SEO is search engine optimization… and it freaks people out. That’s because everyone seems to think that SEO is technical, and hard, and that Google calls all the shots.

Hogwash!

Get this straight in your mind right now: Google is your slave.

What I mean is that Google absolutely must follow what humans are doing. Google must give humans a great experience. The entire Google empire… all the search results and even the advertiser revenues (read: MONEY!) is about people, not technology, or algorithms or programming.

YOU make Google possible, not the other way around.

OK, hopefully that is really clear in your mind. Now we can solve the SEO puzzle and how you can get a ton of free traffic. It’s really easy…

First, you’ve got to give other people value. They need a great reason to visit your web site or blog. You’ve got to be entertaining. You’ve got to provide news. You’ve got to stand out from the crowd. If you’re lame, you die. No Google love, no traffic. No value? Then it’s DEATH!

Kind of spooky right?

But, think about it. Do YOU like to visit lame sites? Do you enjoy “spam” sites? Fake blogs (“flogs”) or fake articles (“farticles”) or other nonsense? Of course not! No one enjoys… lame.

So, you’ve got to have fresh, relevant, useful, fun… juicy, super value content. If you don’t, then don’t expect anything in return. Content is important. A great experience is essential.

That’s your first HUGE lesson in SEO. If you hear or read anything different it’s a TOTAL LIE.

Now, lets’s talk about…

The Three Essential Components of Simple SEO:

1. On Page SEO
2. Off Page SEO
3. Social Relevance

On Page SEO is simple. You’ve got to make sure that you’re using your keyword in your title, that you use your keyword a few times in your content, that you’re using H1 and H2 tags where it makes sense, that it’s easy to navigate your page and site, and so on. Just make sure you’re doing the basics and you’re all set, OK? Nothing fancy pants.

Off Page SEO is also extremely simple. You need backlinks. You can post comments on blogs, you can link to your own site from Twitter and Facebook. You can write guest blog posts. You can write and submit press releases. It goes on and on, and it’s REALLY EASY.

Here’s what I highly recommend right now: BACKLINK LEVERAGE. It’s dirt cheap, it’s fresh and it makes complete sense. Grab a copy of Backlink Leverage and instantly “get” how off page SEO really works… and how to easily get a flood of backlinks. No joke. Very, very simple. Don’t clown around. Just get it.

And finally, there’s social relevance. This one is totally NEW but it’s critical. What matters here is how engaged people become with your content. This is time on your blog, on your site, and so on. It’s also how much people talk about your content on social networks. Do you have the juice out there, or not? Be relevant, or be dead… because social relevance is more and more important all the time. Got it?

Now seriously… I want you to understand… this is all you really must know, if you’re getting started. Of course, if you’re interested in more “robust” SEO tactics, well… you’ll need Juggernaut SEO. There’s nothing like it and the reviews have been extremely positive.

OK, now get out there and kick butt!

~ John

p.s. Remember, get some Backlink Leverage right now. It’s simple and easy. Ka-BOOM!

I’m going tell you a few things that are very uncomfortable for me to reveal.

About one month ago I thought that my grandmother and my brother were going to die. In fact, I thought hundreds of people were going to be DEAD.

See, on September 9th there was this crazy flood in Owego, NY. That’s my home town of about 5,000 people and we’re all sitting right next to a river.

Well, the rain started coming down. And, it wouldn’t stop. Tropic Storm Lee was parked over Owego and another one was out in the Atlantic, holding Lee in place.

It. Just. Kept. Raining.

In a matter of 24 hours, nearly 12 inches fell on Owego and the town rapidly went under many feet of water. In fact, the river was more than 13 feet over the major flood stage. (Catastrophic. 500 year levels.)

My grandmother lives “on” the river. My older brother lives on the bank of the river too. I knew they were at risk…

And water has no mercy.

Frantically, I tried calling people… but power was out. Phone service dead. Everything was DEAD and get this –

It was impossible for us to get off the hill we live on. My family was stuck. No way to get food, gasoline, or reach anyone… even by foot, or bike or motorcycle.

