5 Key Steps To Internet Business Success
Jan 31 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Business
So you want to be a successful Internet business entrepreneur? Do you know the steps to take in order to achieve your goals and success? I have listed 5 key steps everyone should take when wanting to achieve Internet business success.
1) Focus Focus Focus
Multitasking is nonsense. Do one task at a time until it’s done. Then proceed to the next bullet on the list. Focus on that until it’s done. Then the next.
This is the most important rule of them all. If you focus precisely, you will always get what you put your mind to. However… You don’t want a failed business, lack of customers, or an unsatisfying job; so do not focus on these things. ;-)
I agree, sometimes it is not that easy to change focus. I have struggled with this myself several times in my life, but once you can redirect your lenses (and get rid of all the noise surrounding you), you will be able to reap the rewards.
If you are first starting out, expect setbacks. They come, say “Hello”, and then go away to someone else. Keep on track. Continue to redirect your thoughts to what you do want.
I have told this to people before who have had a hard time focusing on what they wanted after experiencing numerous setbacks. This can be especially hard if your Internet business is not where you want it to be. If this describes where you are at the present time, refocus yourself on other parts of the business or your personal life that are beneficial. This will help you to start looking forward again.
Also, step back and take a look at the bigger picture. Try to see things in a different light, in order to focus on positive ways to bring in customers, increase sales, or just boost your morale about your decision to venture into Internet business.
2) Meet Challenges and Obstacles Head On
Many people decide to start an Internet business because they are tired of the grind of a 9-5 job, fed up with a boss, or just want a new way to bring in extra income. They never expect all the challenges and obstacles that come along with it. As a result, they are not ready to tackle these obstacles, and fail.
You need to be able to accept and deal with frustration. The key is to take each challenge and obstacle presented to you, and use each as a stepping-stone to growth and success.
Even when the going gets tough, always stay positive, faithful, and persistent.
3) Be Passionate About What You Do
You need to stand behind the products you are selling. If you don’t use the products or services yourself, how can you expect to sell it to someone else? This is one of the key points most small business people fail online.
Also, at times you may get frustrated with how your business is going, but you need to have drive to get you through. You have to be passionate about what you do in order to ride the waves of entrepreneurship for many years to come.
4) Create a Variety of Income Sources
Putting all your eggs in one basket is a high risk strategy. And you will not bring in high sales just by selling one product.
Instead, utilize your other skills and offer e-books, newsletters, blogs, coaching, etc. These other avenues will reap high rewards in the end, compared to depending on just one product. (Yes, AdSense is also a “product”.)
Diversification is the key here.
5) Study Regularly
Focus alone will not bring you success in an Internet business. You need to continue to educate yourself and study how others became successful in the market place.
The more you understand the business and what it takes to be successful, the more likely you will be to take the appropriate steps to success. Before you know it, you will be mentoring someone else and help starting their Internet business. :-)
—Marcus Hochstadt
You Are MUCH More Worth Than You Think
Jan 30 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Business
Today I was reading a thread in an Internet business forum where they were talking about whether a particular advertising opportunity is worth to implement into your Internet business or not.
It is kind of a community thing. You place a snippet of code into your blog and give others the opportunity to advertise on that piece of virtual real estate. It is quasi the opposite of Google’s AdSense program because you yourself assign the amount of dollars that are necessary to accept advertisements.
I don’t know all the details, nor am I going to disclose the company I’m talking about. It is not important for making my point across anyway. (Some of you may have a clue by now though. ;-)
What I do want to talk about is your Net worth…
Yes, we’re talking business; Internet business to be exact.
What do you think are you worth monetarily? $0.01 per day? 0.02 per day? Or perhaps a whopping $1.00 per day? Wow, $1.00 per day… that would make it a huge $365 per year! That amount would cover administrative costs such as hosting, excellent.
