Sometimes a million words are meaningless

it is not until we ourselves find something in those words that means something to us on a personal level, that hits a string for those words to become important, inspiring or what not. Words have to touch us personally for them to have an effect on us. The same string of words might be a total inspiration to me and to you those same words might be a load of bullsh*t and viceversa.

There has to be a true connection, some sort of relation for words to become important and I have come across a video by Will Smith that I wanted to share with you… I connected with his words, I was touched by them and believe his message is pretty pretty powerful.

It is a message I hope to keep in mind the new year:

To all my readers, friends and family, please know you are in my mind! I wish you all the best for the new year and may your dreams come true..

No… I did not mean to say “may your dreams come true” ….

KNOW WHAT YOUR DREAMS REALLY ARE

AND THEN MAKE THEM COME TRUE

Week 4- time for analyzing the first traffic statistics

I kept on doing promotion through ezinearticles.com but also used some bum marketing methods to promote the site and find some targeted customers that would highly benefit from not only my new site but also the product I am promoting.

As a side note, I have been using this product myself, am very positive about it and familiarized myself with all the information available on it, plus I have investigated the “competition” and other similar products (tried some of them as well) so I really do believe in the quality of it and the benefits it can give to my visitors.

I started noticing a climbing number of visitors to the site but only about 20% of those visitors actually went through to the affiliate link to check out the product. Bounce rate was a little under 10% and the average time they spent on the site was well over 10 minutes. Average page view per visitor was over 6.

Now you have to understand that I am far from being an expert, there is still so much I need to learn and improve on, but those stats did tell me two things:

• I was bringing in targeted traffic to my site (that´s what I deducted from the bounce rate being so low)
• The content I was offering was actually interesting to my visitors (that´s what I deducted from the time spent on the site and the average page views per visitor)

So two out of three things were getting positive results, the one thing that was not up to standards was the low clickthrough percentage meaning I was still without sales.

After evaluating those stats I started thinking about how to improve my site in order to bring up that last bit in order to have a better chance at making the sales, so I started looking very closely at the layout of the site, navegation and CTA´s (Calls To Action) I had put in and felt that was lacking big time.

I spent a few hours shifting through all the content and adapting it, offering more information to my visitors and extra links they would be interested in (links to the affiliate product, more detailed information etc) and put in more CTA´s … some very visible and some more subtle.

Trying to find the right balance between the CTA´s and offering valuable information still will be a thing that I´ll be working on and it is probably something one should continue working on constantly, evaluating the behavior of your visitors.
With that said, there is one more thing I would like to add to this update and apart from what made it work for me, it is a shameless plug to have you sign up as well to get you on your way to succes.

In week three of the existence of my new website, I read a comment on the MoreNiche forum from one of the administrators that really hit a nerve. I have it now printed out and next to my computer and it is like a constant reminder to keep working on content and linkbuilding and thought I´d share it with you guys.

It is not a blueprint nor rocket science but it sure is a little guide that gave me the impulse to get to work hard. I have been looking every where to get some sort of plan or blueprint I could follow but never really found what I was looking for untill he wrote the following:

• If you create a 10 page site and get 20 links, you probably will get 0 sales.
• If you continue and say expand site to 20 pages and have 100 links, you have chances to make 1-2 sales/month
• If you increase that to 50 pages and 300 links, you can be making 5-10 sales if keywords selected right.
• Getting site to size of 100 pages and 1000 links, you could be making 10-20 sales/month
• Getting size of 150-300 pages and 2000-5000 links you would be making 50-200 sales/month

Now that made sense to me!

MoreNiche is currently having a contest for their members and the prizes are pretty cool:

• A brand new Laptop PC
• 5 x IPod Shuffles
• 10 x USB Memory sticks
• 25 x Google Adword Credit

Just for joining Moreniche before the 31st of January you will get a Golden Entry Ticket, apart from the different bonuses you get for signing up, participating in their forum and starting to promote their products (that mount up to a total of $45) so if you are thinking of starting in affiliate marketing or wanting to expand on the products you promote, this is certainly the time to sign up with them!

If you are new to affiliate marketing, I would certainly recommend you sign up with them, they offer really good support, have a very helpful forum and good starting guides and material to start promoting (including content to rewrite and free complete website templates).

