Posted by johndilbeck on Wednesday, January 19 2005 at 9:16 AM
In a three part series of postings in his blog, A Fine Kettle of Fish, Bob Cargill lists 10 reasons why blogging is becoming more important for people in our industry. See Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.
I think the reasons he outlines are just as applicable to people in a wide variety of other fields.
Why wouldn't a real estate agent, for instance, maintain a blog of listings and sales? This would provide great information about the local business and it would be a great place to add more information about the area and the reasons to relocate there. Over time, this could be a repository of knowledge that would never make it to a website because it is so much easier to blog than it is to update a website.
The usefulness of a blog for a travel agent is likewise rather obvious, in my opinion. What better way to tell us of new specials or trips the agent has recently taken. A blog would offer a convenient way to inform clients and potential clients of the good, bad, and ugly in the travel business.
I won't continue to list examples. Either you "get it" or you don't.
Posted by johndilbeck on Wednesday, January 19 2005 at 9:04 AM
I'm going to be writing a series of articles about what I've come to call customized replicated websites, for lack of a better term. I'm sure there is a particular name for this, but I'm not aware of it at this time.
An example of this kind of site is Affiliate Showcase. I've been a free member of this site for a couple of years and I'm just now coming to understand how these sites work.
I'm a pretty bright guy, but I've failed to understand the bigger picture until recently.
Basically, as I understand it now, someone creates a site -- in this case an affiliate directory that lists thousands of affiliate programs. Then, they offer a free site to anyone who signs up. This free member can modify any affiliate programs to which they belong so that the link has their affiliate code in it. Anyone who purchases from that link earns the free member a commission. Anyone who signs up for an affiliate showcase of their own will inherit the links from the person who refers them.
This means that, assuming I'm the first one to sign up, my free site will inherit all the links from the site owner, which I'll call the top-level.
I can change as many links as I want and I can join as many of the programs as appeal to me. I can also suggest new affiliate programs and they'll go into the database with my affiliate code, if accepted. This means that some of the links on my page are second-level (the ones I modify) or top-level (the ones I add).
(Please note: This has changed since the last time I checked a few months ago. Now, only paid executive members can add links to new programs.)
If you follow my link and get a free site of your own, your pages will inherit the top-level links of the site owner, the top-level links of the programs I'm first to suggest, and the second-level links that I modified.
Thus, I, and you, are free to customize our replicated sites with our own links. We are free to suggest new programs that are not in the database.
But, any links that aren't modified or added, inherit the top-level links from the site owner/creator. I'm not suggesting this is a bad thing. In fact, I think it's proper for the creator/maintainer of the site to be compensated for the work done to create the system and to market it. That's what affiliate programs are all about.
Since I'm free to modify the links I want to, and I'm free to join any of the affiliate programs that appeal to me, then I can get into the compensation chain. When you sign up below me, you can modify and/or join any of the programs you want and insert yourself into the compensation chain.
And so it goes. Someone signs up under you and someone under that person, and so on. Each replicated site inherits a mix of your links and links modified or created by your upline.
By advertising your page, you are marketing for not just yourself, but for those who are in the upline -- and this is normal, too. Some programs don't let you build downlines. Some offer two-level downlines. Others offer multi-level downlines. By advertising one page, you can market a wide range of programs, some of which you'll earn from, and others your upline will earn from.
Obviously, the individuals or team that create the site and hold the top-level positions are in line to earn the most commissions. But, generally, that's not the only income stream. Most of these sites, including Affiliate Showcase, offer paid membership subscriptions. Some offer two or more different paid subscriptions with varying features.
With Affiliate Showcase, you can upgrade to Pro or Executive levels, and each offers more customization of the featured ads on the home page of the site. If you are a free member, you can't modify the most prominent ads, so your upline (all the way back to the first paid member who placed the ads) are the only ones who can earn from transactions initiated by those ads. If you want to replace the ads, you must upgrade to paid status.
Since it's an affiliate program, the person who referred you will earn a percentage of your upgrade payment as a commission. Paid members earn a higher percentage than free members.
Again, I don't think there's anything wrong with this, it's just not obvious the first time you are exposed to the site -- at least, it wasn't obvious to me.
Since the large ads on the home page are the ones most likely to grab your attention, I would think they would be the ones that earn the most. I don't know this for a fact, but I'm considering upgrading my membership to see how well it works.
