I sat down and thought a lot about what I was going to write in this post before I wrote it. You see, I recently had my “eye’s opened” to a few things that I had let slip by the wayside so to speak in the last few months.

Many of you already know me one way or another. It could be you bought one of my e-books The Newbie Workbook or Article Marketing Exposed, or maybe you joined my list where I showed you how I have been running my online business and how I have it structured through The Newbie University. Or maybe you don’t know me at all, and if so, let me thank you for stopping by and giving me a chance to get to know you:)

My story is pretty simple in that I started out just like all the other thousands of people who attempt to make money online. No clue of where I was going and no clue on how I was going to get there.  All I did in the beginning was soak up as much knowledge as I could, put my nose to the grind stone and get to work.  Luckily for me, I worked hard enough that I made money.

The harder I worked, the more money I made. Sounds like an old cliche doesn’t it. But the truth is for the last 6 months, I have just really sat back and profited from all the hard work I did in the beginning.

My wife had twins in October and with all that goes with new babies,  I got lazy in other words. You see there are so many things that I had planned and that I wanted to have done by now. Guess how many of them came to completion………..NONE.

I had a vision of creating The Newbie University into THE top membership site for new marketers to come and get a solid fundamental education on how to make money online. I know as well as all of you do, that there are a TON of scams and just flat out garbage on the internet when it comes to this area.

I figured who better to do it than someone who didn’t even have an email address the first time I looked into this. It’s true, I was THE ultimate newbie. I hated computers with a passion.  If it wasn’t for me losing 5000.00 in a scam called Ad Surf Daily, I probably would still be that guy to be honest.

I wanted to create more products that helped people and truly gave people a solid shot at making some cash from the internet. Sooooooo many things that I wanted to do and none of them got done. I flat out got lazy and content with the money I had coming in from all the work I had done when I first started.

All of this changed about a two weeks ago. You see, I’ve really only had one mentor since I started all of this a year and a half ago. Jeremy Kelsall took me under his wing a bit when I first started doing this and pushed me a long. Now let me say this, he didn’t “give” me anything that just automatically made me money. What he did was allow me to bounce idea’s off of him then he would give me suggestions.  It was up to me to figure out what worked and what didn’t.

I will always be grateful for the time Jeremy helped me and it’s something that I will never forget.  Through a lot of trial and error, I’ve managed to put over 100K in my pocket in that year and a half since I first started. BUT, it wasn’t until I joined Alex Jefferys coaching program that some serious light bulbs went off.

It’s not that I had been doing things so wrong, it’s that I hadn’t been doing much PERIOD! Just a few of his tips really got the brain working again and to say I’m 10x’s more focused now than in the last 6 months is a understatement.

Which now leads us back to The Newbie University.  I want  YOU to be a success online. I want you to be able to look your friends and family in the eye and tell them “I told you I could do it”. I think we all have heard the “what are you doing” line from someone who just doesn’t understand what it is we do on the internet. They think we’re just playing around or something.

As a newbie or someone who has been struggling, what would YOU like to learn? Be specific as I’m going to be creating something for everyone here in the next month that will help while I finish up the Newbie University. It could be something on article marketing, list building, traffic, seo or anything else you may think of.

Soon, The Newbie University will be what I intended it to be and that’s the best damn training ground for new and struggling marketers on the net!

So here’s your chance to voice what you would like to have in it. Leave your suggestions in your comments as to what you would really like to learn and I’ll do my part to help make sure that happens.

Plus this blog has a PR3, so you’ll get a nice backlink:)

Many people have asked me how they can get more traffic to their blogs. Obviously some will bring more than others, but the key is to get many different traffic streams going and leverage them all.

So below I’ve listed the different ways that I get traffic to this blog:

Direct hits – These come from sending emails to my different lists

Forum Traffic – I’m a member of quite a few forums, so a good amount of traffic comes from those.

Search Engine Rankings – This is traffic I get from being ranked in different places for keywords.  This is always cool traffic to see because it’s very targeted.

Articles - I have various articles on many of the different article directories and that brings in some decent traffic each month

Rss Feeds – Each post I put up is pinged and I submit the rss feed to the different rss aggregators. This doesn’t bring much, but it does bring some

Videos – Again, I put up a few video’s pointing back to this blog and that brings in some traffic as well.

Blog Comments – I regularly leave blog comments on other people’s blogs and that brings in some decent targeted traffic

Twitter – This is a easy way to get traffic to anywhere you want it if you have a big enough following.

