As all successful Internet Marketers know, the money is in the list, so a priority for all IM beginners should be to start collecting their prospects email addresses using a “squeeze page” as soon as possible so that they can be marketed to at a later date.

For those that don’t know, a “Squeeze Page” is a simple landing page/website, which offers a free gift to a prospect in exchange for their email address. (and sometimes their name as well)  The free gift could be an eBook, a video or access to a membersite etc.

If you have yet to set up your squeeze page and don’t know where to start, fear not… I’m going to show you exactly how to do it!

You could pay someone to create and set up your squeeze page for you, but I know for a lot of beginners this isn’t an option as it can be quite costly.  I’ll therefore be using as many free resources and low cost solutions as possible.

Over the coming days and weeks, I’m going to show you all the steps you need to take to set up your own squeeze page, get traffic to it and finally start building your email list.

Best of all, this valuable content won’t cost you a penny!

What we will cover in Squeeze Page Masterclass:

Part I: Intro & What To Give Away

Part II: Registering A Domain & Getting A Website Host

Part III: Creating & Editing Your Squeeze Page

Part IV: Setting Up Your Autoresponder

Part V: Uploading Your Squeeze Page To The Web

Part VI: Testing & Tweaking Your Squeeze Page

Part VII: Driving Traffic To Your Squeeze Page

Ok… let’s get started!

We’ve got a lot to cover, but for today, I just want you to start thinking about what mouth watering gift you will offer your prospects to get them on to your list!

It should be something new, fresh and exciting and should offer real value to your new subscribers.  (If you offer the same tired old eBooks that everyone else does, you won’t get as many sign ups.)

The best way to offer something completely new is to create it yourself, but if you aren’t quite ready for that yet, there are a few options open to you…

1. You can give away my popular eBay selling guide, Auction Profits Blueprint, as it comes with giveaway rights.  (Sign up here to receive your copy now)

2. You can use a Resell Rights Product. (as long as it also comes with giveaway rights)

This is another quick and easy method as it gives you a ready made product and usually comes with nice graphics that you can add to your website.  If you are anything like me, you’ve probably already got hundreds of Resell Rights eBooks clogging up your hard drive so have a look through them and see if you have any you can use.  The downside is that other marketers may be giving away the same product, but if you do a little research you’re sure to find something that’s in demand.

(If you don’t already have something to use, I highly recommend joining ResellRightsFortune.com which has a huge searchable database so you can quickly find what you’re looking for)

3. Use a Private Label Rights product.  This type of product allows you to edit and change it, therefore creating something new, but without the hassle and time investment involved in creating a product from scratch.  (ResellRightsFortune.com can also help you find PLR products)

Once you have something to give away, you’re ready to move onto Part II, so check back soon for the next post.

Image attributed to flickr.com user liewcf.

Hi everyone,

I’ve got a really cool idea to share today that could have you earning some extra dough within just a few hours.  This is a business idea I’ve been researching for a number of months and I can now safely say it works for me and will also work for you too!

After officially launching at the start of December, my little eBay business is now consistently earning me money on a daily basis from only a couple of hours work a day and best of all the products I sell, I download completely freely (and legally!) from the internet.

Now I’m not saying this is going to turn into a six figure business anytime soon, but it’s definitely a great little income stream (and don’t forget, many streams make a river!)

It also takes very little outlay to get started.

Infact as long as you have a computer with a CD/DVD burner, your only initial outlay will be for a few blank CDs and DVDs.

Here’s how it works in simple terms…

1. Download some open source software or public domain audiobooks.
2. List them on eBay.
3. When they sell, burn them onto disc and ship them out to your customer. (Or use a service such as Kunaki to do it for you!)
4. Enjoy the profits!

The savvy amongst you may be wondering why anyone would buy something from me that they can download for free…

A fair question.  There are a number of reasons and here are a few…

1. They don’t want to spend hours trawling the internet to find the same product.  You’ve already done the work for them so they’d rather just pay you a few bucks and get it sent straight out!
2. They have a slow internet connection that takes a long time to download large files.
3. In the case of the software, they may want a hard copy to use on computers that aren’t connected to the internet.
4. They know that when they buy from me, I’ll also provide them with personal support should they need it.  Something they wouldn’t always get if they just downloaded the free version from the net.

