Internet Business Blog by Jack Keifer

Chances are that if you are reading this post, that you either enjoy a successful internet business, or that you are aspiring to build one. We all have different reasons for wanting to succeed in internet business. One of the biggest reasons for me is shown in the picture on the left. This is my wife, Tingting. This is an outtake from one of our wedding pictures. We were married in Beijing, China on June 27th, 2005. Having the freedom to spend time with my wife and creating great memories to carry with us into our old age is my most significant driving force to succeeding online. Having 10 hours a day robbed from us by an employer for the next 25 to 30 years is not my idea of a fulfilling life.

Today we went to the doctor’s office for an ultrasound. Tingting is now into 32 weeks and 6 days of her pregnancy. This is also my prime reason for success. Building memories will include our son Kevin. Yes, it’s a boy! We actually picked out his name in 2005. We had also chosen a girl’s name as well, of course. He should be arriving into the world around May 1st. Here’s a pic of today’s ultrasound. I highlighted and enlarged Kevin to make it easier to distinguish his facial features.

So, my question is, what is your inspiration for success? I am curious about what drives you to succeed. Is it the desire for freedom from a dead end J.O.B. and a slave driving boss? To enjoy life with your family? Or something else altogether? Leave a comment and share your story. I’d like to hear from you.

Exactly as he promised, James Brausch delivered his testing newsletter right away after posting my interest in receiving a complimentary copy of his Testing newsletter. My first reaction? Yikes! This is some serious stuff. James has picked apart so many variations of his sales page that its easy to see why his pages are super converters! I think most people who average 1 to 5% are typical. James is in the 18+ percentile! I say again… YIKES!

James covers every detail of his variable versions. For example. Testing 3 blank lines at the top of the “paper” versus no lines. Variations on color size and even length of the headlines. Testing content against nothingness. The information contained within the newsletter gave me some great ideas to test out on my own web site.

I think that the people who would benefit most are MuVar customers. The newsletter is a perfect compliment to getting the most out of MuVar. Non MuVar users would certainly benefit as well, because you can simply apply what works in the newsletter to your own site. The hitch is that different products attract different visitors and what works for one site may not be so great for others.

One thing that really hit home with me though was the features that I noticed about MuVar. Before I discovered James, I rashly invested in another multivariate software. This set me back over 500 bucks. It’s great software and serves me well. However, it seems that MuVar allows you to use many versions of each testing variable! Mine is limited to 2 to 6 depending on how many variables you choose. Thus I have to choose my variables carefully and figure out which variables that I want more than 3 versions of. Also, it appears that MuVar calculates visitor value for your web site! That is awesome! Not to mention keeping a running total of sale value & conversion ratio. My boss (wife) would shoot me if I switched (totaling $800… Rats!).

Do you remember the movie Wayne’s World? Remember in the music store when Wayne would kneel down on one knee in front of the Fender Strat that was locked inside the custom display case? Picture a MuVar CD in its place with a touch of angelic music as an aura glows around it. - “Someday MuVar will be mine… oh yes!”

I have to say that the testing newsletter was definitely worth the read. These are heavy duty stats, but they are presented in a way that makes for a nice read, plus they make sense. It’s not just a paper full of numbers & graphs, this is real usable stuff. Information that you can use today. If you’re a serious internet business person looking for the maximum return on your websites, this is some incredible information that is being shared. For only 25 bucks for a newsletter that is packed to the max with nothing but solid meat & potatoes without the fat, this is simply a no brainer to subscribe to.

Do you find that your internet business has hit a wall? Maybe you’ve only partially reached your goals, but now you’ve hit that brick wall. What could be wrong? Maybe you haven’t started your internet business yet. How come? Fear of failure is probably the number 1 reason that people never get off the ground, or let their business reach its full potential. No one likes to “lose face” by having their product flop. No one wants to admit that their website only received 2 visitors today.

