If you are still finding yourself buying SEO guides on the WarriorForum hoping that this time, this guide, will be the one that will change your life for the better than you should read the recent PDF by Glen Allsopp from Viperchill.

To get the PDF you need to signup for Glen’s email list and don’t worry, that is not a typical IM email list and that means no crap, just value. Very few of those around the IM niche.

I know exactly how addictive the WarriorForum can be and I know exactly the type of highs you feel when you land on what seems like the “next big thing” only to find out you spent a few bucks (usually) on crap. But more importantly, you wasted your time (which is your most valuable asset) and you find that it took you a step (or more) backwards due to the disappointment and the frustration that comes with it.

When I started I did the same mistake many others made and that was spending way (WAY WAY) too much time on the WarriorForum and buying this WSO, and that WSO and it just didn’t seem to stop. The fact that these WSO’s are so cheap and that they promise so much and some a very well written is just too much for most newbies and most fall to this trap of continues buying of WSO’s in hope that one of these purchases will be the one that will set you free.

That ain’t going to happen.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

You know what, forget that. I’m not sorry.

If i’m the one that burst this bubble for you than i’m happy.

And you should be too.

But it might take time to figure it out.

Only when I realized that what I was doing is wrong and won’t lead me to where I wanted to go, I managed to go to the next level (and the next). Forget about the WarriorForum, forget about WSO’s and focus on what is really important.

TAKING ACTION.

And in case you are confused, buying eBooks or video courses or whatever is not taking action.

Go to Glen’s Viperchill and signup to his email list and read that PDF about the WSO case studies he did.

And have fun reading it, I know I did

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Why You Need to Stop Buying WSO’s

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It’s been a while. I haven’t been posting here much lately and when I think about it, I haven’t been really IN for just about a year now. I kind of took some time off but for the last few months I’ve been working on my brother’s blog in the effort to grow the revenue his online operations are creating.

So far so good

The reason I decided to “come back to life” here is that I got an email from Jon Leger (which is one of the few online marketers I actually trust) that explains a simple process that he uses to create small money sites. I must say that if this was sent to me by just about anyone else in the IM sphere I would probably ignore it.

But Jon has proven to me that he is different more than once and his advice, products services never let me down.

So I decided to put it to the test and see if this process actually works. And one of the reasons i’m sharing that here with this post is for some accountability. I know that the chances of me actually doing this will be much higher if I will share the process with you on this blog. I had too many ideas the past year that stayed as ideas. I don’t want that to be the case now.

I don’t see any reason to copy paste Jon’s process so you can read all about it here.

I was always a big fan of Article Builder for the great content it provides and wrote a detailed review about the tool but I never really paid any attention to the auto blogging aspect of this service.

I know that auto blogging was big a few years back. It was actually one of the first things that actually worked for me and made me some (not much) money when I just got started.

Today is different though. Or at least I think it is. And I might be dead wrong. According to Jon, I probably am.

Only time will tell since i’m going to put this to a little test.

I will create 5-10 sites following the process detailed and we will see what results i’m going to get. If any. It shouldn’t take too much time and it won’t cost much either. I will only pay for registering the domains (i’m already a member of both Article Builder and Keyword Canine).

In case you want to learn more about Article Builder than you might be interested in signing up for the upcoming Article Builder – Beyond the Basics Webinar. You don’t have to be an active Article Builder user so this is a good chance to really learn what this tool can do in case you are considering signing up.

What do you think of the process Jon describes? Do you think it can work?

Let me know and stay tuned for updates.

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4 Step Money Sites. Really?

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Keeping track of your keywords exact rankings has always been a big issue for anyone doing SEO. Even though there are a bunch of tools and services for keeping track of your keyword rankings it seems that getting truly accurate rankings has never been easy.

In this post you will learn the problems that prevent you from getting accurate rankings and how you can easily overcome them, manually or with a new tool from the house of Jon Leger.

The Problem With Tracking Rankings

The main problem you will be faced when you will start keeping track of your various keywords is ACCURACY.

You can either check your keyword rankings manually or using a tool or service but both will be subject to accuracy problems that will result in that you won’t be able to know the true EXACT rankings for your keywords.

There are 2 main factors that effect the accuracy of the results you see:

Stored Information

Browsing history, cookies, being connected to your Google account will all effect the results you will see when searching in Google.

One thing you can do is clear all your browsing history and cookies before you search for a keyword to see where you are ranking. A better solution will be to use private browsing mode which all the top browsers support. Chrome has Incognito mode, Firefox has Private Browsing mode and IE has InPrivate Browsing.

Geo Location

Your geo location has a big impact of the results you see when you are searching in Google and the way to overcome this problem is to use proxies. By using proxies you are actually hiding your real geo location and telling Google that you are located wherever you want (according to the proxy you are using).

Here is a video that covers these issues:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Accurank Tracker

Accurank Tracker is a new tool from Jon Leger and Josh Spaulding. I’m a big fan of Jon Leger and I use many of his products. He is really one of the few internet marketers that I trust and follow so whenever he launches a new product I make sure to check it out.

