Actually there was a product “package” that was available for the personal development market, and I thought it was a doozie.

Well worth the US$997 to purchase, or so I thought!

Now you didn’t actually get private label rights, where you can actually re-write the source docs and brand them as your own.

But it DID give you a reseller licence for a package that was (supposedly) doing really well in the personal development arena.

And that meant I could practically do what I wanted with the marketing of that package to make a killing… Oh yeah. Like I said earlier… Brain Freeze! I believed the hype and bought the dream…

Wot was I thinking???

Well the sad news is this was another “failed” experiment, and an expensive one.

Not only in the money it cost to purchase the product in the first place, but in the TIME it took to actually modify the “complete” sales material provided so you could actually DO something with it.

The product was promoted as complete – sales letter, graphics, auto-responder messages – all that stuff. All you had to do as a reseller was your own little bit of “branding”, get it up on the web, do some promos, and the money would start rolling in…

Yeah well.. as an HTML web designer, I can assure you that even MINOR modifications to the sales page meant the whole lot had to be recoded from scratch.

The auto-responder messages were a direct lift from the original! Again, HEAPS of references to things needed to be edited/removed. And that included affiliate links to products I wouldn’t normally promote myself, and promotional “events” I wasn’t running. So these were pretty useless.

Even the promotional pdf’s that came with the product – the things you were supposed to give away to build your list – were not particularly useful and needed modification.

So… to cut a long story short… it took a couple of months of some fairly intensive full-time effort to get this turnkey “system” up and running properly.

God help those buyers who didn’t have the skills/knowledge I needed to do this!

And the Sales?

Well – that’s another story!

Despite support from a blog (one of my first) and lots of good inbound links, which resulted in some great search engine placement (and STILL gives us positions #5-7 in a Google search for the product name) then end result was nothing short of totally pathetic.

I’d be lucky if there have been any more than a handful of sales made in the past three years!

Maybe enough to cover the hosting and domain name rego… but absolutely no reward for the initial time and financial outlay that was needed.

This was my first real experience with a turnkey “high-end” resell rights package… and I’ll probably NEVER go near anything like this again!

And what is even more disappointing is that I KNOW there were LOTS of other people who also purchased this great “opportunity”… only to find the exact same thing happen to them.

What I Learned From This?

Oh well… Another one of life’s little lessons for all participants eh?

At least it DID teach me what you SHOULD include in such a package if you are developing and marketing one yourself.

It also introduced me to the Ultimate Marketing Center, particularly in using their hosting, auto-responder, affiliate management and link tracking services… all provided for under $20 a month!

And that referral to Kavi’s web hosting and marketing services has also provided me with a small, ongoing monthly affiliate income since 2008, which is an added bonus!

But the biggest lesson I suppose is that I also began to use the list management and auto-responder software provided for my own email marketing – i.e. signing people up to my lists so I can send them stuff later!

And while all of that also takes time to build on… eventually you hope that it will generate results for you down the track – but THAT depends a lot on what niche you are trying to market to!

So I suppose my little “failure” wasn’t all a waste of effort,

Remember Edison made thousands of attempts before he developed a commercially viable version of the light bulb!

After struggling to develop a viable electric light-bulb for months and months, Thomas Edison was interviewed by a young reporter who boldly asked Mr. Edison if he felt like a failure and if he thought he should just give up by now. Perplexed, Edison replied,
“Young man, why would I feel like a failure? And why would I ever give up? I now know definitively over 9,000 ways that an electric light bulb will not work. Success is almost in my grasp.”

And that’s how you should view the things that don’t work out for you.

Just necessary steps down that path to finding out what DOES work.

Oh… how philosophical

So there always has been a need for a useful “Plan B” to supplement my income long-term, instead of putting all my eggs in the Google basket!

Over the years, I’ve tried several things to do just that…

Including:

Affiliate Marketing

I’ve tried several affiliate marketing“networks” with varying degrees of success. The most successful one has been with the promotion of the digital products available through ClickBank. Considering my sites were beginning to attract a LOT of traffic, it was easy to sprinkle quite a few ClickBank links in the form of articles/reviews or product listings, to generate a fairly “regular” income of $250-$500 a month. Not much to really write home about, but a good start.

The biggest problem I’ve found with affiliate marketing however has been with those networks where the advertisers change often… No sooner do you get a campaign up and running, and you’ll find it’s closed down because the advertiser can’t pay… or their budget is all gone…

It makes it hard to build a long-term business from this sort of thing when you have to work on “fixing” things every few days.

Which means that careful selection, recording and monitoring of EVERY affiliate link you have is essential if you enter this field.

And don’t promote every single product you can… be selective, test and continue with only those ones that actually work for you!

OffLine Business

In early 2004 I decided to set up an offline business (an Internet Service Provider – ISP – actually) which involved going back into the real world, renting premises, phone lines, paid advertising… Yep! The whole shebang!

Yeah I know… What WAS I thinking???

Needless to say, things were just starting to go fairly well after 18 months or so, with around 400+ monthly customers – the point where it starts to get profitable.

