There be gold there.

Rainbows, beautiful things. You can make your own, but to sell them is lame! Seems to be popular though along with unicorns!

I jest … for a change! Maybe not…

How many times have you seen the hyped up crap offers you see out there, you know, “make blah blah blah in such a time doing next to nothing while sitting on a beach somewhere” style, or “this one secret will make you rich, buy my shit for blah blah, by midnight, only 100 copies” crap … yeah, lot’s, me too.

A friend just asked me a similar thing, pointing to a site selling something (and nothing if you get my drift) and saying “hype isn’t it? Can’t be true, sounds too good to be, as they say, it’s a big problem all this hype out there, that’s just shit on a screen” (good quip that, it’s a truth! ) SHIT on a SCREEN … most of the time!

The problem in my view is not that there’s just too much hype out there, the problem is also …

… that people believe it all too easy, all too often.

Obviously my friend didn’t, nor do most if not all of you.

But millions do, sadly and that is the real problem, this hype works in many cases, it must do, yet, it’s all relative.

So, who really is to blame?

The owner of the crap selling the dream?

The copywriter for all that hype?

The people who buy it?

Someone else?

So many variables and it depends on each case itself, it’s hard to apportion blame to anyone really as it’s a bit of all.

Use your own bullshit radar, trust ya guts, that’s usually right.

You mark your line

Where are the lines and were they crossed? For all of us the lines are somewhat different.

For us collectively the lines are the law. End of, if it’s blatantly illegal it’s obviously wrong?!

Don’t you agree?

Me too,  and there is a small R2D2 lookalike out there exposing alot of it. Funny to see those who those have had any connections to the syndicate running to sever ties… which in any sense is ironic because it is, in reality, 80% of those in the “Internet marketing” niche… in some form or shape who have had some connection along the way, wrote a post, or maybe promoted their crap, whatever.

But I got ripped off already!

So, someone crossed your line and ripped you off, and you want to blame someone… who?

You have to take some of it, for falling for it, if it sounded too good to be true, you should know it probably is, by now. If you were truly ripped off in an illegal way… get advice!

So, what should you do then?

Good question… (first thing is ignore that groups crap! Never subscribe to their crap emails either) Just stop buying hyped crap and save money for time-savers and tools!

Still up to it? Ok …

Realise a few truths first …

1, It’s a learning curve whatever happens, often a steep one too, depending on where you are, what you know, what you need to learn and know.

2, It’s never easy for anyone and there are NO magic bullets, whatever anyone says, you could buy your way into a head-start … but you then got a whole new dimension of shit to learn, deal with.

3, The key thing is it’s all TOOLS. This whole bloody net is one fat, useful tool, use tools to do something useful, teach you something that saves time,  and make sure that something is part of a plan, something comes out of it of value to you, the best tool of all is your brain! Use it well.

4, There’s WORK involved, lot’s of it too … end of!

No work, no rewards

There is no way you will ever have a push-button-money-flows-in system from day one, never!

The most obvious and common advice seems to always be DO something you enjoy, love, have knowledge of.

It stands to reason if you want to do something online, you are gonna have to do it for long enough to see some sort of result, so a good place to start is always something you know you won’t bore of, get frustrated with, have a lack of energy for.

Follow through until you get that result, stopping and jumping from thing to another won’t help but it IS a very common thing, we have all done it!

In any case even if it bombs worse than you thought it would, you will learn ALOT… believe me.

Too easy to change direction, and it’s only worth it when you know the results will justify the efforts better, IE you stumble on a really good niche with a gap there for you to use. They are out there but damn, they are getting hard to find …

Things change, as always

Now things will either get alot harder, or alot easier depending on where you are in relation to experience, what you do, where you do it and how.

The fact the web is full of spam means two things, one, google has no foolproof way of determing what is and is not spam, Aaron of SEObook has it all summed up well on his blog,  the explanations of content farms and whatnot, two, people will use google less if it stays as it is.

Google have some serious cleaning up to do, but just bitches about bing at the moment, shame, Aaron is one to listen too when it comes to SEO and such.

Maybe bing are onto something.

But overall, the whole thing about making money online with what you do hinges on search traffic, most of the time, because social traffic is shit, UNLESS it’s actually aimed at being virally spread… then it can be worth it.

