Hey all,

Sorry for the massive absence here….

I have been incredibly busy working on serveral projects and one of them is just about to take off.

How would you like 8 weeks of superb training on how to become and build an authority site on the internet?

Next week, March 11th we will be doing 2 live teachings each week for 8 weeks.

To sign up for this FREE Training, head over to 16 steps to success

And I promise I will post more often now that I have escaped from Jail

If you're new here and like what you see, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or sign up for my free email updates. Thanks for visiting!

I recently spent a couple of nights aboard the Queen Mary—once the largest and most luxurious ocean liner in the world; now a somewhat run-down hotel and tourist attraction permanently docked in Long Beach, California.

The proud Queen’s glory days are long gone. Retired from the sea in 1967, her once opulent accommodations are now old, worn, and ultimately depressing. Despite valiant efforts to maintain her original glamour, the money to keep her in mint condition is simply not there, and it shows.

The Queen Mary became a victim of a one-two punch in the 60s: fewer customers willing to pay for what she offered (luxury cruises), and competition from newer ships with far superior technology.

The stark contrast between old and new was clear when I saw a new cruise ship (the Carnival Paradise) dock next to the Queen. The Paradise is modern, efficient, popular, profitable and highly successful. The Queen is inferior, unable to achieve goals, has few customers, and is going broke—with little more than the memory of past achievements to give her value.

“Hey!” I thought. “That sounds like a great analogy for Internet marketers!”

So here’s my question… is your web site, blog, or online business more like the Carnival Paradise or the Queen Mary?

* Are you taking advantage of the latest technologies, tools and tips?
* Are you providing quality service to enough paying customers to make your efforts profitable?
* Do people who visit your site or use your product rave about it to others?
* Is your online business moving smoothly and efficiently along the course you have chosen?

If you answered “Yes” to most of those questions, congratulations! Your web site, blog or online business is shipshape, to be envied and admired!

If you answered “No” to most of those questions, I’m afraid your glory days are over (or perhaps were never achieved). You have two choices:

1. Abandon ship. You don’t have to let it sink; you can just dock it permanently and allow the occasional visitor to step aboard and enjoy it. But to continue sailing along the same course—hoping customers will increase, competition will disappear, and things will somehow improve—is futile and doomed to failure.

2. Retrofit, rebuild and relaunch. With enough time, effort, and/or money, even an obsolete rust bucket can become a sleek, efficient and successful beauty—if its original purpose is still sound and worth saving.

Sometimes the first option makes more sense, even though it may cause you some temporary grief. It’s hard to let go of our dreams.

But abandoning ship isn’t a bad thing once you realize it’s beyond saving. You’ll survive, and become free to devote your energies to creating an exciting new vessel that will take you (and your paying passengers) wherever you want to go!

With that thought in mind, I’ve decided to abandon this blog.

It was great fun to sail it around and test the waters. But that's all it was… a test.

Although I enjoyed it quite a bit, blogging about earning money onlines was never my passion–and there are certainly many, many far superior blogs in this overcrowded niche. This blog has become like the Queen Mary to me: full of fond memories, but not going anywhere. I have no desire to retrofit a ship that isn’t likely to take me where I want to go. (I do have a destination in mind and a specific course plotted to reach it with another vessel; I'm abandoning this blog, not my online business.)

So as I and this blog sail off into the sunset one last time, I wish you all the best on your voyages to success!

You have a cool new product that bloggers will love…. once they know about it. But your puny little list sucks. So what can you do? Contact bloggers with big, juicy lists and get their help!

If you do this right, you'll have a tremendous success and lots of money. If you do this wrong, you'll turn off potential partners, give yourself a bad reputation, and kiss your profits goodbye.

The Bad News: it's easier to do this wrong than to do it right.