All this freaked me out… my wife and kids were calm, but I was going out of my mind
since my grandmother is now 88 and my brother has kids.

We had to use candles. We had to boil our water (gas stove). It felt like End of Days and it was scary. People on the hill in our little neighborhood were outside walking around like zombies, trying to make sense of the devastation… and not knowing if the folks living downtown “on the river” were SAFE… or even alive.

Creepy. Eerie. Cut off. Isolated. SCARY!

This was real…

And then, at night, things got even more kooky. We heard Boeing CH-47 Chinooks and Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks flying over the house… we saw them the next day.

They were dropping off fresh water, dry ice, MREs (“meals ready to eat”) and more. I’m telling you, it felt like we were heading into Mel Gibson’s world of Mad Max…

Well, the good news is that no lives were lost. Everyone is safe, despite the flood…

HOWEVER –!

The flood damage is Captain Insano. There is millions in destruction. Thousands of folks
in the area are displaced.

Many people, far outside the flood zone, had no insurance. They are screwed. Hundreds of people still have no water or power. Of course, many people can’t work… businesses are out of commission. Destroyed. No money flowing to families in real need.

It breaks the heart.

And, it’s like we’re still in a war zone. Every single day and night, bulldozers and backhoes and garbage trucks are picking up soaking wet dry wall, old Victorian wood flooring, furniture, toys, carpet, washing machines, and so much more. Too much to list.

Now, here’s where YOU can make a difference and get an ASTOUNDING deal.

I’ve just launched a new special offer. It’s the SEO Fat Pile and it’s a charity cause. If you’re looking for ways to get free traffic to your web site, you will want this…

==> SEO Fat Pile (Owego Charity Special)

There are over 25 products available for an amazing price. Please take a look and grab a copy because all the profit goes to help out Owego, NY.

Thank you so much for reading this note.

Now, please take action by checking out the offer and the videos, and get your access to the SEO Fat Pile.

Here’s the direct link:

==> http://jsrhelp.com/owego

Take care,

~ John

p.s. Here’s just a sample of all the great folks who contributed to this product…

Matt W. Rhodes
James J. Jones
Brad Spencer
David Eisner
Keith Dougherty
Mike Cowles
Peter Garety
Charles Kirkland
Andy Fletcher
Joe Finn
Jay Boyer
Sam England
Kevin Riley
Dr. Veit U. B. Schenk
Ross Brezovar
Bill Davis
Brenden Clerget
The Wizard Himself “OZ”
Andrew Hansen
Josh Stanton
Rod Beckwith
Dan Wardrope
Huey Lee
Harris Fellman
Mark Ling
Mark Widawer
David Deutsch

This is truly something amazing.

Please help right now!

==> http://jsrhelp.com/owego

Again, take care and give hugs to your family and your friends. Share the love.

Please visit website to view premium content

In this webinar, Jason Fladlien explains how to set up mobile mini sites and make money . Here’s what you’ll discover:

• How to build a mobile web site…
  
• Why it’s so important to finally get a mobile web site right now
• How simple “mobile marketing tricks” generate cash
  
• How to set up a mobile squeeze page in a few mouse clicks (EASY!)
• Why is mobile so hot right now… what’s really going on?
  
• How your emails are NOT reaching mobile users correctly… DEADLY
• Why is Google pushing businesses to create mobile sites?
  