The question, my friend, is not if you make enough money to “cover administrative cost.” The question you shall ask yourself is whether you are enjoying financial freedom with the amount you are earning. And, yes, whether it fits with the monetary picture you have about yourself.
Let’s face it…
I’m well aware of the fact that most small business entrepreneurs think way too small about themselves and their Internet business capabilities. They see how much the “big guys” are making (or how much is promoted <ahem>,) then they remember the balance of their own bank account and see that as being their own monetary value, sort of.
Perhaps a bit different but you get the point…
What I mean is you are more, MUCH more worth than you think.
You are more, MUCH more worth than you think.
I am sure that you are more, MUCH more worth than you think.
Am I crazy repeating it three times? No.
Well, maybe… I just learned in NLP that it’s a powerful technique to repeat a vital statement three times in a row. The message becomes stronger and sinks in more easily.
And I mean what I said above.
You are more, MUCH more worth than you currently think you are.
Think of all the things you know that others don’t but would like to. You have lots of skills and knowledge that others are begging for.
Create a Web site around that theme! Do the proper research. Find profitable keywords and develop your site’s blueprint. Interview and/or film experts in your field. Offer these recordings as a product (i.e., course or seminar) on your site. Your target market would run uphill to have them.
Think big.
Improve your self-esteem.
The knowledge you have, your experiences, and all that what you know is worth a LOT more than a mere Dollar a day.
Food for thought?
—Marcus Hochstadt
Why Drafting Messages Saves You Time
Jan 29 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Business, Strategies
Drafting messages in order to publish them at a later time is a great way to save a bunch of time. You sit down one time, focus on writing, writing, writing, and then you’re done for a couple of days or even weeks.
I haven’t “completely” done this exercise yet. What I mean by “completely” is to take an entire day off and write as many blog posts as I can, putting them into my WordPress post management and schedule them for a certain date to be published (or simply leave them there as drafts and hit the “Publish” button when the time is right).
I did once spend two hours though. I locked my door and really focused on the task at hand and got five blog posts written that way. Two of them are still in my draft posts area, so to speak.
Matt Cutts posted the other day mentioning he’d have ~219 (!) yes, two hundred nineteen draft posts. He’s now thinking of deleting or publishing them. Think about this for a second (or two)… 219! I currently have only 5 drafts (five). He has 219… Wow!
How many draft posts do you have in your WordPress Mission Control Center?
Well, I do have an excuse (we all have one, don’t we)… I started this blog just a couple of weeks ago (4 weeks exactly today!), not two years ago like Matt.
Still, one of my goals is to have a bunch of posts finished and scheduled to be published on __.__.____. Let’s say to have enough for an entire month… this would free up our time, wouldn’t it? Imagine, you’d have 30+ posts ready and scheduled, how much time would you have freely available to do something else then?
And to answer Matt’s question… Matt, I, personally, would trash the “pretty sucky” posts and polish those that would make them become a high quality one, if you have the time. (Matt must be 10 times as busy as I am!)
“Well, let’s first get that AdSense video finished, Marcus…”
Alright!
—Marcus Hochstadt
E-mail Follow Up Plugin For Comments Section?
Jan 29 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in HTML, CSS, Design, Traffic Generation
I seek your help. :-)
I’d like to implement a plugin that sends e-mail notifications (or follow-up messages) to those commented on a blog article. Anyone knows of a plugin that works like a charm? Instead of testing and headaches, I’m more after using the collective wisdom of my wonderful readership as for which works best. :-)
Opinions and experiences, anyone? Which e-mail announcement or e-mail follow-up WordPress plugin would you recommend to your best friend?
Submit your findings, experiences and knowledge by posting a comment to this post.
Thanks in advance!
—Marcus Hochstadt
New Face
Jan 28 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in HTML, CSS, Design
“Oops, is that a new site?” No, I just took the time and replaced the infamous WordPress standard template with a more professional looking one that is still light and fast loading (isn’t it?).
It’s not perfect yet though. Some spots are not behaving and looking the way I want.
