Fearing Failure in Business

During a recent mastermind, some of us were discussing why people don’t want to succeed and I suggested that it was probably due to the fact that they might be fearing failure and did not know how to overcome their self-imposed barriers. This got me thinking... Fearing Failure is a Choice! Have the courage to fail big and stick around. Make them wonder why you're still laughing!~ From the film Elizabethtown There is a lot of wisdom in that statement. It isn't so much that you want to prove to others that you're strong in the face of adversity but rather, to me, ...

Are You Confident or Arrogant?

There is a huge difference between being confident or arrogant. This is a fine line that we often walk as we manage in our personal and business relationships. For the purposes of this post, I will focus on professional relationships but the information does apply personally too. It is completely true that we must have confidence in our abilities in order to gain and keep the trust and respect of our prospects and customers. If we become too forceful about the value that we feel we are delivering, that can be perceived as arrogance which will be off-putting to people. your ability ...

How to SEO Optimize WordPress Images

Have you ever wondered how to SEO Optimize your WordPress images? It is commonly understood that on-page SEO can be optimized through the proper use of image attributes for placing keywords, appropriate keyword density, the use of H1 and H2 tags, and decoration of keywords within your post content. Tip: SEO Optimize Images But Don't Keyword Stuff! The alt attribute is meant to be used as an alternative text if the image is not available and it is another location search engines to read your keywords. It is bad practice to stuff keywords, however, so use this content area wisely. Important Image Attributes ...

I’m Not Really a Waitress …

When I launched my wordpress website design business a few years ago, my enthusiasm for helping people make money online caused me to develop a business model for myself that involved a lot of personal time with my clients. They seemed to appreciate the level of service that I offered for reasonable rates and it was fun for me to learn about the various businesses people were trying to bring online. I've never had to advertise. My business has grown solely by word-of-mouth and referrals, which is no accident. Lately, it seems like new clients have expectations that exceed their budgets. ...

Is Providing Relevant Content Important in Your SEO Strategy?

Is providing relevant content important to your SEO Strategy and business success? With Google enforcing relevance and becoming more strict about content sources, the answer is an emphatic Yes. Your readers are seeking solutions when they set out on the search engines. If your content comes up in search results and clicking through to your page results in not finding any pertinent information related to their search, your readers will move on to the next link in their search results. It is very important to provide your readers with relevant content for anything that you publish online. Relevant content gains high ...

Mixing Friendship and Business is a Bad for Business

For the past two years, I’ve been in a business relationship with a client whom I felt had also become my friend. After extracting more than twice the amount of labor than was allocated under the terms of our monthly retainer agreement for WordPress Website Development services over several months, these local clients have reminded me that mixing friendship with business is a bad idea. In an effort to overcome my disappointment about their denial about what is owed for my services … or even discuss a compromise, I decided to write a post to advise and educate small business owners ...

Eliminating Blog Spam on Your WordPress Website

The longer your wordpress website is online, the more pages that are listed in search engines. Getting pages listed is good for your business, for sure, but it also makes it easier for blog spammers to target your site in their efforts to get links to their own sites. One method of doing this is referral spam. Perusing some of the comments blocked naturally by Akismet, it is fairly clear that they were not written by a human. Even though some of the malformed subjects and content created by spinning tools can become a source of amusement, having to manage ...

With all the outsourcing, is anything made in the USA anymore?

Enough with all this outsourcing talk! This is the season where many of us are overtly shopping. Economic circumstances may be forcing greater frugality but, as you are scanning shelves for stocking stuffers and gifts, take a moment to read the labels. When I did this yesterday, none of the products on the shelf were made in the USA. If you’re thinking globally about the events that led up to where things stand today in the USA economy, it cannot all be assigned to fiscal irresponsibility on the part of individuals and/or government. Simply put, the root cause culprit is greed ...

Don’t Should on Yourself!

A wise man with whom I worked during my earlier years once came up with a profound New Year’s resolution at our annual marketing support meeting. The entire group laughed out loud when he said his resolution was to never say “it should work” again. There does seem to be a resurgence of people not thinking through the answers to questions that are asked. Responses like this are pointless: “It should have been there by now.” or “That should have worked.” Normally, a long explanation about how the process is supposed to work follows comments like these. All kidding aside, it almost seems ...

Where the Hell is Matt?

