What is this cardinal rule of blogging that I broke?

It is really quite simple, I didn’t keep my blog updated. You need to add new content to your blog or site at least once per week to keep the search engine spiders happy.

Of course I have an excuse as to why I didn’t keep it updated, but then again we always have an excuse for the things we do or don’t do.

Even though it isn’t worth the paper (cyber-paper?) it is written on here is why I haven’t made a post recently.

Most of you that know me know that I am a techno-geek and I like technology and learning how to do all the technical things on the internet.

Yes, I can hear you groaning and saying, “How can you like the technical side? I hate the technical stuff!” But aren’t you glad that there are people like me that do like the technical stuff and make it easier for you to get things done.

What I have been doing is actually learning how to write programs in PHP from start to finish.  A lot of you will know that I was familiar with PHP as far as installing the programs and tweaking them to do what I want. But this is a long way for actually creating a script that will run a website.

There were a lot of empty spaces in my knowledge and although I didn’t need to fill in the missing pieces to accomplish my goals there were just some things that I wanted to do that I couldn’t do.

For example, I wanted to create a site where you as a customer could choose from 100’s of products and pick only the ones you wanted to download but you could get the “big package, special, limited time, limited quantity, grand opening, holiday, one time offer” price.

In other words you could buy a package of 20 products and choose any 20 of the 100 products available on the site or you could buy just one product or you could buy 100. This means that you wouldn’t have to buy a package of 50 products to get that one product that you want and leave all the other products collecting digital dust on your hard drive.

I looked around and there is no script that will do this on a site that I could find. Yes there are shopping cart scripts that will let you purchase a number of products but each product has to have its own price and it becomes a cumulative total of all the products with the price going up and up and there is no discount for quantity.

I wanted to provide the quantity discount you find in the big packages where you pay very little per item and the price per item would go down when the number of items goes up.

So, I though about outsourcing the script and having someone else create it for me. But to be completely honest with you, I haven’t found a PHP programmer yet that knows what they are doing and would be willing to get tied down to putting my work first. This means that if there is a problem with the script I might or might not be able to get support.

With this in mind, I decided to create my own script and let me tell you I have spent a lot of time running down errors in the script and learning new things about PHP. I learned how to integrate PayPal’s IPN into the script to ensure that the package was actually paid for. I learned how to have PHP count the number of files in a folder. I learned how to protect a download link and right now I am learning how to create a search function for the script so that you can search through all the products to find that particular product that you want.

I doing this I actually set a goal to have this script up and running by June 3 and when I set my goals I go after them whole heartedly. This means that I have at times lost track of what day of the week it is.

But I do have a working version of the script done (except for the search) and when it is completed you will be able to see it in action at www.YourChoiceProducts.com (nothing there right now)

So, there’s my excuse for not posting but remember it is only an excuse. I could have created a post similar to this earlier to let you know what I was doing and helped keep the search engine spiders heading this way.

I have to keep telling myself, “Keep posting, don’t stop, keep posting, don’t stop” The only advantage I have is that this blog is not about making money it is about providing information to you.

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It seems that Clive thinks that you have to be an “advanced IT expert” to do the things I mention here.

I know this isn’t true and I am sure you know it isn’t also. If you could do me a favor and write a little about yourself and how much of an “advanced IT expert” you are to show him that you don’t need to be an “IT expert” to get your site up and running the way you like. Make sure you put a link to your site in the comment so he can see what you have done.

Here is Clive’s comment

What has me most concerned is that he doesn’t think he can add themes and plugins to WordPress. I am sure a lot of you have had experiences with this. Please let him know that it isn’t that hard once you do it a couple of times.

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This is a file that you put on your site that is only for the search engine spiders it is not seen by your visitors.

This file can get you indexed very quickly with Google, MSN, Yahoo! and Ask because it lists all the pages on your site and how often they are modified. This makes the search engines happy because they don’t have to work as hard to get all your listings.

This is a great tool in the SEO wars, it lets you get your pages indexed in no time and let’s face it you can’t do well in the search engines unless you are indexed.

There are a couple of free programs that you can use to create your sitemaps, if you have a WordPress blog you can use a plugin called Google XML Sitemap from Arne Brachhold that will automatically create your sitemap and notify the search engines, if your site isn’t on WordPress you can use a program called GSite Crawler to create and upload your XML sitemap.

I do highly recommend that you have a XML sitemap for your site because it WILL help you get your content indexed and move you up the search engines. With that said…

YOUR XML SITEMAP CAN BE HURTING YOUR RANKING!