Apart from that, the administrators will give you direct advice if you have more detailled questions and need their support, like for example if you want to spend money on PPC to promote their products, you can contact them on messenger or ICQ and run your ideas with them, so you get advice on how to get it right before actually starting to spend on campaigns. (nudging a certain person here who told me in the past to keep nudging him about MN)

Payouts are made twice a month through paypal, checks, wire transfer or epassporte plus they are adding a high quality new product in a multi million dollar industry to their line of products to promote coming January so it is a sure-shot on making money online if you are willing to put in the work

Signing up through my link will mean I also get a golden ticket for the competion, but not just that, I promise to help you if you run into trouble setting up your website so that you are on your way to make a good head start!

Even if you don´t sign up at all, I do hope you found these last three updates helpful and I would love to see your comments and questions! I would certainly love to hear from you!

To catch up, I had decided to make a new website that would take in account the things I had learned so far, avoid the mistakes I had made earlier and actually follow a special plan for promotion and building the website.

So far so good, maybe I am just a slow learner in certain aspects, maybe I am just too lazy when it comes to certain things, but what I felt had been missing big time was a plan.

Really it is no rocket science at all!

The idea for the new website domain came by a message I read on the MoreNiche forum that made so much sense to me that I just felt stupid that I hadn´t thought of it myself. You see, the biggest problem I foresaw with promoting this product was the actual price it is selling at.

Being a “net-surfer savvy” I had found a lot of similar products that were way cheaper and with the recent crisis going on and the dollar being so ridiculously low I was starting to break my head over the price.

Anyways to make a long story short, I got a new domain name… fresh energy and a plan of attack.

At the time that I was thinking of what to do with this product and whether I should or not continue with it, I finally got into BumMarketing quite a bit and had signed up for a free course by Travis Sago. Now if you have never heard of BumMarketing or are trying it without results so far, I definately recommend you follow this free course since it was what made the difference for me!

The things Travis says might be known already, but for me it turned out to be a little blueprint to go about how to succeed with my new website. Some things really hit home hard and I realized he was pointing out exactly where all my efforts had gone haywire so far.

Yesterday a month ago I bought the domain. I had my plan in place and decided that instead of making a static website I´d opt for a WP blog. No need to teach an old dog new tricks and I knew I would save a lot of time using a blog instead of a static website, since I have been building them for quite a while and it just comes easy to me.

First week I worked on the design and SEO site of the blog while I outsourced most of  the content. This gave me the opportunity to get a little headstart on things before going off for my trip in the second week of this new project.

Second week I was gone, having fun, relaxing with my folks and enjoying the good life and Excellent Food during a lifetime experience. This week actually gave me some time to think and look from a distance at my work and little business. And knowing the content was being taken care off while away, I could sit back a bit.

Third week into the new project, I started adding all the content and doing article marketing, submitting around 20 articles to ezinearticles and articlemarketer and submitting my site to different directories. Another thing I did once I had enough content on my site was starting to answer questions on Yahoo from people that could very much profit from my product and then sending them to the post that would help them finding the solution to their problem.

I started seeing an increase in visits and clickthroughs on my affiliate links but nothing happened. It just stayed at that… more visitors, more clicks … no sales. But hey …. week 3 of a new domain, very few links to my website still so nothing too weird.

I have to go for now but I promise to post on Wednesday and tell you what changes I made to my website, why I did it, what gave me an extra push to put in more effort and why this sale is so special to me.

So if you are interested in finding out what was the turning point for me, I´ll see you on Wednesday!

For now, keep planning your succes!

Now I have been making more sales on all different products from all different places and generating money with adsense and other means to make money online, but this particular sale is completely different. It is loaded with the taste of success, happiness and an unexplainable feeling, almost like a breakthrough.

If you have been reading this blog and following a bit of my path you will know that one of my biggest struggles has always been my lack of focus. I know I have a lot of capabilities between my past experiences, ability to speak several languages fluently and overall I don´t consider myself to be lacking intelligence.

But to be honest, I was jumping from one thing to the other, starting up new projects here and there, and doing the basics only long enough to come across yet another “possibility” that would get me off track.

So why is this first sale so sweet to me?

I had made a website last summer (feels like ages ago now) when I first started pursuing MoreNiche to promote a certain health product and posted several times on this blog about the progress and my thoughts about his particular affiliate program.

• It is starting to work out
• Update on my new venture
• It all boils down to making a decision
• Too many things to do, too little time

Now you can see that the first post about this program was in May and it actually took me all this time to finally land the first sale there. My cheeks are blushing with shame almost for having taken so darn long, and to be honest I was about to give up on promoting those products and just going back to working on other projects.