I’ll play around with it in the next couple days (I like to play with/on code ;-), so don’t be surprised (or shocked?) when it looks a bit differently from today; although it shall not change that much.
If at all, your browsing experience will improve. :-)
—Marcus Hochstadt
SundayTV
Jan 27 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Better-Than-TV
Today’s SundayTV show features Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Prize Winner and committed to tirelessly distribute the message of love, peace, and compassion throughout the world.
Without further ado, let’s see (and listen to) the wisdom he shared in a short interview at a conference. Especially at the seventh minute, right before the end, he really gets to the meat…
There’s a 4-part series with more profound messages of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Each part goes 90 minutes, so these four parts together are six hours long.
If you are interested I encourage you to switch off television and watch these four parts instead. You may want to watch one per day, from Monday to Thursday. Again, instead of your regular TV junk.
These four parts shall teach you more and bring you much further in both your life and your Internet business than sticking to the regular TV crap. ;-)
Dalai Lama - The Four Noble Truths - Part 1/4
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FXmdKWVirUA
Dalai Lama - The Four Noble Truths - Part 2/4
http://youtube.com/watch?v=uoMJ2B3v1iU
Dalai Lama - The Four Noble Truths - Part 3/4
http://youtube.com/watch?v=R3t0uMdPT6g
Dalai Lama - The Four Noble Truths - Part 4/4
http://youtube.com/watch?v=YTs6HnSqHmo
Enjoy!
—Marcus Hochstadt
Getting Your Pages Indexed In A Matter Of Hours
Jan 25 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in SEO, Tutorials
I regularly see folks putting up Web sites but don’t know how to get the pages indexed by the Search Engines. Some think the SEs will somehow magically find all of them somewhere someday.
I haven’t come across that magic yet.
Still, there are several methods available for getting your pages indexed in a matter of hours. Today, I’m going to talk about one of them…
Sitemap files
Although they might have heard of them somehow somewhere, there are still lots of Webmasters out there that don not implement an XML Sitemap file to their sites. It’s a pity because Search Engines LOVE them.
I’m not talking about a Sitemap for your human visitors; I’m talking about one created particularly for the SEs, in a predefined format. For more details see www.sitemaps.org.
Google initially created this concept, then worked with Yahoo!, Ask and Microsoft to make it a standard protocol that all four Search Engines can use.
Now, when you run your Internet business with content rich Web sites, there are tools available online which create a Sitemap file for you. Just go to Google and enter “sitemaps generator” or something similar and you’ll find plenty.
If you own a blog there is a WordPress Google Sitemaps plugin available that I personally use and recommend. It updates your Sitemap file automatically whenever you update an old or publish a new post or page. Very neat.
Once you’ve set everything up you are ready to submit your Sitemap file(s) to the four big SEs. Since this is a very helpful step for your Internet business, I took the time and compiled the below how-to guide for you. These are the exact same steps I follow myself in order to get my sites and pages indexed in a matter of hours.
Alright, here we go…
- Sign up to Google Webmaster Tools and/or go straight to Google Sitemaps Login.
- Submit you Site URL by adding your domain name(s) to the Webmaster Tools Dashboard.
- Optional: If you want to take advantage of Google’s comprehensive statistics and crawl reports, go ahead and “Verify your site.” (A yellow “Next Step” box shall appear near the top at this moment.)
- Next, click on the “Sitemaps” link in the NavBar on left hand side, then on “Add Sitemap.”
- In the drop-down that appears, choose “Add General Web Sitemap.”
- Enter the Sitemap’s URL into the box that says “My Sitemap URL is:” (though without the domain name and the http:// prefix since it’s already there.)
- If you have more than one Web site to manage and Sitemap file to submit, click on the “Dashboard” link on top to submit and manage your other sites.
Yahoo!