So is it ethical to sell products that I download for free?

Absolutely, Yes!  I’m completely open and honest about where I source my products and I put a lot of effort into making the CDs very high quality.  I also providing exceptional customer service and support.

I know that some of my customers still don’t realise that my products are freely available, but as long as I’ve been honest with them, my conscience is clear.  (Plus if they’re not happy for what ever reason, I’ll always refund them.)

So, down to the nitty gritty…

What to sell and where to get it!

(Before you read on, a quick word of warning:  the laws relating to intellectual property can be very confusing and can differ from country to country so make sure you do your own research to ensure you stay within the law!  I’ve provided some links to further reading below)

1. Open Source Software

This is software that has been developed by the open source community and commercial companies who wish to promote their products and services.  Although it is free, it is often made by developers who have also helped to develop popular paid for software, so it is very high quality.  This type of software is usually free from the usual copyright restrictions which means anyone is free to copy, change and redistribute it as long as they include the source code.

You can learn more about open source software at Wikipedia.

You can search for and download software at SourceForge.

2. Public Domain Materials. (eg. Audiobooks)

Similar to open source software, public domain items aren’t covered by the usual copyright restrictions and a lot are freely available to copy and redistribute.

You can learn more about Public Domain at Wikipedia.

You can search for and download public domain audiobooks at Librivox.

3. Resell Rights Ebooks.

If you already have an interest in Internet Marketing, then I’d put money on it that you have a hard drive full of resell rights eBooks just gathering dust.  Why not start burn them onto CDs and start making some money from them?

Admittedly, these don’t sell as well as they used to on eBay due to there being so much competition and a lot of the eBooks being out of date.  (This is why I diversified into os software and public domain audiobooks)

Having said that, you can breathe new life into your eBooks by creating new stand out listings and updated graphics.

Alternatively, you can get new, fresh eBooks which will sell a lot better from from websites such Resell Rights Fortune.

You can also increase your products’ perceived value by adding an autorun menu interface.  (I highly recommend Dave Nicholson’s, Digital Media Solution to do this)

***************************************************************************

This is such a quick and easy way to make money on eBay that you could get started and even make some sales within a few hours!

To make your new business even more professional and further increase the perceived value of your CDs and DVDs it’s worth creating professional looking, printed CDs and include pictures of them in your eBay listings.  This is fairly easy to do using Photoshop (or the opensource alternative Gimp!)

If you’re not confident creating your own CD graphics, then just keep it simple for now.  You can always add graphics later to increase your sales.

Later this year I’ll be releasing a product that gives step by step instructions on setting this up.  It will include videos, manuals, CD graphics, listing templates and everything else you need to duplicate my business model.

Places will be limited and all of my loyal subscribers will be given early access and a special discount so don’t miss out.

It’s the 2nd week in January and I’m happy to say I’m still sticking to my New Years Resolutions!

“What are they?” I hear you ask!

Well… It’s also my 30th year on this big blue marble, so such a landmark birthday deserves a landmark resolution!

In short…

I intend to make 2010 the healthiest, wealthiest year of my adult life so far!

Health wise, I’ve been attending the gym 3-4 times a week and have improved my diet considerably, as well as cutting down on my alcohol consumption, so that part gets a big tick.  I just need to keep that momentum going now!

With regards to the wealth part, after months of preparation, I’ve officially launched my new eBay business that specialises in selling opensource software, public domain audiobooks and resell rights ebooks and within one month of launch it’s already in profit.

We’re not talking massive profits yet, but considering I download a lot of my products completely free over the internet, I’m very happy with the additional income!  (I’ll soon be launching a free product that shows you exactly how you can do the same, so make sure you’re a subscriber to get early access)

So now I have my resolutions in place, it’s time to start setting goals and making plans to achieve them, so here goes…

First Quarter Business Goals 2010

• Complete and launch my new Twitter eBook and accompanying Membership site.
• Double my eBay profits monthly, by adding new stock daily, cross promoting items and tweaking existing inventory to reduce fees.
• Double my subscriber list by continuing to be involved with JV Giveaways and start getting involved in Adswaps.

