1. You check your stats and they are awful

Result, you get discouraged and tell yourself, this isn’t working, thus setting the stage for a slowdown or quitting all together. Don’t do it, keep building sites and keep adding links. At this point you either believe in your business model or you don’t. Now is not the time to quit, or slowdown

2. You check your stats and they are great.

This one is really dangerous. Ahhh, you’re making money and since your making money, maybe it might be a good day to go to the beach, or take some time away. This problem gets worse when you get back from the beach and you check your stats and you made money again. Hmm, how about another day off? Wrong, keep building, keep working.

Browsers and Buyers

I have had BANS sites that produce more traffic than this blog. Most of those sites haven’t produced sales. Why? For many who have invested time in building BANS sites there is frustration. Still others seem to do very well. The difference is the majority are attracting browsers and the successful BANS site owners are attracting buyers. How do you convert browsers into buyers? Obviously keywords, but yet, many still aren’t grasping the keyword game or how to attract buyers to your site.

I bet there are more than a few of you that have a computer site or a scrapbooking site. How many of you are pounding cheap computers or discount scrapbooking supplies? Now lets see , someone wants to buy a cheap computer, so they type that in the old Google search and low and behold there are cheap computers everywhere. This person is in all likelihood a browser, and so are the others that search that term. Oh you may get lucky once in a while, but mostly your traffic stats will look good and your monetization will be crappola. Been there , done that. No thank you

Long tail search terms are the answer to your browser problem. Yes I know you have heard that before, but how many of you are actually working long tail keyword search terms. Look at scrapbooking which is searched over 1700 hundred times a day. You might get a browser or two with that term if you can rank for it , by the way with 39 million plus results , good luck., but what if you took “scrapbook dies” You don’t want the person who wants to explore scrapbooking , you want the person who needs supplies to complete their project. The point is you must explore all the possibilities for ranking keyword terms in your topic or niche. I’m not the first person to say this , but, think like a buyer , not a seller. Some time back I hit upon a keyword search term for one of my sites. I decided to work it and work it hard. It is long tail, very long tail, but the result has been a sale a day for weeks , just off that one term. It can be done, with proper research. Darn, if I can do it, I know you can. So what of you have a site that is not producing? Go back , create a store page , search for a good buying term, and work that term , Good Luck

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As most of you can tell my becoming a full time internet marketer has affected my posting on this site. It is an issue I hope to overcome soon. I currently work… 12-15 hours a day, sometimes more. Before we go much further along here, let me assure you I have never enjoyed something so much, so fast, so as for the hours , its all good. I am adjusting to my new work at home career and I am adjusting my BANS site as needed.

My day usually starts with a check to make sure my 100 + sites are live and doing what they are supposed to do. I spend a few hours commenting and getting links for those sites. Let me say this, there is nothing fun about getting links, at least that I can find, so I fire up iTunes and go get them. I usually write 10-12 posts a day for my various niche blogs and work a few trends blogs. I am entered in the Blogger Unleashed Contest, and have not had time to post a single article in 2 weeks. Vic has my apologies, but I need to get paid and building sites is how that is going to happen. It already has.

Somewhere during my day , usually around mid-day, I check out Freshdrop.net for domains. There is almost always a domain or 3 for me to research and purchase. Usually 7 or 8 days later I take ownership and build a site, so I like to keep that flow going.

I’ve added a few Blogspot Blogs to my network and work those as well. I have some dinner around the early evening and now enjoy the time I have to watch my beloved Tampa Bay Rays play when they are on TV. After the game, I’m back at the desk to build a site or two and get some more links. As of late, Justin from Blogging Zombie chat away on Skype while we work, as he has decided to make internet marketing a full time occupation as well. While we are at it, if you haven’t checked out his blog lately, and your are interested on information on how to make money blogging, you need to go there. Justin is a compulsive thinker as I am, and his posts are loaded with tips to make your making money online easier. He has bent over backwards to help me and he will do the same for you.

I work until 4 or 5 AM , get some sleep and get back after it the next morning

I still buy new domains, although my preference remains existing domains, but have stayed away from .dot infos’s for now, until we all can figure out what is going to happen there. I usually can get a new dot com indexed in less than 24 hours and I want to tell you how I do it. Disclaimer time. This may not work for you and others have different techniques for this ,so check them out as well. I set the site up, in this case a BANS site and then work BMD (Bookmarking Demon). I do not go crazy with this. I think sometimes people forget how powerful a tool BMD can be. I get 25 to 30 links and stop. I try to add links slowly. The last 4 new domains have indexed in less than 24 hours doing it this way. I don’t touch the sites for another week, but then add a few more BMD runs and do my traditional link building. Avoiding the sandbox using this technique has worked in all but one occasion. That site had more traffic than this blog does for 2-3 weeks and it was sent to the beach. It came back 3 weeks later. More to come on that later in this post

I got a call today from a friend who learned of building sites from me and my blog. His concern was that after 3 weeks he had lost his position in the SERPS. I explained to him that Google loves fresh content, and a newly built Bans site does just that for Google. It happens to all of us. I generally build my sites in stages. Let me explain. When a site starts to fall we can do nothing, or we can prop it back up. Get more links is obvious. I then add a load of content to the area at the bottom of the page. With the new links that usually does the trick. If push comes to shove, I will add another category and load it up with content and, you guessed it, get more links. The point is BANS sites evolve over time and you need to adjust. Sitting back and doing nothing will not only frustrate you, it will run you right out of this business. Your key search terms, if they are good ones, should produce buyers not browsers. Don’t shy away form long tail search terms, those are generally buy search terms and that’s what you’re after. So here is list of thing to help you down the road to making money , when Google does what Google does. Lets assume your BANS site is up and you are getting traffic.

Google determines they like your site, but they don’t love you like they once did and your traffic has slowed to nothing.

Option # 1 Do nothing except pout and whine! Don’t laugh that is what most people do.

