As you try to figure out your life’s direction, you end up going down different rabbit trails; often various things get left on the trail that need to be cleaned up or cleared off.  This applies to any off the beaten paths you travel on your online journey.

In Internet marketing, it is a given that you will have tried various eBooks, purchased tons of PLR, domain names, and even created niche websites you no longer need or want.  I am no exception to the rule.  I “tried on” Internet marketing in the most basic sense.

It is true that in general if you are marketing online, you are an “Internet marketer.”  However, when most people think of Internet marketing, they associate the term with affiliate marketing, cheap eBooks, and niche websites.  There will be a lot of sales letters, opt-ins, and one-time offers involved.  Not that this is a bad thing.  Some people are quite successful with it.  But the majority fail due to lack of direction, focus, and knowledge.

Have a Plan, Stick to it,  and You can Be Successful

If you are someone who has a plan and you are good at Internet marketing, you can make a lot of money.  There are plenty of successful people who make pretty serious cash online.  But those people had more than an idea – they had a business plan.  Instead of purchasing tactic after tactic, they set forth a real strategy.  And then, followed it. What is your strategy?  Do you have one?  Do you have a real business plan?

Making money online is something most people do feet first without a plan.  Every product that floods their inbox sounds like the sure thing.  So, we buy it.  And we buy the next sure thing and the next until our hard drive is filled with sure things and money making ideas.  This is a common newbie mistake that many people make.

I am no exception.

I thought I wanted to get into niche marketing and so I bought in to this for several months.  I didn’t really have a plan, I just was going to get into niche marketing somehow.  I did tons of keyword research and bought domain names that I never used.  I also built a few websites with lots of content.  I soon discovered it was not something I wanted to do. It was all very time consuming.

Now, these sites just sit.

Websites for Sale

Instead of just sitting, I am selling them.  As is.  Original content, custom graphics, Thesis theme, affiliate products, premium plugins, and more.  The content alone is worth hundreds of dollars.

• eReader Review Central
• Exercise Equipment Guide
• Internet TV Review
• More Income Marketing

Domains for Sale

These are domain names for sale only – but you can create your own websites with them and do what you want.

DiscountShoppingCorner.com
RealInternetBusinessOpportunities.com
HealthyLifeStuff.com
MoreMarketingProfits.com
CampingShopsExpress.com
EssenceWebConsulting.com
GymEquipmentInfo.com

Both the websites and domains are in my footer as well.

If you are interested and are ready to commit to real online success, please contact me.

Do you ever see advertisements for trade shows or industry conferences and wonder if  you should go?

Do you worry about the expense or the time away from work and family?

I used to wonder and worry too, then I found a cure for it; I attended my first industry conference in 2002.

Okay, on the surface, my first Commission Junction University didn’t look like a good investment. The plane ride was fun, the hotel was sumptuous, the food was great, and I met a lot of new people. That sounds like a bad investment, but a great vacation  plan.

Once I got home, though, it was obvious that my first industry conference was a great investment. It was so obvious, as a matter of fact, that my wife Arlene accompanied me the next year, and we had forty other students in tow.

The Not-So-Secret Benefits

The real benefits of attending an industry conference or trade show are not always measurable – until you put them into action.

The first benefit is that my conference expenses were tax-deductible, so the event was much more affordable than we thought!

The contacts you make, the new products you see and the ideas you hear – all of these can become immediate improvements in your business plan. The biggest benefit, though, will be your attitude. When you meet that many successful people, you come away realizing that you can be just as successful – because confidence is contagious.

If you are serious about earning a living on the internet, and you haven’t been to any online marketing or social media conferences 2011 is the year you should start. Below I have listed my six favorite industry events, all of which I have attended and most of which I have spoken at.

Best Affiliate Marketing and Social Media Conferences 2011

• The Affiliate Summit is the largest conference you’ll find in the affiliate marketing industry, and it has some of the best speakers and biggest industry leaders available. The Summit is held each year in New York and Las Vegas, and is a clearinghouse for the newest ideas, latest trends and best products.

• The Blog World Expo brings bloggers in from across the planet to discuss content, revenue options and all the newest trends. Someone knows how to use a Twitter account to bring more customers into a shoe store, and he or she is likely to be at the next Expo. You may want to be there, too.