But the wholesale company I used decided to go belly-up and out of business in an instant in September 2006.

Oh… I so-o-o love life’s little lessons

And that’s why I had to go…

Back To Google

Since I knew my sites can earn money from Adsense, it made sense that if I had more pages… I’d earn more from Google. And it isn’t really a plan “B” as such… because I was actually doing things that increased my dependency on that source of income.

But at least it was income, and that was what I needed right then and there at the time!

So back to Google, and expanding my virtual real estate to (hopefully) increase my earnings by creating a few thousand more pages carrying Adsense ads…

That meant expanding on the content offering in my existing sites, in particular now carrying thousands of “vacancy notices” at Careers OnLine (grabbed from a major job network using RSS feeds) was a big hit there then, and still is a good earner to this day.

I also tried different combinations of the Adsense ad formats to see which converted better (using the “channels” feature to help with stats) – and found out that this varies a lot depending on the site they are placed on.

It also meant setting up even more “directory” type sites, seeing that was a model I was very familiar with. And because we planned on doing this on a large scale – mixing web site listings, product descriptions and articles – I even wrote some custom software to handle everything for us!

In early 2006, a “themed” network of eight sites was established. But 2.5 years on, despite them pulling in an average of 18.5k unique visits a month, they were earning practically zippo from Adsense. In that time, these sites made under $1,000 in Adsense income… not good! And the affiliate income from the “products” advertised, and through afflinks in articles… well that ws not as good as expected.

For some reason, this directory type of site went “out of favour” with Google at the time, and that was reflected in the number of ads that were NOT shown on the network. Strange… considering my other sites were doing O.K.

In October 2008, I had one last ditch attempt to “fix” this… and re-used all the web listing data that had been submitted, to make ONE bigger site (instead of the 8 “themed” ones). And I ditched the product listings and articles from those sites cos they were not performing well at all.

And surprise, surprise… Latest Sites is doing a much better job at earning income, attracting traffic, and getting submissions – (you can also add your URL for free over there).

Use What You’ve Already Got

An important part of any “expansion” is to re-use existing content wherever possible whether it is “borrowed” from other sources – i.e. the RSS Vacancy feeds from a major job network – or if it is my OWN content – e.g. re-using the existing web site listings I already have in different ways.

So, using the Latest Sites submissions which indicated they wanted reciprocal links, saw the establishment of a site I had planned for a some time (pre 2006).

Linking Works is a directory of people who say they ARE very interested in exchanging links with other interested webmasters. And building in-bound links to your website is still a very important part in determining how well your site is placed in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

I’m also re-using the Australian web site listings from Come On Aussie at another site called Advance Australia Fair. The development of this site allowed me to experiment with CSS to design a more functional site (and to give credit where it is due… the design is based loosely on the search results pages at cuil.com).

OK… while these are still “directory” type sites, I hope the “flavour” is slightly different enough to encourage Google to think they are not the standard “run-of-the-mill” directories that they don’t really like (i.e. the link farm model).

Somewhere during this “phase”, I also discovered a great website thumbnail service. The inclusion of thumbnails adds a good visual element to these sites and makes them more attractive to visitors.

I also had a go at establishing another site which attempted to show how useful RSS feeds are. The plan here was to create a directory of RSS feeds which, again, people could add their feed to. But the parser I had written was not robust enough for that purpose.

Internet Marketing

Since early 2007 I’ve also been looking at the “Internet Marketing” niche to see what I can make of that.

Now, this niche is NOT what you would assume it to be… It is NOT about “marketing online” as the name might suggest.

It is seen to be more about “how to make money online”… and it has been a very strange area for me to get my head around…

Probably because there are an awful lot of scams in the area… lots and lots of useless products on how to chase the “lifestyle” dream of getting rich quick overnight using the Internet! Sheesh!

Now while there’s lots of money to be made selling that “dream”, I like to sleep at night and have not been able to come to terms with promoting any products that I am not really comfortable with!

So I’ve spent a lot of time “researching” the area, and have developed several sites – including Net Marketing Toolbox (NMTB) to see what works and what doesn’t.

And while those sites now seem to get “reasonable” traffic – eg NMTB currently pulls in 2-3k uniques a month, depending on posting frequency – Adsense still doesn’t earn a cracker in this niche! Seems these people don’t like clicking on the ads.

And as far as making a fortune by “reviewing” useful Internet Marketing products as they come out… well, a super affiliate I am not!

I have “discovered” a sub-niche that people are very interested in – how to develop WordPress membership sites – but it is still very much an area where they would rather try the “free” options instead of buying a decent solution… oh well!

Re-Visit And Re-Vamp!

So while I sat back and thought what I could “do” with that niche that could actually “help” and offer something of value to a very hungry market, I’ve taken the time to re-visit many of my existing sites and do some much overdue maintenance on them – including a total revamp of a couple of these to bring them into the 21st Century (told you it was much needed!).

