Internet Business - the journey

Free SEO software

2011-10-27T12:56:00.000+08:00

One of my favorite internet marketing software developers released another powerful product. Its an SEO software, yes another SEO software,
it can do a lot of things that you can find in products that have more than 100 bucks price tag.

A keyword finder, rank checker with localization support, domain finder,
advance SERP analysis, page analysis, PPC analysis ang a lot more.

BUT! BUT! They are not charging anyting for it.

Yes you can get it here without paying anything!

free SEO software

It has more features compared to other paid SEO softwares out there
so make sure you secure your copy now because something like this usually not being shared for long period of time.

Download it here free SEO software

and enjoy!

Cashing out Google Adsense using Western Union Quick Cash

2010-08-31T00:15:00.001+08:00

Hurray! I finally get to cash out my earnings from Google Adsense. It took me 4 years to accumulate the first USD 100.00. Anyone reading this who thinks that's it's impossible to earn money from internet is wrong. You can receive money from Google; it's just a matter of timing and hard work.

Anyway, this is a screenshot of my first internet cheque:

I deided to receive my earnings by Western Union Quick cash. it's so easy.

When I login to my Google account and saw that a payment has been made, I was so excited (excuse me, this is my first USD 100). I printed out the statement, and then waited for 4 whole days (holidays and weekends in between) before I could go to the nearest Western Union agent.

I first when to Public Bank, but Public Bank can only disburse funds on individual-to-individual transactions. So I went to CIMB bank where they can disburse funds on corporate (as in Goolge inc)-to-individual (as in me) transactions, Within 10 minutes I got my money.

However the exchange rate is not in my favour, only got MYR 3.16 to 1 USD. Well, will wait for my next USD100 (which should be faster now that I know how to make money from adsense).

You know what, I intend to buy USD currency as an investment, and wait for it to go to 3.5 and make a FOREX gain.

Ipad

2010-08-15T21:43:00.005+08:00

Lat Friday I got my iPad. I don't know how many Malaysians have got their iPad because it is not officially distributed in Malaysia yet. But I know I am one of 3 million (as of July 2010) who have bought the newly launched iPad. I didn't pay for it though, as I won it in a lucky dip. I waited about 1 month to get my hands on the iPad, as it was ordered from New Zealand.

I am writing this blog post on the ipad

I haven't used any Apple products, but this iPad is fabulous. The virtual keypad is so easily to type on compared to the keyboard.

Since the morning I have downloaded so many applications and are happily trying it out.

I am trying to paste a link here but it took some time. Quite lost without a mouse, and hey, I am a senior citizen ok?

Anyway I managed to link to a page that says "How Star Trek artists imagined the iPad...23 years ago. (by using the mouse on the PC. Need more practice on the iPad.

Business building is all about meeting challenges, technology included.

My First Internet Business

2010-07-14T10:27:00.001+08:00

In my earlier blog post, I mentioned that I have set up my first internet business online. If you want to have a look at the website that I have created, go there now - it's called Cash Critical - Inbox Millionaire Blueprint.

Setting up a website has always been the challenge faced by many new internet newbies. Now that my internet business is open to the public, I have to learn and master how to send traffic to my site. I won't get any sales if nobody sees my cash critical website.

Do you want someone to help you set up your first internet business for you, and so be on the same level playing field as all other internet gurus?

The same person who personally set up my website has finally agreed to allow a select few lucky individuals to clone his business. It's not a how to, but its a complete money making system with everything done for you, just like my website. An extreme shortcut to the internet business.

Upon signing up at the website My first internet business, it will give you:

An exclusive product & killer profit-pulling marketing materials
Your "business in a box" ready to go with everything in place for you to start generating profits.
All you need to do is send traffic, and collect the spoils.

If you are newbie, or have been trying to get a head start in the internet business, you owe yourself a chance to grab the opportunity when it is offered. There are not many people who want to teach the total newbies, and Jaz is one of them.

Adsense Income - first $100

2010-06-22T13:50:00.000+08:00

Today I want to celebrate my first $100 making money online. I am not there yet, by my adsense account show $97.45 and I expect it to touch $100.00 by month month ending June 30, 2010 if not earlier.

It took me a long time to come this far, and I know it will be easier from now on to make my next $1000.00 by end December 2010.

At Last

2010-06-20T01:31:00.003+08:00

At last I have successfully set up a sales website, with Getresponse autoresponder and all.

You can visit my website to see its finished product, and also to get a free ebook. I am very happy with my achievement, and thanks to the trainer, Mr Jaz Lai.

I have attended many workshops and seminars, over the years but have not gone down to creating a sales website that is ready to take orders. And today, I have done so within 1 day's training.

What is different between Jaz's training and the training conducted by other gurus can be summaried as follows:

1. the class is kept small - 30, with 6 trainer helpers.
A small class has its benefits; there is less strain on the internet connection, and less interruptions.

I have attended a bigger workshop which promises hands on training also, but the sheer size of the class (150 or so) caused the internet connection to play up, and so many of us couldn't carry out the practical exercises. And human being being human beings, once we are back to the normal routine, the website creation takes a back seat, and ultimately forgotten.

2. Jaz also made a 'autocratic' decision. He made all of us select the same product to promote, so this ensures that all of us are on the same page all the time, and hence the learning was faster and efficient.

I got back today and checked my autoresponder and saw 1 unique sign up for my opt-in page! It works. I want to get 1000 signups within 3 months.

Here are the tools and resources we used today
1. domain name supplier- namecheap
2. autoresponder -getresponse
3. hosting company - inbox hoster

Exit Traffic

2010-03-27T13:45:00.001+08:00

Just learned there's a new way to make money when people leave your website,

The New viral "exit" software promises 200k visitors PER DAY to your site. Believable? Will let you know when I reach that figure!

If you own a website, you can get your free account here

The coolest part about this software is it is VERY viral, so the more people you tell about the site, the MORE traffic will come back to your site!

There's actually a free video showing how you can get over 200k visitors PER DAY to your website using this simple system, check it out here:

So go get your account, and turn the people who are leaving your website into NEW traffic!

P.S. - They just announced that they may start charging for this service in the future, so go and get your lifetime account (for FREE) today!

NB: I am trying the FREE service on this site.

Free Membership sites

2009-11-16T17:35:00.003+08:00

Ever wanted to create your own membership site? The easy way, and for Free? Here's one site that offers free licence to create your OWN membership site for FREE. To register for your FREE licence, go to memberfire.com

Since I am getting the software licence for free, I will reciprocate and create a free members-only site specifically for internet newbies. Watch out for my announcement.

Making Changes To Blog Templates: How to add 'read more' to your blog posts

2009-08-31T16:12:00.001+08:00

Ever wanted to put a 'read more' caption on your blogger blog posts? Here's a tutorial on this

Making Changes To Blog Templates: How to add 'read more' to your blog posts

PC Tips for New Internet Marketers

2009-08-30T16:53:00.008+08:00

Whether you're new or an experienced marketer, you will learn a thing or two about finding your downloads, copying and pasting text and links, avoiding phishing scams and more.

Here are the 5 tips in this article:
PC Tip #1: Finding your downloads
PC Tip #2: How to copy/paste text and links
PC Tip #3: Use F1 to look up Windows commands
PC Tip #4: How to fix error messages
PC Tip #5: Protect your PC (and yourself!) for free.

PC Tip #1: Finding your downloads!
Have you ever downloaded a piece of software from the Internet and couldn't find it later? You're not alone. In fact, it happens to thousands of people all over the world every day!

When downloading, many people use the My Documents folder in Windows, but after downloading many files you may find it hard to find the latest file. One simple fix is to create a new folder on your desktop specifically for downloads. (The definition of your desktop is where you see icons of folders and files and you're able to see your favorite picture as the wallpaper for your desktop.)

Creating a new folder on your desktop is easy. First find an un-crowded portion of your desktop and then using your ring finger click the right mouse button to bring up the context menu for the desktop. There in the menu you will find a selection called "New" Then LEFT Click on "Folder".

This will create a new folder on your desktop. You can name it something that will help you find the downloaded files. The first time you create a new folder, you will notice that the folder naming text is highlighted. To name the folder, simply start typing and the highlighted text will be replaced with what you wish to type in. A good folder name would be "downloads" or "My Web Files" or even the month and year which will make it much easier to find those files in the future.

Once the folder is created, simply remember when you download the next file to save it in that folder on your desktop for easy and fast access. You do that by choosing the download location as "Desktop" then your folder name. It's that simple!

PC Tip #2: How to copy/paste text and links.
Copy and paste is one task that every computer user will find they are using many times per session for many useful tasks. Say you wish to copy a portion of text or a website link into a report or article. Copy/paste makes it simple, and once you know how, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it.

To copy something you must first highlight the text or link using your left mouse button with your index finger. To do this, start at the beginning point of the text you wish to copy and place your mouse cursor there by clicking your left mouse button. When you do this DO NOT let go of the mouse button which you are holding with your index finger. While holding that mouse button down simply move your mouse over the text until you reach your stop point then let go of your index finger.

Now simply move your mouse into the center of the highlighted text and then using your ring finger to press the right mouse button. This will bring up a menu with the copy selection. Use your index finger, otherwise called the left mouse button; click on "COPY" from the menu that comes up. You have now successfully copied the text into your computer's memory, and are ready to paste it into your document.

Place your mouse cursor in the blank notepad or project and then using your ring finger press the right mouse button to bring up the menu. From the menu select "Paste". If you successfully completed the copy process your text should appear in the current document. If not go back and try again. With practice you will find it becomes second nature to you and your speed will increase as you use it more and more.

PC Tip #3: Use F1 to look up Windows commands.

Did you know that you can look up most common Windows commands if you press the F1 key on your keyboard? This will bring up the help file for Windows allowing you to quickly search or browse for the answer or information you are seeking for almost everything you might want to do in windows as well as Windows programs.

Keep in mind that most all of the applications created for your Windows operating system have the same basic commands available from the menu system. Some variants may exist depending on the purpose of the software application but the basics are usually there.

Very few people take advantage of F1, even when they are stuck. Try it next time you have a question about the program you're using!

PC Tip #4: How to fix error messages.

When a new Windows error message appears on your screen, many people will simply ignore it and click "OK". This is an example of what NOT TO DO! Instead you should realize that the programmers did not spend the time creating that message for the fun of it. Instead at a minimum you should READ EVERY WORD. Then read it again slowly the second time so it sinks in. Once you read it you may recognize the program that is causing it and be able to solve the problem yourself.

Don't be afraid to research the error on any good search engine online. You may find free advice quickly although in most cases you may have to dig a bit to find it. As a last resort try making a call to a local computer tech that may just let you know how to solve it for free if it is not a serious issue. However if it is serious or mildly serious by all means ask for a qualified tech to come out and fix it.

PC Tip #5: Protect your PC (and yourself!) for free.

By now you probably realize that every PC should have an anti-virus program. But did you know that an anti-spyware program is just as important? If you computer gets infected with spyware, your personal data including every keystroke you make on your PC can be recorded and stolen by hackers.

While most PC's have anti-virus programs installed upon purchase, anti-spyware programs are not as commonly used.

If you do not have anti-spyware software loaded, Microsoft has a free program you can get at their website. It is called Windows Defender and is available for download. Grab it and take a few minutes each month to keep it up to date.

While we're on the subject of spyware, did you know that spyware is not the only evil you have to be wary of?