• Webmaster World’s “PubCon” is open to more than just website publishers; as a matter of fact, it isn’t a publishing conference at all. This webmaster’s group originally met in a pub to discuss internet marketing strategies and advanced SEO methods, but ran out of room. Now they meet in Las Vegas, but the focus is the same, and the beer is better.

• Because Commission Junction University was my very first conference, you may think I’m recommending it out of some sentimental kind of favoritism. I actually recommend it because out of practicality. It’s a well-organized, informative event in a gorgeous setting, and it is attended by 700 to 800 industry leaders annually, so it’s beneficial for anyone who makes a living online.

• AffCon is currently free for affiliates because it is a very new event, but that may not be the case for very long. The combination of high level panelists and a plethora of vendors and merchants will soon make this a very popular, and therefore marketable, event.

• The ShareASale Think Tank  is sort of an anti-conference. You will still get an opportunity to learn from industry experts and see the most popular vendors, but the ShareASale event also includes great parties, a little sports action, and a lot of emphasis on brainstorming and networking.

Affiliate marketing events aren’t the only ones out there, though, and if you work in another industry altogether, you should find out where those industry events are and plan to attend.

For example, Matt Papas has a website that focuses on weight loss. He ought to attend industry conferences which focus on connecting to people who would like to lose weight and are looking for Medifast promo codes or wondering, does the Nutrisystem diet work?

My wife Arlene is another example of someone who should branch out from internet marketing conferences. Her website, www.epilepsymoms.com, offers support and information for caregivers of epileptic children. Health industry conferences which offer information on the latest treatment options would give Arlene lots of new information which she could then pass on to her website visitors.

So, what industry do you work in? A quick Google search for landscaping trade shows will provide you with a list of upcoming events aimed at your business. You may attend a presentation where you learn to use a Google Plus photo gallery to boost sales, or you might meet the guy who made the auger which will help you plant a tree a minute.

So, Where Are You Going?

If you’ve read down this far, you already know that you will be going to an industry conference. Whether you are looking at internet marketing conferences, plumbing trade shows or social media conferences, 2011 will be a turning point for your business.

Now you have to make the hard decision…
Chicago in the fall or Vegas next spring? This could be tough…

Maybe I’ll see you there.

Your comments, as always, are appreciated.

About the Author

Speaker and author James Martell is the creator of “Coffee Talk”, an ongoing series of interviews with experts in internet marketing. An expert himself, James has been writing, speaking, and teaching people about affiliate marketing since 2001.

If you’re new to Internet marketing and still struggling to get that first $100 month, then I have some news that should boost your motivation and keep you plugging away at your marketing efforts. If you stay with this business, if you continue to learn, if you continue to test you will eventually acquire the knowledge and experience that’s needed in any business to be successful. And once you reach that hundred dollar month you’re going to discover that it’s much easier to ramp up revenue simply because now you know what you’re doing.

And when you know what you’re doing you’re going to start creating an enormous amount of wealth that you probably haven’t thought of.

I’ve been in this business for over a decade and I know that Internet marketing can generate steady stream of income thanks to the automated nature of the sale. I always focused on growing the business and never really gave any consideration to how much wealth I was building.

Now when I say wealth I don’t mean a mountain of cash in my backyard, I’m talking about the value of the money that I take in from my Internet operations. I had conversation with the renowned financial life coach Todd Tressider and what he told me made me look at my business in a whole new way.

$100 per month is the same as a $30,000 retirement package

Todd has a really impressive background in financial investment and planning. He started as a manager of a hedge fund that had a reputation of yielding high ROI for its wealthy clientele. In other words Todd had a talent for making rich people even richer but simply Todd decided that just simply wasn’t enough. He was very successful managing the fun, effective so successful that he decided to retire at the age of 35.

After a while I decided to open a new business and utilize his wealth building skills to help people that actually would appreciate it. That’s when he and I met. Todd wanted a website for his business and approached my wife Arlene and I for help in building it. During that time we chatted about many things and he took a look at how the affiliate marketing industry works. And then he said something that made my jaw drop.

“You know, $100 per month is the equivalent of having a $30,000 retirement package.”

A light bulb went on for me. Thanks to the automated system of sales that not just affiliate marketing but most online marketing businesses use, there is a steady stream of passive income just like a retiree receives a steady stream of retirement checks.