As usual with his products, there is not much to write since he made a video showing exactly what AccurankTracker is all about, how it works and how easily it can be used.

Click here to view the embedded video.

100% Accurate Rankings Guaranteed

With AccurankTracker you are guaranteed to get the real and accurate rankings for your keywords. AccurankTracker uses a very small amount of resources from your own computer in order to provide 100% accurate rankings and it works in the background.

Unlimited Websites & Keywords

There are no subscriptions or options to choose from. One payment will allow you track as many websites and as many keywords as you want.

Multi-Country Support

You can also select from any other country that the top search engines support and track rankings using that modifier. This can be set on a website and keyword basis, so you can track rankings for one site/keyword in one Country, and others in another Country if you like.

Scheduling

This is a must have feature in a keyword tracking tool and AccurankTracker supports it. You can schedule the tool to check for your rankings on any time interval you want so it is pretty much set and forget until you want to check and see how your rankings improved.

Bottom Line

AccurankTracker has just come out of beta and officially launched so you can get it for now with the launch discount price. It is the cheapest keyword ranking tool out there and it simply does what it says which is 100% Accurate Rank Tracking.

AccurankTracker will provide you with the most accurate keyword rankings so if you don’t have a keyword ranking tool yet or you’re not happy with the one you are currently using, be sure to check it out.

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How to Find Your Keywords Exact Rankings with Accurank Tracker

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2012 has been a pretty busy year in the SEO world with all the various updates Google released and when you stop and look back at 2012 you can’t deny that these changes had a huge impact, for better or worse.

If you want to see all the changes Google implemented in 2012, SEOmoz has a complete list ready for you.

One of the latest things Google released in 2012 was the Disavow Link Tool.

What Is The Disavow Link Tool?

Here is how Google described this new tool:

Today we’re introducing a tool that enables you to disavow links to your site. If you’ve been notified of a manual spam action based on “unnatural links” pointing to your site, this tool can help you address the issue. If you haven’t gotten this notification, this tool generally isn’t something you need to worry about.

The Disavow Link Tool is something that most people involved with SEO have been waiting for while the rest were afraid of. In short, the Disavow Link Tool allows you to tell Google which inbound links that are pointing at your site you want them to ignore.

The tool is new and no one really knows how effective it will be for bringing back “punished” sites but one case study already claims this tool works. One case study isn’t enough of course and I’m sure that during 2013 we will probably see many more case studies that will shed more light on the matter.

The thoughts about the this tool and Google reasons for releasing it are all over the place in the SEO world. Many claim that this tool will help Google find more “bad link neighborhoods” so that they can drop the axe on them.

I try not to jump to conclusions without any real data and when I think about this tool, it does make some sense to me why Google will share it with the world. Everyone knows that with all the updates Google made in 2012 they made negative SEO much easier to do and they also stopped claiming it doesn’t work (finally) so the Disavow Link Tool is the first real tool webmasters can use to counter negative SEO attacks.

Who Needs to Use It?

• Unnatural Links – Those that got the “unnatural links” message to their Webmaster account.
• Negative SEO – Sites that have been hit with negative SEO could make great use of this new tool.
• Reset – Anyone that for any reason would want to just reset his site and remove all or some of the links the site has.

Step 1 – Get Your Links Together

The first thing you need to do is to find all the links that are pointing at your site. The problem here is that Google are not going to make your life easy and provide you with all the links which is actually something they really should consider as that complements this new tool.

For now, you will need the help of backlink checker and site explorer services and the ones that I used are MajesticSEO, Ahref’s and SEOMoz’s Open Site Explorer.

Step 1.1 – Webmaster Tools

The first thing you should do is get the links that Google does provide you with so just log into your Webmaster Tools account, go to Traffic / Links to your site, click on more under the first table (as seen in the following screenshot):

Now you will see the following:

Download all three as it seems that some contain links the others don’t. Keep in mind the first table will only contain the top 1000 root domains linking to your site and the other 2 download options will contain the exact URL’s where your links are coming from.

Step 1.2 – Other Backlink Checker Services

Now you need to go to MajesticSEO, Ahref and Open Site Explorer and download all the links pointing to your site.

Keep in mind that the free version of these services won’t provide you with much so here is what you should do.

MajesticSEO allows you to create a free report for a domain you own and here is the link to the page that shows you how to do it. You will need to copy it and change it so that instead of “yourdomain.com” at the end it will include your actual domain URL.

https://www.majesticseo.com/reports/create-free-report?url=yourdomain.com

You will need to register for a free account first and be logged in for the link to work.

Open Site Explorer doesn’t have a create free report feature like MajesticSEO does but they do have a 30 day trial so you should simply signup and cancel anytime within 30 days.

Ahref’s also lets you create a free report for a domain you own. You will need signup for a free account and than go to the own domain report page and follow the instructions.

Step 1.3 – Put it All Together

Open all the files you downloaded from all services (they should all open with Excel) and just copy all the link into one file and create a master list that contains all the links pointing to your site.

Step Two – Filter, Filter, Filter

You have your master list and now you need to start filtering it out so it will only contain the links you don’t want Google to take into consideration and here are the steps to follow in order to get to the promise land .