Generally it’s the search results that get you BUYING traffic.

Basic SEO is still needed

The first thing to realise is that you are aiming to deliver what a searcher is looking for!

Following googles own advice helps, but doing what THEY do is also a good idea, after all, it can’t be ok for them and not you.

Googles own basic search tips, is a pretty good start to get to grips with how people really use it, there are many search parameters, variations, yet most “search users” don’t have a clue so they don’t use them in these ways. Still, worth learning and using yourself.

(Long tail keyword, that is, a search term of say four or five, six words. IE. “simple homemade English cake recipes” …

Long tail does matter and maybe it will matter more in future, maybe not, more importantly I think is deciding the niche and short tail terms you aim for, so much competition out there makes it important, it’s far too easy to be hit with a massive wall of more experience and established content and competition out there.

Like… “English cakes” is gonna be a hard short tail

Keep it as simple as possible.

Interesting thing to do, if you really want to jump into this silly goldfish bowl of crap, is to go see a friend who has no real idea how any site makes money online, and get them to use google or bing, whatever they use and watch what they do, and how they do it.

Might surprise you!

Solid pillar content will always win out

No matter what you do, write as solidly as you can and make each bit you do worth writing, and more importantly for visitors … reading. Build up on that by always giving value out, give them what they want to read and what they are more likely to share, and act on, ie buy from!

IE, using the simple English cake recipes example, you could have a blog with solid easy to follow instructions, even a video, anyone who finds it easy enough to follow will do so, they can stop searching, make your post complete, all they need to know and on the bottom of each post have a link to buy your nice recipe video ebook, which has ALL of your post and more you could add, just for the buyers.

Think they would be happy to buy? They have already seen what you deliver and how.

But some say it’s not a good idea to just give great content out, you gotta get an action from it everytime, I agree to a point, but you can’t expect that…

Even if alot of people don’t buy your stuff, the thing is your GREAT content will still be worth reading in a years time… people will share it, which also leads to future sales, and all the while you rank higher and higher in the SEngines.

Don’t give up

Probably the biggest thing once you get the hardest part over with, that is starting up… keeping on keeping on can be hard at times but you have to persevere, else it’s all somewhat wasted effort, usually people say “people give up one step from success” … and it’s probably true in many cases.

If you really feel worn out, or bored, or just sick of it, step away for a while, give yourself a breather, and just continue with promoting your content just to keep it rolling.

If you have solid content, it will revitalise you when you get back to it, and see what efforts you have already put in, and if it’s all working, great.

Simply get back into the groove and do more, or work at ways to make better use of the content you already have, new ideas to expand on things etc.

Just giving up won’t help.  :(

Amazingly I saw what was a great solid content blog with tons of traffic and a G PRank of 6 vanish… nothing there but an auction page to sell the domain! … wow, just wow!

Crazy, they should have sold the whole blog as it was and banked coin, rather than just stop, give up, although I don’t know the circumstances of it, it seems odd to say the least.

Branding, building to sell

Branding is what seems to be the thing now, a better idea to have a brand name or keyworded domain than to have say… a name, like mine because you can if you get fed up, just sell the whole thing as a business.

So, using the English cake example, a bad move would be janesenglishcakes .com for example. (broken so not live links!)

Far better would be some sort of branding that anyone could be proud of, unless you are selling the site to a Jane!

SimpleEnglishRecipes .com for example would work better and be a much better selling point for any new owner.

A good long term idea but it’s not limiting you to long term efforts, you could work solidly for a year on that and when it’s making a “livable wage” each month, sell the whole thing for a large sum, so if it was £1000 a month, you may decide to sell for 8 grand.

Just an example, but it means you got a 8 months pay for nothing!

People do this, they create a money making site as fast as possible then sell it on for a bigger lump, rinse repeat.

On the other hand you may decide to jump straight in with an established site and buy one from someone and just build upon it.

The other way is to become the expert to go to in whatever niche you are in.

Maybe you are already an expert in something?

Take it seriously

The one thing we’ve all done is fail to take it seriously at some point in time, how can we expect great results if we don’t take it seriously?

If the person with the “English cake recipe” site is not professional and doesn’t take it seriously, how will any reader take them seriously?

