What I Didn’t Learn At School

Here is a great list of articles that I really enjoyed this week. It’s a great variation of  marketing and branding articles and self improvement articles. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Brand = User Experience: The Interface of a Cheeseburger
Smashing Magazine did a great article where they focus on branding together with user experience. They use a Mc Donald’s cheeseburger as a great example. It’s actually a web designer starts in a McDonald’s, where he discovers that there is a worm hole between the world of Branding and User Experience Design. Years later he learns that it is the Interface that connects both worlds. This is the first part in a series.

Conquering the Intimidation Factor
Blogging Tips.com is a great blog that is giving your just that. This week I read a great article from Larry Brooks on how it feels like to get started with blogging. There is the thing about all the new terms that gets thrown at you every day. And then you have the blogging superstars that we aspire to blog with and for them, and we wonder why they don’t answer our emails or respond to our clever commentary on their sites. A great article that gives a great insight of a bloggers worlds.

Facebook Humor: Funny Facebook Cartoons
Techie Buzz did a funny Friday Humor post this week and it was all about Facebook Humor. So go ahead, feast your eyes and ROFL (Roll on the floor laughing) while you view these funny images and cartoons for Facebook, and of course our funnier commentary to go with it.

Create a Stylish Social Networking Set of Side Tabs for Your Blog
Human 3rror posted a great article on how to make a very cool and stylish social networking set so you can put on your blog. A super duper tutorial with all the code ready for you to copy and paste. This is for you more advanced bloggers out there..

Make Professional Multimedia PDF Portfolios with Adobe Acrobat 9
Wow.. looks like Adobe Acrobat 9 is going to bring digital products to the next level. Or what do you think? Now you can fill your e-books up with videos and 3d graphic. Check out the video to see all of the new features in action!

I was visiting Gary Simpson’s blog today as I often do. Mostly I visit the TheGazzMan’s blog to get motivated and to see that I’m on the right track. Gary is one of the top students of the first Alex Jeffreys course at least in my mind he is a true leader.

Anyhow, this time when I was visiting his blog I find him giving Internet Marketing tips naked in a spa at his luxury apartment suite at the Luxor Casino in Las Vegas. He was really kicking some ass in Vegas with his many small but good Marketing Tips videos. Take a look at the crazy tub video here…

The crazy thing was not finding Gary Simpson in the tub. The crazy thing was to know that I did something similar just a couple of months ago in a video that I shared with my own mailing list. (See the picture under)

So What is it With Marketers Being Naked in The Tub?
I needed to ask myself that question. Gary is enjoying his bubbles when sipping Jack Daniel’s, I have less bubbles but I’m enjoying my local beer Hansa. We both talk about important stuff and sharing some good knowledge about success. And then I realize it! It is representing the new way of living. A super cool lifestyle where you are free to do what ever you want and where ever you want. (Just follow the local laws)

When you have a business that you can run from your computer anywhere in the world, you can have a lifestyle like this. – So the lifestyle of an Internet Marketer is to always be naked in a tub somewhere?  It is if you want it to. I can’t speak for Gary, but I know I love to do other things as well like rock climbing and exclusive wine tasting.

Are you ready to get started?
Well this weekend, starting 24th of October, I’ll give away a special gift so that you can get started yourself. All I can say is that it’s going to be FREE and filled with High Valued content! (And I will not be naked in a tub) Look out for more spoilers in the following days..

In the meantime, enjoy the pictures of me and Gary, and visit Gary’s Blog so that he doesn’t get mad at me for using his naked pictures on my blog… hehe..

I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not. But I wanted to let everyone know about it incase you still haven’t heard about the new game rules that are shaking the Internet Marketing world as we know it today. I’m talking about Government Organization and how you should be focusing on the three little letters F. T. C.
The FTC, Federal Trade Commission in USA has made some major changes and you better pay close attention to them!