The one thing you really can’t do without is SCRAPEBOX. That link will bring you to the discounted price and really, there is no other way that I know of to filter your list and Scrapebox is a must have tool in my opinion.

It sucks they don’t have an affiliate program .

Step 2.1 – Remove Duplicate URL’s

Copy and paste your list of all links into Scrapebox and remove duplicate URL’s.

Export the list so you will have it saved for later (in case something happens).

Step 2.2 – Check Links

Now you will use Scrapebox to check the list of URL’s and see which ones actually contain a link to your site and which ones don’t.

Here are the steps as seen in the screenshot above:

Click on list and than on the top option (Red Arrows), than you will need to click on open (Blue Arrow) and just open any TXT file you have and enter your domain in there (the domain you are checking the links for of course).

Now you are ready to start checking the links.

A new windows will open and make sure you check the box next to “Match Domain Only” and click start.

Export the list to Excel after it finished running (blue arrow).

Keep in mind that this step will take some time and I recommend that before you start, you should increase the number of requests by clicking on Settings in the menu and than Adjust Maximum Connections. A new window will open, look for “Link Checker” (should be the second from the top on the right column) and increase the number to 50 or 100 or whatever.

Step 2.3 – Filter the List

Open the list in Excel and sort it according to Found / Not found and just delete all the Not Found links.

If you want to be sure that you didn’t miss any link than you can take the Not Found and Error links and run them again in Scrapebox.

If your entire site has been hit with some sort of “punishment” than you will use all the remaining links but if only certain page or pages been hit and you want to just recover those pages than simply sort the list according to anchor text and use only the links that point to those specific pages you want to try and recover.

Save the list you have now and import it back in Scrapebox.

Step 2.4 – Indexed or Not

Next we will check the list we have and see which links are indexed and which ones aren’t. For this you will need to use good quality proxies and I recommend and use ProxyBonanza. Don’t do this without proxies because your IP will be blocked pretty fast.

I don’t know how many links your list will contain but mine sits at more than 70,000 and checking all those links for index rate will take a long time and more importantly, will require a really big list of proxies so what I did is this:

I took the list, paste it into Scrapebox and trimmed all of them to the root domain and removed all duplicate domains.

Now I only have a list of the root domains linking to my site and I can check this much smaller list for indexing. I figure that if the main domain isn’t indexed than the inner pages won’t be indexed as well.

Start the index check and make sure you loaded your proxies into Scrapebox and checked the box that tells Scrapebox to actually use them.

Export the results to Excel.

The domains that aren’t indexed we can just copy and paste all the URL’s from those domains that contain a link to our site to the final file that we will submit to Google via the Disavow Link Tool. Sort the master list by URL and it should make it easier as it will group the URL’s from the same domain together.

From the domains that are indeed indexed, we will need to create a new list that now contains all the URL’s from the indexed domains and run a new indexing check for these specific URL’s in order to find which ones are indexed and which ones aren’t.

Step 2.5 – More Filtering

For all the indexed links you found, you will need to check which ones you want to keep and which ones you want to tell Google to ignore and I’m sorry to tell you that there is no automated method for this (at least not one that I know of).

You will need to manually go over this list and mark only the “spammy” ones. SEOMoz has a great list that might help you identify which type of links you don’t want.

To make this task a little easier you can use Scrapebox to get more information about these links which can help you figure out which ones are good links and which ones aren’t. This information can be:

• PageRank (PR) check
• Alexa ranking
• Number of indexed pages for the root domain
• Follow / Nofollow
• Outgoing links from the domain and their anchor text
• Anything else that you think will help you identify the good links from the bad ones.

Whatever you will do, I don’t see how you can avoid some manual work here and when you think about what’s at stake I suggest you do the work and put in the time it will take.

Step 3 – Submit the File

Once all the filtering is done and you have your final list that contains all the links you want Google to ignore, go to the Disavow Link Tool, log into your Webmaster account, pick the desired domain and upload the file.

As far as I understood, Google won’t let you know the results of your submission so stay tuned to your site performance in the search engines and if you will see a sudden increase in traffic and higher rankings in the weeks that follow than you can assume it worked .

Give Credit When Credit is Due

When I thought about using the Disavow Link Tool I did my research in order to figure out how it should be done and the best guide I found was in Hebrew so I must give credit as it helped me quite a bit in writing this guide in English.

Lastly,

I hope this guide will help you in the process of getting your file ready for submission to Google and I would love to know the results of your submission so feel free to share them with us by commenting.

Also, if you know of any better way of doing some (or all) of the steps I mentioned than do share them with me so I could update this guide if necessary.

Thanks.

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9 Steps to Hide Your “Poison” Backlinks from Google Using Their Disavow Link Tool

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As some of you know I’ve spent most of 2012 traveling and not doing much work all the while I was still making a full time income.

The fact that I was travelling  doesn’t mean that I stopped thinking about work and about where I want to go and when I think about it, I was working, only doing different things.