- Go to the Yahoo! Site Explorer and submit your home page (first field, where it says “Submit a Website”)
- When you’re done, go back to the Yahoo! Site Explorer and submit your Sitemap file (second field, where it says “Submit Site Feed”)
- Click on the green “Authenticate” button in the upper right to certify ownership. Whether you added a META tag or uploaded a file, remember to keep either version active for as long as you manage the site. Who knows… If you remove it, Yahoo! might simply go ahead and dismiss your site from their index. Not a good thing, is it.. ;-)
- If you have more than one site to manage and Sitemap file to submit, click on the “Site Explorer Home” link on top to submit and manage your other sites.
- Optional: Check back after a day or two to see the status of the authentification; hence whether there are any issues.
Live
- Go to the Live Search Webmaster Central. If you don’t have an MSN or Live account yet, create one and then sign in.
- Click on the “Add a Site” button.
- Enter the full URL of the site you’re about to manage, and below that enter the full URL of the respective Sitemap file.
- Choose which method you’re going to use for ownership verification. (More details are going to appear once you clicked on the “Submit” button.)
- Enter your contact info. (Don’t know if this is obligatory, but I entered it anyway; maybe kind of verification v.2 ;-)
- Now you get to see details for the verification method you chose a step before. Once you’ve uploaded the XML file or put the META tag to your site’s home page, click “OK”. Again, keep the file or the META tag active for as long as you own or manage that site.
- Want to add more sites? Click on the “Add a Site” button. If you don’t see that button, click on the “See all your websites” link on right hand side and it shall appear.
Ask
Unfortunately, Ask does not provide a “Webmaster Central” kind of thing (yet) so you cannot control whether they captured your Sitemap file(s) or to have other neat little tools. They provide a foolproof 10-second method though. Here we go…
1) Copy and paste the following URL into a plain text editor (ex., NotePad, TextEdit)…
http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http%3A//
2) See that http%3A// at its end? Put the Sitemap file’s URL after it but without the http://
So the final URL should look like this…
http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http%3A//www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
(I used “sitemap.xml” as the example file name. Though, I recommend you use another file name, one that can not be easily guessed; ex., 3KLfu54.xml.)
3) Now paste that line into your browser’s address bar and hit enter. Ask will then confirm the success of your Sitemap submission. If not, check the correctness of the URL again. (Ex., are there any spaces before, between, or at the end; any line breaks, etc.)
–
Phew; that’s it!
You’ve now successfully submitted your Sitemap file(s) to the four big Search Engines Boys! This shall help pumping up your Internet business substantially. Again, these four cover 95% of all searches performed online.
NOTE: Submitting your Sitemap file to the SEs does not warrant high rankings, nor does it guarantee to get all pages indexed in “5 minutes.” Still, it does help getting indexed much faster and a lot more pages though. ;-)
Let me know how it goes?
—Marcus Hochstadt
11 CommentsPermalink Tags: SEO, sitemap file
To How Many Search Engines Should I Submit My Site?
Jan 24 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in SEO
This is a question that comes up often… “To how many Search Engines should I submit my site?”
There are millions of searches being performed each and every day. Getting sites indexed in order to receive free traffic from the SEs is one crucial step towards becoming free in your Internet business endeavors.
So what’s the answer? To how many?
- Yahoo!
- Live (MSN)
- Ask
These are the “Search Engine Boys” if you so will. Yes, only four. Not a silly 30,000, 3,000 or 300, only 4 (four). These four cover 95% of all searches performed online. All others are either aggregators (i.e., use one of the above SE’s technology) or are just too insignificant in importance.
As an old saying goes, better focus on the 20% that cover 80% of the market. (Here it’s rather focusing on the 5% that cover 95%.)
That means, whenever you get an offer such as “we’ll submit your site to 300+ Search Engines” — it might sound great but forget it! You do more harm than good to your site’s health.
“But where exactly do I submit my site(s) to?” you ask? I knew you would. ;-)
OK, here we go…
Yahoo!
https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit
Live/MSN
http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx
Ask
None.