The difference between the online marketer and the retiree is significant. If an online marketer is receiving $100 per month on a product or service is because he or she has watched that product correctly and can count on a steady stream of income. The retiree however, had to lay out $30,000 during his working career in order to get his hundred dollars per month. For every hundred dollars per month in revenue that online marketer makes the value of that income is equal to the income from a $30,000 investment.

Now that’s wealth building!

Passive income – the wealth builder

Todd describes the income that comes from a retirement package as indirect passive income. The real “work” done in a retirement fund is performed by the principal investment. The result of that “work” is expressed in interest rates and dividends and that income is then funneled off to the retiree.

Todd describes online marketing income as being the result of direct passive income. Taking the place of the “retirement fund” is the marketing effort required to successfully launch a new product or service and make it attractive enough that it will generate automated sales. That marketing effort will continue to present the product to an audience and generate sales so long as the product or service remains relevant to the audience.

Todd was looking at affiliate marketing but I can assure you that the same concept applies to most online marketing operations be it e-books, video tutorials, podcasts or membership sites. If you’re using automated sales these principles of passive income apply.

Retirement planning made easy for the online marketer

While most people ask the question “how much should you save for retirement” the online marketer should be asking his or herself a different question. And that question is realistically, how much monthly income do I need support the kind of lifestyle that I want when I retire. Once you’ve decided on the number that simply a question of driving the sales of your business until you reach it. When you achieve that number you can quit.

Think about that for a second. If you decide that you need $6000 a month to live on in retirement then your objective is to build your business to $6000 per month. That’s the equivalent of the income you would receive from a retirement fund of nearly $2.5 million at 3%. And the bigger advantage is unlike most people you didn’t have to contribute a penny to that 2+ million dollar investment for. Your money that you earn today, all of it, is available to you today. Your contribution to your retirement is the effort you make in marketing your product.

That marketing contribution is the mountain of cash that will pay dividends when you retire.

One of the keys of success in affiliate marketing is starting out organized and staying organized. If you’re like I was back in 1999 when I first started in the industry, you have a full-time job that you need to meet your responsibilities which means you have limited time to launch your affiliate marketing busi

I know you’re probably excited about learning all the new strategies and tools of the trade, but you have to take the time to ensure that your approach to business is organized and that you are getting the most out of the time that’s available to you.

Get organized and avoid a disaster that I faced

Let’s take a look at a few disasters that could occur. Early on in my career I lost a critical list of usernames and passwords. I can’t tell you how many hours it took me to track those down. Password management is just so very, very important. And here’s one that might happen and if it does it will be a nightmare, your computer crashes. Gone are all your files. How long will that take to reconstruct. Backing up your data is a must do.

These are scary things that we simply don’t think about when we first get into business. We are focused on getting a marketing plan together, getting a website. Up and getting on with the business of marketing. But by simply taking a little time to get organized we can prevent the big time-wasting disasters later on.

Time is a terrible thing to waste

And it’s not just having a plan in place to prevent the loss of critical information; getting organized also means finding and using the tools that will save you time. After all, time is a precious commodity to you particularly in the beginning.

My wife Arlene and I have been working from home offices for over 10 years now and it’s a fantastic lifestyle. But had we not made the effort to get ourselves organized and using the tools available to make us more productive, chances are we’d be locked to a desk chair for the entire day. However, because we set it up right, I can cruise down to the beach in my Shelby

Cobra replica just about anytime I want, Arlene can go on field trips with the kids, and we can both pop out to get cup of coffee when we feel like it.

Okay let’s get to some basic tips on how to get organized

Where you put your home office is going to depend largely on how much space you have to work with in your home, but keep these points in mind. The space you pick has to have a minimum number of distractions. And by that I mean it’s a space that the rest of the family can recognize as a work space. When mommy or daddy is in this space the kids (or the spouse) know it’s not a good time to interrupt them.

You have to have a solid fast speed Internet connection. You may want to consider increasing the amount of RAM that your computer has if the pages seem to be loading slowly. You don’t have to spend a fortune on furniture, but don’t go cheap on the chair. A bad back is not conducive to creative affiliate marketing. When it comes to office supplies, check the drawers at your desk at work and find all that free stuff that you got at the last trade show you attended. Remember just because your company buys pens by the gross you don’t have to.