If you have errors in your sitemap it can actually hurt your rankings with Google, most of the time when people think about errors they figure the code in the sitemap must be the cause but both the programs listed above will create your sitemap with perfect code but you can still have errors as far as Google is concerned.

The reason for this is because Google not only holds your sitemap to the strict XML code but it also holds your site to Google’s policies for indexing, such as 404 error (missing pages) which a lot of people know about but what a lot of people don’t know about is that you will also get errors if you violate their redirect policy on your site.

Google doesn’t like redirects that never become visible to the viewer. Things like cloaked affiliate links and sales links and these will create an error in your sitemap. This only applies if you have the links actually in your sitemap, if they are coming from your site such as www.mysite.com/recommends/buythis.html then they will probably be in your sitemap. This is a common cloaking technique for affiliate links.

Sales links can also create this, for example on one of my sites I use DownLoad Guard to handle the sales and download protection for my products. The script creates a link for the purchase that goes to the script and then redirects the customer to ClickBank to purchase the product. The viewer never sees the page they are clicking on.

While there is nothing nefarious about this link Google still sees it as a violation of their policy and it will create an error in your sitemap file and this can get you knocked down in the listings.

To fix this you can simply put a no follow tag in the link you are using.

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU HAVE ERROR IN YOUR XML SITEMAP?

This is actually pretty easy to do. Just signup at Google Webmaster Tools and register all your sites that have XML sitemaps. If they see an error they will mark it as a warning and even tell you what the problem is.

Once you have verified all your sites wait a couple of days and log in to see if you have any errors. If you see a warning beside any of the sites click on it and it will tell you the error if it is too many redirects start using the no follow tag on those links or remove the links from your sitemap.

If you would be interested in me making a video showing you how to set up your Google Account for sitemaps and how to fix some of the errors let me know by leaving a comment below.

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Yes, you can actually have too little of both.

The question is what to do about it?

This really depends on what you are lacking time or money.

If you are short of time but have money then it simply takes outsourcing some of your work. There are a lot of online services that will do parts of your to do list for you, plus they can do the technical work that you don’t know how to do.

You can find services that will write custom programs for you, create your website for you, create custom graphics, handle your customer support, etc. The prices will vary quite a bit and I recommend that you use a service that puts the money in to an escrow account until the work is done.

Make sure when you do hire a free lancer either directly or from a service that you find out as much as you can about them. Ask for references, ask to see samples of their work and make sure they have done the type of work you are looking for. There are some people out there that will bid on everything but have no experience actually providing this service. You want to avoid these people.

That pretty much covers if you have more money then time but most people starting out are just the opposite, they have more time then money. I’m not going to lie to you this does make it harder and it takes longer to get established but you can succeed if you are diligent about your work ethics.

This does mean that you will have to learn how to do a lot of things for yourself. You will need to know how to maintain your own website, you will have to write your own sales copy, you will have to do basically everything yourself.

But don’t try to do it all at once. Pick one area that you need to get you to the next step and concentrate on that until you have it done. It doesn’t do you any good to learn about Adsense and SEO if you can’t put the code on your site or if you can’t create your own site.

What do you do if you have too little time and too little money?

There isn’t a lot you can do about this you need to have one or the other to make progress, there is no magic button you can push to be a success.

But, I do have one suggestion; form a Joint Venture (JV) partnership. Most people think of JV’s as just some one that will promote your product or site for you but this isn’t the case. A joint venture is any situation where two or more people work together for the benefit of all parties involved.

Let’s say you have some talent in creative writing, maybe (with a little studying) you could start writing sales pages, email, content for websites and even products themselves.

Another person has all the technical background to put the site up on the server and install the scripts and edit and maintain the site(s) but can’t write a word. Wouldn’t this make a good partnership?

This way you can get the technical skills you need and they can get the copy they need. Or you can go together on one site and split the profits 50 / 50

Where do you meet people like this? Good question. There are a number of places online that you can look for people like this such as www.linkedin.com but the very best place to meet people for any type of joint venture is at live events.

I have learned more from the people that I have met at seminars then I have from the presenters!

Yes, that is true and the reason why is that you see the presenters for a hour and a half and the people you meet you can have a relationship with for years. People that you have a relationship with will be more likely to help you then the guy standing on the stage.

If you get a chance to go to a live seminar GO! Don’t think about it! Just GO! Pay attention meet some people and open your mind and your heart to learning. No, I am not plugging a seminar here I am just tell you the way it is.

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Michael Cheney is launching a new product called Start Your Profits Today. This is a step by step process that will take you from nothing to having a fully functional, high profit potential site.

