Video Newsletter: March 11th, 2008
This week’s newsletter is a video blog post - shot from the top of Giant’s Head Mountain in Summerland, B.C. The video includes a big THANK YOU to everyone for your good wishes and tips for my upcoming surgery as well as information on posts that I’ve lined up over the next week during my ‘outage’. Please forgive the sound difficulties - the wind was blowin’ dead bears atop that mountain! 
Posts I made in the last week include:
- March 10: How to Find Your Feedburner ID
- March 11: Matthew Mullenweg to Speak at Elite Retreat (my apologies to Matt for having pronounced his name incorrectly in the video)
Here is a list of upcoming posts. Please note that links to the posts will only work after midnight Pacific on the appropriate day.
- March 13: Polling Plugin for Wordpress Blogs
- March 14: How to Exclude a Blog Category from Displaying
- March 15: Happy Birthday Flickr!
- March 16: Amazon’s Video Widget for Affiliates
- March 17: PPC Advertising Doesn’t Work
Thanks again to everyone and I’ll be back & bloggin’ again in no time!
Cheers,
Ros
Popularity: 12% [?]
A Busy Blogging Week
Hmm… there’s nothing quite like being scheduled for surgery to remove a mass of unknown origin to propel one into action. In other words, I blogged a LOT this week.
After reviewing notes and listening Affiliate Summit recordings via the web, I blogged about how Jason Calacanis offended affiliates during his keynote speech. I personally thought his point was excellent - when you got past the arrogance.
I reported on Chitika’s new Related Product Unit (RPU) and that Yahoo Search Marketing changed it’s minimum bid policy on Sponsored Search keywords.
At that point, I noticed that Brian Gardner was having an contest for affiliates who promote his Revolution Wordpress themes — which then got me thinking about working on RosalindGardner.com where I ended up installing a new Premium Wordpress Themes (which I blogged about at NPT).
I stopped just long enough to read success stories about sites that sell fitness, tea & gas station equipment and then started blogging again.
I blogged about how much I enjoyed using my Flip Video Ultra Camcorder and embedded some new videos along with my 3-month old godson’s first YouTube video taken at Sun Peaks Resort where we cross country skied last week.
I took a little poke at some U.S. based online merchants who really need to start thinking beyond their borders, and at the discourteous jerk in seat 12F. Of course, I won’t have to worry about rude passengers as my March and April conference plans and appearances have been cancelled.
From now until I go under the knife, I’ll be drafting a series of helpful posts to be regularly delivered during the first part of my recovery.
But I really hope that that there will be an Internet connection in the room so that I can just keep on bloggin’…
Popularity: 8% [?]
NPT Digest: Freaked, Focused and Cheesed
Yes, this week I’m freaked, focused and cheesed.
First, I’m freaked out about the fact that my old diabetic cat, Vic, is going in for surgery on Friday. Nothing brings Ros to her knees like thinking something might happen to one of her pets.
So rather than freak, better that I put my focus elsewhere …
Most readers’ comments on the “Poll: What is Your Biggest Internet Marketing Challenge?” indicate that lack of focus is their biggest stumbling block.
So, while thinking about that this week, I posted 2 articles by Brian Tracy (super motivator mentor whom I’ve been following since I was about 18), Taking Action and Preparing for the Future that could give those of you (me too) some incentive to focus on the task at hand.
At the bottom of both articles is a link to a FREE CD offer. You can choose from more than 24 titles including Unlock Your Potential, Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life, Goals and Simplify Your Life. Good deal.
And what am I cheesed about?
Well, it looks like Derek Gehl has beaten me to the punch. My next book was supposed to be about creating your own infoproduct, but on January 24th Derek is launching an all-in-one information publishing “business in a box“ that walks people step by step through the whole business-building process and gives them ALL the tools they need to create and market their own info product.
If building your own infoproduct in 2008 is one of your goals — then you’ll definitely want to be on their ‘First Movers’ list. IMC’s products are always comprehensive and excellent value for money.
On the blog and in the articles section, this week I also posted:
- Can I Use Auctions to Sell as An Affiliate?
- How to Make Money as an eBay Affiliate
- Akismet: Catching 1500 Spam Comments per Day
- Niche Marketing: The Case Against Mall Sites
You’ll also notice that all the blog categories are now listed at the bottom of each page… all 48 of them!
