Teenagers Can Make Money Online

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in An Internet Marketing Journal

Teenagers can make money online as easily as anyone else. In fact, in many cases computer-savvy teens can make faster money than adults still ‘learning the ropes’. A teen’s best bet to make money is owning a website that earns dollars from Google ad clicks.

Suppose you’re interested in ring tones as are all your friends. 99% of the ring tones sites are one that feature ones you can download or create. Most of these companies buy Google ads to make it easier for you to find them. So create a website ABOUT ring tones, not necessarily with downloadable ring tones. On each page of the site write something about the different kinds, stereo vs mono, tones vs songs, downloading vs creating, etc. And put Google ads on the site for people to click to go to other ring tone sites. The ads alone will bring in plenty of money.

Teenagers also write reports and do a ton of school work. Create a website about writing school reports, show the different research ideas, provide science fair idea – maybe even downloadable kits. A site like that might also be something the teen’s teachers would appreciate and give credit for. Either way, traffic to ads equals sales.

Teenagers are involved in a lot of after school activities like soccer, cup stacking and piano. Create a website about one of these topics, a topic you’re already interested in. Write about that topic, add pictures and Google ads and you’ll be making money in no time.

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The Hub and Spoke Internet Marketing Strategy: A Twitter Clinic

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in An Internet Marketing Journal

I haven’t done one in a while, but spent some time at a biz strategy meeting tonite and feel like tonite is a good nite for a twitter clinic

Tonite’s twitter clinic is about your basic internet marketing strategy and how to create the structure. I’ll post this later on my blog.

So let’s get started. First of all I don’t think you’re going to get very far without a website. That means a blog, a sales page or a site.

There must be a place people can go to buy what you’re selling. That’s not a negative thing. If you’re selling shovels, you’ll need a place

for the guy buying shovels to go. So let’s call that page your money site. Let’s define money site again. You need a page, a Facebook group,

a blog site, a full blown website, a squidoo page – something! where the transaction can be made. If you’re doing affiliate marketing where

you only need people to click on a link – then maybe Twitter is all you need. But you won’t get far with that. A Facebook Group can be more

lucrative than Twitter (sometimes). I prefer a full blown website, but sometimes that’s very easy to put together. Now that you have a site

(or a page) the goal is to get people there. The more relevant traffic you get, the more buyers you’ll find.That’s where the structure comes

into play. Like FedEx, your structure needs to be hub and spoke, where your money page is the middle hub and everything else you do is the

spokes. Maybe you’ll write an article for ezinearticles.com pointing people to your site – that’s a spoke. Maybe you’ll start a Facebook grp

and you’ll send messages to the group with the link to your site (another spoke). The key is to build spokes where relevant traffic can be

directed to your money site. Sometimes you need to have two steps before your money site. Maybe you’re selling antioxidant drinks. . Build a

few articles that send people to a review site. One spoke to another spoke and then have links to your money site on the review site. You’d

do this when you’d expect the buyer to do research before actually buying. Attract the lead, give them research and a place to buy.

Other spokes are forum and blog posts, twitter links, facebook links, digg/delicious/stumbleupon links, blog articles, press releases

and spokes can be off-line as well. Infomercials drive folks to websites. That’s a spoke driving traffic to the money site. So basically the

ideal internet marketing strategy is to have a site where people buy and then a bunch of ways people can find you. This system works great

for network marketers. MLM folks can’t change their company site, but they can use the internet to drive traffic there. My favorite way to

do that is with a SiteBuildit Site. This is a site that’s designed to exploit a niche and get to the top of Google for that niche. If you’re

in a Candle MLM, maybe the niche is ‘bedroom candles’ from which you create a site all about different kinds of bedroom candles with links

to your network marketing site to sell them candles. Check it out for yourself http://www.ilovesbi.com/limitedtime.html It’s the best way I

know to drive tons of traffic to your site, while you’re working on another niche or spoke or business. So tonite’s Twitter Clinic has been

about creating an internet marketing strategy.

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How To Build a Website for your Business (part 1)

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in An Internet Marketing Journal

This “How To Build a Website For Your Business” article will cover the basics you need to know and give you links to the companies and resources you can use to get this done.