6 fantastic time saving tools that I use everyday

Now that the home office is set up let’s take a look at some tools that will minimize the amount of time you have to spend on tasks that aren’t directly related to marketing. I put together a short list of some of my favorites:

1.  WordPress – back when I first started there was no WordPress. I had to build pages page by page in HTML. When I first learned how to set up WordPress website I was absolutely amazed at the features and ease of operation. Without question this website platform is ideally suited for affiliate marketers who have limited or no technical skills.

2. RoboForm – had I had RoboForm when I first started I wouldn’t have lost that critical list of passwords. RoboForm remembers your username and password and other identifying data and automatically fills in sign in fields and Internet forms. Not only is a time-saver but it’s a great one-stop password manager.

3. Carbonite – this one is a must have. If you want to prevent the disaster that is caused by a computer crashing, Carbonite is your solution. Carbonite automatically uploads every new file or any file that has been modified onto a secure Internet storage space. This eliminates the ne ed to do manual backups and is a safe and secure way to restore your files.

4. PageLeap – this application is actually a start page for your browser that organizes your book marks and much more. Every time you open a browser PageLeap will appear and you have the ability to create categories like finance, social media, my websites or any topic where you frequently visit websites. Under each of these categories you can place up to 20 links. Now rather than struggling with the bookmark system in your browser or entering individual URLs you simply point-and-click.

5 . Google Documents – at some point in your business you’re going to develop a team whether you realize it or not. You’re going to want to interact and share documents with vendors, freelancers, affiliate managers and all the others that you work with. Google documents are a great way to manage information among those team members. You can share documents and you can collaborate on documents without having to create duplicate documents.

6. Google Calendar – if you have Outlook then you already know that the calendar is pretty sweet when it comes to reminding you of tasks and appointments that are due. Outlook is good as far as it goes. But what if you have to share that information and your schedule with others. The solution is Google calendar. Use this application to coordinate events, deadlines and other time sensitive information among your team.

You’re going to be amazed how much time you can save using these tools to accomplish automated tasks like filling in usernames and passwords, maintaining your website, improving the effectiveness of communication (which can be a huge timesaver) and generally just getting more done with the time you have.

So this weekend when you had planned to watch that tutorial on WordPress themes for small business, spend the time getting organized instead. Get the basics in place before you get on with the fun stuff and you’ll find yourself in a position to succeed not only faster, but with far less frustration.

If you could improve your time on site, page views per visitor and bounce rate do you think your conversation rate would improve as well? Sure it would.

So how do you do that? The secret is to engage your visitor early on and get them to interact with the site. When they respond to a call for action, even if it’s just “click here” to go to a particular page or section, their minds become predisposed to seek out more information.

One way to get quick engagement and interaction is through the use of professional graphic images. Graphics can set the tone and feel of the site but they can do much more than that. They are eye grabbing by nature but if you include a message as well you can get a desired action.

For example my wife Arlene has a website for moms who have children with epilepsy. Arlene and I went through that experience with our son Adam who is now 20 years old and has been drug free and seizure free for over 10 years. Arlene wanted to share that story with other moms.

Graphic driven conversions

Now on this site Arlene measures conversions differently than most. You or I might measure the number of units sold or revenue or subscribers but Arlene measures the number of viewers that report their child drug and seizure free after using Arlene’s advice. Her “conversions” are awesome and she attributes much of that to how the visitors interact with the site.

For Arlene graphics play a big part in getting the visitor off the page they landed on and onto another. The subtle non-threatening calls to action like “click here to chat in the forum” get the visitor engaged not only with the site but with each other and that builds the site’s value.

If you’re not a graphic designer then you’ll have to outsource these graphics and I’ll give you a mini outsourcing course in just a bit. But first let’s take a look at the graphics that Arlene is using so successfully.

1. Custom header that appeals to the eye and the heart

Every buying decision is based on emotion. It doesn’t matter if you’re buying a product or buying into an idea the decision making process is an emotional one. The header on a website is one place a visitor’s eye lands. This is an excellent opportunity to engage the visitor by appealing to his or her emotions.

