There are many different ways to build links but one of the most popular is by using services that help you do it. They come in various forms but typically what they do is distribute content (articles) that you write to numerous directories, blogs, web 2.0 properties, and other websites. They can work really well as a part of your overall backlinking strategy.

Here are 5 of the most popular of these link building services for you to consider:

1) Free Traffic System – I put this one first because it is completely free, easy to use, and works surprisingly well. It’s certainly not the best service of its kind but it does work, and you can’t beat the price. It’s definitely worth trying out.

2) Unique Article Wizard – This is one of the most well-known of all the link building (article marketing) services. It is also widely regarded as one of the best. You get a lot of link volume with UAW so you need to be careful not to overdo it.

3) Linxboss – It takes the least amount of work out of all the services on this list. You don’t have to write or spin any articles like you do with the others. All you do is plug in your link information and the system takes care of the rest. It’s relatively expensive and you don’t get a ton of links, but it can be very useful and you don’t have to spend any extra time writing.

4) Backlink Solutions – Here is one that’s balanced between the others as far as price, effort, and usefulness are concerned. They were one of the first link building services of this type and they’ve had their ups and downs, but have remained a solid choice. However, they aren’t accepting new members right now, so you have to join their waiting list if you want to use them in the future.

5) Linkvana – This one probably requires the most time/effort and it’s the most expensive, but it can work really well. They used to be THE place to go for this type of link building service but many others have caught up and even surpassed them. It’s still one of the best but not nearly as highly recommended as it once was.

Using any or all of these services should help your search engines rankings if you use them wisely and correctly. Don’t go blasting a million links to a new site from every service you can find. Doing things like that can often times do more harm than good.

I should also point out that you don’t necessarily need to use any type of service to help you build backlinks and you shouldn’t rely solely on them if you do use them. You can do it all yourself without spending any money and you should spread your links out among many different strategies. There are plenty of free ways to do it. However, using a service on the list above can certainly help quite a bit and make things a lot easier on you.

Alright, that’s it. Get going on your link building in one way or another right now. Your website traffic stats and bank account will thank you!

What do you think? At what point does a blog become a business and have to pay the required fees?

I didn’t want to. It was lame. I didn’t need it. Why should I? Then I joined about 18 months ago. How did I ever live without Facebook? And now I think that any business without a Facebook page is missing out on a monumental opportunity! Do you also want Google to exclude you from the search results?

I still don’t use Twitter a lot. Oh, sure I feed our Facebook page to it, but I leave most of the interacting to George. However, that will probably come to an end sometime in the next couple of months. Once I get a firm grasp on Linked In and Four Square— I need those for particular clients. But Twitter’s next.

So, why am I telling you all of this? Because I want you to know it’s not too late. If you don’t yet have a Twitter or a Facebook account, it’s okay. You haven’t missed the social media parade. In fact, it’s really just getting started.

For businesses, it’s often not that beneficial to be an early adopter. The best time for businesses to adopt a technology is around it’s peak. It’s usually easier (and cheaper) to get training at that point. Your clients and potential customers are already informed about the technology, so you don’t have to convince them that they should WANT to “like” you on Facebook. And there are plenty of people who are already knowledgeable to whom you can outsource the parts of social media that you don’t like or don’t have time to keep up with.

So, if you’ve been avoiding social media, you don’t have to continue to do so. There are some very simple and very effective ways to use Facebook, Twitter, blogging, Linked In and more that will help you make money online and won’t keep you from actually running your business. I’ll be introducing some simple tips and tricks over the coming weeks and months. So, make sure to check back often. But for right now, go sign up for Facebook and Twitter— and throw in LinkedIn while you’re at it. Leave a note down below if you’ve signed up recently, or if you don’t yet have an account and let me know what was/is holding you back.

Anyway, last July I started doing this “online thing” full time.

I know you might wondering:

So how has that worked out for you?

Have you replaced your nice regular paycheck at HP yet?