So what’s this all about?
Well the FTC have created some new regulations that affect all marketers. Online or ofline and yes, they affect you even if you don’t live in the USA.

If this is totally new for you I’ll recommend that you start reading it here:
FTC Publishes Final Guides Governing Endorsements, Testimonials

Let’s break it down
The two biggest changes or new guidelines has to do with Endorsements and disclosure, and Testimonials. This will change the Affiliate Marketing industry a lot.

If you promote an affiliate product, even if it’s something you give away for free and is not getting paid for, you mus be fully disclosed or you will get hit in the face for misleading adverting. That means you can no longer hide an affiliate link on your site or on an email without telling your visitors that if they signup you will get paid when they buy the product. Even if you are just promoting a free download of an e-book, if the marketer is offering something on the back end that you will earn money on you still need to tell your visitor. If not, it’s misleading advertising.

Even more important is the guideline for using testimonials.  And I’m very sure that this one will totally change the game. It’s not enough to write on your product page that “results are not typical”. You know, the normal disclaimer. If you are selling a product now you need to let your buyers know what the average buyer will achieve!

I’m very sorry for my language here but.. WTF?

This will destroy many niches and markets. It’s nearly impossible to tell. Training, diet and making money online. It all depends on people taking action or not. If you just control your “inner whiner” that always tell you that you can’t do it and listen to your “inner winner” you will succeed.  But you see, I cant write that as an average on any product.

Looking forward to some smart marketer that comes up with a “creative” way to get around this new guidelines.

So what to do?
Follow the new guidelines! Be honest with people. Tell them if they find the product interesting you will earn a commission. I’m very sure that you will still be able to sell infoproducts without testimonials.

Finalwords
You should really read the FTC brief yourself. I’ll link it up here again. I’m not an attorney you need to seek your own legal counsel on what to do. This is just information on what’s happening in the marketing world and I thought you should know.

If it’s good or bad for the Internet Marketing industry, I guess time will show. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Here is a great list of blog posts that I really enjoyed reading this week. I will try to give you a list like this every week so that you can see what I read. If you want to be on my list, have a blog post you think I will be interested in, please contact me.

5 Ways To Schedule Your Tweets
Being able to schedule a tweet in advance can really come in handy for various reasons. Maybe you might need to send yourself reminders or want to schedule birthday or holiday greetings in advance, so you don’t forget. Many also use tweet schedulers to promote products and affiliates or to help them monetize Twitter. Whatever the case may be, it’s good to have an easy to use, reliable service that you can depend on. So, here are five tools that can do the job for you.

Internet Marketing Tips #7 – Gary Simpson
This is video #7 of the Internet Marketing series. If you have been following them then you will get a good idea about what Las Vegas looks like – in and out of the Casinos. And you would also have gotten a lot of great Internet Marketing Tips from my friend Gary Simpson.

Top 5 Characteristics of an Entrepreneur
On the internet, the characteristics of an entrepreneur are no different from the real world. You still need to put in some time and effort to make any money online. You’re running a business, after all. It might not be the brick-and-mortar business your parents are used to but it is still a business. That means the key personal characteristics which mark a successful entrepreneur in the real world are the same for the online entrepreneur.

List vs. Listless — 14 Ways to Focus Your Blog
Lists are everywhere here in blogland.  They’re prevalent in magazines, too, especially in how-to and enthusiast publications, and more than a few grocery checkout tabloids.
We should pay attention to the latter and take care what we emulate in our blogs. Because we, as bloggers, have a higher standard to strive for

HOW TO: Develop into a Leader on Twitter
How exactly does someone develop into a leader on Twitter? If you want to learn how to play basketball, you watch Michael Jordan. If you want to learn how to play golf, you watch Tiger Woods. It’s the same in social media. If you want to learn how to be a Twitter leader, you watch those who have already mastered it.