Food for thought!

So, what are you going to “bake”?

Seems google updated the PR (Google page rank) across sites and my main two here and the Portland Bill blog have been dropped a place, largely due to me not being so active the last two months or so, rather than anything else, no biggie, it will go back up soon enough but PR is largely irellevant if you don’t regularly add content, as it’s content that gets readers, not PR.

By the way, a few people mentioned they wanted updates as they happen, best way is to subscribe using RSS and the icon is on the top right of the sidebar >> over there.

People come for content, not to see what ya PR is and that is what counts.

If you have been effected, just don’t panic and worry over it, who cares really? If google are doing what they say they are, cleaning up the sewers as splork (of lost ball in high weeds) calls it, then I am sure many of the crappy sites that were hindering yours, mine whatever are being dumped so to speak, so if anything we gain in some respects. Not all negative this shit you know.

The main thing being the content being unique itself, that’s not a problem here or on my other blogs as I do write it all myself, that will always be a good thing.

Had a shitty few months I have, mind you the last two or three weeks were just crap, so it can only get better from here, can’t it?

Plenty of crap pissing me off at the moment but can’t do much other than roll with it. One thing is there are a few people who have pushed me a little too far and they will regret that, assholes.

So, at least I am now back online having had to get a new connection, not great timing but that’s sods law!

I am looking forward as it’s all I can do. Else I’ll go nuts!

Hope life is being better to you.

Back to the grindstone for me. Plenty of stuff to do.

While I had no connection I started drawing again, and even given painting a go. which I never really tried in all honesty, it’s a release and if the pics are crap, I can always do more.

Just where I’m at at the moment.

Been some interesting posts going up recently, inevitable they would spring up as SEO is always written about, SEO never being a static entity and with the recent google PR update it mattered to most bloggers,  Kristi wrote a great post relating to the google PR update on internal pages and top content, what it mean if anything, and it’s worth a read.

It wasn’t all plain sailing, even some got a PR decrease, a smackdown that was probably a short shit feeling, been there, as I wrote in comments on that post, I went up from 3 to a 4 again, after dropping last year from 4 to a 3, I was more bothered whether the move to WP had another negative impact more than anything, if I has stayed a 3, fine… you know.

Went up, bonus.

Though what does it mean for me if anything?

In the grand scheme of things not alot, here’s why…

SEO is important but it’s also a game

Who makes the rules… Google.

SEO… if you didn’t know by now is Search Engine Optimisation… or in short, “gaming it”

As with anything like this, there are lines, lines that shouldn’t be crossed, their lines, your lines, readers lines, buyers lines… you know, they are there and they matter, which ones you gonna abide by, cross, abuse, avoid thinking about?

Which ones count?

Had your thought about it that way?

I know my lines, I also know that while SEO has it’s place and we need to know something of it, it’s also something we will never ever be right on top of, so why over-do it, or try past what we know works for us.

PR means jack shit really, if you are in this game to make money online, PR ain’t gonna make a bit of difference, unsure, ask that bloke who writes that linked blog, check his PR.  Aye, are you gonna tell him or shall I?

For me PR is more an ego driven thing, people like to have it higher cos they think it matters for others, yet advertisers take it to matter, odd, but since google still has it it must mean something somewhere, for us it’s just knowing what it is and it isn’t likely to happen, so forget about it!

The basics of SEO are still the basics of SEO

Search engines will always have to change the way they do things to stay one step ahead of the web, fair enough, I ain’t really competing with a machine, I want it to work for me, woah… flashbacks of seeing “Robots will rule” in graffiti as a kid! I am competing with millions of other bloggers… that’s the reality.

The absolute basics will work forever and in reality doing all of the basics to the maximum optimism should be all you need to do… in an ideal world.

Yet, to a point that is all you should worry about, more important has to be the fact you should write for people not machines, it plays out in the end anyway, but always people first, machines second.

