So, you want to understand Internet Marketing or you want to improve upon your marketing right now and you have no idea of what you should be focusing on. Well, there is about thousands of other people that think the same way right now and have no idea where to begin. I know that myself I was lost in the world of Internet Marketing before I understood what I should be focusing on to build a healthy business online.

There are times you might get caught up in the flashy squeeze pages that promise you over – night traffic or instant cash for your business. Where in reality you never got any traffic and now you have spent more money on non- profitable products that just sit on your desktop screen staring at you. But, there is always hope to enhance and build a solid strategy for your marketing online.

You will always hear some expert that states that they have the secret to success but they sometimes just have a product that makes no sense and you won’t understand. What I have collected is a series of tasks and strategies that you should just understand follow through each day to have success with your Internet Marketing.

1. Review Sales Copy

Please look over the different ads and email templates that you put together. Just having a basic three layout design for your ad copy can make you the money that you want.

2. Outsource Day to Day Tasks

If you are working a 9-5 or you just don’t want to do tasks outsource them. Either use Odesk.com or Elance.com Also, I have hired on college students in there last year as well to offer them a job. They work for a less price and you can get more work done.

3. Running multiple Facebook Ads

To get the responsive traffic you would like do not just run one ad run multiple ads (3 to 4) to see which ones work compared to ones that don’t. Just running one won’t give you the ability to test them properly.

4. QR Codes For Traffic Building

More people have smart phones so make it easier for them to read your website and give them an instant ability to go there. Check out http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ to generate a code for FREE.’

5. Mobilize Your Website

If your using WordPress download Itouch which converts your site into a mobile theme. People are on the go always so make it easy for them to look at your site and view it.

6. Build Incoming Backlinks Not External

To get organic traffic you want to build more internal links than external. You want to have sites linking to you more than you are linking to others.

7. Build A Responsive Email List

Always test your list to make sure that people are opening and clicking on your links. If they are not send out an email and if they don’t respond clean them out.

If your not focusing on these strategies then you should. Don’t let your business go to the dumps just because your not focusing on these areas of your business.

What would you say to a person that is trying to make money online for the first time?

There are two things I would tell that person. The first is that making money online isn’t just about blogging; it’s multi-faceted. Making money online includes blogging, offering products & services, social media marketing, building email lists, and more.

The second piece of advice I’d give is you’re going to make more money in the long run if you choose to make money from your passion. NOT because you believe the topic will be the quickest and easiest way to make money.

To put it bluntly, you won’t last.

Christian Hollingsworth

What are your top 3 websites to use to generate income and why?

The top three websites I use to generate income are InfoLinks, BuySellAds & Sponsored Tweets. The latter two manage the advertisements that are placed on my Twitter feed, which is monetized well with targeted ads.

InfoLinks is placed on every page of my website and is an “in-text” service hightlighted certain keywords with advertisement links.

I guess I could also say that I make the most money from Smart Boy Designs, my own website, because all my leads, clients & projects come from those who are reading or visiting my blog.

I make a full living from the social media management, freelance writing & design that I do.

Is Google adsense a good way to generate money for your blog?

Google Adsense has the potential to be highly effective in monetizing a blog or website. It’s important, however, to keep Adsense from your blog when you have a low level of traffic.

I currently don’t use Adsense on any of my blogs, and feel it helps to attract more “long-term” readers as well as make the blogs look more inviting and friendly.

I believe a blog can be better monetized by using ad space to sell a product o, affiliate product, or direct ad campaigns.

How can you get advertisements for your blog?

Call them up! One great way I’ve used in the past to find great (high paying) advertisers on a niche blog is look at products and companies within the niche – and then call or email them.

Be honest with your intentions, and let them know you believe you’d make a good match and platform for their products. More than likely, if you have a well trafficked blog – you’ll find advertisers who are willing to pay.

Even if your traffic is low, if your niche is small and targeted, you’ll be able to generate a huge profit from direct advertisers.

Are their steps to take to make money online easier?

You can make the process easier if you’re dedicated and focused. With all aspects of web marketing combined – you can quickly become overwhelmed.

I’d recommend doing your research and learning before jumping into something that might take too much time or effort. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first foursharpening the axe.”

Any books or programs you recommend?

I read many books. Often a few each week, so my recommendations are often very sporadic.

Any of the “Dummie’s” Guides are often a great way to get started in learning marketing techniques, social media, blogging & traffic generation.

I also recommend reading books regarding psychology as your marketing skills increase, as this will be a great benefit to what you’re absorbing.

Click To Download

Ebooks are certainly an easy way to generate an income online, but they’re more than likely not going to make you a millionaire (especially with the high number of eBooks now being produced daily).

If you want to truly make a strong income online, dedicate time to producing or finding products that you might sell that aren’t necessarily digital.