• How to properly use a “dumb” redirect trick that can TRIPLE sales
• How FREE mobile WordPress scripts are killing your business
  
• How to use the “mobile squeezer” to easily build a fresh email fresh list
• And much more…

Click Here to Get
WP Mobile Pro

Please visit website to view premium content

In this webinar, Jason Fladlien explains how to get your first email list fast. Here’s what you’ll discover:

• Why do you need an email list?
• What is a squeeze page?
• What does “conversion rate” mean?
• Should you focus on traffic or opt in page first?
• What autoresponder service should you use?
• What is the basic process for building a list?
• How to find a topic for a free report?
• How to get traffic from document sharing sites?
• Is article marketing and EzineArticles dead?
• How does forum marketing drive traffic?
• How can you use press releases to get traffic?
• What is the number one squeeze page secret?
• How to create an awesome headline… FAST!
• What are the 6 secrets of squeeze page design?
• How to solve the “hard design” problems?
• And much more…

Click Here to Get
WP Squeeze Pro

I’m going to give you a very simple product launch checklist that I’ve used with enormous success. It’s AWESOME. And, it’s a gift. Nothing for sale here, OK?

But, before I spill the beans… I want to tell you about my first experience with Jeff Walker.

It was 4 years ago. Jeff was promoting Product Launch Formula and I was watching it all very closely. I almost bought the product… but decided not to pull the trigger.

I was afraid. I was scared. “Too much money…!” went through my brain again and again. (Fear is the mind killer!)

The truth is that I definitely had enough money but I just didn’t have the courage to make the investment. I let fear kick my ass.

So, I missed the offer. But then… Jeff re-opened the cart!

OK, so my initial reaction was “Yippee! I really am ready to INVEST NOW!” but my logical brain triggered some ANGER.  You see, I felt like Jeff pulled a quick one… I thought the offer was actually closed. It was bologna that it was opening again.

I thought: FALSE SCARCITY.

At first, I was going to let it go… but then, I’m like… this is unfair. This is crap!

So, I wrote a note to Jeff. I wrote 5-6 very long paragraphs about how I wanted to invest in Product Launch Formula but that I didn’t pull the trigger and missed the deadline, but that I was very disappointed with the false scarcity.  (I was steaming mad by the end!)

I knew that Jeff would NEVER write back.  “This multi-million dollar guru will NOT write me back…” But, at least I felt better, right?

Then, something shocking happened. Seriously, this blew my socks right off.

…

JEFF WALKER WROTE ME BACK.

…

It was not some lame boilerplate response… it wasn’t just a few words… it wasn’t just 1-2 sentences. Jeff wrote back a very long, logical and clear response to every single thing I brought up. Quite literally, my jaw dropped.

I won’t go into all the details but I was tell you two important things:

1. There was no “false scarcity” at all. There were some refunds and credit card declines so there was room in the PLF training program. This was a good reason for the cart re-open and it was totally, 100% ethical. Sure, it gave Jeff a reason to make more money, but it was not a “fake” re-open just to extract more cash. It’s bigger and more strategic than that. (There’s a big mini-lesson here for anyone paying attention to this strategy; huge value here!)
2. I bought Product Launch Formula after reading Jeff’s long, from-the-heart note to me. The investment still made me a little nervous because it was the biggest money I ever spent online. However, I can honestly say that Jeff’s PLF training program has helped me more than any other marketing training program… EVER. Yes, that includes great content from folks like Gary Halbert, Dan Kennedy, Frank Kern and others. I can’t give a perfect estimate, but I know that it’s responsible for over $100,000 in additional sales in my business… probably much more.

And, here’s something else…

In 2010 I did a bunch of work for Jeff Walker behind the scenes. I can’t go into the details out of respect for Jeff’s business and because of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) that I signed. But, I was behind-the-scenes for more than 8 months and it was an amazing experience… mostly because Jeff is the “real deal” … down-to-Earth, sincere and absolutely focused on customer success.

OK, so I’m telling you this because it’s a story you cannot hear from anyone else… it’s my story about Jeff. But, now YOU understand my experience and you know that Product Launch Formula is amazing… and that Jeff can transform your life. He’s a class act.

But, enough about me –!

Now, let’s talk about how I can help you with my Product Launch Checklist.

Big Fat Disclaimer: This is about reducing mistakes, not transforming chicken poop into gold eagle coins.