During my travel I mostly read books and watched quite a few TED talks. Today I want to share with you the 15 TED talks I think every online marketer should watch and live by. I’m sure that you will benefit from what is being shared in the following TED talks. I know I learned a lot.

1. Seth Godin: How to get your ideas to spread

I don’t think I should introduce you to Seth Godin since he is pretty well known in the marketing world and many consider him as their “guru”. I read some of his books and I can recommend two of them: All Marketers Are Liars and Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us.

2. Seth Godin: The tribes we lead

Another great talk from Seth Godin.

3. Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity

I just can’t agree more with this one. Schools as they are today are simply not getting anyone ready for the real world. It is just an outdated production line of “human robots”.

4. Tim Ferriss: Smash fear, learn anything

In case you don’t know Tim Ferriss than I recommend you do some research and learn a little about the man. Timothy Ferriss is an American best selling author, entrepreneur, angel investor, and public speaker. He has 3 books under his belt, The 4 Hour Workweek, The 4 Hour Body and the recently published The 4 Hour Chef.

It seems that his latest book, The 4 Hour Chef is the one that is related to this TED talk he gave back in 2009 and according to him, this was the first book he wanted to write. I’m just beginning my reading of this book and I read the other 2 and can’t recommend them enough. Many online marketers consider The 4 Hour Workweek as their second bible, me included .

5. Jason Fried: Why work doesn’t happen at work

Jason Fried has a radical theory of working: that the office isn’t a good place to do it. In his talk, he lays out the main problems (call them the M&Ms) and offers three suggestions to make work work.

Jason is the Co Founder of 37singals and he also Co Authored Rework which is a really great book and one that you should add to your list of books to read this year.

6. Dan Cobley: What physics taught me about marketing

Physics and marketing don’t seem to have much in common, but Dan Cobley is passionate about both. He brings these unlikely bedfellows together using Newton’s second law, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, the scientific method and the second law of thermodynamics to explain the fundamental theories of branding.

7. Richard St. John’s 8 secrets of success

A self-described average guy who found success doing what he loved, Richard St. John spent more than a decade researching the lessons of success and distilling them into 8 words, 3 minutes and one successful book titled: The 8 Traits Successful People Have in Common: 8 to Be Great.

8. Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action

Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership all starting with a golden circle and the question “Why?”. Simon also wrote a book titled Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action which I didn’t have the chance to read yet but it is on my list of book to read so I will get it done soon.

9. Dan Ariely asks, Are we in control of our own decisions?

Dan Ariely is a behavioral economist, the author of Predictably Irrational, uses classic visual illusions and his own counter-intuitive (and sometimes shocking) research findings to show how we’re not as rational as we think when we make decisions.

10. Daniel Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs. memory

Widely regarded as the world’s most influential living psychologist, Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel in Economics for his pioneering work in behavioral economics, exploring the irrational ways we make decisions about risk.

Using examples from vacations to colonoscopies, Nobel laureate and founder of behavioral economics Daniel Kahneman reveals how our “experiencing selves” and our “remembering selves” perceive happiness differently. This new insight has profound implications for economics, public policy and our own self-awareness.

I am in the middle of reading his latest book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, which was recommended to me by a good friend and so far it seems that it was an awesome recommendation.

11. Renny Gleeson: 404, the story of a page not found

Renny Gleeson helps navigate brands through fresh concepts, such as viral marketing and social media, to find the pulse of the modern consumer.

Nobody wants to see the 404: Page Not Found, but as Renny Gleeson shows in this TED talk, while he runs through a slideshow of creative and funny 404 pages, every error is really a chance to build a better relationship.

12. Tim Leberecht: 3 ways to (usefully) lose control of your brand

The days are past (if they ever existed) when a person, company or brand could tightly control their reputation. Online chatter and spin mean that if you’re relevant, there’s a constant, free-form conversation happening about you that you have no control over.

Tim Leberecht (chief marketing officer at frog) offers three big ideas about accepting that loss of control, even designing for it and using it as an impetus to recommit to your values.

13. Steven Johnson: Where good ideas come from

People often credit their ideas to individual “Eureka!” moments. But Steven Johnson shows how history tells a different story. His fascinating tour takes us from the “liquid networks” of London’s coffee houses to Charles Darwin’s long, slow hunch to today’s high-velocity web.

Steven Berlin Johnson is the best-selling author of six books on the intersection of science, technology and personal experience.

14. Paolo Cardini: Forget multitasking, try monotasking

People aren’t just cooking anymore — they’re cooking, texting (or sexting), talking on the phone, watching YouTube and uploading photos of the awesome meal they just made.

Designer Paolo Cardini questions the efficiency of our multitasking world and makes the case for “monotasking.”

15. Kevin Allocca: Why videos go viral

Kevin Allocca is YouTube’s trends manager, and he has deep thoughts about silly web video. In this talk from TEDYouth, he shares the 4 reasons a video goes viral.

Did I Miss One?

I hope you enjoyed and learned from the above TED Talks that I shared. In case you know of a great TED Talk that I didn’t share here, please share it with everyone in the comments below.

I’m always open to watching a great TED Talk. It seems you really can’t go wrong with TED .

Also, please share this list via Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon and any other network you might think of.