So I had set up a website in html, added a wp blog to it and for some reason I just did not like the site. It did not feel good to me, the design was off and there were a lot of things I felt I had done wrong with it and somehow I just couldn´t drag my sorry ass to start changing the things I wanted to change.

I had already promoted a bit, submitting articles and building links but that nagging feeling was just there. It didn´t rock my boat, plain and simple.

I was left with 3 options:

• Do a total makeover which would cost me a lot of time and work to get it to the point where I would like it.
• Leave the site and forget about promoting that product and go to “the next best thing”
• Fully analyze the site, write down what should be different, write a “plan of attack” for a new site, keeping in mind to avoid the mistakes I had made earlier and do a better job, sticking to the outline and plan.

Obviously after pondering these three options I decided to go for option 3 and I came to that conclusion for a few reasons.

• It is a fairly new product that has great potential in my eyes.
• I have tested it myself with very good results, so I felt really comfortable promoting it because I am convinced it is something that can help a lot of people.
• Honestly, I did not feel I had been promoting it the way I should have so far.
• The things I have learned over the last half year would now give me a better shot at trying again.

So after I had made the decision to give it another shot I was looking at the MN forum which I have found very helpful so far. They say that coincidence doesn´t exist but the first post I read was by one of the program managers and it gave me an idea for a new domain that would be perfect to build another site and start promoting the product in a different way.

If you have come as far as reading this and are interested in a detailed report of all the steps I made to get this first sale and reasoning behind all of them:

You should come back on Monday!

For now, have a great weekend ya´all!

I am back again after the most wonderful trip. Granted it was a long drive and maybe I am just a little bit crazy to just get in my car at 4.30 in the morning and drive a 1000 kilometers to make sure I arrive before lunch time and meet up with my folks, but boy was it worth it!

I have been thinking all day yesterday about whether I would post on my blog about this trip, since it really is a bit off-topic but hey, posting on great expensive lunches and beautiful dream holidays on a “money making” blog really isn´t all that weird LOL

My folks were going to San Sebastian last week to visit the best gastronomy fair of Spain, where all the best chefs, restaurants and products were very well presented and different classes were given by all these top chefs on how they prepare their (mainly prize-winning) dishes and I decided to catch up with them there, both to see them and to share the experiences.

Signature Dish of 2002

I have been back a few days now and fortunately I have taken a lot of pictures of all the special dishes we have enjoyed, the beautiful moments we shared, superb wines we had and all the fun we had. When driving back the 1000 kilometers all I could think was just how privileged I have been and I the feelings of gratefulness and being completely impressed by all we have seen, eaten and done are still with me.

Looking back at all those pictures I feel truely blessed.

There were some very special people I have meet this trip, all so loving and warm, full with passion for their profession. One man that really stood out was Martin Berasategui, chef of one of the few 3 star Michelin restaurants of Spain. He was one of the participants of the Gastronomy Fair, giving lectures and showing some of his excellent dishes, but he was also walking around socializing with collegues from all over the world, visitors and friends. I had already heard a lot about this chef through stories from my parents who had been at his restaurants a few times but actually being able to go myself and really live this experience has blown me away completely.

Signature Dish Martin Berasategui

Here is this guy, walking around all day, being asked to sign his books, talking to everybody and anybody, being stopped continuously to be in pictures, almost like a big movie star. And in the evening he is cooking all these great superb creations to pleasure all his guests in his completely filled restaurant. That in itself is already an accomplishment to be proud of and I could very well imagine he had to be exhausted by the time the kitchen closed. But the day hadn´t ended for him, there was yet another tv interview for him to give and while watching him answer all the questions with grace and passion, I just could not stop admiring his spirit.

When talking to him afterwards when it was time for us to go home (by then it was almost 2 am!) he was so enthusiastic, so sincere and so grateful for all the people who had come to visit his restaurant to enjoy and taste his creations… I don´t think I have ever seen such an impressive personality. You just wished some of his personality and genious would rub off on yourself when talking to him.

So if you are ever in the area of San Sebastian and want to have a remarkable experience of taste sensations exploding in your mouth, be sure to visit this guy, I won´t say another word about it right now, already starting to feel hungry myself LOL

Before leaving I blogged only a little about how driving always gives me the time to think about things but quite frankly when driving back my head was so filled with all these different impressions that it was almost impossible to put all the thoughts in the right order. Probably the most important thing I have taken away from this trip is the passion and how it can bring your to great heights in life.

Another thing is that I again learned just how important family is and how much I enjoy spending time with my parents, something I can´t do too often because we live in different countries.

My new year resolutions for 2008 were to spend more time with them and do all that is possible to achieve that, and I already know this will be on my resolutions list for 2009.