"Phishing" is even more dangerous and new victims fall prey to this scam at an alarming rate. Phishing works like this... Unsuspecting victims (you?) get an email message that "looks" like it is from a website such as eBay, Paypal or another banking or credit card service you use. The message looks just like a real email the company may have sent you in the past, and even contains an official logo. In fact, it looks so real that every day hundreds of unsuspecting victims click the link in the email message and go on to enter personal data such as passwords or credit card numbers.

Unfortunately, the data is not going to the real site, it is going to the hacker who sent the bogus email. Next thing the victim knows, their account is emptied! The experts define this illegal practice as a form of "social engineering" and it is very easy to fall prey to it if you are not careful.

Here's how to protect yourself...

If you ever get an email message asking you to log into your account for ANY reason, NEVER click any of the links in the email. If you have a genuine concern about your account, (those fake emails usually imply something is wrong) delete the email message then open your browser manually and type in the website address, such as www.paypal.com. This way you KNOW that when you log in you are at the appropriate site and not some hacker's copy of a site.

*Article used with permission from JDD Publishing's Internet marketing site. Their website marketing guide and internet marketing news help you grow a business on the Internet. To get similar marketing news, click here to subscribe*

Beginner's guide to starting a high-income business on the internet

2009-08-30T15:31:00.007+08:00

Are you skeptical about free offers on the Internet? Don't be with this one. If you are a beginner to the Internet business, you might want to download this free guide on how beginners can start a high-income business on the Internet.

This manual lays down in simple words what pitfalls to avoid when you want to start in the internet business.

I am trying to supplement my service based-income with an internet based income, which can give me more freedom of time, so this manual is very helpful.

The report can be downloaded here
Good stuff.

P/S. Use the Gold Key at the bottom of the site to bypass the order form and save $97

How much is your website worth?

2009-02-22T18:33:00.006+08:00

To check the worth of any website, its daily pageviews and the ads revenue, go to the site aptly named website outlook

Just enter the address of the site, hit enter, and you get your information.

Nothing is personal any more on the net.

Websiteoutlook is good for any initial research or just because you're curious

Free Internet training by Russell Brunson

2008-10-09T21:30:00.004+08:00

Russell Brunson is giving free video training on making money online. You'll get plenty of wealth-building information which you can use to pay off credit card bills, pay off your car, or even quit your job!

Interactive training, with quiz and assignments. After you complete the assignments, you can participate in a contest using the information you've learnt in the training videos. The prize - a New Corvette !

Think of it, even if you don't win the car, you've already won : you get the training at zero-cost, and that to me is more valuable than the car.

Note : there is a request for a small donation which will go towards a charity 'World Teacher Aid' --which helps to bring education to children in third-world countries. However, if you don't feel charitable, you can still sign up for the contest (and the free training)

To sign up for the contest and get the free training click Zero to $100 million Challenge

Great for newbies!

PayPal & Phishing Email

2008-10-04T01:16:00.003+08:00

Recently, I received 2 emails, titled "Security issues - You are required to upgrade Your PayPal Account". I forwarded a copy of the email to PayPay and they just wrote back to inform me that such emails are "phishing emails" and the security team is working to disable it. Wonder how my email address got hacked in the first place?

What is a phishing email?Phishing emails attempt to steal your identity and will often ask you to reveal your password or other personal or financial information.

What made me suspicious of the email:
1. First of all, thanks to Google's efficiency to detect such fraud. Once Gmail system detects such fraudulent mails, it will display a warning message in red at the top of the mail which reads "Warning : This message may not be from whom it claims to be. Beware of following any links in it or of providing the sender with any personal information"

2. Secondly, Gmail dumped this email in my spam folder, Although it's in my spam folder, I do peruse it quickly before deleting, hence I came across the phishing email.

3. Thirdly, the email did not address me by name (read from PayPal's website).

If you have PayPal account, do read the FAQ about Spam, and be on the alert for phishing emails.

Protect your wrist

2008-07-21T21:07:00.002+08:00

Does your wrist hurt when you pounce away on the keyboard, and move your mouse around? Try the wrist protected mouse pad. I've been looking for one for quite sometime, and there's a picture of it here

Renewed interest

2008-06-30T00:54:00.003+08:00

I've been tardy in updating this blog because I've been busy with my offline business.

However, last week I attended (another one!) free seminar-previews on Profit Blogging System and Wealth Academy, which renewed my interest in the Internet business once again. (Does it happen to you also? This hot-cold situation?)

Why did I renew my interest in the Internet business?

One main reason is that I am currently providing what is called "personal service business" where there is not much room for scalability. There is a limit to my income as I only have so many hours in a day to earn my income. I love doing what I'm doing now and I don't want to give it up yet, so I have to create my financial freedom from other sources. And the Internet business is one of the cheapest and do-able way.

I have also attended T Harv Eker's mind-blowing workshop on money mastery - called Millionaire Mind Intensive (MMI), and I would say, it has also inspired me to work harder at being financially free.

Blogging for Profit : How to setup a free blog

2008-06-29T23:22:00.010+08:00

Creating a blog is the start of an exciting learning experience.

To create a free blog, you need to go to www.blogger.com, and follow the setup wizard.

Besides blogger, there are also other free blog platforms like wordpress and livejournal

To learn more about creating your first blog, go to this site which is about making changes to blog templates.

Building Multiple Streams of Income

2008-01-28T00:11:00.000+08:00

Want to start a small business but don't have any ideas what business to go in?

You may want to read this free ebook titled 10 Free Business Ideas. Example of ideas that are mentioned in the book, which are all do-able :

1. Start a follow up service
2. Start a welcome service - good idea here!

Download the book 10 Free Business Ideas

The Death of Network Marketing - by Mike Filsaime

2007-12-14T01:14:00.000+08:00

Are you into network marketing? Is network marketing dying? How can you resurrect the network marketing industry? Is it possible to revive the network marketing industry? Read all about it in the latest FR.EE report from Mike Filsaime.

I got an email about Ellie Drake's and Mike Filsaime's Free Report called - "The Death of Network Marketing". I'm sold, where free reports are concerned, and so I went ahead and download the free report.

I must admit, that I thought it was some hyped up offer to get me to buy something...

...Turns out I was wrong. Way wrong.

This report really opened my eyes that Network Marketing may be dying.

When I read this, I immediately thought of sharing it on my blog by writing a short review. Almost anyone I know is into network marketing of one sort or another.

While I complete the second reading, why don't you download it and read it yourself. Nothing beats reading it firsthand.

You can get access to this free report now ..the death of network marketing

Tell me what you think about it!

5 Simple Ways to Open Your Blog Post With a Bang

2007-11-18T14:31:00.000+08:00

After a great headline, how do I get you to read more?

1. Ask a question. Create your curiosity.
2. Share a story, or a quote from a famous person.
3. Use words to captivate the mind's eye. 'Imagine' 'picture this','do you remember when'
4. Use analogy, metaphor or simile
5. Cite a shocking statistic relevant to the point of the post

And what about the closing of the blog post? Tie back to the opening.

Read more at 5 Simple Ways to Open Your Blog Post With a Bang | Copyblogger

Success University

2007-10-20T10:52:00.000+08:00

I've just discovered a large learning university using internet as the medium of instruction. As a start you may want to visit the site to learn more. Will be posting snippets of the learnings in subsequent posts. Likes of Jay Abraham and Brian Tracy.

Success University

The Art of Leaving Money Around

2007-10-17T22:55:00.000+08:00

I stumbled upon this wonderful FREE ebook called " I Create Millions" by Christopher Westra. Believe me, it's worth your time to read through all 75 pages.

The free ebook has 34 specific money mastery methods to increase the flow of money. The full version has 87 mthods. The techniques described are life-changing concepts, those that I can relate to are :

1. The art of leaving money around - sending a powerful message to your subconscious mind that money is available, everywhere.

2. Buy the best for yourself - it puts you on the right mental attitude of faith, confidence, and power

3. Create money opportunities, not money emergencies - focus on the financial opportunities

4. Do what you love, the money will follow

5. Pay yourself first, before the bills, petrol, the food, the clothes... Keep 10% of your income and invest. Get the compounding interest to work for you.

6. Create some space for the New - clear the clutter in your mind, and creativity will instantly fill in

7. Create automatic money systems - by using the computer and the internet. It takes some work and some learning, but it is time well spent because it pays you over and over again.

and many more.

Best of all, the money mastery methods eBook is Free. No need to leave name or email to download the book I create millions.

P/s Confessions of a newbie:

Since the ebook is in PDF file format, I have to use a free hosting service, SendMeFile, to upload the ebook to this blog post. (Blogs do not allow PDF files to be uploaded, they only allow pictures and videos. Why, I don't know). I went to the FAQ section of blogger and found out about this method of uploading PDF to blogs.

Note when you click to download the book, there will be some pop-up adveristing (I've tested the download process myself). I apologise in advance if the ads are not to your liking, but this is a temporary move until I learn how to create my own webpage to host the gems I discover.

Happy reading. Do give feedback /comments on the book and my blog.

Changing image- Internet Business

2007-10-07T19:53:00.000+08:00

I have decided to make a change in the focus of my blog.

My blog title previously reads :

It now reads :

This idea of change came about after I reviewed my notes from the UYMG 2007 workshop. One of the speakers, Ken Shimitzu, aka The Storm, talked about Vision and Mission, and also about the biggest mistake made by eBusiness Owner:

I need to treat the e business as serious a business as my offline consultancy business. Anyone wants to hold me accountable for my results?

UYMG 2007 Malaysia

2007-10-02T12:42:00.000+08:00

A profound message presented by Stephen Pierce at the UYMG 2007 Malaysia.

Stephen Pierce and the team at Success Resources have have just concluded staging the internet marketing workshop "Unleash Your Marketing Genius, UYMG 2007" at Kuala Lumpur Convention centre in KL, Malaysia. The event was held over the weekend - Friday Sep 28 - Monday October 1, 2007. What a weekend it was!

If you didn't had the good fortune to attend this event, here is a rundown of what and who you missed listening to :

1. Mike Filsaime (of the butterfly Marketing fame)
2. Greg Cesar (Taking control of your marketing)
3. Dave Lakhani (Influence & Persuasion)
4. Chris Guerriero ("Instant Author")
5. Inanna Lawton ( Making profound changes at an Unconscious level)
6. Melissa Heweton ( Endless abundance)
7. Patric Chan ( Niche Marketing 2.0)
8. Ken Shimizu (Business Management)
9. Sandhan (Success Navigation System)
10.Jaz Lai (List Building)
11. Jason Tan (Blogging for Profit)

and of course, the star Stephen Pierce.

P/s, in order to become an "instant" success on the internet, become an instant author, or an instant marketing consultant, or an instant traffic generator, or earn your first USD1000 online, you will have to

1. DIY - take your own time to learn from the heap of information available. (slow results), or
2. invest in coaching and mentoring from the gurus and be prepared to invest in total approximately RM 80,000 for all the packages.

Take your pick. Your comments?

List Building and Free gifts

2007-08-08T23:30:00.000+08:00

Whether through sheer coincidence or a concerted effort, recently I notice several internet marketers offering a pack of products at "cheap price" or even for free. I think it started with the Send US to US (100 products, with many affiliates rallying behind them), then there is the Cody Moya' 200 Master Resell Rights Products (free download). Now there is the Edmund Loh's 41 August Awesome Fun Gifts (free download)

What a massive dose of information over 2 weeks!!

All this in the name of building a list.

