popular bogs. Of course, the really big ones add content pretty much every day, and some of them several times a day. Others don’t necessarily add anything every day. Some add every few days. So to refine the question further I am asking, does the time between new additions to your blog really make a big difference to your readers?
On Problogger there is new content every day, yet I find that I don’t check it every day. Daily Blog Tips, the same thing. I don’t necessarily check it every day. I have many blogs in my reader and I don’t generally visit a blog unless I see from the title of an article something that interests me.
As an experiment I have not posted in several days. While I have continued to move up in the Alexa rankings, I have noticed that my bounce rate has been climbing. This can only mean one thing. I have readers coming to see what I have written and upon finding nothing new, they leave. I feel guilty, and I think I should apologize. I will henceforth go back to frequent new entries on this blog.
Having now promised to post frequently, there is something else I am going to start doing with more regularity too. Commenting on other blogs. I am going to start treating this more like a job. At the same time I am going to start some niche blogs and see what I can learn about internet marketing. I will be posting more on that subject soon. Quite a bit of my time lately has been spent trying to learn as much a I can about making money online, and just trying to work up the nerve to try.
I am reminded of a period a few years back when I had earned a real estate license and hooked up with a broker. It didn’t go well. I failed for a couple of reasons. But the main reason was a lack of confidence which frequently kept me in “getting ready” mode. “Getting ready” mode is deadly to any endeavor when it goes on too long. The truth is you are not really getting ready. You’re avoiding that which makes you uncomfortable, or causes you to feel fear. In my case, although I had passed the real estate licensing exam easily, I still didn’t feel like I really knew what I was doing. I told people that I quit real estate because I felt that it took a certain arrogance to tell people which house they would be best suited for. I had all sorts of reasons for failing. The truth was that I should have just plunged in and made my mistakes. There were plenty of experienced people at the brokerage who would have been more than happy to lend a hand if I floundered. But I didn’t even really try. I don’t want to make that mistake again with internet marketing.
That last paragraph was hard to write. It’s hard to bare your failures before the world. But there was an important lesson there too. That’s why I decided to share. As you progress along the blogging road, do not allow fear to play a part in your decisions. American Civil War General Stonewall Jackson said it well. “Never take counsel of your fears.”
As always, comments are encouraged.
The Plan For Today
Today I am going to:
Post
I am going to post to this blog. That’s what this article is. ’nuff said.
Comment
I am going to comment at 20 other blogs. As has been said over and over, comments must be quality comments. I don’t know how many articles I will have to read to find 20 that inspire me to write some intelligent and useful comments.
Picture
This one is probably very different from anything you will read on anyone else’s blog today. One of the projects I referred to in my last post was building a site to offer a picture that my beloved, Roseann, made to help her teach her children about Jesus. Everyone who has ever seen it wants one. Consequently, we have decided to make it available to those who would like one. It will be our first online business.
Since it is our first, we are moving slowly. We don’t want to make any mistakes. Up until now we have been moving so slowly that our progress has been imperceptible. It’s time to start moving.
Tomorrow I will post on progress made today.
As always, comments are encouraged.