Here we go:

• What’s the goal for your launch? What do you expect? Specifically: when your launch is over how much money do you expect, how much will your list grow, and what do you want? Write these goals down before your launch. Be specific. Be able to measure your success.
• What’s your timeline for the prelaunch, launch and post launch? What are the dates of the launch content being distributed? When does the cart go live? When do you reach out to your list? When do you reach out to JVs and affiliates, if you’re doing a big launch? Again, be very specific. Get a calendar out and write down the dates, with actions required and who is responsible, if you have a team.
• Who is your ideal customer? As Eben Pagan and Jeff Walker would ask: Who is your avatar? Specifically: Write out a clear description of your customer in terms of annual income, age, gender, habits, hobbies, appearance, and more. Have this person clear in your mind. If your “avatar” was sitting at your kitchen table… what would they look like and what would you say? What words and phrases matter? What would get them excited? What keeps them up at night?
• What is your main hook? What is your core offer? Be specific about the hook… what is the one thing that will grab attention and keep your prospects engaged, thrilled and otherwise mesmerized? Be specific about the offer… what are you going to be selling? What is the content? What is the format? What is delivery timeline? What is the name of the product? What are the bonuses?

Wow… right?

There are no less than 35 questions above! Simply take those questions… and start answering them. Start to dig into this Product Launch Checklist.

Then, launch! Enjoy the money, list building and expert status. Explode in your market. Get the power and respect you deserve.

OK, here’s what you need to do next… to burn this into your brain… take action! In the comments below tell me about how YOU are going to use the Product Launch Checklist.

Tell me what you think… and specifically, share your story!

When I consider different ways to make a blog or business stand out from the rest, many ideas come to mind. However, I am a public relations and exposure specialist, so am going to take you through those from my own discipline as this is what I am experienced at.

Create expert status

Literally every strategy I work on with my clients comes back to creating that highly coveted expert status.  Therefore, if you only take away and put in place one tip, this would be it. If you are considered to be the expert in your industry, everybody will naturally want to work with you, and often without regard to the cost! One small blog article is really not enough space to give in-depth advice and instructions on how to go about doing it, but I will briefly give you some pointers to consider to start building it.

• Provide regular commentary to your relevant media channels, both traditional (newspapers, magazines, etc) and online about your area of specialty. And I am not talking about sales copy – I mean useful information on what is happening in the industry, as well as advice.
• Become the go-to person that media, council, industry leaders and even government approach for advice and commentary.
• Join your professional association, and why not take it one step further, become the President! That says credibility to me!
• Write and publish a book on your area of speciality. Authors are instantly credible and this is a wonderful product to give to your clients as a promotional item or gift, or to sell.
• Speak at relevant industry, community and professional/corporate events in your area of interest. The audience, and your clients, will automatically assume that because you have been invited to speak, you must know what you are talking about!

Communicate with your client base regularly

One thing most businesses fail to do well, or fail to do altogether, is communicate regularly with their clients – even if they are currently not doing business with them. Send your database a regular newsletter with interesting and informative articles, regularly send them genuine offers on your products or services they can utilise, blog and guest blog frequently, find out when their birthday is and send them a card… the list is endless. The point is that the majority of most business is built on repeat business and referrals, so spend more time, money and energy on your current client base rather than on constantly attracting new business.

Form mutually beneficial joint ventures and relationships

Chances are there are many businesses and individuals who are not in competition with you but have a similar client base. Well, why not share your client bases so that you both benefit? For example, guest blog for each other, prepare articles for one another’s newsletters, or offer special deals to one another’s client bases.

About Kerry McDuling

With over ten years experience in the public relations sector and journalism, and the owner of Stratosphere Me and McDuling PR, Kerry is highly adept at finding the smartest profile raising approach.

Kerry knows what stories and material are most likely to inspire the media to run with them. She also keeps up-to-date with the latest digital marketing advancements and social media opportunities so your profile gains maximum coverage.  Through Stratosphere Me, Kerry offers a service that is the most logical and powerful way to build your personal profile. It also allows for incredible creative opportunities.

I’ve made tens of thousands of dollars using private label rights (PLR) content.