Paid Advertisements – I use different things like banner adds and services like List Auction that sends some decent traffic here as well.

Put them all together and they equal some decent traffic.  It’s all about getting it in different ways and having your eggs in more than one basket. The more you do each one of these, the more traffic you get. The key is to not expect to see crazy results in the first few weeks. These things build over time, just like your business will

Get to work, I wonder how many people have actually thought about the power of those three words. Sure, most of us have probably heard them come from either our parents or from a boss who was not happy with our performance, but how many of you have actually said those three words to yourself.

So many people when trying to build a business online, do nothing more than search out information that is going to give them $100,000 overnight that so many programs claim to be able to do. Usually this winds up hindering people so badly that they never even start. And if they do actually start, they’re so confused with all information they have downloaded into their brain, that they can’t put the proper pieces together to find any success.

There are so many different methods for trying to make a dollar online and that very well may be the problem that most people face. How do you know which one to do? It’s not really a matter of which one you should choose, it’s more of a pick a method and give it 100% of your effort. Instead of spending all your time reading in forums, downloading free e-books or searching for the next million dollar program, why not just get to work on what you already know how to do.

The majority of people who have ever researched making money online already know at least 75% of what needs to be done. The problem lies in the fact that they just do it. It’s human nature to want to try out the latest flashy program. I mean come on, who doesn’t want to make $10,000 overnight? But the fact is you’re not going to make that kind of money unless you take the time to actually build the business. And I can’t think of one business that is constantly changing up the methods that uses.

Businesses will usually be founded upon a method or a marketing tactic and drain that method for every last dime it can get. Only once they have become profitable did they begin to branch out into various other forms of income. Now obviously there are exceptions to every rule, but most people who are successful online have a core method that built the foundation for their business. And if you actually take the time to sit down and talk to one of these people, they will almost 100% of time tell you that they busted their asses get there. They didn’t spend a ton of time in forums or downloading books, they created a plan and they got to work.

So the next time you look up and realize that you’ve wasted two hours reading an interesting thread on your favorite forum or just finished reading the 5th e- book you downloaded this week, remember that that is two hours that you’re never going to be able to get back that you could have been working on building your business.

GET TO WORK! Take those three words tape them somewhere that you can see them. Read them every time you sit down at your computer and you will be surprised how much more productive and successful you can become. Squeeze every last opportunity out of the business model you choose and get to work making it successful. It’s your business and nobody else is going to do the work for you.

You hear it all the time about how people want to start to make money online. They are focused on the fact that they can write their own schedule, make a ton of money and be ready to watch the game that’s on late during the week. Hell, why not? If you work online, you don’t have anywhere to be.

Then what happens is reality sets in and you realize that it’s not going to be as easy as you might have thought. Truth is, it is pretty easy, but most people leave out the most important part. They forget it’s called WORK from home. You still have to work, just like you would if you were at any other job you were getting paid for.  But, I realize that sometimes people will get down or frustrated and just want to give up. If you feel like your starting to step foot in these shoes, then here’s a few tips to keep you going.

1. Remember Why You Started In The First Place

Go back and look again as to why you started this. I’ll be after remembering for a few minutes, you’ll get a renewed sense of drive.

2. Put Yourself In A Position You Can’t Escape

Now, obviously I’m not talking about putting yourself into a financial position that can harm you or your family. But instead of buying 1 months worth of hosting, buy it for the whole year. Give yourself a reason not to just throw money down the toilet.  Post your goals in a public place that you frequent for everyone to see. You don’t want to be publicly known as a quitter do you? Well, unless it has something to do with a bad habbit:)

3. Surround Yourself With Motivated And Successful People

Believe it or not, this is one of the most important things you can ever do. Confidence breeds more confidence, so if you surround yourself with these type of people, you will begin to adapt their though process. This works in sports, business and anything else you are into really. It’s more powerful than most give it credit for.

4. Set A Time Specific Deadline For Everything

Another powerful step that many overlook. Give yourself a deadline for everything you do. It’s so much easier to just kind of mope around or procrastinate when you don’t have anything specific to do in mind. How many hours have you just wasted “looking around”? Probably more than most of us care to admit.

Remember, this is one of the few types of businesses that you can actually get more out of it than you put in, BUT only once you’ve gotten to a level that its possible.  Getting there just takes a little work:)

There’s not much worse than spending a ton of time building a site, getting ready to drive the traffic and not being able to be found. It seems that Google is becoming more and more a pain in the ass when it comes to indexing your site. With the recent crack down on “review” sites and those that are pushing products with less than “stellar” reputations, it has become increasingly harder to get your site indexed in a decent amount of time.

