After a lot of soul searching I’ve come to the conclusion that I played a part in destroying the global economy.

Yep, Freddy Mac Daddy and Fanny Mae (Quoted from @TurnerDigital) have got nothing on me.

So what have I done to be associated with such good company, have I been short selling company stocks, lending money that didn’t exist in the 1st place to people who couldn’t afford to pay it back even if they lived for another 150 years, or something far more Dick Dastardly?

Well, here it is, my public admission, in true AA style:

My Name Is Dan Thompson, and I’ve Stopped Buying Things

Not things completely, I still eat and wear clothes, I also still buy random gadgets and crap T-Shirts, but over the past 2 years the amount on Internet Marketing products I have purchased in almost 0.

I say almost 0 because I’m sure I purchased something last year, but as you can tell, it didn’t leave a lasting impression on me.

So with my new “anti buy stuff” attitude, I’m slowly destroying the economy, the money I’d be giving to Marketer x for their brilliant new “How to rank 1st on Google whilst eating pizza with Cameron Diaz whilst she does Donuts on a remote air field in Southern England” is no longer going into their pocket, and in turn that money isn’t going to their local crack dealer, and that money isn’t then going into their local McDonalds….or wherever crack dealers eat nowadays, it’s a vicious circle.

If everyone was like me, imagine how much worse the economy would be.

But why have I stopped spending money in the IM niche, I used to spend money when I 1st started, so why stop now?

Well, I’ve come to this conclusion – since I’ve stopped buying all of these big launch eBooks that contain “an unmissable new secret that’s so secret I may have just made it up to sell this overpriced PDF” you’d have thought my earnings would have evaporated to nothing, I mean if I don’t use this amazing new technique then I’m clearly going to fail.

But that’s not the case, I still make as much, if not more now than I ever did when I was buying every IM product that I was offered.

Those initial products I purchased to help get me on my way were great, but there comes a time when you have to stop following instructions and think for yourself. I’ve realized that there’s only so much information you need to get started as an online marketer, so once you have that basic understanding the only thing that’s stopping you is yourself, if you have a basic understanding of how things work then get out there and put your plans into action, free yourself from the shackles of overpriced crap!

It’s like driving a car, when you first start you read up on the theory behind it all, and you then go for lessons, and eventually you take your test and are allowed out into the big bad world…..full of horse riders, cyclists and caravans……

Once you’ve done the theory and passed the test, you start to drive on your own, and if you make a mistake you learn from it and know not to do it again.

So basically what I’m getting it, is that once you’ve got the basic understanding of everything grasped, and your hosting and auto-responder in place, is it really worth buying anything else?

I can understand purchasing products and services that make your life easier – graphics, PLR articles, “make your life easier” software, and so on, but if you are a competent marketer already, do you really need any more theory guides, wouldn’t you be better going off and researching something on your own – and then you could be the one selling your “secrets”

For example, last week whilst foraging through the internet, I noticed that a highly popular script in a particular niche that I’m active in has no rampant affiliates promoting it, so I can get in there and make affiliate sales on the script, and also some hosting sales on top of that – hosting is a fundamental part of the script.

And to promote this, I’m not going to use a top secret technique from an eBook, I’m going to do something that I’ve tried and tested over the years and that I know works:

1. Create website where I share my experiences of the script with the readers, and post a few “how to use it” guides

2. Drive traffic to the site via organic Google results, as I’ve shown you how to do umpteen times on this blog

3. I’ll get affiliate sales from the product, and sales from the hosting

4. Bingo, job done!

5. Total cost of project – $8 for the domain name

I haven’t actually created the site yet, so I may be setting myself up for a humiliating fall, but I’d like to bet that if we come back in 6 months time, the website will have made me at least a few thousands dollars, none of which would have been possible if I’d have still been reading my way through a badly written PDF telling me “what I must do to succeed”.

End of minor controversial blog post, I think there’s a point in there somewhere, if not, just have fun looking at my illustration of a car driving into a wall, notice how I remained un-sexist by not implying the sex of the driver.

Bye for now,
Dan

Following on from my last mega-post, I’ll bring you one final nugget of information that I’ve picked up on my travels. It’s one of those things that people love to speculate on, but nobody really has a definitive answer to it.

So what is the mysterious question?