In these times of entrepreneurship and light-speed marketing, I’m frequently reviewing things that other people are doing online. YouTube is a great place to locate innovative marketing techniques. It is also a great place to wonder how people came up with their ideas but some things are better left unexplained ... especially a video like this! Make Your Business Fun! Here is a video where Matt explains his business and how he has grown his ideas into something that not only is more fun but also is profitable. It is carrying a beneficial message to our world too. Last weekend, I attended a ...

Step Away from the Computers!

We are all aware of the value that our digital tools bring us. Our technology expedites information delivery, allows us to follow our social networks, makes calling from anywhere possible, and provides on-demand entertainment. Based on this quote from researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, we are actually depriving ourselves of much-needed mental downtime that ultimately may be affecting our learning capabilities. “Almost certainly, downtime lets the brain go over experiences it’s had, solidify them and turn them into permanent long-term memories,” said Loren Frank, assistant professor in the department of physiology at the university, where he specializes in learning ...

Cyber Vandalism, Skype Hackers and Social Networks

Skype is an invaluable business building tool. Not only does it allow you to conduct business internationally without incurring international long distance charges, it make is very easy to share large files and engage your customers in video chats when the need arises. There is a dark side to Skype. Hackers prey on naive online users. Last year’s hacker game was to usurp an account and initiate contact with all confirmed contacts, inviting those people to accept files. Even though I do not consider myself to be naive, I was duped into accepting and opening a file, in March 2009, when ...

Are You Email Marketing or Spamming?

Email marketing is a proven method of developing a relationship with your customers and, if that relationship is properly developed and nurtured, a way to generate affiliate cash flow when you need it. All that is well and good, but when your opt-out doesn’t result in being opted out, email marketing campaigns can result in driving business away. One of the inboxes that I own began receiving email from Elizabeth Jackson. Since I used to know an Elizabeth Jackson, I was enthused to see her name. It was disappointing to find an advertisement for Work At Home jobs when I opened ...

Panning for Gold

While having fun with the grandkids the other day, we visited a place nearby that specializes in educating people about the California Gold Rush by providing an experiential tour of a mine on their property. What does this have to do with Web Marketing and Branding, you might ask? Read on…. [caption id="attachment_1065" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Finding Internet Gold"][/caption] The California Gold Rush created a lot of wealth. So has the internet. Not unlike internet properties, 49ers staked claims on mines, hoping the vein was rich. The conditions were difficult, picking their way back into the mines and chiseling through rock by hand. ...

Good Website Design and SEO are not Mutually Exclusive

Website design is a process of function and aesthetics. I’ve just completed a project where the desires of the graphic designer took precedence over search engine optimization and website performance. I had only heard about these sorts of debates before and had never been involved in one. The designer admitted they cared more about look and feel of the site than they did about its features and functions. Ultimately being forced to defer to the graphic designer's logic by putting a scroll box into a post, for the sake of aesthetics, enforced website design tactics that have not been popular since the late ...

Brand Revitalization

The importance of creating a brand that sticks in the minds of your target market is obvious to people in stable businesses. When the market paradigm shifts or a part of a product line is discontinued, it has potential to kill the brand. Campaigns to create and obtain market share for a new brand can be very expensive so leveraging the investment you’ve already made in your branding strategy by implementing a brand revitalization strategy is economical and important, especially these days. When Volkswagen introduced themselves in the USA in 1949, only 2 vehicles sold. By the end of 1955, the ...

Website Conversion Tactics

Designing a website for conversion is something that every business owner cares about, if they are savvy and have a solid business goal for their sites. Top gun internet marketers sell memberships and consulting services to people who want to get income online. It is a good idea to have a mentor when you are starting out, for sure, but I wonder if there really is a one-size-fits-all approach to building an online business. My instincts say no. As an Online Branding Consultant and website developer, I’ve been monitoring website tools and trends for years. When my daily research introduced the idea that the ...

SEO and Watching Paint Dry

We joke about watching paint dry when time seems to move too slowly but, believe it or not, this is an actual role for which people are paid. Duties include touching the painted item to ensure that it is dry. What does this have to do with businss and online income? Read on… Many people put up pretty websites and expect immediate results. Very few people get what they desire, unless they have found a particular niche that is in demand and has not already been exploited or they have a well established and responsive list. As a website consultant, I’ve always recommended ...

