Apologies for not posting on my blog for quite some time. As mentioned before a number of times, I only post when I’ve got something worthy to say, otherwise – what’s the point – its all hot air. I’m not a hot air sorta guy, except after a few pints of Guiness etc 
So what’s going down in the Archibald camp? Anything worthy of mention?
Well, the hard-drive on my newest laptop was trashed by my cat knocking my laptop to the ground. Fortunately because I use Dropbox (free account) almost all of my more important documents etc were perfectly fine. Although all my photographs of Asia over the past 4 years have been deleted. Nothing much to worry about – I’ll just take some more
With regards to online business, first up – I’m just about to trial a tool that has been offered to me for exactly that – trialling. Its not exactly a tool as such, but rather a backlinking system, but its a paid for service, so that should be very interesting. Just need to finalise a new site I’ve put together strictly for this purpose, and we’ll be off to the races. I’ll let you know how that’s progressing as and when I do see some progress.
Next, I’ve been getting creative. I talked about doing this a short time ago. My philosophy for the year 2012 is to get more creative.
If you are new to this game of internet marketing, getting creative is not at all easy, as you have to learn “the system” well enough, to then start playing around with some theories. But trust me – as you progress and you spend more and more time on your online busines (internet marketing, that is), you do enhance your capabilities to “think outside of the typical box” as the saying goes. I used to try to do that a lot, but really it does not necessarily come easily and it seems that experience is the key.
So, I’ve now actually come up with 3 (or arguably 4) different game plans for which I may very well end up creating information products for, during this coming year. 3 of those are in full swing now (not the info product, but the actual implementation of the system), but there’s a whole lotta testing and trialing to be done on 2 of them, whilst the other – well, I may even be able to launch a product on that “system” by April. And right now, its looking good!
These products are intended to be ebook based, with videos too, just to make it nice and broad for everyone. Some folks prefer videos to reading from an ebook, whilst many others have invested in Kindle or an iPad and so forth, so the ebook format is still thoroughly popular.
Its too early to dot any i’s or cross any t’s, but let’s put it this way, I’m very excited about all of them!
Let’s face the facts here - if you could work 20 hours a week and make a fantastic income, would you prefer to do that, than to work (slave labor) 80 hours a week to make a similar income?
This is the beauty of what I’m discussing here. Using your time far more wisely than you have EVER done previously, to leverage things in such a way to not only free up a whole lot of your precious time each and every day, but also to improve your bank balance beyond all previous dreams and desires.
Thus I will say – in this instance, quality is far, far better than quantity!
I don’t know about you, but from being a very young kid to being a middle aged (young) man, I’ve had it drummed into me that when it comes to earning a good income and when it comes to being “happy” in life (its for you to describe what “happiness” actually means for you), you have to work hard hard hard hard!!
That tends to mean, you have to work very long hours. Thus, in which case, oftentimes, quality takes a dive out the window. Its not easy to be quality focused when your belief is that to gain the best results you have to focus on quantity at all costs.
The more you do, the better it becomes.
Have you too heard that before – perhaps from your parents when you were a kid, or from your friends at school? Or indeed, from your boss at work. After all, working the typical 9 to 5 job goes totally against the quality over quantity ethos. Are you always going to be at your most productive for 8 hours out of every day whilst at work? What about the days where you feel lousy but you still have to report for work regardless. Is that time well spent? Or is that time that you’d be better resting up in order to re-charge you batteries for another day?
Well, FINALLY I’ve managed to change my thinking and refocus my efforts on an entirely different point of view.
Thus I tend to work far less hours online than I have done for the past 4 years (I do still fiddle around on somewhat trivial pursuits however), and tend to use much more time to think about how I can push my business forward – how to leverage my time far more successfully and efficiently.
In fact, I rarely even take the time to think about it, but rather – I just let the ideas bounce around in my head from time to time.
If you too are keen on doing something similar to me, but seem to be struggling to gain momentum in terms of your ideas seem to be run of the mill and thus not particularly marketable, I would suggest you don’t worry about it and try not to get frustrated. As I said, it seems to take time and experience to then be able to “re-invent the wheel” as they say.
Some of the very successful information products which are based on topics such as affiliate marketing are indeed merely simple ideas “stuck together” to make a very workable game plan. Its the same thing that I did with the Warrior Forum 40 Day Challenge, and that ebook sells as well now as it did when I first put it up for sale almost 2 years ago. To be honest, my marketing efforts are appallingly pathetic, but the sales keep on coming.
Let the ideas come to you, rather than you trying to force them.
When I try to force ideas, I generally end up with nothing much in return. Best to let those ideas self-generate. Or indeed, make some space for yourself each day. Set aside 20 minutes or something each day, and turn off the phone etc. Put on some relaxing background music if you wish. Sit in your most comfortable armchair, or lie in your bed. You get the idea – I’m not trying to pretend I’m some sort of mind-set coach or anything. This is just stuff that I hear that tends to work for many of us.
I was chatting with a Dutch gentleman just a couple of days back in one of the local Kuching hotels. He’s a thoroughly intelligent chap, and has taken early retirement at the grand old age of 45, to now live life relaxing by the swimming pool or on the beach, or indeed – on his yacht. He used to be a CEO of one of the biggest European banks, thus his monetary wealth is superior to most. In fact, he owns a few properties in South East Asia, one of them being in Bali.
Anyhow, he was telling me about an acquaintance of his, who merely sets aside some time out of each day to generate business ideas. They can be from any angle of business, it matters not.
Well, apparently this gentleman is now so wealthy he does not know what to do with his money. And how did he attain such monetary wealth? Selling his ideas on to other businesses. That’s it! He spends an hour or two each day on idea generation (emphasis on quality over quantity!) and then sketching down on paper what he comes up with. Obviously some ideas work incredibly well, whilst others not so well.
I don’t know about you, but I think this is a fantastic way to focus our time. I guess you could say its something akin to Tim Ferris’ 4 Hour Work Week concept. Quality over quantity!
I’ll be discussing a bit more about my up coming info products in the coming weeks and months. I’m telling you now – although I’m sure that my ideas are not totally new (although I’ve never actually read or heard of anything similar being marketed), these ideas are purely focused on wealth creation. Online wealth creation. And I’m not just talking about a few bucks here and there. I am talking about the potential to make many thousands each and every month!