Here you go:

Q: Does The Geographical Location of a Server Effect Search Engine Rankings?

A: Yes

**The End**

What’s that I hear you cry, you want proof?

The video below provides you with all of the proof you need, it’s a video made by Google for their Youtube Google webmaster channel.

*Any eager beavers reading this as soon as it’s been posted via the RSS feed may need to wait for the video to show. I suck at embedding Youtube videos on WordPress posts for some mad reason!

**Turns out the video works, but it covers up some of the links in the nav bar, but I don’t think any of you really use them anyway

So to summarize, if you run a site that is specifically targeted at a certain market, you stand a better chance of ranking well in the search engines if the server your site resides on is located in that country.

But lets not take the videos word for it, Google may be pulling a devious little trick on all us nerds, lets put it to the test.

Go to Google.co.uk (The UK Google site) and search for something along the lines of:

wellies free delivery

If you then check out the domain names that come up on the first page of the Google results using the Network Tools Express search, you’ll be able to see the geographical location of all of the top sites is the UK.

You can search again for something like:

plumbers in sheffield

And you’ll see that this time we have a lot of local business results from Google that appear, if you do the Network Tools search on a few of the domains, you should find that the sites hosted in the UK achieve a higher listing than those hosted in the US and elsewhere.

So if you currently host a site that targets the UK market on a US server, you may well find that a simple server move would increase your, or your clients search engine rankings.

You don’t have to just test it on Google.co.uk, feel free to try your own local version of Google and have a look at the geographical location of the server.

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D9 Hosting Provides Shared & Reseller Hosting Services
For Clients Across The Globe With Servers Located In
Both The USA And The UK!

Select Your Preferred Server Location During Checkout:

http://d9hosting.com

*Use The Following Coupon 4 10% off:

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I’ve turned into the devil, I’ve turned an informative blog post into a plug for D9 Hosting, but come on, if you are going to take my advice you may as well get the hosting from me as well

As I’ve been writing this post, another SEO myth that needs dispelling also came into my head, but I think I’ll leave that one for the next post – unless you all leave a comment telling me that these “nugget” posts are crap, in which case I wont bother.

So next week: Why spending loads of money on “different class c IP” hosting is a waste of time, and again, this is backed up by Google.

Just before signing off, here’s a chance to take part in a D9 Hosting/Internet Marketing fantasy football World Cup league. It’s free to play, and as well as the prizes provided by Fifa, we (D9) are offering existing customers 50% off their next hosting bill, and 50% off your 1st hosting bill if you fancy joining – all you need to do is win the league.

If you are new to Fantasy Football, here’s a quick overview of how it works:

• You have a “transfer kit” which you use to buy players

• Each player will earn you points every time they play, by scoring goals, keeping clean sheets, getting an assist, etc. (They’ll also lose points for getting sent off!)

• The points are then added up, and added to your team’s score.

• You’ll play in a league against myself, Paula, and other D9 customers

• There are also prizes provided by Fifa, including a brand new car, football shirts, and more

• It’s totally free to play!

So even if you have no football (soccer) knowledge, pick a random team of players and who knows, you may just get lucky!

It’s all a bit of fun and we’d love to see you in the league

Instructions on how to enter are below.

1. Sign up for free account at:

http://www.fifa.com/theclub/index.html

2. When you’ve signed up, log into your account and click on “Games” and then the “Activate” button under “McDonalds Fifa World Cup Fantasy”

3. You can then log in at the Fantasy Football site: (Bookmark this URL!)

http://en.mcdonalds.fantasy.fifa.com/

4. You can then go ahead and select your team

5. When you’ve selected your team, you can join the D9 league by clicking on “My Leagues” > “Create/Join”

And then enter the following league code to join our league:

187968-44949

The closing date for the 1st round of games is the 11th June, so try and get your team registered before then, and good luck!

Fantasy Football Tips

1. You’ll most likely find yourself running out of money, so my tip is to pick a solid foundation of 12 or 13 quality players, and then make the rest up with really cheap players from the teams that don’t have much of a chance – you only pick 11 players to start the game so start with your quality players and leave the cheap ones as substitutes.