And that process included an ongoing redesign of some of these sites which began in October 2008 to be based on using my now preferred CMS (Content Management System) which is WordPress – the same software I use here and on most new sites I work on now – even for my clients.

Apart from making things look fresher, and the content easier to manage, these changes DO also attract additional traffic (Google likes WordPress based sites, and the RSS feeds they generate), and that traffic has resulted in additional Adsense impressions and earnings (in those niches where people click on ads).

People supposedly like this type of site because of the more “social” aspect of the design – i.e. the ability to comment on each page, and to engage in conversations with other users… but that’s something that takes time and effort to develop!

For a lot of sites I have, it is hard to get people to leave any/useful comments. I certainly have plenty of comment spam to deal with… and thankfully most of that process is automated! But real, useful comments are few and far between, and you may in fact be better off ny turning that facility completely OFF. Testing will determine what works best for your site.

However my point is that using WordPress as your CMS is a great way to go!

You use the software to build and manage your websites EASILY!

With the range of “plug-ins” available, you can do almost anything you like using the WordPress software, which by the way, usually comes FREE with cPanel web hosting where the Fantastico option is offered.

Something to look out for there

The early days of web design were a lot like the days when desktop publishing was introduced, where absolutely “anyone” can do it!

Heck there were (and still are) software packages available through my son’s primary school for 8 year olds to do their own web pages… that’s how “easy” it is supposedly… Not!

Anyone that “knows” understands that building a web “site” is but only one variable in the much bigger, complicated equation of getting a business online.

But you can’t really tell the public that, and my competition was hotting up, with the “kid-next-door” and “Joe Blow” all able to supposedly do the same thing I could… and they could do it for peanuts too!

But you know what you get when you pay peanuts don’t you?

So one of the reasons I started setting up my “network” of sites/directories in the first place was to earn money from people who were interested in paid advertising.

Well good luck with that! LOL!

The Internet was, and still is, essentially all about “free”! Even though there are more people around now who might be interested in paying for advertising… they are still basically as scarce as hen’s teeth if you are a small publisher.

If people think they can get something for nothing, they’ll be reluctant to pay money for something they see as “similar” – even though you and I both know it probably isn’t!

So things were a bit slow income-wise on that score, but I was building lots of pages and traffic on the handful of sites I had. Something must happen soon…

And it did!

Google’s Adsense program

This was launched in mid 2003, and I jumped on that bandwagon in the July. At first, I put ads on just a few pages of my Careers OnLine site to “see what might happen”.

It didn’t take me long to put those little ads on EVERY possible page on that site! Actually within a couple of days, that’s how significant this program was!

And then – I worked to change ALL my other sites to include this new form of advertising, designed it seems, especially for small, struggling web publishers just like me!

I finally had some reasonable money coming in – for once! Within two months I had a regular US$1000+ coming in! And within 6 months, that was up around $3k+ every month and continue like that for quite some time!

Adsense was my saviour! Especially when the Aussie dollar was running around US$0.75c – the conversion was excellent! (not so now… almost have parity, so no extra “bonus” from exchange rates.)

But the Adsense income fluctuates far too much for my liking!

One month I pulled in US$3800 (my best ever) and then shortly after, I was lucky to get $2100.

For most of the first few years, it simply “hovered” around the $2.5 – $3k mark… despite my continued efforts to build new sites to my network, and have mechanisms in place to add new content to my existing sites (and NOT by scraping other people’s work).

For many years, Adsense has allowed me to be a stay-at-home single dad, and not worry too much about going back to a “real” J.O.B.

But ever since the 2008 G.F.C. (that’s Global Financial Crisis) began, I could see a SIGNIFICANT drop in earnings through this program.

For most of 2010, I’ve been lucky to score $1800 a month from it… despite the hundreds of thousands of page impressions that still get served up every month.

So for the last few years, there’s been a very real need for a “Plan B” to supplement my income long-term, instead of leaving all my eggs in the Google basket!

I do know that during this time I met a couple of people who were to have a significant impact on my future in the industry… one of whom I’ve done a lot of work with over the years.

But around that time I saw that, by trying to do more for Australian web based businesses, and by getting my name “out there”, I could grab some more web design work.

And one of the ways to do that was to take my “SydWest” local business concept and enlarge on it a little more…

You know…

“Today, Sydney. Tomorrow – The World!”

(can you hear the evil maniacal laughter there?)

Well, maybe not quite the whole world… Australia should be an easier target

So it was time to set up my first “Aussie” business directory where people could promote their Australian web site for free. To be brutally honest, at that time the concept never really took off. There was no real “hook” to inspire the masses. I mean it wasn’t a “Google” or a “Yahoooooo” (and my “aha” moment was yet to come – more about that in a minute).

Around that time I also began work on “Give An Aussie A Go” – a very unique way at showcasing Aussie businesses, products, towns and regions to the world. It was interesting… We got a lot of good Press, got invited to several places around the country, and even got onto the television a couple of times!