Thanks.

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15 TED Talks Every Online Marketer Should Live By

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I just got an email letting me know of a new product launch coming this week called Local Sniper and for some reason I decided to click and check what this is all about.

After watching the video on the JV page I thought I would share it with you guys so you will see one of the bad sides of internet marketing and why you shouldn’t even consider buying 99.9% of the IM products on Clickbank.

You can check out the JV Invite page of this product by clicking here.

The product name is Local Sniper and as you can see on that JV invite page, they don’t even care about the product their selling. There is no information about it. Only a hyped out video in a big mansion, with a big pool and some people having a party.

All they talk about in that video is how much money they made, how much money they will make buy taking advantage of all those IM newbie’s that buy into all those false promises of easy money and I really can’t blame them all because these guys do put all their effort and money into getting the best copywriters and marketing guys in order to make sure people will buy.

I can’t blame these newbie’s because I was one of them once and even today, after knowing that most products are crap and how to recognize a newbie trap when I see one, I sometimes find myself on the checkout page only to wake up, hit myself in the face and get the hell out of there .

A Few Highlights

Just listen to what the dude and dudette say in that video:

• “The team behind this had 15 Clickbank #1” – That only means these guys are pro in making newbie trap type of products and says nothing about the quality of their products.
• “We know how to make launches convert” – unfortunately, conversions for affiliates and product vendors doesn’t mean the product is any good.
• “We hire the best marketing specialists that money can buy.” – This is how you make these crap product sell so much. They put all the effort and money into the marketing and don’t pay any attention to the actual product.
• “Forget about the theory of relativity, the intelligent and complex sales funnel in this launch alone, would give Einstein a migraine.” – I really have nothing to say about this… really. I’m speechless.
• “Personally, we don’t even need the money. We do it to break records for fun.” – Yeah, sure.
• “Our goal is to make sure that you (the affiliate) get paid in a big way…” – Of course that is your goal, let the affiliates do all the hard work of brining poor people into your intelligent and complex sales funnel.
  After all, if the affiliates make money, the product vendor makes money, unless these guys are giving out 100% commissions which I don’t think they do but you would expect if they don’t really need the money and just do it for fun.

Rant Out

The stupid video, the mansion with the big pool which I would bet is just rented for making the video, the glasses of champagne, the big cigar, the amazing promises, the special date they picked, it was all just too much for me and I had to share it with you.

It is also nice that Jason and Susan king are the ones in the video but all the proof images they use are of Adeel C. I’m pretty sure that he is probably on their team but it just seems kind of weird. Maybe it’s just me.

It seems that no matter what happens and what Clickbank does, we won’t see the end of these type of products and product launches that focus only on making money, breaking records “for fun” and have nothing to do with creating something with actual value that will benefit those that purchase it.

According to that Local Sniper JV page, just about every affiliate out there is signed up to promote Local Sniper so you will probably see an email, or 2, or 20 about this product in the coming week.

That’s all for now folks, and just hope that Einstein will survive the migraine that is coming his way with the upcoming launch of Local Sniper

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Local Sniper Shows the Bad Side of Internet Marketing

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Just last week I decided it was time for me to come back home and put an end (or hold) on my world travels. After almost 6 months (24 weeks to be exact), 7 countries, 30 plus flights, thousands and thousands of miles, more than 17,000 photos, 4 sharks, 2 stitches and one amazing journey it felt like it was time to come home.

Ever since I got divorced back in November 2010 I planned on taking such a trip but I needed a way to fund it and I didn’t want to spend all of my savings (not that I had many). Back than I was only starting out with my internet marketing adventures so I wasn’t making much (if any).

I worked my ass off back in those days and I was able to build a pretty nice income that kept growing every month and my ultimate goal at the time was to earn 10K a month. I was under the impression that once I will make that much money I will be able to travel the world with no concern.

I reached my goad back in January 2012.

I doubt if there was anyone happier than me back than.

I also made the same amount in February 2012 but I knew that I wouldn’t be making nearly as much in the following months. For those of you that recall, Google started their big algo changes and updates during that February and because I was STUPID and didn’t get my sites ready for what I KNEW is going to come I got HIT.

HARD.

My income dropped by 40% the following the month.

I was devastated even though it was still a pretty decent income but as you know, everything is relative in life and when you go from making X to half X it really sucks .

It all seemed to happen at a point in my life that I felt lost in my personal life and with all that happened with the Google updates I also felt lost in my business life and that really isn’t a good place to be.

Feeling so lost.

So when the opportunity to take some time for myself and get away for a while, I took it.

I bought a ticked and 4 days later I landed in Atlanta, met my younger brother and started what turned out to be a near 6 months adventure around the world.

The plan was that I will be working and traveling and I did buy a brand new laptop just for that purpose but sometimes what you plan doesn’t really fit well with reality.

It turned out that I didn’t really work while I was travelling so I spent amazing 6 months without doing much work but the great thing is that I was still earning money. In the 6 months I was traveling I made $23,163.14 without really working. I did wrote some posts and answered emails but I can’t really call that working as compared to what I was doing before to build my income to the level it got to in January 2012. I didn’t do anything that was meant to advance my business and make it grow.