1. To build a successful website for your business, you must have a strategy. You don’t need to know anything about internet strategy, you just need to know why you want to have a website for your business. Do you just want something on your business card with basic information about your company? Do you want people to be able to review testimonials or photos of your work when asked for references. Do you want to educate people about your industry and how you can help? Do you want to be a good place on the internet for people to find information to their questions and then contact you? These are the MOST important questions to determine before you start the web design process.

The reason that these are the most important is because the design will follow the needs. Suppose you want to just have a site people can reference to learn more about you and get your contact information. Well, this is a whole lot different than one that answers people’s frequently asked questions, teaches them what they need to do in hiring a consultant and is easily found via the search engines. One is a one page design that’s based solely on pleasing design and the other is a multi-page site centered on keywords and content. Without a strategy, you’ll make life harder for yourself in the end.

2. If you’ve decided that a one or two page site just with your contact name and some details is best, there’s not much to it. Many companies like 1and1.com offer very easy “survey” type questions (ex. hours of operation, address, amenities, . . .) for a simple $9/month or thereabouts. That requires no skill, very little money and very little time. Many local companies who just want a “web presence” do this. Seriously, there’s not much to say about that – it’s so simple that way. You’ll be able to use your domain name or get a new one with services like these.

3. If you’d rather have a site that actually generates leads for you from Google or the other search engines, you don’t need more training – you need a different tool. SiteSell is the best place on the internet for the novice and the expert alike to build websites that are content based. Content-based means a website that the search engines understand and would be willing to put on Page 1 of their search results as a great site that answers people’s search inquiries.

For a flat fee of $299 (and make sure to put that /limitedtime.html at the end of the web address name to make sure you’re getting their latest special) SiteSell will provide a “block x block” website building program, keyword analysis, keyword tracking, domain name and domain name hosting (which you normally pay extra for), e-mail accounts, autoresponders, newsletter generators, link building programs, navigation bar, different templates, the ability to create your own webpages elsewhere and import them and much, much more. This method takes a bit more time – but the instructions are so easy and straight-forward, monkey could figure it out.

4. And the last thing you need to determine is how much time you’re going to have or make to promote it. In the first example if you intend to promote it by handing out business cards and sponsoring local soccer teams – that will take a certain amount of time and funds. Are you willing to do that? In the second example with the content based site, once you’ve completed your website content and have done what sitesell asks regarding the keywords – you may not have to do any advertising. Your good quality content will raise it up in the search engines and people will find you while you sleep.

Go To Part 2

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Cool Places To Take Kids – A Twitter Clinic

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Ever Been There Before?, The Kids

This Twitter Clinic was posted June 4 at 10:30 pm

Tonite’s Twitter Clinic is about cool places to take kids this summer for vacation without spending a lot of money. I’ll start with my most

favorite place: The City Museum in St. Louis. Let me tell you that a museum it is not. There is nothing in it that you’d even want to just

look at. The City Museum is like a huge, HUGE, indoor (and outdoor) McDonald’s playland. But none of it is plastic. There are conveyor belt

slides. There’s even one that’s 3 stories high. There’s a 10 story spiral slide in the middle. Outside there’s a plane suspended 100 feet in

the air, and lots of cool rebar ladders, wire mesh and steel steps to climb up to it. A big ball pit, a bus on the roof, tunnels as dark as

night, as furry as kittens, and tunnels made of hollowed out trees. Pizza that’s out of this world. It’s just cool. You should check it out.

My next favorite place to take kids on vacation would have to be Cedar Point, in northern Ohio on Lake Erie. If you’re kids are older and

love roller coasters, there is no better place on the planet to take them. Cedar Point is the roller coaster capital of the world.

In California, I think Legoland has a lot to offer, but I wouldn’t want you to skip the beach. It’s free, fun and relaxing for everyone.

Illinois has Chicago, but it also has Metropolis – the home of Superman – at the southern tip. Great highway stop and 1/2 day stop.
In Orlando, don’t just go to Disney while you’re there – drive 40 minutes, save money and take them to Coco Beach – they’ll love it, too.

Also in Orlando, just outside Disney on the way is a huge Walmart that has all the Disney souvenirs for 1/5 the price.

Anyway, come to our Facebook Group My Favorite Place To Take Kids on Vacation Is. . . to share your ideas as well:

Did I tell you about the Hocking Railroad in Southern Ohio?How about Sesame Street Land outside Philadephia?The Strong Museum of Play in NY?