Again – unfortunately – it was far too innovative for the time! And it is definitely not easy being a trailblazer on the frontiers of technology, especially when you’re just a sole trader without huge corporate backing!

But the seeds were sown, and the “Aussie” ideas were beginning to flow!

My “Aha” Moment!

One of the things that leads to the success of many companies on the Internet is their choice of name/brand. Think “Yahoo” and the success it obtained as a search engine in the late 1990s. Nowadays “Google” is the brand universally recognisable as meaning “search” and the word has even made its way into everyday language for when you will “google something” to find out the meaning.

My “aha” moment was when in late 2001 I realised no-one had registered the domain name “Come On Aussie”.

Now remember, the “Aussie” theme is what I was working on building, and nothing says “Australian” more than that expression – mainly because of the catchy jingle “Come On Aussie Come On” was the anthem of World Series Cricket back in the late 1970’s… and which still gets a fair bit of play in various reincarnations every summer even today! (see video at bottom)

And wasn’t I a happy chappy when I realised no-one had THAT domain name!

Why not? What could be the problem? Was it trademarked? Could you be sued? Oh bugger it – just do it! Go and get it registered and deal with the consequences (if any) later!

And so “Come On Aussie” was born.

First cab off the rank was a revamp of my original Australian website directory, under that new name.

A name which meant something – well… at least to Australians and cricket lovers around the world.

A name which, one day, just maybe might have the same “impact” on the general public as Yahoo or Google.

Well, fast forward to 2010 – and while it might not be that “big” on the scene,

• it does have industry recognition with many big web design and SEO firms regularly add their clients sites to the directory
  
• it’s nearing the 20,000th user-submitted listing milestone, which is a remarkable achievement for a site with no big corporate backing
  
• it’s got an Alexa ranking floating around 100k (which is pretty cool)
  
• it’s Google Page Rank fluctuates from 5 to 6 (also good to have), and
  
• it is able to support an advertising income in it’s own right (which is way cool!)

  I have pondered for some time about doing a nice “crisp” new site design to this site… to make it “look” a little more professional – to be honest, it sometimes still LOOKS like it is out of the turn of the century…

  But I have resisted all attempts to do just that, after testing on a few sections to see what happened… with results that were NOT good for the earnings from those new pages. Was even thinking of a more “standard” colour change – back to good old white pages, normal blue and purple links etc… and decided against that – even though it does look a lot nicer and is great for usability.

  Why? Well, green and gold are THE Aussie colours… so why go for something else, even if the web usability experts say it’s better? It’s not really broke… so I shouldn’t be trying to “fix” too much at the moment. You never know what you might stuff up!

  But Meanwhile… Back in 2002…

  Income from the Internet was still VERY scarce. Something had better start to happen real soon, or this little black duck might need to get a real job!

  And after many years away from the teaching game, enjoying the self-employed “lifestyle” – especially on this gorgeous part of the NSW Mid-North Coast at Laurieton – that wasn’t necessarily a good thought.

  Thankfully, in mid 2003, Google started “giving” money away (literally) when they introduced their Adsense program… More on that in the next article.

  ]]> http://stephenspry.com/aussie-aussie-aussie-oi-oi-oi/feed/ 0 http://stephenspry.com/small-business-support-needed/ http://stephenspry.com/small-business-support-needed/#comments Thu, 07 Oct 2010 14:12:47 +0000 Stephen Spry http://stephenspry.com/?p=129 It’s very interesting that, with any new form of technology, you get all sorts of people trying to flog it… and they make all sorts of very weird claims in the process!

  And in 1996/1997 there were ALL sorts of snake oil peddlers making very inaccurate and outlandish claims about the “power” of the Internet!

  Unfortunately, the same STILL applies now… only probably even more so!

  People flogging technology come out with all sorts of crap about what a business “needs” to make it on the web.

  So it seemed back in 1997 that I was still going to be teaching (even though I’d officially left the profession). Only this time, teaching people about the Internet, about what web sites are, and what was REALLY needed so they could avoid all the shiesters!

  It was time to add another web site to my stable.

  The Small Business Support Network was launched in mid 1997 to help people learn the correct way of doing business online.

  It ALSO provided free advertising for small businesses with web sites in its business directory.

  And in 2010… 13 years later… it is still doing its job… and still providing opportunities for registered businesses to network with other businesses.

  Now I’ve had ongoing concerns for for the life of tthe site with indexing of these direcotry listings, and traffic fluctuations from Google, that I just can’t seem to get my head around. Sometimes that means the site helps 40,000 people a month… other times I’m lucky to get 5,000.

  I thought it had something to do with dynamic URLs intitially when most of the listings were generated by a cgi script. So changes were made to the URL structure, with all listings now having static HTML pages/URLs…

  Fast forward…

  In July 2008 I began a long overdue over-haul of the site with a completely new design, using WordPress as the core content management system.

  As a result of this change, the site is certainly a lot “nicer” to look at, people are making comments, listings are easier to edit, and I now have RSS feeds that can be used to syndicate the content!