Business Goals to Achieve By End of 2010

• Consistently earn at least $2000 per month through all my online ventures.
• Post on my blog at least once a week. (And update JV giveaway page weekly)
• Add a lot more free content to my autoresponder series and ensure more regular contact with subscribers.  ie at least 2 emails per week.
• Build my subscriber list to 10,000.
• Launch my new Internet Marketing Membership Website for beginners.
• Release my eBay Business in a Box package.
• Promote at least one major IM product launch per month.

Personal Goals to Achieve By End of 2010

• Sell/rent my current home and move to a new house in a better area.
• Continue to go the gym at least 3 times a week. (Healthy body, healthy mind!)
• Reach my goal weight of 13 stone (Currently 14s 8lbs) and maintain weight through better diet, more exercise and cutting down on beer. (BOOOO!)
• Take at least 1 beach holiday plus 1 city break.

So there you have it.  I’ve set myself some major goals for this year and you should too.

It sounds obvious, but you will never achieve your goals in life unless you set them, plan how you will achieve them then consistently work at them!

Right, I’m off to make some more in depth plans and get cracking on this quarter’s goals.

Let me know what your goals are by leaving a comment below and maybe I can help?!

Here’s to our success in 2010.

This will be my final post of the year and it’s going to be a quick one because I know there are more important things you want to be doing right now, like wrapping presents, enjoying time with loved ones and of course eating and drinking till you can’t move!

I just wanted to say a MASSIVE THANK YOU to every one of my readers and subscribers and also to all the fantastic people who I’ve met (online and off) who have helped and supported me in growing my online business, especially my fellow Marketing With Alex students. (and of course the big man himself, Alex Jeffreys!)

I’m still a long way off reaching my business, financial and personal goals, but I feel this year has been about laying solid foundations to build on and I now have a much clearer plan of action and have learned some amazing Internet Marketing techniques that I plan on using to make 2010 my wealthiest year yet…

Of course, that means that as I grow as a Marketer, so will my subscribers as I plan on doing some extraordinary things to help them in the New Year (So if you’re not on my mailing list, you’ll want to join up now!

All that’s left to say is have a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy, Prosperous New Year!

A picture paints a thousand words… but if you’re not careful, buying stock pictures can add up to thousands of dollars!

If you’re a blogger or web designer I’ll bet you spend a lot of time searching for low cost or free stock images to use on your blogs and websites?… I know I do.

It can be very tempting to just jump onto Google images to find what you need and save yourself a few quid, but as innocent an activity as that may seem to some, it constitutes copyright theft and will soon land you in a big pot of hot water with the law.

It’s unethical and it’s against the law, so what are the alternatives?

Well, there are some websites that allow free use of their images for personal and commercial reuse as long as you acknowledge the artist who made it available, in the form of a mention of their name and a link to their portfolio.

An example of this type of website is:-

http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/

I find the images are generally of a very high quality, however they can be a bit limited in what’s available.

You can also search sites like Flickr, where users allow their work to be reused under a Creative Commons license, but beware, the license arrangements can be quite complicated so make sure you understand what you can and can’t use each image for. (You can read Flickr’s Creative Commons Guide here)

You can now also search for free Creative Commons images using Google’s image search.

It allows you to specify what kind of license you are looking for, for example, “commercial reuse”  then suggests images accordingly.

Simply go to Google > Select Images > Advanced Image Search…

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

Fill in the details as shown below, and hit search… easy peasy!

________________________________________________________

Admittedly, the images found can vary quite significantly in quality, but it’s definitely worth a look if it can save you a few pennies, right?

And if you find the license filter isn’t available on your Google interface, you can use the following link instead:-

Find Creative Commons Images In Google Search

A quick word of advice to avoid trouble! – When downloading this kind of image for reuse, always err on the side of caution and double check what the license allows.  If in any doubt, either keep browsing for that perfect free image, or bite the bullet and search a reputable paid service like iStock or GettyImages.

Enjoy

As previously discussed, Twitter is a fantastic way to get some free targeted traffic to your websites, but manually sending tweets on a regular basis is a time consuming and boring task!

All new tweets have an average lifespan of 10 minutes – that means your well thought out tweet will only be visible in other user’s timelines for a very short space of time.

After that, they get lost in the Twhite noise of Twitter!

It is therefore important to tweet regularly.

Also, if you tweet nothing but links to your websites, squeeze pages, products and affiliate campaigns you’re quickly going to get a reputation as a spammer which will result in you losing followers and almost definitely get your account suspended by Twitter.