Services are also a great way to make an income. Think of the things you know most about in your life, and develop a service regarding that niche. You passion will help you find a way.

With the knowledge you know now about making money online what would be the first thing you would tell yourself when you first started out trying to make money online?

The first thing I would tell myself is PRODUCE A PRODUCT! You aren’t going to be rich with a high level of traffic alone.

You need to convert those leads/visitors into paying customers of whatever you’re offering. Whether that product be tangible, digital or service oriented.

You can follow Christian Hollingsworth on his blog Smart Boy Designs. He is on Twitter @Smartboydesigns. He has a great ebook out as well that I recommend that you look into using too.

Resources:

Triberr

From my experience and the experience of some of the most successful marketers online, Article Marketing has proven to be one of the best sources to generate web traffic for free.

Yes, it does take a bit of time at first to get used to writing articles on a consistent basis, but once you make it a habit, article marketing will come easy and will become an effective way for you to get targeted traffic.

You see, when I first started in Internet Marketing, reading great traffic generation techniques like the ones all the “Gurus’ and “experts” talk about sounded awesome and got me so excited.

BUT when it came down to actually take action and generate web traffic I found myself overwhelmed and confused on where to begin and which methods to use first.

So…my honest advice to you, as a newbie (if you are one) is STAY AWAY from paid traffic for now and especially stay away from…Google Adwords — if you have no idea what the heck you are doing!

And instead focus your efforts and time with FREE SIMPLE traffic methods like Article Marketing. Here are a few simple yet powerful steps that you can apply to get great results with article marketing:

STEP #1: Keyword Research

Go on Google’s Free Keyword External Tool and search for keywords that are relevant to your topic and have a search volume of over “3,000″. Then search for your keyword in quotes (” “) on Google; I always search for competition 30,000 or less because then you have a much higher chance of showing up on the first page of Google.

Once you’ve found your best keyword following the criteria above, put it in your TITLE. For example, if my keyword were “article marketing” then I would have a title like “Article Marketing – Most Effective Way To Generate Web Traffic for Free”.

If you just make sure that the TITLE and the opening paragraph of your article contain popular “keyword phrases” and by that I mean terms that people in your niche might be searching for on the Internet, then you have done 90% of the work. This is the most important part of getting serious traffic from your articles. DO NOT skip this step.

Also, try to place your keywords, 3 to 4 more times in the article, but remember to follow the “Keyword Density” Rule. All this means is that you have to place your keywords at least 300 words or whatever the distance the guidelines say your keywords have to be apart from each other.

This avoids overcrowding of keywords and makes it look original and readable.

STEP #2: Write the article

Write an article with a solution. This is the key to successful article marketing.

The best articles are those that address a problem in the title and then go on to offer a solution in the body. Put your article’s title in quotes and conduct a search at Google. If the results are not in the millions (I always aim for under 40,000) then you might have a very good chance at making the first page on a Search Engine Results Page. A 4 or 5 word keyword rich title works (known as long tail).

Make sure your article delivers on your title’s promise.

However, if you hate writing or weren’t ever really good at it, you can just outsource it for as little as $3 an article, depending on the topic. Guru.com is a great place to find freelancers who already have article marketing experience.

The articles should be about 500 -550 words in length, with nice short paragraphs. (But let me be the first to warn you that the less you pay the less quality your article your article will be).

So, if you’re a person who strives for quality in their work then pay a little extra, say like $10-$15 and if that writer does a good job you can hire him or her again for more work and can make a deal to actually pay less in the long run.)

STEP #3: Write a killer resource box

Really use your resource box. Remember the MAIN point of your article is to get a reader to click your link to go to your site. You put your details at the end of the article, a.k.a the resource box.

This is where you make you really shine and capture the attention of your reader! Really sell your site. As a matter of fact, offer a solution to a problem. If you have a FREE gift let them know about it right here!

This is your free advertisement. Make great use of it and do it powerfully.

Also, make it almost sound like an extension of your article
Ex. Want my secret method of curing your fatloss problems this weekend? Get them all in my free fat loss training newsletter: http://freefastlosstrainingtips.com

STEP #4: Submit 1-2 articles a day to YOUR BLOG First

The reason why is because if you submit your articles to other directories before you publish it on your own blog or website those directories like EzineArticles will have ownership over your content. Therefore, you want to publish your content on your blog FIRST because your blog is your ASSET and what happens when you build your assets?…More opportunity and better results.

So, after publishing it on your blog, submit it (as is) to Ezinearticles.

I have to mention that the first directory you should submit to is Ezinearticles, because 1.) they are the “Facebook” and “Google” of the article directories and 2.) they will run a check, when your article is in “pending review”, to make sure that you’ve submitted original content a.k.a your own content.

