Fix Credit Now to Save Big Later

I know this isn’t the usual post topic you find here because it’s not necessarily about making money online. However, credit repair can save you money, and as the old saying goes, “a penny saved is a penny earned” so I think you will benefit from it nonetheless.

As an entrepreneur, it is vital to have your money affairs in order. What your credit profile says about you also reflects on your business. It is important for you to pay attention to not only where you are financially but also where you stand credit-wise.

Working in the online market can be highly profitable but it requires a stable financial foundation to start with. If you are planning to get any type of financing in the future for business or personal, it is imperative you do the work to repair your credit now rather than wait until it is too late.

Why Good Credit Matters:

• In Your Business Life

Working as an entrepreneur, your business needs to build its own foundation financially but it will first rely on the credentials of the business owner. If you have poor credit scores, it will be hard for you to get any kind of financing to start or grow your business. You will also find it difficult to do business with vendors and suppliers with whom you need a line of credit.

Before you start a business online or off, you need to review your credit score and do the work necessary to get it back into the excellent sector. Your credit will be the springboard to starting a stable foundation for your business’s credit.

• In Your Personal Life

Most entrepreneurs start a business for the flexibility and the financial freedom self-employment offers. One of the most apparent drawbacks of working for yourself is the potential for inconsistent income. You should start a business knowing you have at least a year’s worth of living expenses saved in the bank for when the business is still getting off of the ground. While many people will not wait until that amount has been saved up, most at least have some fall back money to tide them over and prevent serious issues with debt.

At some point you will want to enjoy the benefits of your company’s profitability. Socking away funds for retirement and purchasing a home are two common goals of the self-made business owner. But if you maintain a poor credit score, it will be difficult for you to save extra money because you’ll end up having to spend more cash over your lifetime for basic services including utilities, cell phone plans, and car insurance.

If you are able to afford a new home purchase as a self-employed entrepreneur, it is imperative to not only have your finances in order, your credit will play a large factor in not only the approval for the home loan, it will also dictate how much you end up paying on your monthly house note. The amount of interest on the mortgage you receive will be directly related to your credit score. If you can maintain a credit score over 730, lenders will not only give you the best rates, but also more loan options.

Credit scores under 730 may put you at risk for not getting approved for your home loan. They will also basically guarantee you will pay a much higher interest rate over the life of your loan. More of your business profits will need to go toward your mortgage payment. It is not just a small amount either. Just a few points difference in your mortgage interest rate can literally mean you will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars over the life of your mortgage loan.

Moving Forward With Better Credit

Since you have put so much effort into getting your business up and running at the same time balancing the rest of your life, it only makes sense for you to first start with the job of clearing your credit history and maintaining the highest credit score possible.

Despite the claims of some companies, credit repair is something every consumer is capable of accomplishing. Credit history reports are available to every consumer free of charge once a year and for 60 days after you have been denied credit approval. Credit scores are not a part of the free deal but for a minimal fee, you have instant online access to the credit scores maintained by the consumer credit reporting bureaus including TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax.

Once you have ordered your reports and scores, you must review all of the data contained in your credit history and double-check the data for inaccurate information which can lower your credit score. Incorrect information can be disputed with the agencies listing the data.

You need to account for all accounts that still have an outstanding balance and make a reasonable plan to pay off these debts and improve your credit profile. By eliminating debts, you will not only clear your credit, you will also have less financial pressures from your startup operating.

The better your credit is, the less you’ll have to pay in down payments, deposits, and interest rates moving forward in both your business and your personal life. Do what you can now to fix your credit because while any consumer has the power to improve their own credit, there is no overnight solution to repair credit histories. It takes time to improve your credit scores so work consistently over the next several months and see what a difference a little focus can make. Take your credit as seriously as you do your business and you’ll reap rewards for the long term.

Guest post written by… J.D. Roberts is a seasoned writer in finance, specializing in credit repair. You can find more of his articles located at CreditRepair.org

Choosing a Merchant Services Provider

Accepting credit cards isn’t a do-it-yourself project. It requires a credit card processor (also called a merchant services provider) who establishes and administers your merchant account. During a transaction, the processor also acts as a middleman between the merchant and the credit card issuer to make sure the process goes smoothly.

Choosing the right merchant services provider requires an understanding of your credit card processing requirements and research into the various deals that are available. Here are five steps you should take when making your decision:

1) Learn about merchant accounts and the associated fees. You must establish a merchant account before you can accept credit cards. Basically, a merchant account is a bank account that acts as the depository for credit card transaction revenue. Once your merchant services provider has processed your transactions, it deposits the proceeds into your merchant account. The provider charges fees for its services — ask about them upfront and make sure you understand them.

2) Consider your technical requirements. What types of credit card processing are you planning to do? Traditional point-of-sale (POS) at a credit card terminal? Online processing from your website through an electronic gateway? Mobile or wireless processing when your business takes you on the road? Mail order/telephone order (MOTO)? Are most of your transactions card present or card not present? What business expansion or diversification plans do you have for the near future? It could be you need one or more credit card processing options, and you should make that clear to the merchant services providers that you are considering so they can come up with the best package deal for your needs and budget.

3) Identify merchant services providers who want your business. Not all processors work with all businesses. Some don’t deal with start-up operations or merchants with bad credit histories. Many will not service so-called “high risk” businesses, a category that includes adult-related businesses, online casinos and businesses located outside the United States. Look for a reputable processor who deals with businesses similar to yours.

