Check it out here!

Actually, it's not specifically about making money online, but more of how the Internet can help you make money. I especially love the idea of connecting people and building a business around it!

Enjoy the read!

One of the biggest lessons I've learned about writing came to me after about a year of writing ETR. Like many writers, I often tried to put too much into each essay. I began with a main idea, but when that idea suggested a second one and then a third, I put those in too. That was a mistake. It made the essay too long and cumbersome. And instead of gaining power, the message weakened.

My strongest pieces - the ones that got the most positive responses from ETR readers - were those that focused on one good and helpful thought. By restricting myself that way, I managed to say more in fewer words.

Readers, I realized, didn't want to hear everything I had to say about a particular topic every time I fired up my computer. They were looking for a single, useful idea that could make them more successful.

So I came up with a rule that I asked everyone writing for ETR to abide by. I called it "The Rule of One" - and it was very simple: Write about only one thing at a time. Because one good idea, clearly and convincingly presented, is better than a dozen so-so ideas strung together.

I truly believed that following this rule would always produce better writing... and it did.

Several years later, I introduced the Rule of One concept to Agora writers and copywriters at a creative retreat. Many of them have used it since then, to great effect. Then, last year, I divulged it to more than 600 people at the AWAI/ETR yearly Bootcamp in Delray Beach, FL. I'm sure that many of them, too, have used it to improve their writing.

This rule is not ironclad at ETR. That's because some of our writers just don't buy it and others can't always reduce their pieces to a single idea. I occasionally violate it myself. (If I have six good reasons for this or 12 techniques for that, I sometimes can't stop myself from including them all. The results are always disappointing.) But almost all of ETR's best essays have followed this rule. If you are interested in looking at some of them, here are seven:

How to Become a Chicken Entrepreneur
The idea: The best (and lowest-risk) way to start your own business is to keep your day job while working on your entrepreneurial venture at night and on weekends. You can quit when your new business is bringing in more than your regular income.

Do You Own Your Business or Does It Own You?
The idea: Entrepreneurs who want to create a valuable business they can retire from some day must organize it so that it doesn't require their constant presence to be profitable.

How to Avoid the Conceit of Outside Knowledge
The idea: Just because you have been a longtime customer of a restaurant or another type of business doesn't mean you are capable of running a similar one. There are many hidden "secrets" to every type of business - not visible to outsiders - that are critical to success.

Don't Let Perfect Ruin Good
The idea: Don't wait for everything to be perfect before launching a new product or business. Put serious effort into getting it right, test it in the real world, and then you'll know what improvements you need to make.

The Best Way to Surpass Your Peers and Rise to the Top of Any Business
The idea: Working harder than your co-workers and competitors will guarantee your success.

A Business Question You Must Be Able to Answer
The idea: Before you can sell a product, you need to find out if people will buy it.

How to Become What You Want to Be
The idea: You can't actually BE a writer unless you write - just as you can't be a pilot if you don't fly planes, a philanthropist if you don't give away money, an entrepreneur if you don't start a business... and so on.

Recently I have been thinking (and writing) about how best-selling books are crafted. Many of them seem to follow the Rule of One. Consider these classic business best-sellers:

What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard Bolles
The idea: Finding a life-changing new job that you love is the key to happiness.

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
The idea: There is a pattern to commercial and cultural trends. If you understand the pattern, you can use the knowledge to benefit yourself and others.

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins
The idea: The purpose of advertising is to sell, not entertain or win creative awards.

The Long Tail by Chris Anderson
The idea: Extremely low storage and delivery costs for digital information products have made marketing niche products extremely profitable.

Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton
The idea: The best way to motivate employees (and improve your business) is to focus on their strengths rather than correct their weaknesses.

Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
The idea: Change is inevitable. So you must be prepared to change or you'll be left behind.

And here's a very recent example: Suzy Welch, a former editor of the Harvard Business Review (and the wife of Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric) was given a million-dollar contract by Scribner (an imprint of Simon & Schuster) to publish 10-10-10, a book based on a variation of a single good idea that's been around for years: Before you make a decision, consider the impact it will have on you in 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years.

We have taught ETR readers to think that way many times since we began publishing in 2000. But we never thought of turning the idea into a book. Shame on us.