Arlene’s header has three parts to it. On the left is the site name and that obviously important but it doesn’t overwhelm the header and occupy most of the real estate like some do. In the center is a tag line that grabs at the emotions “…when our son Adam was 4 yrs old he was having 200-300 seizures a day, today he is 20 yrs old and has been drug and seizure free for over 10 years.” And in the far right is a photo of Arlene and Adam.

You’ve got roughly 3 seconds to convince a visitor to stay on your site before they page back and go to the next search result. A header that quickly tells what the content is about and humanizes the text by showing you a picture of the author is a sure fire grabber.

2. Thumbnails

Speaking of humanizing the site, nothing gets that done better than a thumbnail. We like to do business with people we know. Associating a face to the information we’re reading is a great way to develop that relationship. When you order these get several different sizes because you’ll want to use them not only on the site but on forums, emails and a variety of profiles.

If you have a photo you like but it’s a bit flawed in someway, you can outsource to a photo retoucher and he or she can make you look like a million bucks.

3. Signature – your personal promise

This is a simple little graphic that is often overlooked. Adding your personal handwritten signature is perceived as a personal promise. Signing a review or signing a bit of information deepens the relationship between you and the visitor and develops trust.

Just sign your name on a piece of paper and scan it. Save it to your files as a jpeg and you are good to go.

4. Banners

By banners I really mean boxes. You’ll often see these above the fold on the right panel promoting free offers or newsletters. Some look clunky, some look like scams and some are incredibly effective in getting the visitor to interact. That’s what a professionally designed banner can do for you. Arlene uses the box along with cover art to offer her free report.

5. Cover Art – adds credibility

If you are offering a pdf product then you really need “cover art” to make it look credible in the eyes of the visitor. For example if you’re offering an eBook then you want an image of a book. If it’s a downloadable software product you want a picture of a disc and a disc package. In both cases the visitor knows they aren’t getting a physical product but that little piece of cover art is reassuring.

6. Newsletter templates

If you have a list you know that it represents a ton more conversions. The only thing better than a list is a list of previous buyers. Repeat business is extremely important to the long term success of a website.

So you’ve got this valuable email list…are you sending newsletters in plain text? Or does your email have those blocky looking graphics that you get from the supermarket? What if your newsletter could look like a page off your site? Getting a professional template can do just that.

Engage your list with attractive and informative graphics and you’ll not only drive more traffic but you’ll deepen the relationship between you and the visitor.

7. Control Panel directs traffic

A control panel is a navigation graphic that can focus traffic to particular pages on your site. It differs from the standard navigation buttons because it includes a call to action for each section.

For example’s Arlene’s control panel has buttons that say “click here to listen to the podcast” and “click here for epilepsy news” and so on. The graphic is encouraging the visitor to become engaged and it works! This is a great way to direct traffic to pages that convert or to pages that encourage further interaction.

Outsourcing made easy

Okay so how do you get these graphics and what does it cost.

Well you can outsource these to a graphic designer who works on a freelance basis as opposed to running a brick and mortar studio. I bet you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the price.

Outsourcing is a great way to get anything done on your site that you can’t do because you don’t have the skill, tools or time. If you need something as simple as buttons and arrows for a sales page or something as specialized as infrared photography you can find a freelancer to do it.

The 2 key secrets

I often use outsourcing sites like Elance.com and vWorker.com because they give me management tools and a level of protection that simply advertising for a freelance doesn’t offer. But here are the two keys to successfully outsourcing graphics.

Know what you want. Write down exactly the size and quantity and purpose for each of your graphic requirements. Once you have this submit the project and give it a description that is as detailed as what you originally wrote down. Provide links to examples that you like. The designer can’t read your mind and if you don’t tell him what you want you simply won’t get it.

The second secret is to submit one project for all of your needs. Don’t submit separate projects for a header, cover art, banner etc. The more professional designers often avoid these small projects as a waste of time. Also, if you have a larger dollar value associated with the project you are in a better position to negotiate price.

So there you have it. Sit down and take a look at your site and see if graphics can’t help you keep your visitors engaged. Remember, engaged visitors equal future customers.

In the style of Sarah Palin, ‘You betcha!’

When I first started blogging, I had no idea about keywords, Google Analytics, or PageRank.  I barely knew how to spell SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. Now, I know a little bit better.  But, only a little.

Not Another Blog Post on Search Engine Optimization!

Well, yes and no.