There are so many great places to take kids. Just outside Springfield, VA is a farm with mazes, tractor rides, giant pillows,life-size chess

- that makes a great “less stressful” stop if you’re taking young kids to Washington D.C. for the week. Anyway come join our Facebook Group

and continue this conversation about cool places to take kids on vacation.


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There’s too much to read. . . Executive Book Summaries

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Getting Things Done

I love reading, but I don’t always love reading the great business books like Good to Great. They’re chock full of great information – but sometimes I just want to spend the next week reading a John Grisham novel.

Good to Great
Image via Wikipedia

So I found Go Brevity, a service that reviews all the best business books in 4 minute analysis videos.

Go Brevity is great because a new book review is released each week. Some of the titles already reviewed include:

  • The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes
  • Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch
  • The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding by Al and Laura Reis
  • Permission Marketing by Seth Godin
  • The Irresistible Offer by Mark Joyner
  • Guerilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson

and many more. .

Now I can read all the John Grisham’s at home, and spend 4 minutes learning what the great authors have to say, at work.

Check out Go Brevity!

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My First Ironman – Part 6: The Finish

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in The Fit Life

There’s not a lot to say about the second bike loop. More hills – more painful hills. But it wasn’t until mile 91 that I allowed myself to walk up the hills again. But at 91 I had no choice and unfortunately my getting off the bike to walk was a turning point.

Up until now I was pretty sure that I could make up a lot of time on the marathon and still have a respectable time. But at mile 91 I gave up inside. I decided I just wanted to finish. I was beaten in terms of racing.

Having walked up the hills to save my knee, the clips on my bike shoes got gnarled and no longer fit into the clips on my pedals. For the remaining 31 miles I got to peddle without locking my shoes in and so I had to press with my midfoot, not my toe. The midfoot of my shoe was slippery so many times it slipped off.

But somehow I finished the last 31 miles to my family and friends waiting. Now, a long time beyond my goal finish – I was to start the marathon. But now without a trip to the medical tent to get my knee iced and bandaged. That took 23 minutes – but I left being able to run.

At mile 7 I caught up with Paul, who was on his second loop. I really wish I could have been there to see him finish his first Ironman, but my knees were holding him back and I had to tell him to move on. Then at mile 9 I discovered that my running had transitioned to run/walking and then finally to walk/jogging.

Fortunately, there were aid stations every .9 miles or so. Water, gatorade, oranges, potatoes, coke, chicken soup, vaseline for blisters – very nice indeed.

I made it to the turn around at mile 13 when my brother and his wife decided to head out on the course with me for support. It was 8 pm – or something like that. I was tired, achy and actually getting sleepy. My legs ached – but they kept me going. (My brother will tell you a different story that includes loopiness, hallucinations, and crazy thoughts.)

At 11:00 pm with only an hour left to finish the race we started looking at the clock and pick up the pace. Then with .6 miles to go I see my dad in the distance in the dark. I can sense his nervousness and know that time is looming.

Can I make it the remaining distance in 12 minutes? We pick up the pace a bit before we see the Marines that march in at midnight. They’re already in formation, doing their cadence and heading for the finish line.

I’m urged to run, by everyone and so I do (if you can call that running). With about 400 yards to go, I pass the Marines and head to the finish line. It’s 11:53 when I hit the stretch. The bandstands are filled with people just yelling and cheering for every competitor. IT was quite dramatic.

At 11:53:56, I cross the finish line, accomplish my goal and complete my first Ironman. It wasn’t the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen, but I finished.

At 11:00 a.m. I was pretty much done. At 1:30 PM finishing wasn’t going to be a problem, but it was going to be slow. At 8: PM, I was tired but heading to the finish line. Finally, at 11:50 PM, I was rushing to make it in time for the t-shirt. If it wasn’t for my brother and sister-in-law, my friends Clint, Paul and Paul’s family, my parents and Marcia, I’m not sure Saturday would have ended up so triumphantly. Thanks guys.

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Transition From Crib To Bed in 1 or 2 Days – A Twitter Clinic

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in The Kids

Transition From Crib to Bed – This Clinic was posted on Twitter May 26th, at 9:00 pm.  Please Follow me on Twitter so we can chat live during these clinics – and learn from each other.

Tonite’s Twitter Clinic is called “Transition Your Baby From Crib To Bed, Successfully in 1 or 2 Days.”

I’m on my third child with one more to go. I must have read something about the transition because this method worked in one night.

