Gloria, over at the Dream Jobs To Go discussion board, has this to say.

Anyone want to help?  Come on, jump in Dream Jobbers and let’s help Gloria.

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I’m in the Internet Marketing Wannabee loop and I can’t get off. I am a full-time caregiver for my elderly parent; and I began a quest to find some IM streams of income so that I can earn from home. I have discovered that I am basically an idea person.  But WHO will pay me for ideas?  I feel I have a wealth of knowledge in a variety of life areas and that is why I was trying to find a way to monetize that experience.  I was trying to follow the advice of choosing to get into something that I know about in order to increase my chance for success. All I have managed to achieve so far is a depleted bank account, because I obviously keep chasing what I believe will help me finally address my dilemma. But all it has done is clarify that I just can’t get a grip.

I can’t figure out how to earn from what I have learned.  Let’s see, I have worked in the medical field (in the Air Force,) I received a B.A. in Journalism /Marketing and subsequently worked for an Ad agency and Corporate Co communications for a big disability insurer for a time; I know about Big City living and Small Town living; I’m fueled in Christianity yet I’ve been divorced and know all about blended family issues; I have firsthand knowledge of dealing with cancer in immediate family members — dealing with hospitals, doctors, learning about procedures and the gamut and finally the deaths it caused; I have moved locally and cross country several times–giving much experience with every aspect of moving (selling the home, setting up utilities and other new accounts, schools etc.) so I know all about those things.

Regular schooling and homeschooling. The spouse losing a job (or several) due to economic factors ie. hurricane Wilma last year; and corporate bankruptcy due to slow business. Many related issues dealing with elder care, and all that happens when their health fails or they have an accident or surgery.

I keep believing that with all of my experience and knowledge, I could provide some kind of value to society plus find a way to earn from that .  But bone-honestly I have to admit that I am stumped. There seemed to be a big stumbling block with every thing I tried.  Like Affiliate marketing, ebooks, website, blogging and, now, even eBaying. I know this posting board is not for Therapy, I just thought I would put myself right out there and see if anyone has a sincere action model I can follow to get myself on the right path. Thanks!

 

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John Chow recently conducted a survey to come up with the biggest Adsense money makers.

Adsense is the Google program whereby you insert advertisements on your website and earn money every time someone clicks on them.

Check these guys out on Chow’s blog; perhaps there’s a lesson there for you if your dream job is to become an online entrepreneur.

Happy Adsensing.

And, let me hear from you if you incorporate Adsense on your site — I’d like to know how it’s going.

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Isn’t it great when you can go to a trusted friend who knows everything about a particular topic, issue, or industry and from whom you can get the inside scoop?

I love that.

So, it was really a pleasant surprise when I came across Chris King’s Chris Recommends site.  I’ve known Chris for a few years as she’s the author of two books in the Dream Jobs To Go series (Storyteller and Fitness Instructor), but until recently I hadn’t paid too close of attention to her Recommends site.

Mostly designed for online entrepreneurs, Chris has used and trusts everything she recommends, and I like that.  She cuts through the hype and tells you about services and tools that have worked for her, in the following categories:

• Info Products
• Marketing
• Presentations
• Useful Tools
• Motivation
• For Fitness
• Careers
• Articles

Good stuff; check ‘er out.

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If you’re doing any sort of business online, getting traffic to your site is what it’s all about.  (Hint:  It ain’t easy!)

I’m a big believer in tracking those who track, and following those I trust.  Brian Clark is one such trusted source; I believe what he says.  Brian has compiled a directory of resources on how to attract links and increase Web traffic.

Good resources, trusted source.

Check ‘em out.

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Related article:  Blogging for Dollars.

I know that a lot of you who are searching for dream jobs are active bloggers, or at least thinking about joining the blogging community soon, so I thought I’d share some blogging resources with you.

My friend Stephen Hopson, and fellow blogger, recently sent me a list of some sites he refers to regularly.  Stephen’s not a professional blogging consultant, and he makes no such claims, but he’s an incredibly diligent guy and a student of online business, so I think you might find something here to help you.