Malaysian bloggers - Demographic

2007-06-04T04:03:00.000+08:00

This post acts as a compiler of facts about the demographic of Asian online netizens:

Bloggers Age :

56% are below 25 years

35% are aged betwen 25 and 35

9% are above 35

Bloggers Gender :

64% Female

36% Male

Malaysian Blog Advertising Agencies

2007-06-03T23:27:00.000+08:00

Advertlets , Nuffnang

Malaysian bloggers now have another avenue to earn some pocket money for being in cyberspace.

2 new blog advertising community - Nuffnang and Advertlets, have actively started to recruit Malaysian bloggers to join their respective advertising community. However, I sense some sort of rivalry going on between them or is it a marketing thing? Read A wave of allegations have hit Nuffnang lately .

Advertisers are always on the lookout to reach a wider market for their products or services, and placing advertisements on websites is now gaining advertiser's attention. Blog readers and website visitors are prime target for advertisers as they spend a lot of time online sourcing for information and news.

So far, Google Adsense programme is the de-facto biggest advertising agency. How far will the 2 Malaysian companies go? Time will tell, or rather, blogger's acceptance and experience will tell.

Funny thing is, I must be amongst the last of the Malaysian bloggers (who wants to monetise their site, that is) to have heard of either of these 2 blog-advertising community. I am indeed the proverbial 'katak di bawah tempurung' or 'the ultimate ignoramus'. Both the communities were launched around March 2007 (coincidence? like minds thing alike? good feng shui? or insider snoop?)

An article in the Star dated May 29, 2007, titled Blogging and the Big Bugs caught my interest, and led me to signing up for both!

UYMG Unleash Your Marketing Genius

2007-04-05T21:17:00.000+08:00

UYMG 2007 Singapore, Stephen Pierce , Genius University ,
Stephen Pierce did it again! His UYMG 2007 in Singapore (March 23- 26 Friday to Monday) was worth every dollar I paid. To get an idea of the event, click on the video.

I car-pooled with a group of friends and drove from KL Malaysia to Singapore on Friday morning itself arriving in time for registration. After registration, it was straight to work. Exciting 4 days of money making ideas.

I am still digesting the many strategies that Stephen Pierce and his guest speakers have taught us. Most of the strategies are FREE, and which can be easily applied.

I have experienced an increase in my adsense income after applying one of his many strategies. More to come!

Some of the great takeaways from the UYMG event:

1. "Know your brain" - is the first of many games that we played; we learnt to identify our "colours" an dour personality - creative, activators, evaluators, or investigative.

2. 3 things to have to be successful in Internet marketing : Focus, consistence, and patience.

Do keep a lookout for my thoughts on :
1. PPC Pay per click
2. Blogging
3. Sales funnel
4. Publishing your own book
5. Forum marketing
6. E Bay

Till then

Internet Marketing Fundamentals

2007-04-03T10:46:00.000+08:00

Fundamentals of Internet Marketing

If you can provide solutions to these keywords, then you can successfully market any product on the internet:
1. Save (customer's) time
2. Save (customer's) money
3. Provide better solution (than the competitors)

Customers, including you and me, are always on the look-out for newer and better things. Look at how the telephone has evolved from the 'black, rotary phone' to the sleek mobile phone which most of us can't live without in this 21st century.

Internet Marketing Bootcamp - graduation

2007-02-28T01:31:00.000+08:00

Fabian Lim , Asia Internet Academy

February's come and almost gone. Just came back from attending the graduation ceremony of the Internet Marketing Bootcamp, which means that for the last 1 month (Jan 27-Feb 27, 2007) I had the opportunity to improve my financial coffer, but I didn't seize the opportunity to put into practise what was learned at the bootcamp.

Excuses: Too many distractions in February
1. Thaipusam (Feb 1)
2. Valentine (feb 14)
3. Chinese New year (Feb 18-19, up to 26 for me)

So come March, I should be marching forward, right?

Actually met and spoke to a few participants who made money after applying the learnings from the bootcamp. It's achievable.

Do not try. Do or Do Not

2007-01-31T20:25:00.000+08:00

Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Yoda

Very relevant to the previous post!

Internet Marketing Bootcamp, Malaysia

2007-01-30T23:48:00.000+08:00

Internet Marketing Bootcamp , Asia Internet Academy , Fabian Lim

No more excuses.

A search for the above keyword in Google generated some 9810 sites with the exact keywords in the title tags. [If you want to learn how to make that kind of search, leave your comments and I will reply]

No more excuses will also be my motto for this year.

I attended the 'first-ever'Internet Marketing Bootcamp, (Malaysian chapter) conducted by Fabian Lim during the weekend Jan 27-28, 2007. It's a hands-on / how-to type of training where evey participant had to bring their own laptop and follow Fabian in the practical exercises. We went from the very basic (cut/paste) to designing our own website within the 2 days. I've shorten my learning curves by many years!!

Some advice from Fabian

1. "FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS"
2. Don't be paralysed by Information overload. (How true!. I've written an earlier post about Information overload)
3. Master One strategy before moving onto another. (Hear, Hear. Don't get distracted)
4. Take Action. MASSIVE ACTION
5. Don't Give Up.

I also pick up another important point :

If you think you can make money from the internet in your underwear without working at it, then you're dead WRONG.

Like any offline business, the online business has to be nurtured (read: built and marketed to the targeted group) before you can make money on autopilot.

The next few days and months will (and should) see me working on my online projects.

P/S

There were 2 families amongst the group which started their children young into this business. There were 4 participants between the ages of 11 to 16, in this group. Way to go!

Malaysian Blogger Sued

2007-01-21T00:10:00.000+08:00

Jim Edwards , Jeff Ooi, NSTP, Malaysian Blogger sued,

Original, but controversial

One of the worst fears of any blogger is to be sued for the contents of one's writings. In this case 2 Malaysian bloggers, Jeff OOi and RockyBru, have been served defamation papers for, amongst others, blowing the whistle about an article which could be plagiarised. To read more about the defamation suits click NSTP gets injunction to remove blog postings and Defamation suit to test the limits of freedom of speech in cyberspace

I don't intend to add any comments that's not already said by many other people, online or offline, as the case which will be heard in the Malaysian courts in a few days time. We will let the lawyers present their clients' case.

The reason I am writing a post of it is to pen my thoughts on what I got out from the Jan 17, 2007 webinar "Next generation Mini sites secrets" where Jim Edwards, the mini-sites guru said, amongst others, blogs should be "original, but controversial". In his context, Jim Edwards mentioned that blogs can be used to :
1. build anticipation when launching a new product
2. write a review about an affiliate's products
3. get reciprocal links to a newsletter/site

He suggests writing some controversial contents (as compared to just facts) so that readers will be attracted to continue reading your post, and send more traffic your way.

I guess the claimant NSTP considered the posts made by the 2 bloggers as more than controversial because it may have affected their business in a way.

3 column blogger template

2007-01-13T04:16:00.000+08:00

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you would have have noticed that I've changed to the 3 column template format for this blog. A few days ago I stumbled upon Peter's blog Blogger Tips and Tricks who has great tips on blogging.

I followed the links to Blogcrowds forum where I registered and downloaded the template for this blog. Thanks to both of you.

I didn't face much problem in changing to the 3 column format, if you follow the advise that was given in Blogcrowds.

Visit Malaysia Year 2007

2007-01-08T03:27:00.000+08:00

Eye on Malaysia, Kodak digital camera , VMY 2007 , Visit Malaysia year
Just gave myself a belated birthday present. Bought a Kodak C533 Digital camera.

Yes, I'm quite late in catching up on the digital front.

Amongst the first few photos I took is this one on Eye on Malaysia, one of the attractions for Visit Malaysia year 2007. The huge ferris wheel was launched on Jan 6, and is opened to public on Jan 7. I didn't go on the big wheel, as there is a long queue waiting in line.

The wheel will be be opened until Dec 31, 2007. Plenty of time to visit again.

Taiwan earthquake : update on cable repairs

2007-01-07T22:22:00.000+08:00

Taiwan earthquake , Jaring, Straemyx ,

Limit use of the Internet.
It's still not back to pre-Dec 27, 2006 yet. Malaysians who got back to work on January 3, 2007, after a long weekend have been advised to limit the use of the internet. (Huh! Its' 1997 all over again for net users !) The head of Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) advises all Malaysians to cut back on
- non-vital communications like Skype, and other Voice-over-Internet ptotocal (VoiP) applications
- chat and instant messaging
- unnecessarily surfing the Internet

The reasons for the advise is that work is being done to repair the underground cables in Taiwan, and normal internet service is expected to be restored only in Mid January.

In the latest announcement from JARING, one of the Internet service provider in Malaysia, it is stated that :

Jaring services is now running at approximately 70% of the normal capacity. As optimisation is being done, we see continuous improvement by each day. Full recovery is expected by mid February.

...Ships have been dispatched to the affected site, and one ship actually encountered problem while attempting to repair a cable. The ship itself has to be repaired first – causing more delay to the restoration job.

To read the CEO's take on this issue, go to
Alternative Routes for Malaysian Internet

Round the Clock Works to Repair the Damaged Cables in Taiwan

There is no update announcement from Streamyx, the other Internet service provider, which I am using for my broadband services

I got cut off at least 4 times when I am writing this post. As a precaution, I saved the post in my notepad before clicking 'publish'. Is that what other bloggers are doing also?

SMART, PURE and CLEAR goals for 2007

2007-01-02T00:03:00.000+08:00

2007 , Goal setting , Steven Covey

Goal setting for 2007

I spent the first 24 hours of the new year formulating my personal and business goals for the new year. It's always good to start the new year on a high and positive note.

In order to set my financial goals, I have also worked out my personal expense budget for 2007 so that I determine the amount to save and invest. I am not in the millionaire category yet where money is not an issue (I wish I was!). In any case, if you don't believe in preparing a personal budget, please realise that even big corporations (and all Countries) have to plan and budget their expenditure; so budgeting is a necessary evil.

My small contribution for those who want to work on setting their goals (personal and business goals) for the new year.. Think SMART, PURE and CLEAR.

SMART Goals are those which are
SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE, ACHIEVABLE, RESULT-ORIENTED and within a TIME FRAME

PURE Goals are those goals which are
POSITIVELY STATED, UNDERSTOOD, RELEVANT and ETHICAL

CLEAR Goals are those which are
CHALLENGING, LEGAL, ENVIRONMENTALLY SOUND, APPROPRIATE and are RECORDED

What is my goal for 2007 for the internet business?
By end 2007, I should be able to generate a consistent monthly income equivalent to 4 times the monthly expenses, by working a few hours each day.

What do I have to DO to achieve the goal?
This means that I have to learn at much faster pace than now! As a start, I have signed up for a hands-on-coaching session in January which should speed up the learning curve. More about it after the session.

How do I know I am on the right track?
When I have earned my first US$100.00 from the internet!
And I shall celebrate by buying the latest 3G phone!

Want to share some SMS messages received for the New Year:

A new year
A new start
A new chapter
A new beginning

Forget the BAD
Cherish the GOOD
Wish you a happy new year 2007

I also liked this message from another friend:

A relaxed MIND
A healthy BODY
A heart full of LOVE
and a pocket full of $$$
These are my New year wishes to you and family

Happy New Year 2007

2007-01-01T00:02:00.000+08:00

It's 2 minutes past the hour of the New Year 2007. Just took some time off the celebrations to stamp the moment.

2 007

No Gmail, no Yahoo!, no blogs

2006-12-29T22:04:00.000+08:00

Quake shakes up the Net
Dec 27: Earthquake and the Internet
In the midst of floods and earthquake, millions of people in Asia "cried" over not being able to access their mails, and update blogs!