The SEO basics as I think they are would be…

• Write quality content that the searchers (people) will want, relevant (by keywords) to it in a way that the SE’s (machines) want, while also quality enough that the people want to share it, which also gives it more weight in the SE’s (machines)
• Get backlinks to the content from as many and as relevant sources as you can (people), anchored with good keywords that are relevant for the SE”s (machines).
• Be consistent in what you do, adding quality content (people), build links (machines), keeping it as natural as possible, by this I mean, it is consistent, not abused, like getting 1000 links in one day from 500 crap sites would be unnatural.
• Rinse repeat to build traffic, reward the sources of traffic and build relationships with them (people), linking, commenting, etc, and also use deep linking to older post in new post (people) , spread them about to get them noticed again. (machines)

Really what more do we need to do than that lot?

Create your own rules and stick to your lines

Malcolm McLaren died just recently sadly, the godfather of punk, and what memories, being a 70′s kid, yet do you think he went by the rules of others, he and his bands had their own rules, lines they wouldn’t cross… look where that got them.

Google and other sites don’t always stick to their own rules, big sites never will, all cosy together controlling it all… and we let them.

Time to take back the blog I think, decide what matters and stick to that not having the power of control in the hands of a machine, an entity that is google, the move from blogger to WPress has taught me a lot about the way google sets things up to favour them over anyone else.

While SE traffic is good, it’s not the be all and end all for most of us, social media (people) has it’s own benefits and downfalls when it comes to traffic, but that is good for the SE’s (machines) too, they have to start taking it into account within their own ranking and whatever.

Just write for your people, write for you, write to be read, because it’s never exclusive to the people, machines get there too.

Sod googles rules, follow your own and do what works for you. Full stop.

What do you think? Please do comment, share the post, link to it…

For as long as people have created blogs, there has always been the debate about length of post, should it be long or short?

Wish I hadn't read Brogans blog now!

The debate will always rage on, for as long as blogging exist, yet the key is really to make it as long as it needs to be in order to get the message across in the best clear way you can…

It’s not just what you say but how you say it.

Let’s assume you wanted to know about backlinks, would you rather read a 2000 word post which tells you all you need to know about backlinks, or a 200 word one that only skims the surface and hints that the writer actually knows very little about what he writes?

Should you feel you need to write long posts…

You have to then consider if you are boring your readers, that itself would be the worse thing,  which you can see happening at times when you read a post somewhere and half way though you seem to stop reading it, it’s tapered off and bored you.

That is something I’ve seen with some of these so called big name bloggers and quite often, their content has got so boring I just stop reading and go elsewhere.

The answer for you may depend on your blog, it’s readers and your style of writing, yet the bottom line is, there is no right or wrong length, look at any of Seth Godin’s post and if done with clarity, they can very effective when short and sweet.

For me it”s really not the length, it’s the content itself and how it’s written that matters.

What about for you?

P.s I have added a twitter username field and commentluv in the comment section, plus it’s now a do follow blog here, so please do share your comments, I want you to benefit, as long as you no spammer!

If unsure, just tick the box next to commentluv image, and add your twitter username (no@) to the twitter box.

I recently mentioned about the other ways to read this blog, utilising the blog feed which in some bloggers eyes is not the best move, arguing that they want eyeballs on the whole blog and not just the content, ie, the ads on the sidebars etc. 

That may well be true for them, not me, I go by my own stats, which are on the blog that matters, mine. the only thing that really makes the difference is the content itself, that’s what readers want and come for, not ads. 

Every blogger should just worry about delivering good content.

Even the copy on salesletter style sites are good content as it’s what matters. 

All the people who ask about SEO, traffic tactics, ideas for getting more RSS subscribers, etc can all make a difference just delivering better content, there is the reason the top blogs get so much traffic … great content. Nothing else.

Great content always gets shared, talked about, tweeted, blogged about, linked to and this with the other golden rule of blogging, that is … consistency, it can only generate more of the same. 

There are no rules about having to post a certain amount of times a week, having to post a certain style of writing, what to write about, the only rule is to be consistent.

People like routine. 

So there it is, my only goal from here on is to give you better content, in a consistent manner. 

Just a quick post with a request for others to consider reading this blog in a different way, using the RSS feed either by email or the orange feed icon on the top right corner of the blog.

If you already subscribe this way this won’t matter much ;o)
Some people have wondered what RSS or feeds are, I figure the best way to learn is to jump right in and try it out.