Well, yes I have!

Well actually it’s “yes we have”!

My wife Jill and I are running a web design and web marketing company, and we have fully replaced my salary. Now, mind you it’s a lot of work. We both put in about 30 hours of work every week, which amounts to a total of 60 hours a week between the two of us. So it’s not a cake walk by any means.

Right now, Jill handles most of the sales and networking, as well as managing our web design contractors and most of our web design client interaction. If that wasn’t enough, she’s busy becoming our social media expert. I’m in charge of the SEO, PPC, Internet marketing plans, managing our Internet marketing contractors, handling the business operations and the client interactions for our marketing clients. We do quite a bit of overlapping work when it comes to interacting with clients, acquiring joint venture partners and building relationships. It’s been working out really well for us, and the future is looking pretty amazing.

So, yes we have been able to make money online and so can you! In the coming months I will talk a lot more about some of the factors that have helped us build a successful business.

Before I Go!

Before I leave, I just wanted to say that I really do want to help you succeed, BUT everyday I get questions from people wanting FREE advice, and neither my wife or I have the time to answer everyone’s questions personally. If I answered every question I got I would have no time to run a business and no time to spend with my family. So, please don’t be offended if you email us and don’t get an answer in response.

We DO answer many questions posted in the comments in response to a post. We’ll also sometimes answer particularly unique questions in a blog post. And, of course, the content we create for this site is free. But if you have a pressing need for our expertise and want our personalized help in building your business, you can hire us for phone or in person consulting or training. Phone consulting is currently $200/hour (as of August, 2010), but we can help you save hours of looking for an answer online and trying to figure out things on your own.

If you’re anything like my wife, you’re probably thinking “Whoa, Nelly! $200 for the ‘privilege’ of speaking to one of the Mantys for an hour?” Let me explain how the process works. When you contact us to set up a phone consultation, you’ll send us 4-5 questions that can be answered in an hour (ranking them in order of importance, in case time runs out). We’ll then research the answers to your questions— we don’t charge you for that time. So, your “one hour” phone consultation may, in reality, take as many as four or five hours of our time.

Of course, if you have a business and are considering hiring us to design a website or for marketing services, we provide a one hour free consultation. However, that isn’t designed to be a time to answer all of your questions. It’s primarily a time where we can assess how we can best help you and which of our services are likely to benefit you the most. While you may get some useful hints and information out of it, if you want to “do it yourself” and just need direction, you’re much better off paying for a phone consult.

Anyway, we look forward to helping you succeed online and if you would like to see us build a step by step program on making a living online or any other type of program let us know in the comments below.

Too many people think that making money online is easy or that they are going to get rich just by signing up for some program or buying an ebook. I can’t really blame them most of the time because that’s what they are led to believe by shady marketers and flat out scammers. But the truth is actually the complete opposite… It’s very difficult to make a living online!

Sure, you might be able to earn a little money without a lot of effort. But if you are looking to actually build a full-time income on the internet then you better be ready to do a lot of learning, a lot of hard work, and spend a lot of time before you get there. Having some money to invest into your online business will be very helpful as well. If it were easy then everyone would do it and nobody would have any money problems. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t work that way. So, you can’t go into it with the attitude of getting rich quickly or easily. It’s not going to happen!

What it really comes down is your money making mindset. If you truly believe you will succeed, and you are more than willing to put in the time and effort needed, and get up from all failures, you will be able to make a living online. Know that you will have to work hard to get there but it can be done. Nothing can stop you if completely you believe in yourself and never give up!

One of the absolute best ways to market your website and increase your search engine rankings is through guest blogging. Every time you get a guest post published you are getting high quality backlinks to help push your site up the search engines as well as targeted traffic directly from the post itself. In addition to that, you are doing a form of networking with other bloggers in your niche which helps tremendously in building a name for yourself and getting your foot in the door for future partnerships.

