RosalindGardner.com

Learn Blogging & Affiliate Marketing with Rosalind Gardner

Rosalind Gardner

Super affiliate, blogger, and speaker, Rosalind is best known for her affiliate marketing training in the Super Affiliate Handbook: How I made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other Peoples' Stuff Online. You can connect with her on Facebook.

Too Busy to Blog?

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Are there lengthy periods of time when you're just too busy to post an article to your blog?

Perhaps you are overwhelmed with preparations during the Christmas season or during summer when the kids are at home and you are too busy keeping them busy to sit down.

I hear ya!

We've been on the road southbound for a month now and most days, after driving for a few hours then setting up the RV for an overnight stay, making dinner, getting some exercise and running the dog, blogging is just about the last thing I'm keen to do.

Oh, I do manage to get online for a wee bit everyday (via our satellite connection) – but I only make time enough to respond to the most important emails and then see what my friends have been up to on Facebook.

I talk about anything and everything on my Facebook account.

I LOVE playing on Facebook.

Sometimes, I'll post a great deal for clients or a link to a book that I'm reading on my Facebook timely. But mostly I discuss items of a personal nature. I'll post a picture from the State Park at which we are staying, or make a comment in response to some political news.

What I find really interesting is that my business is as good, if not better than it ever was… without blogging items of a business nature, but just posting mostly personal notes to Facebook.

Fluke?

I don't know – I'll review the stats again after Christmas.

But my bet is that being consistently ‘real' and linking out to your business site has significant benefits – much more than if you only post business items to your Facebook account. 🙂

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

Ros

P.S. This picture was taken at the Terry Bison Ranch in Cheyenne, Wyoming. I ordered a ‘large' beer, assuming it was a pint. Wrong. I ended up taking half of that beer back to the RV in a to-go cup. LOL

The Business Case for Agile Content Marketing

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I just downloaded a new ebook by Scribe CEO Brian Clark called “The Business Case for Agile Content Marketing.”

The book is available for free from the Scribe Content Library which Brian just opened today.

It is a very well-written 23-page essay about how to generate more traffic and leads for your website and/or your customers' websites. It contains some wonderful insights about how to build an audience. It's an easy and worthwhile read over a cup of coffee.

The Scribe Content Library plans to release more ebooks, webinars and great content in the near future. The next 3 planned for release are:

  • A Content Marketing Strategy That Works: The 7-Step Process to Building an Audience that Builds Your Business – by Brian Clark, founder and CEO, Copyblogger Media
  • How to Create Content That Converts: How to Tell a Story Over Time that Transforms an Audience Into Customers and Clients – by Brian Clark
  • Effective Content Promotion: How to Use Alliances, Co-opetition, and Your Enemies to Get More Likes, Shares, Links, and Traffic – by Sonia Simone, CMO, Copyblogger Media

A simple (free) registration gets you access – so, grab the coffee and get the first book now. 🙂

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please share your thoughts below!

Cheers,

Ros

Google Kills Adsense for Feeds

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Just got notice today that Google plans to kill Adsense for Feeds effective December 3rd, 2012.

Here's the email they sent out.

Hi,

We’re contacting you because you’ve enabled AdSense for feeds in your AdSense account. After carefully evaluating the product, we’ve decided to retire AdSense for feeds.

Starting December 3, 2012, we’ll discontinue serving ads via AdSense for feeds on RSS feeds and you’ll no longer see feed units in your My ads tab. To check if you’re currently generating any revenue from AdSense for feeds, visit your “Products” performance report and look for recent data for “AdSense for feeds”.

Please note that reporting on your feed ad units will remain available following the product retirement. FeedBurner URLs powered by Google will continue to function, but will no longer serve ads. As a result, it won’t be necessary to redirect your subscribers to different URLs or to take any other action in your account. For more details please visit the AdSense Help Center.

Rest assured, this upcoming change won't affect the availability of other AdSense products that you're currently using.

We appreciate your understanding and thank you for your patience as we continue to develop new features and offerings within AdSense.

Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team

Considering they wrote “AdSense for Feeds was designed to help publishers earn revenue from their content by placing ads on their RSS feeds” on the Official Google Blog – I guess publishers were making too much revenue. 🙂

Well, maybe other publishers were… my Adsense for Feeds earnings only represented about 5% of my Adsense revenue, so I'm not overly concerned about this.

What about you? Will the demise of Adsense for Feeds affect you in a bad way, or don't you care?

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

Ros

Profit from Your Passion

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I've always believed that following your passion is the best way to succeed in business.

There's no doubt in my mind that being passionate about what I do is the primary reason my online business has been so successful for almost 15 years. That's why I always recommend my students follow their passion as opposed to chasing the money.

Chasing the money works some of the time, but it usually fizzles out quickly and you are back where you started — looking for another venture. Moreover, there's very little personal reward in simply chasing dollars. It's boring and tedious following a formula or spending your time on a topic that does not interest you in the least.

Most, if not all, of my most respected Internet Marketing colleagues (other experts in the field) have also follow their passion.

One glowing example is Chris Carpenter, whom you may remember best as author of “Google Cash“, a best-selling guide on how to make money using pay-per-click marketing.

Chris and I agree that working to live is considerably more fun and rewarding than living to work. Chris, a die-hard surfer, lives on a beach in Mexico and when not there, he travels the world in search of great surf. He also cares a lot about the people with whom he does business – he wants them to succeed.

It's in that vein that Chris has created a new course called the Profit from Your Passion BluePrint.

One of the first things you'll notice on the homepage of the membership site is the comment, “If you have any questions, comments or concerns – please contact me directly at __________”… with Chris' email address filling in the blank.

I can't think of any coach in the IM community who lets members contact them directly via email (OK, except for me, maybe. LOL)

The course consists of the following:

Video and Tutorial Modules

  • Module 1 – Discover Your Passions, Skills, and Life Purpose and Envision Your Ideal Lifestyle
  • Module 2 – Niche Discovery and Research
  • Module 3 – Create Your Product
  • Module 4 – Create Your Sales Funnel
  • Module 5 – Send Traffic To Your Sales Funnel
  • Module 6 – Taking Your Business To The Next Level – Advanced Strategies

Bonus Modules

  • Bonus Module 1 – Developing the Right Mindset For Success
  • Bonus Module 2 – Your Personal Organizational / Life Management System
  • Bonus Module 3 – How To Work Efficiently

Bonus Learning Courses

  • [Video Training] — Publishing Information Products
  • [Video Training] — Learn How To Use WordPress
  • [Video Training] — Improve Your Copywriting Skills
  • [Written Content] — Creating an Information Product

The course is a well-structured step-by-step-by-step guide. Modules also include PDF downloads that you can print out.

The only downside (for some) may be the $147 price tag. Too, you'll have to wait for Modules 3 and beyond to be released. However, if you follow the course correctly, you'll be learning and building your business during that time.

The Profit from Your Passion BluePrint officially opens October 2nd, 2012 at noon Eastern time.

Right now, there is a video on the page in which Chris explains the four real reasons why most people fail to make any real money on the Internet. Watch it… I have no doubt that you'll be able to relate, if you've been working to make money online for any length of time!

My Bonus for You

If you purchase Profit from Your Passion BluePrint through my link, I'll give you 30 days free access to my Affiliate Blogger PRO academy.

To be sure you are ordering through my link, check to see that [affiliate = webjv] shows up at the bottom of Clickbank's secure payment form when you are ordering.

After you order, send me your Clickbank receipt number for the Profit from Your Passion Blueprint along with your name and email address through our Contact Page, and I'll set you up.

Enjoy the course!

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

Ros

Help Your Readers Reduce Their Workload and Earn 40% Commissions

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Work the SystemThe Work The System offers a blueprint for reducing work hours by 50-80% and increasing income and productivity significantly in the process.