Last but NOT least, if getting traffic from social marketing is your primary focus in 2008, then sign up for the SMARTS coaching program before they shut their doors in a couple of days.
OK, now I’m going to focus on playing with the cat.
Cheers,
Ros
Popularity: 6% [?]
NPT Digest: My All-Time Favorite Software and more…
I hope all of my U.S.-based friends enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and that everyone had a great weekend. Since the last NPT digest, I posted 7 entries to the NPT blog, a couple of new articles and 1 video.
There’s some affiliate program news, including SO Glad I Checked the Junk Mail…, Amazon Affiliate Program: Holiday Promotions and Ingenio Acquired by AT&T.
If you’ve ever been concerned about giving your email address out to some unknown entity, GeurillaMail is a service that gives you disposable addies that last for 15 minutes.
Wordtracker is continuing its discount promotion through to the end of November Promotion.
If you’ve been waiting for video production software, and don’t already have Camtasia Studio loaded, you should definitely jump on Camtasia’s offer to Download Camtasia Studio 3 for Free. I paid $319 for that software back in March of 2005 and now you can have it for nothing. Sweet!
Too, be sure to take a look at the video about my all-time favorite software. It’s a wonderful little productivity tool that saves me bags of time and costs peanuts.
Last, but not least… you can still “Rename the Office Bear: Win a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate“. There is no limit to the number of suggestions that you can make… just make them one comment at a time, please.
Til next time — Promote and Prosper!
Rosalind Gardner, affiliate marketing, affiliate programs, software, Camtasia
Popularity: 10% [?]
NPT Digest: Unexpected traffic, windstorm, Adtech and more…
As if a visit to New York wasn’t exciting enough, things got even more exciting when we got back home from our trip.
But we now that the power has been restored and more importantly, the Internet connection — I was able to catch up on my blogging.
Phew!
I blogged about a slightly bizarre experience at Pearson International airport while enroute to New York, the AdTech conference, our walks about town, and what we discovered on the homefront after the recent windstorm in Penticton — you may have seen my street on the Weather Channel.
While uploading some pictures for the travel blog to Flickr, I discovered an unexpected way to get traffic from that service.
I also posted about two inspirational stories and a site makeover at Beef, Bedding and Beyond.
Lastly, I invite everyone to Rename the Office Bear (seen in my home office video tour) for a chance to w1n a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate.
Til next time — Promote and Prosper!
Popularity: 6% [?]
NPT Digest: 235 hrs worked / zero earned and more…
Because last week’s video was on an article page that didn’t permit comments, we received a lot of feedback via the Support Desk - and contrary to a couple of suggestions - um, no, I’m not really that neat. The vid is now on the blog… so, what did you think?
On Sunday morning I came across a very interesting blog post written by Caroline Middlebrook. In the post, Caroline shows in great detail her blog traffic stats, new RSS subscribers, a breakdown of how she spent her time online during the month and her final earnings for the month.
After reading through her stats and thinking “Wow! Those are awesome results for a 2-month old blog”, I was absolutely shocked to learn that after working 235 hours and getting 11,000 visitors to her site during October, only 259 folks signed up for her feed and despite all that effort, she hadn’t made a penny.
More shocking still is the fact that Caroline left her job in late September to become a full-time Internet marketer / blogger and made what I consider a scarey admission.
To read the full post and my numerous thoughts about why Caroline is in this predicament and what anyone should do to avoid it, read 235 Hours Worked - Zero Dollars Earned.
I’ve been busy posting to the blog and making site tweaks this week. Here’s a list of posts…
- Profit from the US Dollar Nosedive: Sell to Canadians!
- YouTube Video Honors: Who Woulda Thunk it?
- Dell Affiliate Program: They Love Me, They Love Me NOT - Adam Viener made a notable comment on this one.
- Humanscale Freedom: My New Office Chair - The chair you saw in my video.
- Zappos: Doing Business with Heart
Although I’ll do my best to blog and moderate comments while I’m in New York for AdTech (followed by Toronto for a long weekend), the latter might be slow and the next NPT may be a day or two late. Chances are good that we will be posting our impressions of NY to Roamsters.com however… it’s been 20 years since I been there!