There are many internet marketers who have built incredibly successful sites with high rankings, lots of traffic, thousands of subscribers, and great monthly earnings almost exclusively from guest blogging. It really can be that powerful if done correctly.

How do you do it? Simple…

You just seek out blogs in the same niche as yours (and similar niches) and check to see if they accept guest posts. Often times it will be obvious if they do because they will have a very visible link to a page explaining their guest blogging rules and how to send the posts. Other times it won’t be so obvious so you might have to dig around to see if they accept guest posts or contact the owner to ask if they will. Make your message very personal to show you are sincere and actually checked out their blog before contacting them. If it’s a spammy message or obvious that you sent it in bulk, you will certainly get rejected.

A large percentage of bloggers will accept guest posts if you contact them about it, even if they hadn’t thought of it before or don’t make it obvious that they do. They are getting free original content without doing any work or spending any money for it, so it benefits them to accept. But many won’t for whatever reason so you should expect some rejection. If they don’t then just thank them for their time and move on.

When you do find blogs to write for then be sure to write very high quality posts that the owners are likely to publish and their visitors want to read. Become very familiar with each individual blog. Look at what type of content they have on it and their style of writing, so you are sure to write something that fits well with their blog. Match the quality of their content or even go above it to ensure you are up to their standards and set yourself apart from other bloggers who are also sending them posts.

Don’t forget to proofread your post several times and put it through a spelling/grammar checker before sending it. The last thing anyone wants on their blog is a post full of mistakes so that is a sure way to get your posts rejected.

Another very important thing to remember is to only send them 100% original content written by you and not published anywhere else. This is vital to being successful with guest blogging! Nobody wants content sent to them that is copied or posted elsewhere. I can almost guarantee you they will check so don’t try to slip anything by them either.

Guest blogging is great way to market your website and it benefits both parties. The blog owner gets excellent content for free and you get more exposure for your site. I highly recommend you use it as a part of your internet marketing strategy.

I have decided to bring Can I Make Big Money Online back this month. Over the course of the next year you will see more changes, but the biggest change is that one of my regular contributors, Trent Brownrigg, of Internet Marketing Business Strategies and How to Make Money Online (and many other sites) will be partnering with me to bring you some of the best advice on making money on the web. Trent has made a lot of money online and I am sure you will enjoy his writing.

We look forward to providing you with great advice going forward.

This is what we’ve discovered so far. No offense to Local Business Money Machine, which has been a complete blessing this past year and really helped us get off the ground and headed in the right direction, but this is a MUCH better program. Of course, it’s about three times as expensive, so that’s something you’ll need to take into consideration. But, especially if you’re a “newbie”, this program breaks everything down into very manageable chunks. And the videos are incredibly professional (what else would you expect from the guys at Traffic Geyser) and even entertaining.

In fact, this program is broken down so well, that I am going to try my hand at some of the technical parts of it. I’m going to create a landing page myself and see whether someone who’s technically capable but completely unpracticed can do this. I won’t get it done in time to tell you the results before the program closes, but the fact that I’m willing to even TRY is a testimony to this program. Keep in mind that when I graduated from high school, I asked that my parents give me a typewriter instead of a computer, and I usually tell people that “I eat breakfast and talk to people, and George does all the work.” Perhaps I’ll no longer be able to say that

What else have we discovered? We would have paid as much for the level of Traffic Geyser membership included as we paid for the entire Main Street Marketing program. So, even if you’re thinking about trying out Traffic Geyser, go this route instead. You’ll get not only the great video marketing training that Traffic Geyser includes but marketing materials for your new business; over 40 hours of video training by everyone from Mainstreet Marketing success stories (they really do tell you EXACTLY what they did to be successful, even role playing some of the client approach strategies they use) to Bill Glazer; planners; free report templates; fill in the blanks autoresponders… I really could go on and on.