2. Your captain earns double points, so select your star player as the captain

And that’s all for this blog post, but before I go, here’s a recycled post from 4 years ago, call me un-patriotic but the gist of it remains the same

http://www.elpassoblog.com/why-england-have-no-chance-of-winning-the-wold-cup/

Over and out,
Dan

I’ve done the title in ALL CAPS to make this blog post seem really urgent, interesting and important. I haven’t written it yet so I have no idea if that will be the case, but at least it gives me something to strive towards.

I’m still not 100% sure what I’m going to write about, I’ve been way behind with blog posts recently but in the absence of my nuggets of gold/bull poop I’ve come across some interesting tit bits whilst stumbling around the Internet. So I think I’ll share them with you, and you can tell me if you agree, or god forbid, disagree!

Nugget 1: Meta Keywords & Descriptions – As Much Use as a *humorous metaphor goes here”

Since the dawn of time, people have been hung up on keywords and descriptions when it comes to optimizing their sites for the search engines.

Back in the good old days (pre-Google), this was a wise thing to do, the early search engines would base their results purely on the meta keywords for a web page. So you could basically spam the hell out of the keywords and rank for any given term with very little effort.

Since Google entered the search engine market and started to implement their algorithms, meta tags have become less and less important. People still say you should use them….but they just don’t carry as much weight as they used to.

After much (about 20 minutes) research, I say that’s a nonsense, in this day and age you may as well not waste your time putting them in there, but wait! I have 2 bits of evidence to back up my almost slanderous claims. I present to you the following your Honour:

Evidence 1

Do a search on Google for “John Thornhills Marketing Masterclass”, and you’ll see results similar to this:

The first result in Google takes you to www.johnthornhillmasterclass.com which is the “official” domain for the product, BUT take a look at the source code.

There are no keywords or meta tags to be seen, there’s also no content on the page at all as far as the search engine bots are concerned, just a video and an opt-in form. Yet that site out ranks all of the competition sites, which all contain nice fancy keywords, descriptions.

So is everything you’ve ever been told about SEO one big lie?

Maybe, who knows!

But I know what you’re thinking, of course John’s official domain will be top of the list. When people are searching for “John Thornhills Marketing Masterclass” Google wants to bring back the most relevant result which is going to be the official domain.

Evidence Verdict: Circumstantial

Evidence 2

When you are doing research on how to get to the top of the rankings, who better to ask than a professional SEO company?

So I did a quick Google search and typed in “UK SEO”, the results that came back can be seen below.

There are over 30 million broad results for that term, so you’d think the site that ranked number 1 must be some sort of SEO monster, and surely they must know what they are doing. So go ahead and click on the 1st result (which for me is www.davidnaylor.co.uk), and then look at the source code.

Yes, your eyes do not deceive you. No meta keywords or descriptions, but still out ranks all of those sites that do have them.

Evidence Verdict: Conclusive

Nugget 2: Server Location Does Matter

I think I’ll save this nugget for next week, there’s only so many SEO nuggets you can digest in 1 blog post, especially if those nuggets are made from chicken and come from McDonalds, 36 is my record.

Nugget 3: A Lot Of “Internet Marketers” Are A*Holes

Did I get that right? We don’t really use the A*Hole term in the UK, so I don’t know if the * is needed or not, some American readers please put me out of my misery – misery may be the wrong word, but I’ll allow it.

But anyway, it’s a sorry fact that a lot of people online are vermin, harsh but true. I’m sure the majority of you reading this will have come across these people, and some of you will have been “burned” (not literally?) by their scams. They’ll go something like this: (This is based on a phone call I received, so I’m guessing I’m not the only one)

Dan: Hello

Phone guy: Small talk

Dan: Small talk

Phone guy: So, how’d you like to make money online

Dan: I’d love that so much more than words can express

Phone guy: Cool, we can help you with that by coaching you

Dan: Ripper (I was pretending to be Australian)

Phone guy: What’s your credit card limit

Dan: £5000

Phone guy: Cool, let me call you back

Phone guy: Hi Dan, I’ve gone through your requirements and we can turn you into Donald Trump for only £4995

Dan: Sorry, I’ve never forgiven him for splitting up with Ivana

*puts phone down*

They’ll actually target vulnerable people (not that I’m vulnerable, but I must have somehow ended up on a lead list!), ask them for their credit limit and then take it all away from them in one swoop for some BS coaching program, anyone that does that “for a living” deserves to be called an A*Hole as far as I’m concerned.