Naturally, failure is something that we all prefer to avoid. It takes much less courage to win than it does to fail. Think of this for a moment. The greatest discoveries in history are all results of countless failures. Imagine all the rockets that blew up or crashed & burned before we ever got into orbit. Suppose we collectively just said, “hmmpf, that didn’t work, I guess rocket flight is impossible”. So much for the moon.

You have to dare to fail. You strive for success of course, but when something flops, find out why. Maybe you wrote an eBook guide on the best hotels in the Caribbean. You didn’t sell a single issue. Do you toss the idea completely? Maybe. Or maybe the fact that your website was called “AlaskanSnowBalls.com” with an unrelated sales page featuring your book had something to do with it. Sometimes a small tweak will make all the difference in the world.

The important point is don’t let the fear of failure stop you from succeeding! If you didn’t take action because you’re afraid of failing at something, then you’ve already failed. Ok, that wasn’t so hard was it? You’ve already failed by being afraid to fail! The sun is still rising in the morning, people are still going about their business, and you are none the worse for wear. Ratcheting your business to be the best it can be is done by taking your tiny failures or flaws and using them to your advantage. Failure must be used as a tool. These are the road maps to success. Never give up. Most people give up when they’re just on the verge of success. Have you been initiated into the ranks of failure yet? If so, congratulations! You have now found the key to success!

I’m speaking figuratively of course, but its value right on par for those 2%ers who are willing to take action and grab it. James Brausch has released a new newsletter called his Testing Newsletter. James is now offering a monthly subscription to his own private testing results. The first issue includes all the MuVar statisitcs for one of his highest converting product websites. This site has a visitor value of $18.50 per visitor generating a whopping 532,900.00 per year! How would you like to have access to the secret info behind such an incredible goldmine? How would you like to see these results for FREE? James is offering this incredible info free to anyone with a blog who asks to be included and promises to leave a testimonial in return. You can count me in James. I would like to receive a copy and in return I will offer an honest review of the newsletter.

If you want to be included in Jame’s offer, be sure to include your email or that your whois information is up to date. He will email the first copy to you. Normally, this is a printed newsletter that is sent by postal mail. The normal subscription price is only $25 and back issues will likely either be unavailable or pretty pricey. Therefore, if this is something that interests you, you need to take action right away! The free offer ends on Tuesday & if I know James, it will never be repeated again.

Getting oneself motivated can be one of the biggest challenges that an internet business owner can face. A natural asset that successful people possess is self-discipline and the ability to motivate oneself and others. It takes discipline to resist distractions, to focus on your business and to keep building your business without losing momentum.

Most of the population is conditioned to be led by others. As a baby, naturally you are taken care of and supervised by your parents. When you start school, you are trained to follow a regimen and a predefined set of rules. This continues on into college and the workplace. Some are born leaders and most are followers. Being a follower is more comfortable. The master doles out the orders and the slave carries them out. The slave is rewarded for good work and is granted the privilege of remaining as a valued slave. But if the slave realizes that he/she wants their freedom and in fact declares their freedom, there are years of programming that need to be undone.

Having your hours dictated as to when you set the alarm clock, how long you will work, what your duties are, when to take a lunch break. It’s all part of the life long programming that has been ingrained from day one to get you groomed as a good student, and eventually, a good employee. Don’t feel that I’m knocking being a good student or a good employee. I’m just saying that this type of programming makes self discipline and self motivation a bigger challenge as opposed to those who think independently and have great problem solving skills.

So what about the Bart Simpsons? The underachievers? If you fall into this category, you are pretty much screwed until you come face to face with your negative and self-defeating beliefs. You must then deal with them head on to replace them with positive ones. Simply saying positive affirmations when you “know” inside that you’re not smart enough or good enough won’t cut it. Thinking that you’re not good enough is simply a belief and not a fact. Our reality is based on our beliefs, so therefore, they are very real factors as to where we are in our lives. Beliefs cannot be masked over with affirmations, they must be dealt with and eliminated. I was given an awesome eBook by its author that delves more deeply on this subject. I will be sharing my thoughts on this in a future post.