Malaysian bloggers interviewed by the local dailies claimed to be "disconnected" and "emotionally affected" by the disruption in internet services on Wed Dec 27, 2006 when an earthquake (of magnitude 7.1) hit Taiwan.

The earthquake damaged submarine cables that form part of the region-wide Asia Pacific Cable Network 2, disrupting voice and Internet communications over much of Asia. The APCN 2 is a 19,000km-long fibre-optic cable network linking Japan, South Korea, China, Malaysia, Singapore, the United States, Europe and Australia. Many some good thign will come out from thsi experience.

Repairs to the cables are underway, and in the meantime, we have to accept that blogs will take a longer time to publish.

Actually, the concerns should be over the quake victims in Taiwan, and also to the flood victims in one of the badly hit Malaysian state (Johor) which, at the time of wrting, is still under flood waters since Dec 20. Spare a thought also to the shop-owners whose shop was inundated with flood waters and rendering the stock un-saleable?

Floods Dec 19 Even my childhood home in Malacca was under flood waters since Wednesday December 19. The flood waters went as high as 1 feet inside the house, and we were forced to evacuate to friend's house nearby for a few days. The water subsided only on Saturday Dec 23.

So on Christmas Eve Dec 24, we spent the whole day time cleaning mud and debris from the floors and walls, and throwing away water-soaked cupboards, books, magazines.

Christmas Day was truly rest day for us. Grateful that our damage was not so great compared to other places. There are some places which is still under flood waters as I write this.

In the state of Johor where it first started, the flood waters went as high as the first floor of a double-storey house, or up to the roof of a single-storey house. An entire town is cutoff from the rest of the country. Electricity supply was cut off - and this affected the communication between affected and the family members elsewhere. The mobile phone battery could not be charged.

Some bloggers resort to getting help through the internet - to get medication delivered to their aged parents stranded therein. Luckily they got the help requested.

It seems like the weather doesn't favour Asian countries during the yearends. In 2004, Asian countries were hit by Tsunami, where thousands died. Read the story about the miracle 22-day old baby who survivied the Tsunami ordeal, two years ago.

In both the two disasters to hit this part of the world, the internet played a part to connect family members and also allowed other people to have an immediate updates of the situation. People are embracing the internet for good!

Go away floods! Come back sunny weather!

Blogging to unblock

2006-12-19T22:15:00.000+08:00

Yang-May Ooi , Flame Tree , Mind Game

www.fusionview. co.uk
If you are a Malaysian living overseas, you might feel at home at this site. Yang-May Ooi is a London-based lawyer-author who gives writing tips in her blogs, besides writing about the East/West culture and arts.

Do listen to her podcast on "the Malaysian-voice and the English-voice". After listening to her, I am now inclined to read her books "The Flame Tree" and "MindGame". A third book is about to be published.

Merry Christmas

2006-12-19T18:32:00.000+08:00

Want to wish everyone a happy christmas.

Pixelotto and Sudoku?

2006-12-17T21:37:00.000+08:00

Alex Tew Pixelotto Sudoku Traffic

What does Pixelotto and Sudoku have in common?

I found this website offering online sudoku, while clicking on the Pixelotto pixel ads.

A few days ago, I signed up to play the Pixelotto ad-game. First read about Pixelotto on LiewCF blog

Pixelotto allows advertisers to buy minimum ad space of US$200 (100 pixels at US$2 per pixel). If used properly, the ad space can become "a premium internet real estate viewable and clickable by potentially millions of people".

To attract the millions of people to view the ads, the creator organise a contest which offers surfers to the site a chance to win US$1 mil by clicking on the ads. For every $1.00 the advertisers pay, $0.50 goes to the lucky clicker /potential customer. Clickers register for Free at the website. You are allowed to click 10 ads per day.

This site is the follow-up site by Alex Tew, the creator of the Million Dollar Homepage.

If not for the lure of the million dollars, I will not come across the Sudoku site! However not all the sites advertised on Pixelotto are "premium" sites, in my opinion.
But it is a good way to drive traffic to a site, albeit for a short while. If the sales page is attractive enough, the visitors will stay longer. I myself have bookmarked a few sites for a re-visit later.

Images

2006-12-14T22:24:00.000+08:00

Today I learnt to include images in my post. This image on the left is downloaded free from iStockphoto.

You need to register as a member of iStockphoto before you can download images from its site. The images are purchased using 'credits', but there is a free image available for download daily.

One note of advise regarding images : make sure the images you use in your websites do not violate copyright rules. Read the fine prints and restriction of use of the images which you download.

From now on, I will pepper my posts with images to make my post more colourful.

News feed - RSS and Atom

2006-12-11T16:43:00.000+08:00

RSS RSS White Paper

According to this white paper by MediaThink,

RSS will be the next big thing on the web. As consumers take more active control of the messaging and content they consume, reaching them gets tougher.

So what is RSS? I've always seen the orange-coloured icon, followed by the characters 'RSS' on some of the Web sites and blogs that I visit. I decided to find out more about RSS, and more importantly, how I can use it.

Before we define RSS, we need to familiarise ourselves with the term Web Feeds.

Web Feeds
In simple terms, Web feeds are just a special kind of web page, designed to be read by computers rather than people.

Some content providers (website and blog owners) who provide news of any kind - articles, essays, images, music, video, weather, stock quotes etc - provide a feed link on their site. This allows end users to subscribe to the latest news once its published online.

Because there are many websites and blogs which might interest the end user, there is a need to "aggregrate" the news. Aggregators or feed readers, combine the contents of multiple web feeds for display on a single screen or series of screens. To subscribe to a news feed is quite simple : just drag the link from the web browser to the aggregator. Subscribing to web feeds is also known as ’syndication’

When websites provide web feeds to notify users of content updates, they only include summaries (headlines) in the web feed rather than the full content itself.

Feed reader (or aggregator)
There are more than 2,000 different feed reading applications (for text, mostly) or “podcatchers” (for podcasts). There are even readers that work exclusively on mobile devices. (Source : FeedBurner)

A typical interface for a feed reader will display your feeds and the number of new (unread) entries within each of those feeds. You can also organize your feeds into categories and even clip and save your favorite entries (with certain applications).

Some feed readers are free, and some require you to purchase for a small fee.

1. Web-based feed readers which allow you to access your feed updates anywhere you can find a web browser.

For example, MyYahoo or MyMSN which also allow you to personalise your home page, and add the contents.

Other Free web-based feed readers are Bloglines

2. Desktop-based feed readers require you to download the program onto your machines. Examples are : Newsgator, Feed Demon

3. Users of Firefox browsers can use Live Bookmarks function as their web feeds.

How to add the websites to the News readers.
First, look for the subscription or feed options. Many websites have links labelled ‘XML’, ‘RSS’ or ‘Atom’; or they may have an orange button on their site.

Then, you can either click the relevant links (e.g. the ‘add to my Yahoo!’ button, if you’re using My Yahoo!) or copy-paste the link in to your feed reader. Sometimes there will be a button for your particular feed reader on the blog that will take you to the appropriate subscription page.

Advantages of web feeds over websites surfing
Compared to websites, web feeds have a few advantages for the user : (source: Wikipedia)

Users can be notified of new content without having to actively check for it.
You don't have to click from site to site.
The information presented to users (in an aggregator) is typically much simpler than most websites.

Media files can be automatically downloaded without user intervention.

Advantages of web feed subscription over email subscriptions
Compared to receiving updates via the email, subscribing to web feed has these important advantages :

When subscribing to a feed, the user does not disclose their email address, so the user is not increasing their exposure to threats associated with email: spam, viruses, phishing, and identity theft.

If the user wants to stop receiving news, they do not have to send an 'unsubscribe' request; the user can simply remove the feed from their aggregator.

Your inbox will be uncluttered with news updates
(source: Wikipedia)

RSS and ATOM
RSS and Atoms are the two main web feed formats widely used. Some websites let people choose between RSS or Atom formatted web feeds; others offer only RSS or only Atom. The RSS formats stands for Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0), Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91, RSS 1.0) and RDF Site Summary (RSS 0.9 and 1.0).

The development of Atom formats was motivated by the existence of many incompatible versions of the RSS syndication format.

Whatever the formats that will eventually be accepted as a syndication standard by Internet Engineering Task Force, news feed has the following advantages for the reader, publisher and the advertiser.

Advantages to the different users of website:

Consumer : Subscribing to feeds makes it possible to review a large amount of online content in a very short time.

Publisher : Feeds permit instant distribution of content and the ability to make it "subscribable."

Advertiser: Advertising in feeds overcomes many of the shortcomings that traditional marketing channels encounter including spam filters, delayed distribution, search engine rankings and general “in-box” noise.

I've just subscribed to Bloglines for this blog.

Malaysian Whizzkid

2006-12-11T09:50:00.000+08:00

whizzkid Palm Google Pradeesh Parameswaran

Whizzkid makes it big with Palm

I bought my Palm m515 way back in 2001 or earlier. All I did with it is to use it as a glorified address book, and an appointment book. Nowadays I use it to refer to documents that I sync-d.

But there is a Malaysian 16 year old boy who tinkled with his Palm which his dad bought for him when he was 10, and created additional software and posted it on Palm and Google websites. He gets paid RM4 everytime someone downloads his software. If he can do it, so can we!

To read the full write up about Pradeesh Parameswaran, click here This is what he said in the interview:

I noticed the software was inadequate six years ago. So, three years ago, I decided to write a small software and called it ExpenseIt for Palm and Google and posted it free on their websites.”

At the time he wrote the software, which was an expense-tracking program for handheld users, he did not know anything about software programming.

To date, he has not attended any IT classes either.

“With the help of Google and widely available resources on the Internet, I slowly learnt how to write programs,” said Pradeesh, whose favourite pastime is playing with his dog and listening to music.

“I learned how to develop a program from the simple Hello World Programme to a simple calculator programme.

“It took me eight months to learn the basics, and I slowly started to code my software so that anyone who wanted to use it would have to get the password from me by e-mailing me.”

Spam

2006-12-07T21:33:00.000+08:00

Spam
9 out of 10 email messages sent worldwide are spam (Source : Reuters )

On a personal note, today I cleared all (100%)of the mails in my private email inbox. Everytime the spammers come out with new spam attacks, I update the message rules to trash the messages that include those keywords. The emails filled my inbox with offers to buy drugs and other medicinal aids. I am also advised to buy cheap, penny stocks which I have not heard of. Of late I get the 'Hi' messages.

What is Spam?
Spam is commercial email or unsolicited bulk email, including “junk mail”, which has not been requested by the recipient. It is intrusive and often irrelevant or offensive, and it wastes valuable resources.

Spam messages are the opposite of permission-based email, which are normally anticipated, personal, relevant and/or associated with a pre-existing business or personal relationship. Inappropriate newsgroup activities, consisting of excessive posting of the same materials to several newsgroups, are also deemed to be spam.

I'm not sure whether the recent advise from the Malaysian Pharmaceutical Society to Malaysians buy drugs online at your own risk, has anything to do with the deluge of spam emails that Malaysian internet users receive over the last few months. I guess, if you receive many mails on the same topic, one will be sucked into being interested in what they have to offer.

According to an EU Commission, some EU countries have sucessfully reduced spam mails. Examples are Netherlands which has cut locally generated spam by 85 percent since 2003; and Finland which has reduced spam to 30 percent of emails received, down from 80 percent in 2003.