Is this program for everyone? I would still say “no”. There are plenty of people who won’t implement the steps and won’t follow the program. If this is you (you know who you are), don’t buy this program. If you don’t like interacting with people, and you’re not willing to take on a partner who can handle the client interactions, this probably isn’t the program for you. I think, however, that it is appropriate for people with varying skill levels when it comes to internet marketing. You do need some degree of comfort with technology, in general. But if you’ve ever blogged at all or are comfortable with Facebook, then you should do fine.

Like Local Business Money machine, you’ll need some time to set aside for this. The Traffic Geyser trainings are pretty quick and easy. There are eight lessons in the Express Lane training. The longest lesson I’ve seen so far is about 15 minutes. Then there are assignments that go along with those, which I think will take a minimum of 30 minutes to a couple of hours. So, you’ll need around 15-20 hours, probably to get through those trainings. And then, of course, you’ll need to go through the Main Street Marketing steps. Plus, making the pages and acquiring your clients. In other words, don’t think you’re going to buy this and five minutes later start depositing checks in your bank account. But, really, if any of you HAVE discovered a system that works that way, you should contact George about writing for this blog because clearly you’ve found a way to make money grown on trees and a quick way to harvest it.

I do think that you should be able to get through enough training and start implementing the program and figure out whether it works within your 30 day trial. That is, of course, if you don’t wait until day 25 to get started. And that’s my recommendation to you. If you’re interested, buy the program. Work the program for the next 30 days (no excuses— just get busy). If you realize it’s not for you, there’s no way you’re going to do it, you haven’t even opened the files— for crying out loud, return the program! It’s risk free if you’ll just take that step if you aren’t using it.

So, in summary, are we abandoning Local Business Money Machine and switching to Main Street Marketing? No. We’ll do a hybrid of the two for our business model because we’re already making money with Local Business Money Machine. There is a lot of overlap in these two programs, as they both target Local Search marketing opportunities. However, there are some areas that are mentioned in less detail in Local Business Money Machine that we haven’t really pursued as much as we could have (including doing more direct marketing and, of course, video marketing). These are the areas where we’ll be using Main Street Marketing Machines. Do I think you can use Main Street Marketing Machines without Local Business Money Machine? Absolutely!! It’s a completely different model and will stand on it’s own with no problem.

So, take some time to think about it. Write down the pros and cons, where you want to be a year from now and whether your current path is going to get you there. Then, if you think this is a good match for you, buy it! I think you’ll be glad you did.

P.S. Oh, and if you have any questions about the program that you’d like answered before tomorrow, let us know. We’ll be checking comments for the next couple of days pretty regularly so that we can answer anything that will help you make a decision.

PPS. To get our Main Street Marketing Machines Bonus, please remember to use our affiliate link by clicking here. Then send an email to info @ mantywebdesigns .com with a copy of your receipt. Once we have verified that you purchased through our link we will contact you to set up a one hour phone consultation with us to answer any of your questions after you have used the program for at least 30 days. Also, we will follow that call up with an email to check on your progress.

Please, let us know if you have any questions about our Main Street Marketing Machines review.

As most of you know, about a year ago my wife, Jill, and I invested in the Local Business Money Machine program. Since then, we’ve built a successful business utilizing that system. We’ve posted about the system before, and we still think it’s a good one, but one of the weaknesses we’ve pointed out is that we think it’s not an ideal match for absolute beginners.

Now there’s a new system that looks similar to the Local Business Money Machine with some noticeable differences that will make this program so much easier for those who are true beginners. Check out the first videos by clicking here:

http://www.mainstreetmarketingmachines.com/cmd.php?af=32477

Many of the materials are ones that we would utilize and that we may have to create ourselves eventually, so we think that any cost up to $5000 will pay for itself. While we’re not 100% sure yet whether we will be signing up (we are at about 99%), we are absolutely sure that anyone who is interested in starting a business helping market local businesses should consider this program. And if you’re already running this type of business, you should check out the materials in the program to see if this would complement your current business plans. You’ve got nothing to lose by checking out the following free video, so head over there right now.

http://www.mainstreetmarketingmachines.com/cmd.php?af=32477

If we do sign up tomorrow, as I’m currently planning to do, I’ll take a quick look at what’s included and give you a thumbs up/thumbs down report, hopefully before the program closes.