But anyway, does this nugget have a purpose or am I just venting frustration? IT HAS A PURPOSE!

Not every marketer online that offers coaching is an A*Hole, one person that falls into that category is Dave Nicholson.

I’ve known Dave for years, and I can tell you one thing about him – he likes Breaded Mushrooms.

Breaded Mushrooms are like kryptonite to A*Hole marketers, wave a mushroom under their nose and they’ll be able to outrun Usain Bolt.

But in all seriousness, anyone who has ever dealt with him will be able to confirm that he’s a stand up guy, and that he’s one of the good guys. I’m not going to try and sell you the coaching (I’d be stupid to, it hasn’t even launched yet!) , but I will provide you with this free 24 page report that he’s written, that shows you “The Real Truth About Online Marketing”.

Click on the image below to read, or right click on it to save to your computer, no opt-in required!

Nugget 4: My Faith In Human Kindness Restored

I’ll finish off (don’t cheer to loudly) by telling you a little story that happened to me over the weekend.

On Saturday I was out on an end of season football……for want of a better word – pub crawl.

On Sunday I realized that I’d either lost my wallet, or it had been stolen. It contained a bit of money, my credit/debit card and my driving license. So I quickly cancelled them all and ordered a replacement license.

I phoned round all of the taxi firms, and pubs that we’d been in but none had seen it. I tried to think where I had it last, and remembered that I must have had it in the taxi, or how would I have paid him!

But another call to the taxi company proved fruitless.

Fast forward to Tuesday morning, and a package drops through the letter box. I open it up and it’s my wallet, complete with all the cards, driving license, and the money.

There was no note in it, so I can’t be sure who sent it. But I’m assuming it must have been the taxi driver.

I thought that for him to take the time to go to the post office, and send it back, without taking any of the money inside was a very kind thing for him to do, and it’s restored my faith in human kindness.

So a lesson for you all, treat taxi drivers with respect, you never know when you may need them!

Signing off – at last!

Dan

Just a quick post for you today regarding John Thornhill’s
Masterclass coaching program. If you head on over to the sales page
today, you’ll notice John has added some payment plan options, so
if the lump sum is too much, these will be great for you.

BUT…..

DON’T take advantage of the payment plans before emailing me, I
*MIGHT* be able to do a cheaper deal for you. That’s all I dare say,
but “nudge, nudge, wink, wink”, contact me for more details – nothing
like a cryptic post to start the day off

My bonuses are also still live, so if you want a discount, and all
of my bonuses:

http://johnthornhills.com/marketing_masterclass/bonuses.php

Just use the contact link at the top of the page to get in touch with me.

And all of you that are asking if I’m going to get an iPad? I’ll just wait till
they come out with a sleeker version… the iTampon

Regards,
Dan

As promised, I come with details of bonuses! Not just any old bonuses either, you wont find these John Thornhill Marketing Masterclass bonuses anywhere else, they are totally unique and exclusive to me.

You’ll probably know that most bonus packages will consist of some resale rights products, with a jazzed up sales page, free of charge, you may even get some PLR articles and 10,000 free pats on the back….but YOU SHOULDN’T CLAIM THEM.

Not if you are planning to take on John Thornhill’s Marketing Masterclass program anyway, and here’s why.

You are going to be taking part in a 36 week Coaching program, where you’ll have various tasks to undertake along the way. Each task will require you’re effort and concentration, you wont have time to look at your bazillion free eBooks and PLR reports, never mind do anything useful with them!

That’s why my bonus is totally different, it’s not just some random resale products thrown together at the last minute, this bonus is designed to complement John’s Masterclass course. So you’ll be taking the Masterclass course, but you’ll be using my bonus package AT THE SAME TIME!

Allow me to explain in graphical form:

I should have been an artist…..or maybe not :-/

Allow me to explain a bit more about the bonus.

The bonus I am offering, is an extra support package that will be used as you go on with the coaching, that’s not to say you don’t get support from the actual coaching you – YOU DO, and you get lots of it, but there are times when you may get an answer, but you still aren’t 100% sure what to do, or you still need more advice, or simply a 2nd opinion, and that’s where my bonus comes in.