Oops! Why “none”? They say they will discover your site through links from other sites to yours.
Now, it may take up to several months until they indexed your site. Yup, that much. I do have a much faster method though.
Do you want to know how to get your site(s) indexed in as little as 48 hours (or less)?
Stay tuned. I’m going to post that tutorial soon. :-)
—Marcus Hochstadt
7 CommentsPermalink Tags: SEO, submit site
RaSof And Blog SEO
Jan 23 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Reviews
Have you ever been looking for how to “SEO” your Internet business blog? Ever heard of RaSof? Are you wondering what the heck you have to do in order to get and retain Top 10 rankings at the Search Engines for whatever keyword phrase?
Lots of questions, I know, “but what the hell is RaSof anyway?”
It was James Brausch who generously gave me a Christmas Gift last year when I got to know RaSof. (James, I really appreciate it and am continuously benefiting from it. Again, thank you very much.)
As James says, in terms of ranking factors, a proper domain name covers 20%, off-page criteria are 40%, and the source code of your pages (i.e. “on-page criteria”) cover the remaining 40% importance.
James Brausch is still offering RaSof for a mere $100/mo (instead of $1,000).
With the knowledge I already had when launching this blog, and with the new insights I got with his Christmas gift, I now start getting more and more visitors from Google. My blog does not rank in the Top 10 for the term “internet business” yet, but I’m confident sometime this year it will. (And frankly, there are more high profile keywords available than internet business alone.)
When I first entered my blog’s URL into RaSof it displayed a score of 545. Last week it showed a whopping 1,300+. (Let’s see when Google recognizes this value… ;-)
I’m going to post more about improving your on-page criteria in the future. Meanwhile, if you want to pump up your Internet business and earn top rankings at the SEs, I encourage you to subscribe to RaSof while it’s still available for this price.
—Marcus Hochstadt
7 CommentsPermalink Tags: rasof, SEO
RSS Feed Is Working Again
Jan 22 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in HTML, CSS, Design
My blog’s RSS feed was crushed for a couple days. I was actually wondering why my NewsFox RSS reader couldn’t retrieve any new data from my feed. It was when I read Llama’s comment that I clicked on the RSS button myself and saw there was something wrong.
After checking and looking and scratching my head a couple times, I remembered I created a new sub-domain with the same title of my RSS feed. This caused my feed to disappear.
It’s all working now again so feel free to subscribe. :-)
This brings back memories of my almost daily discoveries…
Folks, I encourage you to not only check your site at least one per day but also your RSS feed. I see so many sites and blogs that display an MySQL database or a WordPress error. Strange symbols or lines of code, some of them even come from the Webhost.
It can have many reasons, sure. Just make sure to know how your blog is doing and if it’s in good shape.
If you don’t have the time nor the inclination to perform this task yourself, why not hire someone doing it for you? The intelligence factor necessary to perform this kind of task is fairly low, so is the hourly rate. :-)
—Marcus Hochstadt
P.S. Now I still have to figure out what to do so the feed will be published in a sub-domain instead of a sub-folder. (I.e., instead of domain.com/feed to feed.domain.com.) Any ideas?
You Comment, I Follow
Jan 22 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in HTML, CSS, Design, Traffic Generation
I feel the urge to let you all know that when you comment on my blog, I follow. I thought you guys would figure it out, but I learned not everyone takes the time and looks into the source code. ;-)
It was one of the very first plugins I enabled when I launched this blog. We have the ability to control and eliminate spam, therefore I saw and still see no reason why outgoing links are assigned with the “nofollow” tag.
Yes, it is a time consuming process to get rid of all the spam and delete spammy link-to URLs. Up to this point it is worth the time.
So again, when you comment on my blog I’m going to follow; provided your comment is in “good shape.”
That’s the way it should be. My 2 cents anyway.
—Marcus Hochstadt
6 CommentsPermalink Tags: comments, nofollow
Not Enough Time?