More effort need to be done to combat this menace!

Dream - Walt Disney

2006-12-06T20:38:00.000+08:00

Walt Disney

If you can dream it, you can do it.

Offline business going online?

2006-12-02T00:49:00.000+08:00

This week has been rather quite hectic at my 'day job'. I have taken a step closer to working smart. I have just conducted 3 days of training, while being filmed for it. Boy! was I uptight, because I so want to make this training video so perfect.

The film is being edited now. Without meaning to, I think I may have found my first product to sell over the internet! Need to read up on driving niche traffic. But first, need to work on my website..

I am taking my offline business online.

Phishing : advise

2006-11-26T22:57:00.000+08:00

Emails that are better off deleted than opened

Emails, presumably from the bank, asking you for (confirmation of) your name, bank account number, credit card information, password and Personal identity number (PIN), are better off being deleted. Ignore the request and delete the email.

There has been a series of email and phone scams that our local paper ran a story in the main section warning readers "Don't be hooked by phishers"

This is because banks DO NOT send such a notification via email asking for the details. Even if the email "instructs' you to call a number, or ask you to click on a link in the email, do not be fooled. The link could trigger a spy program being installed on your computer that will activate when you next visit a banking or pay site. The spy program will record your keystrokes when you type the passwords.

If you really want to confirm the message in the email, call the number from the phone book, or the number which you normally use. Don't call the number stated in the email - because the person over the phone may be phoney!

Lodge a report if you are a target for phishing.

Prevention is better than cure. Do not reveal finacial details to anyone over the phone or email. You wouldn't want to find your money being transferred out for payment for bogus online purchases, or payment for pornographic sites.

Plagiarism

2006-11-26T21:40:00.000+08:00

Plagiarism

Today our local paper carried a story about plagiarism, especially amongst students. The title of the story "Thou Shalt Not Copy" carries serious connotations.

I guess it's not only students who should make proper references and give proper acknowledgement to the originator of the information, ideas, words, or opinions; bloggers and website owners should also take heed to cite the source of their information.

With the internet becoming so prevalent nowadays, it's so easy to 'cut and paste' information and pass as your own. Even paraphrasing is considered plagiarism

Wikipedia has a practical reference on Unintentional Plagiarism on the Internet

Very well known works are often used without citation or attribution, but this does not mean that the practice is either permissable or desirable. Some works are very well known in one country but little known in other countries. Authors may quote or adapt works which do not need attribution in their country. Authors may then put such unoriginal work onto the Internet without realizing the need for attribution.

Another thing I learnt today, there are software to check for plagiarism:

AntiPlagiarist - free software

AntiCutAndPaste - check for source code plagiarism

TurnItIn - used by colleges

Also if you are interested in plagiarism software visit The Plagiarism Resource Site to know more about their software WcopyFind

I must remember to give credit where its due.

Affiliate Marketing

2006-11-24T23:02:00.000+08:00

Affiliate Marketing Home Based Business Rosalind Gardner

Affiliate marketing is one phrase and one activity which you cannot ignore if you want to build a business over the internet.

This article which I chance upon while doing a search on affiliate marketing sums up the subject well : what, why, how. Excerpts below.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate Marketing is kind of like being an independent sales representative in the online world - sans the telemarketing!

An affiliate marketer puts links and ads on their web site that are encoded with a specific tracking URL and Cookie. When a surfer clicks on that link and the click results in a purchase, a commission is paid to the affiliate marketer. The commission paid does not change the amount the customer is charged - the commission is paid by the merchant or advertiser.

Affiliate Marketing is different than pure advertising. Advertising is typically sold on a Cost Per Impression (CPM) basis. For every 1000 impressions (views), an advertiser pays a certain amount of money whether or not an actual sale is made. With affiliate marketing, the advertiser only pays when an actual sale is made.

Typically a unique URL is used to track when visitor has originated from an affiliate marketer’s site. Additionally, most advertisers also offer an “action period” - for a certain number of days after the first click, a cookie is placed on a surfer’s computer to continue to track the origination of the referral source. Affiliate marketers like long cookies - which means they will get credit for up to 4 months (sometimes even longer!) after the first click.

Affiliate links can be banner ads or text links. You can add them anywhere on your site you feel appropriate. Of course, if your page is covered with ads with no other compelling content, a surfer will have little reason to want to click on any of your ads. Affiliate Marketing works best when you offer resources for customers to make an informed buying decision.

Success Tips
Most successful affiliate marketing sites are review and content based. As an affiliate marketer, it’s up to you to educate and inform YOUR surfers/readers to help them determine what products and services are right for them. Here are a few good examples of very successful affiliate sites:

Rosalind Gardner got her start in affiliate marketing by finding a need and filling it. She entered the online dating scene in 1997, and didn’t really know which sites were the best, and which were ones to avoid at all costs. She learned by trial and tribulation which sites were the best and most reputable on the net. Then, realizing there were many other people who would want to know about what she learned, she launched Sage-Hearts.com - one of the first dating site review portals on the internet.

Sage-Hearts is a GREAT example of simplicity paired with great content, and her results prove it - based on her success in affiliate marketing, she wrote an eBook called How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other People’s Stuff Online.

Another good example is Brad’s Deals - a coupon site with over 2500 Handpicked Deals & Coupons. Brad originally started the site to help his friends save time and money shopping online. Currently consumers using BradsDeals have spent over $100M at over 700 retailers - because he works constantly to update his site and he has a loyal customer base of his own that visit regularly to use his coupons (affiliate links with a built-in discount).

Affiliate Marketing works best on a site dedicated to affiliate marketing. It is less effective on blogs for a couple of reasons - most blogs offer free content (which predisposes our readers to expecting things for free), and most good blogs have what’s called a lot of “Leaky Links” - meaning links that send traffic away from your site without the potential to earn you $$ (non-affiliate links). This is a generalization, of course, so note that there will always be exceptions to this.

Skills Needed
To be successful in affiliate marketing, the following skills are needed - though you can rest assured you don’t need them all right now - some of them will simply come with time and experience…

Search Engine Optimization

Paid Search Engine Marketing

Sales Copywriting Skills (for reviews, informative articles, newsletters and other marketing materials. Head over to CopyBlogger to learn from The Guru on this subject)

Webmaster/html knowledge

A mailing list building strategy (very important!)

Working knowledge of spreadsheet programs and the ability to analyze costs vs. commissions

Ability to analyze web statistics on a basic level

Pros and Cons
Affiliate marketing can be extremely lucrative. It also can be built to the point where much of the business can run on autopilot, giving you a lot more time with the family. It can also be quite rewarding, knowing you are providing a valuable service to people who need the information you offer.

Affiliate marketing also requires patience. This is not an instant-get rich quick business. It takes time to learn what works and what doesn’t work - and to learn how to build up your own traffic (in order to send it elsewhere!). Time is the best teacher for affiliate marketing, as you can study what links your readers are most interested in (by tracking their clicks), where your traffic comes from (what keywords they use to find you), and what affiliate links convert to the most sales.

Income Potential
Don’t expect to earn much in your first few months in affiliate marketing, especially if you are only doing it part time. After the first year of persistent work, you can expect to see a steady revenue stream. I can’t say for certain, but from my past experience and that of others I know personally, I would say the low end of income potential is $10 K a year and at the high end the sky is the limit!

As with many businesses - you get out of it what you put into it. A six figure income from affiliate marketing is absolutely possible - and is also not the norm. In fact, there are a few seven figure affiliate marketers out there - so it certainly pays to learn the business!

Training or Certifications Necessary
No formal training or certification is necessary. Kids have made big bucks in affiliate marketing.

Sales Skills Necessary
You don’t need to do any in person presentations or make any sales calls. But you do have to write compelling sales copy, present product information in a clear to read and understandable format, make site navigation easy and intuitive, and handle customer service emails (sometimes your audience will have questions or problems with a merchant - while you can’t control what happens, you can yank links from your site, or add more based on what your readers like and dislike).

Remember – you are PRE-Selling for your advertisers – keep this in mind and your results will always be better than if you just throw links up on your site.

Initial $ Investment Range
It doesn’t take much $ to invest into creating an affiliate site. You have to pay for web hosting, and a solid email marketing/autoresponder tool (unless you know the CAN-Spam laws like the back of your hand are are willing to risk your email marketing business based on what you know). If this is your only source of income, then you need to plan for the time it will take to get your business up and running to a point that it will make you actual income (plan at least 4-6 months).

Also, PPC (Pay Per Click) traffic is quite critical to the success of an affiliate marketing site, so plan on opening an AdWords account and paying for some traffic.

Read more from http://www.emomsathome.com/blog/

How to write the "About Me" Page

2006-11-24T19:57:00.000+08:00

If you want to write an effective "About Me" page for your blog, read about the advise given in the ProBlogger site which is reproduced below

There are four main questions that readers want answered on your “About Me” page:

who you are…

your expertise

how your expertise addresses their problem or goal

how they can contact you

I have rewritten my about me page after reading the above advise.

Social bookmarking sites - what and why

2006-11-20T22:34:00.000+08:00

Del.icio.us Technorati Tag

Over the weekend, I was introduced to a new phrase "Social bookmarking website". So I decided to find out more.

What are social bookmarking websites?

Social bookmarking websites are internet sites that allow users the option to store their favourite sites and webpages online, and label them with tags.

Since the bookmarks are stored online, they are not limited to a particular computer. (*plus point for people on the go).

There are many social bookmarking websites; the popular ones being Del.icio.us and Digg and also Technorati, Flickr

More about Del.icio.us
Del.icio.us ...is a collection of favourite sites- yours and everyone else's.

Del.icio.us allows you to

Keep links to your favourite articles, blogs, music, reviews, recipes etc from and access them from any computer on the web. Add your bookmarks from anywhere

Share favorites with others - friends, family and coworkers

Discover new, cool and useful bookmarks that everyone else has saved.

What are Tags

Tags help to organise and remember your bookmarks.

Tags are one-word descriptors that you assign to your bookmarks.

Tags are basically keywords - it can be a category or a subject. Tags are how you summarise your webpage or site.

Tagging is flexible
Because tagging is more flexible than categories or folders, and can be created easily, it can result in grammatical errors, misspelled words, singular and plural forms of the words, and spaced and unspaced versions of the word/phrase. To each his own.

Some service providers like Technorati allows you to tag your own content and add it to to the Technorati index

Use of Social bookmarking sites
Traffic-wise, tagging is another method of getting your website and blogs to be found by users. That's free traffic generation! Assign as many tags to a bookmark as you like, to increase the chances of being found.

Social bookmarking sites generate traffic to your site. It is time to monetise the traffic- convincing sales letter (promoting affiliate products or your own products), adsense clicks and so on.

Cool ways of using bookmarking system

Doing a research? Keep your source materials online

Going on a holiday? Save links to hotels, activities, food, transportation

What's cooking? Save the links to your recipes online

Other social bookmarking sites allow you to save your videos (YouTube), photos (Flickr).

Internet Marketing Newswatch

2006-11-20T21:25:00.000+08:00

Resources
Get the latest news in internet marketing from, where else, but the Internet Marketing Newswatch

Thank you friends!

2006-11-19T21:23:00.000+08:00

This is the first time I have participated in any referral program over the internet. Since the very first day I started in this new online business, I vowed to myself that I am not going to be a product-pusher. I will only recommend a product to my list if I have tried it and genuinely believe that another person will benefit from the product.