If you are planning to write a book, you probably have lots of ideas that you want to include. Figure out which one is the strongest, and focus on it. That's what I did with Ready, Fire, Aim. Though this book contains just about everything I know about starting and growing entrepreneurial businesses, the title zeros in on the one idea I thought was the strongest and most useful. And this may be the reason it got so many positive reviews. Most of the industry people we showed it to - professional businesspeople and writers - said it was the best book I've ever written. My other books have plenty of good ideas in them. But they were designed to be comprehensive and were titled that way. This one took better advantage of the Rule of One.

The best thing about the Rule of One is that it's not just for writing books and articles. You can also apply it to your business goals.

Before you go into a meeting, for example, think about the one thing you'd like to accomplish. Make that one thing your priority, and hammer away at it. You'll be amazed at how often you will end up leaving the meeting with that goal accomplished.

Use the Rule of One at business lunches, too, and even parties. Challenge yourself: "Who is the best person I can network with here?" And "What is the one best thing I can say to that person to capture his interest?"

Spend some time today looking at work you've done - ads you've written, products you've created, goals you've set. How could you make them stronger by applying the Rule of One?

[Ed. Note: Get Michael Masterson's insights into becoming successful in your business and personal life, achieving financial independence, and accomplishing all your goals on his website. You'll find updates on Michael's books, news on upcoming ETR events, Michael's blog, and room to send in your comments and questions. Check it out today.
Learn dozens more strategies for making your writing stronger with AWAI's Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting.]

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

1. Budget Traveling
2. Earning with Clickbank
3. Ezine Marketing
4. Home Improvement
5. Resale Rights Products

Enjoy!

Lots have happened in the last 3 months. The world spun a few degrees, had some personal problems I had to deal with, and also had to take a stand and point myself in the direction I want my life to take.

Guess what I chose?

Internet Marketing, by far, beats the competition. All I need now is some actual commentors to tell me that my work isn't crap. LOL!

But hey, keep expecting the good stuff here!

Word of Mouth.

Once people decide that they want to spread the word about your product/service/business, you have free advertising! And not just that, you'll also achieve targeted traffic as well!

Have you ever heard of Simpleology, by Mark Joyner? He's starting a new course, teaching people how to create buzz about your product, so much so that a brand new startup can achieve what Harley Davidson achieved: Good buzz!

Read the Simpleology blog, and then listen to the webinar that just recently concluded. (If the website is down, let me know. I've got a copy stored in my hard drive.)

Here's to all your future successes!

P.S. There's no affiliate link over here. I've got nothing to gain by sharing this with you, other than knowing that I've spread the word about a good site around.

But you've gotta admit, there's probably a lot being shown there that you could learn to build your own online empire!

Watch it online or download it into your computer. Be sure to get the latest Quicktime Player!

The Next Internet Millionaire!

After a while, some of them just keep sending you affiliate link after affiliate link. All they want is your money!

When I first started looking into Internet Marketing, I genuinely tried to get as much information as I could. But now, I see it clearly: There's too much information to be absorbed before you start working. If you want to succeed, sometimes you have to use what you already know. Not getting stuck doing "analysis paralysis".

A friend of mine recommended me to read more books on investing and business building. I told him, "That's all I've been doing the last few years while planning for my future. But now the future has arrived, and I'm still studying? It's time for action! Studying can come once the mistakes have been made!"

And that's what I want to pass on to you. Go for it!

But the real trouble comes in when you become disillusioned with the Internet. Perhaps you feel that there's nothing but scams roaming the Internet. Perhaps the Gems in the Net aren't presenting themselves to you.

Or worse, you feel that the only way to make money online is to scam others the same way you've been scammed yourself.

My advice to you: Don't buy everything online. Keep your wallet away from the computer, and just start educating yourself with free stuff.

There's plenty of free stuff online, real quality Gems that can teach you the way to riches.

You wanna know what the basics are to Internet Marketing?

1. Build a List that's interested in what you've got.
2. Write a product that you can sell to them.

You can choose to do 1 first, or 2 first. Either way, as long as you've got a list, you've got a fighting chance to make a living online.