Creativity in Business

Normally, we associate creativity with artists who apply their craft in written communications, visual arts, or music. But, if we strictly define creativity as artistic talent, we fail to appreciate how it is involved in the apparently mundane aspects of our lives. That is really a shame, for nothing of life is truly mundane. An acceptable definition for creativity is having the ability to find solutions where none are apparent. This is often seen with children who are learning something new. Less obvious are the toiling movers who manage to fit your heirloom dining room table through a narrow hallway without ...

Should You Fire Your Client?

When you decide to work with a client, your business relationship has potential to develop into a friendship. This can be very rewarding, as long as the boundaries between friendship and business are established and maintained. Very few people understand how awkward it can be when questions they are asking begin to encroach on the time you had set aside to relax. Under most circumstances, gentle reminders that you are “off the clock” will be enough. Conscientious people will never ask you to work for free and there is no reason to feel guilty about accepting compensation in exchange for your ...

Long Sales Letter or Long-Winded Video?

Perhaps I am the exception but it perturbs me that the long and predictable sales letter page is being replaced by an optin form leading to a long-winded video which has no details about its length and takes way too long to arrive at a point. This trend reminds me of a desert character that I met recently on an outing. Although the dialogue was entertaining, this person spent an hour telling my friend and I what he was going to tell us AFTER he told us why he was going to tell us what he was going to tell us. Of course, we ...

PLR WordPress Websites … Turn Key or Not?

PLR Wordpress Websites are used by internet marketers as a way to get a site online quickly. If you’ve ever worked with them in the past and have an interest in learning the underlying technologies that make a website work, the instructions and a little time are more than adequate. Everyone working on the internet must be aware of the rising popularity of Wordpress. If you aren’t, feel free to contact me to learn more about how you can leverage this amazing software for your websites, beyond the traditional blog. PLR Wordpress Under the Covers Wordpress Websites require knowledge of more than simple ...

Balancing Your Business with Your Business Growth Goals

We all set Goals in some form. At the time we establish them, they feel exciting and new. Sometimes are goals are set with a purpose of diverging from our ordinary daily lives. These sorts of ideas enthuse us, no matter what they are related to. One such goal could be to branch out in your business. Many pursue the goal of passive income and this doesn’t always entail joining a business opportunity or MLM, thank goodness. :) The difficulty that exists, however, is that you can become swept away by your primary income-earning activities because you enjoy what you do, ...

Increase your Twitter followers by eleventy-billion in seconds

I didn’t create the page that I’m writing about today but I've been wanting to do someting similar for more than two years! Because my site is G-Rated, I can't put a link to it but if you don't mind a little free expression, colorful language, and want a good laugh, I encourage you to search for the site using the title of this post to find it. :) Increase your Twitter followers by eleventy-billion in seconds uses all the tactics that experienced internet marketers have ever used, so far as I am aware. There is an animated roll down script on the corner ...

Are You and Your Business Partners Oceans Apart?

We've all been taught to avoid the truth if we fear that our news has potential to upset someone whom we like and respect, but being honest about your feelings doesn't mean that you have to be tactless. If we understand and appreciate that everyone has varying degrees of skill with regard to handling feedback, and that they aren't always in control of their emotional responses, there's always a way to talk over any issue and reach a reasonable compromise. Honesty is the best policy and, in my humble opinion, a lie by omission causes the most harm. The world would ...

Anyone Can Install WordPress … Right?

If you are using Wordpress as a basis for your business website, you'll expose yourself as a newbie, possibly open yourself to online security risks, and lose potential SEO benefits the software provides if you don't take time to learn how it works. While it is true that installing Wordpress is simple, setting it up correctly contributes to your website's success, which also has an impact on your business success. We're talking business here, right? I do acknowledge that there are many extremely successful bloggers who established blogs on free sites, like Blogger, before Wordpress came of age. These days, sites ...

Business Styles and Personal Productivity

Recently, a newsletter arrived from a self growth website which explained dysfunctional personal productivity personalities. Because productivity styles can mean the difference between entrepreneurial success and failure, I've taken some time to analyze this topic and provided some tips and techniques that have worked for me in overcoming some of these productivity inhibitors. Scrappers are people whose offices and desktops look like modern art with a collage of post-its and paper scraps. While conventional wisdom accepts that a cluttered desk is an indication of a cluttered mind, disorganization can result in missed deliverables and over-commitment. [caption id="attachment_672" align="alignleft" width="267" caption="Personal Styles and Business ...

