Building a thriving, successful online business is often a combination of focus, planning and an unrelenting determination to succeed. Trent Dyrsmid from online income lab is no exception to this rule as he took his online business from $0 to $10K/month in just over 12 months.

Trent is a seasoned entrepreneur who sold his last business for over a million dollars before taking the plunge into the world of Internet marketing.Trent is a master of goal setting, staying focused and achieving results, something many people never manage to conquer.

So, are you wondering what makes a true entrepreneur tick, his path to success and how you can follow his footsteps?

In this one of a kind interview, Trent reveals the answers to all of those questions and many more including:

• 3 Important lessons Trent learned at the start of his journey
• The one important ingredient in his online success
• Trent’s strategy for staying focused and motivated for achieving results
• The #1 mistake to avoid for your online business in 2012
• 3 simple strategies for success anyone can use and implement

There is so much great content in this interview that it could well have sold it as a paid product but it’s all for your to enjoy 100% free of charge, so go ahead and listen to 45 min of truly great content and please share your feedback below.

With Google’s recent Penguin algorithm update in full force, as usual, my inbox was quickly filling up with emails from Internet Marketers spreading misinformation, phobia and selling the next “SEO magic bullet”. Only this time I decided to go listen to the best source of information: Google itself.

Andre Weyher, who heads the search quality evaluation team at Google, spoke to a room full of small business owners and Internet marketers just at the end of the search engine marketing expo in Sydney. Amongst other things, he spoke about common SEO misconceptions and myths that normally go viral after a major Google algorithm update.

This brief post is an abridged version of the 5 key SEO misconceptions Andre helped dispel during a very informative session.

Content Quality

This is one of the most talked about aspects of SEO. So, what exactly is good content? Andre revealed that Google’s search quality team uses a scale of 1-10 for rating content based on a number of metrics. One of the key metrics being excessive and premeditated use of keywords in content body, H1, H2 and H3 tags and even by means of cloaking. While this is common knowledge, keywords still play an important role in helping search engines evaluate your content for relevancy.

His advice? Focus instead on using keyword synonyms. Google is now extremely well adapted to connecting synonyms. For eg if your target keyword is “cheap cars”, look at using synonymous keywords like “automobile” or “vehicles” which will allow you to make your content both user and search engine friendly.

Meta Tags

Think meta tags are irrelevant? Think again. Meta tags are often the first point of contact for search engines establish what your content is all about. Above all other on page optimization strategies, carefully written meta title tags, description and keyword tags should be your first and foremost on-page SEO strategy.

Another key factor with the use meta tags is user clickthrough in organic search results. For e.g. an intelligently written meta description is likely to attract more clicks than one just stuffed with keywords to manipulate the search engines.

Link Spam And Manual Reviews

Google is now offering unprecedented level of transparency with its search ranking factors. This includes “officially” informing webmasters if they have their site has been flagged for link spam or other negative SEO factors.

This typically arrives in the form of a warning message in the webmaster inbox and site owners may be given an opportunity to put corrective measures in place to avoid rankings penalty.

Andre also revealed that less than 5% of the sites in Google’s index are deranked by means of manual reviews. The rest 95% are still very much at the mercy of automatic algorithmic ranking factors.

Andre’s advice to site owners? Do not submit a panic reconsideration request unless you are 100% certain that your site has been a victim of a manual webspam action. It is also best to wait for at least 4-6 weeks after a major algorithm update before you can be certain if your site has been adversely affected by a Google update. If you feel your site has been wrongly affected by the update then you can use a feedback form to submit our case for review by Google.

Exact Match Domains

Although extremely hard to find, exact match domains still carry a significant weight amongst 200 or so ranking factors currently used by Google. If you are in the business of offering cheap airfares, then a domain like “cheapairfares.com” is still likely to get you up the rankings quicker than a more generic or branded domain.

It is important to understand that you no longer need to rely on “.com” extensions when looking for exact match domains. Alternative extensions like “.info” or “.biz” can potentially also offer you the same SEO benefits as a “.com” domain.

Negative SEO

Negative SEO has been one of the key talking points since the latest penguin update from Google. So, what is negative SEO? Prior to the penguin update, it was uncommon for Google to penalize sites for inbound links from questionable sources. These questionable sources may typically include flagged low quality sites, pornography sites, sites blacklisted for hosting malware or sites flagged for offering illegal services or content (pirated music and software).

All that changed after the penguin update as Google announced that sites with inbound links from questionable sources will now be on Google’s radar. How is this likely to affect your site? Well, think of it this way. Is it possible for your competitor who may be ranking lower in the search results to drive a large number of bad links to your site in the hope that you may lose your rankings?

According to Andre, this is extremely unlikely as Google is “smart” enough to distinguish between naturally acquired “bad” links and the ones designed to manipulate the search engines in getting a site penalized.

5 Seo Best practice tips from Google’s search quality team:

1. Focus on unique, engaging content and use of keyword synonyms
2. Use Google authorship to build trust with your audience
3. Write descriptive, keyword rich meta tags for all your content
4. Implement white hat SEO strategies like press releases, guest blogging and even offline advertising
5. Establish a value proposition for your business/website or “why should people visit your site”

Tell me what you think

Now, share your feedback. What do you think of these recommendations? Was your site hit by the penguin update and if so what do you think you were doing wrong based on what I have shared in this post?

Outsourcing can be considered as one of the key tools for success in any online entrepreneurs arsenal. Often, you will find yourself working on repetitive, mundane tasks which tend to take your energy and focus away from planning and growing your business.  Online Outsourcing and delegation of these tasks is often the stepping stone for being “self employed” to being a truly dynamic entrepreneur.

After all, why did you quit your job only to find yourself stuck in another job? A job lot worse than your real job because you can’t wrap up and proceedings at 6pm every evening and go home.

So, what is the real key to effective online outsourcing and what exactly can you outsource.

Let’s look at some answers.

What is outsourcing?

In recent years the concept of outsourcing, on a large scale has largely been associated with customer service call centres, manufacturing facilities, training and even entire operations based in a foreign country with low labour costs. Many large companies have used offshore outsourcing to lower costs and generate more profits.