And that's really how many businesses online make it!

How about Quick Cash? How can I make fast dough?

1. Join Clickbank.
2. Choose an Affiliate Product you wish to sell.
3. Join Google Adwords.
4. Write an Ad for the Affiliate Product you intend to sell.
5. Publish.

That's the quick and dirty way to make some dough online. Of course, it's not a guaranteed way to live. Sometimes your keywords in the ad might be wrong, or inefficient. You would probably need to go for professional tools like Chris Carpenter's Google Cash Detective, but of course you could always just get started and learn by trial and error.

I realise that I might've wrote about these things before, but with all the emails I've been receiving, I'm convinced that those newbies might be purchasing everything online, and getting disillusioned. I just don't want that happening.

Cheers to Internet Marketing!

Of course!

There are also sites out there who review other sites, stating to know which sites are legit and which sites aren't. But usually it's just to make a quick buck, cos they'll place their affiliate links inside.

But my personal favourite site is http://www.scamwatcher.org. In fact, he's exposed Autosurf sites, and found one that's completely a scam. Read the story here.

Keep updated. Don't get scammed.

Check out the story here.

eBay has too many good points to be exploited for it to be ignored. For example, millions of people search through eBay for the product they want. That settles your traffic already.

Next, it is properly categorized, so all who are actually searching for your type of product will find it, making them targeted traffic!

And last but not least, payment is easily handled with the integration of Paypal and eBay! With Paypal being integrated, there's no need for me to worry about sending out the product without receiving payment. Once payment is received, eBay will know about it and send the client the URL of my product!

With all these benefits, why aren't you eBaying yet?

P.S. If you wanna check me out, my eBay handle is sebastiancheok. I'll put a link up soon, so that you can take a look at all the Resale or MRR stuff I've got in my digital closet.

Things have really gotten hectic though. I've joined up with John Thornhill's Mentorship Monthly program! I know, I posted about membership sites before, but I really believe in working with this guy! He's one of the earliest marketers I've ever read about, and I'm still signing up for his newsletters!

And it's only $10 a month! Talk about value for money!

So I've recently been fiddling with eBay and stuff, and it's interesting, the results that follow. Soon I'll be slowly building up the other aspects of this business, like the list building and product creation.

In the meantime though, I'll be doing a lot of Resell Rights material on eBay. Wish me luck!

P.S. Don't you wanna buy me a beer? Check out the sidebar!

Not a good one.

But I'm not here to sell you the course or provide you an affiliate link. I just wanna add my little rant to the whole million dollar business idea.

As a one-man-operation (OMO), there's a limited number of hours in a day for a person to work. That being the case, one person would have to handle all aspects of the business, whether it's profitable or necessary (THERE'S A DIFFERENCE!).

Naturally, getting your time mixed up in doing unprofitable activities really limits the dough you can make. But what's the solution?

If you've ever heard of Rich Schefren, you would learn that he's a BUSINESS builder, not an Internet Marketer. He's the one who teaches all the other gurus how to scale their business and leverage on a business's most important asset:

Employees.

Now, most Internet Marketers are OMOs. A lot of people are just starting out, learning the ropes, without any capital to justify hiring someone else to do the legwork for them. But for those serious entrepreneurs who have already started to make some money, they need to learn about necessary business expenses.

Time is your most important personal asset. You can't buy back time that you've already spent, but you can ensure that you won't waste your own time in the future. By HIRING EMPLOYEES!

Think about it. Businesses that depend on a single person cannot last long or reach it's full potential, because of the simple fact that the OMO is wasting his time doing unprofitable stuff.

And that's what it's all about!

Clickbank did an amazing thing less than 2 months ago! They allowed for Affiliates to sell items with recurring billing!

Recurring billing is required for membership sites, and plenty of affiliate marketers just went nuts when they heard the news! Essentially, they would need maybe 100 people to sign up for membership sites, and they would easily have a monthly income stream of $1,000, every month!

But is this really necessary?

Membership sites are a dime a dozen. Plenty offer you free PLR content every month, others resale right products. But what type should you join?

For me, membership sites are a source of info products to sell, but honestly, I am actually making other people richer for promoting their products!

So why should I join a membership site?