Matt Mullenweg: Entrepreneur with a Vision

Wordpress was awarded the 2009 Open Source CMS Award last month. Not only is this a great honor for the software, it validates a decision I made to specialize with this CMS years ago and all of the recommendations that I've made to website clients for the past several years. Wordpress is a powerful CMS and, with the improvements introduced during the past year and this award, it is crystal clear that the software has stepped up to the plate for consideration as the basis for any website project. [caption id="attachment_661" align="alignright" width="250" caption="WordPress Website Design"][/caption] Many of you who know me ...

Listen, Learn and Earn

It is too bad that most Internet Marketers don't understand the mechanics of a human-to-human sales relationship. If they actually had to talk to their prospects and customers, rather than dwelling in a two-dimensional world, would this improve their income potential or diminish it? Building relationships takes time and attention, no matter which way you spin things. Developing rapport and gaining an understanding of each other ought to be a mutual effort or the equity of the relationship becomes uneven. Just as an expert should not condescend to a customer who doesn't know all the ins and outs of their area of ...

Stretching Your Mind Can Change Your Life

Personally, I find it enjoyable when something occurs that seems synchronous to events in present time. The other night, such an event occurred. While rifling through papers in my desk drawer, an old fortune from a fortune cookie surfaced. It read: One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. Not only is this synchronous, it also is quite profound in its simple truth. Once we are introduced to a something new, and the idea takes root in our minds and inspires us, it is virtually impossible to operate as we did before we made our important discovery. ...

Is Television Really Bad for the Mind?

At a recent networking meeting, the presenter included bullet items of methods they used to enhance their business lead generation on their slide presentation. One of the items on the list was to watch TV. This is a tactic they use to become part of the social conversation. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, watching television during prime time hours is not strictly a waste of productive time. Your prospects and customers watch TV. While they are going about their daily lives, they chat with others about what they've seen. Some even look up information on the internet during or following ...

Human Capital and Local Economic Constraints

In my work as a freelancer and service provider, I frequently find myself in competition with overseas talent whose rates don't even meet minimum wage requirements in the United States. While I am all for supporting the global economy, it is impossible for me to meet their prices. Sometimes my clients decide to go for the lowest cost bid, even though they would prefer to work with me ... or so they say. And sometimes my clients return to me with a partially completed project and a story to tell. What is funny about this is that there are also overseas ...

Everything’s Relative! (The Relevance of Blogging to your Online Brand)

It's true; I came of age during the 60s. While this places me in some people's stratospheric age groups, my age is merely a number to me and I'm thrilled to have grown up in such interesting times. Being a Baby Boomer surrounded by Hippies and other sorts of rebels brought many ideals to my purview ... some more palatable than others but each of them born from a cry for freedom by my generation. After recently re-theming my GetIncomeBlog.com, my interest in writing to it has been renewed, along with the traffic that comes to my site. I use several ...

How to Analyze Competition for Entrepreneurial Success

As a seasoned entrepreneur, it is clear that having knowledge of business basics provides a competitive edge. Regardless of the scope of your vision, if your intention is to use it to obtain financial freedom, having a solid plan is critical to your success. As a former colleague of mine once opined, a plan is something that you can use to measure your progress. Also, if you are seeking to secure investor funding, you must have a formal business plan to present for their consideration and it must include detailed market research. Assuming that you believe that the money or time ...

Strategic Analysis – An Entrepreneur’s Best Friend

When you are disappointed by anything, what are your tactics for overcoming that feeling? Not so long ago, my grandson answered that random question in this way: "Oh ... I just look out the window and take some action." My curiosity was satisfied through further inquiry. The action that this astute 6-year old boy takes is to imagine that he has gotten what he wanted to have. Without thinking too hard, he knows how to do something that many people have paid money and invested many hours to learn. My grandson mentally rewrites the story so it ends in a way that ...

Intentional Changes

Recently, I glimpsed images of the skyline from my birthplace in Minnesota. The scenery from my former home town in Minneapolis was interesting to see again for it is a pretty town ... during summer months. While I watched the images, I reflected on time spent there. So much has changed since moving to California last year! Probably the most challenging thing to overcome is the advice of people who believe they have found the "right" answers. They have ... for themselves. Putting distance between myself and my well-intentioned friends and colleagues who had known me in the past has proven ...