The Good News: all you have to do to prevent a disaster is read and heed this amazing article by ProBlogger's Darren Rowse: How to Pitch to Bloggers - 21 Tips

Here's one of his 21 tips:

2. Personalize it

Nothing is a bigger turn off to most bloggers than an auto generated email (or one that lacks any personal touches). This is a turn off in most aspects of life - but blogging is a personal and relational medium so tailor your first point of contact to the blogger you’re writing to. Use their name, mention their blog, show that you’re not sending out an email to thousands of people but are talking directly to them.

Darren's advice is right on target. And you can use his tips for more than just pitching to bloggers. Link exchange requests. Joint ventures. Heck, you can use many of them even when asking for a favor from a friend or coworker!

Bookmark it. If you don't need those tips now, you will in the future. Darren's article is pure gold. Here's the link again: How to Pitch to Bloggers - 21 Tips

When I walked into the house after getting home from work last night, my husband kissed me and said "Let's go out to dinner."

I pushed away from him and headed toward my PC. "Can't," I said. "I gotta backup my blog and install the new version of WordPress. You go out without me."

Hah! Do you think I'm insane?!? Of course I am NOT being serious.

The first part is true. But my real response to my husband's suggestion was "Sounds great! Where do you wanna go?"

We went out to dinner. I had a glass of wine. And I did not even THINK about my blog all night. (Hey, one glass of wine is all it takes to put me in a "I'd rather be doing something other than blogging" kinda mood.)

I felt so guilty the next morning when I glanced into my home office as I walked past it toward the front door. There sat my PC, alone and neglected… spurned by me the night before.

"Sorry baby," I murmured as I turned and headed off to work. "I had a better offer last night."

My marriage takes priority over my bloggage.

Does that mean I don't have the "eye of the tiger" or the passion and commitment required to be a successful blogger?

I don't think so. It's true that I'm much more passionate about my husband than my blog. But that doesn't mean I can't enjoy getting in a little blogging on the side… especially when hubby is off doing his own thing. Sneaking off to blog gives me quite a thrill! What hubby doesn't know won't hurt him, right?

OK, I'm being silly again. Perhaps there are lingering traces of wine in my bloodstream.

My husband is totally aware of and totally supports my blogging and other online business/Internet marketing activities. He's not into computers himself, but he knows I enjoy what I do in my spare time. Sometimes he even likes to watch!

Are you in a similar situation?

Here are 4 ways to keep your bloggage from interfering with your marriage:
Read more

Keyword Elite is the deal of the day–today only–at DealDotCom.

I bought this program quite a while ago (and paid the full price, dang it!). It's one of my favorite and most useful tools. After all, virtually everything I do online–whether it's blogging, affiliate marketing, creating new products or anything else–relies to some extent on keyword research to be successful.

The guy behind this program, Brad Callen, knows his stuff. But even more important for me, he provides superior customer service. That's why I was happy to provide a testimonial for his sales page. (Something I rarely do!)

Some of the "deals" at DealDotCom aren't all that great, in my opinion. And even with a $50 discount, I realize the price for this particular "deal" may be a stretch for many. But Keyword Elite is totally worth the price (even the non-discount price), and is definitely worth a look if you're serious about building your online business.

Check it out here, today only: Keyword Elite at DealDotCom.

My friend Dan Reinhold is conducting a one-week fund-raising effort for Autism research.

For a donation of only $25, you'll get $250 worth of resources:

* Jeremy Palmer's High Performance Affiliate Marketing
* Kelly McCausey's The Power of A Focused Business
* Bonnie Lowe's Networkaholics Revealed
* Harvey Segal's Clickbank Affiliate Super Tips
* Diana Ennen's & Patty Gale's Home Office Recovery Plan
* Rebecca Hagel's IMer's Guide To Happiness

If you bump your donation up to $50, you'll ALSO get:

* Perry Marshall's Definitive Guide To Google Adwords
* Entered into a drawing for an XSitePro software package

Get all the details here: WAHumor Giveaway for Autism Research

Get some great resources to help your online business while helping a very worthy cause!

REMEMBER: This is available for ONE WEEK ONLY!

Did this image grab your attention? That's why you should use images on your blog.

