The At Home Couple

Step One: Complete

So here we go. I’ve just set up my new blog for my Interior Design interests. Check it out veronicabutt.com. Don’t try sounding it out for the hidden meaning, my last name is really Butt. I can assure you that I’ve heard every joke growing up. Nothing phases me anymore.

This is the first step on my way to developing my independent career. On my new blog I can post anything from the latest green development in homes to how to live in small spaces, and hopefully be helpful to people looking for information or answers to their questions. So if there’s anything that you need to know, I can help. Elijah may be the authority on blogging and internet marketing, but I have my share of authority on colour co-ordination and space planning.

As well, hopefully this will kick the passion that I have for design back into gear. Working full time has overshadowed the fact that I love what I do. I must admit that I am fortunate to have a job that is directly related to my field. There are many people I know, and more that I don’t know, who haven’t been able to work in their chosen field and are forced to work any job just for a source of income. Having said that, although my job is related to my education, corporate mumbo-jumbo often hinders the ease and excitement in my work, and in turn I don’t take any pride in what I’m doing. I don’t feel that I can be creative at all, and that is the reason I was drawn to design in the first place.

My new blog will quell these feelings. I will be able to express myself and be a resource to people along the way. The best part is that I’m learning more about blogging and managing a site. It’s amazing how much I’ve learned since we started this site. I think I’m catching up to Elijah, but don’t tell him I said that. 🙂

From College To Cubicle – The Orthodox Blueprint

From College To Cubicle - The Orthodox Blueprint Let me start off with a story…

For those of you who don’t know, I’m a mildly respected Music Producer here in Toronto’s local Hip Hop scene, under the stage name MrBlue. I’ve developed artists and produced several albums over the last 8 years – and during this time I’ve been fortunate to share creative exchange with many ambitious, and uber-talented individuals and I want to tell you about one in particular; Lets call him “Steve”.

I’ve been collaborating with Steve for roughly 5 years, and out of all the artists I’ve ever worked with, he has the most potential for greatness without a doubt. Steve has been signed to a label, had his record in stores, and has performed with some major recording artists during his artistic career and yet he’s never seemed to have his musical endeavors flourish.

Steve has been in school for as long as I’ve known him – bouncing from one major to the next. It feels like every September he is starting a new course, or academic path, and what really stirs me up about his whole situation is that all he talks about is music and how he wouldn’t be where he is without it – but where is he really? Rather than pursuing his passion to the full extent, he has remained shackled to this cycle of call center jobs and tuition deadlines, and his governmental debt from education alone surpasses mine and Veronica’s debts combined – including our tuition repayments, credit cards, etc.

On numerous occasions I’ve said to him, “You should be going to school for what you’re passionate about. Why aren’t you taking music or recording arts?” His answer’s usually “I know, but I’ve already gone this far. I can’t just change course now, it wouldn’t be worth it.”

Wouldn’t it?

Unfortunately Steve is a victim to what I refer to as The Orthodox Blueprint. Now before you start bombing me with religious questions and moral script, let me elaborate. Dictionary.com defines the word Orthodox as:

Adhering to beliefs or practices approved by authority or tradition.

The word Blueprint is defined as:

A method for making, doing, or accomplishing something.

String these two words together and we have the 9-5, 40 hours a week until your 65, then retire and die life-plan. It’s been accepted by society that we are not to find enjoyment in our working lives, but rather stability and a maniacal sense of economic and social responsibility. It is our duty to contribute as citizens. It is our responsibility to work in a factory or office and pay taxes, because that’s how the system works – and the system is proven. The only career advancement worth pursuing is within the corporate ladder, because that ladder is sturdy and will provide you with a spending account and company car – and these are true signs of success.

As people, we’re so afraid to take the fork in the road, and face possible consequence, because a sign has been put there to warn us of the dangers in doing so. Just keep going straight and you’ll be fine. Finish school, get a job that will provide you with benefits, a steady paycheck, and you will eventually develop your method for tolerating with this blueprint. Adhere long enough and you’ll be rewarded with a mental notebook full of I wish I could have’s, a pension that will barely sustain your mortgage and minimum credit card payments, one trip to Florida every winter, and a deposit on your coffin.

This is what we should be afraid of.