4) Compare fees and services. Once you’ve compiled a list of potential merchant services providers, compare their fees and services to see who comes closest to meeting you requirements. Ask detailed questions about the types of hardware and software each offers. If you’re in the market to change processors, determine if your current system is compatible with their technology. When it comes to fees, going with the cheapest may not be your best bet. Be sure you know what you’re getting for your money, that it fulfills your needs and fits your budget.

5) Scrutinize security. Solid, reliable security may be the only thing standing between your business and disaster. It’s no secret that credit card fraud and identity theft are major threats to merchants and consumers alike. Make sure your credit card processing takes security seriously and is PCI compliant. Your merchant services provider should be able to answer all your security-related questions and train you and your staff in the proper protocols to keep you and your customers safe from a data breach.

Guest post by Marc McDermott, the Online Marketing Manager at Merchant Express, a full-service merchant services provider that has helped thousands of businesses with their credit card processing needs since 1998.

The True Importance of Building a List

We have heard the saying “Money is in the list” many times before, but for some reason a lot of affiliates and marketers still don’t realize how important building a list actually is.

I am not sure why affiliate marketers forget this crucial business building step, but list building should be your highest priority if you sell anything online. I don’t care if you are promoting a “how to build an igloo” ebook. Build that list of subscribers, or your business will not last very long.

For example, Google banned thousands of affiliates a while back from their Adwords program and those who weren’t capturing names and email addresses got left out in the cold. Their income dropped almost instantly and there was nothing they could do about it.

The fact is that it should be your highest priority to build a list of raving fans that read your emails. Sure you can make money online by simply driving traffic straight to an offer, but as soon as your traffic source stops producing clicks or your ads get disapproved, you are finished.

Let me give you some of the biggest key benefits of owning a highly responsive list of subscribers.

1. Traffic on Tap – Anytime you want to test out an offer or make some quick cash, you can simply load up your auto-responder with a promo email and click “send”. When that email hits people’s inboxes they click on your link and go to the offer. If you did a great job at preselling, they are going to buy whatever it is you recommended. What’s really important is that you no longer depend on other traffic sources for income. You basically own a traffic source that you can always count on without paying a dime for clicks it generates.

2. Joint Ventures – This is a huge benefit that most affiliate marketers forget about. If you have a highly responsive list, you can leverage it to sell your own products and services. When you promote someone else’s product and do a decent volume of sales for them, 98% of the time they will offer a reciprocal mailing for you. There is a reason why marketers with big lists make most of the money in the internet marketing niche.

3. Knowing What Your Market Wants – Use your list to find out what they want and sell it to them. You can use a service like SurveyMonkey.com and create a simple survey to send out to your subscribers. Ask them what they want or what they need help with. Then create a product or service based on the data you collected. Why guess what they want, when you can simply ask them and remove the risk of poor conversions completely from the picture?

4. Leverage – Don’t ever underestimate people on your list. Some of them might have successful businesses and could become your super affiliates. Imagine announcing your affiliate program to thousands of people with a single click of a button. You could literally overnight get your site flooded with traffic by leveraging your subscribers’ efforts. 1000 affiliates driving 100 clicks per day is better than one joint venture partner, who can send a limited number of clicks.

5. Be Viewed As An Expert – When you have a big audience, your opinion and message, which you send out matters. You could have a big impact on your niche market if you have the power to reach thousands of people with a click of a button. A lot of marketers do not know how to position themselves as experts. Build a list and eventually you won’t have to worry about that because of the instant social proof you can generate.

I think the above 5 key benefits make things very clear and why it’s absolutely crucial to put 100% of your effort into growing your subscriber base. I hope you now realize how powerful this actually is, and how it can take your business to a new level very quickly.

Your ultimate goal is to capture the attention of your market and have it at your disposal any time you want them to take your desired action.

This is a guest post written by Pawel Reszka, the founder of Affhelper.com, a blog dedicated to making money online and internet marketing. Check out his blog is for some cool super affiliate tips.

I Can Attest – He is Real!

I Can Attest – He’s Real!

This is not a fluff piece.  It’s the story that resulted from tweeting, emailing and, recently MEETING Chase Adams.  The relationship with him dramatically altered my experience with twitter and provided an unexpected opportunity to test the “humanness” of social media.

Meeting Chase allowed the student in me to examine the nature of our exchanges, question the meaning of the words and see if my intuitive read matched the “real person”.  After sending hundreds of tweets into the “stream” only to hear silence, I could finally share each blunder, hiccup, pinch, warm fuzzy and moment of confusion with another human, in the flesh.  It turns out that humanity in the virtual world has very few differences from that of the real one.

On that note, let me fast forward to seat 23E, preparing to land in Atlanta.

Thinking on the plane…what should I do when I see him? I’d really like to jump up and down, scream CHaaaaaase, and then give him a great big hug.   No, I can’t do that –  unacceptable and he’ll think I’m odd.  I could be cool and look around the atrium with no obvious focal point, casually zero in on him and say with my eyes wide, surprised, OH!  Are you Chase?

Finally, there he was – 15 feet away – leaning with arms crossed, hanging back.  Instantaneously, my previous plans vanished;  I mustered my most friendly, “unpuppydoggish” self and sheepishly asked –  Chase?