Option # 2 Be honest with yourself, you haven’t done anything with this site. It s time to get busy .Add a post to the bottom content are, just like you are writing a blog post, of course generously sprinkled with your keywords and keyword phrases. Do this on one of your categories. Now go get links for this page. Do BMD runs, go comment on do follow blogs and Comment Luv Plug-in. Check out Squidoo pages and add a link or 20 where you can. Submit to Article Directories. Soon you get your traffic back and hopefully you have learned a lesson. Wash, rinse and repeat with the other pages.

You simply must adjust to Google , they sure aren’t going to adjust to you.

Your site has been sent to the beach, the Sandbox

One of the very first sites I put up , was drawing more unique visitors each day than this blog does. I hit upon some very good search terms and for a very trendy , popular product .It was my biggest producer for 2 ½ weeks As quickly as it came it disappeared from the SERPS. Oh I’m sure it was there, somewhere on page 137. Here is what I did.

Option # 1 I confess I pouted and whined , for about a day , then I got busy.

Option # 2 I was patient and I waited . I waited for more links to be counted. It would be nice if Google counted your links as soon as you put them up, but they don’t. Now lets put yourself in Google’s shoes. Here is a brand new site , with a brand new domain and we just counted 378 links in the past 4 days. Wow, Mr. Google says, that is a bunch , I wonder what is going on. Maybe it’s a spam site, lets just set it aside until we decide. Fair enough, I would probably do the same thing if I was Mr. Google. Now here is where you have to be ultra patient. I did not add links as I knew there was more to be counted. I added some content to individual pages. That lets them know the site is still active. I did this over several days, remember, just like it was a blog. 3 weeks later while checking my traffic on my other sites, I noticed my sand boxed site was getting traffic. I checked and sure enough there it was back on page 1 for my terms. This is another reason I add sites daily. You never know when this may happen, and if you are counting on one site to buy groceries, you’re going to get hungry. I hope this helps some of you. If you have questions, ask away. I’ll be sure to answer quickly.

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I have not purchased a new domain in over a month and here is why. Existing domains provide an opportunity for making money faster. How much faster? read on. I started purchasing .com domains that were a minimum of 3 years old. I do not get overly concerned with page rank. I repeat, do not get overly concerned with page rank. Aged domains are my priority.

I go to Fresh Drop, filter my results my results for age, 3 year minimum, Set Fake PR to N, PR minimum 0 . There I begin a search for domains to fit my criteria. If you get hung up on having a particular word of keyword term in the domain, you are going to get frustrated. Remember you can make a domain rank for any keyword or phrase you choose. The history of the site is very important. Why? Because lets say you find a domain that used to feature financial products. Let’s assume for this discussion you find pages archived or still showing on Google related to that term. You start your niche site that has to do with investing in the stock market or mortgages. The result in many cases is instant authority.

You can do this with BANS or Niche sites for Adsense. It works the same. I recently purchased a domain that was 5 years old. The site has been up for two weeks, As of this writing I am on page two of Google for my search term. I have not worked the domain all that hard.

Last week I purchased a domain for BANS. I frankly did not know how I would use it but I liked all the deciding factors I use to choose a domain that I described above. I set up the BANS site with 3 search terms and store pages. The result? It has become my biggest Bans producer. I sold items off of that site the fist day it was up. It is that easy folks and sometimes being lucky is nice, but properly choosing an existing domain takes being lucky out of the equation.

Now let’s talk about the making money factor. Info Domains are .99 and .com domains will cost you a touch over $15.00. That’s big difference, right? It’s not when you consider you will make that $15.00 back and more inside two weeks. So what to do with all the profits? Buy more existing domains. I bought two while writing this article. I will be making money from them next week. It has worked for me and it can work for you.

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Weighing the Risk

For months now I have been consumed with thoughts of making sales with my online business a full time occupation. I have talked with many people, surveyed their input, opinions and balanced all the typical risk factors associated with starting an online business. At the end of the day, obviously there are many. Not the least of which is the uncertainty of a steady income.

I have posted many times about being bitten by the entrepreneurial bug early on in my life. Folks that bite is real and it is authentic. The fact is I don’t like others making decisions for me about my work or my personal life. Being tied down to a job and being tied down to the authority of a boss has come to a close. It is finished.

The Process of Making a Decision

For many of us the process of making a decision is a problem. Your entire life is filled with responsibilities and making decisions is an every day part of that. Understood. However, some decisions carry more weight in the grand scheme of things and this one seemed to take on a priority I had not experienced of late. I came home form work Saturday night, worn out from a long frustrating night at the “office” My mind was in overdrive as I settled into my office chair, and began building websites, but something was different. I seemed to lack focus. Was I tired? Yes, but usually my focus is laser sharp. Something wasn’t quite right. I retired to my king sized Sleep Number bed at 4 AM. For the next 2 hours I tossed and turned my thoughts running from place to place.
Then it hit me. My inner voice began to speak. “Don, its time to fish or cut bait” You have thought about this long enough. I frequently tell people, thinking is good, but thinking is a passive activity.. “Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one’s ideas, to take a calculated risk - and to act.” You must take action. The decision was made

The Reaction

Have you stepped outside your mind? Are you nuts? Oh really? There were a few more and a few more with much more colorful language. That’s fine. The truth of the matter is if I get too overly concerned with what people think, then I will end up doing what they think I should do. I will become essentially a follower. I refuse and have for most of my life to do that. Everyone has a standard to which they measure their own quality of life. Quality in my life has to be something I have chosen to do according to my own volition. Whatever the reaction I have to follow my heart and follow it I will.

Where Do We Go From Here

At present I build 3 or 4 new sites per day. That will continue for the foreseeable future. Making Sales Making Money will continue to provide information about home based business opportunities. The theme and the tone for the site is not going to change. I will always encourage others to think for themselves and act accordingly to their own thoughts. I will be here to answer questions and post articles that help you achieve your goals and aspirations for your home based business. I work at hard at whatever I do and this venture will be no different.

A Big Thanks to All of You

I sincerely want to thank all of the people who have visited this site and supported my efforts. You all have made me feel like anything is possible.