In today’s world we are provided with more options than ever to lead a life of choice, passion and excitement. There are academic diplomas and degrees for everything from holistic medicine to audio engineering – and even e-business marketing. Technology provides us with the tools to be global entrepreneurs from the comfort of our living rooms and home offices. The Internet presents us with an abundance of resources and self-learning mediums in order to further develop and discover skills based on areas of personal interest. In 2008 you can be whatever you want to be, but ultimately it’s up to one person – You.

So don’t let yourself down.

I want to thank Alan from AffiliateConfession.com for inspiring this post by his use of the term “from college to cubicle.” I’m not sure if he is the originator, but it was the first time I’ve heard the saying used, and It inspired me to share my translation with you.

Cheers,

Elijah

Why Wayne Gretzky Would Make A Great Blogger

The Great One - Wayne Gretzky Over the last few weeks I’ve had the pleasure of connecting with a group of wonderful people via Lynn Terry’s weekly webinars – one of those people in particular is an SEO Expert by the name of Roy Montero – also known as The Twitter Guy. If you haven’t yet bumped into Roy somewhere online, you’re missing out! But be warned, although Roy is one of the most sincere and knowledgeable individuals you will ever encounter he is also strongly against get-rich-quick seekers and snake oil salesmen, as he likes to put it – so If you are planning to connect with him make sure you’re ready to step up to the plate. Roy hosts a weekly mastermind group on Skype, which I am a part of, and two weeks ago he shared a quote that stuck in my mind to this day and ultimately led to the title of this blog post. It went something like this:

Early in Wayne Gretzky’s hockey career he was coined as “The Great One“, and one night during an interview with the press he was asked “What’s the difference between a good hockey player, and a great hockey player?” and Wayne responded effortlessly, “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.”

When Roy shared this quote with us I completely hit the floor. Preparation is the difference between good and great, and spiritually speaking, this Mantra can be applied to every aspect of our lives.

Now let’s insert this Mantra into the blogosphere – I know for a fact that there are thousands of people every day who make the decision to start a blog, and it’s usually for one reason – to make money online. Of those thousands, how many individuals take the time to prepare an in-depth business plan with research and marketing strategies? I think it would be safe to say very few, and taking this into consideration, how many of the “few” actually generate and adequate income from their efforts?

I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.

Now brace yourself – If you blog about how to make money from blogging, expecting to make money from your blog, you wont! One of my Mentors, Alan LeStourgeon from AffiliateConfession.com just laid this out in plain English recently on his blog. I strongly believe this is one of the primary reasons why most of us fail, and before you hit me with “but don’t you guys blog about how to make money?” let me explain. To be successful in any business you must follow some sort of formula, and ours is pretty simple:

A + B = C

or

Preparation + Opportunity = Success

Before Veronica and I decided to start this blog, I spent months upon end preparing myself by learning everything there is to know about Internet marketing, e-commerce, search engine optimization, domain names, web hosting, FTP, HTTP, CSS, WordPress, Blogger, link building, and keyword research. I got my feet wet using a multitude of techniques such as marketing through classified ads, article marketing, as well as using site builder scripts like Build A Niche Store to experiment in more specific areas. I’ve built made-for-adsense blogs, Squidoo lenses, and even attempted to spam forums so I could witness and document the outcome first hand. Are we millionaires yet? Not even close. Have we made money online?

Sure, we’ve made a bit.

The point I’m trying to make is everything we’ve done up to this point has prepared us for the opportunities we’re currently being blessed with – this blog being one of them. If you don’t put yourself out there, scrape your knee’s and get back up, how do you expect to be successful teaching people what to do when they fall down?

If Wayne Gretzky were a blogger, he would blog about hockey because that’s his forte. My forte is my passion for social empowerment, technology and networking. Veronica’s passionate about travel, interior design and the idea of working from home – so that’s what we blog about. Wayne Gretzky was a great hockey player because he spent his entire life practicing, and making the necessary mistakes to insure when he finally made it to the NHL, he would be a well oiled machine. Think like The Great One. Put yourself where the puck is going to be. Get your feet wet and learn from your failures. You will soon realize that regardless of the niche or task at hand, if you’re passionate about what you do – opportunity will arise and success will follow.