Ok for the rest of us. One of the biggest motivation killers that I know of is mentally over filling your task list. Let’s say that you’re not in a J.O.B. and you allocate a full 8 hours a day to your business. You have about 50 things in mind that you want to do. You’re not even sure where to start, so when the phone rings, or an email comes in, you jump at the chance. Now you’re involved in something. It’s not building your business, but you’re busy. You feel a sense of accomplishment because you were busy all day with emails, studying other peoples’ drivel in the forums as to why internet business doesn’t work. You were just a busy guy! (or gal!).

So what was really happening here? You’re mind didn’t want to deal with the mountainous tasks that you assigned your self, so when you were offered an easier, “flatter” road, your mind jumped on it! When you’re schedule is dictated to you by an employer, it is broken down into sequential tasks. Not only are we programed for this, but its also a logical, profitable, and practical way to approach things. Why fight a lifetime of programming when you can use it to your advantage? Set up your own schedule. Write down your goals to accomplish tomorrow every day. Break big goals into smaller sections. Now allocate less hours per day to working. Huh? Yes I said LESS hours to working and stick to it. When your time is up, walk away whether you want to or not. Why? Because with a shorter workday, you will force yourself to focus on building your business. You will eliminate distractions because you know that your time is valuable and limited to this time slot. This is also a great way to build self-discipline. It takes discipline to walk away too.

Take your business seriously. Often times because one is selling on eBay, or just starting out with a single product, or affiliate marketing, its easy to develop the “hobby” mindset. If you really want your freedom, you have to make this your escape vehicle! Take it very seriously. Treat it as the most important thing to you, your family, and your future that there is! What can possibly be more important than financial freedom and having the quality time to spend with your spouse & kids? Do you want your kids to grow up remembering their parents as someone they saw a couple hours a day between rushing to work and then watching TV afterwards before plopping down to bed to repeat the same formula the next day? Or would you prefer that they remember you always being there for them. Having the time to be involved in their lives and free from the stress of everyday “paycheck to paycheck” lifestyle, like wondering how to pay the next outrageous gas bill next month? Yes, this is serious biz!

During your quiet time, like when you’re waking up in the morning, take time to think of new ideas for increasing your business, or new products. Just let your mind wander. Keep a notepad and a pen near your bed so that you can write down the ideas that excite you. Your mind is fresh in the morning giving you greater clarity for creativity. Although, night time is good too as you drift your way to dream land. The only hitch is that it gets more difficult to write your ideas down as you get more tired. It’s a great feeling to see your ideas turn into something real. Not every idea will be a winner either. That’s just life. Your favorite baseball team isn’t going to win every game. Just go for it, even if you’re not sure it will be a winner. Your ideas put into action are long term investments in your business. The winners can pay off for a lifetime.

Search engine optimization or SEO. Some call it the holy grail of succeeding online. Some view it as full of mystery and secret knowledge that only a few who are “in the know” can actually master. Still others like James Brausch will ask why someone could possibly think that they can optimize a search engine? Search Engine Optimization, optimize a search engine. Good one James. Perhaps WSO or web site optimization would be a more accurate term. Hmmm

Anyway, there are various ranking factors that influence how you will fare in the search engines. A few weeks ago James Brausch released his predictive analysis of the latest Google data. Here is his breakdown for the highest predictability results:

Nemeas (domain name & structure) Factors: 18.2%
RaSof (on page) Factors: 43.8%
Link Factors: 38.1%

What I’d like to cover are some of the on page factors that I have used that have given me significant results. First of all, you should know what keywords that you want to optimize your site for. I like using WordTracker for getting a feel for what terms the most people are searching for. Your stats are also a great resource for finding the keywords that people used to find your site via a search engine. Here are some on-page factors that you can use to crank your rankings:

Title - What you have in your page title is a biggie. You should use highly searched terms relevant to your site here. I’ve read that having your keyword(s) at the beginning or end of your title works best. I don’t have facts to back that up, but I’ve gotten my best results this way.