For individuals and internet entrepreneurs, outsourcing can simply mean delegating and assigning everyday tasks to a “virtual assistant” based in another country. Your virtual assistant or VA (I will be using that term for the rest of this post) can then spend time accomplishing tasks on a daily basis, allowing you to spend more time on developing ideas to grow your business.

3 Steps To Effective Outsourcing For Online Entrepreneurs

Step #1

Listing tasks for outsourcing

The first step in effective outsourcing starts with listing all the time consuming tasks you can outsource. Typically for an online entrepreneur these task may include:

• Market research
•  keyword research
•  Domain registration
•  Setting up hosting
•  Installing WordPress
•  Ordering content
•  Publishing content
•  Optimizing content
•  Social bookmarking
•  Link building
•  SEO
•  Monitoring rankings
•  Technical troubleshooting
•  Coding and development
•  Managing social media
•  Managing emails
•  Scheduling and appointments

As you can see, the seemingly simple tasks can quickly add up to a lot of work especially if you have diversified business model.

Here is the good news….

Almost all of those tasks can be outsourced to a virtual assistant by implementing simple processes as you will discover in the next few steps.

Step #2

Documenting your tasks for outsourcing

Essentially, this is what we call creating the “training manual” for your virtual assistants and is easier than you think. Make a list of repetitive tasks you manage on a daily basis and simply write down the step by step by process for every task with appropriate screenshots wherever possible.

The niche site guide I offer on Nichesense blog, which has now been downloaded over 500 times is nothing more than a detailed process of what my VA’s have used to build over 50 websites in a single month. It took me no more than a day to document the entire process from start to finish.

You can use the “manual creation” strategy for tasks as simple as adding a new domain to your hosting account, ordering content or even managing your emails!

Step #3

Delegating your tasks for outsourcing

This step is all about forecasting and planning.  I breakdown the most common tasks I listed in Step 1 into a Google spreadsheet complete with colour coding which can be managed through a shared dashboard. I also plan out my tasks at least 4 weeks in advance so my virtual assistants always have plenty of tasks to tackle on a daily basis.

Here is what a typical task manager spreadsheet looks like:

Once the VA finishes a task, it is simply marked as “done” with green colour coding. I will typically spend 15-20 minutes at the end of every day to check if all the tasks were finished successfully. In instances where the VA encounters an issue, a comment is added with a description of the issue for me to check and resolve.

You can publish similar spreadsheets for a range of standalone tasks line managing your backlinks, content or to track specific metrics related to your website.

Here is a bonus step.

Social media outsourcing

One of the most time consuming tasks for any online entrepreneur is managing their social media presence across a range of platforms.

I know what you are think…

That stuff is boring and time consuming!

Yep, I agree. But, here is a fact. If you want to establish yourself as an authority in your chosen niche, than you ought to build your social media presence and engage with other like minded entrepreneurs.  Having a big social media presence often leads to more traffic, more leads and more opportunities, regardless of the nature of your online business.

Once again, you can easily hire a dedicated virtual assistant to manage your entire social media presence. Remember, your time is much better spent on developing strategies to help grow your business than tweeting or publishing Facebook updates.

Let me give you an example.

Exactly 3 months ago, I had just under 300 twitter followers, it was extremely frustrating for me as I simply did not have enough time to grow a large and targeted Twitter following that would have allowed me to share my content and drive more traffic to my blog.

What would most Internet Marketers do? Go out and buy 5000 Twitter followers on Fiverr. Seriously, that is the biggest waist $5 if there was ever one. Why? because none of those followers will ever read or retweet anything you have to share.

Enter my social media manager. In just under 3 months, she has worked as part of my team to build a healthy 5000 strong, targeted Twitter following. My recent stats from getClicky show a whopping 1000 visits to my blog from Twitter alone!

My social media manager spends no more than 10 hours a week doing this and I simply don’t have to worry about finding Twitter followers or publishing Facebook updates.

Resources for outsourcing

Here are some great resources to help you build and expand on what you have learned in this post:

Odesk - Hire VA’s, PA’s, Designers, Coders and more…

Fiverr – Use it for just about anything except buying backlinks and fake followers…

Miss Virtual Friday – Michelle Dale’s “done for you” VA services

VA Passport - The ultimate virtual outsourcing resource

Virtual Business Lifestyle – Chris Ducker’s outsourcing blog with tons of great content and articles.

You can also download copies of my VA tasksheets using the links below:

VA Dashboard

Content Management Dahsboard

Have questions, comments or thoughts about how to use outsourcing? Let’s hear them below!

Do you ever wonder if it is actually possible to build a successful online business in 2 years, find 28 million customers, generate zero revenues, sell it for a billion dollars and become an Internet millionaire almost overnight?

Well that question was recently answered in the now famous and somewhat controversial recent acquisition of Instagram by social media Behemoth Facebook.

So, yes it is possible.

I know what you are thinking. Oh no! not another post analyzing the Instagram acquisition. Well, I have some good news. This post is not about Instagram or apps in general. This is about exploring the incredible opportunities the Internet now offers bootstrapping entrepreneurs to build immense wealth and become Internet millionaires in as little as two years.

Earlier this year I wrote a brief blog post with the prediction that 2012 could yet prove to be the best year to start an online business. I also compared a traditional business to a typical online business model and compared the various pros and cons.

Let me explain this further. In late 2010, I met a business coach for a 1 hour consultation and explained to him how was really interested in building a coffee franchise business. We talked about the logistics of starting such a business, amount of capital I will need and how I planned to make myself stand out from the crowd.

At the end of the conversation, I asked him so how long would it take me to get such a business to serious levels of profitability where I could look to expand to other stores. His answer was quite blunt. A minimum of 5 years! He further added that most small businesses don’t even last to see the fifth anniversary.

Let’s now a take a look at a list of internet related businesses which have been sold for billions of dollars since the dawn of Internet.

Hotmail.com (1998) – $400 Million

Overture (2003)  - $1.63 Billion

Youtube (2006) – $1.65 Billion

CNET.com (2008) – $1.8 Billion

Zappos.com (2009) – $1.2 Billion

Instagram (2012) – $1 Billion

Pretty impressive don’t you think?