Listible — general online tools, generators, and checkers of all sorts.

Digital Point’s Adsense Sandbox – if you’re using Google’s Adsense (and, if you have a website or blog, and you’re not, you’re likely missing an income opportunity), this tool lets you experiment with various keyword combinations to see what Adsense will place on your site.

Blogger Forum — a site about blogging, for bloggers.  Lots of tips and how-tos.

ClustrMaps — shows where your website visitors are located geographically.

Email Riddler — converts your email into a code so that spam harvesters can’t add your real email to spam lists.

Steve Pavlina’s article about making money with your blog.  (Note:  Steve’s an interesting guy, so click here for more about him.)

Pro Blogger — Run by Darren Rowse, the blogger’s blogger.  Lots of good stuff and regular tips on how to grow your blog.  If you’re truly serious about blogging, you oughta be perusing this site regularly.

One particular article to check out from Darren is this one, about techniques for placing Adsense adverts in your blog.

To learn more about blogging and related opportunities, check out my Blogging for Dollars article.

And, please holler if you have some tips or sites you’d like to contribute.

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Trying to do business online and wanting to learn more about how to go about growing your passion the old-fashioned way . . . by slow, plodding, hard work?

As I talked about earlier, you can can use the gurks to stimulate ideas, but I wouldn’t count on them to help you do much more than transfer money from your account to theirs.  Click here for the prior post about gurks.

I wrote about The Marketing Sherpa in an earlier post, and there’s no better legitimate site on the Web to learn about Web marketing than Sherpa.

For two other legit sources of quality and real information about conducting yourself online, check out Site Point and Revenews.

Site Point is for the more technically inclined in parts, but check out some of their blogs, and I think you’ll learn a lot about various Web design and marketing strategies.

Revenews is more about online publishing and affiliate marketing (reselling publisher’s content on your site for a commission), with tons-o-good stuff.

Great stuff, actually, and not a gurk lurking.

Check ‘em out.

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It’s time for another Dream Jobs To Go freebie.

[See below for FREEBIE DETAILS.]

BIG BIG BIG BIG HEADS-UP:  If you have any questions about what follows, leave a note here as a response or send me an email at blog@dreamjobsdialog.com, and I’ll get an answer straight back to you.

It won’t take you more than a couple of minutes to play, and . . .

The first 50 respondents win two books each, and the next 50 win one book each.  (I do have to cut this off after 100 responses.)

BACKGROUND
To win a freebie, all you need to do is subscribe (via an RSS feed) to this Dream Jobs Dialog blog, the thing you’re reading right now.

If you don’t know about RSS, don’t sweat — it’s a techie term that stands for Really Simple Syndication — and . . .

It’s eazy-peezy to set up and use, and just about anyone with a PC can do it.  RSS is even for those, like me, who don’t come with a strong technical bent.

RSS lets you put the article headlines from blogs (like this one), news sources, or other websites and online resources right on your home page — that page you see every time you start your web browser (which is most likely Internet Explorer).

So, RSS makes it really simple and easy to stay current with your favorite websites, blogs, or news sources by seeing those sites’ headlines — for more information, you can then click on a link right on your home page and end up at the source.

Cool and fun stuff.

HOW TO SET UP AN RSS FEED ON YOUR HOME PAGE
Look at the bottom left of the home page of this site to see something that looks like this:

Subscribe to this site
[+] Articles (RSS)
[+] Comments (RSS)

Stay current with Dream Jobs Dialog on these personalized pages:
[+] Bloglines
[+] Feedster
[+] Google Reader
[+] My AOL
[+] My MSN
[+] My Yahoo
[+] Newsgator
[+] Pluckit
[+] Rojo

If your home page is My AOL, My MSN, or My Yahoo, then you’re home free — simply click on the appropriate link and follow the directions you’ll see there.

Once set up properly, refresh or restart your home page and look toward the bottom where you should see the most recent articles from Dream Jobs Dialog.