  I’ve even got a few contributing authors adding content to the site… although I think many small business people do not yet see the value in providing such information… even if it DOES give them free links to their websites. Maybe they have more “useful” things to do with their time.

  It seems the redesign has had a positive impact in many ways, with daily visits and advertising earnings are up significantly on what they were.

  What Remains To Be Done Now?

  I would love to increase the number of articles on the site, especially if they are written by people other than me! Having a wide range of contributing authors does wonders to your “authority” on a wide range of topics, so that should be a priority.

  While the number of free business “listings” is steadily growing – at a fairly slow rate – it has been the major area which has fluctuated as far as incoming traffic is concerned. Unlike other “directory” sites I have, this one is not behaving as well as the others.

  I’m not sure what changes I might need to make to “fix” the problem, but whatever happens, the directory has to remain. I believe it is one of the things which “attracts” businesses to the site, to “discover” the other “services” provided by the site – i.e. articles and advertising.

  And I shall continue to offer advice on various “online” issues as I see fit

  So… if you’ve got a small business and want a free listing go and register now!

  And once you’ve done that, contemplate submitting an article or two… I KNOW they’ll get read, and the links you include to your site are “do-follow” and will count. As long as you can write an inteligible, “generic” article on business topics of interest to you… I’ll publish it! Just don’t go tootin’ ya horn too much, or it won’t happen.

  Cheers
  Stephen

  ]]> http://stephenspry.com/small-business-support-needed/feed/ 0 http://stephenspry.com/1996-the-world-wide-what/ http://stephenspry.com/1996-the-world-wide-what/#comments Thu, 07 Oct 2010 06:43:23 +0000 Stephen Spry http://stephenspry.com/?p=117 Remember… It WAS 1996, and the Internet was new fangled technology!

  Back then my first 14.4k modem cost $400… fax machines were the size of photocopiers… and mobile phones were as big as bricks and cost a fortune (well the good ones still do)!

  At the time, I lived in the western suburbs of Sydney Australia, and with my first online venture not earning too much of anything… and after a fair bit of head scratching about how I can earn some money… I started “chatting” to local businesses about getting online.

  And there were not too many web designers around at that time.

  This whole Internet thing was so new that I spent an extraordinary amount of time simply “teaching” people about what the Internet was about, and how it could help them in business.

  I made presentations to local chambers of Commerce, to trade Association conferences, to all sorts of people, telling them about this new fan-dangled technology known as the world wide web!

  While people were fairly interested in it… they really did NOT want to part with any cash on something that wasn’t “proven”… You know… this Internet thing was probably only a fly-by-night fad anyway!

  I also discovered very early on the pressures facing small businesses when deciding what to spend their advertising budget on… and a web site wasn’t anywhere on the list… and not even on the horizon at that time!

  I needed to demonstrate how the Internet could be useful to LOCAL businesses… Let’s face it… what point was it to a local business getting enquiries from the other side of the world???

  Say “Hi” To SydWest

  So “SydWest” was born – and between June 1996 and 2001 provided local people with information about what was going on in their very own backyard!

  SydWest was one of the very first local web sites on the ‘net – ever!

  I even actually beat CitySearch to the Local Search Market!!!

  And it gave me a great opportunity to cold call any local business, and speak to the owner very easily… I just asked
  “I’m compiling a free directory of local businesses… so what’s your URL?”

  Since most receptionists had absolutely NO idea what I was talking about, I often got through to the owner to talk to them about it… and explain what the net was… etc etc etc.

  Thankfully, I got some good work out of it at the time.

  Fast forward to now…

  Even though the site is no more, I’m still in touch with, and doing work for, some of the clients I picked up from way back then.

  SydWest actually got me “started” in the web-design business (which naturally I still do today, although I mainly work on my own projects these days).

  It also provided enough income to get me through to when Google started giving money away in mid 2003 with their Adsense program…

  And thank goodness for that too, because the web design market was becoming a bit of a wild, wild west minefield around the turn of the century (gosh now THAT makes me sound so-o-o old) at a time when the dot.com boom was in full swing!

  It ALSO helped me develop and hone my Perl/cgi programming skills so I could do all sorts of fancy “back-end” things with all the data I was collecting. A skill I still use on many of my websites today!

  ]]> http://stephenspry.com/1996-the-world-wide-what/feed/ 0 http://stephenspry.com/australias-careers-online/ http://stephenspry.com/australias-careers-online/#comments Thu, 07 Oct 2010 05:45:21 +0000 Stephen Spry http://stephenspry.com/?p=101 It’s like taking a trip in a time machine writing this… ‘cos I’m going back to the fairly “early” days of the Internet in 1995 (well, the Internet as we know it)… when Australia’s FIRST careers web site was launched!

  Yep – that was mine! In the heyday of 14.4k modems and dialup!