I am not going to pound in the importance of having your site “optimized” for the search engines.  That is really not my expertise.  I do know a bit about SEO and keywords, but I am NOT a guru.  Besides, you can find more detailed information elsewhere in my blog and all over the internet.

THIS post is about keywords.  Keywords are a part of SEO, but there is so much I did not know about how to use keywords until fairly recently.

Who DOESN’T Offer a ‘Get Rich Quick’ Product for only $37?

These days, EVERYONE had some sort of magic pill or product to help you make your fortune using the Internet.  This formula is usually in the form of a eBook.

How can you possibly sift through all of it and know what is quality and what is just plain crap, or worse a complete scam??  Most of the reviews of these products are from affiliates themselves! The World Wide Web is FLOODED with affiliate marketing and how to get traffic, etc. Some of these schemes claim you will make $112,279 a month without ANY work! Really?!?

Ok, it is exhausting reading through piles of bullshit to know whether something is worth the $37.

So, are any of these helpful?  Absolutely, some of the ebooks out there are really helpful.  Some of the paid ebooks and websites offer great and legitimate material to help you succeed. Much of the good info is actually out there for free or in forums.

So, what about keywords?

The Keyword Academy is the BOMB!

The Keyword Academy, or TKA, is a site I highly encourage for anyone with a website. I discovered this website a few weeks ago. And I absolutely love it!  The information is plentiful and helpful.  I learned a lot about the importance of keywords, how it plays into traffic, how you can choose the best keywords, and more. There is no eBook though. Sorry.

TKA is run by Court and Mark, who have both been involved in internet marketing since 2004, teaching methods on  CourtneyTuttle.com.  In late 2008 they launched The Keyword Academy to teach niche Search Engine Optimization as a method of creating income on the internet. A large part of creating niche sites (or any site) is the keywords used on the pages.

The site includes tutorial videos, a members forum, link building tools, webinars, and a cool niche refinery tool!

The best thing is the first 30 days of membership is FREE.  Yep, FREE.  After that is is only $29 a month or $33 for a premium membership. If you do not love it, you can cancel after the first month.  You will get your 100 pennies worth – I swear!  After that, you can continue your membership each month.

After going through some of the core videos and the forum, I discovered a whole new side of this ‘keyword’ concept that has been flowing around the internet.

Court and Mark put a lot of time into the tutorials, and the forums basically run themselves, just like any other forum.

Give it a try – it is free!

To answer the question – Yes, keywords are important.  TKA will show you how.

Facebook has grown by substantial leaps and bounds in popularity in the last few years. Unless you have your head buried in the sand, you may have heard of it.  It is a little known social networking site on the Internet. Even the I-don’t-even-OWN-a-computer-or-have-a-cell-phone types have at least heard the word ‘Facebook’ used among their civilized friends.

Originally designed for college students way back in 2004, it is now a platform for not only reaching out to high school buddies you have not seen in 20 years, but businesses, website owners, bloggers, and other social media junkies are finding it a great tool.

I have not really tapped into this resource, but I did create a Facebook page for my Inspired to Write blog. (I hope you will become a fan.)  As I started this process, I came across some great resources that I thought I would pass on.

First I would like to pass on a post about Facebook myths that are out there – in case you wanted to stop the nonsense. Social Media Examiner lists 4 Facebook Marketing Myths and How to Overcome Them.

Here is a simple chart explaining the difference between Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups and an entry on the Facebook blog with more detail.

Written in June this year, Marketing Zen discusses marketing in his article,  The Changing Face of Facebook Marketing – 5 Things You Must Know.

Helpful article on 5 Quick Ways to Improve your Facebook SEO by Small Biz Trends.

Smashing Magazine’s designing a Facebook fan page post that showcases great Facebook fan pages along with tutorials and resources.

Here are a couple ways that are suggested on getting more fans for your Facebook Page: Do More with Facebook and How to Develop a Facebook Page that Attracts Millions of Fans.

Mashable also wrote an article titled, 5 Elements of a Successful Facebook Fan Page. Written in March of 2009, still good reading, especially the origin of the Coca-Cola Fan Page.

If you are looking for a unique photo for your profile or fan page, check out 5 Creative Ways to Hack your Facebook Profile Photo.

A couple helpful sites to enhance your website or Facebook Page are A Like Box plugin for your website and a Facebook Apps site, called AppsBistro.