I have watched the videos and he really does take you from nothing no site, no list, absolutely nothing to getting your own site up and running. If you have been struggling, trying to decide what to do to get started then this is an ideal product for you. It truly aimed at the beginner. Which is why I am posting it here at Starting Steps, this is a good way to get started.

When I saw the videos I thought to myself that there is some stuff that I can add to this product to make it worth much, much more.

I decided to provide this information as a bonus when any one purchased Start Your Profits Today through my affiliate link and I started making videos and one thing lead to another and all of the sudden I ended up with 18 videos that cover such topics as:

• Comment Spam
• Ping Spam
• Search Engine Optimization
• Widgets
• Plugins
• Etc.

My bonus actually became a product of its own and it was created specifically as a followup to Michael’s product. It is not something I just happen to have laying around. It was created just for this bonus but the information provide is so valuable this will be it’s own product in the future.

If you would like to know more about my bonus for Michael Cheney’s Start Your Profits Today go to the site I set up for the bonus at:

Start Your Profits Today Plus!

If you already have a blog up and running then Michael’s new product isn’t for you but my bonus just might be. My bonus will become a product of it’s own in the near future with a price of either $67 or $97 but for right now you can only get it as a bonus for purchasing Start Your Profits Today through my affiliate link.

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A squeeze page is a page that is designed for only one purpose and that is to “squeeze” a person into signing up to your list, usually with the promise of something of value in exchange like information or a gift. I have also heard them call capture pages, fly catcher pages and opt in pages.

Now if you have been around for awhile you have probably heard a number of things about squeeze pages, like:

• Keep them short – you want it all to fit in above the fold (where you see it all without scrolling)
• Make sure you use audio on your squeeze page
• You must have video on your squeeze page
• You need to have custom graphics on your squeeze page.

I will cover all these things in a minute but first I will tell you the most important thing you need to remember for your squeeze page. The only option the reader of the page will have on your squeeze page is to sign up to your list. That’s it! Remember a squeeze page only has one purpose and that is to get people on your list.

Now about all the things I listed above that you might have heard in your marketing education, forget all of them.

Yes, that is right I said forget all of them.

As far as keeping short the entry page to my Marketing Beginners site is basically a squeeze page and it is anything but short. I average about a 26% conversion ratio with that page that means one out of every four people that come to the page sign up.

If you want to put video on your squeeze page then put video on your squeeze page but test it with and without the video to see which converts better.

If you want audio or custom graphics on your squeeze page then put them on but again test it without and see which does better for you.

Just because a 10 page sales letter works as a squeeze page for me doesn’t mean it will for you.

Just because video works for Marketer X doesn’t mean it will work for you.

Hopefully you are seeing what I am getting at, if you aren’t then here it is for you:

TEST, TEST, TEST

That’s right test everything. For a squeeze page it isn’t that hard to create an account with Google Adwords and set up the analytics so that you can see how many people are coming to your squeeze page, where they are coming from and how many signed up to your list.

Once you are in there you can actually set up your squeeze page with the website optimizer and you will be able to run tests with and without audio, video, graphics or you can test different copy and it will do the analysis for you. Yes, you can do all of this for free.

The proper layout for a squeeze page is what ever works the best for you after you have tested your options!

It is as simple as that.

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If you are selling something or providing a service you need to provide a way for a potential customer to contact you if they have a problem or question.

More important is that you need to have a responsive support system for your customers.

I had two incidents recently that I will recap for you and you tell me if this is the way you want a business you are thinking about becoming involved with to work.

I recently was told about a URL tracking service that was supposed to be the new best thing of free tracking services. So, I decided to check it out. I went and signed up and as I expected I was told I had to confirm my email address before I was provided access to the site. This is all normal and I don’t mind this one bit, I went and checked my email and the confirmation had not arrived yet. So, I spent a little while working on another site and came back to my email about an hour later, still no confirmation email. It was late so I said forget it and went to bed.

The next morning when I got up I did my usual routine of checking my email and still no confirmation email so I went to the site and tried to login. The response I got was, “Username/Password are incorrect. Please try again. Or your member status is waiting for approval”

OK, maybe I made a typo entering my email address, not very likely since I usually use saved data and an auto-filler to enter my information so I signed up again and it told me, “Please correct the following error: Your Email is already registered in our site.”

Since there wasn’t a typo in my signup and I had not received my confirmation email I looked for a link to send the confirmation email and I couldn’t find one.

Then I looked for a contact page or a link to support and guess what I couldn’t find one.