So is there a way to automate some of your tweets and provide good content to keep your followers interested, all without getting Twitter slapped?!

There certainly is!

I’ve been looking into various ways to automate my Tweets and I think I’ve found a corker!

Now before we start, I would strongly advise that you don’t use this method alone…

Your followers need to know you are a real person and not a robot, so make sure you use Twitter as the social tool it was intended for… in other words, still use it to personally interact with your followers or they’ll soon lose interest in you.

Ok, here we go…

A great way to feed your twitter accounts with a constant stream of valuable, free content, is to use an automation service such as Twitterfeed.

Twitterfeed is a FREE automation tool that allows you to send your favourite RSS feeds directly to your Twitter account so that your tweets are regularly renewed without you having to manually type them out.

You don’t even have to load them into a tweet scheduler like Social Oomph…

Just choose some RSS feeds that you think will interest your followers, set them in Twitterfeed and forget!

Here’s a summary of how I use this method :-

1. Find an RSS feed for articles relating to my niche. ie Internet Marketing.
2. Load it into Twitterfeed and add my url shortener details. (bit.ly)
3. Let it go to work tweeting interesting, article titles with shortended links to the full articles.
4. Occasionally intersperse my automated tweets with more personal ones, retweets replies etc.

Believe me, this really works and I can see from my bit.ly account that my tweets are getting a lot of clicks.

Some pros and cons…

Pros -

1. You have a constant stream of tweets which include keywords your potential followers are looking for, so you’ll grow your following organically. (So no need to mass follow hundreds of people in the hope they’ll follow you back.)
2. You are providing good, niche content to your followers, thereby keeping them interested in your tweets and clicking on your links. (Ready for when you do want to send them to your squeeze page or blog.)
3. You can spend much less time trawling the net for quotes, news stories and articles to interest your followers. (And spend more time doing the things that actually make you money online.)
4. If you choose RSS feeds that are relevant to your niche and that benefit your followers in some way, you’ll be loved for it. (They’ll be more likely to trust you, be more willing to do business with you and buy from you in future)

Cons -

1. Although the content will be interesting to your followers, the links within your tweets are directing your traffic to websites other than yours so your RSS Tweets won’t directly send traffic your way. (However, having tested this method for a few weeks, I find it does keep my followers responsive to clicking on my links)
2. Some followers may find your Twitterfeed tweets impersonal and some may even consider them spam. (You can’t please everyone on twitter. Everyone has their own opinions on how you should use it and what is considered spam – in my opinion, relevant, free content is NOT spam!)

In summary, I think this is a great method for keeping your followers interested in you and it means you don’t have to spend hours finding useful content.

Most people will understand the reasons behind using automation tools and will accept it, however they still want to know there is a person behind the tweets – talk about what you’re doing and engage discussion with people – Remember… this is Social Media, so be sociable!

Give it a try and let me know how you get on by leaving a comment below.

…or at least we will be once the hangovers subside and we all have some time to reflect on what a fantastic couple of days we had at Lee McIntryes Profit Max workshop!

Wondering what the title’s all about?  I guess you had to be there but let me just say Lee’s staff member Mark knows how to fire up the crowd – even when they have killer hangovers!

If you didn’t get the chance to attend then you missed out on a mega event – In Lee’s words… “Man Alive!”

Aside from the great content, I also got to meet and have a beer or ten with some of the UKs (and worlds) top, and up and coming marketers…. if only I’d remembered my camera!

Sitting on a table drinking beer with guys like Alex Jeffreys, John Thornhill, Dave Nicholson, Lee McIntrye and many more was, for me, a bit surreal, because I hold them all in such high regard, but there’s no doubt it was also an honour and very educational.

I’ve taken away some very powerful lessons about how Lee has grown his business to such a phenominal level so quickly, thanks to him being so completely transparent with us.

The things he shared with the fortunate 50 who attended were astounding and I’m now going to put his tactics into practice to grow my own online business and maximise my profits.

It would be impossible to share all of that mindblowing info in one blog post, so if you want to know exactly what went down during his 2 day workshop, then keep an eye on Lee’s blog as he’s soon to announce the release of the DVD recording of the event. (and no, I’m not on commission… I just know it will benefit your business and that’s what this blog is for – to help you!)