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Building 75 sites usually takes a bit of time. The set up of these sites generally can be accomplished in 30 minutes or so. Providing content can be quite a daunting task, until now. Imagine setting new content on your site complete with keywords, bold text and just about any other structure you desire in minutes. . It really is that easy and for the price I challenge you to find me a better product. Take a look at this sales page, watch the videos and tell me what you think. I have talked to Dave and you won’t find a more sincere person to deal with. He is the real deal. He answered all my questions within minutes of my purchase and I was on my way to providing unique quality content to all my sites
One more thing, he offers a 8 week money back guarantee. You won’t be disappointed. One of you out there will get it for free, as I will reimburse your full purchase price to a lucky reader as my gift to my faithful Good luck to you and enjoy the extra time you will have to build your home based business. Bans and Niche Store Writer , a winning , profitable combination

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Responding to Your Adversity

My love for baseball is well documented on this site if you are a regular reader. Naturally, I played when I was young. I still carry with me the life lessons I learned in those days Some 36 years ago I played baseball with and against a kid named Bobby. Generally he was punk. The kind of kid you want to fight rather than hang out with. We had played on the same team the year before. He was a punk then too, but he knew I couldn’t hit a curve ball.

When you are 15 years old and all that is important to you is baseball, not being able to hit a curve ball puts you in an adverse situation. I knew I had to overcome the fear of that baseball buzzing past my head. One Saturday morning our teams were plying one another. I decided this was the game it was going to happen. Today was the day my adversity was over. Bobby threw me two pitches, curve balls of course and frankly my knees buckled in fear. His next pitch was also a curve and it landed some 300 ft on the other side of the center field fence. Adversity overcome, not by running away from it but by walking through it. I still remember that to this day because it marks a point in my life when I decided to face adversity and rather than ignore it.

Adversity in your home based business will come in many forms. You may wake up one day and find your business gone, the result of hosting issues. You may receive an email from someone revealing to you someone on another site has attacked your character. More importantly you may check your bank account and the money is all gone, and there are still 15 days left in the month.

Reacting and Accepting the Responsibility

Many times we bring on the adversity we face on our own. Bad choices, bad decisions can lead to some real adversity and in a hurry. I remember my first stock market purchase. My greed overcame my good judgment and I lost what was a lot of money at the time. I learned, I paid tuition and later bought Home Depot stock, a much better decision. The point is when you make a bad choice, accept responsibility for it and move on. Placing blame on some one else wont get you through it any faster. Remember every situation has potential value

Nevertheless sometimes things confront us and we had no control over them happening. The difference between causing your own adversity and someone else causing it matters not. They both have the same effect.
Several years ago I was called to the hospital and told my wife had an aneurysm on her brain stem. Doctors told me she would not make it through the night and that I should make plans accordingly but through the grace of God she did. She spent 30 days in intensive care and every day it was the same thing. “Mr. Miller she isn’t going to make it”. Believe me all manner of thoughts entered my mind as each day passed, from blaming myself to blaming God to trying to negotiate a settlement with God. In the end I believe I am a better man because of the experience.

The Benefits of Adversity, Refining your Character

Your natural inclination when faced with adversity will be to get away from it and quickly. I am going to suggest to you that you take it on; head first .You will need perseverance to accomplish your goals with your business. Perseverance will come through adversity. I never really cared for that equation but have had it proven to me over and over. I don’t know what kind of adversity you are facing today or in your future. Much the way silver is refined with intense heat your character will be refined as you negotiate the heat of adversity. Whether its your business or your personal life read what Vince Lombardi said, “The real glory is being knocked to your knees and then coming back. That’s real glory. That’s the essence of it.”

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While I might come across a very confident writer, I can tell you this. I am. The thing is, that when we feel good about what we do, then confidence comes naturally. We are filled with euphoria and when we feel good, we also feel confident.

But like you, I don’t feel confident at everything I do. As a matter of fact I have days when I can’t step outside the door because I’m afraid to see people. I guess some would call this a panic attack. Admittedly it isn’t as bad as it used to be years ago and today I can recognize the symptoms when they present themselves.

I’ve also stopped to stress about it and just stay home and ride the moment out. So you can see, we all struggle with our own demons inside.

Lucky for me I do work from home so when a panic attack strikes I’m not pressured to go out at all. I just send my husband instead. LOL.

But for some of you, this isn’t so easy and when you are stuck in a situation and you have absolute no confidence, it can quickly turn into a nightmare instead.

You probably wonder whether there is anything you can do to avoid situations like these?

I’d like to think there are and will go into possible solutions below:

Possible solutions to gain more confidence

Don’t get sucked into situations you don’t want to be in. You’ve probably had your fair share of times when you were invited to a party, only to end up standing all by yourself in some forgotten corner.

How did that make you feel? I guess pretty rotten and your confidence level at the time would have been pretty lowly. On the other end of the spectrum if you were the center of attention, you would have felt on top of the world and joked with everything that had legs (even if you didn’t knew them).

Solution: Unless you really want to do something, don’t. Even if it means you have to say no.

Our jobs can often be the worst places top fall prey to bullies. A bully can make you feel pretty shitty and ruin your whole life, as everything centers around him at the time.

Then more we try to beat him at his own game, the more power he holds over us. Think about this: a bully bullies because of the power kick. If you act like you care he will get off on that and keep pushing your buttons until….

Solution: On the other hand, if you ignore him and pretend you don’t care for his antics he will lose his wind and eventually give up or look for a new target.

I was subject to a bully for years at one of my jobs. The more I tried to prove myself as a hard worker (being a woman and all) the more he bullied me and made me feel like shit. My self esteem took a huge dive and I went into major depression. Only when I realized that I had actually given him the power to do so did I click and stop giving him the power he needed to fuel his bullying.

From that moment onwards he couldn’t touch me anymore (mentally speaking).

I met him the other day in the shopping center.

It made my day, since I felt some sort of sweet revenge. At 50 something he is still stuck in the same crappy job, spinning and stressing over work. Clearly he is unhappy and knowing that I didn’t have to deal with the pressures of working as a galley slave anymore it made me feel pretty damn good.

Last but not least, confidence is a by product of passion and happiness. If we are happy with our lives and love what we do, we are confident. If we lack this and are constantly finding ourselves complaining, worrying and being scared, it is time to take pro-active action.