Join them if they have a solid base of members and a forum for their members to share ideas and such. Learning from a community is so much more effective than to learn from one solo guru who offers you one-on-one coaching. One-on-one is nice, but because one person has only a limited number of hours in a day, your time will be pretty short-lived.

Get involved in a community. Learn from it. In fact, you don't even have to pay to join a solid community.

WarriorForum.com (not an affiliate link!)
Join in the fun!

I'm not sure how many of you have actually bought into them. But if you've ever signed up for any IMer's lists, you would realise that they also sell small ticket items like the $7 ebooks or $5 PLR items.

My problem with this issue is that most IM newbies trip over themselves to spend the $7 to buy something that they probably might've bought previously. And someone forgot to inform these newbies that they have to change the content within the PLR items, otherwise Google will penalise them for having duplicated content and not display them in the search results.

I've made that mistake many times, to be sure. In fact, I've done it plenty of times in this blog. Which is why now I've stopped posting that up. I've had quite a few friends who visited my blog and told me that they left because they had no idea what this blog was about.

PLR content can be comprehensive, they can have the right keyword density, but if no one can understand it, it's completely useless.

Rewrite your PLR articles if you've already bought them. Make sure that at the end of the rewriting session, the key elements remain the same but normal people can read it, and your friends can feel your personality through the words.

And you don't have to buy any more PLR content. Plenty of information is already made available online, and all you need to do is gather the information and rewrite it so that your audience can understand it.

Forget about keyword density and SEO. If your site is organically good, you can get an audience that's bound to tell others about you.

Should you?

After all, if you've ever been an affiliate for someone and got overjoyed at earning 75% of the price the customer's paying, you aren't really paying attention. Because even though you've beat the product owner in terms of $/book, he's got volume on top of you!

For example, a $47 ebook would help you earn about $35.25 (for 75% comm and assuming no refunds), leaving only $11.75 for the owner. But the owner has thousands of affiliates just like you, sending him thousands more of leads and customers!

"Gosh Sebby, I'm so excited! I gotta start writing my ebook now!"

But who would want to buy an Internet Marketing book from someone who hasn't made much money online? After all, unless you've ever made $4,000 a day, no one would really wanna listen to how good you are.

(And if you're thinking of lying to your clients and placing someone else's Paypal screenshots in your sales letter, you've gotta consult your conscience. You shouldn't be in business.)

"So Sebby, what are you saying? I shouldn't write my own ebook?"

Here's my advice: Write an ebook in a different field. Don't do Internet Marketing until you've succeeded in another field!

Why?

First, you would fulfill a need,

Second, your sales letter would be filled with TRUE stories and

Third, you actually have a chance to make all that dough you've been dreaming of!

There we go, my take on the whole ebook writing case. Write only what you know, and don't lie on your sales letter!

Side note (completely unrelated): I'll be writing short posts from now, so that I won't feel too discouraged when I'm lost as to what to post. I'll type as much as I feel like, without the pressure of hitting 500 words. Thanks for reading!

Cooking A Frog

Do you know how to cook a frog? First you place the live frog(s) in the pot of lukewarm water. Then you slowly raise the heat. If you do it slowly enough, the frogs won't be able to feel the increase in temperature. In fact, they wouldn't even know anything was wrong, until their own brains got cooked.

Are you a Frog that's about to be Cooked?

That's precisely what's happening to most people in the world today. No one really sits down to see if the age old advice of getting a job will keep everyone financially safe. Everyone just assumes that their country will take care of them, or their children will. But what happens in times of depression and recession?

There are others who have realised it, and have adventurously built businesses in their own country and just continued to run them. Of course, there is a danger is doing so. In countries like Singapore, the market is just way too small and it's easy to get swamped by giant corporations that invade the country. In larger countries? If you're not the Big Guy in your field, you won't be able to cut it.

But there is Hope!

However, if you are reading this article, you will realise that we are ahead of many others in the world today that only build businesses locally. Our business strategies and plans involve the global audience and our trade is in information.

And Useful Knowledge is the Ultimate Power.