Its not that I’ve spent days and weeks behind closed door coming up with great ideas. Far from it! All I’ve done is to utilize a lot of my current knowledge base to create some new and potentially thoroughly workable ideas.
What’s further, I’m really hoping that these ideas, these concepts – are as close to fail-safe as can be. In other words, if I approached a person who was new to online marketing, and I laid out just one of my ideas so that they could then go and implement them with no further input from myself, they would indeed make what could very well be a whole heap of cash flow, regardless of Google (albeit these methods are still dependant on Google, since that is and has always been my forte in the online business world) mood swings in terms of rankings in search.
Mind you, you would have to follow very closely with what I intend to map out. Its no good chopping and changing to fit your own moods. Success is dependant entirely on my “map to success“. After all, the reason I’ve been investing my hard earned cash and spending a reasonable amount of my own time on these systems, is to ensure that they will actually work for anyone who cares to implement them, and follow the system very closely indeed.
I’m excited, and I hope that comes across in todays blog post!
{ 81 comments… read them below or add one }
Aha! That’s a refreshing read….. Writing those bmr articles continuously can blur your mind. LOL. Your post saved my day, Joseph. I am now charged to write some few more bmr articles. lol. Thank you for sharing and we would indeed follow you closely.
Hi Joseph, it is good to hear you again. I am also thinking what you were saying, work on quality instead of quantity. Besides that, we also must learn to setup the autopilot system in order to save us from being the slave of online business. Yup, I copy this from Tim too. hehe
On my hands now, I have 13 web sites. Some time it is very tired to keep up their backlinks. I have 1 site, I just stop writing articles and purely count on blog comments from Backlinkgenie. Guess what, it dropped from number 1 several days ago.
Therefore I am thinking to try some backlinking services. I found some and email them to you. Can you please help me to have a look?
I hope my post will super-charge you to write more than a few BMR posts, Joel
I think writing BMR posts is preferable to trying to figure out how to link an AdSense account up with an Analytics account (to track where the clicks are coming from on my ads). All the info on both the AdSense site and the Analytics site seems to lead to no-where – utterly and totally confusing! Wanna swap – you can link up my AdSense account to Analytics, and I’ll do some BMR posts drudgery for you?
Harrison, yes – the idea that Tim F had about the utilization of automation for your business is a very sound idea indeed! Using tools to automate, or outsourcing as much as you can, is a very solid way to progress, providing you know where you are headed, of course!
Sorry to hear about your first page ranking in Goog being no more.
Regards the services you emailed links to me about – the first one crashes when I click on it. The latter one – is it offering good value for money? There’s so much info on the ad that it really gets confusing as to what you are going to receive in return for your investment. I do like the mix of services they use to gain the backlinks to your site/s, but I’m still trying to find info about how they control the actual backlinking pace – I may (or may not) locate that information after a further 10 minutes of reading through the ad. I’ll bookmark this service nevertheless, Harrison – looks interesting enough for me to do that, and I do actually like these sort of variable backlinking type services that are often offered on Warriors – not that I use many of them, but I may well begin to do so in times to come, purely to get more variation in my backlinks.
The service fee is for 1 web site only. So I think I can only use this service as long as my income from a particular web site exceed the backlinking fees.
One more thing, really curious the trial tool you are using now. hehe. Hope to hear more about it from you soon.
Harrison, I’ll let the cat out of the bag on that service as soon as I see some results from it. In fact, as soon as I get my “special” affiliate link, I may let the bag out of the cat there and then.
One thing I would like to add about that service you provided me the link to on Warriors – its not easy to get a good variation in backlinks from different services without spending a small fortune each month. Thus, to utilize such a service as this, does make good sense, even though it may seem a tad on the expensive side. BUT – you really do have to be pretty sure that, as you rightly say, you are indeed going to see a decent return on investment once you do gain the rankings. You have to wonder – is the low end account ($59 a month) going to be enough to get you a top ten ranking for your main keyword phrase/s, or are you going to have to be forced to either take more than a single month at that price or move up to one of the higher end more pricey accounts. I guess there’s only one way to find out just how good (or not so good) this service really is…
Ya, the only way is test it on our owns
Thanks for the opinions. I think once you can get a decent results from the service and the overall cashflow is positive, we might have to stick with it every month. This is because the #1 position is not permanent. Other competitors are working so hard to pull us down. So I think this is a long term commitment.
I was getting worried about you Joseph! Good to see you’re back blogging again. Fair point though, if you’ve got nothing to say then why post?
Regarding the hours worked, you’re taking exactly the right approach cutting your hours in my view. By pure coincidence I have bee doing this since the New Year. Results are looking good so far. I quit by 4.30pm every day then head to the gym. I’ve found that when you know you’ve got to stop by a certain time you just become more focused.
If you’re working all the hours in the day then what’s the rush? You’ve got all the time in the World right? So productivity declines.
Happy New Year (belated) to you btw Jo!
Cheers,
Rob
Rob Cornish recently posted..6 Predictions For 2012
@Harrison – what’s the service you guys are talking about? Always interested to see what other people are doing.
@Jo – well as you know i did the retire thing at 42 for a long while. it’s a good idea.
What you’re talking about here is working on the business more not in it all the time, a good idea.
I for one use Starbucks coffee breaks for these types of muses with just a pad of paper. or i read books to cultivate the mind. Your right you can’t force ideas and if you do they tend to be weak and obvious.
Most of my best ideas have come in bars
or was it just the drink talking. No i think its to do with relaxing and letting things flow.
For me I prefer to spend extended periods of time in intense activity even if its years of solid work to make big projects happen then switch off.
My only change this time round is to invest better in post work period passive income streams such as property, Build those up more in the work years to make the retirement periods easier.
Or maybe i will move towards my preferred model of 6 months on full blast and 3 months on 4 hour work weeks.
Best of luck with all your projects this year Jo and I really look forward to seeing your output. Particularly the system you appear to be developing. The more ways to make money the better.