100percentMalaysian has just sent me an email to notify me that at least 5 of my friends have registered for the free materials from the site. To these first 5, I thank you for making my 'first affiliate program' a success. To the newbies, do listen to the audios. Seriously. I am now quite excited about this new business!

This is the email I received. Feels like a kindergarten kid receiving his first book prize.

============================================================
You have successfully referred enough members to qualify for VIP membership at 100PpercentMalaysian.com, Please login now and you'll be able to access your VIP members area.
============================================================

Elaine,

This is an automated email.

Thank you for your efforts in referring new members to 100 Percent Malaysian.

I want you to know that you've achieved your minimum referral requirement. And this has UNLOCKED EXTRA DOWNLOAD in the VIP Members area.

Asia Adsense Immersion Bootcamp

2006-11-19T00:50:00.000+08:00

Dr Mike Woo Adsense

On Saturday, I attended a preview of the Asia Adsense Immersion bootcamp to be held in Singapore on Dec 7-9, 2006.

The bootcamp will be conducted for the "first and last" time, by Dr Mike Woo-Ming, a medical practitioner turned internet entreprenuer.

I learnt some thngs at this preview. Thanks to the local facilitator. If you are keen to attend, click here for more details.

Here are important points to consider when placing on Google Adsense on your sites/blogs:

Location of ads. Read Google's optimisation tips on where to place the ads in order to encourage more click-through.

A great advertisement is of no good if there are nobody interested in them. As a responsible site owner, the articles on your site must be interesting, unique, and of value to the visitors.

World Internet Summit

2006-11-18T23:24:00.000+08:00

World Internet Summit

The World Internet Seminar (WIS) series is on the second leg of the Asian tour beginning with Indonesia (Nov 12) and now in Malaysia (Nov 17).

The internet gurus will be in Singapore next.
Other countries are Japan, Thailand, India and United Arab Emirates.

Read more in the WIS blog

100 percent Malaysian Internet Marketers?

2006-11-16T22:55:00.000+08:00

100PercentMalaysian Gobala Krishnan PayPal Get MP3 file

Do these topics interest you?

Why I quit my job to become an internet marketer

Why I tried MLM and decided never to do it again

A simple 5-step plan I used to discover what I really want to do

How I fell into the Get-rich Quick trap

The 5 biggest mistakes I made in internet marketing

I came across these free MP3 audio files here

Listen to the MP3 recordings made by the website owner, Gobala Krishnan, a Malaysian guy who shocked Malaysia a few months back with his secret ebook about Paypal and Clickbank.

I have listened to all 5 audio recordings and also the other recordings on how he created and marketed a product that made over RM28,000 in less than 120 days.

I am still learning about internet marketing and when I find something newbies like us can learn from, I like to share it. Forget about the Astro Max and the cash prizes he is offering for new members, just listen to the audio recordings.

This is real Malaysian experience. Do register and download the audios or transcript for free.

Death of Internet Marketing

2006-11-15T22:34:00.000+08:00

I have not even started, and now the talk in the internet is that "Internet Marketing is dying!" I received many emails persuading me to download a free report "Death Of Internet Marketing".

My first reaction? I ignored all the emails, but in the end, temptation got the better of me, and I clicked on one of the link to download the free report.

Apparently over 17 popular internet marketers launched new products in October 2006 -too many for the 'small' internet marketing market. Good products got ignored because of the influx of new product launches.

So what do we do in this situation?

Difficult to access Google?

2006-11-09T11:20:00.000+08:00

I have had difficulty in accessing Gmail and Google in recent days, and I put it down to the bad weather - heavy thunderstorm. Now I know its not isolated problem. Apparently there has something to do with our service provider Streamyx.

Go see Jeff Ooi's article on this

Treasure hunt - Massive return of investment

2006-11-05T20:40:00.000+08:00

Weekend de-stress activity

ROI, Treasure hunt

Went on a treasure hunt on Saturday with a group of friends. To the uninitiated, a treasure hunt is NOT about looking for hidden treasures.

In a treasure hunt, we use our brains to crack a couple (between 4 to 5) clues which will lead you to decipher the item that the clerk-of-course (CoC) wants you to buy and hand over to him. The trick is, once you crack the clues, you should stop at the first shop you see and get that item, before some 'KIASU' team buys all the available items off the shelf. Seriously, this is what we encountered. The minute we went into a local sundry shop and ask for the item, the proprietor, said "all taken up by the previous person".

The treasures are not the only questions we need to answer. There are usually another set of between 30- 40 questions, made up of anagrams, word-replacement, and cryptic questions you see in crossword puzzles, that you need to solve along your journey to the check point. The answers are in the signboards of the business entities. Actually the business owners should be paying for the free advertising!

What I cannot understand, is how I end up joining the treasure hunt fanatics who sacrifice their weekends to get up early (6 am or earlier) and spend practically the whole day on the road solving cryptic questions.

Anyway, I think this is also another business for the masters of the game. The winning team gets to receive Rm2000 in cash, against an investment of Rm320 per team. A massive return on investment, I would say!

P/S our team won a steam iron each.

To know more about treasure hunts, click here

Advice to Newbies : Analyse your time

2006-10-30T00:34:00.000+08:00

NLP model in learning a new skill

Again, I found this piece of information in Rich Schefren's blog that's very pertinent to all newbies who are learning a totally new skill. Great piece of work!

Learning a new skills is divided into four stages

Stage 1 - Unconscious Incompetence. This is where you don’t
know how to do something and you don’t even know that you don’t know.

Stage 2 - Conscious Incompetence. This is where you now
know all the different things you don’t know and
you begin to work on learning them.

Stage 3 - Conscious Competence. This is where you now know
what you need to know, you can do the skills
necessary, but it takes all of your concentration.

Stage 4 - Unconscious Competence. This is where you can now
do the skills necessary without thinking about it, it’s now a habit

So what you need to do is
-- to know which stage you are in and then focus on what you
need to do to move to the next stage.

Information Overload!

2006-10-28T23:37:00.000+08:00

According to one Guru whom I just discovered, I am becoming an Information Junkie. I may have to entirely agree with him.

His definition of Information junkies : "they just want to learn, absorb… absorb… absorb and they simply don’t have the power to turn off this constant craving for more".

I have many unopened emails, each offering a product "that I may need" in order to make massive money. However, since I have not started my online business yet, these tools will not be of any use to me.

So the advice given by this Guru, Rich Schefren for information junkies to go on an information diet is wise indeed. It's time to

stop studying, stop analyzing and start creating

don't allow any information to come in whatsoever for the next week.

realise that you can't read everything, nor cross off every item on the to-do list

realise that I must decide which information I must read

live with only the information I have created

develop urgency in everything I do for the next week

increase the level of output

Rich Schefren

Same product, different approach

2006-10-28T22:24:00.000+08:00

Almost every other mail that I receive this week has been promoting a certain marketer's new product-membership riches. I find it very amusing to read the same sales pitch from unconnected people promoting the same product.

Being very new to Internet marketing, I subscribe to many Internet Gurus' lists, just to get a feeling about the business.

This is how I notice that many of the other Internet marketers have signed up as affiliates for that new product, and I become the recipient of the same offer.

What are some of the lessons that we can learn from this situation?

Need to differentiate oneself from the pack : there is only one marketer that gave additional offers. If I wanted to buy-in to the membership riches ebook, I will buy from that marketer.

There is one marketer who uses an entirely different sales letter, which when clicked on, led me to the same product.

Either the commissions are great, or the product is excellent that makes almost everybody wanting to promote it

As for me, I will not buy-in to this offer yet, because I am still doing my research on the business model.

Teaching IT to senior citizens

2006-10-26T23:56:00.000+08:00

If things go right, I will be introducing IT to a group of senior citizens in my neighbourhood early next month. Looking forward to it.

I have sourced my materials from various senior citizen websites, and I have also resorted to children's sites for some teaching methodology. Guess, where computer knowledge is concerned, both generations are at par.

If there are any suggestions, do post your comments here.

Is Blogging right for you?

2006-10-24T22:27:00.000+08:00

23 "Pre-Qualifying Questions" for a successful blogger

What is a successful blogger? To me, a successful blogger is akin to a regular columnist in the newspaper. A successful blog will have its own regular readership who will seek out the blog on a regular basis and expects the blogger to "speak" to them. So some of the questions below are very pertinent if you want to be a successful blogger.

I choose the blog as my medium to record my online experience. Whether blogging will be a permanent feature in my daily routine in future is left to be seen.

A regular blogger poses the following questions to prospective bloggers. To go in detail his reasons for asking the questions, click here.

Do you enjoy writing?

What’s your Message?

Are you a good communicator?

Are you better at writing or speaking?

Do you want to be the central voice on your website?

Are you a self starter?

Are you disciplined?

Do you have time?

Are you thick skinned?

Are you willing to be in the public spotlight?

Do you have any technical ability?

Do you take yourself too Seriously?

Do you have a blend of humility and Ego?

Are you willing to learn/

Do you enjoy reading?

Are you an organized person?

Are you a Social person?

Do you enjoy ‘virtual relationships?

Are you a creative person?

Do you have Stick-ability?

Are you Consistent?

Are you honest and transparent?

Are you willing to work hard?

Starting A Program Automatically

2006-10-23T18:55:00.000+08:00

Computer Tip

If you want your PC to open a selected a program (for example, Accounting or a Point-of-Sales software) automatically when you start the computer, just follow these steps:

For Windows XP
You need to add a shortcut to the Startup folder

Look for the desired program in the local hard drive C or D

Right-click the program and select Send To Desktop as a shortcut on your desktop

Click the Start button, select All Programs list, and look for 'Startup' folder

Right click on the Startup folder, select Open

Drag the desktop shortcut created earlier, INTO the opened Startup folder.

For Mac
You need to add the icon to the Login Items menu

Under Apple menu, select System Preferences

Click Accounts icon, and click Login Items tab

To add programs to the list, click the plus sign or the = button

What is the Value of Time?

2006-10-23T14:52:00.000+08:00

Technorati Tag : Value of Time

Everybody has equal number of hours, minutes and seconds in a day. However, when you use your time wisely, you will be able to "stretch" it and then learn to value every day, every minute and every second of your time on Earth.

I don't know who is the original author of these insights, but it has been on the email circuit for quite some time. Also found it on a friend's blog and wanted the same message on my blog.

To realize
The value of ten years:
Ask a newly
Divorced couple

To realize
The value of four years:
Ask a graduate.

To realize
The value of one year:
Ask a student who
Has failed a final exam.

To realize
The value of nine months:
Ask a mother who gave birth to a still born.

To realize
The value of one month:
Ask a mother
who has given birth to
A premature baby.

To realize
The value of one week:
Ask an editor of a weekly newspaper.

To realize
The value of one hour:
Ask the lovers who are waiting to Meet.

To realize
The value of one minute:
Ask a person
Who has missed the train, bus or plane.

To realize
The value of one-second:
Ask a person
Who has survived an accident…

To realize
The value of one millisecond:
Ask the person who has won a silver medal in the Olympics

Time waits for no one.

Treasure every moment you have.

Claiming my blog in Technorati

2006-10-22T19:25:00.000+08:00

After I signed up for Technorati services, this is the next step I need to do to take ownership of my blog - creating a post- so that the service can be activated.

Now to learn about Tagging the Posts,and Linking the Blogs to other like-minded blogs, to increase the visibility.

Technorati Profile

About Technorati - the blog search engine.

2006-10-22T17:21:00.000+08:00

Today's topic is all about Technorati.