For advertisers, here is a post on Tips on Optimizing Facebook Ads for Affiliate E-Commerce Sales.

For serious business owners (versus amateur), there is a 250 page Facebook Marketing Bible that customers can purchase ($95 at the time of this posting). I have not purchased this (since I am not so serious), but looking at the Table of Contents, this ebook has a ton, I mean a TON of information.

Note:  Just as with any technology, especially popular websites, changes are happening constantly. Some of these resources offer great tips, but just be aware of the latest changes on Facebook.

One way to get your blog noticed not only by other readers, but in search engine traffic is by signing up with various blog directories.  You will see the widgets in my sidebar for blog directories where I have my blog listed.  Since I have decided to do this, I have noticed my traffic increase and much of this increase is due to the my listing in the blog directories.

Some blog directories charge a fee.  This may be beneficial for a specific group of bloggers, but not for me. Below I have listed ten FREE blog directories where you can list your blog.  At some of these sites, there is also a community in which you can also get involved and find other blogs in your niche, or just blogs that you may find interesting and worth following.

1. Blog Catalog
2. My Blog Log
3. Blogorama
4. Blog Top List
5. BlogExplosion
6. BlogUpp
7. Blogs.com
8. Technorati
9. Liquida
10. BlogFlux
11. MyNewBlog
12. LS Blogs
13. BlogDigger
14. BlogPulse
15. BlogLines

These are some of the most common blog directories, there are dozens more, but I feel this is a good starting point.  Also, list your blog on Google’s URL directory.

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Phyllis Zimbler Miller. Phyllis started Miller Mosaic LLC and writes a blog on The Examiner.com. She is also the co-host of the BlogTalkRadio show Your Military Life.com. You can follow her on Twitter at Twitter.com/ZimblerMiller.

From almost my first moments as a new Mrs. Lieutenant in the spring of 1970 — right after the Ohio National Guard shot and killed four Kent State University students protesting the Vietnam War – I’ve wanted to tell the story of this incredible time period in my life and in the life of the nation.

Only six years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, I was thrown together with a diverse group of new officers’ wives – women who would never otherwise know each other let alone socialize together.

Yet for the first 20 years after this experience I told people about the story without writing it. Then two women optioned the story to make a movie. But they returned to me and said I had to write a book first because Hollywood people didn’t “get” the story.

By the time I’d written the first draft, the movie producers had moved on to other projects. And then followed years and years of learning how to go from being a journalist to a novelist while rewriting and rewriting the manuscript.

Something’s Missing

I even paid a book consultant to tell me what was missing from the story because I kept getting favorable reactions from test readers with the note “something’s missing.” Every penny of that consultant’s fee was worth it because he figured out what was missing.

The main answer? A clear time line of events as each chapter is told from the POV of one of the four female protagonists.

Self-Publishing as an Option

In the closing months of 2007, my business partner urged me to consider self-publishing. But I envisioned self-publishing as those vanity press publications where you had to buy 5,000 copies of your book and store them in your garage – if you had a garage!

Turns out that the Internet has changed the publishing industry as much as it has changed the music industry. There are now print-on-demand (POD) publishers. You pay for your book to be published, but you only have to buy as many books as you want printed at any one time.

And if someone orders your book on Amazon, that one book is printed and shipped to the buyer, who probably won’t even know the book was self-published through a POD publisher.

My first epiphany

That was the moment of my first epiphany. I said to myself: “I’m too old to wait for someone to say yes to me. I’m going to say yes to myself right now.”

I contacted BookSurge, the POD arm of Amazon, and started working with the company to design the book cover the way I envisioned it.

Caution: In retrospect, if I hadn’t taken advertising design courses years and years ago at the then-Philadelphia College of Art and always been interested in how ads transmit their messages, I probably should have first consulted with a book cover designer before deciding on what I wanted my book cover to look like. A book’s cover is so very important. As it was, BookSurge designers did a very good job of coming up with what I wanted it to do – make a strong statement about the diversity of the four female protagonists.

My second epiphany

I could say the rest is history, but that’s not exactly true. At the same time I submitted my manuscript to BookSurge to start the three-month process, I submitted the book to the first Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition.

MRS. LIEUTENANT was named a semi-finalist, and we each got a page on Amazon with the beginning of our novel. Through an online conversation with other semi-finalists, I noticed that one author had a blog post on her page.