Solution: It is high time for a major change - one step at the time.

It will do wonders for your confidence.

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The Internet Marketing Business

I have wondered sometimes even aloud if my friends are working their own business model as hard. The fact is many don’t have a business model. I haven’t had much time for reading other blogs , but when I do, I see mostly the same old stuff. So and so is calling so and so an idiot, a jerk, an a-hole and worse. Seemingly doing so increases their traffic count and subsequently their income. I have a question. Would it not be more profitable to work you plan, work your business model? I suppose all that crap will never stop. Why? It’s the business we have chosen.

Work at Home is All That !

I bet many of those home based business owners have realized that working in your pj’s is not all that. All that freedom you thought you were going to have, really doesn’t feel all that free. The term home based business has a very important word at the end. Folks it’s a business and it should be operated like a business. Oh sure you can take some time off during your day, and have an extra long lunch or break. I generally eat at my desk while I work diligently at getting links and building another site. I don’t know about you but if I don’t work I don’t get paid. Still I love working at home and I am sure many of you do too. After all, it’s the business we have chosen.

There is Time For Fun Right?

Oh hell yes there is. I frequently chat with Monika or Vic and usually share a good laugh along the way. Soon we sign off or hang up and its back to work. Both are extremely hard workers and I suppose we are drawn to like minded people and they work just as hard as I do, if not harder. I do take time out each week to catch a baseball game or a TV show. Those are usually recorded and get viewed around 4 AM. Most days I’ll send off a word of encouragement via e-mail to a blogging buddy and wait two or three days for a reply. Okay, I get it, they are busy. It‘s the business we have chosen.

So Why Do We Do It ?

For the entrepreneur or aspiring internet marketing maven it really is a matter of not having a choice. It’s in our blood, it in our thoughts. We are thrilled with the idea of building a home based business from nothing. I will be honest; nothing quite sets off the endorphins in my old head like making sales and making money, better yet earning money. That’s right we earn out money with our work. A successful home based business built by having a plan and working your plan. It is not easy, real business never is. I personally love it, and I hope you do too. It’s the business we have chosen.

How are you doing with your plan?

I mentioned that most people I talk to do not have a business model. I wish I had a statistic that proved my point. It is my experience 8 out of 10 people I have worked with have let the dream of owning a home based business all but die. The reasons are plentiful. Not enough time is probably the number one answer, closely followed by not knowing how to do this or that. That leads to frustration and time away from their business. That brings me to this final thought. Most business’s fail because their owners lack the drive to see the plan to the end, or simply don’t have the knowledge to accomplish what they want. Both reasons are fixable. Right now it is 2 AM, tonight I set up 3 free link directory sites. It was not as easy as it sounds, at least not for me. I had to learn how. It will be easier for the next 20 sites I set up. So tell me how are you doing with your plan? Desire is something I was born with. Knowledge is something I acquire everyday. My home based business will succeed; it’s the business I have chosen. Time for a baseball game!

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I really wonder what has become of our 21st century, because just about everywhere I go these days, customer service isn’t existent anymore.

Last week I was skyped by one of my clients who runs a blog. He skyped me to thank me for taking part in his blog’s conversations and interacting with his readers. Naturally you can imagine that I was very much pleased he did this, since commenting is part of my professional blogging services.

While some bloggers take the work, write the post and then disappear without looking back, I always try to give something else. To me, that is simply part of the deal and without doing this I’d feel like doing only half the job.

After all, life is about doing our best in every situation we are in and no matter whether we like it or not, it is also about integrity and passion. At least for some anyway.

To be honest though I can’t in the life of me understand what happened to good old customer service when I’m out shopping. More often than not, the people serving me are more interested to yak (gossip) with each other, instead of concentrating on the person who spends the money in the shop so they get paid.

Ah, hold that thought!…

That is exactly the problem. See, people get paid on their regular jobs regardless of whether they do a good job or not and that is where all evil starts. Why put in the extra effort when we can just be as lazy as possible and still collect our money at the end of the week/month.

I get it.

Actually not, I really don’t. Sometimes I wonder whether I was born on a different planet, as this customer service that was so heavily drilled into us when I grew up in the 60s, 70s and 80s is basically non existent these days.

Does this bother me? You bet it does, since last time I checked, I worked hard for my money and therefore I do expect some form of service in return when I go shopping. Could it be that I simply expect too much? You tell me.

Or is the world these days made up of a bunch of lazy, non caring people who simply don’t give a (insert your favourite expletive here) when they serve you?

I find that hard to believe and wonder what could be the cause of this evil problem. Is it perhaps my generation of moms and dads, the 40 somethings, who simply failed to teach the young working population of 20 somethings today about respect, care and customer service. The moms and dads who serve in managerial positions at department stores, shops and restaurants who simply can’t be bothered schooling the next generation of workforce service personnel in the correct way.

Or could it be that wherever we look these days, there is a serious lack of staff because the company decided to pocket more profits and run their business with half the workforce than only 5 years ago?

I know, questions, questions and more questions.

Let me give you an example.

Yesterday I went shopping at a department store here in town. This particular chain of stores is quite established throughout Australia and I really like them for their assortment of products and their prices.

I was after a jump drive that I had seen last week in their mail out brochure. I searched the isle of electronic accessories for quite some time without seeing a single jump drive. Trouble is, normally these things were displayed right there where I was searching which by the way is another pet peeve of mine (the constant re-arrangement of wares at most shops to make us waste even more time and obviously spend more money while shopping)

After unsuccessfully searching for 5 minutes I gave up and approached a young sales man behind the “local” counter. I politely asked him where the jump drives where located and you know what his answer was.

“I have no idea.”

* I have no frikking idea, but I work here and have to expect that at some stage I would be asked questions about the wares we sell. But since I get paid at the end of week why should I bother walking around the shelves, taking a visual inspection of the things we sell to familiarize myself with our stock. But no, I rather spend my spare minutes at the shop yakking with my fellow workers about the latest TV show or Jeff’s latest squeeze as this is way more interesting than trying to deliver customer service.*

Go figure.