A Billion Reasons for Twitter to be Happy
So it looks like Twitter has entered some rarefied air for sure. According to ReadWriteWeb and TechCrunch the micro-blogging juggernaut is moving into an exclusive club by securing a new round of funding ($50 million) based on a valuation of $1 billion (yup, it’s a b). No doubt, this will begin to stir the supporters and detractors alike. Unless we have ridiculously short memories or just think that this time will be different one has to wonder how a company that no one can figure out revenue wise can be valued at that much.

Do You Have a Great List of Twitter Tools?
So…now that you are on board with Twitter (or thinking strongly that it would be a really good idea to see what all the hub-bub is about), know that a great list, chock full of tools, is essential.  See what you can discover from these very useful, and some fun links.

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I got a question from one of my clients that just got started with blogging. They really see the potential in what a blog can do for their business and main website, but they want to know how to get more visitors and become more noticed on the web.

Well, their blog is just a little piece of the Internet. How in the world are they going to reach new readers and get their blog noticed out there?

I’ve put together a list of 10 easy to do tips that will make your blog more noticed, if done right. They are all great traffic generators and they will leave your visitors wanting more. If you have more great tips let me knot in the comments.

1. Good and Interesting content
   It’s important to have up to date content so that your visitors always have something new to come back to. At the same time you need to be sure your content is archived and that your visitors can go back in time to read the content again.
2. Be part of the community
   When you jump around and read other peoples blog, be sure to leave your comments. You will get noticed by the blog owner and his readers. You should also be known as an active user in many niche related forums.
3. Run Contests
   People are crazy about contests. If you have something to give away or you can get a prize from a sponsor you should run a contest on your blog. You should probably have some base of visitors before your start a contest or you can get some help from the community and social medias to get traffic for your contest.
4. Advertise your blog
   PPC (Pay pr click) – advertisement with the right keyword and your banner placed on the right blog will absolutely help you get noticed out there. It will also bring you a lot of new traffic for sure.
5. Use Twitter and Twibe
   We all know that Twitter alone can make you very noticed online. I get a lot of my visitors from Twitter. But instead of pushing out ads for people to sign up on your affiliate program, you should network and get more personal. Follow people that is right for your website. If you have not heard of Twibe, this is a Twitter site where you can be a member of a group and watch only their tweets on a single page. Very good to catch people in a niche.
6. Podcasting
   You should put yourself out there either in audio or video. This makes people really notice you. You can submit your podcast to lots of directories and end up getting many new visitors that is interested in your niche.
7. Offer Consultation
   If you are an expert in your specific niche you can offer consultation for your visitors. This can easily be done through an order form with a paypal button and your product will be a skype call where you go through your clients website and point him or her in the right direction.
8. Tutorials
   An other way to show that you are an expert is to make tutorials. This can be done either with text and pictures or video. Either way a tutorial would be something people come back to every time to see how things are done. You can also submit your tutorials to other big sites to get more noticed.
9. Social Bookmarking
   Be sure that your visitors can add your site to their favorite bookmarking tool. Since most social bookmarking tools are based on sharing links with others and that my friend means new visitors to your site. Also be sure to add you own site to all the social bookmarking sites so that back links are made.
10. Go to networking events
    My final tip would be to attend all kinds of events for blogging in general and for your niche. There is a lot of events to be found if you just take a look at Facebook or your local paper. Events like these are great for learning and also to network with other people doing the same thing as you do. Remember to bring your business card and talk to everyone.

Hope you can use some or all of these tips, and if you like them be sure to use my Gree Little Tweet Me button and spread the word. I also want to hear your comment about this post.

Right now I’m working on a super cool product for my subscribers in the Internet Marketing Niche. And one of the questions that always comes up is how to generate more traffic to your blog. There is of course many different way to attract visitors to your blog, but this is the way we did it before everyone went looking for free traffic on social media sites.