It means I was making almost $4,000 a month of passive income while I was busy traveling the globe and trust me, traveling the globe will keep you busy . It hit me a few times during my travels and made me think of how lucky and thankful I am to be able to travel, see the world and make money while doing it.

This is one of the reasons I was attracted to making money online using the internet. It is one of the only ways that will allow me to be wherever, whenever and do whatever I want.

That is the essence of being free for me.

What Now

Today I’m still kind of lost about where my life is headed but I’m pretty excited to find out. It’s a different kind of feeling and I really find it hard to explain so just take my word for it .

I’m also not so sure where I’m going to go with my online business and this blog but time will tell. I was pretty much out of the loop for 6 months which isn’t really good but it could also be a great thing since I have the ability to watch and learn everything that happened and changed from a further out view and you can see things you will never see when you are in the middle of all the chaos and mayhem.

Taking the time to step outside and observe things from a wider perspective could help you see things you would otherwise miss.

I will hopefully write more frequently and I will surely update some of my reviews as some of them really need updating and late is better than never in this case.

Lastly, I got tons of emails during the past 6 months with questions about SEO and the tools I use and how they measure up with all the new changes and I will only say this:

I DON’T think SEO is dead but I DO think it changed dramatically during 2012 and that is all I can really share on that subject for now.

I will probably expand more in a different post later after I will get my feet wet and learn about all the stuff that changed and how it effects the process.

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Planting Seeds and Ripping The Profits Down the Road

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As you probably noticed, I haven’t reviewed any products or services for quite some time now and it wasn’t because I wasn’t asked or because there are no interesting products or services to review.

But when Shane Melaugh emailed me about his new WordPress plugin called Hybrid Connect and asked if I will be willing to review it, I simply couldn’t say no.

Why I Couldn’t Say No

There are 2 main reasons:

1. Shane is on my “Guru Trust” list and he is really one of very few marketers I trust 100% and feel confident in the products they create and/or recommend. Shane has created several products before (paid and free) and I have tried and tested all of them so I know the quality I will get.
2. When I first got started with reviewing products, there was only one person that I found that actually did the type of reviews I wanted to do – real honest reviews – and that was Shane back in his Rich Quick Reviews days (before he re-branded to IMImpact). So being asked by him to review one of his products seems like going a full circle for me from when I only got started doing this kind of stuff and also gives me a little sign of approval that my reviews are what I wanted them to be.

Hybrid Connect

There are numerous WordPress plugins available for the purpose of helping you build your email list and Hybrid Connect is a new addition.

What makes Hybrid Connect different from any other similar WordPress plugin is its Hybrid feature:

When a visitor is logged in to his Facebook account (and between you and me, 99% of Facebook users are logged into their Facebook accounts 99% of the time) visits your site he will be able to join your list with a Facebook Connect button instead of the usual plain name and email opt in that you normally see on every blog/website online.

For the visitors that come to your site and are not logged into their Facebook account than the plugin will show the regular opt in form (name and email).

Why Is This Good?

Because it will increase your conversion rates. Simple and brilliant.

Using Facebook Connect makes it much easier for the visitor to signup. There is no need to type anything and it only takes 2 mouse clicks. Plus (and this is super important), most people use their main email address for their Facebook account so your emails have a much better chance to be opened and read than if it was a secondary email address.

That’s Not All

If Hybrid Connect only relied on its newly introduced Hybrid feature it wouldn’t last too long. It’s quite obvious that other competing plugins will implement this feature sooner or later (and I think some already do) so it has to have more features that will make it stand out from the crowed.

And it does.

It has pretty much everything you would expect to have in a list building WordPress plugin. Here are the most important features I think a list building WordPress plugin should have:

• Multiple Auto Responder Services Support
• Optin Form Builder
• Ease of Use
• Flexibility
• Browser and Mobile Compatibility

And it seems that Hybrid Connect has all these features, and more. It supports all of the major autoresponder service, it has a great optin form builder, it is compatible with all major browsers including those on mobile devices, it provides you with the flexibility to add your optin forms to just about anywhere you want on your site and it is really very easy to use which is super important in my book.

Additional features include the ability to create lightboxes, popups, squeeze pages and webinar signups.

Hybrid Connect Support

The support that comes with any premium plugin is very important in my opinion. Things that might look very easy to understand for the plugin developers might not be so easy to understand and operate for the plugin users so a really good support system is a must have.

Hybrid Connect has great support.

As you can see in the following screenshot that was taken from the members area, you have access to manuals on all the features Hybrid Connect has to offer. They are all step by step manuals that will help you set everything up easily.

It also has a FAQ / Problems section were it seems that all the most common questions are being posted along with detailed solutions.

And in the slight chance that you still have issues and can’t get something to work, you can contact their support desk and get your solution.

Bottom Line

First, I’ll be honest with you and tell you that I didn’t test all of the WordPress list building plugins that are out there. Not even close. There are too many and I don’t have too much spare time since I’m travelling the world and that is a full time job .