And if they find another article having the same content as yours, your article will most likely not be published. But, if you submit to them first, your article will be published.

After submitting and getting approved on Ezinearticles go ahead and submit to Goarticles, Articlesbase, Isnare, Assoicated Content, and any other directories you want to submit to.

STEP #5: Be Consistent and Keep Going!

Continue submitting 1- 2 articles a day and you will start getting some
newsletter signups.

So, just focus on these 5 steps and be consistent. Please don’t feel frustrated or overwhelmed, because article marketing can be a little slow at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’ll feel like nothing the next time you do it.

Remember, article marketing is the king of long term targeted traffic and when executed properly the results you will experience are nothing short of amazing.

So, I want to know what’s YOUR best article marketing strategy?…

And if you have some questions or confusions I’ll do my best to help you out.

I hope you got some value out of this post.

Do this and I guarantee you will have success:

• Create a info product of interest to your target market. Make sure it gives a lot of quality information. Make it a great product.

• Create a sales page and price your product around $10 to $20.

• Sign up with digiresults and pay your affiliates 100% commissions.

• Get out and network with people in your niche and on affiliate marketing forums to get people to promote for you.

• Once people buy your product send them to a squeeze page and get them to optin. You could also put links to your squeeze page in your product.

This will allow you to build a huge targeted list for free. Anyone can do this right now no matter how broke you are.Yes, theoretically you can get more people to optin by giving away something free, but there are 2 problems with that:

• You are going to have to drive the traffic yourself.

• You are going to get a lot of useless freebie seekers that will never make you any money.

The beauty of this strategy is that your affiliates do all the hard work and that everyone you add to your list will be a buyer. Your entire list will have people that are ready and willing to spend money. This is 1000 times better than a list of freebie seekers.

Now when you are ready to start making big money create another more expensive product and upsell your customers after they buy your first product. Don’t pay any commissions on it. This will make you a lot of money and best of all its completely automated so you don’t have to do anything.

Here’s an example. Let’s say your affiliates are sending you 1,000 sales per month and of those sales you are only able to get 20% of them to buy your back-end product. Let’s also say that your back-end product costs $47.

20% of 1000 would mean that you would make 200 sales of your back-end product, and 200 x $47= $9400

You would make $9400 on complete autopilot. All you would have to do is handle customer services issues and you could easily outsource that.

Now let’s see what would happen if your affiliates sent you 2000 sales and you got 30% of them to buy your backend product?

600 x $47= $28200

That’s $28200 sent to you while you pretty much do nothing. How much could you make if you were to do this same thing across a bunch of other niches?

It is not difficult to make money online. People just spend too much too time doing the wrong things.Just create a couple of great products, get some affiliates, set up a sales funnel, and you will be making money in no time.

And its not even difficult to create a product. Just research your subject, take what you learn, and create a product.That’s all there is to it.

If you don’t see the massive potential of this strategy, then you need to quit IM. This strategy could easily make you a millionaire.

There is something very important I’ve learned from countless webinars, programs, and services I’ve purchased over the past two years of blogging. Here is the simple truth; blogging is easy, but marketing is the hard part!

Anyone can blog!  In fact, CNet is saying there are two blogs being created every second. This means the blogging arena is full of people who want to express their thoughts, and feelings on topics they feel are important. But what makes some people shine in the blogging world, and others crumble to the ground?

Marketing!

There is a group of bloggers that actually take the time to learn marketing. Why?

Marketing is how thousands of people are going to find your material, purchase your products, and comment on your posts. Just because you start a new blog, get a fresh design, and a cool commenting system. Doesn’t mean loads and loads of traffic is going to come your way.

To be a GREAT blogger you must understand marketing.

Most of the time you won’t hear about Humanizing social media markets. It is important to be relevant, offer epic content, and just be your self. These are subjects many people don‘t talk about, but they need your focus if you are going to be a great blogger. In addition to that, you need to focus on your marketing as well.

Here are a few areas of focus in the industry to make you a great blogger.

What is NOT marketing? Hum Let’s see:

• Marketing is not spamming your link every two minutes on Twitter.
• Marketing is not emailing your lists every day with “Check out my post!”
• Marketing is not spamming top tier bloggers in your industry to check out your latest blog post.
• Marketing is not sending out a massive broadcast text message to everyone in your phone about your guest post.

Marketing is creating a strategy, or system to place your content in front of multiple media sources. People will find your content organically.

The idea of being everywhere is important. If you don’t understand that concept then check out Pat Flynn podcast he will go over it.

When you start blogging you need to setup a marketing strategy if you want your material to reach as many people as possible.

I read a statement that said “the product takes 10% of your time and the marketing 90% of your time” it’s no different when it comes to blogging. You can come up with lots of ideas for your blog content, but if you have no funnel to push that content through then you are going to get discouraged.  When blogging goes wrong people usually give up within the first six months.