Jan 21 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Business, Strategies
Occasionally, I see messages from folks complaining they would not have enough time to do this or to do that. They say their day would need to have a lot more hours than just 24 (say, 36 or 48) in order for them to accomplish the tasks that are on their to-do list. They then usually continue to say if this or that circumstance would not be present they would certainly be more successful, “but”…
This is employee thinking that even I had to get rid of.
Of course, when you think of spending 24 of your personal hours then you get something in return for those 24 hours. And to continue this, in case you’d be able to spend 48 hours per day you’d probably get more in return than by 24 hours spent.
As a matter of fact though, you CAN have 48, even a lot more hours per day being spent on your business. No, you don’t have to do all that on your own… It is a very wise move to have other people grow your business. Or how else do you think are big companies being built?
Use their business model to your advantage. Delegate!
Think you can’t delegate? Think your work is too confidential?
Step out of your comfort zone. You have to let go of certain tasks in order to discover people that are more apt to accomplish things for you. There are tons of people available and willing to do a lot of work for you.
The less you work on your business and the more you delegate tasks, the more your business will grow and the more profitable it will be (provided you hire the right people for the right job, of course.)
Doesn’t this sound like freedom?
For me it does; discovered it myself. It was when I read Timothy Ferriss’ book (was in April 2007, when it came out.) I started hiring people that did some work for me. As I found out there are folks that are faster and more sophisticated than I am in certain areas.
I encourage you to get out of your comfort zone. Look at which of your tasks can be outsourced, then go ahead and hire someone today. Not tomorrow, not next year— do it TODAY!
—Marcus Hochstadt
SundayTV
Jan 20 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Better-Than-TV
In today’s SundayTV show we’re going to see Dr. John Hagelin, Professor of Physics. John was a contributor in the movie The Secret as well as in What The Bleep!? Down the Rabbit Hole.
When I first heard his words of wisdom in The Secret I was more than impressed, I was moved and partly overwhelmed. His knowledge and wisdom is so profound. Awesome!
NOTE: What he says is scientific language on a very deep level. You may want to watch it several times in order to REALLY get the whole message. It is, as I said, intense.
Here’s Part I…
Once you’ve been through Part I go ahead and watch Part II…
Bottom line?
“We are really united at the core.” ~Dr. John Hagelin
Hope you enjoyed and got the message of today’s SundayTV show.
—Marcus Hochstadt
5 Goofproof Ways To Kick Butt Your Visitors
Jan 19 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in HTML, CSS, Design
You build a Web site in order to attract visitors to it, right? You want them to get excited, read through the content, and to do your Most wanted Response. Why then do I see so many doing the following five mistakes over and over again… atrocities that make them click on that Back button almost instantly?
#1 – Splash or “Welcome” pages
Imagine you clicked through and arrive at a home page with a large image. Nothing else, just a large image. Perhaps even good looking, yet what you gonna do? Looking? Clicking? Clicking! But where? No text, no visible link.
Even if there is an “Enter here” link, do you click to enter? You’re already there, why enter?
Solution? Remove (or decrease) the image and provide real content (in text form) and easily recognizable links. Ask your visitor what you want them to do in an easy to understand format.
#2 – Flashy Banner Ads
Even the least net savvy people have trained themselves to ignore banner advertisements so you will be wasting valuable virtual real estate.
Instead, provide content of high quality. If you’re in affiliate marketing, weave the links into your content and mark them as your personal recommendations. Don’t be pushy. Let your reader want to buy; it makes all the difference.
#3 – Complicated 3-fold Flash or JavaScript navigation
You’re trying to click through to another page on the site. They provide a hyper flashy navigation menu that may look great at the graphic designer desktop. But does average Joe know where or how to click through that graphical mumbo jumbo forest jungle?
Do you think it is useful to have the navigation text change its weight when someone hovers with the mouse over it and it starts to flicker?