If you don’t have a home page set up using one of those tools, you’ll have to play around with some of the other links (again, holler if you have questions).

FREEBIE DETAILS
1.  Set up your RSS feed on your home page (post comments/questions here if you can’t do this).

2.  Go to Dream Jobs To Go to determine which freebies you’d like to receive.

3.  Make a comment post here.  Include your initials (full name if you like, but not required), the name of the RSS feed you used (My AOL, My MSN, My Yahoo, etc.), and the names of the two books from Dream Jobs To Go you’d like to receive.

4.  IMPORTANT:  Separately, send me an email with your full name and email address to blog@dreamjobsdialog, with RSS Freebies in the subject line.  In the body of the message, in addition to your name, tell me the two books you’d like.  (If you’re not among the first 50 respondents, I’ll send the first book you list).

Holler if questions; happy RSSing, and happy Dream Jobbing!

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Do you blog?

Do you have a website?

if so, and if you’re depending on your site or blog to create an income, getting traffic to those is what your life online should be about.

Of course, that’s easier said than done.

No matter how good you are and whether or not you consider yourself a pro marketer or not, the fact of the online matter is that it all takes time.  And (much like life, I suppose, and finding that dream job) you need to do a lot of things on faith . . . over and over again. 

Earlier I wrote about Stephen Hopson and how he goes about his own life and work.  (There’s an interview with Stephen coming soon, so please check back for that).

I’ve been concerned that I didn’t seem to be getting as much traffic to this blog — Dream Jobs Dialog — as I’d wished.  I spend a huge amount of time with it because I enjoy it and I believe I have something to offer; but, at the end of it all, I need to pay the bills from time to time and I count on traffic here at the blog and click-throughs on the advertisers that advertise here to help me do that.

I’ve created a rather larger subscriber list and following at the Dream Jobs Dialog newsletter that’s part of my other business at Dream Jobs To Go, but I’ve found it rather confounding in trying to lure those readers to the blog here.

So, in talking with Stephen, who’s been at the blogging business a bit longer than I, here’s the advice he gave me and has allowed me to pass along to you.

Stephen Hopson says, regarding increasing blog/web traffic:

There really aren’t any quick fixes from what I’ve learned so far (and I continue to learn every day).  However, here are some tips I can share with you that seem to help:
 
1.  Write articles often - several times a week

2.  Then ping your blog often by using the following links:
 
http://www.pingoat.com/
also
http://pingomatic.com/
 
Every time you have a new article, go ahead and ping your blog.  It sort of brings your blog to the forefront, letting those other sites know you have new material.
 
3.  Other ways to draw traffic is to visit other blogs of interest to you and write in comments about how you liked theirs and leave your blog address on the bottom of the comment you just made.  Subscribers to that website might be interested in checking you out simply because you took the time to leave a comment for them.  On the other hand, sometimes the blogger himself might check you out and then mention it to her subscribers, kind of like what you’re doing.
 
4.  Exchange links with other bloggers by linking their blogs to yours and vice versa — in my blog, I have a favorite links section where other blogs are listed for anyone who cares to visit those sites.
 
5.  The more you link with others, the more Google likes you and brings you higher in their search index thing — whatever it’s called.
 
6.  The other way to increase traffic is to write articles for places like EzineArticles and other article websites that you mentioned in one of your articles (I found an article you wrote about free Internet marketing tools).  I signed up with EzineArticles about 2 weeks ago and already 2,500 people have read my articles.  Unfortunately not many of them clicked through to my website and I’m still trying to figure out why.  The weird thing is I am suddenly getting emails from people complimenting me on my articles in the blog, but those who find me through EzineArticles are not necessarily clicking through.  It’s a strange situation.
 
In other words, on one hand, I’m getting more and more compliments and a few more people are subscribing.  What that tells me is I’m on the right track, I must be doing something right.  However, out of 2,500 visitors to my articles in EzineArticles, only a tiny fraction of them are clicking through to my website.  This behavior is strange because, if I’m doing so well (per emails from other people), then why aren’t EzineArticles readers clicking through?  That’s the weird part.
 