Cheers
Nice to hear from you again, Joseph! And I like your new $0 day challenge ebook cover much better than the old one
One of the “good” things of living in SE Asia is that you can randomly meet the “gentlemen” who brought us in the big mess the western world is these days, with people lacking jobs and houses while they (the “gentlemen”) get bored in their yatches because they don’t know what to do with the loads of money they got scamming families.
Sorry to be so harsh.
Cristina Ansbjerg recently posted..No more B.S. Nobody will give you the power
@Hi Steve, you should ask Joe as I don’t know it is ok for me to post other people’s selling page over here.
Yeah Harrison, you are correct – its not merely about obtaining the number one spot in Goog, its also about keeping it there, which quite often can be easier said than done, depending on your level of competition of course
Hey Rob, just the other day, I read your “half way to 72″ email and was gonna pop over to your blog to make a brief comment, but – have you changed your blog or something? One link in the email was to your membership course, and I’m not sure about the other one. No worries – probably something I missed.
Ah, what a pity, when I was reading your comment here, you say “I quit by 4.30pm every day, then head to the…“. I was hoping that last word to be… “POOB“! Head to poob and get droonk every day at 4.30pm!
Are you still attending George’s 4 hour work week meetings, Rob? If so, how are they going these days?
Happy NY to you too sir! I may be heading on over to the UK again around May this year. If so, let’s hope we can meet up (after 4.30pm of course) for a Guiness or two!
Hey Steve (and Harrison), I’ll post the link to that service that Harrison was talking about just below here so you can check out your competition. Looks to be a solid service.
Yeah working more on and less in, even though I’m fully aware of what’s happening in the business all the time, so I know the wheels are being regularly oiled and the system is fully functional.
Great ideas do tend to come from bars, I agree wid ya! There’s a few cafe type eateries dotted along the South China Sea coastline here in Sarawak – about 30 mins drive from Kuching – more like little fishing villages with rough and ready “eating houses” offering the catch of the day. They are the most wonderful places to spend time, have some great food at great prices, have a few beers and sit and idea generate whilst taking great pleasure from the views all around. Or indeed, to get together with a few like-minded friends and discuss potential ideas.
I like your business model of 6 months hard work, then 3 months of the four hour work week! Howz about – 3 months full blast, 6 months of the 4 hour work week?
We’ll see how the systems go, Steve. So far so good – exciting times ahead I sense!
All the best, sir!
http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-special-offers-forum/491418-keywordbacklinks-com-search-engine-optimization-service-guaranteed-serp-increases-daily-dripfed-contextual-backlinks.html
Hi Cristina, nice to be here again
I got the ebook cover from Rick Tenney, who’s a pro in this line of business. I decided to give my 40 day challenge website a bit of a facelift, hence the new ebook cover, glad you like it!
OUCH!
In fact, you are quite right and oddly enough – I never even thought about that, strangely enough – usually I’m among the first to see through the glossy surface, but not this time! I’ll say no more, cos if he reads this, he may punch me the next time he sees me
Harrison, got that covered, and thank you for your concern!
@jo – cheers yep like to see what things other people are doing.
Not sure I like 200+ links per keyword to a URL per month with I assume the exact same anchor text . If its not sandboxing or dropping a lot of links the power must be quite low. Not knocking just learning
Still be interested to here non WSO feedback experiences.
@jo & Rob
Well i worry that everybody else seems to be slowing down! I’m unsure why you want to work fewer hours? If you making enough and your nest egg is setup cool.
For me my goals are so high there’s no way I can back off to a fraction of last year. Indeed I’m going harder at it. Improving my efficiency as well.
Sure planned down time like 2 in every 14 days probably. And then a slow month in asia in the middle to the year. Otherwise flat out and screaming
I know that its very easy to be “working” at the keyboard when in fact your just reading blogs. I try to avoid this in blocks now. so some days i don’t read at all.
Jo – Don’t worry I hit the pub after the gym
I think the email your saw had 2 links. First one to my blog post. Second just for members to tell them about the latest update. I haven’t changed my blog.
Would be great to meet up in May – looking forward to a few Guinnesses. I might even knock off before 4.30pm seeing as it’ll be a special occasion!
Steve – I hear you. The way I see it is that the goal is to maximise the volume of productive work done, period. Whilst time spent working is probably the main variable affecting this there are clearly other ones at play.
I think I’m finding there is a point where working more hours actually diminishes the productivity to the extend that I get less done overall. That’s personal and obviously everyone is different.
So I don’t see it as slowing down. On the contrary, I’m gonna speed up! Just with a different work/time approach which seems to be delivering this.
You’re spot on about the reading blogs. My problem is checking emails which I find is even worse because your schedule is actually dictated by other people. So another thing I’m finding which is working really well is actually logging out of my gmail. So simple and sounds trivial I know but this seems to be working SO WELL right now.
Let’s see how long I can keep it up…
Rob
Rob Cornish recently posted..6 Predictions For 2012
@Rob – thats all true. I know a lot of folks get less effient if they work to long. Saw that in some of my employees in the past. Its very normal.
I can suffer from that in so far as if i spend to many days (5-6weeks) doing 15 hours days 7 days a week I kinda fall over and need to sleep for a day or two ! lol
have great week
steve
Steve – your tolerance for work is very high in my book. Well done – that’s great!
I guess we all have to find our own equilibrium level of work which gets us to the goal fastest.
An awareness is the most important thing though I think. Hopefully this thread is part of that
Cheers & have a great week too!
Rob
Rob Cornish recently posted..6 Predictions For 2012
Steve, that’s always a concern with these types of services – the guy who runs the show gets to be so busy that there’s not enough control over the velocity of the backlinking as well as the variation of the anchor text. Those two both spell real trouble if you get either of them wrong, as most of us know full well.
I’m not slowing down as such – I’m leveraging other people’s abilities much more than previously. Thus, I’m freed up from the grind stuff, to look much more at the broader picture, which I like to see as much more my forte in life. So although my grinding has slowed up tremendously, my production levels are higher – not in terms of the amount of “churn out” there is, but certainly in terms of ROI.
Rob – LOL – good going – hit the pub/poob after the gym – you’re my kinda guy
Thanks for clarifying the links in your email. I’ll have to revisit that then.
Nothing definite for May, Rob. Its not only riding on me and what I tend to find is that what you plan in terms of travelling often changes on the lead up. Folks put different demands on you, so you end up changing previous plans to suit. But my hope and desire is to get back to the UK around about May.