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Why Wanting to Write is so Popular

People by design have an internal desire to be heard, it’s in the their DNA. All of us want to be significant in some way. Wordpress offers a platform to do just that. We have thoughts and ideas and we can plunk them into an article and within minutes we are a published writer. Our writings are now a part of a global community known as the internet.

It is possible that many were never allowed to express themselves freely throughout their lives. Blogs enable people the freedom and the safety net they need; the liberation of their voice. It is a wonderful platform that serves that purpose, but making a career of it is not easy. Still there are many who wish to give it a go and for that I will direct you to Monika who has started a series on freelance writing.

A Better Option to Satisfy Your Need

I did meet one lady who is indeed an accomplished writer. She owns a blog in the medical niche and makes a fair income through Adsense, based on what she shared with me. What she has done is taken her talent for writing and focused her energy on a niche. I frankly would not have thought of the niche she chose, but it’s a money maker. The site requires very little maintenance. My advice to her would be to duplicate her business model, and direct organic traffic to her site. Organic traffic is traffic with a need. She took her talent for writing and directed it towards a need. That is smart.

What the Internet Doesn’t Need

Do you think the internet needs another SEO expert? I don’t. Do you think we all could use another make money online site? Hell No! Should we start another blog about blogging? Are you getting the point? People, friends or foe, these niches are so saturated that your chance of making sales or making money online are nil. For that matter we have enough about writing too! The offer is still open to anyone who thinks they are savvy enough to give it a try.

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Number one, by his own admission the new owner states he knows nothing about WordPress. That’s a curious statement as a stand alone, but I can hear the previous owner saying, no worries mate, you can learn it in a week and you will be on your way!

Number two, he says he doesn’t like reading blogs so he is going to do video. Okay fair enough, do video about what? He later says he loves to read blogs and will filter out the junk and list his top ten each week. I’m confused.

Number three he says he did not buy the blog for the money. Then why in the hell did you buy it? Marc said, “I’m not an expert by any means” yet he is going to tell people how to make money online?

Marc seems genuine in his quest to make it with his new blog. It’s a shame the seller couldn’t have been as sincere. Soon there will be posts everywhere of how another make money online blog sold for big money. Many will rain praise on Clark for his coup. It will not happen here. What happened is criminal.

Let’s use the formula that Yaro uses for attaching value to his RSS subscriptions. The rule is a dollar for every subscriber per month. So at 613 subscribers he makes $613.00 a month. I think that’s good math, but you can check me. Assume he is going to lose a percentage of those just on the fact of changing ownership. Are you starting to feel it slip away? If not, you will.

Marc, my little old blog likes to tell the truth about home based business opportunities. I frequently like to point out scams and scammers to my readers and site visitors. Young man you were scammed and you were burned badly. If it is possible to get your money back do it, if it is possible to cut your losses do it. You said you wanted a platform. I will pay for your hosting for a year, get you online and it won’t cost you a freaking dime.

The fact that you were scammed isn’t all that bad if you learn from it. We all have had it handed to us at one time or another. I’m going to call out to the blog world to go to Blogging Zombie and vote to give this young man his money back.

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Where do you start when creating your brand?  Unique personalities stand out from the crowd.

Your personal brand is the anchor that you tie your online activity to.   Your online presence is the sum total of all your online activity.  I was fielding questions on Monday for a project I am working on when  the question  “what do you mean online presence”?  “Isn’t that just your website”? Was asked.

The answer to that is this, 5 years ago your online presence was your website, today, with all of the social communities we belong to and the multitude of places to leave our mark, your online presence is the culmination of everything you do online.  Including the comments you leave on other blogs and the picture you use to define your brand… everything you do online makes up your “online presence”.

So, we have:

• You 
• Your brand
• Your online activity
• The total of the above = Your online presence

You.   Who are you?  I mean, who are you really?  You are not the “things” that you  do.  You are not the “things” that you own.  You aren’t even the things you are responsible for.

So, who then, are you?  You are the sum total of what you believe, desire, think and feel.  Uh oh, here comes the philosophy.  Not really, we dont need to get philosophical to figure out who we are.  Ask yourself this question.  What makes me want to do, have and become that which I have decided on?  In other words, what turns you on about the world, yourself and the things you want to experience?

It’s actually easier to do than you may realize.  The answer is this… it’s a feeling. Lets use me as an example.  I like to be happy and a bit of a smart ass, and I always come from the heart, I am passionate and yes sometimes to a fault and I am  enthralled by the mysteries of life and people.  I have an affinity with the cartoons of my early childhood and thus The Mad Hatter exemplifies that and the fact that the picture I use to brand myself across the web is difficult to forget.

The point is, it’s a feeling that makes you who you are.  Do you feel compelled to feed the hungry? Teach the masses or become a self sustaining individual?  If you take those feelings and add them to other aspects of your personality you will be able to find the basis of your true persona and be able to translate that into an unforgettable character.

Think of  the top actors and actresses, when I say Jack Nicholson, what character pops into mind?  The military general?  The Joker?  The book author with some OCD?  Or the lunatic?  Aall of these fit his personality because they are feelings he can empathize with.

Now how about you?  The reason I have said all of that is this.  If you plan to become an expert in your given field of passion, on the internet and you are serious about that, you absolutely must distinguish yourself from the crowd.  The only real way to do that is to leverage who you really are and capture that in an image that looks different from everyone else out there.

You know, I am always wearing a regular tee shirt or polo and I could easily use a picture of me like that, but that says nothing about who I am AND it looks exactly like the 3,276 other people out there who are doing the same thing in the various markets I operate in, many of those men and women are very good at what they do (teach others how to utilize the net for monetary gains, which is a completely different post) but ask yourself this, how many of them can I remember after a month?  Very few probably.

Do you feel that standing out from the crowd is necessary?  If you are going to put the time into building a solid online presence it is.  Think about this and how you can create your brand, this coming Tuesday I will post a step by step on how to create the foundation of your online presence.  Have a great weekend!

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A blog called Collectors’ Quest cites an episode from a TV medical show that showed brain scans of hoarders, and a Dr. David Tolin who believes that “hoarding, currently considered a subset of obsessive compulsive disorder or OCD, really may be a unique disorder completely separate from OCD”. I call it addiction.