  Fair Dinkum Maaate

  Careers OnLine was “launched” in July 1995 and was developed because of my interest and work in the Career Education field dating back to 1979…

  It proved “promising” enough in the next few months to enable me to resign from my teaching job in November 1995, and become a full time Internet entrepreneur (able to live off my long service leave etc for quite some time before I really “needed” to earn some money)

  The site originally contained just the teaching “masters” I had developed for sale to schools back in the early 1990s… obviously updated for use on the web by people of all ages… and contains a LOT of info about Choosing a Career, Job Information, Finding Jobs, Applying For Jobs, and Job Interviews.

  I even tried to include Positions Wanted and Positions Vacant notices on the site way back in 1997 I think… but it was a tad too early for that market then… however Australian Positions Vacant notices were reintroduced a few years ago when I implemented some RSS feeds and borrowed them from a major Aussie job site. This section has now been enhanced even more by using the xml feeds from Indeed.com.

  It’s amazing how the “technology” changes

  The other significant change on the site was during 2007 with the introduction of a Career Links section – where currently there’s a directory of some 600+ employment links – and also a motley collection of career articles (where I should add more on a regular basis)

  Originally it was intended to sell advertising space – ala “Careers Fair” – on the site… but that was way too innovative at the time and flopped considerably. It meant that I had to do “other” stuff to earn an income, which is talked about in other articles here.

  Interestingly… the site hummed along earning next 2 nothing (except a lot of link love) until 2003 when Google announced their Adsense program. And within two months I had established a good (over $1000) monthly source of income from Adsense. It quickly grew to great heights, at times averaging between $2500 to $3500 every month for several years. The Adsense income just from that site is still reasonable today, but nowhere near as exciting as it used to be as it does require a LOT more effort to achieve decent results from Adsense these days.

  To chase those Adsense earnings, I have continued to add content of all sorts – links, articles, vacancies etc – in an effort to build the number of pages available for people to view… which has resulted in continued growth in the number of people visiting the site on a regular basis!

  Nowadays – some fifteen years on – Careers OnLine also earns an income from the sale of related affiliate products (mainly through ClickBank) and advertising (text links) by people who want to take advantage of the excellent Google Page Rank of the site.

  What needs to be done here?

  Well… in keeping with the principle of “not fixing something unless it is broken”… I am reluctant to do much to the site except perhaps for a general “tidy up” and maybe a redesign of the theme.

  What I have found in the past is that if you add whole a new section, you actually “dilute” the visits to the older sections of the site, which takes a long time to recover. And, if you are not careful and give people too many choices to make, they tend to close the window completely as it becomes too hard to make a decision on what to look at!

  So maybe I might look at offering some more “direction” to control where people go on the site a bit better.

  It would also be useful, as mentioned earlier, to add more career articles to the site – these consistently bring in good traffic from the search engines. So maybe I might play with WordPress there and convert the existing section over to that format to make things easier.

  And yes… I am doing a lot of deep-linking to each of the sub sections of the site from these articles, to hopefully provide just a little more SEO love to my search results.

  So… go have a closer look at Australia’s Careers OnLine now and let me know what you think in the comments below.

  Cheers
  Stephen Spry

  ]]> http://stephenspry.com/australias-careers-online/feed/ 0 http://stephenspry.com/five-steps-to-getting-started-online/ http://stephenspry.com/five-steps-to-getting-started-online/#comments Tue, 05 May 2009 03:16:40 +0000 Stephen Spry http://stephenspry.com/?p=55 I’ve just written a new post as a result of recent dealings with a couple of my “students” whom I picked up after they dived into their new Internet businesses with lots of enthusiasm, but with no real clue of what they should be doing : )

  Which is pretty much the case for lots of newbies to the online marketing world I suppose…

  And as a result, Five Steps To Getting Started OnLine is probably one of THE most important pieces I’ve ever written!

  Strong words Stephen… but I wonder how so many thousands of people can launch an online business without ever looking at these steps???

  No wonder the failure rate for new online businesses is so high!

  Please don’t make the same mistakes!

  Look to these Five Steps To Getting Started OnLine before you take on ANY new Internet based venture!

  ]]> http://stephenspry.com/five-steps-to-getting-started-online/feed/ 0 http://stephenspry.com/protecting-your-computer/ http://stephenspry.com/protecting-your-computer/#comments Sat, 25 Apr 2009 13:59:18 +0000 Stephen Spry http://stephenspry.com/?p=32 While this list could well have been added to my earlier post on What Software Do You NEED?, I felt that it needed a special place to emphasize it’s importance! So here’s my essential collection of additional software you also need to help protect your computer.

  While I mainly use a Mac myself, I also use a PC from time to time, so I need to make sure it is safe from all sorts of nasties. I’ve installed the following software to do just that…

  First up… you need a good anti-virus program, and one of the better ones is AVG, particularly because it does NOT take over your computer like one of the better well known ones will!

  You can get a free version of AVG for home and non-commercial use. So when you start making some money, you’ll need to upgrade to the better paid version!

  Secondly, SpyBot is absolutely terrific at preventing and removing a LOT of spyware and malware from your computer (things that can slow your computer down to a snail’s pace). The most recent version of SpyBot scans for over 500,000 different problems!