Ok, let me ask you. What do you think is the secret sauce behind these wildly expansive acquisitions for businesses, who in some cases were not even making a single dime?

Answer. They had a large loyal audience.

Back in 1998, when Internet was still in its infancy. Hotmail was all the craze as it was just about the best free email service available to users with its potential to go viral very quickly as users would encourage friends to sign up using their own accounts.

Microsoft saw the potential of this massively large audience and snapped it up for just over $800 million. Unlike a traditional business, Microsoft wasn’t buying an operation or an email service, it was buying customers. Hotmail to date still has the largest user base even as compared to the Gmail although how many of those users are active is debatable.

5 ways you can be become the next Internet Millionaire in the next five years

1. Create a web app

The best webapps tend to solve the simplest of problems in an elegant way. Let’s look at how:

Dropbox

How hard could it be to share files when the very foundation of Internet is based on sharing content. But, let me tell you it was hard.

Enter Dropbox. A simple, elegant cloud sharing solution that lets you share files with anyone across the world with a dropbox account. With an endless array of features, the use of dropbox doesn’t stop at just file sharing.

Dropbox is now generating well in excess of $100 million every year and has already rejected a $800 million takeover bid from Apple.

So, what is the secret to creating a successful web app? Not rocket science really. Do your research, find a problem that you think can be solved and create an elegant solution. The key here is simplicity in implementation.

Some great examples of web apps that solve everyday problems with elegant uncomplicated solutions:

Freshbooks – Forget sending annoying excel invoices (I love this one)
Evernote – Track your personal ideas, thoughts and inventions
Formstack – Wake up from your webforms nightmare
Lastpass – Hate remembering passwords?
Aviary – Waiting for Photoshop to open?

2. Create an Iphone app

The use of Iphone apps is not limited to solving specific problems. A number of Iphone apps were simply created for entertainment and fun. Phone apps are a lot cheaper to create and implement but given the stiff competition in the app market, it can prove to be a lot harder to get attention.

As you are probably not going to make a lot of money by selling a 99 c app, the key here is to target a usergroup you can use to build a large audience.

We have already seen the example of Instagram. A 100% free app which simply applies filters colour filters to your photos. The key to its success? 28 million active users.

The deceptively and wildly popular Iphone game Angry Birds has also made its developers well in excess of $100 million just through sales.

Building your own app is easier than you think. You can either outsource the entire project to an offshore team through places like Odesk or do it yourself using readymade app or game builders like Appbreeder or Gamesalad.

4. Build an online store

This millionaire maker is probably the closest you can come to a traditional business as in most instances you will buy something at wholesale price, mark it up, sell it and the difference is your profit.

Is it really that simple? Well, yes but simply “selling” stuff will probably not make you a millionaire in a hurry. The true ecommerce leaders have gone far and beyond what most most players on the industry would do.

Zappos.com was acquired by Amazon for $1.2 billion not because they were just another ecommerce store selling “stuff”. Zappos was a company that reinvented customer service through innovations like 365 day returns, free shipping, free returns and creating a company culture based on “wowing” their customers.

Amazon had finally met its match when it came to ecommerce and they had to act quickly to sniff out the competition.

Yes agreed that Tony Hsieh had a pretty good head start after selling his last company for over $400 million during the peak of the Internet bubble in the late 90’s. Think about how Amazon started, from Jeff Bezos garage selling used books.

Interested in selling a product online? It’s easier than you think. Check out these readymade shopping cart solutions to get you up and running in no time.

Big Commerce
Volusion
Shopify
Woocommerce (for wordpress)

4. Create a website

Creating a website is the easiest of all the methods I have mentioned above but can it make you a millionaire?

Lets look at some of the answers.

Just like all of the other ways to make you a millionaire, the success of any website will largely depend on traffic or your visitors. Your visitors are your customers and if you can get a lot of customers very quickly, you are well on your way to making millions in no time.

Markus Frind from Plentyoffish.com famously recieved the $900K cheque from Google AdSense for two months worth of income. At the time he was receiving as many as 3.5 million unique visitors a month.

The key to his success wasn’t SEO or paid advertising. He simply offered a free online dating service which was at the time largely dominated by paid services and not surprisingly it went viral almost instantly.

Think outside the box of AdSense or affiliate sites. Is there a service you can offer that will bring hoards of visitors to your site without having to spend a single cent on SEO or advertising?

Here are great examples of websites and blogs that went viral while offering a simple service that was useful to masses of people.

Instapaper (Webpage bookmarking/publishing)

Techmeme  (A journal of the hottest tech stories)

Kickstarter (Crowdsourcing for entrepreneurs)

Hipmunk (Sleekest way to book air travel)

Storify (Bookmark and organize your favourite social media news)

5. Create an information product

I know what you are thinking. Information product to make me an Internet millionaire?

No kidding.

You have heard the story of Mike Geary from truthaboutabs.com right? Well, that’s exactly how he went from nothing to earning well over 7 figures through his hot selling eBook on Abs!. Mike’s eBook has now sold well in excess of 1,000,000 copies.

Here is the truth about information products. Your product ought to be solving a seriously compelling problem for someone for it to be a grand success.

Focus on finding that compelling problem first and then create something of huge value. As Mike Geary has proven already, a successful product doesn’t need to be a bible but if you can hit a nerve with a niche audience with a simple eBook, you are well on your way to making millions.

Do you need lots of capital to become an Internet Millionaire?

No you don’t if you are just interested in becoming a millionaire through creating websites or information products but if you truly want to build something special that will have Facebook or Google lining up with the cheque books then you will need to look at some investment funding to help you take your product to the masses and build a large audience quickly.

Why is this important?

Over 70% of Internet startups fail due to lack of capital. Sure, anyone can get an idea. But, seriously how many people can actually implement and take an idea to the finish line. This is where your ability as an entrepreneur to step outside your “idea” comfort zone will be tested.