If you have a google account you already have a google reader, signing into your google account in one tab, then with this blog open in another tab, click the orange icon, on the next page, choose to add to your google reader. It should automatically open your reader with this blogs feed content showing…ie what you are reading now. ;o)

Another good reason I ask you to subscribe is I aim to declutter this blog over the next few weeks and get back to simple which means you won’t miss anything by way of content, in fact i think the feed is formatted better than the blog itself, you only miss seeing the sidebars which will have less in them anyway.

The aim for me is just improve the quality of the post contents from here onward.

While I would like more of you to subscribe to the feed it would also be great if those of you who are able to, would consider sharing the post too, wherever you like to share them, twitter, friendfeed facebook etc.

Thanks. )

It’s been a busy week for me sorting things out but something hit my inbox from an online friend who I feel tells it like it is more than most do and this is the real deal!

It underlines that the real magic pill for those seeking success with attempts to make money online is that what you see above!

Simply put nothing else happens until you start using that button above, nothing gets done without it.
It is the action button!

Download and read this for yourself, grasp it fully and you see it ALL boils down to this.

The half a million truth! < (Pdf, right lick and save as.) The "big names" tried to stop them sharing this, and you can see just why. The bottom line is that this information is so obvious and yet so powerful if you did it right it could make a massive difference and yet it is in some ways already happening...but not capitalised on the way it could have been, simply because those who do it don't see the "big picture." I am amazed at this information and just how right it is, so it's saying something when my friend is happy they spent half a million finding it out then sharing it free! Why do that? Because it matters, it's going to change things, and the sharing of this is in itself the truth in action!

Read it, see what it means to you and how it really levels the playing field out for everyone and share your thoughts in the comments below. )

An interesting conversation I had recently, I won’t say who with obviously or where, simply because it’s not relevant but what we discussed was.

This reader of my blog, friend on social sites, and a real offline friend just emailed me in general chatter mode really.

The conversation came to a point where they mentioned having difficulties, just like the rest of the people with the economy taking a downturn etc.

Obviously anyone with work is worried about one main thing, “security” of that job.
No real “jobs for life” anymore as they say, which is probably 80% true.

They mentioned they are actually looking for a job as the 3 kids are all at school, hubby is working but worried like most are.

I just mentioned why not start “doing something online” while looking for work?

“Like what?” she asked, “what you do? blogging or whatever it is?”

“Could do” I replied, or any number of things really, it depends what you could do.

“All I want is to simplify life lol” she said.
“I can’t do a blog and look after the kids and do the house work! And what the hell would I even blog about, goddamit”

I remembered something I had seen a few days earlier, told her I will get back to her.

Funny where Valuable connections can be made and how.

So, I messaged her…I said…

“I’ll blog about it, but send you an email first”, both happy that both of us get the value, but me sharing lets you take the value of it to do whatever with as you will.

I realised that ALL of the above issues she had could be the very things to blog about.

Here we go…

You are rushed off your feet, kids, housework all taking your time and energy, so what could you really do about that?

You think…”Rob says, blogaboutit!! But how???”

I was browsing a very interesting site when I came across a perfectly good way to learn how to Simplify your life, indeed someone like my friend here is the perfect match in some ways.

Cheaper than fish and chips! Simplify your life

Then you can start applying these to your life, simplifying it, you can blog about how you are applying it to your life, what it’s doing for you what works, what doesn’t etc, posting maybe daily when you have a spare 20 Min’s etc to write it.

Your friends start to read your blog, they tell others and you start getting more readers, all the while you continue posting what YOU learn from YOUR actions.

You are not teaching directly, but indirectly by sharing, sharing YOUR experiences, this is you creating social proof, after a few weeks, you get more time due to the success of applying it, writing better posts, all the while you actual writing is improving.

You continue to apply and grow, your friends start asking “where they can get that book?”

You then realise you are an affiliate, you can post a link to the book while anyone who buys it will be contributing to YOU earning money, and they will buy it because of the social proof you have provided.

They may apply it but not blog about it like you did, so they will just continue reading your blog, sharing it with others, and this buying cycle will happen again.

You realise you are succeeding here, then you go check out the book writers blog, and see a great new way you can also grow your blog content, writing less at times.

Then your friends start to email you, commenting on your blog, sharing things that are working for them.