So, what’s the most important lesson I learned from this event? (Apart from not drinking so many beers when you have an early start and a lot of stuff to learn!)

Well, it all boils down to keeping your online business fairly simple. Remember the front end is for capturing leads, the backend is for profits…

If you don’t have the following in place, now’s the time to get on top of it…

1. Set up a killer squeeze page – Lee swears by video sales letters because they are so much quicker to create than written text and tend to convert better.
2. When someone opts in to your list, present them with an immediate offer on your thank you/download page. The offer should be a low priced and high value. Remember – Low Price = Low Risk… therefore more sales.  Any if they don’t buy? – You now have their email – keep emailing them until they do… but remember to keep giving them free stuff inbetween your offers!
3. If your prospect takes your offer, now upsell a related, higher priced offer… Why… Because they have their credit card in hand and want to give you their money!
4. Backend time… this is your highest value, highest priced product (for example a coaching program) where you can maximise your profits. Be careful you are not sending out the message that the products you’ve already sold to your customer are sub par or won’t help them… you need to drive home the message that this is a related, more in depth product showing them the exact steps they need to take, rather than just an overview.

Let me stress, that is a simplified version of Lee’s business model and I have a pad full of notes covering each step so it really doesn’t do justice to all I’ve learned.  That’s why I urge you to check out the DVD set once it becomes available.

Otherwise, keep following my journey here as I share my progress with you.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to reading your comments.

Steve

P.S. You can check out the video testimonial recorded live at the workshop over at Lee’s blog now.  Every attendee made a short testimonial yesterday.  That’s good going considering some of us were terrified talking on camera in front of so many people!  Here’s the link:-

Video Update From Lee McIntyre’s Profit Max Workshop.

P.P.S. See you at the next event?!

Over the past few weeks I’ve been testing various methods to grow my Twitter following and I’ve found a load of cool tools that allow me to automate various tasks and make life easier.

At the start of August 09 I had only 45 followers and the time of writing this post, I have 3766…  That’s a lot of potential new leads, traffic and customers – all from only a few minutes work a day!

With a little effort and the use of the following tools, you can explode your followers and start using Twitter to drive traffic to your websites.

Best of all, most of these tools are free – there is only 1 service that I paid for, but I know you can get similar results with the free alternative – it will just take a bit longer.

Ok, here they are in no particular order:-

1. Social Oomph (used to be called Tweetlater)

Open a free account that allows you to schedule tweets, send automated Direct Messages (DMs), save tweet drafts for later use and more.  There is a paid version that will make it even easier to automate your twitter account, but I only use the free version and it meets all my needs.

(See also No. 9. Twaitter, which has similar features but an interface some may prefer and at the time of writing has a lot of free features that Social Oomph charges for)

2. Twitterfeed

Feed your blog RSS feed or any relevant RSS feed to your twitter account.  This is a great way to automatically tweet relevant content to your followers right through the day and night and it is also a great way to pick up new followers who search for specific key words.  (I’m going to do a more in depth post on this subject soon, so watch this space!)

3. Twitter Karma

Find out who you follow who doesn’t follow you back. (Twitter Snobs)  You can then choose to unfollow some or all to free up space for you to follow others.

(http://friendorfollow.com/ does essentially the same thing with a different interface -  users with large numbers of follows/followers might find it a little easier to use)

4. Hummingbird

This is the software I paid for and I think it’s well worth it as it saves a lot of time.  The best part is the follow/unfollow feature which allows you to just click a button once and follow/unfollow hundreds of people on autopilot – better still, it allows you to whitelist people who you know don’t follow you back, but who you still want to follow because they have interesting tweets.

For example, you might want to follow your favourite celebrity’s tweets, even though they are never likely to follow you back! Simply add them to your VIP list in hummingbird, and it will never unfollow them.

It also has some other great features to make life easier for you, such as, Manage Multiple Accounts, Keyword Targeting, Detailed / Easy to Read Reports, 3rd Party Plugins and more.  I can’t really do it justice in a short blog post, so check out the website for a full list of benefits:-

Hummingbird

5. Twollow

Automatically follow people based on keywords.  This is another paid service, however they’ll give you a free 7 day trial which is well worth taking up.  If you’re new to twitter, it’ll set you well on your way to your first couple of hundred followers and all you have to do is type in a few key words!  This was the first automation tool I used and if memory serves, it tripled my following during that 7 day free trial, then I just closed my account.