Marketing Ideas:

• Tribber: Tribber is an online Twitter community where you join tribes that share the same content as you do. You have an opportunity to have your content in viewed by thousands of people if you join. You can be apart of a tribe with some very influential people. My recommendation would be to leverage Klout. See who is influential in your industry, and see if they would be interested in joining your tribe. Set a goal to  be apart 15 tribes each year. Your outreach should be over 1 million.
• Guest Blogging Weekly: If your not guest blogging on other blogs. You are missing out on one of the biggest marketing opportunities. Have you been blogging for awhile? Are you looking to re launch your blog? This is something that YOU MUST DO! I launched my blog Affiliate Manifesto in January, and I wrote out a blogging strategy for the first year. Then, I wrote out a marketing guide as well. For the first two months of the year I will write out a guest post every week. If I have a little extra time I will write out two guest posts. The reason behind guest posting is to leverage the influence of other peoples audience to express my thoughts on internet and affiliate marketing.For each blog I look at the popular posts they have, and review them to see what information they offer. Then, replicate that information for my own posts. Follow the same template as the popular posts of that blog. Just create your own content. Why? Because these are the posts that received the most traction and you want that for your own blog as well.
• Email JV Partners: This strategy will only work effectively for people who have an active email list. You can create a joint partnership with another blogger in your industry. By sharing summarized blog posts in each others email list.  Then, pick one day of the week and share the top blog posts of that week within both mailing lists. Now you are getting a direct marketing campaign to an engaging list of people.

Back in September, I had a friend to help me test out an idea, and it worked out really well! Each Wednesday we  share our top blog posts for our email lists to check out. I received a lot more attention from this then I thought. Do this with a group of people in your industry. Everyone will choose one blog post per week. Then,  you can see a good amount of growth with your blogging traffic.

I learned a great deal of information about blogging from John Chow and followed his blog often. He talks about not just being a blogger, but a marketer first. I really enjoy blogging, I like talking about different areaPosts that I get into, but  at the end of the day I’m first a marketer.

Understanding how to market your blog is vital if you are looking to make money. How can you market other peoples products or services if you don’t understand how to marketing your own blog?

I really recommend taking the time to learn about basic marketing strategies such as email marketing, guest blogging, and pay per click.

I invested the time to learn these few areas, and it has helped me greatly with growing my blog and my business.

Here are some resources:

• Dewane Mutunga ebook: Email Marketing 101
• Gregory Ciotti: Sparring Mind
• Rick: I Rock Paid Traffic

Editor: Shanee Townsend

Tom Ewer is the owner of Leaving Work Behind, a blog for anyone who is interested in freelance writing, internet marketing, and authority/niche site building. He recently quit his job and became a full time freelance writer and internet marketer. Head over to Tom’s Facebook page and “like” him!

Tom Ewer

What started you out with internet and affiliate marketing?

• I think the concept of passive income is attractive to anyone. But more specifically, I was in a full time job and saw it as a way of establishing a part time income on the side. I had looked at a few different ideas, but internet marketing really stuck out to me.

How was it creating your first niche site? What were you takeaways from it? Success? Failures? And advice to people wanting to create one?

• My first niche site, in terms of the end product, was basically a disaster!
• After 3 months, I had obtained 1^st place rankings in Google for a couple of keywords, and 1^st page rankings for a few others. Things were looking promising – I was making a few bucks a day, and my earnings were on the way up.
• However, I made an enormous amount of mistakes, which culminated in me getting far too aggressive with my backlinking and getting unceremoniously Google-slapped.
• However, the amount I learnt from the whole experience was invaluable. I had learnt a great deal.
• My solitary piece of advice would simply be to not give up. The biggest barrier to you reaching your goals will be the temptation to give up in the face of failure. If you fail, simply analyze what you have learnt, and apply it to your next endeavor. Failure can be a god thing – it teaches you important lessons.

What are you looking forward to do in 2012 that you didn’t have the opportunity to do in 2011?

• Having more hours in the day! Effective 31^st December 2011, I quit my job, which means that I am now a full time internet marketer and freelance writer.
• Quitting my job had an interesting psychological effect on me – it really hammered home the fact that internet marketing is now my livelihood, and that pushes me to work even harder.

Did you come from a marketing background or was this something that you just fell into?

• Internet marketing is definitely something I fell into. I have no real prior professional experience in marketing – my last job was in property management and development.
• I don’t think a lack of experience in marketing should scare people off though. There are an enormous amount of resources out there for you to learn from. Your future knowledge is limited only by your willingness to learn.

You have one of the few internet blogs that don’t monetize. Why is that? What was the reason behind it?