There are thousands in the world today that have taken the steps to make a living online. However, there are those who just run scam sites to take your money and run without giving you what was promised. In fact, most "gurus" would try to sell you stuff that's available for free online. All they do is just rehash the information, perhaps redo the graphics, change the name and viola! Another ebook for sale!

It's because of this that thousands of people like you and me feel so frustrated whenever we see sales pitches but we don't know if it'll really change our lives or not.

But I did find solace in knowing that many fellow Singaporeans have succeeded in this Internet Marketing adventure! In fact, my greatest inspiration is a man named Ewen Chia. If you've ever listened to interviews that other top gurus give, you will hear his name mentioned over and over again. This man lives in a foreign country's timezone. I've heard that he only wakes up at 2pm everyday because he works in the US's timezone. LOL!

He is my inspiration and my guide towards my personal success. I'm going to use his Autopilot Profit System to gear myself towards my own personal success.

Did I mention how ridiculously cheap the book is? Go see it for yourself!

Cheers!

Thousands of people pass their days reading their emails about the next big thing. I, for one, take at least an hour to finish reading my emails because I'm on at least 12 big marketers' lists. But my problem now, which is similar to so many others like me, is that I don't follow through with what I've learnt.

If you've ever worked from home, you would realise that it isn't for everyone. There's Youtube, Dailymotion, and not to forget those online games that I love so much. Having no one to keep track of what I do or keep my accountable made me lose focus and now lose hope.

Today I make a promise to myself that by the end of June, I will rake in at least $1,000. Giving up is typical of most people, and to be honest, it would be typical of me to give up as well. But I'm reminded of the words of Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad: "You can always quit anytime you want. So why quit now?"

So I won't quit. Not until I succeed. At age 24, I'm already drowning in credit card debt. By the end of this year, I will clear my debt.

All by using Internet Marketing.

After all, I've already bought all the necessary knowledge. Now it's time to put it into action.

Wish me luck!

P.S. If you wanna know what I'm going to use as a guide, I'll be using Ewen Chia's Autopilot Profits System. I've already bought it, might as well use it right? By the way, it comes highly recommended because for it's incredibly low price, a LOT of value was added to it!

You might be thinking only businessmen can make much money out of the Internet, don’t you? Think again. You too can earn big bucks through the Internet even if you don’t have products to sell and high-profile and established company. How? That is through affiliate marketing. You might have come across these words over the net while surfing. Affiliate marketing is a revenue sharing between a merchant and an affiliate who gets paid for referring or promoting the merchants’ products and services. It is one of the burgeoning industries nowadays because it is proven to be cost-efficient and quantifiable means of attaining great profit both for the merchant and the affiliate and other players in the affiliate program, such as the affiliate network or affiliate solution provider.

Affiliate marketing works effectively for the merchant and the affiliate. To the first, he gains opportunities to advertise his products to a larger market, which increases his chances to earn. The more affiliate websites or hard-working affiliates he gets, the more sales he can expect. By getting affiliates to market his products and services, he is saving himself time, effort and money in looking for possible markets and customers. When a client clicks on the link in the affiliate website, purchases the product, recommends it to others who look for the same item or buys it again, the merchant multiplies his chances of earning. On the other hand, the affiliate marketer benefits from each customer who clicks on the link in his website and who actually purchases the product or avails of the service provided by the merchant. In most cases, the affiliate gets commision per sale, which can be fixed percentage or fixed amount.

If you want to be an affiliate marketer and make fortunes out of the Internet, you may follow the following three most basic and easiest ways to start an effective affiliate marketing program. First is to identify a particular thing you are interested in or passionate about so you won’t be bored and forced to develop your affiliate web site later on. Focusing on a specific area you know very well will help you bring out your best without much risks and effort. You can add a personal touch to your site and give your visitors who are possible buyers an impression that you are an expert in your field. In this way, you gain their trust and eventually encourage them to buy the products you endorse. Next is to look for good paying merchants and products or services related to your interest and create now a website. In choosing the products, you must also consider its conversion rate—the number of visitors-turned-buyers. There are various affiliate networks and affiliate solution providers that can give you info on the most profitable products and best paying merchants. The key here is, be wise enough to choose the right one.