I agree with you, and I quote – “I’m finding there is a point where working more hours actually diminshes the productivity, to the extent that I get less done”. Same for me these days. And I think it depends very much on your business model though. My mate Gerald, who now resides here in Kuching in the same house as me – he works in the same line as I do, but he goes about making money in a totally different way than I do. He grinds like hell! Long, long hours of sheer intensive work (then some days he’ll down tools and chill out almost entirely). He makes good money doing this, but its hard work on his part to achieve what he does.
Steve, you’re a machine!
Hi Joe, what is your approach in backlinking for the first 30 days of a new web site? I can’t use BMR my project is full.
Lol Jo,
It will be cool to know how your new toy will pan out for ya. I agree with you in terms of leveraging on others’ strength so that you can get more done in less time and then using those time that is being freed to be more creative. I will make that as my new year resolution though the new year has already begun two weeks ago. Good luck to all readers here on their ventures!
Keep on fighting friends, for the one who keeps on fighting is the one who always win!
Harrison, if my BMR account is full, I up my account to the next level, which is very affordable so makes sense to do so.
Joseph
Terence, dude – yes indeed so. The wealthy in this world (in money terms) leverage other people’s skills to create their wealth. I now see it very much in the same way with respect to my own business. Providing you know exactly where you are going with your business and you know it will be profitable when you get there, leveraging makes entire sense.
Keep fighting the “right” battles, and you will always win out in the end!
Good to hear that you’re stepping away from the daily grind. I’ve been talking about that for a while now… it works wonders.
As to the backlinking plans and tricks… it doesn’t take much to rank in Google once you figure out what you’re doing. However, all the algorithm updates and shifts should make everyone realize just how fickle that foundation really is.
Regards,
TomL
TomL recently posted..Advanced Web Ranking – SEO Software Review
Hey Tom, yeah – if you are able to step away from the grind, it surely can free up the creative juices!
I agree – to build a business on Google rankings alone is not overly clever. There’s too much change going on too regularly for it to be a wise decision to place all the eggs in this particular basket.
Jo
Joseph,
What do you think about blogging on other blogs for backlinks (guest post) to get backlinks? Have you done much of this? If so, what were the results? Worth the time, if considering, you have actually write out a article just to get the backlink. It seems like it would be a very safe and natural way to build links. I guess you could always slam some backlinks to the page as well to help strengthening the incoming backlink juice. Your thoughts?
Hi Luke, yes – very worthwhile indeed, because you not only may get a top notch backlink, but you can also get some or a lot of top notch visitors to your site!
I did set up a challenge to myself a while back whereby I was going to be doing this much more often than I had done – not to get rankings as such, but to improve traffic flow to this blog. However, as is often the case I got lazy about it. In fact, it was not until Pat Flynn saw my blog post that he kind of booted my back side and told me to write a guest post for his blog, which of course is an invitation that no one in their right mind would ever turn down.
I’m very much an advocate of guest blog posting Luke, yes!
You are back at last! I have been checking for a new post almost every day, although I have also been reading some old ones. Thanks for this information Joseph. I may not understand it all as I am a newbie but it is very encouraging.
Hi Susan, yeah, I’m back! Sorry to keep you so long
By all means, if you have any questions, fire me an email, or note the stuff you are not so clear about down here in the comment section. I’m sure Steve Wyman will be happy to reply 
(just a little joke I have, Susan, please take no notice).
crys into his tea cup
“Jo is taking the micheal out of me” 
crawling back into my corner now 
LOL! I’m happy to have brightened your day, sir!
(very late night where you are).
Seeing 37 comments reminded me (although I didn’t need a reminder) its currently -37 degrees C here.
This post got me depressed
I look at where I am after 4-5 months of “IM” and I realize I’m not near as far along as I thought I was. I tend to out-think or over-analyze way too much! I did use Google Trends on my keywords and while I understood my sites were a bit “seasonal” (including my signature site!) I had no idea I’d drop from 50+ (dollars of course) a day to 1-2 a day 
LOL Obviously I need to get into something a little more evergreen. I am also considering mentorship for CPA in the near future, so any thoughts from anyone on that would be great.
I check in here probably 5-10 times a day or more, because Jo is a very charismatic fellow, and I really value the contributions his readers leave in these comments. Like lots of the folks here, I wish Jo had something to say everyday
Anyway, I thought I’d chip in on this post 
In the first quarter of 2012 I’d love to see a post (an update) on your JV endeavors that you started a while back
You have posted snippets here and there, and obviously can’t go into great detail, but still it would be interesting to see what you have to say about it all.
I would also be interested in some more “case studies” such as the “flip an adsense” series that was posted. Good stuff! Which leads to another thing I’d love to see… anything that does not 100% rely on the almighty Googol! My overzealousness to “game” Google leaves me…well….screwed 50% of the time
And by the way -37 is just damn cold
Jim recently posted..Keurig Single Serve Coffee Makers
-37 dude thats way to cold ! canda artic region?
You step outside and thats going to take your breath away. Even the bear hybernate form that!
Your coffee site has to be ever green? DO you use amazon as well as adsense?
As to avoiding google. I get that but its where the traffic is right now. Especially in the USA. So play nicer
(maybe)
And your right he’s taking way to much time off to chill
Give him grief
After all dont i recall a call to arms from Jo back in december ?
Steve
Hey Steve
Well, not quite arctic region no lol just a bit more north than most people live. Smart people now that I think of it. Funny you should mention bears, there is a hillock in the greenbelt behind my house with some suspicious condensation emanating from it…I’d bet 100 to 1 there is a bear hibernating there
Sounds crazy but in fact its true that you can see it especially in this temperature.
I only use adsense on the coffee site, and the way you asked makes me think I was dumb for doing so! Nonetheless, the “pageviews” have decreased from 700-900 a day to under 100! And that with no major ranking decreases.
I agree the best free traffic (and even paid I guess considering AdWords) comes via google, but I was just commenting on the “eggs in one basket” theory. I need to branch out and utilize other methods for non-adsense sites. Every major algorithm change brings with it the chance my sites will crash in rankings! The problem is I still suck at knowing what is “playing nicer” and what is not LOL!