One of the quickest ways to raise capital is crowdsourcing platforms like Kickstarter. You simply pitch your idea in detail, set a minimum capital requirement and let interested investors, small and big, pitch in with little bit of capital until you hit your target. Once you reach your investment goal, the funds are made available for you to invest in your business.

The key to a successful crowdsourcing campaign is to be very thorough with what your startup is trying to achieve. Create an exceptional elevator pitch to get people interested and then provide a detailed breakdown of the potential of your business and how you plan to achieve it once you receive the funds.

The second method of raising funds is to go through a traditional VC (venture capitalist) style of funding. This method can yield better results if your ideas has already been implemented in some form and already has customers.

Venture Beat is one of the best resources for all thing related to venture capital with great news, examples, case studies and even advice from potential VC’s to help you raise money for your project.

Just in case you are wondering. Why is a blog about building AdSense niche sites talking about building web apps and iphone apps.

Good question.

Here is the thing. I love being an online entrepreneur and I love sharing ideas (absolutely free of charge) with my readers who think they have what it takes to be successful online.

Let me know what you think by leaving your comments below.

Building a successful Internet marketing business can often seem like a distant dream for many people who strive for a truly passive source of income. The dream of financial freedom and having to slog through their job on a daily basis they hate.

Many people starting in Internet marketing almost always get to see the pretty picture of that “other” guy who was laying bricks just yesterday but is now enjoying a drink on some exotic beach and driving flash cars. While there is some truth to this as there are a lot of people who have built successful online businesses and enjoy a comfortable life working from home, what’s really missing and something no one ever gets to see is the actual process that person went through to achieve those results (if they really did).

What is really missing from the Internet marketing dream?

This is where many aspiring internet entrepreneurs are often misguided by a false self belief that anything is possible, if that “other” guy can do it, so can I and that’s what leads to a high percentage of people never making it to the finish line. This high failure rate can also partly be blamed on outrageous claims and deceptions instigated by numerous internet marketers feeding on desperate people looking to be the next success story.

A small example of this is the numerous emails I receive in my mailbox on a daily basis with subject lines claiming how a “new” system can make you $5k/day on complete autopilot”. How is that for some good old BS to destroy your focus?

I will take a moment to give you my own example when I first started online early last year. Like many people, I went to a lot of seminars, got pumped and filled out that famous questionnaire “write down what you want to achieve in the next six months”. As expected, most people wrote, “I want to make a million dollars in the next six months”.

Ok, can you start to see the picture now? What is missing here? Can you see the reason why most people after stepping outside that room will probably never make a million dollars in a 10 years, let alone six months.

They are completely missing the process!

It is in fact the easiest part here is to write down the magical $ 1,000,000 number on a piece of paper. However, most people underestimate what it will really take to make a million dollars and is often the #1 reason why majority of them fail to take action. It’s not because they don’t want to, it’s simple because they simply don’t have a plan.

Building A Successful Internet Marketing Business Is Hard Work

I want to share a quick screenshot of my income from the time I started early last year to the time I left my job in late October last year. It shows a good steady rise in revenues, every new business owner would love to see that kind of graph in their business.

Sure, I wasn’t making millions but I realized early on that in order for me to make millions I first needed to make $100/month and then $1000/month and then $6k/month so I can quit my job. I also realized that in order for me to make $6-$7k/month I needed to follow a process, a plan which started from making that first $1. There is no shame in admitting that it was from easy.

For most part starting from February 2011 – October 2012, I was working double shift, spending 9 hours in my regular job (which I quite enjoyed to be honest) and working on my “side” business for upto 6 hours every evening after getting home. Yes, it was hard ok but more importantly I was taking action everyday and not believing for one moment that a million dollars will suddenly fall into my lap.

Aaron Wall from SEOBook recently published a story in his blog which somewhat sums up why building a successful internet marketing business can often become a nightmare for people living the so called fake “dream”.

The story of Internet marketer Ellery Bennett and his famous “living the dream” video on the beach in Hawaii. The same recipe is used by many self proclaimed gurus in the ruthless Internet marketing business to sell the dream.

Except in Ellery’s case, he himself was a victim of a false dream which landed him a $600,000 debt and a murdered wife.

Moral of the story? Don’t crave success so much that you forget about the process and everything else that currently matters to you. More importantly, definitely don’t fake the dream before you have scored it. If you are in a day job then stay there until you have built up a steady source of income to support a decent lifestyle. Trust me, it is very very difficult to build a successful business when you are in financial duress.

There is no shame in admitting your failures and letting go of your ego. Chris Brogan who is the author at one of the most successful business blogs in the world at chrisbrogan.com admitted in a recent post that it took him 8 years to get his first 100 subscribers.

Here’s a cold hard fact. Building a successful online business is not easy and takes a lot of sustained effort over a long period of time. The success curve is definitely much smaller than any traditional form of business but it still takes time.

Think of it as a real Internet marketing business that will test your patience, your determination and your survival skills. Stay focused, follow a plan and enjoy the ride!

Now it’s your turn, tell me where you are in your journey right now? Is starting an online business everything everything that it was made out to be? If you are already successful then share your success story.

Internet marketers and online entrepreneurs are a unique breed. They are often driven by passion, big goals, and an unrelenting determination to succeed. However, staying focused and productive can still prove to be one of the biggest challenges for anyone striving for long term success.

In my own journey, I often used to find myself working 10-12 hours a day during weekdays and upto 6-8 hours a week on the weekends. The frightening fact was that out of these many hours, I spent at least 2 hours a day just “checking” things and not being productive at all!

Does that sound familiar? Yep, I am sure you can relate to that. But, here is the good news, “checking” things in most cases may seem like a waste of time but in reality it is just another way for you to check your progress.

Most common forms of checking things include: “how much money did I make today?”, “has my site gone up in rankings?”, “how much traffic did I get today?”. These are many or some of the ways you will often find yourself checking your progress.

At the end of the day, isn’t that what every entrepreneur strives for? success, results, passive income or whatever you may want to call it. Late last year, I realized this important fact and instead of getting frustrated or angry with the fact that I was spending so much time doing unproductive things, I just accepted that in order for me to progress I needed to “check” things.