• The internet is saturated by people who are trying to make a quick buck. People who don’t practice what they preach, and people who intentionally seek to mislead their readers.
• Whilst I am not saying that anyone who monetizes their blog is dishonest – there are many monetized blogs out there that offer wonderful value – one way of demonstrating that you are an “honest” blogger is to demonstrate that you have no ulterior motives.
• It may seem counter-intuitive for an internet marketer to not monetize their blog, but I do not intend for it to be a long term strategy. When the time is right, when I feel that I have proven to people that I have their best interests at heart, and when I have an extremely high-quality product to offer, I will monetize my blog.

What areas of your business are you going to be focusing on the most this year?

I have four clearly-defined areas that I will be focusing on this year:

• Freelance writing
• Authority sites
• Niche sites
• My blog

Authority sites are those that I intend to turn into comprehensive resources, and that can perhaps be monetized with products. Niche sites are far more likely to be straightforward AdSense or affiliate sites.

Do you feel it’s as hard to be successful online as a lot of people make it seems? Or is it just about taking action? Thoughts?

• I believe that the difficulty is in having the patience, determination, and execution necessary. You don’t need to be a genius to make money online – far from it.
• Here’s the problem: the barriers of entry are low. It is easy to “try” to make money online. What is far more difficult is to persist and have faith that you will eventually succeed.
• If you have a clear plan and deep reserves of dedication and perseverance, you will have a very good chance of succeeding.

Where would you like to see your business one year from now? Revenue? Goals? Community numbers? 

• I recently published a “goals” post on my blog, which outlined what I hope to achieve this quarter (up to 31^st March 2012). I haven’t yet looked beyond that date.
• However, since you have asked the question…in one year, I would like to have a well-trafficked blog (perhaps 1,000 unique visitors per day), and diverse income streams from freelance writing, authority sites, and niche sites. I also hope that I will have helped many people to quit their jobs and get what they want from life.

Over the past two weeks I have been focusing on two areas. Growing my email list and growing my Facebook fanpage likes.

Facebook advertisements has been one of my main online marketing focuses over the past two years. Facebook ads offer you a way in directing your campaigns to targeted people so that you have a specific demographic of people that see your ads. You can’t really do that with Google Adwords and if you want a really responsive campaign with Google you better be able to invest a lot of money too.

The strategies that I used with these campaigns I learned from Brian Moran from Get1000K fans. He created a webinar that I was on and I learned a lot of strategies that assisted me with my overall growth.

Basically, in one day I went from 79 likes to 116 likes on my Facebook page. I doubled my outreach for my Facebook campaigns. I made $2,000 in revenue from an affiliate promotion in 48 hours that I ran and I only spent $35 in revenue that day with the ads that I was running at that moment.

My huge spike in growth

You see a lot of people always get the wrong idea when it comes to Facebook advertisements. They figure if they spend about $500 on a campaign that their going to receive a lot of money back in return and that’s not the case. How you leverage Facebook ads is how you set them up and have them working for you. If you want to make money from your Facebook fanpage then you need to be consistent on that social platform. I post a lot of information for my community. Some of it is through affiliate links and some of it is not.

But, they understand that I won’t pitch them anything that I wouldn’t purchase myself.

Then for my email community I always offer just great information to them on a weekly basis either through an autoresponder or through a broadcast message. So, I’m always offering products, blogs posts, and other services through that funnel as well.

That simple method is how I have been generating revenue through Facebook ads.

You have to be consistent in your other platforms to make money with Facebook ads. If your not consistent on your Facebook page or with your email lists why would they buy from you? They probably won’t because they don’t see you as someone that they could trust at all.

But, let me break down my $2,000 story for you….

I setup six different Facebook ads that were going to be targeting both my Facebook fanpage and my squeeze page where my free ebook was going to be at which is The Success Guide To Online Profits.I had three ads directing to the squeeze page and three ads directing to the fanpage.

The ads that were directed to my fanpage were sponsored stories which I chose off of my Facebook wall. These were very short motivational and inspirational status’s that I put up to encouraging my community such as “have a great day” “your a successful entrepreneur” “never give up” and such. I wanted to use those same statuses and insert those into the Facebook ads which I did.

Well, my per day amount for ALL of my ads were just $10. This was something where I wanted to have a low per day amount because I honestly wasn’t looking to spend a lot of money for my ads and I knew I wasn’t because I was creating very targeted ads to people that enjoyed internet marketing and wanted to grow their skills.

My daily spending limit is always at $10 starting out

So, after I set all of my ads up and had them approved the traffic started to roll in. I started to grow my Facebook likes very fast. Right before I went to the gym I got about 6 likes and I was already happy. Once I got home from the gym I was already up to 18. When I finished up doing some work that evening I was at 28. Then right before I went to bed I was at 37 likes and I was just blown away with the increase in just ONE day that I have had. Once i got to that level I paused all of my ads to test to see which ones were converting the most and the “Have a good day” ad was being the most responsive. I had 12 people like that ad and join my community.