And this one “Some tend to become “addicted” on a more permanent basis to whatever they feel compelled to do. As a result, we have love junkies, sex junkies, relationship junkies, education junkies, pet junkies, food junkies, work junkies (workaholics), television junkies, shopping junkies and so on, the common features being an obsessive preoccupation with the activity they have chosen; difficulty in stopping the activity even if it comes in the way of their financial, social or emotional well-being; accompanying feelings of shame and self-disgust; and the experience of a sense of craving, irritability and restlessness when they are unable to engage in the activity - all classical “symptoms” of addiction.” That’s a mouthful but, I agree.

The most popular categories you will find on eBay tend to lean towards some sort of collecting and not the kind of collecting Monika wrote about. I have experienced this first hand back in the baseball card boom. I owned a retail store that sold sports memorabilia. Men, women and children would come on each day to open packs of baseball cards. I had clients that would open 100’s of dollars worth of cards in one visit and this wasn’t a once a month visit. they shopped two to three times a week. Imagine opening $150.00 box of baseball cards in less that 15 minutes and asking for another . People literally asked me not to tell their spouses about how much they had spent. At this point you might be wondering if I own a baseball card site. What do you think?

The Choice is Yours

Now wouldn’t it be nice if you could set up BANS Sites for all those big ticket type items. You certainly can and I suppose you will hit the lottery every now and then. Ill have a few of those, but I would rather feature lower priced, easy to ship items. There is just a bigger market share if you structure it this way. Just to prove a point, when I was selling on eBay I would upload 100- 150 auctions per day. That usually took 1 hour. That meant I has auctions ending everyday. I charged $3.95 for shipping meaning if 100 auctions sold. I was going to make $150.00 to $200.00 on shipping and handling. The items sold for between $10.00 and $100.00.
The point is low cost items are searched and sold on eBay. It feeds the addiction for some at a lower cost. I know some of you are wondering at this point , does Don collect baseball cards? I once took a card to the grocery store to pay for groceries. They said I needed cash. Cards or cash, hmm, seems an easy decision for me. Sell the damn card. Hope that answers that question.

What Does This Mean for Your Bans Site?

Does this mean all ebayer’s are shop-aholic’s ? Of course not! It does mean, collectors are at least slightly bent that way. A good salesman knows their prospect. A good salesman presents opportunities to provide a product or service for their prospects, regardless of the market or personal preference for that product. A 1994 SP PSA 9 Alex Rodriguez used to sell for $2000.00 in its glory days. I just checked eBay and you can get one for around $400.00, but it still sells. The customer has to have it before it gets pricier or at $400.00 you cannot miss this opportunity to own this card at these levels. That is the two ways I would market the card. This is the best part about owning BANS, minimal entry price into a limitless collection of products. The ways of the past would have included a $1600.00 cardboard dinner, a loss most of us could ill afford.

Other Collectibles to Consider

I once sold a Mickey Mantle autographed baseball to a man who claimed to have a 1000 of them in a warehouse. He has 1001 now. Autographs sell people.

I have never understood the logic behind comic books as I have never read them, but people collect them and pay significant sums of money for them.

I live in the state of the big eared rodent. His name is Mickey Mouse and he was invented by a guy named Walt Disney. I wonder if he ever dreamed it would get to this. I suppose he did. Disney products have been a hot seller for generations now.

Lenox porcelain plates and figurines have had good runs on eBay in the past. I know I was shipping porcelain garden birds frequently at one time; they might be worth checking out as well, which brings me to my next point.

Watching eBay Trends

eBay started in 1995 a bit before Google if memory serves me. It is a powerful tool for spotting trends. Spend some time on the site and pick some categories. Watch the auctions end especially in the evening hours. You can literally spot trends in what is hot and what is not. Check your closing prices and you will see prices jump dramatically. If there are lots of players involved you might want to be too. Last second bid snipers knock each other off in droves. They have software for it now; I used to have to do it manually. 9 seconds left? Bang I win. The the point of all this is to to say collectors go to great lengths to collect what they want, even searching through pages of SERP’S.

If you have any questions or would like a second opinion on your choices leave it in the comments and Ill be sure to address it.

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What Sells on e-Bay ?

The better question is what does not sell on e-Bay. Folks if you have a product it will sell. With BANS you have products. I have sold sports memorabilia, gold bullion, porcelain figurines and things I cannot recall. Again, if you have the product it will sell.

Why do people use e-Bay

I suppose you could list 1000’s of reasons here. Its safe, its secure, its easy and its fun. Think about this. How many people do you know that have told you about the deal or steal they got on e-Bay? I bet more than a few. There are more Wal-Mart shoppers and buyers than there are Nieman-Marcus shoppers. It a case of simple family economics.

How do people search e-Bay

Some of you reading this post know about keywords, SEO, Google Page Rank and blah blah blah, e-Bay users don’t. Stop thinking they do. They want to see what they want to buy, and click to bid or buy it now. What we need to do is create that opportunity with our Bans sites.

Choosing a Category on e-Bay

Lets say Edward the eBayer likes baseball. Would he type in baseball in his search bar? Perhaps, but, not likely. So lets drill down deeper. He really just likes the New York Yankees. So how about the Yankees? Maybe but the Yankees are his favorite team and he has favorite players. Drill down some more. Well when Edward the eBayer goes to the games he wears his Alex Rodriguez Jersey. He loves A-Rod. Oh did I say A-Rod? Next time you log on to eBay do a search on those two words, Alex Rodriguez and A-Rod. You may have found your niche for your Bans site. It seems Edward will buy anything he can with the name A-Rod attached to it. Folks next time you watch a Yankees game look at the stands . All the money you want to make is in those peoples pockets. They essentially are screaming for you to let them spend it. So how about Yankee-Favorites.net ? By the way I once sold a GEM Mint A-Rod rookie card for 5K , that was good day. Keywords for individual pages are virtually endless as the Yankees are the most famous sports franchise in the world

Drilling it Down

So let’s drill down another category. Sally Shopper loves to what? Come one now there was a strong hint there. Shop of course! Just like most every other woman on the face of the planet she likes clothes. The problem is, at least in her mind she is plus size gal. She is not real crazy about trying on clothes at the mall shops. Thank god for eBay! She searches all the latest fashions for plus sizes and usually shops 3 or 4 times a week. So, you don’t necessarily want Women’s Clothes for a category, which is way too broad, drill is down to Plus Size Fashions. Hmm. Plus-Size-Fashions.com, oh yes it could happen.