Trade Your Traffic
In the old days when I first started out, the Internet seamed like a peaceful place. Everyone shared traffic with each other and when you sent traffic to a blog you will be linked up the next day and receive traffic back. For open minded bloggers this strategy can still work today. But for it to work perfectly you need to find blogs that are in the same size as your blog so that the trade of traffic is fear. It’s also important to find blogs that are in the same niche as your blog. That way you will get better quality on the traffic you receive and send.

Find Good Traffic Partners
When finding good traffic partners I look for 3 things. The first two things are the Google Page Rank (PR) and the Alexa Rank. The need to be around the same level as me or higher. Not to much higher because then the trade will not be fear. The PR and Alexa rank tells me something about the blogs SEO and traffic. If a blogger tells you that the site is doing 20.000 visits a day but have a very high number on the Alexe rank the blogger is probably lying and you don’t want to do business with them. The third thing I’m looking at is the quality of the potential partners blog. I divide quality in blog design, the way the blog is written and also how often it’s updated. I don’t want to send my visitors to an ugly looking blog with a lot of bad written post that doesn’t give my readers some kind of value. If I do that I’ll probably lose my visitors since they will not believe that I will send them to good content. So do some searches in google or look around on other blogs  in your niche and look also at who they are linking to. That way you will find blogs in the same size that yours that you can partner with.

Different ways of trading traffic
There is a lot of ways bloggers can trade traffic. You can do hard links trading, something that will give you more backlinks that again gives you a better PR over time. You can do quest posts on each other blogs once every week or 14 day depending on how often you blog. You can swap bannar ads. Those 125 x 125 pixel banners are on almost every blog now days and many of them are not earning any money from them. So why not putting that ad space in to good use? You can also do a weekly roundup blogpost where you link to a couple of blogposts that you read during the week and some of them could easily be from your traffic partners. Start networking on various social media sites, together you can build backlinks for each other with twittering and ReTweeting each others blog posts. You can also Digg and Stumble each others post to bring backlinks to the next level.

Contact potential partners
I would recommend that you do some research and find 20-50 potential blogging partners and start contacting the first 10 that you really want to trade traffic with. If your blog meets the criteria many blog owners would love to trade traffic with you to get some traffic boost on their blog.

Own a Marketing blog?
Well you may be in luck. Half of the reason for writing this blog post was to connect with bloggers in the same niche as me to work together on getting more traffic to our blogs. So I’m currently open for business with a few good sites out there. If you are interested please contact me and let’s see what we can do.

If you like the content on my blog, please subscribe to my RSS Feed here and don’t forget to click the ReTweet button and leave a comment..

You have probably heard the fuzz about this on the Internets this week. There something new out there and it’s called RSS Cloud, but what is it? Do you need to take some kind of action on this? Would RSS Cloud help you in some way and how?

What was RSS Feeds again?
Hopefully you know all about RSS feeds and how they help you out. In short, when you post a new blog post, people that are subscribed to your RSS feed will get your latest blog post in their RSS reader or email depending on their way of subscribing. That way they have one place where they read all their post of interests and don’t have to surf around to see if their favourite blogs are updated or not. In most cases this means more traffic to your site.

Before in the old days it could take up to one hour after you posted your blog post until all your subscribers would get your latest post in their favourite RSS reader. You would have to ping all the directories and make sure everyone got noticed. And by the old days I mean before RSS cloud was born. Now the game has changed.

Why is RSS Cloud better then regular RSS?
RSS Cloud brings new technology to the table that pushes your latest blog post to your readers the very same second your push your publish button. No more waiting for their favourite updates of the day, your blog post. This is awesome in so many ways. We will soon see a bunch of new applications that will make this look super cool and it will benefit the traffic to your site in big time. Big RSS directories will have live updates in various categories and if your blog post will probably reach a level of new readers that will subscribe to your content that way.

RSS Cloud Installed on all Wordpress.com blogs
The best part is that Wordpress.com is already supporting this. That means that over 7.5 million blogs are ready to use this. So companies out there needs to take some serious action the next couple of weeks. At this point only 1 RSS aggregator, River2, is supporting RSS Cloud. But it’s said that the ultra cool and hip RSS reader LazyFeed will support this very soon to.