In many instances, I found myself more productive once I had the reassurance that I was making progress, making more money, getting more traffic.

In order to stay productive I decided to undertake my “checking” routine in an organized manner at specific times of the day which proved to be the big difference in helping my productivity.

So, how did I do this?

Let’s first take a look at my top 10 productivity killers followed by my specific strategy to overcome them.

Productivity Killer #1

Checking Rankings

Climbing up the search rankings is an obsessive goal for almost all the internet marketers. Why? It’s simply because higher organic rankings is still the key to targeted, long term traffic.

This affects both new and seasoned marketers alike. I have received emails from numerous successful marketers in the past on how how even the best struggle to cope with this unproductive habit.

My Productivity Tip

There are couple of different ways you can tackle this productivity killer. As soon as you have built up a decent portfolio of niche sites, simply create a spreadsheet with a list of domains, keywords and rankings on a given day and outsource it to a VA. Your VA can then check your rankings at the end of day and update the task sheet for you to check the next morning, this way you will just spend a few minutes instead of hours trying to check rankings for multiple sites.

Alternatively, you can also look at investing in an automated rank checker tool like Paul Clifford’s Serp Alert Pro which will send you an alert every time there is movement in rankings.

Productivity Killer #2

Checking Traffic

Traffic is really the foundation of online success. After all, this one single factor drives everything that is necessary for making an online income, whether it be affiliate sales or AdSense revenues.

This is the only reason why we spend countless hours and money on creating websites, writing content and doing SEO. If you don’t get traffic, you are not going to make money. It is as simple as that!

This habit can be particularly unproductive, if you are using real time traffic analytics tools like Getclicky as you will often find yourself checking how many visitors are on your blog at any given time. When I first signed up for GetClicky, I often had an extra tab open in my browser and every few seconds I would find myself checking the tab to see if I had any visitors on my blog. Talk about going crazy!

My Productivity Tip:

Unless you are doing advanced analytics tracking, I would recommend staying clear of real time analytics tools like getclicky at the start. Simply use your free Google analytics account and set aside no more than 15-30 min a day to check traffic statistics. This often works best at the end of the day when you are through with most of your energy sapping, productive tasks.

Once your traffic reaches a moderate level (at least 100 uniques a day), you can start exploring tools like Getclicky to optimize and analyze your traffic generation strategies.

Productivity Killer #3

Checking Earnings

This includes logging into your AdSense account to check earnings or logging into your affiliate accounts to check conversions. In particular, this can be a serious problem for marketers relying on AdSense as their primary source of passive income.

I often used to find myself checking my AdSense earnings upto 10 times a day at the start.

My Productivity Tip:

As making money is your ultimate goal, it is ok to check your earnings on a daily basis as this is what will keep you motivated to continue to strive for success. But once again, set aside 15-20 minutes at the end of everyday dedicated to checking your earnings!

For affiliate earnings I recommend setting up automatic alerts through your affiliate program so you are notified via email as soon as you have made a sale. Obviously, this doesn’t mean checking your email every few minutes! (which is next on my list of productivity killers).

Productivity Killer #4

Checking Emails

This is common epidemic affecting just about anyone I know. Even to this day, I check my email upto five times a day, which is within acceptable limits. Although in the past, I have been a culprit of checking email several times during the day or even every few minutes. In fact, some days, the first thing I did before getting out of bed was to check email! sounds crazy right?

My Productivity Tip

To escape the clutches of your inbox, chunk your tasks down into time frames of 45-60 minutes (ideally at least 60 minutes). How can you do this? Here’s a handy little tool:

E.egg.timer

Start a stopwatch for 15 min before you start a task and practice not opening your inbox for that 15 min time frame. Practice this everyday, gradually increasing the time until you can work completely undistracted for at least 60 min. It takes a bit of practice but overtime a few weeks, you will get better at it and stay focused for longer. (I know this because I did it).

Productivity killer #5

Shuffling Between Tasks

This habit strikes when you are juggling too many things at once. For instance, you might be in the middle of writing a blog post and suddenly find yourself checking email or checking website traffic! You may notice something in the email that catches your attention and before you know it, you don’t even remember what you were doing at the start! How is that for a productivity killer?

My Productivity Tip

See my previous productivity tip.

Productivity killer #6

Procrastination

I briefly talked about this dreaded habit in one of my earlier posts on staying motivated and focused as an entrepreneur. When we talk about procrastination affecting your productivity, we are mostly referring to your inability to finish important tasks due to distractions, inaction or by simply doing too many things at once and not completing anything at all.

My Productivity Tip

This comes down to some organization of your tasks. Enter the humble reminder tool on your Iphone/Ipad. This is often the last thing I do before going to bed. List down the tasks I need to accomplish the next day and at what time.  Similar to my last productivity tip, I will often allocate 60-120 minute chunks to each task with small breaks in the middle. Once I complete a task, I simply check the tick box to mark it complete and move on to the next one.

The aim here is to have an empty task reminder at the end of every day:)

Source CNET.com

You can also go one step further by listing out all your key goals the start of every month. I often use a simple Iphone app called “Goal setting” to list my goals at the start of every month with a definite deadline and mark them complete as I go along. It is the best feeling in the world to see all the boxes with a green tick at the end of every month. I challenge you to try it!

Productivity killer #7

Social Media

The most common form of social media unproductivity comes from Facebook and this doesn’t include updating your status every now and then but checking if someone has liked your commented on your update!

As a blogger I often also find myself tweeting at random times of the day in between tasks and also checking of someone has mentioned my tweet in their tweets!

My Productivity Tip

If any of the above productivity killers are currently plaguing you, then it’s time to start planning your social media activities. For this, I recommend third party social media tools like Hootsuite or Timely (for Twitter)

Plan and schedule your tweets and Facebook status updates in advance, there is a two fold benefit of doing this. First, you are less likely to get distracted to jump on facebook or twitter in between tasks. Second, tools like timely can in fact automatically schedule your tweets at specific times of the day based in activity peaks. This will give your tweets more chance of getting retweeted or clicked on!