Two years ago, when I signed up, I had no traffic to my sites, not much experience with affiliate programs, no experience with multilevel or network marketing, and not enough money to upgrade to paid status, so I never really marketed the Affiliate Showcase site.
Now, I'm going to advertise it and see what happens. Since I've joined several hundred affiliate programs during the learning phase of my online marketing business, I'll search for those and upgrade my links. I probably won't add many programs if they're not already in the database.
As an experiment, I'd like to invite you to follow the link and sign up for your free Affiliate Showcase site. Sign up for any of the affiliate programs that strike your fancy, and be sure to modify the link by clicking on the edit link and adding your affiliate code.
Let's see how many levels deep we can build this network in the next six months. Let's also see if we earn enough income from our experiment to make it worthwhile to upgrade to pro status. This is especially useful if you are an affiliate with SFI Marketing Group or Cognigen, both of which are in the database. Search for the program and edit your link so that anyone who signs up under you will inherit your link code.
Over the next few weeks, I'll be talking about other sites that I've found that follow this or a similar system, and we can see how they work, too.
At this point, I'm not asking anyone to upgrade to paid status, unless you can afford it and feel it is worth the risk. In that case, it's up to you.
I'm mainly wondering what happens as we get more people signing up for the free sites and then promoting them.
I'll report back as I see any results.
Over the next few days, I'll be introducing sites that are designed to increase traffic to your sites, build downlines, offer free advertising, and more, and some of these programs are already listed in the Affiliate Showcase.
At this point, I'm not entirely sure it's worth the effort, but I've been talking to a couple of people who swear by it.
My main strategy is still to build sites and blogs with good content and optimize each page for good search engine placement. But, I can see the benefit of trying some of the customized replicated sites, too.
Feel free to tell me your experiences with these types of sites and what you think about them.
Posted by johndilbeck on Friday, January 7 2005 at 4:25 AM
If not, stop reading.
I'm looking for serious people who are willing to spend at least one hour per day marketing their home-based business and at least one dollar per day investing in it.
Posted by johndilbeck on Wednesday, January 5 2005 at 3:52 AM
It looks like I picked the right year to focus on adding more blogs and more RSS (also known as XML) feeds to my sites!
From the Pew Internet & American Life Project site:
By the end of 2004 blogs had established themselves as a key part of online culture. Two surveys by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in November established new contours for the blogosphere: 8 million American adults say they have created blogs; blog readership jumped 58% in 2004 and now stands at 27% of internet users; 5% of internet users say they use RSS aggregators or XML readers to get the news and other information delivered from blogs and content-rich Web sites as it is posted online; and 12% of internet users have posted comments or other material on blogs. Still, 62% of internet users do not know what a blog is.
Posted by johndilbeck on Monday, January 3 2005 at 9:47 AM
Gery Carson, founder and president of SFI Marketing group, announced many new changes to the company this weekend. I won't go over all of them here, however. You can see some of the changes in my SFI Blog.
Here are the headlines:
Posted by johndilbeck on Sunday, January 2 2005 at 4:54 PM
The good folks at Sitesell have extended their Buy-1-Get-1-Free sale of their premier "build a web business online" Site Build It! service.
I know several people who have taken advantage of this sale and they're happy they didn't let it pass them by.
It was scheduled to end at midnight on December 25, but there were so many people asking if it could extend into the work week so they could tell their friends and colleagues at work about it, so Ken extended it.
It definitely expires on January 5, 2005 at midnight.
I am not stretching the truth at all when I tell you this is the best web design, hosting, and promotion service on the planet, and the additions of the new forums a few months ago makes it even better because we can help each other succeed with our businesses.
No matter what type of business you have or want, you can find a way to incorporate SBI into it. Isn't your business worth a bit over $1.00 per day?
I'm sitting here in a spare bedroom in the mountains of western North Carolina, and I have no idea where you are, but my stats tell me that I have people from all areas of the world reading what I say. That would not be the case if it weren't for what I've learned from Ken Evoy, the president of Sitesell.
Posted by johndilbeck on Sunday, January 2 2005 at 4:53 PM
2004 was my year for building the infrastructure to talk about things in which I'm interested. I built websites and blogs and programmed scripts to help integrate them.
For the last few weeks, I've been using tools that others put together previously, and integrating them into my infrastructure.
Dave Winer's work on RSS and his Radio Userland have given me great tools for syndication without using email. I spent a couple of months getting all my site feeds ready and I added them to all my blogs last week and they'll be added to the appropriate websites this year.