Back to the point…you recall correctly! Comon Jo! Lets get moving here I’ve got things to learn and you’ve got to teach them!!!
Cheers!
Jim recently posted..Keurig Single Serve Coffee Makers
Jim, minus 37 centigrade… that would be enough in itself to have me utterly miserable, I’m telling you!
I see that Steve has already replied to you, but I’ll read his reply after I’ve replied to you or else I’ll get all muddled up in my thoughts, as is not unusual
CPA mentorship? Hmmm… one of my up-coming info products is based on just this – using CPA offers to make an online income. I had not the intention of releasing the product for quite some time, since I’m still in the testing phase, but things are shaping up really well and I think I may have a killer product on my hands once I’ve finished with it. Nothing like a good sales launch build up, is there now
I do actually have something to say every day Jim, but best I don’t always say it on the blog here for fear of repercussions. How about this just for starters…
You know I sell my 40 days challenge ebook on Clickbank, right? And you know this 60 days money back guarantee that Clickbank offer, which inevitably means you get the freebie seekers buying the ebook and getting a refund merely hours later, but that’s besides the point – that’s for another griping session. I had this …. person file for a refund today, saying that the ebook was utter rubbish and was a “rip off” of my Warrior Forum thread. The other day, I had another … person file for a refund stating that Pat Flynn’s Backlinking Strategy post was better than my ebook.
There, I said I had something to share every day. Oh and how about this one…
I had a guy email me just the other day to say words to this effect… “can you please take my comment off of your blog because I am receiving a whole lot of spam from your blog and its really starting to PISS ME OFF!!”. I did indeed politely reply to this gentleman, but he never did thank me for removing the link on his comment.
Regards the jv’s. Tough one. I have to take good care not to reveal much at all on that score Jim. I’m sure you understand. Put it this way though, changes in people’s lives tend to mean a change in focus on their business, and this has taken a toll on a number of those jv’s, which started out with all good intentions, but finished off rather too soon to see any ROI.
I hear you when it comes to finding out more about making money but not having to rely so much on Googol. I fully understand – I had a site that was making some half decent income, just this morning it was dumped by our friend the Goog. That hurts, but fact is – its opened up an opportunity to me that was not there previously, and I sense that this opportunity is going to be much bigger than this particular website could ever have been. Out of something seemingly negative appears something that appears hugely positive!
The longer you are in this business, the more crap generally comes your way. But if you can’t possibly turn that crap into something good, you have to move along swiftly and focus on the positives. Sometimes that is much easier said than done, but it does tend to become that much less difficult, particularly when you have more cooks doing the cooking, so to speak. If one or two of those cooks go off on the sick, you still have other cooks to take up the slack, so there’s still a lot of good can be made from a seemingly bad situation.
What was that call to arms you are referring to Steve, I seem to have forgotten about that
Was that one of those very positive “go get ‘em” type posts that I occasionally pop up on my blog?
In fact, I’m working behind the scenes to help pave the way for my blog readers and list subscribers to a life of great wealth and and utter pleasure, hence my lack of recent posting. Yeah, I guess you could say I’m joking about that, but not really. I’m testing out a couple of “new” seo type tools to see if they will indeed cut it. And those I will be blogging about in the future, when I can make a definite assessment for myself as to whether they are good or not so good. One of them is even a fail-safe for Jim – there’s no risk involved as its a “system” to be applied to achieve Goog rankings. Again, if it works for me (its a new system that apparently very few folks have used as of yet), I’ll be one of the very first to be shouting out about it.
What’s more, as you know yourself, I am already investing some time in the product creation side of things, which I’m doing alongside the testing. I’d much prefer to finish off the testing phases before creating the products, but testing these sort of things can take a huge amount of time if you want to do it very thoroughly, so I’ve decided to do both at once, with the hope that my tests all work out well. If they don’t then I’m wasting my time on the product creation phase, so its a bit risky.
Another thing that I’m in early talks about with a fellow blogger and a friend is for me to do a webinar with him about product creation and finding prospects who will very likely be interested in your product. And guess what – there’s no reliance on Google either, so this may come as a great relief to many folks who are fed up with Googol, like Jim is. In fact, my friend has used these methods to very good effect, and one of his product releases netted him almost 20 grand in a four day period. Exciting stuff, if I do say so myself!
More fun to come soon
Jim, if that is indeed a bear, it would be fantastic if you can get some close up photos of it, LOL!
With regards to your comment – “I’ve got things to learn and you’ve got to teach me…”. Patience my man, patience. As just mentioned in my replies, I’m working on some stuff that could change the state of play for many folks, including yourself Jim. I really don’t want to be shouting about anything from the highest hill tops just yet – when I’ve done that previously, things seem to come crashing down around me fairly fast. But I’ve listed out some of the stuff I’ve been up to recently, and my own testing is currently going well, which bodes good things for the future. All will be revealed hopefully within the next few months, and possibly for one of those methods, within a few weeks, if it continues to go the way it is now.
Regards the webinar I mentioned about product creation and finding customers who are hungry for your material (with NO RELIANCE ON THE GOOD GRACES OF GOOGLE). Not sure when that will be as it depends more on my friend than it does me. I’ll keep you posted on that as I learn more myself.
Jo,
Thank you for being so upfront on the “info” products side of IM. I know those “refunds” hurt, not so much in the financial sense compared to the hurt you feel inside of ya. But bear in mind the even the most tasty dish will have its fair share of “silly” critics. I used to be putting a lot of weight on what others think about me and the way I do things but it is no longer so now. I don’t give a hoot any longer to what others think about me or the way I do things unless there is some sense in what they are saying and if they can help me become a better person. The best way is to ignore them and let results do the “talk”. There are also many many people who are thankful to what you are and have been doing. Let these people bear testimonies to your good intentions and efforts.
I for one have benefited much from what you have been so willing to share. Even if I have to pay you something, I would gladly do so. So keep up your good work and leave a legacy for us to follow Jo. Thank you.
Terence, thanks for your input with regards to our current conversation!
I don’t really bother about these negatives – water off a ducks back, so to speak. I merely thought I would add a further dimension to my reply to Jim and Steve, perhaps to stir up some more interest if nothing more than that.