MY BONUS:

If you sign up using my affiliate link above then send me an email of your receipt and once I have verified that you purchased through my link I will contact you to set up a one hour phone consultation with Jill and/or I to answer any of your questions after you have used the program for at least 30 days. Also, I will follow that call up with an email to check on your progress.

Note: Some of the links above are affiliate links and I will make money if you buy from them.

UPDATE:

I just bought the Main Street Marketing Machines program. It should take me about week to test it out. If it looks like the doors are closing sooner then I will try to get a post out about what I think so far and will leave occasional comments on this post about it.

PS. Be sure to use my affiliate link for my Main Street Marketing Bonus.

Well…

I have really enjoyed writing on this blog over the years. More than that, I have enjoyed all the friends and relationships I have built up over that time as a result of this blog.

However, it’s time for me to take a break from this blog. I considered many options that would keep this blog running smoothly without my interaction, but after a lot of thought and prayer I decided it was time for the blog to go on hiatus. If I decide to start it back up again, it will be a VERY different blog and by different I mean unique. But before I get to that I want to let you know some of the reasoning that went behind this decision…

Focus

My business success really turned around when my friend Austin Davis (of My Honest Mechanic) told me “You have to focus!” Austin is an extremely successful affiliate marketer who focuses on one niche and dominates it. He told me the secret to his success is focusing on that one niche and being the best in that niche.

Lately, I have been mostly focused on building our web design and web marketing business. We have had a lot of success due in large part to our focus on Mantyweb Designs and nothing else. However, with most of my focus on the web design business I just can’t put in enough effort to make this blog what I ultimately want it to be.

I strongly believe that focusing 100% of my efforts on Mantyweb Designs will pay off in a big way. While I did consider having someone else take over the day to day tasks of running this blog, it would still require some of my attention, which would have taken focus off my new business.

The Two Tribes

If you haven’t read Brian Clark’s post about the two tribes you should go do that now by clicking here and then come back to finish this post. The two tribes post on CopyBlogger is one of the best blog posts (if not the best blog post) that I read last year.

In the post, Brian talks about the two tribes in Internet marketing. I have struggled trying to placate members of the “cool kids” tribe, while knowing that the only way to make real money online was to do more of what the “internet marketing” tribe says to do. The truth of the matter is that I am not comfortable with EITHER tribe. I have tried finding a balance between the two, and it’s not easy. Some of my friends fall into one tribe or the other. There are some Internet marketers like Brian Clark and Michel Fortin who have managed to walk the tight rope that is the middle tribe (something Brian is now calling the “Third Tribe”), but it’s a very tricky path. You have to be careful not to swing too far in either direction. To quote Brian:

I wonder, though, if there’s any possible way a tribe could come together that was about building real businesses online without being cheesy, sleazy, or tacky? Could a tribe form around ethical business practices, effective persuasive communication that actually sells something, respectful relationships with customers, and a commitment to keeping the White Hat on at all times?

That’s what I have been trying to do and if I ever take this blog off of a hiatus, being part of the third tribe will be one of it’s primary goals. (Note, a few days after I wrote my initial draft of this message, I got a message about joining the “Third Tribe” membership site and have done so, although I have not had the time to see whether it is worthwhile or not).

Providing Value

I can’t provide you enough value right now, because I am focusing every spare minute on providing our clients value above and beyond their expectations. Which is one of the reasons I have to focus on our new business.

Where can you find me now?

Our blog:

http://mantywebdesigns.com/blog/

My wife Jill and I write about many of the same topics that would come up on this blog on our new blog. The focus is more on small business owners, but in my opinion if you are trying to make money online, you need to consider yourself a small business owner. In other words, our new blog is perfect for you. Click here to check it out.