I was very happy with that result and was proud of myself.

But, the fun part came in when the ads for my ebook started to show impressions. Overall I gained 24 new email subscribers in one day and made $2,000 in 48 hours with affiliate promotions that I had within that ebook. The cost per click of the ads ranged from $0.47 to $0.97. I didn’t pay for advertisements over $1 and I haven’t in a long time because I test my ads to see which converted out very well and change thing sup constantly.

Well, that’s my short story….

I could continue to go on and on about this one day campaign but what I’m going to recommend that you do is look at Brian Moran webinar that he put on. This is where I started and this is where I feel you should start as well. This is my affiliate link and the bonus that I’m offering for people is something very nice and that I won’t be doing through out this year which is I’m offering three one on one consultations with me that I’m going to show you how to really setup your ads.

So, your going to get the assistance of both Brian’s course and also my knowledge too.

Once you purchase the product then forward me a copy of your receipt and we can setup a time to talk and get things started. My email is Justice@Justicewordlaw.com

This year is about becoming the best student you can be so you can become a true expert in your field. If your not constantly investing in your education online then your not going to be successful. You don’t hear stories like this just out of thin air. It takes dedication and focus to really be successful and if you want this bad enough and you don’t like the results that your getting right now I recommend that you change things now.

Here is his webinar just in case you missed it.

While I was writing this blog post I was listening to I Used to Lover Her by Common. It was my added motivation to share my thoughts and feelings with you about my personal and business life.

Last year,  was one of the most dynamic years of my entire life. I learned so much about the hustling side of life and focusing on being a better man. I met a lot of new friends and I ended a lot of friendships as well that weren’t really benefiting me at all. I learned that if a person is not assisting me in growing to be a better man then I’m not going to be around them. Their just soaking up good energy that I could be focusing with someone else.

But, as this year has been progressing and being 17 days into the new year I have already had a new energy burst and stamina about me that I have never had. Earlier today I was watching a youtube video of Blake Mycoskie the Founder of Toms Shoes. He was talking about how simple his life is and how he runs his business. He described how he lives on so little but has an abundant amount of time to do other things that he enjoys doing. It made me reflect on my life and business too.

Click here to view the embedded video.

My Reflection of Me:

It seems that I come up with way too many ideas and its starting to become bad. Coming up with to many blogs, to many companies, and trying to manage to many projects that it is taking me away from my main goal in my business which is offering value to people online by offering great content and digital products. In May of 2011 I started a blog called GenYRants which was something I wanted to do to share my feelings and thoughts about gen-y and the ideas that others have as too. Well, that blog did very well and the community was growing very fast. I enjoyed blogging and the interactions and people I met such as Amanda Abella of Grad Meets World. But, this past week I was sitting with a close friend and we were talking about the blog and the work that we need to put into it.

As we were talking about this blog I realized that this has NOTHING to do with my end goal. It was just a “cool idea” not something that I felt was assisting me with my long term goal which is basically creating passive income so I don’t have to work because I’m productively lazy so I like focusing my attention on as less as possible. I don’t want to worry about graphic design, coding, technical, grammar, or anything of that sort because I don’t want to.

So, what I have decided to do was end that entire blog. It was fun and nice but it’s time to stop this entire project because it’s not assisting me at all and I no longer want to keep something around that doesn’t help me.

What I’m doing in this stage in my life is simplifying my life to the lowest common denominator because I feel that their are a lot of things that I’m doing that I honestly don’t need to do.

Example Time:

I workout at a gym (Xsport Fitness) here in town and honestly I’m tired of going to the gym. I rather go into the other room and workout and go about my day. Spending $19.95 per month on a gym membership could go to my Starbucks fund or into a new business idea that I would like to be apart of. I look at the overall idea of it $19.95 x 12 = $239.40 per year. I could just purchase P90x and workout from home and save both gas, time, and a crowded gym and just enjoy working out at home whenever I would like.

I have already removed my Netflix account which was $7.99 per month because I was watching way too many movies and my focus was leaving me and becoming sloppy with my life.

You see I noticed when I started removing some of the smaller things in my life and enjoy the basics of life I started to do new things. When I removed my Netflix account I started to join “game night” every Wednesday with a group of friends at my buddies house which has been great. Last week we played poker and it was my first time and I walked in with $5 (buy in)  and left with $40 so I was beyond happy and a bit drunk too.