That was it – the second epiphany moment. I said: “I have to get this too.”

And I was off and running in a concerted effort to learn as much as possible about internet marketing, starting with launching the blog MrsLieutenant.blogspot.com.

Epiphanies led to results

What was the result of my ephinanies and concerted effort to learn internet marketing? I now have a company, MillerMosaicLLC.com, that helps book authors and others with internet marketing. I also have several blogs, including being a National Internet Business Examiner at examiner.com for which I’m now writing a month-long series about the steps before an information product launch, and I’m the co-host of the BlogTalkRadio show YourMilitaryLife.com.

On July 1st I’m launching a very reasonably priced membership program – the Miller Mosaic Internet Marketing Program – to share with others what I’ve learned in the past year of intense study.

The moral of this guest post: If you’re a book author and you believe that your manuscript is well-written and well-edited and that there’s a target market for it, then consider saying YES to yourself and look into self-publishing.

And if you need help in choosing a self-publisher, I recommend the book TOP SELF PUBLISHING FIRMS by Stacie Vander Pol, which I reviewed at her request for Amazon.

Try to imagine this. In a world before cable television, reality shows, Twitter, and YouTube would an unemployed, middle-aged woman who lives alone from a small town in Scotland ever get noticed for her stunning and remarkable singing voice?

I would say a big NO! It took her 47 years to get noticed in any sort of big way. By a big way, I mean a meager 18,000,000 that have watched her this last few days on YouTube singing on the show, ‘Britain’s Got Talent’.

Susan Boyle, who claims she has never been kissed, accomplished the feat of ‘Shock and Awe’ as she astonished hard-to-please judges with her rendition of ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ from the musical ‘Les Miserables’. The astonishment was obvious on the faces of judges, Simon Cowell, Piers Morgan, and Amanda Holden as they smiled in approval of her beautiful voice.

This previously unknown is now virtually famous. Media has exposed the talent of a woman with the voice of an angel. Boyle now has a fan site, has been interviewed on BBC, and even has a Fan Store with T-shirts bearing the phrase “Never Judge a Book by its Cover” and “I Dreamed the Dream!” The YouTube video was spread all across the Internet and passed along in the chatter on Twitter. Now, that is viral!!

Speaking of Twitter and going viral, a celebrity has managed to be the first person on Twitter to reach one million followers. It is quite a feat to obtain that many followers in a short period of time. The celebrity is Ashton Kutcher, previous host of the show punk’d, also known for being the husband of the famous actress Demi Moore. A million followers. How did he do it?

Was it his celebrity status? Well, I am sure that helped. This country loves celebrities and not many non-celebrity Twitters could have pulled this off. Celebrities already have a built-in following. But, why Kutcher and why one million followers?

He decided to take on the news network, CNN. It was a race between CNN Breaking News (Twitter Handle: CNNbrk) and Kutcher (Twitter handle: aplusk) to get one million followers. Kutcher also used the microblogging site to promote ‘World Malaria Day’ and said he would donate 10,000 mosquito bed nets to charity if he won. The race between the two Twitters was recorded on a live stream for the world to watch. Ah, the media’s reach is limitless.

These two individuals have dominated the Internet, the news, the media, YouTube, Twitter, and water cooler conversations this last week or so. Susan Boyle has inspired and brought tears to millions and Ashton Kutcher has managed to get over one million followers practically overnight. 18 million views and over 1 million followers? That is serious influence and power. Power to be put to good use we can all hope.

On a personal note, I have been trying really, really, really hard to promote Climb to Conquer Cancer to raise funds and awareness to cancer with really, really, really little success. Cancer has touched me a few times in my life and the genesis for this specific cause is written on my TwitWall.

Could my poor success be due to the little power and influence I have along with the lack of media exposure? I’d say, uh, YES! If Oprah or Britney Spears promoted this event, WOW! There would be hundreds of dollars going to help the American Cancer Society.

However, my power and influence has a very small footprint. I know my singing voice would never impress Simon nor am I a celebrity. So how else can one get media exposure to promote a good cause? I don’t have all the answers. I am still working on it, but open for suggestions!

Try to imagine this. Media exposure being put to good use to make the world a better place. Now that, THAT is a concept!