With that said, after checking out Hybrid Connect and seeing all it has to offer and all of its features, I really don’t think you can go wrong with it and I don’t see much reason to check all of the other competing plugins.

I’ve been following Shane since I started my online adventures and I’m 100% sure that he will do all he can to keep Hybrid Connect the best list building WordPress plugin out there and you will get full support and new features will constantly be added. The plugin already changed quite a bit since it was first created.

Do You Really Need Hybrid Connect?

YES.

I’m not going to go off on how important it is to start building your email list. I’m sure you heard and/or read it before and I’m pretty sure you already know it is super important.

I will let Derek Halpern from Social Triggers do the preaching on this subject and I really recommend you check this video out.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Building an email list is something you must be doing and a list building WordPress plugin is something that you will need to get started. With Hybrid Connect you could be building your email list easier, faster and with much higher conversions.

Get Hybrid Connect

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Hybrid Connect Review

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Hi guys, I just read the latest post from Tim Ferriss and it seems it is that time of the year again. The time of his birthday and the time to do some good. Instead of Tim getting a birthday present, he is doing all he can to give to others on his birthday which pretty damn cool.

Since 2010 Tim has made it his goal to contribute to some cause on his birthday and to leverage his huge audience in order to really make an impact.

Click here to read all about what Tim and his readers were able to do in 2010 and 2011 and you can also read about his 35th birthday challenge.

Since I’ve been travelling I had many moments in which I sat with myself in a beautiful place and all I felt was how thankful I should be for what I have. Tim’s 35th birthday challenge came at exactly the right time because what better way to show I’m thankful for what I have than to help someone else .

I loaned $100 to Santiago Valladares Argueta and with my loan Santiago was able to get 100% of the money he needs to finish school and become a Computer Engineer.

As you can see I highlighted the fact that this was a loan which is quite different than a donation. Vittana.org, the organization Tim partnered with, currently has an astounding 99.8% repayment rate. That means you should actually make your money back, and you’re giving a hand up instead of a hand out. By using loans, only the most hard-working and ambitious students participate.

With that said, I did decide to donate the money so once the loan will be repaid, it will go to Vitanna and they will reinvest my donated loan in other students’ education or Vittana’s programs so that my contribution can be leveraged time and time again.

Pretty cool.

I’m pretty excited about this and I just wanted to let you all know so that maybe you can also make a loan that will have a huge impact on someone’s life.

A few bucks for you can truly make a world of difference for others.

In order to make sure most people participate and more importantly, spread the word about it, Tim is always sweetening the pot and this time someone will be able to win a free round-trip anywhere in the world which will be pretty cool to win but that is not the main reason I made the loan and wrote this post.

I’m already travelling the world but I wouldn’t mind getting that ticket .

So go ahead and join Tim’s 35th birthday challenge and loan a few bucks. It doesn’t have to be $100. Hell, it can be just $1. If you can’t afford to make a loan you can do just as good or even more by letting others know about this challenge so be sure to share it wherever you can.

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Do Good Day, A Few Bucks Can Make a World of Difference

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If you are familiar with my blog and my reviews you should already know that Jonathan Leger is one of very few internet marketing “gurus” I trust and he is on my “Guru Trust” list. Jon has proven time and time again that he knows what are the problems internet marketers are facing and more importantly, he proved that he can create tools and services that help those specific problems.

Among his great creations you will find The Best Spinner, Instant Article Wizard, 1-Way Links, WebComp Analyst and Article Builder.

For these reasons I was pretty excited when Jon announced a new tool he is working on along with Josh Spaulding that will address a very big problem many of us have, keyword research, and I really wanted to see what he will come up with and if it is going to be as good as some of his other tools.

Keyword Canine Overview

So What Is Keyword Canine?

In short, Keyword Canine is a niche discovery, competition analysis, backlink generation and analysis tool.

When Jon and Josh thought about this tool they wanted it to help internet marketers with the 3 main steps needed to rank in Google:

1. Identify keywords that have value (traffic + advertiser value).
2. Analyze the competition (to make sure it’s not too difficult).
3. Get links to your site.

Keyword Canine is meant to help you find profitable niches (keywords), show you the competition you are up against and help you get links to get a head start.

In Depth Look

Keyword Canine is an online tool which is quite different than other keyword research tools. The fact that it is an online tool means it is easy to access from anywhere and more importantly, it works fast.

There are 5 main features to Keyword Canine:

Analyze

As you can see in the above screenshot, within Analyze you will  be able to do 3 things:

1. Analyze Keywords – This tool will analyze the specific set of keywords you provide and give you a full analysis of the search engine results. Click here to see an example of the report his feature will produce.
2. Analyze Related Keywords – This tool will find related terms for the keywords you provide and give you the competition analysis for those terms. Click here to see an example of the report his feature will produce.
3. Site Explorer – This will create a simple backlinks report on a specific URL. Click here to see an example of the report his feature will produce.