Every time I start to simplify my life, bigger and better things start to happen for me. I minimize the time I’m actually on the internet browsing around for nothing. Either I’m on to do work or I’m on to rant on Twitter about topics that I want and I’m off enjoying what life has to offer. This is the only reason I wanted to be an entrepreneur is because of the freedom. I enjoy never working on a Wednesday and just enjoying life with my friends and family. I enjoy the idea of just sitting back on my laptop in a cafe exploring life around me.

But, I need to take away some of the distractions that I had. Which brings me to my next topic.

I’m officially done doing consulting with people, graphic design, seo,  and hosting too.

These were areas that were honestly not doing anything for my main goal. I love and enjoy the clients that I have acquired over the years but I no longer want to do that. I want to focus on creating digital products, create webinars, and just present epic shit to people that it makes them go WOW and those aspects of my business wasn’t doing it.

I have a group of clients that I’m finishing up this month and after that I’m done and will be closing that portion of my life off. I’m really excited and happy about this decision.  Half of me was honestly tired of working around schedules, driving to Starbucks and Panera Bread to meet and now I want to just do other projects.

Looking at my goals for this year this was a very smart decision and I’m enjoying it a lot.

You see a lot of people on my blog and social media have been following me for maybe 2 years now and a lot of you guys have seen me go from different stages in my life and offered great insight and I truly appreciate it a lot. But, now it’s time for me to go to the basics of life. I’ve never been a fan of the flashy lifestyle but more of the comfortable one.

A lot of my friends would know if I have Starbucks, my Iphone 4, and my laptop I’m one of the happiest guys around. So, that’s what I’m sticking to now.

I wanted to share with you my ideas and feelings on simplifying my life because I really enjoy the community I have created and sharing the stages of life that I’m going into.

What I’m recommending that you guys honestly do is look at your life and see if your honestly doing things that will lead you up to your end goal. If not then change it. Don’t waste time doing something that you don’t want to do. If you don’t like driving in this crazy Chicago snowy weather then work from home until the snow melts.

If you want to make an extra $2,000 per month then find a business opportunity that will assist you with doing just that.

I really recommend that you do the things that will help you get to your goal. Take away everything that isn’t doing that and enjoy what life has to offer. If your not doing this then your just wasting your life and time that your not going to get back.

Simplify your life to the lowest denominator and see how things start to change for you.

Now why in the world would I want to advertise or market this free product to the millions of people only only not to make any money?

That’s the way most people would think.

But, if you have setup your free product correctly either an ebook or video series your going to receive that money and a lot more down the line.

Here’s how!

More people are inclined to pay attention to a free gift then a paid gift that their going to have to bring out their credit card and purchase. Especially if they have never heard of you before. If they see that your offering an awesome ebook or video course for free in exchange for their email address your more liable to gain more downloads then to say if you charged them $27 for that same product.

But, what we have to focus on is the advertising of that free product and why you should do it.

Growing Your List!

Download Today

That’s the only reason why you should be offering this free product to as many people as possible and purchasing reviews on top rated blogs and investing in pay per click campaigns that drive back to your squeeze page. One of the strategies that I used for my ebook The Ultimate Success Guide To Online Profits was very simple but very effective too.

I chose 20 of the top “internet affiliate marketing” blogs and offered to pay that blogger to review my ebook for their audience. Most of them already had an option like this available where you could purchase a review for your product but for the ones that didn’t I pitched this with a price already in mind. Now, this review went straight to my squeeze page where they could download my free ebook.

I didn’t mind if the review was good or bad to be honest because if a blogger has over 50,000 RSS subscribers or email subscribers and I’m only looking for 10% of those to actually click through and download then I’m going to be happy with that conversion ratio. Now no one wants a bad review but sometimes that blogger doesn’t like your information or they just don’t feel it fits with their community. But, you do gain a valuable backlink from a high ranking site too.

What some bloggers might have you do is just guest post and with one of the dofollow links you can just hyperlink back to your free gift.

But, back to the advertising….

Yes, you want to market this product as if your selling it for $27. So, invest in pay per click campaigns that direct straight to your free offer. Every time you guest post don’t direct back to your blog but direct them to your free product where they can learn more about the strategies that you already talked about in your guest post. One strategy that I actually am going to be rolling out in one month now is paying for advertising on top tier blogs that direct back to my free ebook.

Now I know your probably wondering why in the world would I invest this much money into a free product.

Well, I will give you a couple of reasons why you should look into this:

Email Subscribers

• I don’t care what methods you try or how you feel about email! The money is in the list and the community is built around the list as well. Ask yourself this question. How many times has a person asked you do you have an RSS button to subscribe to your content or where can I go to get more information about what you do? What did you do after they asked you this question? I always send people right to my free product because two reasons 1) I don’t have an RSS button because that does nothing for my email list and I can’t control that 2) I’m focusing on growing my email list in every possible way.