Anchor Text - This is the text in a hyperlink. For example - Internet Business Blog would be the key phrase that I would use in my anchor text to rank for “internet business blog“. Be sure to take advantage of anchor text. Many people waste perfectly good hyperlinks with totally irrelevant phrases such as “Click Here“. I’ve found many times that if I refer to another website with a good keyword, it boosts my own website for that term. Don’t forget the title text. You can enhance your link power with an extra phrase or word in your title text. This would go after your “href” URL. For example - <a href=”http://somesite.com” title=”great keyword”>

Images & Alt Text - When you add images to your website, be sure to name your image with a decent keyword. You’d be surprised how much extra traffic you could pick up from Google or Yahoo! image searches. Alt text is often ignored too. Use the alt text every time you use images.

Header & Footer - Bold text and <h1, h2> text in your header contribute to your on page factors as well. Even bolded text within the body of your content will make a difference. Be sure to have keyword rich links in your footer as well. The footer is a significant area to your on page ranking.

Obviously you will want to sprinkle your keywords throughout the body of your content as well. Don’t over do it and always write your content for your readers FIRST. If you don’t, your content will lose value by sounding unnatural and keyword stuffed. This will immediately drop your credibility down to the neighborhood of the MFA junk sites.

As shown in James Brausch’s stats above, domain name/structure and back links account for another 56.3% of the factors involved for a top Google rating. Deciding on your domain name and its structure comes before you build your website. On page factors come as you create your site, when you add new content, and when you’re ratcheting your site for better search engine results. Finally, getting back links is something that you always want to work on for the lifetime of your site.

Following these simple steps can boost your website from being off the radar to enjoying a high ranking in the search engines. By combining all of the three major ranking factors, you are bound to nail a top spot in the search engines.

Dr. Schmidt, CEO of Google announced that Google is no more as of Friday, February 22nd! The stunning announcement came shortly after noon today. There was a media frenzy when the news broke. Of course the first question was “what the heck happened?” Is this another Enron? It seems that the CEO, along with the entire board of directors have decided to give up all their worldly goods and are now moving into a commune in southern California, which is home to a little known cult who worship the mango root. Google is no more!

OK, as you have probably guessed by now, I made this whole story up. Why would I do that? To get you reading? No, actually to get you thinking. Suppose Google disappeared over night. How would this affect your business? Do you depend on Google for all your PPC advertising? Is a high ranking in Google the sole reason for your traffic? If so, you really need to rethink your business strategy. Putting all your eggs in one basket is pretty risky business.

By reading my previous posts, you’ve heard me say in the past how it makes much more sense to have multiple streams of income (products, affiliates, etc) as opposed to just one (J.O.B.). The same applies to your traffic. Traffic to your websites are the life blood of your online business. Just like brick & mortar businesses, if no one knows you’re there, it’s pretty tough to make an income. People with affiliate sites will often depend solely on PPC to monetize their sites. Some will focus on optimizing their websites for one specific search engine.

But suppose that you suddenly lose your ranking for your keyword because of an algorithm change, or your PPC costs triple because the Google mafia decided that they don’t like you anymore? Now what? Go back to working for the man for a living? Or do you have other traffic sources that will continue to keep your business running smoothly?

You will find that if you work into your system other avenues of traffic, then not only will your income increase, but so will your security. Maybe today a lot of people aren’t searching for your blue widgets, but a stumbler (StumbleUpon) happens to be promoting a blue widget convention in Toledo, sending extra traffic your way.

Never underestimate the power of diversity. Promoting yourself using “Web 2.0″ methods such as StumbleUpon, Squidoo & the like is one way to gain exposure. Internet business blogging is one of the best. Contributing worthwhile posts to blog carnivals will get you traffic and back links. Building your list! The larger your list, the more valuable it becomes. Forums are another way to promote yourself. But don’t spam, contribute to the community, or you will do more harm than good to your long term business. I’m not a forum fan, but depending on your business, it can be a good thing to work into your own routine or procedure for your interns. Oh, did I mention article marketing? This is probably one of the most effective and will generate traffic and back links very quickly.