Cheers,

Elijah

Traffic Techniques: Article Marketing Part 3

Traffic Techniques: Article Marketing Part 3 I’ve decided to opt out of doing a video for this installment to my Traffic Techniques Series for two reasons – I have a lot of content I would like to cover, and I want to focus on getting a SocialMarker tutorial up in the next few days. I recently acquired Camtasia Studio 5 and need a day to get the functionality grooving. As Flava Flav would say – Yeaaaaaaaa Boiiiii. If you’re just tuning in and haven’t had a chance to go through the last two videos, you can view part one here, and part two here. Let’s get cracking…

Now that we know why article marketing works, and what the key factors are to writing an article that will perform, it’s time to touch on one of the most important elements to this technique – Article Distribution. If you don’t know where to get your article published, or how to turn those clicks into subscribers, then it won’t matter how well you know your market or how much keyword research you do – your results will not be as spectacular as we know they can be.

How many different ways can I publish my articles online?

The first and most common way of publishing articles online would be to submit your articles to high traffic, high ranking article directories. This has proven to be an effective medium time and time again, and a technique that many a bum marketer have exercised for two reasons – it costs nothing, and article directories get crawled often which means your submissions will get indexed very quickly. I strongly believe that there are people who make a living simply writing how-to style articles and submitting them to high traffic directories, with an affiliate offer redirect in the resource/author box.

The key to making this technique work for you is you have to treat every directory as an individual medium and test accordingly. Each directory will perform differently from the next because they attract different visitors – while one article may convert great on Directory A, it doesn’t mean it will perform well on Directory B or C. This same rule applies to your resource/author box – you might get more clicks on Directory A when you have your “about me” blurb before the “call to action” section, whereas in Directory B it’s the complete opposite. Making money online is all about testing, and article marketing is no different.

***Tip – Don’t be afraid to display your personality within the resource box. Being funny and quirky has always worked well for me and I’ve surprised myself quite a few times when I’ve gone completely off the wall and thought “people aren’t going to take me seriously” and then the article ended up getting a pleasing amount of clicks to my offer. Be fearless and unique and you’ll be rewarded.

I’m sure some of you are thinking “what do I put in the resource box?” or “how do I know if my call to action is good enough?” It’s important to include information about yourself within the resource box because you want to be known as a professional or expert within your niche. List any relevant credentials you may have as well as where you’re from and your professional status. To put it simply, your call to action should do nothing more than tell the reader what to do next. Below is an example of a resource box I might use:

“Elijah Vieau is an accomplished Music Producer and Composer from Toronto, Canada. He is the founder of Basement Theory Productions, where he provides development and consulting services to independent recording artists across the globe.

Head on over to www.Virgostratus.com to hear a free sample of his latest groundbreaking album.

Also, quickly visit www.MrBlueReviews.com to download his free report “Music Marketing On Crack” that shows you how to market and sell albums online using the viral power of social networking.”

***Tip – When it comes to your call to action please try and avoid the “if you would like more information on this topic please feel free to visit www.yoursitehere.com” method. This is article suicide. It does not sound confident or convicting. To me this type of call to action sounds like it belongs in a pamphlet giving information on the Ryan Phelps Foundation for Android Swimmers.

But Elijah, which article directories are the best to use?

I hate to say it, but “the best” is completely subjective. All I can tell you is that there are 3-5 top directories which most successful internet marketers use because of their page rank and traffic, but this doesn’t mean that you can’t find success with a smaller more targeted article directory. If you want to scope out this route just type into Goolge Your Niche+Article Directory and you will find results for smaller niche directories that you can add to your submission list. Below I have listed my personal top 7 list of high traffic article directories that I currently use – in no particular order:

I also found a great resource listing the top 50 article directories by traffic/page rank here. It was last updated on August 17th, 2008.

Originally I had planned to cover Article Distribution and Monetization Methods in one post, but it seems there was so much content that I will have to add a part 4 to my Traffic Techniques Series – so in my next post/video I will discuss the various ways you can monetize your traffic from the article directories to maximize your efforts and hopefully build your list and put some money in the good ‘ol Paypal account.

Cheers,

Elijah

Traffic Techniques: Article Marketing Part 2

This is the second video in my Traffic Techniques series. In this video I touch on my 5 key points to a successful article, and those points are as follows:

Your article must address a problem or issue
Do not sell within the content of your article
Effective use of keywords and key phrases
Using a “call to action” within your resource/author box
Proper Grammar. No spelling mistakes allowed.

I plan to delve into article distribution and monetary tactics within the next video, If you guys have any concerns or specific areas you have questions on – please let me know in the comments below. There might possibly by a 4th part to my article marketing series, but ultimately that depends on the feedback and how much I can fit effectively into the next video.

Cheers,

Elijah