Score One for the RealChaseAdams! He showed up, patiently waited even though I was 3 hours late and made our meeting happen.

First things that surprised me:

• He didn’t talk in 140 characters nor did he tweet to others while with me


• Took lots of time to be thoughtful and engaged himself – 100%


• He redefined my idea of a “tech guy”


• Was even more charming than expected


• Took great care of our waiter who accommodated our 4 1/2 hour meeting


• Smart and smarter – articulate – wise


• Great, expressive eyes

Chase was a real collaborative guy who didn’t just decide stuff, but included me in creating the evening.

Score Two for the RealChaseAdams! He could relate, interact & generate a relationship without hiding behind a computer.

Meeting Chase, IRL,  produced a weird sensation.  My heart knew him but my brain didn’t.  I almost reached over and actually pinched him just to prove to myself that he was physically present, but restraint prevailed.  With this additional  visual-sensory input, I had a lot more to process – quickly.  The tilt at the edge of his smile, the twinkle in his eye, the way he moved his fingers when he reached for his “sweet tea” – all new input.  It’s the physical that we miss in the virtual world!

We covered lots of topics!

• Chase’s vision for #usguys


• My desire to learn technology and social media


• Interesting life experiences


• My gratitude for well… ‘him’


• Previous tweet exchanges that occurred in the stream – some funny and others that left me “wondering about the outcome”


• Twitter etiquette, social theory and relationship building within a tribe


• Chase’s  dreams for the future, speaking at #sxsw, and my self-development game (I must admit, it was thrilling to share my hand-colored drawing with someone from the virtual world)

We were having a great conversation when quicker than I could say, “This is fantastic”, we dropped – Kerplunk! into a relationship “thing” that typically occurs only after knowing someone for some time.  Most “things” test the substance of a relationship.  And I wasn’t sure that one created in the virtual world could support the weight of a “thing”!

SNAG! ...heart racing...PANIC!  (What happens if we decide we don’t like each other?)

By way of background, we’d registered for @jonmorrow’s blogger apprenticeship program.  I was impressed with Chase’s ability to engage other members of this community.  He gave great feedback!  I followed – he followed back.  We then began trading tweets during Hurricane Earl.  Are you expecting the hurricane to hit hard?  Your name reminds me of a soap star.  Why are you driving in this nor’easter?

Lighthearted exchanges grew into a sense of connectedness, and we started sharing emails.  After a couple of “Wow, you’re pretty amazing’s” and “Can’t wait to see where you go next”, Chase asked me for feedback about something he was writing.

In my desire to illustrate my commitment to him, I responded with the smartest stuff I had to offer – but I was hesitant because I didn’t know how he’d react.  Over the next week or so, while participating in #usguys,  I started to sense my interactions with him had changed.  I pondered this for a while and then wrote to him and asked, “What’s up?”

At “the moment” at dinner, we talked about that blip and what had really happened.

I found out he was troubled by my feedback.  It turned out that I missed the point entirely.  Chase was wanting me to understand his concerns about pursuing a new job opportunity and what he got from me was an intellectual critique.  In my distorted attempt to provide substance, I bungled the chance to care about his feelings and him “as a person”.  This landed like a 2000 pound elephant given my intense commitment to relate deeply to others.  I played small and convinced myself it would be unwelcome in a “virtual” relationship.

I had an “alfalfa sprout” moment at dinner with Chase.  The kind of learning that’s fresh, unplanned and shocking to your ego.   Chase could’ve avoided telling me the truth and blown it off deciding this was too intense for a twitter connection.  But, he didn’t.  And precisely because of this, the tie between us grew closer.

Winning Score! This went straight to my heart.

Chase Adams connected with me through 140 characters.  He communicated with me through emails.  He influenced me to participate in #usguys.  He caused my participation in social media to become vital, compelling  and supportive.  And then, in real life, Chase was willing to risk it all and share a negative with me.

Turns out that the virtual world is no different than the physical one.  The venue doesn’t matter.   It depends entirely on our capacity and desire to build relationship.

Chase knew that.  Sentiment CAN build within 140 characters.  I could’ve discovered that this sentiment was a figment of my imagination.  But because of “who” Chase  is, the reality far exceeded my expectation.  I didn’t have to pinch him to determine that he is, in fact,

The Real Chase Adams!

Sandra Parrotto is fascinated by self development, creative expression, intimacy & relationships.  She is the owner of Qstreet, an organizational development, leadership and coaching consulting company.  Theguidequest website, scheduled for launch in April, will provide online training and coaching career opportunities.  She can be reached at sam @ qstreet.com, on twitter @qstreet and fb as Sandra Parrotto.

Blogworld Expo Day 3: The bad news (with solutions!)

As often happens with big conferences, the third day of the BlogWorld Expo was slower. This was partly because I wanted to thoroughly go through the exhibit floor, but mainly because I was getting pretty tired. I attended much more niche-type sessions not interesting to all; specifically, “Managing Blog Groups,” and the “Science of Social Media Marketing.” The morning keynote, however, was well attended despite the late-night partying of many of the attendees, and for good reason.