What is Technorati

Technorati is an Internet search engine for searching blogs, competing with Google, and Yahoo. Technorati services allows you to search for, surface, and organize bloggers and their daily posts.

How does Technorati keep track of the blogs?

First of all, you need to get your blog listed on www.Technorati.com. Follow the screen instruction to sign up for Technorati services (its free). Once you are signed on, you can send a small ping * to Technorati to notify them when you have updated your blog. They will then check you out! Technorati tracks the number of links to your blog. The more links you have, the more relevant is your blog. Links are important in blogs because it reflects the real-time nature of the blogs.

* A ping is a program that is used for informing others that your blog exists, and also that a new post has been made.

Some Blog statistics
.

75,000 new blogs are created in a day, this means approximately one new blog is created every second

1.2 million posts are made daily, or about 50,000 blog updates an hour.

Some 57.4 million blogs are registered with Technorati, and the list is growing

[Technorati:About Blogging]

Blog releases stress for teachers?

2006-10-22T15:58:00.000+08:00

Should teachers blog?

Another story about perils of blogging - this time for the education sector

Found this article about pros and cons of blogging by teachers. A few teachers in USA had to quit or were sacked for writing about the school policy, and the students behaviour.

Apparently there are more than 800 teacher blogs on Technorati.com

Teachers also need to detox and release stress - after all they face 30-40 students everyday.

I guess, discretion in your blogging is the main key.

Think twice before you post in the internet.

2006-10-17T23:01:00.000+08:00

Woman wins $11.3 million from blogger.

Although a blog is a personal online diary and the blogger is entitled to say what she wants, care must be taken to ensure that what you write in the blog is not slanderous. You can be held accountable for the writings in your blog.

Recently the Florida jury awarded a woman $11.3 million in damages after a former acquaintance accused her of being a crook, a con artist and a fraudster in her blog.

Most bloggers, including me, merrily publish our writings on the internet, without any thought of the legal implications of what we write.

What if some money-strapped friend of ours decide to sue us for mentioning her innermost secrets? Food for thought. Safer to report on facts.

Tips for digital photos

2006-10-13T22:54:00.000+08:00

Downside for speed

Digital cameras now come with 6,8, or 10 megapixels. They are good for printing your photos.

However, if you need to put your photos on the web or send through the email, a camera resolution of 640 x 480 pixels is adequate quality. It will keep the image file down to a manageable size.

Font sizes that are easy-on-the-eye

2006-10-13T21:56:00.000+08:00

Changing text size

Do you find that the font size of the email, or the pages on this webpage, too small for comfort?

This tip may be useful for those people, especially those over 45 whose eyesight isn't what it used to be, who wants to change the size of ANY text they are reading off the computer screen. (and, Yes, it also includes word documents and spreadsheets)

hold down the Ctrl key on your key board and turn the small wheel in the middle of your mouse. The print size of your email will change - it will either get larger or smaller - depending on which way you turn the wheel. This is provided you have a mouse with scrolling function!

or, you can also click on the View menu bar, and select Text Size

.

But I find the first method much more convenient.
Thanks to the friend who brought it to my attention. Try it!!

Top 100 website

2006-10-12T18:24:00.000+08:00

Want to know what are the

top 100 websites in the world?

top websites for your country?

most searched website for a particular category?

Go to Alexa.com

YouTube sold for $1.6b

2006-10-10T22:04:00.000+08:00

Getting rich over the internet: within 1 year

The internet has made the co-founders of YouTube, a web-site that allows users to upload, view and share video clips over the internet, rich overnight.

On October 9, 2006 it was announced that YouTube will be purchased by Google for US$1.65 billion in stock. And to think the domain name was just activated in Feb 2005, and the YouTube service made its debut on the internet in November 2005 - barely 1 year old! Source

Listen to the happy voices of the co-founders.

[Technorati : youtube]

Alma Mater

2006-10-10T01:12:00.000+08:00

What now, Alma Mater?

My Alma mater, University of Malaya (fondly called UM), has been in the limelight in recent days. Its' position in the ranking of top universities of the world has dropped from position no. 169 (in 2005) to position no. 192 (in 2006) in the THES-QS World University Rankings 2006/07. In the inaugural ranking in 2004, UM was placed on position 89. This means that this year's ranking is a drop for two consecutive years in a world university ranking. The only consolation is that the University is still in the top 200 universities of the world.

It used to be THE premier university that every young Malaysian secondary school leaver wants to go to. Now another university, University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) has been ranked the premier Malaysian university. What a blow to UM!

Back in the 80's, I was one of 2 students from my high school to be accepted to do the Accounting degree at UM for that year. My entire neighbourhood wanted to know what my grades were - because the entrance qualification is high and I made it! I'm not sure, with such a ranking, how it will affect the employability of the current under-graduates in UM.

I hope the new (lady) Vice Chancellor of UM will do something to improve the situation. She did say, though, that the entire UM family will not rest on past glories. Way to go!

Dead or Alive?

2006-10-08T22:46:00.000+08:00

Is Adsense Dead or Alive?

Sometime back, there was a blast of emails in my inbox urging subscribers to download the ebook that says adsense is dead. Now there is another round of emails in my inbox from another guru that urges me to download an ebook that rebutts the first statement. This second person says Adsense is Alive!

To a newbie like me, this is utterly confusing! I guess each of the "gurus" have their own version of how to make money through adsense.

I need to be careful of what I read over the internet!

Internet : Human Network

2006-10-05T10:44:00.000+08:00

What is the Internet?

The technical definition of the internet is that it is a collection of interconnected computer networks that transmit data. Source

However, the internet can also be described as a network of people. The internet has become more people-centric. It is ingrained in our everyday lives. We email coworkers, friends, and loved ones. Our lives are captured by digital cameras and shared online. We read blogs for their personalities and unique take on the world. Even dry data like bank balances and weather forecasts have become ways to accentuate and improve your daily life. Sure it's an interconnected set of computers following simple machine instructions, but the driving force behind it all is people connecting with other people. Source

The world is becoming smaller, day by day.

Hurray! Designed my first web page

2006-10-04T20:13:00.000+08:00

Success, at last

It's not so difficult afterall to learn the HTML codes to write the web pages. It's just time consuming. Though it was a guided assignment, I felt very proud of myself when I saw my HTML codes being translated to web pages, with heading, images, linking to other web pages, and the works.

At least now when I modify the template for this blog, I do it with some understanding of what the codes mean.

I just saw this reference for HTML tutorial . Worth taking a look.

Quotable Quotes

2006-10-02T14:59:00.000+08:00

Thomas Alva Edison

"If we all did the things we are really capable
of doing, we would literally astound ourselves."

Website design - Basic tools

2006-10-01T17:54:00.000+08:00

Online course on website design

I have signed up for a FRE.E online course on building your first web page. The instructor gave assurance that designing web pages (i.e writing in HTML) is really, really, really easy to learn. So here goes!

First things first, you need the following basic tools to design a web page :
1. Text Editor
2. Browser

Text Editors
A Text editor is a tool that allows you to edit text.

Some text editors come preloaded with Windows and Macintosh systems : Notepad (for Windows) and SimpleText (for Macintosh) systems. So no reason not to get started!

You can also download for fre.e other powerful text editors such as
EditPadLite (for windows) and BBEdit Lite (for Macintosh)

Or alternatively, go to TUCOWS to find a list of text editors that suit your needs.

Browsers

You need to install on your PC/Macintosh a variety of common web browsers which are used to logon to the internet. As a serious online publisher you would want to preview the webpages that you designed before you post it to the world to see. This is because different browsers might interpret your HTML differently, and might show the pages differently.

The common browsers (next-to-most-recent version) that needs to be installed are :
1. Internet explorer
2. Netscape
3. Firefox
4. Opera
5. Amaya

Once you have the basic tools, you are ready to start the first web page.

Books to Read

2006-09-18T01:38:00.000+08:00

The recent Malaysian budget 2007 which was tabled on September 1, 2006, one day after the 49th Merdeka celebrations, brought some cheer to parents with school-going children, and the reading public. The Finance Minister, who is also the Prime Minister, announced an increased in tax relief of RM300 (from RM700 to RM1000)for purchases of books

I've already lined up some books to purchase:

Best of Blogs
Authors: Peter Kuhns and Adrienne Crew

Publisher: Que Publishing, 320 pages

According to the reviewer , the book should be called "Best of American Blogs" as it features blogs from the United States. "Perhaps somebody should write the Best of Malaysian Blogs sometime in the future. I sense a need" she concludes.

Dare I take the challenge?

Website Design - 6 common mistakes

2006-09-18T00:23:00.000+08:00

Six Common Mistakes In Website Design That Kill Your Online Business

What are some of the things to avoid in your website?

1. A slow loading website.

There is nothing more irritating than a website that takes forever to load. Granted that most internet users these days have high speed connections, a great percentage are still hooked up to the World Wide Web via slower 56K access. This percentage should not be taken for granted. In building a website, try to stay away from the humongous graphic files. You don't need high number of pixels, fancy movies or flash animation, catchy music. You need a website that will deliver the information it promises at an instantaneous rate, and for this reason, you have to choose functionality over design.

2. A navigation system that is very difficult to understand.

Make it easy for visitors to explore your website. If your menu bar is too complicated, you’ll just end up driving away a lot of your visitors. You don’t want your visitors to get stuck in just one page. Your pages must be interlinked in a logical way, and this connection should be easily navigable through an intuitive interface that even a 7 year old will be able to understand. Again, this is a matter of functionality over design. Place your navigation links either at the top of the page right below the header, or at either side of the page in a separate column. This is where your visitors’ eyes will wander once they want to discover the other pages in your website.

3. Low quality content.

Content is king on the internet. People log online to find information they need, and information is conveyed through your content. If your content is poorly written, who will have the patience to read the same? If your content is not unique, why will people choose your website over others? There are two requisites for good quality content: excellent presentation and originality. Minus either of this, your entire website will be in jeopardy.

4. Poor choice of keywords to focus on.

Keywords drive traffic to your website. Keywords are the terms that people search for when they’re looking for information. If you targeted the right keywords, quality visitors will come aplenty. If you targeted the wrong keywords, visitors will be scarce. So make sure you discover the right keywords even before you start building your website.

5. Cookie cutter websites.

If your website lacks originality - shares the same layout and boasting of the same content as others, your visitors will question its credibility. Make your website unique. Search engines penalize duplicate content, and your website will have a lower position in the search engine results.

6. A website that lacks focus.

Focus is key in designing a website. Topics in the website should be related. Why would visitors who are interested with dogs be interested with astronomy? There’s no connection between the two subjects.

New keyword : WII FM : What's In It - For Me. Every visitor switches on to this radio station when they land on your page, so give them a reason to stay longer.

4 steps to successful internet business

2006-09-17T11:14:00.000+08:00

Presented by Derek Gehl - in a preview at a leading hotel in Subang Jaya

This blog is my online diary. In the process of doing indepth research on internet marketing, I take every opportunity to attend the free seminar or previews in town, so the least I can do is to pen down the important notes that the presenter dish out - so that I can refer to it again and again. One more thing, I made this blog my default homepage, so I will see it whenever I switched on the laptop

Actually if you have attended enough seminars, the information dished out is "about the same". What differs is the RESULTS from the ACTIONS taken.

Readers, have you attended (paid or unpaid) seminars and religiously taken notes, only to stash the notes (written on the hotel's stationery) in the drawer, or briefcase? I have been guilty of it so many times. When I discovered blogging I found my answer!