This is a site I was looking at to promote if the quality of the service was good but since I couldn’t test its service I just said forget it because I had already wasted enough time on the site.

But then in my email, later that day, I received an email from them that said this:

You are receiving this message because you are a valued member of (Removed by me). Removal instructions are below.

Hi Randy,

Congratulations and welcome to (Removed by me).

We know you’ve already received your login info when you joined yesterday, but we wanted to personally let you know that you’ve made a very, very wise decision by becoming a (Removed by me) client.

Then it went on some more finally ending in this:

To remove yourself from this list - you must delete your(Removed by me) account.

So, they are telling me that they are going to keep sending me email unless I log into an account that I can’t log into because I never received the confirmation email from their site and they have no contact information on the site. Plus they are telling me, “They know” I received information that I never received. At least this email gave me a way to maybe contact them by sending to the email address it came from but I haven’t received a response yet.

Remember this is a company that is supposed to be able to handle the technological needs of my tracking but they can’t even figure out how to set up a resend on the confirmation link or set up a support desk.

Would you want to do business with them?

Now on to number two. This is a product that I purchased but my access didn’t work to the product. Not an extremely expensive product but it was $197.00 and I couldn’t get to the download. They did have a support desk and I submitted a ticket, make that a number of tickets and I never did get access to the download so I requested a refund for the product I never received.

Guess what, I never received the refund and I never received the product. They kept telling me that it was a problem on my end. Now anybody that has know me for any length of time will tell you that if the problem is on my end I will fix it. I know for a fact the problem wasn’t on my end because I tried to get to the product from a number of different computers (Windows and Macs) with a number of different browsers and I never got to it. I wrote this off as another internet marketer that is more interested in their wallet then they are in their product or their customers.

But guess what that wasn’t the end of it just recently I was billed for annual support on the same product that I never received! Now this is just insulting. They did refund the support payment and gave me access to a downgraded version of what I purchased but so far I haven’t received access to the actual product I purchased.

So what is the major take away from this?

For me it is never do business with these two companies again.

For you it should be:

Make sure that prospective customers can contact you either through a contact form or a support site. If you don’t you might be losing customers and you could also be creating a bad reputation for yourself.

If a customer asks for a refund give it to them. What would you rather have another couple of bucks in your pocket with someone calling you names and blogging about how bad you are, or a customer that just might purchase from you again?

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Decide what type of online business model you want

There are a number of businesses you can run online. This could even be an extension of your current business. You need to choose a business that suits you.

For example one of the biggest online businesses is selling information, sometimes called the info product business. This is an ideal format if you get into the correct niche because the overhead for online delivery digital products is next to nothing. But if your niche is purple alligators you might find it difficult to sell many products.

Other business models include but aren’t limited too:

• Software
• Services – such as copywriting, advertising, etc.
• Programming – creating scripts for websites
• Web Design
• Graphic Design
• Affiliate Marketing
• Adverting – this includes revenues from projects like Adsense and other advertising networks.

There is more on this in my free ebook Getting Started

Treat your business like a business not a hobby

What do I mean by this? It is simple if you are trying to run a store in a mall you need to be open the hours you state. If you are running your own business online you need to follow this pattern.

No you don’t need to be “open” from 8 am until 8 pm or even answering your support for that time period (but the support does help) but you need to have a schedule of when you are working your business.

This is actually pretty simple to do but can quite often be hard to follow. Let’s say that you have a full time day job and you want to start your own online business. You schedule should be a regular schedule that fits you. Write on your schedule work Monday through Friday 5pm until 7pm, Saturday 10am until 2pm, Sunday off.

Make a list of what you need to get done and try to accomplish this in the time period you have allotted. It is OK for you to work extra hours on a specific day but don’t talk yourself in to a compromise where you say you will work an extra hour everyday and then take Saturday off. If you want Saturday off then take Saturday off. If you have ever managed a business you will know that when the schedules start getting changed, without a good reason, productivity drops.

Do make sure you schedule time off because if you don’t you will probably end up “burnt out” and never finish what you started. I can tell you this from personal experience; you need to recharge your batteries every now and then.

Don’t quit your day job.

I will repeat this one Don’t Quit Your Day Job!

Any one that believes they can make $5,000 in the next week with an online business that they are just starting out shouldn’t even attempt to run their own business. It will take time to get your business going and income arriving on a regular basis, so unless you are independently wealthy or have a large nest egg put aside, don’t quit your day job.

You can get started working part time until you develop some type of income and there will come a time where working your day job will cost you money but until that time arrives keep your income coming in and use any you can to help build your business.