You Make Money When Setup Correctly

• I don’t know about you but I monetize my ebooks with links that direct people to helpful resources that I get paid for. If you do this correctly and offer great content then people will purchase via your affiliate link in those ebooks and such.

Example: I offer a section in The Success Guide To Online Profits which talks about email hosting and how to setup an autoresponder which I suggest you use Aweber because of their great customer service and easy integration system. Now, if a person purchases through my affiliate link I make $.30 off of the initial sell of $1 and then I make $5.70 per month that they keep Aweber as their hosting company. Now, if I get 10% of people to download my ebook off of a 50,000 RSS subscribers which is 5,000 downloads and only about 10% of those people purchase Aweber through my affiliate link that is 500 people per month which is $2,850 per month I make off of Aweber alone.

If I manage to consistently drive traffic to my free product and people purchase via my affiliate links the money that I invest in the marketing of the ebook will be paid off by the commissions of the products that people purchase from my links.

Now, do you understand why you should invest in promoting your free products. If you have monetized them correctly especially ebooks you will receive your investment back if you market aggressively. Most people just create free products and hope for people to download them. I’m not looking for a wish factor of luck. I’m going to treat my free product as if I would my investment accounts and have them work for my constantly by presenting them to different niches of people across the internet.

If you haven’t already make sure you download The Success Guide To Online Profits to learn more about what I teach people on making money online.

“A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.” Martin Luther King Jr

If their is one thing that I have always kept in my head that I learned years ago is that “the person that talks less has more power in the conversation”.

That’s something I have never forgotten about and probably never will. Every time I sit down with a potential client or friends I always just let them talk. I ask them very simple questions but I let them take the lead with the conversation and express themselves as I just take notes and listen very closely.

In whatever you do in life try to be a leader. We have been hearing the phrase “be a leader not a follower” since we were in 3rd grade. But, why is it that so many people aren’t in their lives? Or why is that the leaders that we do have never be quiet and listen? Being a leader is about taking action and letting your results speak for themselves to show that your serious about whichever business that your in.

Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.

Just because you talk a lot doesn’t mean your a leader, just because you place a new Facebook status up every 30 minutes doesn’t mean your a leader, just because you have tweets going out on autoresponder every hour doesn’t mean that your a leader. A leader is a person that can lead without talking. A leader will show you action steps to take you from stage one to the closing scene. It seems like were running out of leaders that prove results. That take action without wanting an reward.

Story Time:

I met a man years ago and he has been my number one mentor for my entire life. He has shown me how to be a good man, how to talk, dress, be outstanding in every way possible. One of the first rules that he taught me was that leaders will do work without being told too and that leaders will be willing to show the next person their proven system so they could be successful as well. My mentor told me that if you can’t show the next person how you got to the level of success that your at then your not a leader but a follower yourself. Their just pretending to act as a leader because of the fame and glory that comes with the title.

My mentor mentioned to me that in business you will run across a lot of people that talk a great game and that will make themselves seem as if their just the best thing walking. But, once you start talking about the specifics of business and how they got to the level of success they crumble and never offer a reasonable answer. Some will try to go around your questions with statistics and magazine articles. Or try and send you tot he Better Business Bureau to look up worthless information.

That mentor was my father.

I kept that mindset with me as I have grown in my business and met with other entrepreneurs and it was true. I’ve came across a lot of entrepreneurs that talk a great talk but when it comes down to business they have no clue what their talking about. They talk to much and they don’t listen. Their pitching a product or service in the first hour and they don’t even know my last name. I don’t call those leaders at all in my opinion.

A leader is a person that will want to learn more about you. A leader will offer you great content before they even think about pitching you a product. A leader is someone that would want more for you then themselves because they know their going to receive back more in the long run.

You see were running out of leaders!

What we have now are $197 pitching product leaders. They show up in one month and pitch a product then vanish. They offer great information for one month or two months but after that their no longer to be heard of. The only way that you hear from them or gain a valuable response is if you purchase their $1997 session of worthless information that offers no value to your life.

We now have more of these leaders than anything else and we must stop it.

If you want to be a good leader within your business then be honest with yourself first and your customer second. People now a days want to be apart of communities that the leader genuinely cares about their well being and won’t just sell them and leave them. That’s why a lot of people are so shaky when being invited to a conference room for business because they probably got invited to one before and got told to go to the back of the room and buy this product and something amazing was going to happen to find out nothing happened, you can’t get your money back, and this so called leader is on there way to New Mexico to setup for next weeks conference.

What I recommend for you to start doing is listen to your clients more, pay attention to the people around you, and offer so much value to everyone that you come in contact with. This will show that your the best leader. People are going to want to follow every thing you say because they trust and believe in you.

Be genuine in your approach in life and you will receive more rewards than you ever thought of.

Click here to view the embedded video.