“7 Harsh Realities of Blogging for Bucks” was a fairly open-format round table with Darren Rowse of Problogger, Brian Clark of Copyblogger, and Sonia Simone of Copyblogger/Remarkable Communication. While they outlined the harsh realities, they focused more on the solutions to those problems. It’s difficult to distill down their message, and I’m sure others out there have attempted the same, but I’m going to give it a try:

1.Free is not a business model – You can’t make money if you give it all away, but you’ve got to give away a lot of good content to attract people to your premium content or your products. Finding the balance can be tough, but the panel has found that the more you give away, the more people trust that your premium content/products are actually worth buying.

2.The push-button internet cash machine is on the fritz – With few exceptions, you can’t make money fast as a blogger. Like most worthy ventures, it takes time and work to build something that brings in an income. Lots of bloggers treat it as supplementary income. Don’t expect to make a six-figure income overnight, and you’ll probably be fine.

3.You can talk to everyone – It’s easy to get caught up in trying to grow your blog so quickly you lose sight of making real connections. Their advice was to get real about how many meaningful connections you can make in a day. The key word there is “meaningful.” Stretch too far too fast, and you’ll be lost in the shuffle.

4.No one wants that much authenticity – Don’t lie, but don’t get too personal. You don’t have to share everything about your life. Have some boundaries; you don’t want to creep out or bore anyone.

5.Social media hates selling – But you have to sell. Your content is your “marketing.” People love to share content, so let your awesome writing sell itself. Consider that you are offering your readers something valuable, not just pitching a deal.

6.A blog is not a business – Plenty of bloggers out there have no intention of making money. You can set up a blog with no business plan and be perfectly happy with it. But if you want to make money, you need a business plan. Treat your blog like a business, plan where you are going, and be prepared to grow with the business.

7.No one is reading your blog – There could be several reasons that no one is reading your stuff.
a.Maybe you’re not talking about something they care about. If your niche is too obscure, there just may not be a lot of audience for your subject matter. Or, maybe you’re talking about just one aspect of your subject and need to broaden your horizons.
b.You haven’t been giving it time. It takes time to build a readership. Most bloggers start out with their friends and family reading their blog. It took Darren Rowse nearly two years to get his photography blog to the place where it had a good readership and began to make money. Part of this is that you may not be spending any time to spread the word in other ways, like a strong social media presence.
c.You’ve got a good topic, but you’re not being fresh. There are new blogs coming up every day, and the hot topics get covered first. If you can find a new way to present a popular subject, you’ve won half the battle. But, if you’re copying what everyone else is doing, you could be doomed to obscurity.

I learned a ton from this very knowledgeable panel. I hope you get a a little out of my summary.
Thanks for reading,
Sherry
Starting Fresh at Forty

Making it count: Your brand, your network

Day 2 of the BlogWorld Expo 2010
Now that I’m a little recovered from the convention, I’m excited to share more about the Expo.

The best and the worst aspect had to be all the different types of sessions you could attend. There were always at least 12 different topics ranging from podcasting to food blogging. I steered away from the specialty tracks like real estate and military blogging, but I still missed out on tons of great material. That being said, here’s a little of what I did get to see:

Standout sessions for me on Friday were Mari Smith’s “The Brand of You: How to Build a Profitable Social Media Based Business,” and a panel discussion with Wendy Piersall, Cecilia Mecca, Bridgette Duplantis, and moderated by Jeremy Wright, “Harnessing the Power of Numbers: Creating a Blog Network.”

Mari Smith is a master of the personal brand. Mari’s brand is Mari, from her signature “turquoise and bling” on everything – including the podium when she spoke – to her endearing Scottish-Canadian accent. Her biggest advice is to really interact with your audience. Get out and comment on blogs, answer questions on your Facebook page, tweet about interesting subjects. She advised everyone to use their name and picture as much as possible so people feel they are interacting with a real person. The exception would be if you wish to establish a company brand to possibly sell in the future, and even then you’ll want to provide a human face behind the name.

Now, she doesn’t mean get out there and natter on about nothing. Make your engagement worthwhile for the people you are interacting with. There were two things she said that stuck with me, “Don’t shout ‘look at me,’ shout, ‘how can I help you?’” and “It’s better to have 100 highly engaged fans/followers than 10,000 who don’t give a hoot what you say.” In other words, get involved with purpose and an eye for helping others. You can have thousands of fans and followers, but if they aren’t listening to you, it doesn’t matter. And they’re not going to listen unless you provide them with a good reason.

But the most noticeable thing about Mari is that she walks the talk. She was very gracious with those who came up to speak to her. Everyone got kind words and helpful advice with a genuine smile. She sat in on sessions with her colleagues, listened, and participated. There is nothing aloof about Mari Smith; she honestly wants to help.

The three ladies from the session on creating a blog network were also extremely helpful. In fact, the networks they created – Double Duty Divas for Bridgette and Cecilia, Sparkplugging for Wendy – were all about promoting those who participated. Their attitude is that those who blog within your niche are not competition, but opportunities for support and mutual advantage. While the Divas reward with promotion and bringing advertisers and bloggers together, Wendy – who recently sold Sparkplugging – paid her bloggers for their time and posted more content aimed at the home entrepreneur.

Putting together a network of bloggers can be a rewarding experience, but all three advised that you need to screen those who join you well. Establish guidelines from the very beginning to dictate the tone and style of your network as well as to ensure the network remains honest and transparent (the Divas do a lot of product reviews which requires full disclosure.) Stick to those guidelines and don’t bend. After all, it’s your network’s – and ultimately your – reputation on the line.