And when driving back with my car filled up with beautiful red wines, a whole load of cookbooks of all the places we ate at and a head full of impressions all I could think was just how privileged I am and grateful for all I have. So that about rounds it up for me for now.

You can find inspiration anywhere if you open yourself up for new experiences so I would love to know…

What has made a big impression on you lately?

I´m writing this post to let you all know that this blog will be temporarily closed for me taken a small holiday!

That is right, I will of course return, but this weekend I will be off to the north of Spain for a short visit with my folks.

I have been looking forward to it for ages now, since it is going to be the first time in years that I am really going on a holiday. Of course living in Spain myself, I don´t really need to go on holiday, since the countryside itself offers so much relaxation already, but actually leaving my area and not connecting every day to work on my websites will certainly give me the possibility to completely relax and take a bit of a distance from what I have been up to lately.

I always love driving long distances and even though all my friends think I am crazy for driving almost a 1000 kilometers on my own, I can´t wait to leave. Driving through Spain is probably one of the most beautiful routes I have ever made, the changing countryside looks like there are different countries in one and just the fact of being alone in my car, the music on and the long road ahead has a big effect on me.

An effect of complete relaxation, the time to think about a lot of things without being interrupted and clearing my head, almost as if it were a meditation session.

So yes, it will be great for me!

I will be back the first week of December

so see you all then!

I tried a few platforms to contact with people looking for freelance work but have mostly used getafreelancer.com so far. Before actually starting to outsource I read up a little bit on the subject and compared different projects that were already online to see what I could expect.

Gotta say though that I am amazed at what is being offered and expected at times, but also have noticed a lot of differences in work standard between one freelancer and the other. They say you get what you pay for but that really isn´t always the truth.

What I have noticed is that it is really important to clearly state what is being expected from the job at hand, in as much detail as possible and tried to find ways to separate those able to do the job well from those people who just look for a quick buck for as little work as possible.

Now, I am not saying here that I am expecting masterpieces for little money or anything like that, but I have felt at times that people actually accepted jobs without clearly understanding or knowing whether they would really be up for it in the first place.

First time I posted an ad looking for freelance writers, I got only a few responses so I didn´t have a lot of choices available. What I did learn though was that it was important to see how people were responding to my ad. The second time I posted an ad I used my experiences from the first time around and actually got well over 35 repsonses. This time though I had actually put a few points I really wanted to be answered in the replies and it just dazzled me just how bad some people actually had read my ad.

I decided I should test a little theory of mine just for the sake of testing and it is of course far from a scientific way to test, but it did show me a few things, that you might use when looking for freelancers to outsource some of your work.

Like I mentioned before, I ask a few questions in my ad that I want the freelancers response to, in order to see if they actually had read the ad in the first place. These questions were pretty simple, ranging from the amount they could handle a week, turn around time, their native language or the timezone they were in.

The responses I received can be devided into 2 types. The first type actually responded to my ad, told a little about themselves and then went on answering my questions. The second type responded by sending me a sample of their writing (something I had not asked for) and then went on about their expectations and experience level, without responding to my questions. Basically they were sending me a standard response they would probably send to many more “project buyers”.

I had a few exchanges of information and then went ahead and assigned a few small projects to a number of freelancers, rewriting 5 to 10 articles I needed and then just waited.

And guess what… those freelancers that had failed to respond to my questions in the initial ad, actually returned the work to a much lower standard than those who had taken the time to read and answer the questions.

So why would I have outsourced articles if I already had the gut feeling that the work done wouldn´t be all that great anyways? Simple, I wanted to be sure that my testing worked, after all I could be missing out on the possibility to work with a good freelancer, just because they had failed to answer a few small questions.

My number one tip when it comes to finding good freelancers is paying attention in your initial contacts, asking the right questions and see how they respond. When it sounds too good to be true, it normally is so try to find those people you feel have a realistic view of the work you want done. Having to wait for days to receive your work back and then find it really isn´t up to standards is not the most pleasant thing on earth so it pays off to spend a little time finding the right people in the first place.

Spelling mistakes in their answers  are obviously a tell tale sign they are not what you are looking for!

Have you ever thought about outsourcing some of your work or are you already doing it?

My boyfriend jokes quite a bit about my “interior design qualities”, not a month can go by without me changing something around in the living room for example to try and create a nicer atmosphere. Lately I have been working a lot from that same living room mostly because I just hated sitting in my office. Needless to say my productivity level was not very optimum and it wasn´t untill last week that I got a sudden rush of energy at 1 am and felt I just had to do something about it.