Productivity Killer #8

Trying To Do Everything Yourself

Managing your time and tasks is often the biggest challenge for anyone first starting out. You will often find yourself doing everything from market research, keyword research, creating websites, content generation, SEO and the list goes one. Within 2-3 months you are more than likely to find yourself burnt out and drained of all motivation.

My Productivity Tip

Regardless of your monetization strategy (email marketing, AdSense niche sites or social media), I would recommend that you document all your repetitive tasks into a simple PDF and hire a virtual assistant to start managing them for you.

The key to successful outsourcing is training and management. Even creating a simple PDF tutorial a VA can follow can go a long way in helping you avoid frustrating and unproductive hours trying to do all the mundane tasks yourself.

Odesk is an excellent source for finding VA’s for as little as $3/hour and there really shouldn’t be any excuse for not taking action.

If you currently find yourself unproductive by wearing too many hats, then I would recommend that you register on Odesk as soon as possible (it is 100% free to do so).

Productivity Killer #9

Working From Home

Working full time from home has some big advantages, one of them being not having to spend several frustrating hours weaving through traffic and commuting to work. While this may sound like a welcome change for many ready to quit their jobs, overtime working from home can really start to affect your productivity.

You will find yourself working longer, harder and feeling less productive. This is mainly because of numerous distractions, accessibility and your own ability to work at unspecified times of the day (or night). At one stage I was so obsessed with making things work, I would often wake up as early as 3am in the morning to “check” things!

This can be extremely draining on your productivity and you will too often find yourself mixing your personal and work time with some unhealthy consequences.

My Productivity Tip

The solution for this productivity is quite simple. Rent a workstation in a shared office as soon as you can afford to (preferably close to home). Many shared offices offer fully equipped workstations for as little as $50/week. This will help you get into a routine and be more productive in the long run.

Productivity Killer #10

Using Gadgets To Check Random Things

This productivity killer can strike at any time of the day and includes things like randomly checking email on Iphone, checking your AdSense earnings in unscrupulous places, “app surfing” or searching for new apps, checking Facebook updates and sending instant messages to friends in the middle of important tasks.

All of these small distractions can add upto a lot of wasted, unproductive hours if you fail to get on top of them at an early stage.

My Productivity Tip

Swap your Iphone for a Blackberry so you will never want to use it! Ok, just kidding. The key here is to keep your gadgets a safe distance away when you are in the middle of important tasks. Once again, aim for smaller chunks of time and see if you can get the task done without getting distracted by your smartphone to check things.

One serious tip. Never keep your gadgets on the bedside as you will not only find yourself absorbing unhealthy radiation but also getting distracted by the urge to check things in the middle of the night. Trust me it happens!

I must add that all of the productivity killers I have listed above are based on my experience and some other entrepreneurs I know on a personal level, so by no means I consider this as a comprehensive list but please do let me know if I have missed something by sharing your thoughts and comments below!

Using search queries is one of the most effective ways to find a diverse range of link building opportunities for niche sites, affiliate sites and blogs. This can be extremely useful in acquiring targeted, high quality prospects to build a diverse link portfolio. Of course, if you choose your target keywords carefully then you will probably only need a few article directory submissions to get up the search rankings as discussed in my earlier link building post.

However, these keywords and are not always easy to find and at times you may need to go after more competitive niches and build a more sustained link building campaign to climb up the search rankings. That’s where search queries can become a powerful source of links. You can search queries to find .edu links, .gov links, wiki links, “do follow” blog comments, high PR links and also forum profile links.

One of the main reasons why this strategy can be highly effective is that it allows you to laser target your prospects through keywords filtering. As we all know, Google loves targeted, natural links from sources relevant to your own niche or topic.

So, let’s explore how you can use search queries to acquire links. But first, if you haven’t already, I recommend that you install the SEOQuake toolbar in the browser of your choice. The toolbar can be downloaded for free. This will help us analyze some key statistics for link building.

Finding Authority Links Using Search Queries

Once upon a time, .edu and .gov links were the holy grail of SEO for niche and affiliate sites. Sadly, many of these high authority sites and forums were spammed to oblivion by over zealous marketers and have now permanently closed their doors to external visitors.

With meticulous use of search queries, it is still possible to find some great authority link prospects.

Here is one of the easiest search queries to filter out various domain types by simply using extensions:

for eg if you wish to list just “.edu” domains in the search results then simply type:

site:.edu

This is obviously the broadest possible search and of not much good to us just yet but we will explore how to narrow this done to spot good link prospects a little later.

This can be used to filter out any type of domain, “.gov”, “.com”, “.org” and so on.

The idea here is to find websites which allow external visitor registration which we can then use to register your account with a link back to our website.

So let’s now try:

site:.edu “Log in / create account”

This will filter out results for .edu sites that allow user registration and potentially also allow you to add a “do follow” backlink to your website.

Edu Wikis are another exceptional source of links as many wiki pages also allow you to publish posts with contextual links back to your website, these links are loved by Google as they are seen as more natural and will likely pass more link juice.

To search for registrable edu wikis, you can use:

site:.edu “System/UserRegistration”

You can also use the exact same search queries to find “.gov” authority links as many .gov sites offer community pages for registration. Simply replace the “.edu” with “.gov”:

site:.gov “System/UserRegistration”

Finding High PR Links Through Search Queries

Next, we can search for “.edu” or “.com” blogs for commenting using this strategy.

This time we will make use of the SEOQuake toolbar to filter out some high authority blogs based on pagerank. Simply enter your query in the search bar and wait for the search results to show up. Once listed, click on the sort by “PR” button at the top to list query in descending order based on the pagerank.

We are not ready to use these results just yet. Remember, I mentioned laser targeting your link prospects relevant to your niche? Well, we can also filter out search results using keyword search string. However, it doesn’t end there. We also need to further filter out prospects which allow commenting.

You can use the SEOQuake toolbar to check if the comment links are “no follow” or “do follow”. A strikethrough on the anchor text means the links are “no follow”.

Here is what your final search query may look like:

site:.com intitle:insurance “powered by wordpress” “leave a comment” | “leave a post” | “leave a reply”-”comments off” | -”comments are closed”

Your target keyword here is “insurance” and we are filtering out blogs which do not allow commenting by using the “-” operand before the “comments are closed” string.