And guess what… you don't have to spend money to make that great impression. The above image is one of several great choices available FREE at FreePhotosBank.com.

Other image resources:

http://sxc.hu

www.morguefile.com

www.imageafter.com

www.openphoto.net

www.pixelperfectdigital.com

www.texturewarehouse.com

Check out this excellent article (by Guest Star Derami of AllSux.com) over at One Man's Blog:

White Hat Digging: 3 Myths, Tips and Tricks for Understanding and Submitting to Digg.com

Especially helpful is his "Tricks of the Trade" section.

BTW, this is a great blog. I became addicted after just one visit. I even love John's tagline:

"Specialization is for Insects."

It flies (no pun intended) in the face of conventional wisdom and "stay on topic!" advice.

Have you heard of DealDotCom yet?

It sounds like an Internet Marketer's dream:

"What do we sell?

"Anything and everything related to building an online business, increasing traffic, monetizing your websites, blogging, web design… in short, we sell all things Internet Marketing. We've spent the last 4 months stalking big-name (and not-so-big-name) Internet Marketers who sell high-quality products, and convincing them to let us sell their stuff at huge discounts here on DealDotCom.

"If you're involved in Internet Marketing in any way, shape, or form, these are the products that you're probably already buying… but our members get to snag them for much less than the little people buy them for.

"But, there's a catch! Each day, we only have ONE product for sale. It'll be for sale at an insanely low price, and there will be an extremely limited number of copies available. That product will only be available until it sells out, or until midnight the next night, when we pull it down and start selling a new product."

Wow… I can see myself getting addicted to such a site VERY quickly. Just the curiosity factor alone will draw me in each day, wondering what they'll be selling and how much of an "insane" discount they'll be offering.

DealDotCom officially launches on September 18th. It's creator is Marc Quarles.

I found out about it from Adnan over at Blogtrepreneur.

Oh yeah, there's a two-tier affiliate program tied to DealDotCom, so you definitely want to check it out as a potentially huge money-making machine.

Jack Humphrey is at it again. The man will just NOT stop giving away incredible information for free!

His latest masterpiece is called Bend the Web. He and Howie Schwartz teamed up for this one.

In addition to an amazing PDF, you'll get links to videos that show how Howie uses "conversation domination" to take over the top 10 pages (that's right… pages, not links) of Google's SERPs for his key phrase.

Awesome stuff!

Go get it: Bend The Web

One of the best ways to learn how to build a successful online business is to participate in online discussion forums.

There are two key elements that make forums much more effective learning tools than, say, books (or ebooks), audios, videos, websites or blogs:

(1) they are extremely interactive; and

(2) that interactivity comes from people with passions similar to yours, but with vastly different levels of knowledge and experience.

Forums provide virtual communities in which the members are encouraged to share knowledge, ideas, insights, frustrations, and successes.

They were doing this long before the phrase “social networking” caused so much buzz!

Here’s an interesting point. I’ve found that some of the most helpful forum posts are made by “newbies”—inexperienced online marketers. It’s not that they are able to give guidance or advice; that’s what they’re seeking themselves. But in their often insatiable search for answers, they ask a lot of questions… questions that even the most grizzled and experienced online marketers should pay attention to. For every dozen or so basic (and oft repeated) “beginner” questions such as “How do I upload a file to my blog?” there’s a gem that triggers a lively and enlightening discussion!

How to Get the Most Benefit from Forums

Simply by joining, reading, and actively participating in online discussion forums, you will learn a lot, regardless of whether you’re a newbie or veteran.

That interactive learning process, in my opinion, is the number-one benefit offered by forums. But there are several other benefits.

If you contribute comments to a popular thread on a major discussion forum, thousands of people will read your words. If your comments are interesting and/or contribute value to the discussion (this is critical!) most of those readers will be impressed enough to learn more about you. If your forum post signature includes a link to your blog or website, a significant portion of those interested readers will click on that link. A number of them will even opt in to your email subscription or RSS feed. And last but not least, some of those new subscribers will end up buying your product or service!