Niches

The niche discovery tool is the feature I was most excited about when I first heard about Keyword Canine. Here is how this feature is described by Jon:

Our exclusive Niche Finder feature allows you to quickly and easily browse through the latest keywords KC has found. You can also filter the last 30 days of keywords by CPC, search volume, avg. PR and more to quickly find HOT niches to target! And once a keyword is in our database for 31 days, it is no longer available in the niche finder, so you know the keywords have limited exposure!

Click here is an example of what you will see inside the niche discovery tool.

The information provided for you in the Niches section is a list of keywords on various niches that Keyword Canine “sniffed” out of the past 30 days. As you can see in the above screenshot, it shows you the difficulty level, the keyword, number of results, average PR of the top 10 sites for that keyword in Google, average SiteLinks, Low SiteLinks, number of local and global exact match searches, AdWords advertiser competition and CPC:

By clicking on any keyword you will get to see the complete analysis report for that keyword which would look exactly the same as the report shown above under the analysis feature of Keyword Canine. Click here for an example of the keyword analysis report for the first keyword shown.

The niche discovery tool currently covers niches and keywords on Google US, UK, Germany and France. The filtering functionality is pretty great and allows to filter the keywords so it will be easier to find what you are looking for:

Click here to watch the tutorial video that explains everything about the niche discovery tool.

Reports

This is where you URL backlinks reports will be stored for 30 days. You can enter an URL and it will generate a report (usually within a minute or so but it mainly depends on how many links the URL you are checking has). You can view the backlinks report or download it in CSV or TSV file formats for further processing and research.

Click here to see a screenshot of the reports page and you can also click here to watch the tutorial video that will show you everything you need to know about creating reports.

Boost

The SiteBoost service is a free link building service available to each Keyword Canine user based on a credit system and each credit is redeemable toward one “Boost” which consists of 100 directory submissions that do not require a reciprocal link in return and you will also get a report for all links created.

Click here to see a screenshot of the Boost Page and you can click here to see the tutorial video that explains everything about this new feature.

Tutorials

As it sounds, this is a tutorial section which has video tutorials on the various features of Keyword Canine and it is designed to help you learn how to make the most of this tool.

There are currently 4 videos about the features of Keyword Canine and one more video that shows a technique you can use to find AdSense and affiliate niches. I’m sure that more videos will be added as time goes by. Jon is well known for his awesome ongoing support of his products and tools so I wouldn’t worry about that.

Click here to see a screenshot of the Tutorials page.

What Was Added From The Initial Launch

This is was the first question I asked Josh since I wanted to know what is new to Keyword Canine and here are the main new addition he mentioned:

• We’ve added A LOT of new data points. In the backlink reports you can now see the class C IP percentage for your backlink (what percentage of them are on unique class C IP’s.
• We’ve added the number of .EDU and .GOV backlinks in the reports along with other data points.
• We’ve added “Boosts” which are basically free backlinks for all subscribers.
• We’ve added a “Site Explorer” which is basically a lighter, MUCH fast version of the backlink reports.
• We’ve added Google trend maps to the keyword analysis page.
• We’ve added export options to the keyword analyzer and backlink reports.
• We’ve added social signal info to the analysis page which shows how many Facebook likes, tweets and G+’s the top 10 competitors have.
• We’ve added anchor text breakdowns to the backlink reports that show how many of which keywords your backlinks have and also the same for the top 10 competitors in the analysis page.

Additional Keyword Canine Features

On top of the main features I covered, Keyword Canine also has an API that allows you to analyze keywords and get back all of the data that appears on the Analysis results page except for the domain name availability and additional keyword suggestions.

Keyword Canine also has a support forum that will help you find out everything you need about the tool, get your questions answered and suggest new features to be included. For any problems you have you can also contact Jon’s helpdesk.

So, Has Leger Done it Again?

I must say that it seems like he did. The improvements and added features from the initial launch are another proof of how great Jon work process is with every new tool and product he creates.

He is constantly working to make it better by adding great new features with the soul purpose of making the tool better and easier to use for its users.

The niche discovery tool is pretty great except for the fact that all the keywords are visible to all other Keyword Canine members but here is a little tip of you, focus on the Germany and France keywords since most others won’t bother with them (big mistake).

The backlinks reports have been intensely overhauled showing much more information and as far as I know, the backlinks report Keyword Canine produces are the best at this price point and if I’m wrong be sure to let me know of by commenting below.

Bottom Line

Bottom line is that Keyword Canine does cover all the 3 steps you need to cover in order to rank in Google but don’t think that it is the only tool you need. The boost feature is a nice addition but will probably won’t be enough to get you top rankings (unless you find a really easy to rank keyword).

It’s Not a Keyword Research Tool

Keyword Canine is not a keyword research tool. It is a niche discovery, competition analysis, backlink generation and analysis tool. It does provide you with keywords via its Niches feature but it isn’t really a keyword research since the keywords are provided for you (no research is done on your part).

For building small niche sites and leveraging the power of EMD’s I will recommend you give Long Tail Pro a try as it really can really save tons of time thanks to the ability to search for more than one see keyword at a time and the EMD filter feature it has. You can also read all about it on my Long Tail Pro Review.

Thanks.

To your success (and mine ),

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Keyword Canine Review, Has Leger Done it Again?

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