Conclusions

EBay visitors are buyers. They don’t know about SEO, SERPS or anything like it. They want to buy what they like and use the simplest of terms to find what they cant wait to buy . That is what makes eBay what it is and that why BANS has to be a part of your home based business plan. Take any eBay category you can find , drill it down and use the KISS principle “Keep it simple silly” You might want to subscribe to my feed as I plan to update this post with more about eBay users.

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While living in a cluttered environment can seriously diminish our productivity, holding on to “stuff” is actually good for business.

But not just any stuff, I’m not talking about old receipts (unless you can claim them with the Tax man) or your notes from 1999. What I’m referring to is your samples of work.

If you are in the business of servicing clients digitally, you will no doubt have samples of your past work.

Take a web designer for example: his purpose is to create and construct kick butt websites for his clients, which reflect his ability to convert traffic to customers. It isn’t really his responsibility as this will always lay with the actual client and their marketing efforts, but any self respecting professional in that field will work closely with his clients to provide optimum deliverables.

Keeping track of your work in one place will help you to pre-sell your services to potential clients. Whether you provide your samples on a custom built blog/site, or make them part of your about page on your self branded blog doesn’t matter.

What matters however, is that you collect your work like mad for your own impressive display of art. Art is the ability to enthrall people with your design, creations or your writing. Art is also to evoke emotions in your readers or visitors.

Much like when we visit the museum and look at art, we feel powerful emotions of sadness, joy, anger, passion, relaxation and more when we look at creative design or writing. As an “online artist” you too can collect your samples and collaborate them for a powerful display to your prospective clients.

Failing to do this could mean the difference between a new project and your bills paid for the week, or frantic last minute efforts to score another job.

Collecting as a digital business owner: if you are involved in any way with online media (blogging, pod casting, videos, news, articles, etc.) then you are encouraged to keep track of your exposure while stepping outside your front door. To make this easy you could keep a simple text file on your hard drive in which you update info every time you finish a job.

Web designers for example are expected to have a client portfolio and clients are only too happy in most cases to provide a testimonial in return for a link back to their site.

For writers sampling can pose certain challenges: If you write for niche marketers for example, you cannot post your past work samples on your site. In this case it would be advisable to create purpose built documents that talk to a specific market. I have actually resorted to writing my own sample articles for exactly this purpose because many of my article clients are actually niche marketers.

I strongly believe that this helps me to show my professionalism.

For guest blogger and pro-blogger this is somewhat easier, since the posts are already public. All you have to do is provide a link back to the published posts from your samples page.

Sampling and collecting your work really is good for business, regardless whether it takes a bit of work. The possible monetary gains far outweigh the hassles of keeping track.

It will be the single most important factor between you and your competition who has the same or similar abilities.

How do you feel about this? Are you keen on providing your own samples on your site, or do you think this is way over rated? I’d love to hear your input because I believe this is important for our business.

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Are you serious about your online business? If you are, do you realize how important your brand is to your business success?

Have you ever heard of RC Cola? If so, can you remember what the can looked like? Okay, how about Coca Cola? What does that can look like? Being able to recognize a name brand and associate the representing cola can is a great example of the difference between great branding and poor branding.

Not only is it important to have a great brand, it is even more important to be consistent with your brand. How many online profiles do you have? You need to use the same picture of yourself in all of them. When you get to be a super star in the online business world and everyone knows who you are, then you can start using different pictures of yourself.

Here are some things to keep in mind when creating your brand or re-creating it:

Be consistent with your online profiles:

• Picture
• Bio
• Links to other profiles
• List these profiles on your blog

Use your “about” page on your blog as a hub for these other profiles.

• Summarize your main “about” page in several slightly different ways, and then

• Use these in your online profiles. When read by themselves, they paint the same picture of you in different ways. When pulled together, they mirror your main “about” page. This keeps it interesting when people see you in different communities because they aren’t reading the exact same thing. You’re giving them variety– yet consistency.

Link these profiles together. This can be done in several ways, but the most effective way is…

• Some of the social networks out there will let you post articles for that specific network. Include a “follow me” in an article that lists your other social profiles. As long as you are professional in your delivery, this method is acceptable and not frowned upon.

Most important! Leverage your personality. This can seem more complicated than it really is.

• You need to really know who you are and love what makes you special.
• Be honest with yourself and about who you are deep down inside.
• Use a unique personality trait that separates you from the rest of your market.

This is paramount because your ability to connect with people on the first introduction or the fiftieth will rely on how well you relate to yourself and convey it to your readers. Do you identify with Mighty Mouse? Or a musician? Maybe you relate best in a certain role such as a that of a coach or as a professor. This is something that only you can determine.

Regardless of what that character is, you must see yourself as that character and be able to align yourself with it, and then build your entire brand around that.

Now, don’t come off as superman if your website is about cooking, and don’t use a stereotype yourself as an art professor if your site is about weight loss. See where I’m going with that? If I say, “Like A Rock,” what truck manufacturer am I talking about? That’s right, Chevrolet. The marketing folks at Chevrolet are using the psychological impression of strength and durability to represent their trucks.

In conclusion, be yourself, be honest, be unique and express that to the world through your site, your social profiles and your writing. Be who you are, not what you think you should be.

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What I do find remarkable is it is often easier for me to see being remarkable in others more quickly than I do myself.

Do you need to be Remarkable to Everyone?

I suppose that would be nice but chances are you wont. Every once in a while someone sets the world on fire with a concept or idea. Look at what Hooters did with the fried chicken wing, but what they really did was find a new way to present it. I mean chicken wings were available before Hooters right? Still the concept doesn’t appeal to everyone.