The first two boys we moved into toddler beds at 15 months, both in one night. About 1 month ago we moved our 18 month old. It took 2 nights

I’d suggest you move your baby into a toddler bed when they are standing in their crib waiting for you in the morning. That worked for us.

The technique works best if you start by removing the crib from the room without them there. Replace it with the toddler bed. Some might

just be a matter of folding the crib or rearranging the crib pieces to make a toddler bed, or a twin bed. In either case make sure there’s a short railing

near the pillow and chest area of the child. They might not be ready for a straight mattress yet, but they are ready for the responsibility

of staying in bed on their own. So here’s the technique: Take time to make sure to introduce your child to the new “big kid” bed early in

the day. Celebrate, and praise them for moving into the new bed. Let them climb on it, but no laying down unless they do it on their own.

Then leave the room and wait until bed to go back. Now go through your nightly ritual just as you normally would. After all only the bed

changed. Put them in the toddler bed just as you would have put them in the crib. Music, juice. . . Whatever you normally use. The only

difference is when you leave the room and close the door you stay there and listen. Listen for the first pitter patter of feet hitting the

ground, then go back in immediately. Make no noise, no chat, no eye contact, no talking. Pick up the child put them back in bed and leave

and then listen again. Continue doing that forever. This one sacrifice will pay off for the rest of your life. Just make sure that you dont

stop until the child just stays in bed. Ignore pleas, crying, and everything else for one night. You’re training the child to stay in bed,

so stay focused on that goal. Once the child realizes you’re not giving up, the rule will be permanent. For or 18 month old, we had to put

him back in a few times on the second night as well. That’s it. It’s been one month now for him and all we have to do is lay him down – even at naps

Just Do it. Transition From Crib To Bed. Make the switch. It will pay you back in many dividends.

This has been tonite’s Twitter Clinic. I’ll post the entire thing at my blog ( http://lettersfromdan.com ) later tonite.

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How To Rogaine – A Twitter Clinic About An Orienteering Sport

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in The Fit Life

This Twitter Clinic was posted on Twitter May 24, 2007. lease follow me on Twitter so we can chat live during the clinics.

How To Rogaine – A Twitter Clinic. -it’s been a few days since my last Twitter clinic, and this one is quite different than my norm.

1st- A rogaine is an orienteering event where you use a map, compass and field clues to find “hidden” controls in the forest.

Unlike orienteering, there’s no course just a map with “controls” marked, you decide which ones you’ll try to get and in what order.

Each “control” or checkpoint has a point value associated with it, so you decide which to get based on that and seeming difficulty.

A Rogaine must be completed in a certain time frame; whereas, orienteering is more of a race akin marathons. So your course must involve the time it takes to get back.

Failure to return by the deadline results in lost points. Some include loss of your highest point value control for each minute you’re late

_____________________________________________________

Check Out Our Rogaine Video
______________________________________________________

Finding a control is a matter of map reading, compass skills, and the ability to read the topography and compare it to features on a map.

There are 6 hour, 12 hour and 24 hour Rogaine events. Us.orienteering.org is one of the best places to find Rogaine events listed near you.

Plan to bring a Camelback type water backpack, long pants, long sleeve shirt, shin guards for thorny bush areas, some food and a compass.

Normally you have to use the map they issue at the start, no other ones are allowed, so read the rules of your event. Also altimeters, GPS and electronics are forbidden

That’s the basics of Rogaining. Learn how to use the compass and read a map. Dress to prevent ticks and scratches.Get out there and have fun.

Rogaine events aren’t always easy to find so if you know about one, leave me a comment. I’m always looking for a new event.

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Travel Is Fun When Things Look Different

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Ever Been There Before?

I just don’t like driving in the U.S. much. Maybe I’ve just done too much of it, but seldom do things look different.

Sure going from Kansas to Vail, there’s a topography change – and it’s dramatic, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Once you get into the mountains, very few places look different from other Colorado mountain places. Pretty – but standard.

Driving from Nashville to Orlando, when you’re very close to the Georgia/Florida line the trees, the feel, the topography are quite different. It’s swampy and the trees are all short and odd looking. I really enjoyed the 30 or so miles of that drive where everything just looked different.

The Chiricaua Mountains in Arizona, close to the Arizona/New Mexico/Mexico are very different. I don’t remember seeing that anywhere else. The rock formations are so interesting, they certainly rival Garden of the Gods.