Starting Over in Your 50s

The other day a pal of mine indicated that people in my generation would not survive long enough for me to pursue an idea unrelated to business that I had imagined. We got a good laugh about that but their feedback caused me to reflect on other matters that baby boomers are facing, specifically reduced income caused by long-term unemployment. People born between 1946 and 1955 are referred to as baby boomers, or more specifically older baby boomers. Demographically, I fall into that group. Ours is largely a generation of rebels who cast aside social norms during our development years. We ...

Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube?

Those in business are well aware of the power of having a website. More recently, the utilization of social networking sites for business promotion and lead acquisition is gaining popularity. Because social networking takes time, companies that are serious about their business success have decided to hire paid staff whose sole responsibilities are to connect with prospects and customers to drive traffic to company websites using social networking techniques. While considering this idea, I took some time to conduct a little statistical analysis using Google's nifty search trend analysis tool. This link provides research about search trends for 5 well-known and ...

Life as an Internet Entrpreneur

Fearing Failure in Business

Switchback Entrepreneurial Planning

In case you don’t know what a switchback is, it’s a road that swings sharply in one direction, and then sharply back in the opposite direction. You may be thinking this is going to be yet another lecture about finding one thing and sticking with it and not jumping around switching business models every other week… or day…err…...

Are You Confident or Arrogant?

Heroes and Villains

As our nation pauses to reflect on the events that occurred a decade ago, we are reminded of the qualities that define us as humans and leaders. Standing up in bravery during a time of utter chaos is not an uncommon. The heart of humanity does tend to pull together time and again, so history has proven. The tragedy of that event will never be...

Read More Life as an Entrepreneur

Marketing and Branding Your Business

How to SEO Optimize WordPress Images

Are You Using Social Media Effectively?

I know I’ve been struggling with the best way to apply social media strategies to my business. How about you? Not only did Don Crowther deliver 5 content-packed videos with solid strategies for leveraging social media in any niche during his pre-launch, today (July 11, 2011) and Wednesday (July 13, 2011), he is over-delivering again by hosting...

Is Providing Relevant Content Important in Your SEO Strategy?

Social Monkey Automates Building Backlinks for SEO!

Building backlinks to your pages is an essential part of SEO (short for Search Engine Optimization) for two reasons. The first reason is that it helps your pages get indexed faster, which is very important because you want the search engines to find them as soon as possible and crawl them regularly. The second reason is that it helps your pages get...

Read More Marketing and Branding Your Business

Business Basics

How to Create Blog Content that Attracts Subscribers

The goal for any blog is to build a following. There are many different ways to attract new visitors to your blog, but convincing them to become repeat readers and subscribers requires one thing – great content. Some of the results of more subscribers are: · More profitability. Whether you are selling your own products and services, promoting...

Free Programs and Fine Print

Yep! It happened again today. I was invited by a Skype friend to look into a free program. Their claim was that it was free to join and I would not have to pay anything to earn money. I’ve been around the internet long enough to not believe claims of overnight wealth and to distrust “free” joins but I indulged their request to click on the link...

Eliminating Blog Spam on Your WordPress Website

With all the outsourcing, is anything made in the USA anymore?

Don’t Should on Yourself!

The Proposal …

In my business, potential clients sometimes ask for me to submit a detailed proposal that outlines deliverables and costs for milestones on a project. This usually follows a lengthy phone conversation. This is not an unreasonable request but preparing these proposals takes time that cannot be spent on other business activities and exposes details...

Email Marketing and Your Business

Email marketing came of age after direct marketing practitioners realized that their methods of engaging customers with postal mail could be applied to the Internet. For those who are unclear about what email marketing is, it is using email to promote offers and/or obtain new customers. Reports have proven that this is the next best marketing technique...

Are You Email Marketing or Spamming?

Website Copyright: It Matters!

Last week, a colleague, who also is an RSS email subscriber to my site, told me they had copied a recent post and published it on their site. Because I also had helped them set up one of their blogs and coached them a little, I presumed that they meant they had syndicated my content using a WordPress plugin that had been recommended. However,because...