How to install RSS Cloud on hosted Wordpress blog
If you are using a self hosted wordpress blog like me there is a Plugin to help you get started right away. Joseph Scott’s easy to install plugin can be downloaded here. You just upload the folder to your plugin directory and find it under plugins in your wordpress admin panel.

Now you should be ready for the future. Today there is an RSS Cloud Meetup in the US, so I’m guessing more fantastic news will get spread around about RSS Cloud later today.

This is the first tips about podcast’s of many to come that I want you to listen to every week. Last night I gave you a great tips about the very new Internet show, TWiST or This Week in Startups. Today I want to give you a tips about a show that is more for all you Internet Marketers out there.

The podcast’s name is Internet Marketing This Week and is brought to you from four of the biggest Internet Marketers out there. You should by now know the name and faces of Ed Dale, Lynn Terry, Michelle MacPhearson and Paul Colligan. Every week they get their skypes together and talks about various topics that is important in the Internet Marketing world.

I really connected with them on a whole new level when listening to them every week talking about their up’s and downs, what type of products are selling best, different kinds of product launches, what mistakes people do and what super cool product creation tools that are out there.

You learn so much more then just jumping around their blogs and you get an insight of how much work it actually is to be one of the best Internet Marketers out there. So start educating yourself on what’s new in your industry. Listen in on Internet Marketing This Week now.

Today I finally got to watching one of my new favourite shows, This Week In Startups. It’s a very new Internet show but with the well connected powerful man Jason McCabe Calacanis in front of the camera, you know you’re getting some valuable stuff to watch.

Jason brings on like minded people from new and upcoming startups on the Internet, and on This Week in Startups it’s one of the 3 founders of Posterious, Garry Tan.

Now I’m a big fan of Posterious and have been a user since the 28th of June 2008. I’ve been using it a bit on and off, but when I use it it’s mostly for posting pictures from my phone. It’s so easy to do. I just send and email with pictures as attachments and Posterious makes it all look perfect on my Posterious blog.

Jason brought Garry Tan on this weeks program for 2 reasons. Not only have Garry Tan and his team made a super easy to use blog platform, they have just recently made a kick ass Autopost to Everywhere future that makes your posterous posts show up automatically on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr or your other blogs. That means there is now just one stop to get everyones attention from just one email.

This is such a time saver and really a powerful marketing tool. So if you want to drive traffic to something, this one tool automagically tells all the traffic sources for you. You can be sitting in your car sending an email and soon after, your Twitter list, blog readers, Flickr fans and Facebook friends will all get your message and link . Let the traffic come and the money grow.

So listen to Jason when he talks to Garry Tan about his startup and learn about what’s to come in the near future for Posterous. It’s gone be awsome, that’s for sure.

I really want to go deeper in the topics that I cover in this blog. The result should be some kind of information product that will cover Blogging, Marketing, Self Improvement, SEO and different Tools that I use. I will give this product away for free of course.

While waiting for my good stuff, I want to take some time to give you some great books about Blogging that I have read and that I recommend. They are all free and can be downloaded right away from the writers website.

• Deep Secrets of Successful Bloggers – By Chitika
• Who’s There? Seth Godin’s Incomplete Guide to Blogs and the New Web – By Seth Godin
• How to Start Blogging: A Guide for Business Bloggers – By Icrossing UK
• How to Start a Business Blog – By Remarkablogger
• Blogging Blueprint – By Glen Allsopp
• Blogging On My Mind – By Enkay
• The Zen of Blogging – By Hunter Nuttall

This great collection of Blogging e-books have the same topics but are different in so many ways. Everybody has their own story just like real life. Many people got successful but in their own way. Hopefully you will find one of the authors you can relate to and that will be the guide for you to succeed in the blogging world.

The best of luck and happy reading!