Remember that I have full access to the Masterclass Program, and have worked with countless students who have taken then course in the past, so I know the course like the back of my hand. I’m also a professional, fully qualified, “tech guy”. Don’t believe me, take a look at the image below:

Here’s what each section of my “Support Suite” is all about.

Unlimited Personal Email Support & Advice

This is the most popular support option (or it has been when I’ve offered it in the past).

I’m offering you the chance to get me help and advice via email, for the full duration of the course. If there’s anything you don’t understand, need clarification on, or just need some general advice on a certain part of the course, drop me an email and you’ll have a response within a few hours.

Any of you who’ve emailed me for support in the past, know that I deliver!

Up To 5 CUSTOM Video Tutorials

This is going to be hugely popular, I can sense it!

During the course you may run into some annoying technical thing that you just can’t get right, it may be that you are having trouble positioning an opt-in form in the header of your blog, or you just can’t get the formatting on your sales page right, but you really need to know how to do it!

All you need to do is get in touch with me regarding the problem, and you’ll get your video own video tutorial, where I show you exactly what needs to be done to rectify the problem, and how you can solve it yourself in the future.

These video tutorials are created on request, and are EXCLUSIVE 1 to 1 videos, nobody else will have access to them, only the person that requests the video.

Hands On Support

I’m also offering a full hour of my time each week, for “hands on support”.

This allows you to take advantage of my experience of all things technical. All you need to do is get in touch and say:

“Dan, Why is my blog throwing up a 500 Internal Server Error message, can you fix it, my head is going to explode.”

And my response will be:

“Hi Billy-Bob, I’ve fixed the problem for you.”

Of course, you can contact me to fix any problem that requires some “hands on” assistance, it doesn’t have to be a 500 server error, but you get the picture. The hands on support allows you to contact me 24/7 to fix any issues you run into, this covers absolutely anything in the course – hosting, email, mailing lists, sales pages, html, css, and so on.

So in total, you’ve got my “hands on” service for more than 36 hours, if you were a business, and were paying for my “hands on” help, it’d cost you £1,800 (£50 an hour), but you are getting it for free, so take advantage of me

Free Boomerang List Builder

This is ONLY AVAILABLE IF YOU WILL ACTUALLY USE IT.

I wasn’t going to give away a copy of the BLB, but figured it would be a bit mean if you really did want a copy and I didn’t throw it in, but I’m only going to give it away if you are actually going to use it, I don’t want it to turn into any of those other products that you’ve got sitting on your hard drive that will never see the light of day.

If you feel it’ll distract you from the course, then I’m happy to hold it back until after the course has finished, and give it to you then.

So there you have it, full details of my bonus offer. I can’t decide if I’m stupid for offering so much of my time or not, but I’ll just have to see how it goes. If I get too many takers then I may pull the offer – there’s only so much time in a day, so please do get it whilst you can.

Here’s how to claim:

1. Join John Thornhill’s Marketing Masterclass program by clicking here. <—— You MUST click that link, if you don’t, you may not be eligible for the bonus (It launches on Tuesday, January 26th 2010)

2. Forward your receipt to: helpdesk@elpassoenterprises.com

Or use the “Contact” link on this page – they both come to the same place

3. I’ll then send you all of my contact details where you can get hold of me, the contact details are exclusive to this bonus, and all come directly into a priority inbox, so you get right to the front of the queue – no waiting for a response.

I think that’s got everything covered, all that’s left is for me to do, is to nudge you towards my Marketing Masterclass resource site if you need more information on the course:

More Marketing Masterclass Info

And do please leave a comment if you have any questions.

Regards,
Dan

Hello, greetings, welcome to another blog post. I’m sure you are already “in the loop” about these things, but if not, here’s what I have to report.

John Thornhill is launching his 2010 Masterclass Coaching program in 6 days time (26th January), and if you cast your mind back to last years launch, you know it’s going to be huge.

You’ll also remember how I told you that John’s coaching would be the only coaching course I would EVER promote, and that still is the case. John got me started in Internet Marketing business back in 2005, and we’ve worked closely ever since, so I know he’s the real deal, and I know that having him as your mentor/coach/friend is a chance not to be missed.

So you have forewarning, I shall be promoting the product pretty hard, but I make no apologies for it. I’ve seen the results that the course produces, and I know it works.