All donations are gladly received Terence. I think you have my Paypal ID. so I’ll expect my Paypal account to be bulging at the seams within 24 hours from now, thank you kindly in advance for your hospitality!
So this means you will be releasing a new product (eBook and videos) on this new back linking service?
Matthew Gannon recently posted..Pepper Jack & Cheddar Baked Mac & Cheese!
Jo,
Bah, the refund thing is a bit silly isn’t it. I have to agree with Terence when he says it inflicts more “emotional” than financial damage but still its a bit of a piss off I bet, considering your time investment into the product. On the other hand, I wish to quit Blog-Blueprint for a month while I use BMR and do you think they make it easy to cancel a subscription? Hells no! But I certainly wouldn’t ask for a refund since its within 60 days. Seems pretty classless.
As for the JV’s, well thats a shame that is. Fully understandable from all perspectives, but still a shame. I was curious is all, so thank you for letting us know that much at least! I respect that.
“The longer you are in this business, the more crap generally comes your way. But if you can’t possibly turn that crap into something good, you have to move along swiftly and focus on the positives.” Ahh! There is a gem for sure. I just have to find a few more positives to focus on haha! It’s not truely that bad, I’m just in a foul mood due to weather you understand.
As for the bear…well I have to say I won’t be digging in the snow for a closeup of the beastie any time soon LOL! Poking a sleeping bear is not something I’m prone to doing! I have gone hunting bear with my grandfather in such a way, and it is effective, but not “in my backyard” so to speak.
Earlier this year on my way home from a fishing trip I got a few pictures of a true Kermode Bear. It was within a cars length, I will send a pic to you tomorrow. They are a super rare breed of black bear (only 400-600 alive, and 10% white like the one I took pictures of).
Anyway sorry for the ramble. As for the “teach me” comment, I truely meant it in a joking manner
you’ve already taught many of us more than we could ask for free!
Jim recently posted..Keurig Single Serve Coffee Makers
LOL!
Matt, the backlinking services I am merely trialling. I will write up a review if they turn out to be good, with my affiliate link, and with a money off incentive also.
The ebook/info product stuff is focused on some systems I’m currently testing out to see if they are fully workable (that’s a combination things like niche selection, monetization methods, how to achieve good rankings etc). If they are fully workable, I’ll be issuing said ebook with videos detailing those systems and how to gain best results from using them.
Jim, yeah its a bit “tight” when you gotta stoop to low levels such as buying an ebook and then asking for a refund within a few hours of the purchase being made. Fine, if my ebook was a pile of utter crud, like many of the expensive glossy ones are, then I deserve to have to deal with tons of refunds. I like to think its not utter crud, however.
BB – I used to just let my BB accounts run out, even though I was not using them. Not that I wanted to claim any refunds there either, like you say.
The JV’s – yeah, life is like that. What to do but onwards and upwards.
I do fully understand your foul mood. I used to have very many of them. Fortunately I no longer have to deal with the cold unless I wanna go sit in the fridge or something stupid like that
The bear – eeek, those critters are very dangerous, so I’m informed. Get on the wrong side of them and you’re bear meat for sure!
Looking forward to the pics of the Kermode bear, thanks in advance Jim! Funny that – I always thought Kermode was frog on the Muppets, no?
No need to be sorry about the ramble, sir! Its good to have a ramble and let those emotions flow out. Part of the reason I have a blog, truth be told!
Terence, dude – I was in fact joking about the Paypal donation, but you’ve actually gone and done it! Next thing you know and everyone will be asking you for a donation, LOLz!
I always mean what I say dude. You deserve much more. Who else would like to buy Jo a cuppa now?
Are you gonna buy me a cuppa too, dude?
It will be my pleasure dudy…
Champagne, thanks! And not the cheap plonk either!
@Jim,
When did you start losing all those pageviews? Do you think that your site might have been affected by the “Google Search plus your world” changes?
@Everybody,
Have you noticed in your traffic the “Google Search plus your world” changes?
@Joseph,
I agree with the rest of the comments about the refunds. It’s not the money side of the refund what hurts, but the pride and selfesteem. You work months to create something useful for other people and then the silly guy who would sell his grandma just to get a few bucks refunded comes and tells you that your ebook was crap.
If they don’t know how to use your book to make money then they’d better stay away from you. That’s not the kind of audience you need. That kind of customer don’t make any business grow. Actually, any smart business owner would rather reject them as customers.
So, ignore them. Your 40 Challenge ebook doesn’t need more validation. It’s a good product, it’s been tested publicly, it has the backup of a well-known marketer (Pat). You don’t need anything else.
Cristina Ansbjerg recently posted..No more B.S. Nobody will give you the power
About JV’s,
I know our JV was affected by my personal circumstances. However, even when my life was completely upside-down, I had real trouble to get online and when I was online I had a pile of pending stuff and a slow internet connection, the JV was always one of my priorities.
We just had the bad luck that one of the premises didn’t work.
Btw, Odesk is ignoring me. I haven’t heard from them ever again, despite I wrote a couple of messages the last few days.
I thought they were a serious company.
Cristina Ansbjerg recently posted..Top 10 Quotes to Motivate Yourself and Succeed in Business
Cristina, I don’t even know what Google search plus your world is. Please do enlighten me if you can.
I fully agree with what you say about the “negatives” in life Cristina. I’d much much prefer that these folks don’t ever purchase my ebook and I want to have no part in their lives whatsoever. Such folks as these are bound for utter failure in life regardless you are actually trying to help them in a round-about sort-a way.
I’m really pleased about the amount of positive feedback on Pat’s backlinking post, Cristina. There’s been only a few of the “negatives” whilst very many folks who have actually taken the time and made the effort to implement the system are seeing very good results, and some of them are reporting this back on Pat’s blog (where Pat tends to get most of the credit for creating the “system” I may add, but that’s not his fault at all!).
By the way – thanks for the Tweeting of this post!
We sure did have a run of bad luck or call it what you will Cristina. The powers that be seemed to be against our success from the start. A really odd set of events which did not help matters at all.