My Newsletter

I will continue to give occasional tips on my newsletter and let you know when any good, ethical products come along. I won’t be promoting anything that I believe will be a waste of your money (in other words, I won’t be promoting a lot of stuff).

What would I do if I reopened the blog?

6-12 months down the road I may revisit the situation. If I do ever open this blog up again it will be for the right reasons. If I do re-open the blog it’s focus will be on making money online without compromising your values. It will also likely have an interesting twist and it is likely that I won’t be the main writer for the blog. The main thing is that I won’t re-open this blog unless I believe that I can bring a unique perspective to the make money online world. I do have a plan that I feel would do that, but it’s not the right time for me to be doing anything else other than growing my internet marketing and web design company.

Blessings to all of you,
George Manty

http://winterolympicsnews.com/

They are both excellent writers, so if you are interested in a unique take on this year’s Olympic Games then click here to check them out.

Also, I wanted to let you know that I have a couple of important announcements to make in the next week or two. One of which is about the future of this blog… so stay tuned!

If you want to see our review of the program check it out by clicking here. And, yes our local Internet marketing business is still doing very well.

We will still offer you the same bonus if you sign up through our affiliate link.

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.

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 their email list. Then when it opens 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.

And yes, Daniel is a friend, and yes that is an affiliate link and I do get paid if you click on it and buy his product. That said, I honestly believe that Online Profits is a good, solid training program for those new to Internet marketing. Click here to check it out.

PS. Only 300 memberships are being sold, so don’t wait go check it out now.

http://mantywebdesigns.com/blog/2010/01/great-example-of-viral-marketing/

So, what do you think? Can you do something like this online? If so, then what are you waiting for?

Daniel’s new ebook is called, “Ten Deadly Business Mistakes” and it’s both a very good and a pretty quick read. You can download it by clicking here and following the directions on his site.

Mistakes number 2 and 8 in his book are the biggest mistakes I have made in the past that really held back my business. Go read the ebook and let me know your biggest mistakes.

PS. Yes, Daniel is a friend, and yes most of the links in this post are my affiliate links that will pay me money if you sign up for his course.

I realize that our new blog covers a lot of the same topics that I cover here. The main difference between the two blogs is that this blog is aimed more at individuals and that blog is aimed more at business owners. Due to the success of our business I am brainstorming ways to change Can I Make Big Money Online next year to fit into our business plans and at the same time offer more valuable content for you.

So, click here to check out our new blog and let us know what you think about it.

If you want to see our review of the program check it out by clicking here. We will still offer you the same bonus if you sign up through our affiliate link.

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.

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 their email list. Then when it opens 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.

Here are the steps to take in order to make money from this method:

1) Buy a domain that already has existing PageRank (PR).

There are plenty of places to buy domains for cheap that already have PR so this step is not nearly as difficult as it may sound at first. A good place to find them quickly and very low cost is the digitalpoint forums domain sales section. But you can also get them at sitepoint, sedo, the domain name aftermarket, and many other places.

The important things are that it has valid PR and is either generic enough to be used with any type of content or is niche specific so you can just put that type of content on it. I also wouldn’t buy one that didn’t at least have a PR3 unless it was a perfect domain in every other way. This is because you can get them for relatively cheap and the higher the PR the more value it will have in the eyes of potential buyers.

2) Put a blog and some content up on the domain.

You need to put content up on the domain in the form of a static website or a blog. I recommend a blog because it will be easier to update and will be easier to sell. You will also be more likely to get a higher amount of money for a blog.

If the domain you bought is generic then do some research to figure out what niches are hot sellers right now and build the blog and content around that niche. All you have to do browse around flippa.com for a few minutes to figure that out. If the domain you bought is niche specific then you obviously will want to write content based on that particular niche.

I recommend writing at least 10 high quality posts or pages of content. Put some time and thought into the writing because it will help a lot when you flip it. You’ll probably need to do some quick research online to figure out what topics on the niche to write about.