The trick to article marketing is how you do it. James Brausch has a product called Artemis. This is an excellent product that allows you to change your article in to a few different variations. Artemis will then randomly shuffle the corresponding versions of each paragraph creating literally thousands of different variations of the same article. This way you will beat any duplicate content issues with Google, plus you will be submitting to real article publishers. I say “real” because most article submission sites are just junk repositories that are only read by other article submitters and scraped by content generator bots for the junk MFA (made for adsense) sites. You can customize your own Ezine and article list in Artemis for thousands of submissions honed for each article subject matter.

Google may not be going anywhere soon, but let the first paragraph be a wake up call. If you are depending on one source to monetize your traffic, you need to be working other techniques into your system as well. Don’t be a victim of a black Monday someday. When others are sinking without a life preserver, you can stay high & dry because your ship has the safety backups to kick in and keep it sailing smoothly.

I’ve been following Mohamed Bhimji’s internet business blog for a few months now and I felt he was overdue for a cool blog alert. I first referenced Mohamed’s blog back in my January 24th post “Do You Firefox?” At the time he was located at online-internet-business-opportunity.com. He since has shortened the name to oibo.org. That’s pretty cool. Short and has a nice ring to it.

Mohamed responded to my last post “A Parallel Reality?” and I was in the middle of replying to his response when I realized that I wanted to share his words and my thoughts on them on a wider scale. Here is part of his response:

For months, I was thinking to myself “wouldn’t it be nice…” but in all honesty eventhough I was working towards it, I didn’t really believe it.

However about two weeks ago I started to believe in my goals, I started to realize the urgency that is required in order for me to get to where I want to be. My beliefs were embodied in me — my heart and mind are now working as one to achieve them.

Take a look at Mohamed’s blog and it will become obvious that thought combined with simple actions can change the course of your life. Desire is the catalyst that propels thought into action and action into reality. One reason that this works is because your desired future is already there for the taking. All you have to do is decide that you really want to go there. Believe, think and do. Your spirit will take you by the hand and lead you there.

Mohamed has made a conscious decision to become one of the 2% that take charge of their lives and he’s going all out to make it a reality. At this momentum, I have no doubt that he’ll achieve his dreams.

How about you? Are you ready to make that leap of faith? It’s really not that broad of a jump once you commit yourself into the air. You’ll land before you know it. It may not be a perfect landing at first, but the important thing is that you jumped! Now keep going. Think that I’m just blowing a lot of fluff around? Check out Mohamed’s blog for yourself. If you haven’t started on your dreams yet, realize that this could be you in a few short months. Where will Mohamed Bhimji be in a few more months? I’ll be sticking around to find out.

Back in my TV days I used to enjoy a show called “Sliders”. The main character Quinn developed a device that would open a portal between parallel Earths. Quinn, Professor Arturo (his teacher) and a couple others took a trip through one of these portals to a parallel existence. Unfortunately, they couldn’t seem to figure out how to get back to their original reality. There were millions of parallel existences. Probably (and theoretically) because every time you make a decision, you create another quantum path into what is perceived as time. BTW - “Layer” is actually more accurate than “path” since all past & future are really the present. Do I really have you confused now?

The reason that I’m bringing all this up is because I’d like you to do a mental exercise which I believe can help you pull your desired future into reality. If you’re already in the reality that you desire, then this can help you stay here.

Let’s say that you’re currently stuck in a 9 to 5 J.O.B. , you have an overbearing boss with an ego the size of Texas who makes you feel worthless even though all you do all day is work your tail off for half of what you should be paid. It’s theoretically possible that there could be countless parallel realities that you are existing in at this very moment based on all the possible decisions that you have made throughout each day. This is a multidimensional concept so don’t boggle your 3-D mind too much over it.

Ok, so you’re stuck in this J.O.B. that you hate and somewhere along side your present life is a you that is enjoying the success of a thriving internet business. This is the “you” that decided to take action last year when you were first contemplating the idea. This is the “you” that stopped wasting time surfing the forums, watching TV and checking email every 10 minutes. This version of you went down a different path. Where did this path come from? It was formed out of a simple decision. A decision to take action and break out of the cycle that you have come to dislike so much.