A word of caution here. You may come across a number of sites which have already been spammed to death by comment spammers in which case its probably not worth your time adding another comment as such links will have little or no value attached to them.

You may also be wondering about the “no follow” links as they are not likely to offer any link juice to your site. At the end of the day, it is still important to build a good mix of “do follow” and “no follow” links as it keeps your link profile more natural.

I regularly use search queries to find high quality link prospects for competitive keywords. In fact, I used this strategy as part of my link building campaign to build and rank a PR 3 site for a highly competitive niche in under six months.

You can also search queries for a more “white hat”, ethical approach to link building. For e.g. finding guest blogging opportunities, finding local charities who are willing to link to you in exchange for your services, local chambers of commerce who may be willing to list you as a local business.

Here are some examples:

Guest Author (e.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=”22guest+author”) – for finding guest posting opportunities

Chamber Of Commerce In Your City (e.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=”chamber+commerce+city”)

and some additional resources for an extensive list of search queries:

10000 Search Engine Queries For Link Building

How To Find Link Prospects On Search Engine Land

I would recommend using a sensible approach to link building using this strategy and refrain from spamming any of your prospects. Leave an engaging comment, publish relevant articles on wikis if possible and do not use more than one or two links in forum profiles.

What about you? Have you used search queries to spot link building oppurtunities? Please share your thoughts below!

While there has been much debate in recent weeks pertaining to SEO and recent de-indexing of many private blog networks by Google, I felt it was time to bring the topic of link building up for discussion and demonstrate (with evidence) why links continue to be the fastest and most effective way to rank websites regardless of their content and quality.

This is mainly because links are still fundamental to how search engines currently work and rank webpages and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Yes, there has been a paradigm shift in how these links are valued, with focus now purely and squarely on relevance and quality (or so they say!), there is no doubt that link building still is and will continue to be the holy grail of success for anyone looking to make money with niche marketing, AdSense or affiliate marketing.

All of this obviously doesn’t apply to you if you possess the magical ability to write truly exceptional content which will make your website an overnight viral success like what happened to Peep Laja from conversionXL receiving thousands of visitors to his blog mainly through Twitter and social media.

Although still speculative to some extent, we can present a fairly accurate assessment of how Google (which still boasts the most sophisticated and advanced search algorithm), values or devalues links.

It can be narrowed down to the following factors:

1. Link Diversity
2. Link Relevance
3. Link Trust

Or does it?

To prove the above assumption wrong I will take an example of a brand new niche site I launched around mid-January this year targeting a relatively competitive keyword in the automobile niche with a search volume of approximately 5600 exact match global searches/month.

Since this was a relatively new site, we can easily discount domain trust and authority as being the influencing factors in how this site got to #5 in Google SERPS in just over two months! and now makes a significant number of affiliate sales for me on Amazon given the nature of this niche.

Without revealing the exact domain (in case Matt Cutts happens to visit my blog;)) I have used a series of authentic screenshots from the ranktracker software below as evidence of the progress of this site since the private blog slaying Panda 3.3 update from Google which was rolled out in late February.

As you can see that this site was ranked at #36 on March 6 and started to make its way up in SERPS around March 9th, finally settling at #5 earlier this month.

Let’s now analyze and dispel some of the link building myths that have propped up recently.

Link Diversity

So, what did I change in my link building strategy for this site to achieve a successful result despite all the changes rolled out by Google to crush manipulative link building?

The answer is nothing, zero, nada! I used mass article directory submission as my primary and only source for building links to this website. No “white hat” links, no forum profiles, no blog comments, no edu or gov links and definitely no social bookmarks.

So is link diversity important? Definitely yes. But, judging this example, it is not an universal law that applies to every successful link building campaign.

Link Relevance

Here is the most controversial part of my link building campaign for this site. As you are probably aware that in order to build article links you need to create unique content which you can then submit to various blog network sites and article directories with embedded links to your money site using anchor text (most commonly your keyword).

In most cases you will take your original content, spin it with 50-70% uniqueness and use that as your link building content. The SPUN content helps you avoid the duplicate content penalty from search engines.

However, in this case I used a random, completely unrelated pre-spun article from a service called Simply PLR to submit my articles for backlinks. Simply PLR subscription costs around $50/month and gives you access to 100’s of articles every month in a variety of niches and are ideal for SEO and link building.

There has been much debate around how Google now has the ability to scan content surrounding the anchor text to analyze how relevant source links are to the beneficiary site.

But is it really important? Once again, judging by the example of my own site, I am not 100% convinced that backlinks from unrelated sources have been completely devalued by Google.

Link Authority

This is the last and final factor in our assessment of backlinks I used to rank my website. Obviously the key question here is, how much emphasis does Google has on the authority of sites linking to your money site, when valuing link juice?

Once again in the case of my own site, the incoming links almost have no significant authority, as most of them come from numerous blogs within the article directory networks and probably does not fit the real definition of authority as described in my authority blog post here.

So, is authority the key driving factor in how Google values links? The answer would be a yes and no, links from authority sites would absolutely have more value attached to them but I am still not able to see real evidence to suggest that all non authority links cannot help you achieve top search engine rankings.

Finally, here are some tips to help you continue to achieve results with your link building campaigns regardless of which method you choose to use:

1. Vary your anchor text

I have talked about the importance of using varied anchor text on Nichesense on many occasions before but it is absolutely critical now since the Panda 3.3 and Panda 3.4 (over optimization penalty) updates. Use a good mix of exact (laptop computers), phrase (best notebook computers) and junk anchor texts (click here, buy now).

If you need any further evidence of why this is important, here is a great blog post on why J.C. Penney was manually de-ranked by Google for using manipulative link building tactics and anchor text.

2. Build your links slowly

If you choose your keywords carefully, then you will most likely never need to build more than 50-100 links for top rankings. For brand new sites, make sure to keep this process as natural as possible.

Ideally, you would want to start building links around second week from your site launch and spread the process over 3-4 weeks (or more if needed).