It’s probably all about timing.  It takes time for traffic to grow.  Whatever, it’s really fun to watch.
 
Let’s see.  Of course, you want to put your blog address everywhere you can.  You want it in your email signature box, your business card, your main website, and so on.

Another thing is you want to get listed with places like Technorati. There are also places like MySpace that you can sign up with (I haven’t done that yet). 
 
And then, of course, you want to use certain keywords in your titles.  There’s a neat place where you can test the popularity of keywords and then insert the most popular keywords in your title(s).  That way when people Google a certain keyword, your website will be in the top 10 or 20 listings. 
 
Then there’s this place for webmasters at Google and Voelspriet’s site has some neat tools as well.

Look through them and find the tools you think would work best for you.  Google is the top search engine and I would work within their parameters to get more traffic.
 
I’ve been slowly learning and tinkering with my blog over many months, in an effort to increase traffic.  It’s hard work, but it’s rewarding when you find what works and can get rid of what doesn’t.

So, whaddaya think, Dream Jobbers?

How do you get traffic to your blog and site?  What works?  What doesn’t?

Check out more about Stephen Hopson at his SJ Hopson site.

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I’m looking for a very special person.

Someone with a proven track-record in business, with a strong focus on web-based marketing.

Would also be helpful if this person has a strong personal and radio or television presence.

One of my other companies, InfoSource, Inc., is in the online learning business.  We develop and market online courses and learning systems for companies, government agencies, and commercial operations around the world.  Much of our focus is on teachers and students in the K-12 arena.

We have an idea to spin off a new business to market some of our products directly to individuals.

We will supply all of the infrastructure (systems, products, online ecommerce engines, and the like) but we need an extremely motivated, business-experienced, and Web-savvy partner to pull all this together.

This is a business opportunity and NOT a job.  (We’re not creating a new job position, we’re creating a new business and we need an EXPERIENCED pro to run it.)

We can also supply some funding, and we will negotiate revenue share.  Again, though, this is not a job with salary, benefits and all that sort of stuff.

If you, or someone you know, are intrigued with this opportunity, please contact me directly at mwerner@howtomaster.com.

 

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Earlier I wrote about how important it is to learn to go along with your internal senses . . . trusting your gut.  Click here for that short post.

Now, for those in business or thinking about same . . .

Everybody thinks that being successful in developing and running their own business is all about having enough start-up and working capital, or the proper image that fits your market, or the right employees.

Yup, being successful in running your own show does require a significant dose of all of those things.

But, what I see missing most of all – and it just jumps out at me when I see people, either in their own businesses or as employees – is a willingness by that person to be themselves,  and to trust their own instincts.

I fight with this constantly in my own businesses, and indirectly with my own employees.

They want themselves – and our company, by extension – to be something else.

And, this just absolutely drives me nuts-o.

We have whatever success we do by being who we are, not by trying to be something or someone else.

I have one employee, Brad (real guy, name changed), who’s always trying to portray us as bigger – much bigger – than we are.  “Well, Michael,” he’ll tell me, “I just want to make sure that the customer takes us seriously.”

Hey, Brads of the world.  The customer already does take us seriously – they buy products and services from us. They do that because they like who we are, how we act, and how we look.

We are who we are and, if we’re any good – and in the case of the real-world Brad I’m talking about, we’re damned good; been in business over 23 years, lots of growth spurts, plenty of industry innovations along the way – we don’t need to make up anything about ourselves.  They like us, they really do like us.

The corollary to this is a feeling by lots of people that “well, we better do it that way because that’s how Microsoft [substitute your own name here] does it.”

Well, poop. We’re not Microsoft, we don’t wanna be Microsoft (really), and if we were really trying to be more like Microsoft, they’d eat our lunch before we even got past breakfast.

Be yourself, trust your gut.  After all, what in the hell are you doing here if you can’t be yourself?

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