You could then ask a few to be “guest writers” on your blog, maybe let two people write a post once a week, that two days less blogging for you and you still have the content and further social proof…leading the cycle again, more eyeballs, more book sales.

You then start to see how you can add other valuable streams of income to your blog, like related products or complementing products.

Then you see how you can start to build an email list from your blog, which you can develop a better and more closed conversational relationship with your community.

It’s only showing in those who subscribe to the list, not on the blog.

Maybe do better things with the list, provide even more value to them than on the blog….doable if all your post are by guest bloggers. ;o)

Other ideas start to become visible with your growing learning curve which you know will help your community.

You can’t believe how far you have come just for taking action, life is simplified, calmer and you are in control, creating your own “security”.

You started to see how you can turn your best content into a….book!

Then sell that, get an army of fans selling it for you too.

All it took was that you realised “if he can do it, with more on his plate than me, I can do it too.”

One of you may just go for it…

Valuable connections, it’s all links, new ones, invisible ones and life changing ones.

(o? ¡s?????? ?o ??os ?? s? ????sod ?s?? ??? o? ?p?s d??? ??? uo

I have been meaning to write this for a few days. Something got under my skin, bothered me and I couldn’t put my finger on it at all, so I forgot about it.

Boy am I glad!! )

I had to disconnect to make the connection but it not only made that connection…it connected everything else for me.

Some connections were great, some not so, I digress, they are all valuable connections.

Sadly…I had to also had to face up to something I didn’t really expect. It pissed me off to a point!

As she sang…

“Sometimes it hard…to make things clear…

Or know when to face… the truth, and I know,

That the moment is here…”

No prizes to the right guess in comments! ;o)

I’ll never make it really big as a blogger, as it stands!!!

I had been given it thought in the past…
I knew it was going to be an issue, but that issue is something you probably won’t face…

Yeah… my crap ears!!!

The idiot!!? ;o)

This just confirmed it in some ways, but I would do a disservice not sharing it with you, as there’s nothing stopping you following the fantastic and well explained FREE: Time Tested And Proven Roadmap To Blogging Success… because NOW IS the time to read that if you are in any way considering starting one…even if not, there is some good insights to where things are going on this “landscape”.

One I wont be able to fully maximise.

So am I saying this blog is…dying?

NO… certainly not, I just realised where it IS going, how it effects other things in the “big picture”, the book above just helped me realise with a little more clarity…connected things in a way.

Furthermore these other connections, in my head, also had an impact on things…in a huge way.

Linking the connections was what did it, but it’s only now they connect!

It was 1980…

Summer in flow, thumping feelings to my head…and here I woke, at the bottom of a pot hole in a quarry, dazed, confused, almost 9 years old…

I took a brief look around, a twin pair of holes above me, shafts of light pouring down, peeked to left, right…darkish but it clearly looked like I was in a “slab space” like a wall of mud in font of me and a wall of mud behind me.

I tried to climb up, no used, slipping and sliding, I stopped, ran my hand through my hair…caked in mud and knotted…”where’s me hearing aid??, my coat?, my shoe?” rapidly flying through my head…

I looked around, I realised I was on a small ledge, the very real fear of falling down there kicked in.
At a guess I was about 30 ft down from the top.

Looked down saw real darkness, spotted a stone, a good handful sized and threw it down.

For a brief moment I completely forgot I couldn’t hear shit!

I smiled, no-one can ever take that off me. )

“Lee, help” I suddenly screamed, not quite realising I remembered what happened.

“He has to be there” I told myself, “LEE!!!” I screamed out, we were only playing football a minute ago…or was it hours ago…. “argggh LEEEEEE”"…a face flickered into the light…it was my mums best friend, Anna…”sigh” A memory that has never faded. )

She said clearly so could lipread… “firemen on the way, DON’T move”

I never moved a muscle… the fireman arrived, Anna said, “tie the rope round your waist”…In my innocent confusion i started to try and tie an inch and half fat rope around my wrist… /

Donut…”Waist” Anna said…”of course, what an idiot” I said, did that, got pulled up slowly and nicely.

That connection was valuable! It saved my life.

I suddenly had my head slowly out of the hole, to see half the streets residents lined up on the bank a good 7, 8 ft above us.