  And if you’ve got kids, you’ll need SpyBot to fix your ‘puter after they’ve been on it, for sure! A word of advice though… DURING installation, make sure you do NOT install the Tea-Timer application… It will drive you crazy with its warning messages.

  A great alternate web browser to Internet Explorer is Firefox. This is generally a much “safer” web browser to use as it is still not yet the target of the many hackers who want to bring Microsoft down… Check out the Thunderbird email client while you are there… the Mozilla alternative to Outlook Express.

  There are also a variety of useful plugins available which can extend the usefulness of FireFox as a research tool, including SEO4FireFox)

  If there any other software you’ve found that is useful to help protect your PC? Have you had any interesting experiences that you’d like to share with others here? Please add your comments below!

  ]]> http://stephenspry.com/protecting-your-computer/feed/ 0 http://stephenspry.com/web-hosting-before-you-jump-in/ http://stephenspry.com/web-hosting-before-you-jump-in/#comments Sun, 19 Apr 2009 23:05:46 +0000 Stephen Spry http://stephenspry.com/?p=26 One of the first things people do online is get their web hosting organized… often without really doing too much thinking about what their needs are actually going to be.

  And that means they:

  • might end up with the wrong sort of web hosting company and/or
  • waste their money with the wrong plan, and/or
  • have the hassle of moving to a new company

  … all for not doing just a little bit of thinking right at the start!

  Remember, most people who set up online WILL end up with more than one web site!

  Chances are you will have many sites – perhaps to cater for different niches, or used to support one another (a mini network).

  So the first mistake you can easily avoid is buying hosting which ONLY allows for ONE web site per plan. And then later on buying a new (single) plan for each new site you want to host!

  There are many web hosting plans available which allow either:

  1. add-on domains – which means you can run several domains/web sites on the same server using your login details for your main site

     OR

  2. reseller plans (preferred) – which allow you to set up multiple different web sites with their own separate login details/accounts

  The actual cost difference is really fairly minimal, so please investigate hosting plans which allow at least either of the above options.

  That said…

  I am hoping you do a LOT of research into your chosen niche BEFORE jumping in and purchasing any domain names and/or web hosting!

  ]]> http://stephenspry.com/web-hosting-before-you-jump-in/feed/ 0 http://stephenspry.com/what-software-do-you-need/ http://stephenspry.com/what-software-do-you-need/#comments Sun, 19 Apr 2009 00:48:09 +0000 Stephen Spry http://stephenspry.com/?p=18 To get your online business up and running, there’s some software you need to get your hands on… most of which is free to download!

  Open Office is a big download at around 140+MB, and is the “free” equivalent to Microsoft’s more expensive “Office” suite of applications. It includes word processing (with built in PDF maker), presentation and spreadsheet software, available in multiple languages and formats to suit Windows, Mac and Linux.

  Adobe Reader is a multi-platform program which allows you to read PDF files (Portable Document Format). This is one of the most common ways in which ebooks are produced and distributed.

  Filezilla is a good free multi-platform FTP software used to move files from your computer to your web site/s (FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol).

  If you plan to do any work with audio and MP3 files, Audacity is one of the better programs to do it with! It is free, open source, multi-platform software for recording and editing sounds. Look in the “Optional Downloads” section to grab LAME MP3 encoder to export MP3 files.

  Many of the files you can download are “zipped” (or compressed) to save space and reduce the size of each download. So, you’ll also need a program to unzip compressed files. There are many contenders… most of which come with a trial period so you can download and test… and then need to be purchased to continue using. Popular programs include Winzip (Windows only) and Winrar (multi-platform) although a Google search will reveal lots of others to pick from, including my pick… Stuffit (free “Expander” software, plus paid “Deluxe” version) for both Windows and Mac.

  While it’s not actually “software” you can download to your computer… a Google Account is practically an essential tool for the online marketer! Your Google Account will give you access to gmail, webmaster tools, analytics, feedburner, and a whole suite of online tools which you WILL use in your business.

  Another essential is a verified PayPal business account. It will make it easier for you to pay for many things you purchase online, and also allows you to RECEIVE money easily from people who purchase your products and services.

  That’s about it for my pick of the software you need to get started.

  Sure, there’s lots of other stuff you will end up buying, downloading and using for different purposes… for example, software to help set up membership sites, link management and cloaking software, screen capture software, etc… but your selection there is dependent on the direction your online business takes.

  So don’t worry about getting any of that just yet.

  If you haven’t yet got the basics (above) organised first, then do it now!

  Oh… and finally, not like it’s a P.S. or anything like that…

  BUT…

  You also MUST have some sort of BACKUP mechanism and regular backup procedure in place – preferably using one of those robust external hard drive units (I use a Maxtor drive for this purpose) to ensure that all your important files are safely and regularly backed up!

  There’s nothing worse than a hard disk failure to bring your business to its knees!