3) Do some marketing.

Since you bought an aged domain with existing PR it should already have some backlinks and maybe even some traffic coming to it. You don’t want to spend much time or any money marketing it because the point of this is to flip it and make money with the least amount of effort as possible. However, it will only help if you do some marketing. You could do a run of bookmarking it on several social sites and submit a few articles to directories with links pointing to it. Both of those are free and can be done pretty quickly.

4) Flip for profit.
Now it’s time to flip it to make money. Head over to flippa.com or another site selling marketplace and put it up for auction. I recommend keeping it for a couple months before you do this though. But make sure you continue building them during that time so you always have some ready to flip after the initial waiting period is up.

Some people will call this site flipping and others will call it domain flipping, I don’t really consider it to be either one but more of a combination of the two. Whatever you want to call it just know that it’s a great way to make money without spending too much time or effort to do so.

All of the people I have known who have had a successful business online have committed to it. Many of them even quit their jobs before starting their business because they understood the importance of commitment. While I don’t recommend you leave your job, I do recommend that you commit yourself to making your business successful. Without commitment it will likely fail. Set some hard deadlines and stick to them.

2. Focus
I have talked about the importance of focus before (see this post). Until I focused on making money with one business (our web marketing and design business), success was elusive.

Now that my wife and I are running a successful business I don’t want to lose focus on that business or it might stop growing. Focus is one of the biggest factors in our success this year and it will continue to be one of the biggest factors in our ongoing success.

3. Time Management
Changing the way I managed my time has made a huge difference in my productivity. Now that I only check my email after I have completed 2 hours worth of important work, my productivity has greatly increased. I learned this and other techniques from various sources, including a very good book on the topic. If you are looking for great time management tips without spending a ton of money, I highly recommend the book, “Getting Things Done”, by David Allen. You can buy a copy at most bookstores or check it out for free at your local library.

One of the other things I did to improve my time management is to create a daily and weekly todo list. I manage the todo list with a very simple free online tool called Voo2Do. At the beginning of each week I create a new todo list with the highest priority items being done earliest in the week to make sure that they get done. In my case, that means that marketing tasks for our clients are done at the beginning of the week. You can also organize your days that way, with the highest priority items being done first and your less high priority items (like checking email) coming later in the day. I also leave some space towards the end of the week for those tasks that get bumped down the priority list by things that required immediate attention, like proposals for clients. Making good use of your time makes a big difference in your business success.

Now, there was a fourth factor that both Jill and I consider to be a bigger factor than any other factor… our belief in God. While everyone may not embrace this view, I do believe that prayer played an important role in our success.

Those were the three things that I did to have a successful 2009, what were the things you did to improve your business?

PS. This post was part of a my friend Daniel’s writing project (Daniel is one of those people I knew who quit his job before starting an online business). You can read all about his project by clicking here.

Summing it up is very simple. Magic wands are things you just wave around and POOF, instant results. They’re very entertaining…as fictional props in magic shows. In your way of thinking, not so much.

Generally speaking, the magic wand mentality can be defined with two erroneous points:

1.) There is some magical, but elusive, solution that will take you from nothing to prosperity in your online business.

2.) If you don’t know what that solution is, you can’t get anywhere.

This way of thinking serves to cause two hindrances as far as making money online goes. It makes you very susceptible to scams and people promising magic wands, and it keeps you from taking the real, but not so magical steps to make your business grow. In fact, you may get so frustrated looking for magic wands, you burn out and give up on it.

There is no magic wand to making money online. There are things that work, things that work best for you, and things that don’t. The trick is to find what works for you, perfect your technique with it, and then continue to work it until the cash starts to flow. From there, you just keep working it to make more money.

Resist the trap of believing that there is some magic way to suddenly have an online income. It will keep you out of trouble and prevent you from burning out over misspent efforts trying to find magic wands.