Whew! That’s a lot of information and I barely scratched the surface. Stay tuned for my next installment for Day 3.

Thanks for reading!
Sherry
Starting Fresh at Forty

10 Takeaways from Day 1 of the BlogWorld Expo 2010

Good evening from day one in Las Vegas!

As my own blog is still pretty young, I figured today I would do the Problogger track and sit in on the four connected sessions by Darren Rowe and Chris Garrett. They covered creating killer content, finding readers, building community, and monetization. Basically, everything you need to know to have a successful blog. There’s a good deal of rave reviews about these guys and now I know why.

Without going into the deep particulars and trying to recreate the several hours’ worth of material, I thought I’d give you my 10 biggest takeaways from the sessions.

1.Make each post count – Garrett echoed the morning keynote speaker, Scott Stratten, when he emphasized that if you don’t have anything to say, don’t try to force meaningless filler on people. Your readers remember your last post; your previous stuff may have been killer, but if that last post was no good, they may not come back.

2.Know your audience – If you don’t know who you’re writing for, find out. Take a look around, do some research. When he began his photography blog, Rowe sat down and wrote out bios for three of the potential types of readers he expected to get, then wrote for them. It changed over time, so he tweaked the bios and still writes with them in mind.

3.Don’t write for SEO, write for people – No one is going to read your stuff just because there are a lot of keywords in it. Don’t find popular search words and write around them. If you’ve got a good post, maybe you can refine it and work some keywords in, but remember it has to be interesting and readable.

4.Get off your blog – If you want people to read and continue to read your blog, go where they hang out online and interact. Comment on other blogs, use social media, maybe guest blog a little.

5.Give back to your readers – If someone has made a comment on your blog, answer back. Acknowledge your readers by checking out their blogs and recommending them to others. Thank them for participating. Reciprocity can be a powerful tool, and it’s just polite, darn it.

6.Invite interaction – Set little challenges for your readers, ask opinions, ask for their tips and advice. In other words, build a community.

7.Start small with advertising – Got a little blog? Find little advertisers. Team up with bloggers in your niche who could offer a new advertiser a package deal, then grow as your audience does.

8.Monetize progressively, don’t be stingy – Give away a really helpful Ebook. (Yes, don’t hold back all the good stuff. They have to know you aren’t blowing smoke, you really have valuable information.) If you see people like it then go for a low-priced product. Work your way up to that big consulting contract, service or product.

9.Trust is key – People will only do business with those they trust. Don’t lie, don’t exaggerate, be up front and forthright. Don’t be a jerk (this was emphasized quite a bit today, using several different synonymous words.)

And the biggest takeaway for me today:

10.Don’t give up – Building a good blog takes time. With few exceptions, most blogs don’t gain success overnight. Rowe’s first blog took a year and a half to really get a good readership and begin to make money. There are a lot of bloggers out there; it can be tough to build a readership when so many people are attempting the same. But if you persist and have good, valuable content, you really can have a successful blog.

There are two more days of the expo, if they’re anything like today, I’m definitely getting my money’s worth. Until then, keep blogging!

Local Business Money Machine Review – Opening its Doors Again

Hi, this is Jill, George’s wife. For a bit of a change of pace, I’m going to offer the update on our experience with Local Business Money Machine.

We started with the program in June. As you know, George has been involved with internet marketing for quite some time. In spite of his grasp on the subject and the success of this blog, we’ve never found that one thing that works best for us as far as actually making money. So, after George was laid off, we came across Local Business Money Machine and thought it seemed like an excellent opportunity. And it has been. The program has opened twice now— once when we joined and again about 6 weeks later. Now, they’re opening their doors once again.

Let me start by saying we have made back every penny we’ve put into the program. We haven’t yet replaced George’s full time salary, but I think it’s realistic to expect that we’ll be able to do that by early next year, if not earlier. The program does talk about making a full time salary in three months, but I think that’s pretty aggressive.

First, it depends on what you consider full time. After 20 years of George working as a software programmer and with six children, our idea of a “full time” salary is most likely a bit higher than someone in their twenties. Second, I think it does depend somewhat on your existing business network. To get those first clients, it’s nice if you already have some inroads. The program provides lots of information on finding your first clients, but our experience has been that some of those take a bit longer. We’ve got some seeds we’ve been watering since July that we expect to finally bloom in the next couple of weeks. We started with practically no useful local business contacts, so we had to start from ground zero in that regard. Even under those circumstances, we’re in a good place for a three month old business.

As George wrote in his first post on this topic, we’re not sure about how effective this program would be for the absolute novice. I think there’s enough information there for a complete newbie, but I think it might take a bit longer to implement. However, the information provided is very clear and comprehensive. My college degree is in theater and, other than being married to George and listening to him talk, I don’t really have a technical background. The material in Local Business Money Machine has been very accessible to me. I’ve had no problems following the content and even communicating it to others.

There is a LOT of material in the program. You’d probably need about two weeks of consistent time set aside listening to the trainings to get started (a couple of hours a day, I’d say). And then you’ll need weekly time set aside to listen to the ongoing trainings, visit the forums, etc. But there’s no program out there that is going to give you a full time income just for purchasing it (run away from any that promise that). Local Business Money Machine will train YOU to be a money making machine, but it’s not going to do the work for you. It provides solid principles for getting started in a real business offering traffic services to local businesses. But it’s up to you to implement the training.