Don’t try to do everything for free

Yes, it is theoretically possible to run a business using only free services BUT I have seen a lot of online businesses over the last 10 or 11 years and I haven’t seen one that makes a regular income using only free services.

You definitely need to pay for a few things, for example your own domain name and hosting for your site. These are two things you should never try to do with free services and the cost is nominal. You can register a domain name for under $10.00 per year and you can get good quality hosting for under $10.00 per month. Let’s face it, if you can’t afford to spend $130.00 per year on your business (less then $11.00 per month) then you shouldn’t be trying to run a business. These are mandatory, non-negotiable items as far as I am concerned.

Here are some other items I recommend you pay for:

An autoresponder service – if you are emailing anybody in your business this is worth the cost (see my post on autoresponders)

A script to run your site – no matter what you are doing there are scripts that will make it easier for you to run your site. These will automate a lot of the routine jobs that you have to do.

Advertising – yes there is a ton of free advertising available online but there are even more paid advertising services. Why are there more paid then free services? Because paid advertising is more targeted and usually will have a higher conversion rate which means more money in your pocket.

Test everything

If someone tells you something don’t blindly believe it. Even if it works for them in their business model doesn’t mean that it will work for you in the exact same way. Track all your advertising, test all your sales copy, test the copy on your opt in forms, test your price point, test the graphics on your site and test anything else you can think of.

You need to know what works best for you and your business.

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For the picture I just dragged and dropped it into the blog editor and like magic it appeared. So that it pretty cool.

The flock browser runs off the same engine as Firefox and it is designed as the “Social Browser” It will take a little while to get used to but so far it looks promising.

Now I am playing with the editor to see how the text can be edited on the fly.

So now I will try some big text

And some Red Text

Now some list

1. numbered list 1
2. numbered list 2
   1. sublist 1
   2. sublist 3
3. numbered list 3

• bulleted list 1
• bulleted list 2
  • bulleted sublist 1
  • bulleted sublist 2
• bulleted list 3

Well I like the way it handles lists much better then the editor built into wordpress.

Still more to learn if you are interested you can get the browser at:

www.Flock.com

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: Flock, Browser

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Let’s define what herding is. Herding is trying to force someone or something to do what you want. Like cowboys herding cattle in the old west.

If you have ever dealt with cats you know that cats do what they want to do and if you try to force them into something they will probably just get mad, hiss and be done with you.

Customers are the same way. Don’t try to force them to do something. Just like cats if you try to force them to do something they will do exactly what they want and it probably won’t be what you want them to do.

For example, there are a lot of people that will tell you to put a squeeze page in front of your sales page. I know I am not alone in this but if you try to force me to go through a squeeze page just to see a sales page 99% of the time I won’t sign up to your list or buy your product and I definitely won’t promote your product if I have to send people to a squeeze page instead of an information page about your product.

The way I see this is, what are you hiding? Is your product so bad that you have to get me on your list because you know I won’t buy it? Why should I sign up to buy something? If your product and/or your sales page is any good you will get me as a customer and then I will be on your list as a qualified targeted buyer instead of someone that isn’t interested in your product but only signed up to see the sales page and unsubscribed with the first email you sent.

Yes, you can build your list by setting up this squeeze page but you really need to test this and see how many sales you might be loosing. I can guarantee that you are loosing sales because of this. Customers are just like cats and they don’t like to be herded.

Instead of trying to force people to do something you are much better off enticing them to do something. For example if I try to chase a bunch of cats in to a corner, how much success do you think I will have? Just imagine cat cats jumping over me and each other trying to go anywhere else than the corner I am trying to force them into.

Now tell me what happens if I take the same cats and open a can a cat food and place it in the corner. Guess what? I just got all the cats in the corner because that is where they wanted to be.

Customers are the same way. If I really need something and I have two sites to choose from one site has all the information readily available and at the other site and I have to sign up to get some information then guess which one will get my business? That’s right the one with the information and not the one with the squeeze page.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of good uses for a squeeze page, if you are an affiliate marketer they are a must, but this situation you are trading information for the sign up, you are not forcing people to signup to see a product you are selling. If you are selling a product don’t try to force me to do anything before you give me some information on the product you are selling or I (and others) will be like those cats and jumping over people to get away from your site.

If you want to get me on your list then put an opt-in on your sales page or have it float in and offer me something of value to join your list but DON’T MAKE ME SIGN UP TO SEE A SALES PAGE! You will loose me as a customer and a joint venture partner and I am sure, I am not alone in this feeling.

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