Til next time — Promote and Prosper!
Popularity: 5% [?]
NPT Digest: My Cannes Film Festival Entry
OK, don’t laugh… or try not too… but here’s my Cannes Film Festival entry… NOT.
I put together a little video tour of my home office (7 minutes, 55 seconds) during which I show you exactly how low-tech an internet / affiliate marketer’s office can be.
You’ll see all of the equipment I use - including my computers, printer, keyboard, backup power unit, external hard drive and even my chair (hey! don’t laugh.. your desk chair is one the most important pieces of equipment! :-)) and hear what I really think of some of the stuff I’ve bought…
Anyway, it’s all proof positive that you don’t need a lot of stuff to operate a highly successful home-based businesses on the Internet! Enjoy!
Popularity: 7% [?]
NPT Digest: If you do nothing else today…
While I watched the maple tree outside my office window lose all it’s leaves this week, I added quite a variety of posts to the blog — everything from a new product release (the availablility of which a number of you had queried), my Halloween costume, to 2 programs that should work on just about any site — especially during the holidays and quite a few more.
Here are the ‘nutshell’ descriptions:
- As of Monday at 5pm Pacific time there are 84 SCGM v.5 packages left. These will be of interest only to those with IM sites.
- My ‘cop-out’ costume from Cafe Press…
- Witness my old VAIO getting destroyed…
- The Ipsos program is now on ShareResults. Good one to add to just about any site.
- Another affiliate program (with big EPC’s) that I think affiliates should consider adding to their sites, especially now…
- Ticonderoga is holding the first gaming affiliate convention in Macau in November…
- My VERY long overdue Speed PPC review…
- Lastly, if you do nothing else today, watch this video…
Speaking of videos, I’ll have one for you next week.
Til next time — Promote and Prosper!
Popularity: 4% [?]
NPT Digest: Holiday shopping forecast, webinar & Wordtracker…
The (Canadian Thanksgiving) turkey has barely been digested and the Halloween candy hasn’t yet been shelled out, but it’s beginning to look a LOT like Christmas online.
According to Advertising.com’s second annual Holiday Shopping Study conducted to analyze consumer shopping behavior and expectations for the 2007 holiday season, results indicated that 2007 will be strong for online shopping, with 84 percent of respondents planning to spend as much as or more online than they did during the 2006 holiday season.
That’s GREAT news for affiliate marketers and the good news doesn’t stop there.
To read the rest of the forecast and get access to my article, ‘10 Ways to Get Your Affiliate Site Ready for Christmas’ please see Christmas 2007: Holiday Shopping Forecast.
To help affiliates get their sites ready for Christmas, Jeremy Palmer and I have made our webinar recording from last Black Friday available to anyone who missed the original call. The recording is 1 hour 18 minutes in length and covers everything you need to know about making the most of the holiday shopping season.
The webinar is being offered for a nominal fee of $9.99 through PayPal. Go to the PayPal order page and your download will be available immediately after purchase.
In other news, we had lots of positive response to last week’s Revolution News theme discussion.
And lastly, good news for those who signed up for PPC Classroom, Wordtracker has its first-ever promo going on. Get the coupon codes here.
Til next time — work on those Holiday promos and Prosper!
Popularity: 4% [?]
NPT Digest: New look increases visitor retention rates and more…
The holiday rush is now well underway and I’ve been busy getting my affiliate sites ready to welcome more shoppers… and I’m not just adding products.
A theme change at Roamsters increased average visitor duration from 302 to 356 seconds and had other benefits that you can read about here.
I also discuss a plugin that makes java work within blog posts.
Jake asked a question about reporting arbitragers to Google, and I posted the answer.
I also blogged about a really worthwhile promo (not), Brad’s trip to Vegas, his plan to video log his ppc progress for NPT readers and the fact that he’d never heard of GTalk — all of which are available on the blog homepage.
Last but not least, another update of the SAH was uploaded on October 7th. This update includes information about using social bookmarking and networking to promo your affiliate sites. SAH Club members (those who purchased prior to August 31st) may access the update through the membership site.
Til next time — work on those Holiday promos and Prosper!
Popularity: 2% [?]