Are you Remarkable in Your Niche?

Oh my there is the “n’ word again. For so many people I find them struggling with a niche. So I want share a few ideas with you. So let’s start with a focus on you. Take a look in the mirror. Study that person closely. Do you look like John Chow? Do you look like Yaro Starak? Do you look like Darren Rowse? No you don’t, or at least I hope not. So let’s stop trying to be them for starters. Trying to be them only helps them. So let’s look past your good looks at what is underneath. Where does your mind like to wander? What do you like to do in your free time? What would your friends say about you while you are not around? I promise you if you talked to my friends they would tell you that I am an idea factory and I love baseball and American Idol. Sorry I had to get that American Idol thing out of the closet. The point is I wake up each day searching the people around me for ideas and thoughts they have that I might be able to help them market. It is who I am. Is that remarkable? Who the heck cares! I think I’m remarkable. Do you have that confidence in yourself?

Being Remarkable is All in the Packaging

I suspect most of you will get up today, at some point take a shower, maybe apply some make-up and present yourself to the public, right? You are packaging yourself and whether you want to admit it, you are marketing yourself, not your brother, not your sister YOU. The same applies to your home based business. Evan is a faithful reader and I was moderating comments yesterday I noticed a track back to my site from his. Evan said “Don writes about home based business in general, not just blogging. He draws on a wealth of experience. His style is refreshingly direct (no hype here, yes!) and his advice is down to earth and useful. It is a great resource on the practicalities of being in business. Bingo Evan that’s all I want to do.
How you package YOURSELF is what will make you remarkable. How you tell YOUR story. Will it appeal to everyone? Nope. One more point on YOU being remarkable. Take a look behind you; take as long as you want. Now let that be the last time you look there. Look forward, keep pressing that direction, kick your mistakes to the curb as you walk, but keep moving. I’ve made mis-steps too, I can send you a Paypal record of some of the crap I purchased and not made one red cent. I continue to clean up my blog of that stuff.

Anything Remarkable Will be Remembered

If you are new here take a look around. What am I trying to sell here? What am I trying to market? Look at the sidebars. What I am trying to do is get you to believe you can do it yourself. Every link or ad I display is a tool I have used, or currently use. Every post I write has the focus on trying to convince or persuade you to step outside your comfort zone into un-chartered territory, save for an occasional rant post. Even those usually carry a message.

How is that remarkable and how is that remembered? One site visitor at a time I try to convey the truth as I know it about the internet. Through my experiences I have learned there is much on the internet to be culled and discarded. That’s a nice way to say there is a bunch of crap and crap promoters out there. Do you really think you can make $237,000.00 from your laptop? Why don’t we all just do that? Some of you are sitting on ideas and you need validation from the so called experts to give you the go ahead to get started. Stop that. You need yourself, you need belief in yourself. You want a pat on the back? Come see me, I give those for free to anyone with the guts to give it a go. Being remarkable has more to do with you wanting to be remarkable than anything else, and for that you will be remembered.

You Will Like Being Remarkable

Once you decide you’re tired of throwing money at others ideas you are on the road to being remarkable. I have been visiting a site recently and whether you like the guy or not he posted a video that I really like and I wanted to include it here , listen carefully to what he says about being you . If you don’t get motivated by this clip about being you I’m not sure I can help you. I asked for and received permission to use this video. By the way. part of my redesign will soon include my own videos. Watch out Vic!

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Like with clutter in our home we often tend to think that paper and digital clutter will be used later and therefore we file it away for further use, only to never look at it again.

Does this ring a bell?

Avoiding traffic jams

Just like we don’t drive into town when everybody else finishes work (if we can avoid it anyway) we shouldn’t do too many things that keep us from working organized.

The easiest way for me to keep my computer clutter free is by cleaning up every day. Kind of like a quick car wash. I wash my computer and then give it a once over polish. The next day will be started much more pleasurable by finding a clutter free environment that allows me to concentrate on the tasks at hand.

Do I always succeed in this? Heck no, I also struggle, but find that the more I focus on achieving, the more it does become a habit.

Tim Ferriss author of the 4 Hour Work Week says:

“Not-to-do” lists are often more effective than to-do lists for upgrading performance The reason is simple: what you don’t do determines what you can do.

I think he is right. In the past I tried so many times to stick to massive to do lists and the more I tried, the more I failed. I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t manage a simple list and it never dawned on me that I was simply trying to do too much at once.

With every task I didn’t manage to finish (some 98% of the list) I programmed myself for failure. It was like a massive whirlpool of destruction.

Only when I took a step back looking at it from a new perspective did I realize that I needed to change direction of approach.

So I did. It’s the Baby steps that lead to big changes.

Simplicity matters

I simplified my task list. So much so that the only place I use to scribble on now is my Moleskine notebook. Before I discovered the Moleskine I had 100’s of paper scraps everywhere throughout the house.

Since implementing this I have noticed two things:

1. I make a lot less notes and the ones I do are of much higher value to me. Plus I also reference them more often opposed to before.
2. I don’t have stacks of paper lying around the office anymore. It’s kind of like a Zen approach I guess by reducing unnecessary waste.

My diary only contains 3 major tasks per day and the rest is made up by “fillers”. Funny enough I still get a lot more done within the week now with a lot less stress in trying to play catch up (except when coming back from a quick getaway).

Digital Zen

Once a week I do a huge digital sweep. Most of my past projects and stuff I used in the past are sitting on a different hard drive or in my Google Docs folder now. Most of these things I hardly use these days anyway and the only thing that stops me from throwing it in the rubbish bin is the money/time I spent on buying/writing.

The purpose for me is to keep my computer clutter free so that it runs at optimum speed and doesn’t get cluttered up with digital dust.

Acquiring the Zen state: All it takes is a bit of resolve and sticking power. It isn’t easy and will need a couple of months of determination on your behalf to settle into your system. But in the end, it really is well worth it.

I hope these tips have given you some inspiration to clean up your clutter and free your mind. I’d love to know what you do to keep your office clean of clutter.

Have you got a great idea you’d like to share with us?