There’s a spot between Tucson and Rocky Point in Mexico that is crazy, weird. It’s the result of an asteroid field impact and really feels like you’re on a different planet. That and Rocky Point are great places to “be transported”.

Finally, what inspired this post, was my drive today from Nashville to the hotel here in Wytheville, VA. Just before you leave Tennessee there appears to have been a state effort to plant evergreens next to the highway. Well, for 15 miles or so, there are thousands of evergreens next to the highway – thousands. And all of them are 5 feet tall or shorter. It’s different – almost cute.

Been anyplace that just feels different? Leave me a note – I’d love to hear about it – then go there.

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Getting to the Top of Google – A Twitter Clinic

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in The Technical Internet Stuff

This Twitter Clinic was posted May 18th at 1:00 pm. Please follow me on Twitter so we can chat live during the clinics.

Today’s Twitter Clinic is about Getting to the top of Google’s search results – for common words – not your company name. To start, if

you tell people that you’re #1 on Google but are only #1 for your company name – that’s just rude and misleading. If you Google your company

name and are not number 1 – then you know you have a problem. Unless your name is something common like Vacations Tours, it should be a

no brainer. I guess the other exception is something like Smith Consultants where there are 90 nationwide. If that’s the case, pay attn.

A name like CrayMason Industries should be at the top within a week. I mean – who else is trying to be at the top for that keyword?

So, let’s start with your industry. Let’s go with lawnmowers, again. Your name is JackGrass Lawnmowers, but you know no one is searching for

JackGrass – so you want to be on the top for Lawnmowers. The first thing you need to do is figure out which keywords – exactly- that you

want to be on the top for. Lawnmowers might have too much competition to make it worth it. Keyword research will help narrow that by analyzing

what people search for exactly, how many people search for it per month and how many sites out there are optimized for that keyword.

A word like lawnmowers that has 16,000 searches/month and 300,000 sites already dedicated to it is not realistic – but maybe “lawn mower”

does. It doesn’t matter how to spell it correctly. What matters is what people are searching for. You need to optimize for the words people

actually search. Maybe yard mowers is a good term, maybe side-bagger lawn mowers is a better term – this is where keyword research comes in.

Let’s say that yard mowers has 3,000 searches/month but only 50 sites dedicated to that term – those are odds that we like a lot. What are

chances any of those sites are fully optimized for yard mowers. Some might be blogs, some might be actual product descriptions. To get to

the top and stay there – you need content. You need a page about yard mowers – specifically. Don’t ever use the word lawn mower, use yard

mower. Put it in the page title, the title tag, the meta description, the page Headline and in the first paragraph – early and often.

It doesn’t matter if you over-use it at this point. It doesn’t matter at all. You won’t know that till later, and that will actually be good

What you need to do is just write a whole 500 word page about yard mowers. And then one about yard mower accessories, and another about

yard mower cutting widths, and another about yard mower price reviews. Write good content using your keyword and link them to your home page

which is hopefully yardmower.com (not JackGrass). Put a link on your simple JackGrass.com page to yardmower.com and vice versa.

Now publish it and see where it lands in the search results. Wait a couple weeks (submitting to Google is a different twitter clinic)

Where ever it shows up, start analyzing the pages that come before you in the results. How dense is their keywords, how many incoming links

how many pages of quality content. (And keep adding content by the way. Honest, useful content). Now start tweaking everything little by

little. Go back and do more keyword research and see what other pages you can add to the site, what other good keywords. Find what people are

looking for and build quality pages of content to meet that search question. There aren’t tricks to this. Content is king. Keywords are 2nd

So the question is how do you get all this keyword research and analysis done by yourself? What tools exist to help make that happen. Well

Well, the best company out there with all these tools is SiteBuildIt They’ve got keyword research tools, keyword vertical

and horizontal search capabilities, they help narrow the keywords to help pick out the perfect domain name. They have linking tools,

they have tools to create webpages as easy as writing Word documents, tracking software, monetization tutorials, navigation forums

They’ve got photo uploaders, form builders, autoresponders, e-mail capture, hosting, ezine creators and much more (Go To SiteBuildit)

To get to the top of the search results for your niche, you really need ALL of SiteBuildit’s tools all in one place.

So the key to high results is picking the right keywords, tweaking the density, and providing great content – not just a sales page.

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