A sight I was glad to see. Some of you will be reading this no doubt. ) It would be interesting to hear your memory of that day, its’ the other side of the coin, watching one of ya daft mates looking like worzel gummage climbing out of a pot hole! )

The firemen asked if I was ok… yeah I said, stood up, there were all well intentionally worried…but I started to walk off towards my home, climbing up the bank, not sure if people were clapping, can’t hear at this point lol, over the top, I saw mum, my brothers, 7 and 5 at the time…all crying, shocked…the magnitude of what happened hit me and we all hugged.

I was ok, that’s what mattered, I only had a few bruises, split eyelid, bruised ego, lost hearing aid, and an upset family. /

Oh and one shoe!

So, we all walked to the ambulance, I climbed in, I remember the paramedic taking my trousers off to check my legs, stood there in my pants and the “girl next door”, literally, Sarah, my age, stood there upset, smiling, looking at me!!

“Oi bugger off” I said with a smile, while trying hard to hide the “y fronts” Yikes!!!!

She laughed, I laughed… )

I was let out and went home, a night not to forget, sat in mums bed, all of us, mum, me and brothers, dad was in middle east, working as a diver, we were watching tv…the news!!

“Eh, that’s me”!! ) Damn I looked rough! )

I was safe and well.

I had a valuable connection that day.

But a week later, sat at nans, all the family there, watching tv and it was the news, suddenly I took notice of what was happening, bearing in mind no subtitles then, it was a case in Italy, a young child fallen down a pot hole, alot further than I had and in a granite or marble quarry.

No matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t get to them.

Their last wish was to have coca cola… and that’s what they give them. As much as they wanted through a long pipe.

That was the last drink.

I cried my heart out.

That hurt and I never forgot that day.
I made a valuable connection with that child in my heart.

So, am I really going to let a silly thing my crap ears stop me, with anything?

Nope, you got that right. Then and now!

I won’t let a pair of crap ears stop me with this blog, I’ll just adapt it or I to it.

I got plans, and this blog is part of them.

I digress, whats all this got do with you?

Well, you read my blog, ;o)
Quite alot to do with you in fact.

If I am going to have issues with things like video, audio, using a webcam and mic, I can talk, not perfect but ok, I will never be able to benefit the other way, by listening. shame really, though till now I never rally saw any reason to have a webcam and mic.

Conversations, should be two way. )

I don’t miss out completely, thankfully I still have conversations that are creating valuable connections.

I got thinking about what I really wanted to achieve, what would I be happiest doing and that is interacting with more people, connecting, sharing, and learning and well as helping.

Which I realised I already do…just not well enough.

I know I do underestimate myself and what I have to share. I get told enough too!

Time to make that big improvement.

So I would love to see you join my new “Valuable connections” ezine.

Sign up to it using the form on the left sidebar.

You are going to be my main priority. )

You see, I realised every opportunity I ever wanted I have had.

Let me ask you, how many times has that door in your office, room, you are in now been opened by someone else, for you?

How about other doors?

My bet is most of the doors that have opened for you in life YOU opened, or chose not to go follow through.

I can only kick myself now for not opening the doors more often and trying, and kick myself again for not even bothering to open it and take a look!

Fast forward 5 years from now….

You come out of hairdressers with ya girlfriend, she is “pissed off”, not happy at all and you can feel it bristling on her, she starts to typing into her phone, five min’s later she calms down a bit, you ask “what ya done?”, she replies “tweeted everyone to not use that crap hairdressers”.

You realise, ya girl has something like 10,000 people following her on her twitter, 2000 of them “local”, mates who listen…

Damn that’s gonna hurt that hairdresser you think?

One small valuable connection, or in this case not so valuable!

The flip side, she came out. “Wow gotta show mates this, I feel GREAT” uploads a pic to twitpic and tweets it to all, free valuable word of mouth advertising for you!

Good very valuable connection for that hairdresser now eh? ;o)

“Ok, well, I got a shop, not hairdresser, so it wont matter to me, and anyway, it’s NOT 5 years time”… you say, right, but back to the present, there are phones now capable of scanning bar codes in the shops.

So someone scans a product in your shop, clicks the phone, says “I can get that 50p cheaper in the shop 30 yards up the rd”.

You stand there bewildered! / Another customer gone!