Those benefits result from other people reading your comments. But what about the benefits you gain from reading other people’s comments?

I already touched on learning from forums. But here’s another reason to be a frequent reader of forum discussions: content generation.

Forums are a goldmine of content!

You can find, consolidate, summarize and highlight the major points from popular threads. Put all that raw material in your own words, and create articles, free reports or even an ebook.

Forums are Full of Helpful People You Need to Know!

One more benefit from reading other people’s forum comments—you’ll become aware of many knowledgeable and helpful people interested in your niche topic. You can build mutually beneficial relationships and collaborate on projects and joint ventures!

Shared knowledge, enhanced reputation, increased traffic, added revenue, new content ideas, additional networking opportunities—these benefits and more are all possible from your participation in online discussion forums.

So what are you wait for? Get thee to a forum and start reaping the rewards!

Here are two terrific resources to get you started:

1. Fred Peters of Newest on the Net has compiled a great list 10 forums to make you a better blogger.

2. Maki of DoshDosh has compiled a list of 26 affiliate marketing and webmaster forums.

Affiliate Project X owner? Interested in purchasing the very domain name the author used as a great example for a tactic he explains in the book?

That URL — www.ProjectXGuide.com — is now available… for a price.

If you're interested in the URL www.ProjectXGuide.com, send an email to info @ projectxguide.com.

If some blogger you'd never heard of had written about your website, would you know it?

You would if you'd set up a Google Alert.

I love this free tool. You can set up alerts for key phrases (such as your website URL, your name, your niche keywords or whatever you want to monitor), tell Google what sources you want it to monitor (blogs, news, websites, all of those ("comprehensive")), and how often you want it to report the results to you (as it happens, once a day or once a week).

Without Google Alert, I wouldn't have known what ImproveYourInternetMarketing.com was saying about my Cookie-Crazy.com site.

Or that a blogger who blogs about tattoos, of all things, had posted one of my articles about job interview tips.

You can also use Google Alerts to keep track of your competition, or to get ideas for your own blogs and sites.

The only thing I don't like about it is that you can't qualify the keywords like you can with search. So, for example, when I set up a Google Alert for my name (Bonnie Lowe), even if I try using quotes or brackets to make it an exact match, I still get results like "Bonnie Smith shops at Lowes."

But the pros of Google Alerts far outweigh that one con. And you can't beat the price!

The following article is by Joe Rispoli. I've bolded the tips that I think are particularly sneaky, cool or innovative.

There are many ways to advertise without putting out a lot of cash. Use these tips to your advantage. Modify them and make them your own. Just remember that the only way to succeed with your business is to do something.

No one has ever found success by doing nothing.

1. Put your website on notepads, pens, newsletters, bumper stickers, coffee cups.

2. Flyers - When you buy your morning newspaper, slip some flyers into the rest of the newspapers.

3. Business cards (You can make up your own or get them free through VistaPrint)

4. Article marketing is one of my favorite method of advertising. If you write articles and then use a service to publish them, your articles become viral.Your articles will spread like a virus and could have the potential to be viewed by hundreds of thousands of people.

5. Participating in online discussion forums is an excellent way to get the word out about your business - and it is free. Build relationships first and use your signature file to let everyone know what you do and who you are.

6. Free classifieds

7. Targeted ezine advertising is one of the most cost effective ways to advertise your business.
Read more

Yaro Starak of Entrepreneur's Journey is writing an excellent series on how to launch a membership site.

Membership sites are hot and getting hotter by the minute. They offer one of the best ways to earn money online, and Yaro is spilling the beans on how to create your own successful membership site.

He's providing detailed, step-by-step instructions, tips and resources, many based on his own case-study of building a popular membership site himself (Blog Mastermind). I've just read Part 6 of his series and can't wait for the next installment.

If this were an ebook, Yaro could easily charge $97 or more… but he's giving this information away for free.

Read the first installment here and work your way through the rest. There's a lot to read, but it's all great stuff!