Ken Evoy has realized the value of RSS.
Ken is the one who taught me how to make my online marketing of affiliate programs and two select network marketing companies profitable. After reading his book, Make Your Site Sell!, a couple of years ago, I completely redesigned the structure of JohnDilbeck.com and now I have hundreds, if not thousands, of pages in the top 10 rankings on most of the search engines.
Later, Ken and his company developed the best website design, hosting and promotion system on the planet, Site Build It!, and I've been using the tools he provides for the last year to help me build all of my sites and blogs better. I host A Year From Now there and I just haven't had time to build it as I see it in my mind. That will be one of my top priorities this year.
As I said a few paragraphs above, Ken has discovered the value of RSS and will be incorporating it into Site Build It! over the coming months. He has written an excellent introduction to RSS and to using it for online marketing at: rss.sitesell.com.
Ken has a unique way of cutting to the heart of the matter, as he does with monetizing a site using Google's Adsense, and I have a feeling that the RSS site will evolve into one of the best on the Internet.
I've been using RSS for a couple of years to subscribe to others' feeds, but last year and this year, I'll be making it easy for anyone to subscribe to my feeds.
That said, I think my top priorities -- as far as work goes -- will be:
Do a better job of segmenting the various things I do instead of lumping them all together on JohnDilbeck.com.
Put some real effort into AYearFromNow.com in January and February and make it useful.
All year, I'll be working to build my portals for Cherokee County, North Carolina and for Murphy, NC Business. I intend for them to be the best online resources for this area. Unlike other sites, they are interactive and the first one is free to use. I just introduced a new blog for Murphy, NC 28906 and I'll be building it over the year.
If you want to promote your organizations and businesses in Cherokee County, I want to help you do it.
As I have time, over the year, I'm going to take the successful parts of JohnDilbeck.com, where I've been experimenting for a few years, and duplicate each of them in their own tightly-focused domain. That will be an ongoing process.
I'll continue working with area nonprofits, including Appalachian Heritage Crafters, Center for Participatory Change, and Heritage Partners of Cherokee County, NC. This is the year I'll become involved in the Cherokee County Chamber of Commerce, too.
Of course, I'll continue to look into new things that catch my eye and then I'll invest the time and energy to learn for myself whether they work or not -- and whether they are worth my time, or not. If I decide they are worthwhile, I'll let you know.
Last year, after a 20-year bad taste due to an unpleasant experience with my first introduction to multi-level marketing, I realized that things had changed as a result of the Internet. I kept running across people whom I respected suggesting that quality multilevel marketing companies are the wave of the future. Even though I thought it was all a scam at worst and unseemly at best, I looked into it. I researched on the FTC site, read quite a few books, looked at hundreds of websites and companies, and eventually came to realize that the 21st Century version of mlm is quite different than it was 20 years ago.
I satisfied myself that many of the people involved were truly interested in not just raking in as much money as possible, but in helping others earn more, too. As a result, I joined the SFI Marketing Group, and I've been building my team for about a year -- and now I have sponsored affiliates on five continents. They will be announcing big changes over the next few days and I look forward to continuing to build my business with them.
I also found what I believe to be the best company for marketing telecommunications products and services, Cognigen, and I've been busy learning all they offer and building my team. When they introduced Hosting With Us and Domains With Us, I quickly purchased a reseller account with the former and started registering new domains with the latter. I have received stellar service from them and recommend them highly. Although I'm not much interested in telephones and cell phones, Cognigen offers some outstanding values there, too. I'll be working to increase my business with Cognigen this year. I'll be updating my Dilbeck Communications site when I learn something new about telecommunications, and sometimes online marketing.
But, my top priorities will involve two things.
1. Anything I do must help someone else as well. I'm not interested in making one single penny of revenue if it hurts the one doing the purchasing. I'm looking for win/win situations, only.
2. I want to help the people of Cherokee County, NC, put out the word about their activities, opportunities, organizations, and businesses. I'll be working very hard to make the local portals and business directories rank very well with the search engines and I'll do whatever I can to help them promote themselves and this county. I love living here and I want to do what I can to help.
Those are some of my goals for 2005. I won't bother you with the plans I'll make to achieve them. I'll just let you know when another piece of the pie is ready.
I hope you have a wonderful year.
All the best,
JD