But here’s where it gets interesting, I’m not going to be doing the usual promoting methods, rather than sending out standard “hype” emails, I’m also going to use my experience of the course to provide you with the information you need. I’m not just an affiliate promoting the product for a commission, I actually have first hand experience of the course!

To start off with, have a read through the following site: (It’s not an affiliate link, but a link to a mini-site I’ve created)

John Thornhill’s Marketing Masterclass

The site has been put together by me, and on the site I’m going to answer any questions you may have regarding the program, and I’m also giving you a lot of background information that you can use to make a decision before making any purchases.

It would also be very rude of me not to mention the free report that’s currently on offer over at the official Marketing Masterclass website. The report is titled “Why You Will Never Succeed Online”, and it’s been written by John as part of the pre-launch. It’s a good read, if a little different, but you can check it out here:

http://johnthornhills.com/marketing_masterclass/exit/

That’s all for now, I’ll have more info in the coming days, but if you do have any questions about the coaching please feel free to leave a comment and I’ll do my best to answer for you.

Regards,
Dan

Nothing to do with Internet Marketing, or Christmas, or the New Year. But I stumbled upon what I think is a very cool Youtube video, so I thought I’d share it with you all. If any of you know of any scarier footpaths just let me know

It’s December 14th, and I’ve decided that this is going to be my last blog post of 2009. I’ve got quite a lot of things to finish off before now and the end of the year, so I thought I’d get the blog post in early before I forget about it.

I’m afraid I’m going to do one of those corny “look back at the past year” posts, but I’ll try and sneak some useful information in there as well.

The year started off in January, and……okay, I don’t think this format is going to work. Can any of you actually remember what you did in January, because I don’t have a clue?!?

Instead of going month by month, and making things up. I’ll just write about everything that comes to mind, no matter what part of the year it happened in.

And the first thing I’m going to write about is the growth of D9 Hosting. I wont go into immense detail, but D9 Hosting was started back in 2007 by myself, and my business partner, Paula Brett. We started out with the intention of hosting a small number of our marketing friends and clients on a reseller hosting account, but since then things have snowballed.

2009 was certainly the year D9 Hosting came to the forefront, in previous years my main source of online income was from my other projects, and D9 Hosting was there as a nice little earner in the background. But in 2009 this changed, D9 Hosting has gone from a small 25 GB reseller account, to a multi server network (another server has just been added today!), responsible for hosting thousands of websites, for individuals and businesses all over the world.

In April of this year we formed D9 Solutions Ltd. which is the holding company for D9 Hosting, and other “secretive” D9 projects

We are delighted that D9 has become a six figure business in 2009, and we couldn’t have done it without all of our clients. I know a lot of you reading this are customers, so I want to say a big, personal thank you, to each and every one of you for making it possible, we couldn’t have done it without you.

We look forward to working with you in 2010 and beyond!

So that’s D9 off the checklist, what next?

Next up, I’ll focus on some of the big launches that I worked on in 2009.

If memory serves me correctly, which it probably doesn’t, I think the first major launch I got on board with in 2009 was Resell Rights Fortune by Socrates Socratous.

This wasn’t just a product I was promoting as an affiliate, Socrates used my Boomerang List Builder software in the pre-launch. During the launch period you could get my BLB software for free, in return for an opt-in. So that clever piece of integration marketing grew my mailing list by thousands, and continues to get me new subscribers every day.

The actual launch was a big success, and I did quite well in the JV contest, winning plenty of prizes and bonus items.

The next big launch I covered was quite recent – Multi Profit Websites. (MPW)

This was created by John Thornhill and Dave Nicholson (who I met in person for the first time back in April), I first heard about MPW a couple of years ago, but since then it had morphed into the mother of all plug ‘n play websites, and it was finally ready to launch at the end of October.

The launch was one of the biggest I’ve ever seen, from memory I think it must have been the most successful launch I’ve been involved in as an affiliate from an earnings, and customer satisfaction point of view. I think a lot of my success with that one, and subsequent promotions, was due to the influx of subscribers I received from the Resell Rights Fortune pre-launch…thing.

I’d strongly urge any of you looking to build a mailing list to try something similar, it did wonders for me!