6. Mr Tweet

Looks through your relationships and tweets to:
1) Show the influencers and followers you should follow
2) Suggest you to enthusiastic users relevant to you

7. Twit This

If you’ve ever read something online that you wanted to share quickly and easily then you’ll love this one.  It’s a great way to keep people engaged.  Just click the TwitThis Button, customize the message you want to tweet and hey presto, Your Link is Tweeted!

Your followers instantly see your link! It’s that simple.

8. Tweetdeck

A great looking, very groovy piece of software that lets you sort your friends into groups so their tweets don’t get lost in the twitter noise.  Add numerous groups to filter tweets from close friends, collegues, favourite celebs etc

9. Twaitter

Similar to Social Oomph but at the time of writing it is in Beta testing, so is completely free to use to use tools that Social Oomph is charging for.  Here’s what they say about their product:-

• Ever had an idea for a tweet, but wanted to send it later or at a specific time?
• Want to setup your #FollowFriday posts throughout the week so you dont forget to share great tweeple with your followers?
• Have a fellow Twitterer whose birthday is coming up in a few days, but you’re afraid you might forget to send a “Happy Birthday” tweet when the day arrives?
• Spend more time on Twitter than your work calendar? Ever want to send yourself a reminder or remind friends or followers of something?
• Want to participate in a scheduled Twitter conversation even when you are too busy to attend?
• Want to have links in your blog RSS feed automatically sent to Twitter?
• Want to schedule a tweet to go out at 8:14AM (and not 8AM sharp)?

…You can do it all with twaitter.

10. Twitter Packs

A useful directory of twitter users sorted into specific catergories so that you can find people who are interested in the same things as you.  You can also add yourself to the directory so that people can find and follow you.

Well, that’s a about it from me, but in the spirit of always over delivering here at Steve-Wakefield towers, here are some other great tools –

• If you have an apple iPhone, (you flash git!) you might want to check out the Tweetie app.  Haven’t used it myself, but have heard nothing but great things about it – here’s the link – Tweetie

• A great way to pack more content into your Tweets without going over the 140 characters allowed limit is to use a URL shortener.  There are plenty of options out there, but I think the best one to use is bit.ly as it allows you to track all clicks on your links to see what works best for you.

• Almost forgot this one and it’s a gem! -  Huitter – You can use it to unfollow people who don’t follow you back (similar to twitterkarma and friendorfollow) however it also features a cool clean up tool to delete your Direct Messages (DMs) Inbox, en masse.  It will only delete 50 messages at a time, but that’s much better than deleting 1 at a time in Twitte

I hope you’ve found this useful – if so please leave a comment below…  If not, I also value your input – let me know what you think either way!

If you know of any other great Twitter tools feel free to share them.

Happy Tweeting

My old blog theme was starting to look a bit tired, but the main reason for the change was less to do with aesthetics and more to do with function and ease of navigation.

I’d tweaked so much code in the old one, that it was also taking an age to load and certainly didn’t like me adding any plugins to it!

I’ve tried to keep it simple this time as I wanted a cleaner, less ‘busy’ look.

If you’d like to create a similar looking blog, then I highly recommend the Flexibility Theme – It’s free and is really easy to customise the layout and colours – it also allows you to add your own custom graphics in the header, background etc. so you can make it really unique to you.  All without editing the code.

I’ve also added some cool plugins to allow people to share my content and also to allow me to manage my blog more easily.

Listed below are all the plugins I currently have installed and I recommend you try them out to improve your blog looks and functionality.  (I’d like to give a shout out here to a fellow MWA student, Paul Lear, as he put together a great list of plugins, which helped me – Thanks Paul! – if you don’t know how to install plugins, Paul also has a video showing you how here)

Ok, here’s the list and the links to the download sites :-

Akismet

Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use it. You can review the spam it catches under “Comments.”

Click here to go to download page

All in One SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) Pack

Optimises your blog to make it more easily found by the search engines.  All you do is activate the plugin it and it will search the content of your blog and automatically create relevant keywords and phrases that people may search for.  (As you can probably tell, I don’t know much about SEO! – Put simply, if you use this plugin, you should get more traffic!)