All these connections, big or small, who knows which one will make or break you?

For now, realise every connection you make, matters.

P.s there are really NO limits on the power of these connections. No barriers. You are at the most important moment in history. NOW.

If you are local to me too, this will be even more relevant to you, but it’s not what you’re thinking it is now. If I change your thinking or perspective just a few degrees it’s all good. )

If that rower above wants to get to the sun, he needs to alter a few degrees ;o)

Let’s dig in suckers!! ;o)

Something I keep hearing offline and some of you who asked maybe reading this, is “how the hell do you make money online” a pause… “porn or sommat” and then a laugh. ;o)

Anyone in IM (Internet Marketing) will know what I mean here, and know that sight of glazing eyes on others when we try explaining.

Well let’s see now, where do MOST of you locals see me online? Facebook?

That is the perfect example I can use to explain this then, because you KNOW facebook, after all it sucked you in!

It has already hit that tipping point like ebay did a few years ago, what do I mean?

Maybe you was one of them, you got online to use ebay, and only really used ebay, you knew of it and it sucked you in.

I mean, there are those who ONLY got online to use ebay, now it’s much the same with facebook, people who had never been online are now joining up because all their friends are talking of it OFFLINE, much like ebay did to some.

They hit that tipping point of viral marketing. )

Yet people said to me back then, “how do you make any money online if you dont use ebay?”

NEVER guess what?

Facebook is making money from YOU everyday, everytime you use it, everytime your friends use it….not only that, OTHERS are making money from you all the time too.

Have a good look around and you can see it with ads and such, but its not the ONLY way or the best way even, but I digress.

They monetise it from the traffic it gets, it is a numbers game.

They can target ads superbly because its the perfrect social site where you share a real sense of who you are, where you are, what you like etc, all those PEOPLE, ALL that data!!!

Look at mine for example, I get ads on the home page with a picture of a gorgeous woman, and a headline like… “37 and still single? Meet local ladies here”

Now you tell me, IS that targetted?
They got my age, my relationship status, my area and that is what they have on all of us…data that can be targetted to whatever.

You and me provide the content that facebook thrives on.
Content is the key part of getting somewhere online, I provide content like this, but I have to provide it, facebook gets it freely by your actions.

Lets take another example of how people “miss it” as I say, it’s not always as it seems, and it’s shown clearly here that traffic is a massive part of it, the cleanest site and yet probably one of the most profitible ones online is THIS. (right mouse click open in new tab or window)

Before you say… “I know that company BUT where’s the ads or whatever, how is it profitable?”

It’s the next step that YOU take which makes them the profits, as well as for others. )

Ok but you say…

“YOU don’t own them, I will never own them , so…??” a pause… “how would “I” make money from online, if I decided to try?”

Good question and one a few people will often think about what with the “credit crunch” worries and such.
Who wouldn’t like to earn a little bit extra? )

As you are here, I could say, well this blog here makes money, not much but that is ONLY because of the traffic dropping off due to me being offline for a while and having just started to get back into the “groove” again )

I WILL get that traffic back up, but the fundementals are already here to some degree.

The key area is to provide some good content, it’s how you create and share that content that matters to what will work for you.

I write, take pictures, you may not like writing, but like talking, so videos may work, etc.
It all comes down to sharing good content (USEful information) and building that traffic (readers, watchers etc) by various means.

Then twaeking here and there to maximise your monetisation.

That is IF your main aim is to make money from it, do whatever you are best at, and do it to the best you can and the money will follow anyway. )

BUT make providing quality content your main purpose.

That breeds traffic, traffic breeds DATA, data breeds results, results breeds goals!

So what “content” should YOU create and share?

Whatever your main passions are, experience etc, BUT research to see if it even has a MARKET.

How?
Use google blog search and such, search using “keywords” in quotes, for example “English gardens” for the green fingered, or “beach fishing” or “improve golf swing” etc, give it a go and you may well be surprised at how good your market could be.

See what comes up, look around and get a feel for things, you will soon see you CAN share good content because you see content you may know you can do better, or you may know more. ;o)

Then it’s PLANNING it, and taking action.

Does this make things a little clearer?

Does it help explain a little more about how people make money online?
Feel free to use comments below. )