I’m surprised about Odesk – they’ve always been responsive to me when I had any issues to deal with. And although they did find more in favour of that jerk who ripped me off recently (the va), I still continue to use them regardless. Some you win, some you don’t. We’re gonna have to persevere with this though I’m afraid Cristina, otherwise we can’t proceed any further and all is lost. However, if you prefer to take that course of action – just forgetting about it, then so be it. I’m fine with that – it may be too much hassle to have to deal with, and it may end up not being worth our while anyway. Let me know what you prefer.
I want to keep pushing because we are right.
But even if they decided we are not right, all I want is a reply from them. The only not acceptable solution is to ignore me like they’re doing right now.
Cristina Ansbjerg recently posted..The loneliness of the online entrepreneur
Google Search Plus your World:
It’s the latest big change in Google’s algorithm. It’s actually a radical change in the way Google Search works.
It happened during the last few days but I think by now it’s only being implemented in the USA (not sure about that though).
Now, when a user performs a search on Google while being logged in (into any Google product, Gmail, Google+, Google Analytics, etc) the results he gets are personal. That means, he will see first all the results related to their close friends, family, members of their circles in Google+, etc.
In general, you get results from the people you usually interact with.
That option is activated by default. So, only if you click “Hide personal results” you will see Universal results.
What does this mean?
Many things, but basically, if your business is not in Google+ it hardly exists.
Guys, I hardly recommend you to read about Google Search plus your World because it changes the rules of the game for everybody.
Cristina Ansbjerg recently posted..How to persevere when your business goes wrong
Well, they can’t not find in our favour because the writer blatantly copied content from another source. For Odesk to think otherwise would mean that they employ a bunch of useless no hopers who are probably more fit to cleaning toilets on a full time basis, if that!
I dunno how far reaching this Google Plus World didgery-doo is Cristina, but I’m not seeing any difference in my search results. Seems just another thing to have to worry about, so why even worry in the first place, is what I’m thinking. The list of things to worry about seems to grow incessantly what with this SOPA thing bearing down on us, and now this Google World Plus Search. I think I’m wise to stick my head in the sand, or else I’ll end up with a heart attack or something similar.
Joseph, while SOPA and PIPA are really scary, I don’t think Google Search plus your World is so bad. It’s not like the Panda Update either.
It just means a little bit more work in order to adjust to the changes.
For instance, I would recommend you to add a +1 button on your posts since that’s more important now than any other social media sharing button.
Get yourself a profile on G+ (if you don’t have one yet) and add people to your circles.
Certainly it will take you a few hours to implement those things, but it’s worth it.
Please Joseph, don’t have a heart attack
Cristina Ansbjerg recently posted..No more B.S. Nobody will give you the power
Hi Cristina, I have a Goog+1 account and I rather enjoy fiddling around with it for all of about 2 minutes per week. I thought I added you on there, no? Apologies if not.
As for having a heart attack due to the Goog changes, and the pipa thing you mention here, and the sopa stuff that’s going on, well – I got other things to “worry” over right now, so if I am going to have a heart attack, it will not be from Google Plus Searching, Pip Squeek, or Soppy either. Isn’t life so much fun!
@Cristina
No I rather think it was the other part of the algorithm change the old Googol made. You see I’ve now reached nearly 100% smackdown of my entire portfolio
As much as I hate subscribing to conspiritist theories, I just have to think they are sometimes true. All of my sites suffered a massive hit in rankings and therefore traffic. They are spread across a few hosts. They aren’t even all adsense, and some have NO monetisation on them. The only commonality is the theme (Clickbump).
I’ve read a few others asking the same thing…as part of Googles “Too many ads” change in the last few days, did it also target certain themes designed to increase SEO and CTR?
So, as much as I considered giving up, (lots of work washed away) I won’t. But can anyone offer any advice or suggest just why my sites got smacked?
Jim recently posted..Tassimo Single Serve Coffee Makers
Jim, my friend uses Clickbump most of the time and he does not suffer the same fate as you, so you can rule the theme out of the equation here I suspect. As for figuring out what’s going wrong, I think we’d have to look over your shoulder as you go about your online work, over a period of weeks perhaps, to be able to pin-point the areas where things appear to be going wrong.
I know I keep on saying words to this effect, and right now it will come as no consolation to you, but I too severely struggled for my first 18 months in IM. I used to spend a whole lot of my income (I had my own part time business in landscaping and doing odd jobs) in trying to improve the situation, but it always seemed like 2 steps forward, 4 steps back. I was making nothing in return for working longer hours than an average full time job, and yet some months I was spending upwards of $1400 – with nothing in return to show for it. That HURTS!!
Finally, after about 18 months of utter grind, sheer desperation for success, and at times total dejection and misery, I broke the pain barrier by finding a way to firstly – gain the rankings in Goog that I’d never ever previously achieved, and secondly – to actually see some regular income. A very small income from Amazon, as it happens, but a regular income all the same. That, I can say in hindsight, was perhaps the turning point for me, but there have still been plenty of very rocky moments since then – plenty!!
But what I now realize is this. Those first 18 months served as my apprenticeship for building a strong platform of knowledge – trial and a whole mass of errors. So, even though at the time it felt like an utter waste of time and money, I now realize that this is not the case. It was in fact a key period of time to get me where I am today in my online career, and in achieving my current lifestyle of FREEDOM – free from the shackles of a job and a boss, and free to live where I wish to live.
I still suffer a lot of failures in my business because as you know, I’m the guy to keep trying to push the boundaries and try out totally new things. Failure is part of it. But to gain one success out of a whole bunch of losers generally makes it all worthwhile.
Don’t give up Jim!
Jim,
According to Google the too-many-ads above the fold algorithm changes will only affect 1% of websites.
And it’s not clear that Adsense is included.
Cristina Ansbjerg recently posted..No more B.S. Nobody will give you the power
Hi Crisitna,
It sure does impact adense its the primary target over stuffed above the fold adsense affiliate site that add no value to the user.
Sure it effect any ad format that use the above the fold excessively but its clear this is typically an abuse by adsense affilaites. Even amazon affiliate tend to add more value in teh ad space.
The 1% thing is also misleading they say that about most changes. Given the vast scale of the web and the tiny corner occupied by IM affiliate sites a disproprionate amount of affiliate site will be hit.