So, in summary, if the recent economy has you thinking about starting a new business full time or adding to your income by working part-time, and you enjoy this blog and learning about internet marketing, I think the Local Business Money Machine is a great blueprint for getting started in a business that is interesting, absolutely needed by local businesses and only going to grow in the future. There is a money back guarantee, so if you get it and decide it’s just not for you, you’re not stuck. If you do decide to get it and then return it, email George and let him know why. We’d be interested in knowing who the program DOESN’T work for, as we already have a good idea who it DOES work for.

If you buy the program, we’d like to help you use the program successfully. We’re offering you a Quick Start Blueprint— the parts of the program that we felt were the most critical for getting started, including our most successful networking tips and the tools (both paid and free) that we’ve found the most useful. And when you finish those trainings and have had a chance to get your feet wet, we’ll give you a 60 minute phone consultation at the end of your first month where you can ask any questions you may have.

One last thing, when you sign up for the program you’ll have the opportunity to add on a 4-Pack. We highly recommend it. The Million Dollar Presentation, alone, is worth the cost. As the networking/sales member of our team, I have used it several times, and it always wows people. I used it to do a 20 minute presentation at our local Chamber of Commerce, and the next day at another networking event, I had people who weren’t even at the presentation tell me that they’d heard it was great from other people at the Chamber. It really set us apart as a business that knew what we were talking about.

Thanks for reading. We’re really excited about our future with the program, and we’re very thankful for the opportunity it has given us. Go watch the free videos about the program and decide if it’s the right opportunity for you.

To get our bonus for the Local Business Money Machine follow the steps below:

1. Click here on our affiliate link and sign up for the program (before it closes).
2. Email your receipt for the program to us at info @ mantywebdesigns.com with the subject line “Make Money Online Blueprint”.
3. After we have verified your sign up using our affiliate link then we will contact you about the blueprint.
4. After you have been in the program for 30 days and are ready to ask us questions, set up your free phone consultation.

Get Keyword Anchored Backlinks to Make Money Online

The best way to consistently make money online is to get to the top of the search engine results (mainly Google) for the top keywords related to your website. And the best way to get to the top of the search engine results is by having a lot of keyword anchored backlinks pointing to your website.

This has always been the case but most people have forgotten this simple fact because they are too busy trying to get traffic from social networking sites. The problem is that the traffic you get from social sites is either completely worthless or very close to it. How much money have you actually made from traffic as a result of social site? I bet it’s very little! Now compare that to the people who own the sites in your niche at the top of the search engine results who are making a ton of money every day.

Let me ask you this question…

Would you rather work your butt off every day trying to get a bunch of traffic from social sites and make a little bit of money from it, or work your butt off for a few months to get high search engine rankings then sit back while you make a lot of money every day?

I will assume you picked the latter unless you enjoy working 24 hours a day!

Let’s say your website (or blog) is about making money online. You will want to be ranked on the first page of Google for several keyword phrases related to your niche. For this example some of the main ones would be:

- Make Money Online
– How to Make Money Online
– Ways to Make Money Online
– Making Money Online
– Make Money Online Free

You can use the free Google keyword tool to find as many as you want.

Now, that isn’t exactly the best example because it’s very difficult to get to the top of the search engine results for make money online related keywords. However, it’s not so hard in smaller and less competitive niches. I just chose MMO because it’s an easy one to use as an example.

How do you get those rankings?

You get them by having a lot of keyword anchored backlinks!

A keyword anchored backlink is a link pointing to your website with your main money making keywords as the text of the link. A good one would be from a high quality, high ranking, high page rank website related to your site, but almost any keyword anchored backlink is better than none.

You can get these links a lot of different ways… link exchanges, guest blogging, forum signatures, directories, article marketing, do follow blog comments, some social bookmarking sites, testimonials, contests, and several other ways.

I won’t go in-depth about any of these link building methods because there is plenty of information out there about them already and this post will be way too long if I explain them all.

Honestly making money online is not very complicated. All you have to do is rank at top of Google for as many keywords as you can, add ways to make money to your site, and watch the money roll in. It takes hard work to get there but it’s definitely not complicated.

So, make this the year you really break out and start making the kind of money you always dreamed of. Get started on gaining backlinks right now so you can dominate the search engines!

Can You Really Earn A Full Time Income Working Two Hours a Day?

Guest Post By Hendry Lee

Believe it or not, that is our industry. Thanks for the overzealous marketers who promise the sky in their sales letters, people actually believe that it is possible to setup a lousy site or blog, choose random affiliate products and make money overnight.

That’s also the reason why people jump from one opportunity to another. Starting a project is easy, but finishing it is a challenge because they begin to think everything that takes time to produce results is good for nothing.

To answer the question in the title, earning full time income working two hours a day is possible, but at the same time too unrealistic, especially for newbies.

Before I get hate email and comments below, please allow me to elaborate.

The Truth about Making Money with a Blog

A few years ago, it used to be that professional bloggers started 10-20 blogs at the same time, trying to maintain them at once. However, nowadays you will notice that all of them focus only on one or two that they are either interested / passionate about or niches that have been working well.