Click here to go to download page

CommentLuv

Shows a link to the last post from the commenters blog by parsing the feed at their given URL when they leave a comment. Rewards your readers and encourage more comments and therefore a more active community.

Click here to go to download page

Contact Form 7

Allows your readers to contact you, without you having to reveal your email to every spammer in the world.  It also looks more professional than “Contact Me at JoeBloggs@hotmail.com”

Click here to go to download page

Google Analytics for WordPress

This plugin makes it simple to add Google Analytics to your blog without having to manually edit code.  Once added, login to your Google account to check web traffic stats etc. It also allows you to download tracking to your WordPress blog.

Click here to go to download page

Post Teaser

Post Teaser generates a preview or “teaser” of a post for the main, archive and category pages, with a link underneath to go to the full post page. It includes features to generate a word count, image count, and an estimated reading time.  It allows your visitors to scroll through all your recent posts more quickly to find something that interests them and in my experience means they’ll stay for longer on your site.

Click here to go to download page

SexyBookmarks

SexyBookmarks adds a (X)HTML compliant list of social bookmarking icons to each of your posts allowing them to be shared, thereby increasing your traffic.

Click here to go to download page

Top Commentators Widget

Adds a sidebar widget to show the top commentators in your WP site. Visually it creates a sense of community and interactivity and so encourages users to post comments.

Click here to go to download page

TweetMeme Retweet Button (Yes, thats really what it’s called!)

Adds a button which easily lets you retweet your blog posts.

Click here to go to download page

WordPress Database Backup

On-demand backup of your WordPress database. Ok, not as exciting as some of the others maybe, but I think it’s a gem because backing up manually via c-panel can be a real pain in the neck – And it’s better to be safe than sorry!

Click here to go to download page

WP-Cumulus

My favourite – A Flash based Tag Cloud for WordPress which spins your tags when a visitor hovers over them.  Probably encourages people to stay longer on your blog, but to be honest, I just think it looks cool!

Click here to go to download page

They’re all the plugins I have installed at the moment.  Feel free to comment below if you’ve found any other cool/useful plugins you’d like to share.

Now it’s time to start filling up this blog with more great content

First my house was invaded by spiders – big, hairy, scary ones.

Then at least 10 wasps a day started finding their way in to terrorize me, even though I’ve had all windows and doors closed!

Now, let me just say, I’m not usually scared of any bugs, whether insect or arachnid, however there have been so many of them jumping out at me or buzzing angrily round my head, that I’ve become a little bit jumpy!

Added to that I’ve been spending a lot of time considering where my internet business is headed and what I need to change in order to become more successful.

Because of all this I’ve been feeling a little bit frazzled!

Anyway… I’ve finally banished the wasps and spiders by filling all gaps, vents etc

I’ve also created my next 90 day action plan because one thing I know holds me back sometimes is lack of focus and direction.

Now that my 90 day plan is in place, I can break it down into managable daily tasks in order to stay productive – to check out what I’m going to be up to over the next month, click here.

One of the goals on my 90 day plan was to attend my first Internet Marketing seminar/Workshop so I’ve finally taken the plunge and booked my slot at Lee McIntyre’s, “Profit Maximization” workshop, which is taking place on October 23rd – 24th in Manchester, UK.

As it’s my first event of this kind, I’m a little bit nervous but also very excited about what Lee has to teach me.

He’s well known for rising through the Internet Marketing and going from being flat broke to $100, 000 per month in record time.  More importantly, he is highly respected for his ethical approach to IM and in my experience he over delivers every time – something I aim to emulate in my business.

Needless to say, it’s going to be important to my online development (and will hopefully help to expode my bank balance in the very near future!)

Aside from the learning side of this event, it’s also an opportunity for me to meet my Mentor Alex Jeffreys and some of my fellow AJ Coaching students who are also attending – it’ll be good to share some ideas over a couple of beers rather than over an internet connection!

If you’re interested in joining me, Alex Jeffreys and some of the up and coming stars of Internet Marketing, check out Lee McIntyre’s website to book your slot.

I’m not on commision, I promise… but last time I looked there were only a few slots left, so hurry over there now!

If you aren’t able to attend (or it’s sold out) fear not… just keep watching this space – As always, I’ll be sharing what I learn over the coming weeks and months so that you can benefit too.

Hope to see you there,