3. Make sure your backlinks are indexed

A frightening number of backlinks are never indexed by Google as they are simply never crawled! Make sure you keep track of all your backlinks as much as possible and (very) slowly drip feed them to the search engines using a service like linklicious.

Ideally, this should be done at least 5-6 weeks following your site launch.

Last not but least, create great content and make sure you enable social sharing on all your sites. This can be done through a variety of free wordpress plugins like sharebar or sharethis. Premium AdSense themes like Heatmap Pro offer in-built functionality for enabling social buttons on all your posts.

What about you? Do you think link building still works? Please leave your comments below!

Following on from the private blog network massacre, Google recently announced the “over optimization” penalty aimed towards penalizing sites using aggressive SEO tactics to rank higher in the search results.

Some of these aggressive tactics are commonly classified as “Grey and black hat SEO” and often encompass techniques such as excessive, premeditated use of keywords in specific sections of the content. This may include title, description and header tags and also using keywords to link to internal or external sources and also image alt tags.

These techniques also extend to what we describe as “link building” and excessive use of keywords as exact match anchor text to boost relevancy of inbound links. This includes a high number of one way links from just one or two types of sources, in most cases private blog networks.

All of these tactics can be highly effective in helping your site climb up the search rankings by “fooling” the search engines to believe that your content is important and deserves more visitor attention. This style of SEO also has the ability to deliver truly spectacular results by outranking no name sites against big, established brands for highly competitive keywords. One such case study was recently presented by Eppie Vojt over at the SEOMoz blog which attracted in excess of 150 comments.

Great, but what about the guy who is just focused on creating great content and is not aggressively employing these tactics to climb up the rankings? Well, according to Google, the latest changes are specifically designed to level the playing field between SEO’ers and legitimate content creators who often get outranked by low quality sites.

Instead of simply repeating what has already been extensively debated on many other blogs I will demonstrate some case studies of the kind of pages that are can be classified as “over-optimized” and are likely to be the target of the latest penalty from Google.

Let’s start with the on page optimization factors. For this example I chose to analyze what appears to be a price comparison business website offering “cheap gas and electricity suppliers” and yet demonstrates a pattern common with affiliate and Adsense sites.

This example can also be described as what we call a “doorway page”, or a page primarily targeted towards search engines and are often used for enticing visitors into the site and re-directing them to a sales or an affiliate link.

What about content readability? It is quite obvious from this example that human readability wasn’t the primary motive here and was written for the search engines. It is also important to note that Google’s upcoming “semantic web search” features will focus heavily on human readability of content and less on keywords.

Here is a quick tool to measure the human readability index of your content using the Flesch reading ease formula. The idea here is to score as high as possible on the readability score. A low score is often a good indication of poorly written content or excessive use of keywords.

The second factor that is likely to affect over optimized sites is the excessive use of keyword as the exact anchor text in inbound links. I have talked about this factor in my earlier post which extensively covers the topic of link building using article submission services like “my article network” and “unique article wizard”.

As a rule of thumb I recommend using about 20-30% exact, 40% phrase and about 30% random anchor text in all your link building campaigns to avoid getting scrutinized by Google.

The third factor that is likely to affect sites is the lack of link diversity. Aggressive link building campaigns often rely on private blog networks like Build My Rank (which was recently shut down) to build a large number of links in a short space of time to climb up the search rankings.

Google’s latest changes seem like just another step in their never ending quest to quickly detect such link patterns, social signals and content freshness to prevent low quality sites from climbing up the search rankings.

To demonstrate this, we can use the latest features in the SEO quake toolbar to get a snapshot of how much content from a website has been shared on Social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. Unusually high number of links without significant social share signals is likely to raise alarm bells with Google.

All of the points mentioned above are of course still somewhat speculative as no one except Google really knows the exact nature of this penalty, however, the points mentioned above should still serve as an accurate guide to changes you may need to implement as an internet marketer.

Just to finish off I want to share an interesting post on Marketing Land describing the the latest series of changes and penalties from Google as a “jump the shark moment” and also an excellent post on over optimization from the Cyrus Shepherd over at SEOMoz.

What do you think? Are these latest penalties going too far? Are they really going to improve visitor experience? How will it affect your business? Please share your thoughts below.

Maintaining focus and staying on track is one of the key challenges for any entrepreneur looking to build a thriving and successful internet marketing business. In fact most people first starting out in Internet Marketing are likely to fail and give up within the first six months.

Shane Melaugh from Swiss Made Marketing is an exception to this rule as him along with with Sam Haenni from Swiss Made Marketing built a successful and long lasting online business with product creation, cutting edge marketing and powerful branding.

Their highly successful keyword research tool SE Cockpit is now considered one of the leaders in the industry and has personally helped me build many successful and profitable internet marketing campaigns with its unparalleled competition analysis.

In this interview, Shane shares some of his Internet Marketing wisdom and tells us about the path he took to success and some of the pitfalls to avoid. He also shares his strategies for creating and marketing a successful product like SE Cockpit and his secret launch strategy.

Here are some of the things you will learn from this insightful interview:

• How you can build a successful online business regardless of your background or skills
• How to stay focused and motivated at the start and avoid some of the pitfalls which can lead to failure.
• Shane’s strategies for creating a successful Internet Marketing product from scratch
• Shane’s successful product launch strategy and why 90% of the Internet Marketing products fail even before the launch
• The importance of building your own brand and how you can avoid being commoditized as just “another” internet marketer
• Shane’s new SEO paradigm and how to build a successful traffic strategy and foolproof yourself from Google’s constant algorithm changes
• Why SE Cockpit should be an integral part of your internet marketing arsenal

and much much more….

On a lighter note I also discuss Shane’s “no quibble” views on the infamous Warrior Internet Marketing Forum, Warrior Special Offers (WSO’s) and how to protect yourself from getting sucked into buying outrageously hyped products that often promise a lot but deliver very little.

So, go ahead watch the interview and tell me one thing you learned that will help you get on the road to success in 2012.

Apologies for the poor video quality at the start but we are working tirelessly to have this fixed as soon as possible.