I read the book and have been promoting the WTSA program since it was released…

They run an evergreen launch (as opposed to the types of launches I dislike) with a discounted price of $1495 and an actual price of $1995 and a 4 part installment payment option.

Anyway, thought you'd want to know about it!

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

Ros

Why Every Local Business Needs a Website

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Element Tree ServicesHere's a true story about why every local business needs a website.

Scott, the arborist, and his crew from Element Tree Services in Penticton had just finished doing a magnificent job of cutting, shaping and pruning the trees in my yard.

As I was writing a cheque for his work, I asked, “What's your website address?”

“I don't have one yet”, was Scott's reply.

“Are you KIDDING me?”, I asked.

“You guys do AWESOME work at very reasonable rates, PLUS you are new to the area, AND you DON'T have a website? Are ya NUTS?”, I spouted in my typical no-holds-barred fashion.

“Haven't got to that yet”, Scott replied.

“OK, well, there's plenty of competition in the area and if you don't have a website that highlights your expertise and services, you're losing business” says I, always the online marketer.

I COULD go on…. and on and on and on and on some more.

But seriously folks, if you have a business and want MORE business… you really need to have your own website.

What Scott has missed by not having a website was my testimonial for the fabulous work he did for me… and trust me, I've worked with enough landscapers and arborists in Penticton to know the difference between OK, good and terrific.

I would have extolled his virtues as a true professional to the world and his site would have been seen that much more readily in the local search results.

Too, because I'm on Yelp, Facebook AND Twitter and not shy to proclaim the positive — I'd have posted my exuberance at finally having found a GREAT arborist in my hometown of Penticton, British Columbia.

As it stands, other than for this post, I haven't been able to share my glee at having worked with such a knowledgeable and professional tree service specialist / arborist in Penticton.

With luck, his company, Element Tree Services, will benefit from this post.

However, don't count on all your customers sharing good news on Facebook, Yelp or on their blogs.

Bottom line? Get a website, especially if you have a local business and want MORE business.

It's NOT that hard and I can help… check out my blogging Academy if you want to save some money by doing it yourself (it's NOT that difficult) and have a BEAUTIFUL website, to boot.

Otherwise, the least you can do is register a domain name and get a quick website up with GoDaddy or Bluehost (the latter of which includes domain registration in their hosting fees.

Either way, it's such cheap marketing for your local business that you're crazy if you DON'T do it today.

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

Ros

P.S. I'm willing to bet that this post comes up in the search results for “tree services Penticton” at some point… and Scott WILL get the point… at that point. We can only hope. 🙂

Did you find this post about why every local business needs a website informative and useful? If so, please share it with others! If you have a comment, question or suggestion, please leave a comment below!

Cheers,
sig-ros

Do You Have Cookie Control?

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Unless you are an affiliate who can afford to pay a fine of about £500,000 ($616,173 US at time of writing), you should read this. 🙂

The EU ePrivacy Directive passed last year went into effect on May 26th, 2012. Sites that are not in compliance are subject to the fine — and that doesn't just affect affiliates in EU countries.

A site in the U.S. that targets U.K. consumers will also have to comply with the new policy.

Basically, that means:

  1. Users must be given the option to opt-in if your site uses cookies.
  2. You must inform visitors of the type of information the cookie captures and how long that information is kept.

How to comply

You will need to run javascript or install a WordPress plugin specifically for this purpose. Currently, there are 3 sources that I can recommend:

  1. Cookie Control Plugin a mechanism for obtaining a user's explicit consent for the use of cookies on their computer for WordPress from CivicUK
  2. Cookillian Provides extensible support for EU/UK compliance of the EC Cookie Directive (2009/136/EC), based on a visitor's location.
  3. EPrivacy Plug-in for Publishers from Affiliate Window (more complex than the other 2)

I was running Cookie Control on this website for purposes of example (see graphic below) and will HAVE to run it on my book sales site ASAP.

Although these directives are not currently mandated in North America and other regions, doesn't mean that you should consider implementing the practice.

Visit the ICO website for more information about the ePrivacy Directive and the new rules on cookies.

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