Thats no bad thing. Googles job is to provide searchers with relevant results that are not just adesense ads but provide real usefull and relevant information.
regards
@jim
As Jo said with out seeing what your doing or looking at what youve done its hard to say. My gut says you hit the sites with to many links too quickly whilst not diversifying the link type and anchor text enough.
I’ve this a lot now with clients sites wheer the previosu seo backlink was way to agressiveand high ranking sites have just plummetted loosing them sometimes 10 of thousands of dollars in revenue. Were not try ing to rehabilate these sites.
Google bot doesnot ike this at all. It seems to be getting tougher or cleverer at spotting that.
I think we’ve all been through this problem. It probably best to take a step back and develop a new strategy.
One thing i dont quite understand is a few sites i have from a couple of years back are in easy niches. But when i built them i use SEnukex to rank them fast. They did well and then fell off. After a while they bounce back up to top 5 slots. But if i try to build any more links to them.. boom they drop out inside a week. Its as if they have a Tag or something on the domain that automaticaly queries and new links. Any ideas anybody?
steve
@Jo
I will certainly keep trying, its just that few days of “Aw @&%” LOL So yes, I just have to decide WHAT exactly I want to do, and how to proceed. I’m a fairly smart guy, so I am honestly (and naively) shocked I’m getting slapped. By smart I mean I’ve researched it all and figured I wouldn’t be “One Of Those Guys” (part of the 80% of WF posters who ask wtf happened LOL) As for Clickbump, that is good to hear, I really enjoy using it. It was the only common factor so I was jumping to conclusions.
Thank you sir, for the inspriation
@Cristina
I’m still too new to say HEY that is what caused my downfall, rather than own up to the fact it was me personally who screwed up. Even when it was me! But really my response was more to suggest I doubt the “Google Search Plus Your World” is what brought me down.
Meh, I’m grasping at straws here
@Steve
I suppose it is possible that I haven’t diversifed the link type enough. Again I figured I was doing well at getting links in various ways, but when I think about it most are from “contextual blog” type links. I will look into it for sure.
The real problem for me is what is acceptable then? It seems so easy for some people, and so hard for others.
Well, I won’t quit
I’m just doing exactly what Steve suggested and taking a step back. Should I continue using Tom’s advice as noted in the guest blog? (Make LOTS of sites targetting easy keywords. If a few fail oh well, keep making more until you reach your goal) or should I take the money I invest in outsourcing and backlink memberships and invest it in a quality PPC/CPA coach and essentially avoid Google SEO altogether?
If anyone has any advice (other than the obvious “what your heart says” etc LOL) I’d love to hear it.
Wish I had some advice for those strange sites of your Steve!
Jim recently posted..Keurig Single Serve Coffee Maker Reviews
Hey Jo. Great post and as always great comments.i am typing this on my phone as i am still without internet. Hoping to get that fixed soon. Very excited to hear more about what your working on.
Steve, regards your domains dropping as soon as you start to backlink again. Yeah, seems Goog apply a red flag type thing whereby any site that’s been hit pretty hard with a penalty will be hit with another penalty if you get even slightly aggressive with the backlinks. I too have seen this over and over, and its frustration fo sure! Whether leaving the site for a long while and then hitting it with backlinks would work – well, its so much time to wait that it may not be worth while. If its a proven lucrative niche, its most probably worth building up a new site. BUT… I’ve found that Goog seem to red flag your IP too, so if you try to build a site in the exact same niche when your previous site has been heavily penalized, they then also penalize the new site. Therefore, its probably worthwhile hosting the new site in a different account to the previous one.
Jim, yes – its well worth trying to build up a few sites rather than focus on merely one or two. That way you ain’t got all your eggs in the one or two baskets, which then means that you’re on less of a roller coaster ride. I now focus on perhaps about 10 different sites, each with about 8 different kwds which means that if one site is hit bad, then I’m not gonna be losing too much sleep over it. Mind you, that takes quite a lot of resources to keep them all going, unless they were all in easy niches with very low competition, which they are not. Some of my kwds are pretty easy to rank, where some are much more difficult. But that’s where good keyword assessment comes into play – these keywords may well have very high search volume, but the competition is not necessarily overly strong, so the ROI is potentially good (I’m not having to spend a whole ton of time and a whole ton of money in gaining the rankings).
Blake, thanks for the feedback! Wow – still no internet? I don’t know how you can live a peaceful life without having internet connection, I really don’t.
Folks, I have a webinar coming up with Rob Cornish about how to make good money online without relying on the graces of Google. Watch out for that one cos Rob knows his stuff when it comes to non-SEO make money online – he’s the guy who recently made almost $20,000 in four days using just these techniques he’ll be outlining in the webinar. We plan on doing the webinar in early February and I’ll let you know more about that very soon.
Looking forward to that webinar!
Cristina Ansbjerg recently posted..No more B.S. Nobody will give you the power
Me too Cristina!
Me too!
Actually I look forward to it. I don’t think Google is good for my heart
Very excited!
Jim recently posted..Keurig Single Serve Coffee Makers
Jim, me too! Let’s face the facts here, working with Google can indeed be a royal pain in the rear end. If it were not for Google I’d not be earning near as much as I am now. If it were not for Google, I’d probably be earning about 5 times as much as I am now. Make sense?
Hi Joseph,
Great piece of article and every one should set aside time to meditate to come up with ideas or just relax. My mentors tells me that all the time and she is self made property millionaire so she knows what she talking about.
As well as rich schefren talks about that in his amazon book internet business manifesto as well as Seth Godin in his amazing book purple cow.
I have a few product ideas myself in the launch and will make every attempt to share as much of information to help others this year and not hold back. You touch on some valid points and I will make every effort to keep up with your post as I need to create my own as well lol.
I couldn’t find you on facebook maybe its time to get a page lol.
Hey Akil, thank you kindly for the feedback! I never used to take time to relax since I was always told that to make progress we have to work and work more. Slowly but surely I’ve managed to change my mind-set about that, but its taken a long time to feel comfortable doing “nothing” as opposed to working hard to improve things. When you’ve been born into a workaholic family, its really difficult to change your beliefs, even though you fully understand that working hard is certainly not always working smart!
Good luck with the product creation Akil – hope things go well for you with that!
Joseph
{ 1 trackback }