Yup, I hear you saying “But *I* love how it looks; it might not pass usability test, but it’s MY site and *I* love it.”
Well, I thought you want to attract visitors and have them coming back over and over again. Do you think they will?
Perhaps (just perhaps) you’re better off providing a simple and very straightforward navigation structure so that even a 5 year old knows how to go from point A to point B.
Or in other words, avoid amateurish looking fancy stuff, complicated Flash menus, or multi-tiered JavaScript dropdown menus. Your visitor may leave your site instantaneously when they can’t figure out how to navigate.
#4 – It takes 50+ seconds to load a page
Do you use JavaScripts and external image references excessively? Does the user have to wait 50+ seconds until s/he sees the actual content? You want them to fall asleep? Like, “Go grab a cup of coffee and come back later, until I’m finished loading all that tracking stuff, and until those external affiliate banner JavaScript links are loaded so I can pitch you.”
That is, s/he’ll certainly click the Back button faster than you can watch it happening. (Those records where they stayed “0 seconds” on your site.)
#5 – Background Music
I can imagine you want to entertain your visitor or make their stay more desirable. But are you really sure they have the same taste you do? You think they’re in the same mood you are?
At least you should offer a huge, easily to recognize STOP button front and center of their eyes so they don’t have to annoyingly unplug the speakers.
–
Bottom line? Focus on simplicity. Excessively use of fancy, distracting stuff pushes your visitor away from your Most Wanted Response. Focus on what you want you visitor to do. Use a clean, light layout. Offer audio and video, yes, but give your visitor tools to control and adjust it to their hearts content.
Do not pull them to your site. Make them WANT to stay on and come back to your site. It makes all the difference.
—Marcus Hochstadt
4 CommentsPermalink Tags: layout mistakes, usability, website coding
Aaron Anderson’s LaborLiberator.com
Jan 19 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Reviews
Aaron Anderson’s blog is going up like crazy. I’m amazed. I’m stunned. I love people that take action like turbo speed. Incredible.
I first noticed his blog when I stumbled upon James Brausch’s “retired blog” (was December 2007) when he honored Aaron’s there. I forgot about it for a bit but am now following his blog almost every day and put his RSS feed into my NewsFox reader.
You know, I’m fairly new to all this blogging stuff. I feel like an alien in the blogosphere, and my knowledge of PHP is in the minus section (i.e., under zero.) Although I do have some HTML and CSS knowledge, I was a plain dump when I fist visited wordpress.org and downloaded the free package.
“Famous 5-minute installation” they say; ah yeah, sure! 5 minutes… *pfff*
It took me more than five DAYS!
Not because of WordPress though. After many nights I figured out it was because my old host did not support the “mode_rewrite” module in their Apache server. Sounds Chinese, I know. In plain English, I couldn’t run the blog the way I wanted, so I had to move everything from Germany to a host in the US.
OK, as you can see I’m over the first hurdles and my blog is up and running the way it should be (for now.)
There are still a ton of things on my to-do list though. One of them is was subscribing to Entrecard in order to see if my results will be different to Aaron’s. “What’s Entrecard” you ask?
It is basically an online service where you exchange business cards by visiting blogs that are part of the Entrecard community. The more blogs you visit and leave your card, and the more are visiting yours and dropping their card, the more points you’ll earn, and the more visitors you’ll receive.
And you’ll get to see really excellent blogs that you probably would not find otherwise!
It is not my intent to give you a full-blown review just yet—too early. I’m going to do that once I have enough data, OK? (Aaron reported 308 new visitors in 6 days due to Entrecard.)
Stay tuned for my report folks; perhaps I can beat him (at least in THAT small area, Aaron… ;-)
And make sure to check out Aaron Anderson’s blog. He offers very helpful tips that are spot on.
—Marcus Hochstadt
P.S. Aaron, there is no spot providing a Trackback URI. Hope you receive my wink though. (Yeah I know, newbie worries.)
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