Now that you have decided where to concentrate, have chosen the products to endorse and the merchant you are supporting and have created your own web site with top level domain name and reliable hosting, you are ready to promote. This is a crucial task, since it is through this that you would be able to increase traffic to the business website, sales and of course, profit. In affiliate marketing, it is possible to earn large sums of money in a short span of time especially when you’re endorsing high-priced items. Expensive products are hard to sell; however, with the right marketing strategies and sales techniques, you can draw visitors to the merchant’s site and make them buy the products. How to promote the products, though, would need a separate discussion. Continue to educate yourself by reading books or other articles online about the best advertising techniques.

Keep in mind, there is no facile and quick path towards success. Affiliate marketing may seem very tempting due to numerous encouraging testimonies of merchants and affiliate marketers alike who have benefited from it, but it entails great deal of hard work and persistence. Likewise, you need to be creative, flexible and willing to embrace new ideas to market your partners’ products until you find the perfect strategy that works for a specific market that you are targeting. Neither signing up for an affiliate program nor copying ads and leading others towards the merchants’ site doesn’t guarantee success yet. Many affiliate marketers fail to understand this, so when they don’t make sales, they quit, look for other programs and repeat the same mistake. In the end, they conclude that affiliate marketing is just one of those scams in the Internet. Even as you sleep, you can work your way to great financial success if you employ the right strategies in affiliate marketing. Be creative, be smart and surely, you’ll achieve your goals.

Search engines are into providing their users with the most relevant and up-to-date information to match the search term that was used.  They are sophisticated pieces of technology which allow users to quickly find relevant websites by searching for a word or a phrase. Search engine results are useless to users if the information doesn’t relate to the search term, or if the results are old. People expect the most up-to-date and fresh information that is useful to them.

Updating your website everyday and adding some materials will help you get noticed by the search engines. So, if you are going to sell any type of product or service online, you have to optimize your website for the search engines, in order to boost traffic and sales. It is because over 90% of your business will likely come directly from search engine results. And for that reason, it is absolutely important to optimize your site for search engines for you to have the greatest deals in the entire world.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process by which webmasters or online business owners utilize strategic copy to augment their website’s status. It is certain that the internet has grown so fast over the years and the competition for the best search engine position has created an enormous market. Therefore, better understanding the fundamental elements of Search Engine Optimization is vital for an online business’ success.

Making use of effective search engine optimization techniques will improve the page rank of your website. There are many tricks that can be used to increase page rank; the most effective method is to provide high quality content consistently. This seems like a simple concept but there are many websites that fails to provide content that visitors find interesting. Sites which provide content that are interesting, well-written and regularly updated create highly engaged visitors who are more likely to return to the website in the coming days. So, if you can set your website apart from those boring, lifeless sites then do it. You’ll surely have a step closer to achieving high page rank through search engine optimization.

The next significant factor for an effective search engine optimization is to include keywords and phrases within your content. To make sure that you are properly targeting your market, you have to make sure that the keywords and phrases you have on your site are the keywords and phrase that your site is actually optimized for. The more keywords you use in your content, the more likely it is that online visitors will find your site when they do some research with those words. If you are unfailing with these techniques, then your overall search engine optimization will increase, boosting your page rank.

You should also have to develop a linking strategy as a part of your search engine optimization. Not only does this provide free advertising for your site, but it makes the impression that your site is imperative because of its affiliated links. For each link that you have pointing back to you, that is another chance for your potential customer to find you. The more inbound links that you have pointing to your site, the higher you will be ranked in the search engines.

Another is to develop a content stratagem. People who get to search from the internet are looking for information. The more information you provide for them and the more helpful it is, the more likely you will make the sale. Writing articles is the most effective way to build up content for your site. When writing articles to post on your site, make sure that you develop a clear means of arranging their content. You can do this by simply adding a new page to your site. This will allow room for extra articles to be added as you write them, and will allow you to build up an archive of articles which will maintain to draw online visitors. Make sure also that you have included your archived articles in a directory that is next to the root web of your site so that the search engines will catalog your online articles.

Always keep in mind that search engine optimization methods are important in developing your site’s status. With that thing in mind, make sure that you write high-quality, keyword rich content and link your site to and from a deliberate family of other sites. These things will help improve your site’s popularity and coerce increased business through your online business.