Now take a moment and look back to the time that you first started contemplating starting your own internet business. Now start moving forward to around the time that you can remember not taking the action that you would have. Maybe you sat down to create an internet business blog and got distracted by a phone call, email, or meteor strike. Now picture yourself not going off course at that point in time. This time, in your mind’s eye, you cut your call short so that you could get back to work. In fact, you unplugged the phone afterwards. Now think about the result that came out of that. Think about what your parallel self did the next day. Step yourself through each day seeing one build upon another. Picture the results from the previous days as you progress forward to the present. Chances are that your are “remembering” your parallel past. Take notes. Now that you’ve retraced your steps, go ahead and follow them again in this reality. It worked before, why not again? Your mind is a profoundly powerful thing. Remember, because of this wonderful gift that’s a part of all of us, entire futures can be carved out with a single thought to create it, followed by action to make it reality.

OK, so you finally got off the sofa and created your first product. Perhaps its an information video on how to use Adobe Flash, or that recipe book that you finally decided to write, betraying generations of secret family recipes. Now that you’ve got your great aunt Emma flipping over in her grave, you need to start promoting your product. The next logical step is to create a sales page. What? You don’t need one because you’re starting with eBay? A well done sales page will skyrocket your eBay sales just as it would on your own website. Now that I’ve eliminated that excuse, let get down to business.

The first thing that your visitor sees and the most vital to keeping your visitor from clicking the back button is the headline. Obviously, the headline occupies the space above the fold on your web page. For you newbies “above the fold” refers to the area on the webpage that is visible when you first arrive, before you scroll down to read the rest. Typically, what visitors see within the first 5 seconds will determine whether they stay and read on or hit the back button and continue elsewhere.

This is what makes the headline so important. The first thing you want to avoid is to let your headline sound like an ad. Something like “Buy Aunt Emma’s Secret Recipies Now For Only $29.95″ is a sure fire back button trigger. Creating a captivating headline can increase your conversions by at least a ten fold.

There’s many ways that you can approach your headlines. Depending on your product, you can phrase it by offering a compelling promise of how this will benefit them. Remember the “What’s in it for me” mindset of your visitor. Something like “Become an Instant Master of Traditional Pasta Dishes. 7 Generations of Closely Guarded Family Secrets Revealed!” Right away the visitor is offered the opportunity to impress their family and friends with some original pasta dishes that they never could have come up with on their own. Who can fight 7 generations of experience, right?

You could also phrase it as a question. “Is it Worth 5 Minutes to Learn 200 Years of Family Secrets?” Whenever a visitor is faced with a question in what they read, the natural response of the mind to to answer the question. Most typically, one would respond with “sure, why not?” and read on. Arousing the visitor’s curiosity is another fantastic way to keep your page “sticky”. Something like “I Have Been Branded by My Family as a Traitor!” The reader will think “huh?… why?” and read on.

There are many approaches that you can take on a headline to make it interesting. Never make your visitor feel like that you’re the shark and they’re your chum. Sounding “hypie” and wreaking of the honest john used car sales pitch isn’t going to cut it. This is a common mistake that many people starting out make. If you can avoid this, you will have a huge advantage.

Studying other successful product sales pages and making a swipe file of the best ones is a great way to hone your own skills. You can find the most popular products on Clickbank’s product search and check out the headlines of the big sellers. How did they grab your attention? How large were the fonts? What colors were used?

You’ll soon discover that headlines are actually fun to come up with. They can set the tone for inspiration as you write the rest of your sales letter. We’ll cover more in future posts. This should get you off to a good start in your quest for writing great sales letters. A tool I would highly recommend is Glyphius. This is one of the best tools on the market for crafting the most effective phrases for your headlines and sales copy. Check out James Brausch’s website to find a reseller.

Now go check out some popular product sales pages and get familiar with their headline styles. Try to improve their headline by writing your own, as if it was your own product. Like anything, the more you practice, the better you’ll get at it. Who knows, you might even impress yourself, and after that, impress others!