So I got up out of bed and started clearing out the clutter in my office.

Paperwork that had been lying around for years gathering dust finally got sorted and as the hours went by and more space was becoming available, I started feeling really deliberated. It was almost as if this huge burden was being lifted off my shoulders and the more I started throwing out, the clearer some things became to me.

You see, I have been living in this house for about 3 years and a lot of stuff in my closets has not been touched at all during that whole period. Worse even, it had gone through 2 moves without being used and it was just taking up space. So last week the time had finally come to say goodbye to a lot of material stuff but in doing so, a lot of open issues finally found closure. The more material ended up in the garbage bags, the more space I received in return and the more at peace I was.

I cleaned out everything. Sorted through all the paperwork. Filed the things I still had to keep, neatly in folders. I cleaned the closets. Alphabatised all my books. Sorted out all my pictures and framed a few special ones to hang up on the walls. Cleared up my desk, dusted off all that was on there and created little work stations.

It actually took me around 12 hours to complete the whole “project” but once I was finished, I was absolutely thrilled to see the end result. Not just that, it actually feels like I have taken back complete control, not just clearing my workspace but also clearing my head at the same time.

Instead of always having a zillion things to do, having problems finishing things when I want them finished, my new office is now facilitating me to work on projects without having to spend a lot of time finding what I need or distracting me. So today I am sitting in my new office, feeling the new fresh energy in the air and I wondered about all those other bloggers and affiliate marketers arounds.

I bet the people that are bringing in huge paychecks every day. week and month have their stuff well organised, but how about you? Do you feel that the clutter around you is holding you back or do you always have everything filed away and cleared so you can work without disturbances?

Do you think your work area influences your productivity level?

and left me very impressed and emotional.

The blog is written by a woman who is fighting ovarian cancer for

the third time around

and in desperate need of your help.

Please read her story and, if you can, make a donation as well.

Together we can make a difference!

Living on my own and having to take care of 6 animals (3 dogs, 3 horses) plus all life´s expenses all this time has made me to say the least very prudent whenever I open my wallet, thinking twice before I spend anything. So I have been living without a lot of the pleasures you can have in life that cost money just to make sure I would not overspend but at the same time put a lot of effort and invested money in what I felt wise for my future when it came to my business.

Recently though I have been getting this nagging feeling that maybe I am going at it the wrong way and that at times my life just seems to pass by without really truly enjoying every moment of it, especially after long days at home, typing away and doing whatever I feel I need to do to bring in money and grown my business.

So I started wondering…

Does my Own Mind Make me Poor?

Isn´t “poor” just a state of mind really, when you come to think of it?

Thinking twice or even three times before I buy necessities in the supermarket, finding ways to cut corners on my food bill, or not using my car unless it is really really necessary for example has gotten me in a state of mind that I am always thinking that I don´t have enough money to get by.

What I am getting at is that it seems that the more I think about this, the more it feels like bills are piling up or unforeseen expenses knock on my door, and yet I do have this core believe that I will make it and that all is alright because after all, I have been managing so far without too many problems.

So what if I were able to change that nagging feeling of struggle and being poor? What if I were again able to enjoy all that life is giving me and have been giving me so far and go back to being able to enjoy every minute of it?

Looking at the news for example, where 90% of airtime is taken up by news about recessions, banks falling over, governments setting up plans to save the economy and spending outrageous amounts of money you can hardly even imagine, isn´t that all adding to that nagging feeling?

Isn´t it just causing more fear, more insecurity among those who have taken out loans or are afraid of losing their job?

One million dollars is only a lot when you don’t have it.

Having ten million, one million can practically be overlooked,

and is therefore much less intimidating.

Pretend you have ten million.

Now more than ever it is apparent that money really is just an illusion. Just a piece of paper with a number on it, trying to convince us from it´s worth. Governments just printing new bills, new crispy fresh money if they feel it is needed to bring more money into the world, sometimes without having the funds to really back it up. Adding more illusion to the value of money.

So this morning, when filling the water buckets of my horses and sniffing up that fresh country air, feeling the first rays of sun on my skin again, I felt I should be thinking about just how rich I really am, fortunate with my life, friends and family and just look at the upside of things, nothing else.

Be grateful, really grateful for all I have in life and focus my mind on that instead of focussing on things that only drag me down. Feeling rich again for all I have achieved in life already,  really feeling rich in my mind again.

So tell me, is YOUR Mind Making You POOR?