Come to think of it, I can’t actually remember any other “big” launches that I was involved in, that’s not to say there wasn’t any, just that I can’t remember them right now. Other products worth a mention include:

Internet Selling For Newbies
Guru Bypass
Auction Income Formula (Just released)

There were also some great little items from Aaron Danker that I can’t for the life of me remember the name of, sorry Aaron!

Apologies if I’ve missed anything off the list, but as you may have noticed. I have the memory of a goldfish….what happens if a goldfish suffers from short term memory loss?

Those (D9, affiliate marketing) were my 2 main sources of income for 2009. I did have my own product in the pipeline, and it still is, but D9 really has taken up almost all of my time over the past 12 months so my product has been put on the side for now, but one day, I’m sure it will be released….maybe

Before I sign off for the year, I’m going to have a mini rant on something I’ve seen appearing more and more towards the end of this year – WordPress Spam Blogs!

For me as a web host, and a regular blog reader, I can’t stress how much these types of blogs get on my nerves, there are no redeeming factors for them!

The sort of “Spam blogs” I’m referring to are the “auto-content post” blogs. You can download/buy plugins that allow the blog owner to specify subjects that they’d like the posts to be on, how often they’d like new content posted, and they’ll then pull content from a number of other websites and stick it on the blog.

You can also get plugins that add posts based on the keywords visitors used when finding your blog. So if someone found my blog on Google by searching for “Dan Thompson’s magical circus of dancing bananas”, the script would automatically make a number of posts about Bananas – it’s pointless!

Not only is it pointless, but it puts a massive strain on the server load with all the crazy auto-posting going on, but that’s my problem, not yours, so I wont go into that aspect of them

Think of it as if you were the visitor, what would you do when you landed on a blog with content that you can clearly see is spam – you’ll leave. If you want people to visit, and most importantly, read the content on your site – give them good content! Don’t be lazy and rely on some script to post crap to your blog, you’re wasting your time, if you are really that bad at writing, hire a ghost writer.

End of rant

Also before I go, a special thanks to all the following people who’ve helped me, or worked with me in some way in 2009:

Paula Brett, John Thornhill, Dave Nicholson, Dan Sumner, Omar Martin, Dan Howard, Socrates Socratous, Aaron Danker, Pat Graham, Collete Jones, My Dog, Alex the designer, Bach the programmer, Elmer Hurlston, and many, many more!

I’d also like to say a big “No Thanks” to Natwest/Streamline who have been beyond useless in the past year, no Christmas gifts for them!

And i think that brings to an end my reflections on 2009, do feel free to share any of your own experiences/achievements/annoyances about things that have happened over the past year in the comments section!

And I wish each and every one of you, a very, very, happy festive season and new year, and I’ll back back in 2010!

Regards,
Dan

A blog post!

I dare not look at the date on my last post, I know it’s been a long time but the truth is that I’m starting to find it incredibly difficult to find subjects to write about. If you look back over the archives, you’ll see that I’ve covered just about everything to do with marketing over the past 3 years.

But luckily I’ve stumbled across a new subject for a post, and i think it’s going to be a good one.

As with most of my ideas, I came across it entirely by accident.

A couple of years ago I was browsing the Internet, as you do, and I came across something that made me do a little vomit in my mouth, take a look:

I’ve blurred out some of the information to protect the person that designed the site (I said SITE), but as you can see from the picture, it’s like we’ve gone back in time to 1997, there are primary colours, animated GIF’s, annoying Javascript plugins, and most importantly, the site looks a mess.

That’s just one example, I’m sure you’ll have come across many similar sites on your travels. Here’s another example that I stumbled across:

Not quite as bad as the first site, but still a very basic site, with pixelated images and general “cheap” feel to it.

So, what does all this have to do with Internet Marketing?

Quite a lot actually, I’m sure you all have your own sites, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say that all of your sites will look better than those in my examples.

That’s because, in general, the vast majority of Internet Marketers know just how easy it is to create a site that oozes sex appeal in no time at all, I’ve got 1 word for you – WordPress!

A lot of you will be familiar with using WordPress as a blogging platform, but it can be even more lucrative if you take it “offline” and use it as a CMS (Content Management System).

This allows you to create a top quality website, that people with no web design knowledge will be able to operate, all you need to do is set up the site and host it for them.

Sound simple enough? – It Is!