Creating valuable content and promoting it takes a lot of time and work. People may laugh at bloggers who are producing great content because they aren’t making money as much as others who are spamming the search engine indexes.

The truth speaks itself but I’d still recommend that you focus on the long term. Why? If you’ve ever noticed a spammy site in the search index one day, try to come back a few months later. I’d bet the page is no longer there. Building your business by producing low quality and auto-generated content in the hope that search engines will grant high rankings is like building your house on sand.

Spam sites may make a small fortune, but they have to constantly come up with new techniques to win over the search engines—which have hundreds of smart people working to improve their products every day. It will only get harder.

A business is not supposed to be successful overnight. That has always been true. As long as you provide value, you are going to make it in the end.

In most cases, bloggers who are able to make full-time income working two hours a day have the following advantages:

1. They have experience under their belts. Being Internet savvy, for instance is just one example. If you are able to learn how to use new services, capture screenshot, edit photos, use Skype and Twitter to communicate, etc. you can work faster than others. The list of these skills go on and on. It probably takes at least twice as long for average people to do the same thing.


2. Experience comes from hard work. And they have earned it. They worked hard, sometimes 12-16 hours a day, 7 days a week for years. They reach the level where they know how Internet works specific to the niche they are doing business on.


3. They have resources. As they have been around for a long time, they know people who are able to help them, even though they work alone. Networking is a critical component of blog promotion.

Obstacles You Have to Overcome

First off, making full time income by blogging is possible by working part time but it is not for beginners.

Don’t believe me? Depends on your content and traffic strategy, just take an example that you are going to create a piece of really good linkbait to be submitted to Digg.

Just browse around Digg to see which the characteristics of articles and contents that have successfully got into the front page. How long does it take for you to create such a piece?

Many bloggers would spend 4-6 hours, some others have to work on it for a few days, just to create a really good content. If you only allocate two hours a day, perhaps you should scratch Digg out of your traffic strategy.

Even if you only write average posts and focus on consistency, you need to use article marketing, guest blogging and other low cost and less time consuming strategies to get traffic. Two hours a day are barely enough to update content on your blog and promote it, let alone handling technical and administrative work.

Be prepared to work more hours at first, at least until you have loyal audience, who is going to promote your blog for you every time you update your blog.

If you are just getting started, set a more realistic goal. If you have not yet earned your first $100 online, perhaps you should do that first and go from there. As you invest more effort into it, you will be able to work faster and become more efficiently.

Patience and focus are two key factors. Blogging can be very rewarding. It allows you to work on your own schedule, writing whatever you want, and still build a business from it. For most people, that is still very worth pursuing. Some readers write me back after I revealed these truths to them, feeling discouraged about the possibilities to build a business online.

Don’t be. In fact, if you don’t buy into these myths and work toward your goal, you will reach your goal faster than if you are trapped in those fictitious believes. To tell the truth, this is something I hope others have written years ago when I was getting started.

Maximising Your SERPS Listing

Guest post by Jonathan Dawkins

Search Engine Results Pages are a critical means of ensuring more visitor traffic to your website or blog and yet they are often one of the main areas that are badly neglected by site owners.There are thousands of great articles on link building strategies, how to boost your page rank, blogging for links and the latest paid advertising approaches to get your site seen by a wider online audience, and whilst this is excellent and very valuable there is little point if your site fails to sell itself in Search Engine Results Pages once you break into the top 10.

Let me highlight my point with an example. Below are two descriptions that could be displayed in SERPS for a search on the phrase “Make Money Online.”

Description 1

“Make money online with proven techniques from Internet marketing experts. Learn how to make big money online with integrity.”

Description 2

“People enjoy it when they have the opportunity to use the internet for many different purposes including making money online, I’ve often thought that when individuals…” It is pretty obvious that the first makes full use of the description Meta tag to actively promote its business whilst the second has neglected this aspect and is vague and uninviting. It is important to remember that if you don’t insert a description for your page, Google will automatically generate one for you, but this is normally poorly organised and disjointed and mostly likely accounts for description two above. The question you have to ask yourself is who is the best person to sell your site YOU or a third party?

So how can you make your site more attractive in SERPS? This advice is mainly directed towards the Google search engine which is by far the best on the internet, but the general rules apply to other directories like Yahoo and MSN

1. View SERPS As A Sales Directory.

Too often Search Engine Results Pages are viewed by online users as information pages, when in reality they are not; they are a global sales directory. If you feel uncomfortable with writing good sales copy then delegate this to someone who can, or employ a professional copyrighter to create some short, catchy tags. Ideally you need to keep your site description to around 24 words in length as this is the approximately the maximum amount displayed in SERPS.

2. Take Your Time

Google is very upfront about its use of site description tags. It makes it clear that it DOES NOT, use the description tag to index pages in Google, but some people have interpreted this as meaning that the description tag is not important. Exactly the opposite is true. To use an analogy, description tags provide the “shop window” for your site. If your shop window looks cluttered, unorganised and unattractive, who will want to visit your site even if you have the best online content inside? So take your time and ensure that each web page is optimised for that specific tag.

3. Avoid Duplicate Description Tags

Each page description should reflect what is on that page. You should never use generic description tags for the whole of your site. Think about it, if you have a page of content about Making Money through paid surveys, what has that got in common with another page about eBay drop shipping? Tailor your page descriptions to each page, that way online visitors get the most relevant content and are more likely to click through to your site.