  What have you found that has been useful in your day to day work online? If you’ve got any suggestions on some more essential software… please let me know in the comments below…

  Cheers
  Stephen

  ]]> http://stephenspry.com/what-software-do-you-need/feed/ 1 http://stephenspry.com/so-you-really-want-to-work-online/ http://stephenspry.com/so-you-really-want-to-work-online/#comments Fri, 17 Apr 2009 01:53:42 +0000 Stephen Spry http://stephenspry.com/?p=8 There’s no doubt about it… lots of people find the idea of kicking the boss and working for themselves very attractive… and doing it online is seen to be a way of easily realising that ambition.

  But before you hand in your pink slip and quit your day job, let’s have a quick look at what characteristics I reckon you need to give yourself the best chance of actually making it work for you.

  Probably THE most important thing you need to have is…

  An Ability to WRITE Fairly Well.

  There are literally so-o-o many things that need to be written when you are in business online. If you have difficulty expressing yourself well in words, then unless you can pay (and trust) someone else to write for you, it’s going to be difficult!

  It’s not impossible however, as writing is a skill that can be learned with lots of practice! So avail yourself of opportunities to improve your writing wherever you can – commenting on blogs, forums etc.

  You also need to be able to FOCUS on the task at hand.

  There are simply so many things that will distract you, so you need to clearly define what your major objectives are at that particular point in time, and stick to them. Don’t let the distractions and time-wasters ruin your progress. Ask yourself often

  What’s the best use of my time right now?

  So good planning and time management skills will be useful to overcome information overload, but only if you know what you are doing. Setting up a business online is actually quite an involved process… there’s a lot more to it than just whacking up a web site and hoping the orders come flooding in.

  Expect a steep learning curve to cope with, especially in the early stages. Stick to just the basics for starters, and worry about all the gimmicks and bells and whistles (all major distractions to be honest) once you’ve got a handle on things!

  Remember too that although you might have plans to set up just one web site, the reality is you will most likely set up MORE than just one web site!

  Reality also dictates that the vast majority of those sites will just not work (for all sorts of reasons). How many times did Edison fail at producing the light bulb before he got it right?

  The same principle applies with going into business online.

  You will try lots of things, and set up lots of sites, and each thing you try will have varying degrees of success – or failure

  So expect setbacks and don’t give up after your first failed attempt!

  Each is a “learning experience” which you should move forward from, and apply what works to the next bright idea you have.

  But before you start… try to get a handle on the “basics”.

  But what ARE the “basics”? There are so many conflicting answers to that question, you can easily end up suffering from information paralysis and doing nothing.

  I would suggest you need to start off by having a good basic understanding of:

  • niche research – finding out what the public really want
  • keyword research – locating the words they use to find their answers
  • the various monetization methods you can use with your web site/s so that you actually make money

  And all of that comes BEFORE you even begin to think about choosing domain names, web design, web hosting, search engine optimization, traffic generation, list building, auto-responders, tracking, split testing, and a whole lot more…

  There’s a LOT to learn, so please do NOT expect that you will be able to “get rich quick” by taking on an online business. In case you haven’t realised it yet… that just does NOT happen.

  Despite the promises of the “Internet Lifestyle” being sold by thousands of snake oil vendors around the globe, they are the only ones who are getting rich quickly… by taking your hard earned dollars in return for thin air!

  Setting up an online business is not really much different to setting up a real world one.

  There’s lots of homework (research) to do before you start. And once established, there’s lots of ongoing effort needed to grow and expand (or even maintain) your business.

  Hopefully I’ll be able to provide you with information that will help you negotiate down the rocky path to online success.

  If you haven’t already… best to subscribe to my feed and keep updated with the new posts as they are added to this site… just fill in the form below to keep updated!
  

  
  

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  I look forward to talking with you.

  Cheers
  Stephen Spry

  ]]> http://stephenspry.com/so-you-really-want-to-work-online/feed/ 0 http://stephenspry.com/welcome-to-my-world/ http://stephenspry.com/welcome-to-my-world/#comments Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:35:50 +0000 Stephen Spry http://stephenspry.com/?p=5 Stephen Spry is a freelance web designer and Internet publisher who has been working online, full-time, since late 1995. I currently operate in excess of 25 sites of my own in a variety of niches… including employment, self improvement, internet marketing, small business advice, self employment, and article marketing, and also operate several significant regional and global web directories.

  Throughout my Internet “career”, my primary focus has been to help small business owners succeed on the Internet by providing a wide range of useful and relevant information… without all the B.S. that seems to accompany this industry!

  I’ve always wanted a more “obvious” place to bring together a lot of the things I do… A place where you can get a feel for what goes on in the life of a full-time, self employed, veteran Aussie webmaster and Internet publisher.

  So welcome to my world… a site I launched around Easter 2009 to reflect on what I’ve done since 1995 while trying to earn a living online… and presented so that you too can benefit from my experience!

  Please feel free to start or contribute to the discussions underway on this site. I really look forward to hearing from you!

  Cheers
  Stephen

  ]]> http://stephenspry.com/welcome-to-my-world/feed/ 0