Just imagine how pleased the client would be if you were able to transform their drab site into something that looks like this:

So here it is, my business idea (it’s not a new idea, I’ve been doing this for ages!) laid out step by step:

1. Search on google for *name of service* *name of your town*, Eg:

Plumbers Halifax

2. Go through the results until you find a really bad website

3. Contact owner of bad website, either by phone, or go see them if they have a shop

4. Offer to create them a brand new website that they can update themselves, and will look the bees knees

5. Get a reseller hosting account

6. Set up a wordpress blog and use a professional theme (See StudioPress themes)

7. Present site to client and watch as his/her face beams with pride at the sterling job you’ve done for them

8. Collect a nice yearly payment for the site

That’s it, a nice simple business idea that anyone can do, and trust me, it works!

I use the above method all the time for local businesses, clubs, holiday cottages, village halls, community groups, the list is endless. It’s all about using the skills you’ve already attained from your time as a marketer, and then taking them offline.

With a simple tool like WordPress and a professional theme, you can blow the offline designers out of the water on both price and quality, and the clients will love you for it. They’ll then refer you to their friends and before you know if you’ll be the “go to guy” for web design in your area

And if anyone reading doesn’t like the technical side of things but has a few clients in mind, I’d be happy to work with you on a split commission basis, so you’d liaise with the customer and I’d do the design/hosting part – get in touch for details.

And that brings to an end the blog post, what do you think, have I managed to turn on that light bulb in your head or am I talking nonsense? As always leave a comment and let me know!

Regards,
Dan

It must be a special occasion, I’ve written a blog post!

I will issue an apology for the lack of postings recently, if I were to be stereotypical, I’d make some excuse about working so hard I haven’t been able to find time to write anything…but I’d be lying.

That’s not to say I haven’t been working hard – far from it, but there are 2 words that any UK male, under the age of 30 will understand – FOOTBALL MANAGER.

Yes folks, the demon that is FOOTBALL MANAGER reared it’s ugly head around 6 weeks ago, and as such the blog posts have suffered. What can I say, I’m only human!

…And if anyone is interested, Leeds United have climbed all the way up from League 1 into the Premiership, and are currently sitting in 9th position

But anyway, back to Internet Marketing.

The reason for todays blog post is to give you some free information, and it’s also to wet your appetite for an upcoming product launch. I should really try and hide the fact I’m trying to sell something behind an elaborate Derren Brown style post containing loads of subliminal messages (*cough* buy from Dan *cough*) but I suck at all that, so I’ll come right out and hit you with it

John Thornhill and Dave Nicholson are launching a brand new product – Multi Profit Websites (MPW) on the 29th October, 2009 27th October, 2009. The MPW system allows anyone to create a profitable niche website from scratch in minutes, no coding knowledge is required.

Now I don’t want to bore you by documenting every tiny feature, so I decided to make a video for you. John & Dave gave me access to Multi Profit Websites a few weeks ago, so in the video I show you how I created a brand new website from scratch, in under 15 minutes. So without any further commotions, feast your eyes on this…and as always, apologies for the accent:

So, what do you think?

Was it worth the 17 mins of your life I just took from you, I hope so….I don’t think my public liability covers that, but in all seriousness, you can see how easy it was for me to create what I think you’ll agree, is a pretty good looking site.

I created the website on a niche I know absolutely nothing about – Robots & Robotics, mainly to demonstrate how anyone can use it to create any kind of site. And as I showed you in the video, everything you can see on the site was added and edited using the online admin area, there’s no need to use HTML, PHP, CSS, MySQL or any other of those horrible abbreviations.

You can also check out the site I created using MPW by clicking the link below.

Multi Profit Websites Demo – Robots & Robotics

MPW will be launching on the 29th October 27th October, at a time that has still to be specified, but I will of course keep you updated with any news as and when I get it. I do also still have access to MPW, so if you have any pre-launch questions, or would like any more information please leave a comment and I’ll answer them for you ASAP.

Cheers,
Dan

P.S. I will use this space to make a shameful plug to follow me on Twitter. I still haven’t got round to using it for marketing purposes, but if you do decide to follow me, you may well find something on there that suits you. Last week we had the breaking news that my new office chair arrived, I also provided a fool proof way to get through a hair cut. Follow me at http://twitter.com/d9dan