1. Use your existing hobbies or experience to find a lucrative business or product to sell online.

Before you plunge into the online business (for that matter, it also applies to offline business), you need to do a research on the supply and demand for your chosen product or service.

In the online business, demand can be defined as the number of people keying in a particular word, or groups of words (called keywords) onto the search engines like Google, MSN, Yahoo and many more. Supply is the number of websites that have already been created to meet the demand.

When you find that the demand exceeds the supply (pure economic terms) for the product or service that you have in mind, then you are in business! It is time to find a creative solution to the problems that people have.

2. Design a website to convert visitors to lifetime customers.

The website is your storefront. It must be easy to navigate. It must give the visitors the information he/she wants when they entered the keywords in the search engine, and is redirected to your website. You have 10 seconds to impress the visitor. It must have a compellng headline and credible reasons why they should buy your advice or product.

3. Drive a flood of qualified buyers to your website

Vistors to your website (storefront) are either referred by others - friends, associates or affiliates, or they may have accidentally stumbled onto your website when they do a search. In order to sustain your business, you must promote the website - by driving qualified visitors to it. Blogging, banner ads and newsletters and ezines are some of the methods. There are many!

4. Put it on Auto pilot!

Use the right technology to automate the sales (ordering and delivery) process. Spend your time to promote and market your website. Just like the traditional offline business. Work ON the business, not IN the business.

That's it. Simple Isn't it?

Now to put in action.

Article Marketing - What and Why

2006-09-12T12:43:00.000+08:00

Article marketing has always been hailed as online advertising’s greatest strategy.

Writing your own articles is inexpensive. Submission to the many articles directories wouldn’t cost a single penny. You’d be planting seeds that you could benefit from for many years. For as long as the article directories exist, your article/s would be stored, and with them would be your links.

Article marketing does seem like the greatest promotional technique invented for the internet utilised by novice and veteran online businessman. Whether their enterprises are mere startups, or whether they have established a profitable brand for themselves, article marketing is always at the forefront of their advertising campaigns.

Concerns about Article Marketing

If you submit an article to 100 directories, and publish the very same article in your website, will your website be penalized?

The short answer: no.

What will be penalized would be the pages housed in the article directories. Your website will be spared. This is the reason why most article directories, with the notable exception of www.isnare.com when it comes to MSN results (which can be attributed to alternative SEO techniques that website is pursuing specifically for MSN’s search engine), fare quite poorly in SERPs. Run a search for any keyword. Will article directory pages appear in the first hundred or so pages? Most probably, they won’t.

What good is article marketing for?

Article marketing should not be used for direct traffic generation - the traffic will by no means be substantial for any form of online business.

Article marketing is great for building your link popularity, and link popularity is great for increasing your website’s page rank.

The higher your website’s page rank, the higher its position will be in the search engine results pages.

With your article submissions, you’d be able to increase your website’s number of back links on the internet. This would make it easy for search engine spiders, especially Google’s, to find, index and fetch your website for relevant search queries.

Additionally, article directories like www.ezinearticles.com , are favorites of webmasters and eZine publishers. If they will pick up your article/s for publication in their own channels, you’d be able to expose your website to whole new audience, and more importantly, you’d be able to increase the number of your back links even more.

This is the true power of article marketing.

Mind Your Own Business

2006-09-11T16:31:00.000+08:00

Mind Your own Business!: "When is the right time during the year to start using MYOB?
Any time. MYOB has been designed in such a way that it really doesn't matter when you start using it. The opening balances can be entered at any time so you are not forced to enter them before you can start using any of MYOB's features, for example invoicing or stock control. Obviously the more information you enter at the outset the more you'll get from MYOB We recommend that if you're using the Chequebook, you enter the opening cash book balance in the bank account so that bank reconciliations can be done from the outset. To print statements you'll need to at least enter opening debtor balance"

Huh? What has this article got to do about internet marketing? Actually I was learning how to create a link to this blog from another website. Anyway, if you are in business, the next logical tool to invest in is an accounting software to help you track the income and the expenses, and MYOB is just the right choice.

Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn

2006-09-11T14:28:00.000+08:00

I am always mindful not to judge things too quickly. Last weekend the local paper ran 2 stories about why you should not make judgements on events that transpired just based on 1 event alone. To read the story written by the reader, click here. and here .

I tell the same stories in my own words:

Story 1

An old man had a beautiful white horse, which he won't part with even when offered huge sums of money.

When the horse was found missing from its stable one morning, the villagers all said "What a misfortune. You would have been better off if you had sold it". The old man said "I don't know whether it's a misfortune or blessing. The fact is the horse is not in the stable. Everything else is judgement".

2 weeks later the horse returned, with a dozen wild horses. Again the people gathered and said " You are right. It was not a misfortune. Indeed it is a blessing".
The old mand replied "Who knows whether it is a blessing or not? Just say that the horse is back".

The old man's son began to train the wild horses. But 1 week later, the son fell from a horse and broke his legs. Again the people gathered and said, "It is a misfortune indeed. Your son has lost the use of his legs. You are now poorer than before". The old man said "You are obsessed about passing judgement. Don't go that far. Say only that my son has broken his legs. Life comprises of fragments and you don't get more than you can handle".

A few months later, it happened that the country went to war. All young men in the village were conscripted by military. The old man's son was spared because of his crippled leg. The villagers went to see the old man and said "Your son's fall has proven to be a blessing. You son may be a cripple but he is still with you. Our sons are gone forever".

The old man said "Don't go on judging. Just say that your sons were forced to join the army while mine was not. Only God knows whether this is a blessing or not".

Story 2

A man sent his 4 sons to look at a pear tree that was a great distance away. When they had all gone and came back, he called them together to describe what they had seen.

1st son, who went in winter said : the tree is ugly, bent and twisted.

2nd son, who went in spring said : the tree is covered with green buds and full of prime.

3rd son, who went in summer, said : the tree is laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked beautiful. It was the most graceful thing he had seen.

4th son, who went in autumn, said : it was ripe and drooping with fruits and full of life and fulfilment.

The man then explained that they were all right, because they had each seen only one season of the tree's life. In this way, you cannot judge a person or your life by one season only.

If you give up when it's winter, you will miss the promise of spring, the beauty of summer, and the fulfilment of autumn. Don't let the pain in one season cancel out the joy of all the others.

Something I have to learn also.

Perils of Blogging

2006-09-10T19:54:00.000+08:00

Several Malaysian blogs are in the running for the Best Malaysian Blog awards for 2006/2007. Would be interesting to find out how Malaysian readers pick out the "best" sites.

I guess one man's meat is another man's poison.

Several of the nominated blogs write on everyday happenings in the bloggers personal lives. There is a cautionary article on Perils of Blogging that bloggers might want to take note of before they let the entire world into their personal lives.

My humble opinion only.

And another thing, their readers reply in SMS-speak. I guess I don't belong to the SMS generation!

Putting video clip on a blog

2006-08-30T18:32:00.000+08:00

Guess what? I learned to put a video on my blog!

To a newbie like me, this is quite something.

Thanks to Roger and Joshua for their help.

See for yourself how this twenty-something guy used a blog to achieve his dreams.

Ready, Aim, Fire - Part 2

2006-08-29T09:39:00.000+08:00

From the last time I wrote about getting Ready, I have been doing research about which markets to go in. This is the part about 'AIM'- narrowing the reading to those that will lead me to actually get started.

There's so much to consider. Will write more later

Accounting Tool for Small business

2006-08-29T03:11:00.000+08:00

In need of a simple and easy to use accounting software? Try MYOB - it will help you to Mind Your Own Business

Accounting Tool for Small Buisness

Easy business and accounting software for small or home-based businesses.
MYOB BusinessBasics is the ideal first bookkeeping software for small service businesses. Specifically designed to help provide businesses with easy, yet capable, solution for managing the books and the business

READY, AIM, FIRE!

2006-08-01T02:53:00.000+08:00

PART 1

It's been a fortnight since my last post. Feels like I have just enrolled myself to the 'kindergarten' classes in internet marketing. Everything is new - there's so much to read, listen and do.

I declare that by the end of 5 months (December 2006), I will be re-reading this blog and by then I should have begin my next climb to join the ranks of sucessful internet marketers, and make a decent passive income to pay for my house and car instalments.

The indecent income will be if I have the money to pay in full the balance of loan outstanding!

If I am not successful, it is not for lacking in education. It will be because of lack in taking ACTION and I will want this blog to remind me of that.

Getting READY - Part 1 : Secrets to Creating Wealth

One of the first things that my guru, Stephen Pierce, sets out to teach us is Mindset changes. To be successful is to be able to endure and persevere. I must begin to do things that I haven't done before. I have to be focussed on what I want to achieve, and concentrate on achieving the goal. And I need to be disciplined to make it happen.

"Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve" - says Napolean Hill in Think and Grow Rich.

And I need to be mindful of whom or what I decide to be influenced by. The type of books I read, the title of videos I watch, the audio tapes I listen to, the seminars I attend, and the people I talk to, will shape my thought process and ultimately my destination (life objectives). I must choose and control the 'Third Influence', otherwise I will be influenced by anything.

Following the above advise, I have thus far bought myself some more books, and subscribed to the e-zines of the internet marketers, to gain a 'forest' view of the subject matter.

I am still discovering! And I am reminded that the internet world is a fast-changing one; what works today may not work tomorrow. And I thought I can coast along the shore!

Blogging achieves the impossible: How a paper clip landed a house

2006-07-16T18:39:00.000+08:00

The red paper clip has taken on a whole new meaning for Kyle MacDonald.

On July 12, 2005, Kyle, from Montreal posted on his first blog entry his quest to trade up, step by step by step, from a single, normal, red paper clip to a house. This might sound absurd, almost impossible to achieve.

However, on Wednesday July 12, 2006, his one year quest over 14 trades, culminated in an offer from the town in Kipling, Saskatchewan, where the town offered him a modest, two-story house for a role in a Corbin Bernsen movie, the penultimate item in MacDonald's progression of trades.

Media from around the world took an interest in the story of the man who used a blog and a lot of perseverance to do something most people would have thought impossible. But odd as it may seem, MacDonald completed his quest and, astoundingly, cemented the deal for the house on the first anniversary of that first blog post.

To read more click here. http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/2006/07/one-red-paperclip-t-shirt-design.html#links

Picked right book to read

2006-07-04T22:41:00.000+08:00

Just found out that the author of the book "Blog Wild" , Andy Wibbels, a book that I stumbled upon in the local bookstores in June, won one of the top 10 awards under Marketing Sherpa 2006.

Didn't pick the wrong author to start my blogging experience!!

To read more,
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?ident=28525

Blog Wild

2006-06-25T17:27:00.000+08:00

Resources : Blogging for newbies

Stumbled across this book at the local bookstore last weekend.

Blog Wild! How Everyone can go Blogging.

Easy to read. Gives you resounding reasons why you should start your own blog NOW, and how easy it is. I created my blog after reading the first part of the book.

You may be interested to check it out .

Elaine

First Blog

2006-06-25T13:36:00.000+08:00

My first attempt at blogging.

I am aware that the road to riches is a long one, but with the help of fellow IWC participants and the internet marketers whom we met at the IWC2006, I will make it.

To all those who will be following my blog, I will be posting my experience driving along the road to riches in this new area- internet marketing. Amongst others, I will post my thoughts and learnings from the coaching which I have signed up for, the research and readings, and my attempts in driving traffic.

We will all make it rich, in our own way

Elaine

Mind Your Own Business? Click here