Here’s a few tips to help:

1. Don’t Put Affiliate Links On It Until It’s Indexed
Of course you are going to have a way to make some money from your site, but hold off on putting those affiliate links on it until it gets indexed. Google prides itself on “user experience” so the last thing they want to see from a new page is someone trying to push their “user” towards a paid product.  Give off the impression that your giving good content and you’ll get indexed faster.

2. Cloak Your Affiliate Links
I used to think that it didn’t matter if you cloaked your links or not. The only people who even know what an affiliate link is are other affiliate marketers. However, it seems like Google has decided to crack down on these links being shown blatantly in websites.  You can do a simple redirect inside your hosting account or you can use something like tinyurl.com to cloak the link. Always cloak through your hosting if you can as it will look like an actual link rather than a cloaking service.

3. Have A Terms Of Service And A Privacy Policy Page
Pain in the ass to have to create these two pages for each site?  Yep, but it’s what lets Google know that your a legit site. They have recently placed a good amount of weight on this so it’s best you comply. You don’t have to go crazy with these two pages on your site. Just a simple run of the mill template will do.

4. Submit Your Rss Feeds To These Three First
There are hundreds of rss aggregators, but the three that usually get the best results are Goldenfeed.com, Feedagg.com and Feedage.com. One of those three usually show up in a few hours.

5. Social Bookmark At Digg And Propeller
Social bookmarking always helps, but I’ve found Digg and Propeller to be the two that will get you indexed the fastest.  Social bookmark your site at these two places and then ping the urls of the bookmarks at Pingoat.com

6. Yahoo Answers
Answer a question in yahoo answers with your link in the resource box. Then take the url of the question and ping it over at Pingoat.com.

While I can’t guarantee that this will get you indexed overnight, it will drastically speed up the process. Most times, as long as your site has any type of decent content on it, you should be indexed within 24-48 hours of doing these 6 things.

While it may seem new or hard at first, you can succeed with internet marketing given you have a great desire to learn.

Sometimes you might find yourself doing things that are counterproductive to your internet marketing success. It’s important to pay attention to these things below and to make sure you don’t fall victim to them.

1. Only download FR.EE products.

You don’t want to have to pay for anything if you can get it for free, right?  Even if you have to spend a lot of time finding the free information. This is a quick way to get information overload and to completely derail your success. Somethings are worth paying for. You just have to decide which ones are right for you.

2. Start off jumping right into the internet marketing niche as your niche of choice.

There is a way to do this, but promoting the latest “flash in the pan program” is not the way. Don’t do this! There is nothing worse than someone trying to get someone else to buy a make money online program when they have not made a dime themselves.

3. Spend a lot of time on forums.

You know you can learn a lot on forums. There’s so much information, but you’ll never be able to read it all. Forums are one of the biggest time wasters you will come accross.

4. Have plenty of ideas and starts, but don’t complete anything.

This is the second biggest downfall of anyone trying to work online. They start things, give it a couple days and decide it doesn’t work. Then they start something else and repeat the process. This leads to a “this is such a scam” attitude and they quit.

5. Jump around to different business models quickly and often.

You tried one method of making money online (for one whole week) and it didn’t work, so now you’re trying another one that’s going to be just the thing.

Obviously I’m being very tongue-in-cheek here, but did you feel just a little uncomfortable regarding some of them?

Turn this around and…

Download only quality information even if it’s not free as it can save you time searching and be exactly what you need right now.

Think about positioning yourself as an expert in a niche you are an expert in and go after the profits there first.

Learning from forums is fine, but you don’t have to read everything.  Limit your time on forums and don’t mistake reading forums as taking action.

Abandon your goal of complete perfection and get your product out there already.  You can’t make any money from it if you don’t go live with it.  You can continue to tweak it even if it is already on the market.

Swallow your excuses. Many a marketer have come from very poor odds and gone on to successfully make mo.ney on the Internet.

BUILD A BUSINESS!!!!  I cannot stress this point enough. You can flounder around and make some money by being someone elses affiliate, but if you do that, your subject to the rules and changes they want to make.  Who’s to say that they don’t one day just pull their product down completely?  Now all the work you have done was worthless!

Build something you own, something you can control, something that if you work at it and build upon it, will bring you a return that you would have never thought possible.  BUILD A BUSINESS!!!!