4. Repeat Keywords

If you have a keyword and/ or phrase for your page, then you should seek to include it at least twice in your short description. This is because when an internet user conducts a search, Google automatically highlights the keywords in bold in the results page to make them stand out. The more times your keyword is repeated the more it will stand out to an online user as a suitable page.

So we could make description 1 that we referred to early even better in the following way;

Example: With one keyword in description meta tag;

“Make money online with proven techniques from Internet marketing experts. ”

With two keywords in description meta tag; “Make money online with proven techniques from Internet marketing experts. Learn how to make big money online with integrity.”

With three keywords in description meta tag;

“Want to make money online? Make money online with proven expert techniques and learn how to make big money online with integrity.”

Now you may feel that using three keywords is excessive and that would be understandable. However, can you see just how the bold keywords will make this description stand out in Google Search Engine Results Pages. Remember that your short description tag is not trying to communicate everything about your site, it’s just there to entice online visitors and three keywords makes it more eye catching and gives the perception that your site has more relevant content. In addition we’ve added a short question right at the start to hook visitors and encourage them to read more.

5. Combine With A Good Title Meta Tag.

If you want your site description to really stand out in SERPS, ensure that you treat your title tag in the same way, as this will make your search results even more tempting to potential visitors;

For example:

Make Money Online – Make Money Online With Integrity

“Want to make money online? Make money online with proven expert techniques and learn how to make big money online with integrity.”

The combination of the use of keywords in the title tag and repeated three times in the description meta tag make this site stand out and is a powerful marketing tool for your website or blog.

Summary
So how about spending a few hours doing some housekeeping this week on your site and ensuring that you make maximum use of your description meta tag. My experience is that it has increased visitor traffic to my site by between 15% within 1 week of doing this. Let me know how it works for you and if you notice a difference by leaving a comment on this post.

Finally, a big thanks to George for letting me use his meta tag description for this blog as an example for illustrative purposes.

5 Advantages Of Becoming A Guest Blogger

Guest Post by Matthew Tutt

You have just created one of the best blogs that the Internet has ever seen. But now what?

How do you expect to get anyone to notice this site?

It may well be the best site ever created, or it may contain the meaning of life somewhere on the page, but can you expect anyone to notice it in the first place?

This is one of the trickiest obstacles to overcome when you first set up your own website or blog. You can’t expect instant search engine traffic or get good SERPS for your site because it is still brand new. Unless your domain name is one which is randomly typed by Internet users, you can’t really expect to get any kind of traffic at all.

One of the best and easiest ways of getting your site (and yourself) noticed on the Internet is by becoming a guest blogger. This is simply when you have some kind of a deal in place with another already well-established blog and you agree to write interesting, related articles in return for a link back to your own blog or website. The blog owner is getting free (hopefully) unique content and you are receiving free publicity for your own blog. Everyone is happy.

Here Are Some Of The Many Advantages Of Becoming A Guest Blogger:

1. You Can Get Your Website/Blog Noticed For Free Nearly Instantly
   It costs you nothing to write an article, but will obviously involve a little bit of your time. This should be time well spent though, and guest blogging probably gives more advantages to your site/blog then by paying for some kind of advertisements. Also once you have written the article and have submitted it to the blog it is ready to go live on the site (might take a few hours for the blog owner to check it through and then submit it). This means that you can get almost instant traffic to your own site/blog.
2. You Can Tap Into Related Markets
   Say you had a blog which contained dog training advice. You wouldn’t then find a blog about financial advice and ask to become a guest blogger. Why would the readers of the financial advice blog want to read your articles about teaching your dog how to stop biting people? You should find a blog which is in the same niche as your own blog/site, and then ask to become a guest blogger. Then the articles that you create will be of interest to the blog readers, who in turn will be much more likely to visit your website as it is related to the same subject, which is obviously of interest to the reader.
3. Show Off Your Skills And Mark Your Authority On A Subject
   Perhaps you feel you are highly talented at writing on your blog, or perhaps you are highly knowledgeable of a specific topic. This is all very well, but if no-one goes to your site then no-one will ever notice you. This is why guest blogging is an excellent way of showing off your skills or your authority on a subject. As a guest blogger you are instantly in touch with the readers of a blog, so you now have a direct chance of impressing the readers of that blog – who should appreciate your work, and may in turn feel inclined to visit your own blog/site.
4. Free Backlinks For SEO Purposes
   If you are guest blogging on a site which as a good PageRank and which has good SERPS, you will be gaining some powerful backlinks to your own site. As a guest blogger you should be allowed to place a few links back to your site/blog from within the blog-post you have written, and the search engines will see these links and this will hopefully improve your search engine position. A higher position in the search engines will obviously result in more visitors to your pages.
5. Improve Your Writing Skills
   Although many people may not really care about their own writing skills, it is still an important aspect of guest blogging. As a guest blogger you will get (hopefully) a few chances of impressing the visitors of that blog, so you have to make your blog posts interesting and exciting. If your writing is poorly constructed or boring to read then chances are no-one is going to bother taking a look at your blog/site. You should adapt and improve your writing when it comes to guest blogging as you will only have a limited space in which to show off your skills, and if you don’t impress then you won’t gain much from becoming a guest blogger.

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