But, it’s also easy to screw things up with PLR. So, I’m here to stop you from making “rookie mistakes” with PLR articles, PLR ebooks and other PLR packages.

First, never buy PLR without a purpose. If you’re just buying PLR to get a bargain you’re wasting your money. How many times have you invested in PLR just to let it sit there… without action? Hey, that’s what almost everyone does. So again, just don’t buy PLR unless you have a plan for it. You need to take immediate action or you need to hold off.

Second, before you invest in PLR you need to make sure you’re getting the best possible content for the best possible price. When you find PLR that you like, be sure to search for that exact same PLR package in Google. Put the name of the package in quotes “like this” and you’ll often find serious bargains. This works incredibly well.

Third, do not just take PLR and instantly reuse it on a public web page, article directory or blog. I know you want to take action and I know you’re trying to save time. But, don’t just slap that PLR content out there without first making updates and modifcations to it. You want unique content out there… or the Google Monster will eat your lunch.

OK, so those are three things you can do right now to avoid big mistakes. And, just for fun, here’s a summary for you:

1. Always buy PLR with a clear purpose in mind
2. Always hunt around for the best possible price
3. Always edit, update and augment your PLR

If you just do these three things you’ll be ahead of 99% of all internet marketers. You’ll get better content, get better prices and you’ll make more money.

Now, please tell me… what are you biggest questions about PLR? What do you want to know? Leave your comments below.

~ John

As many people know search engine optimization isn’t really about search engines. It’s all about people.

That being said, it’s still a good idea to get smart about sitemaps. A regular sitemap is a simple page that lists all the most important links on a web site. It’s like an index or table of contents for a site.

Then, you have an “XML sitemap” which is sitemap which consists of XML (Extensible Markup Language) code.These are meant to be used specifically by the search engines. You’re making it easy for them to find you, index you and so on.

Sitemaps are used to put “rules” into place while programming documents electronically. This allows search engines to see what pages of yours are available and it also allows you to enter text that describes when information was changed. This helps Google and it’s easy enough to get set up… as you’ll see below.

I know most of that is mumbo jumbo. Trust me… and it gets worse! But please, stick with me for just a minute longer…

If you are a blogger and you want the super fast shortcut then just get the WordPress Google Sitemap Plugin. Install it, turn it on and let the magic happen without any work.  Yippee!

OK, if you are interested in the details… here we go…

The 4 variables of each web page for your XML sitemap include the following:

• The location of your site is the URL or web address. For example: johnsrhodes.com
• You can tell Google Sitemaps the priority of every page within your website. The range is from 0-1.
• You can tell Google when your website was last modified so the Google robots will not reindex your website.
• You can state the frequency of web site updates to: always, never, yearly, monthly, weekly, and hourly.

Why You Should Use Google Sitemaps

• Gives Internet users fresh content from your website.
• Allows every page and all of your content to be available to visitors on the Google search engine.
• Easily and quickly adds your subject matter of your website to Google once you update it.
• Google Sitemaps will discover all links that are included in your web pages.
• It is an easy and free tool that essentially will bring your website more traffic.

So, there are many awesome reasons to get a Google sitemap set up.

Speaking of that… if you don’t use WordPress, here’s how to “manually” get an XML sitemap generated.

Create a Google Sitemap for Your Website

1. Go to www.xml-sitemaps.com or any other third party sitemap generators. You have to use these generators because Google requires you to submit your information in XML format in order to index your web pages.
2. You will be presented with a brief form on the home page where it will ask you for your website name or URL, frequency, last modification and priority. Enter in your information correctly and click the start button.
3. Once these parameters are entered, there will be a wait until your site is crawled from top to bottom, so be patient; when it finishes, you will need to download the sitemap file and entering it in the “public-html/” folder found on your site.
4. Next, you will need to go to your Google Webmaster Account and enter your sitemap URL. If you do not have a Google Webmaster Account, you will need to create one.

Improving the search engine awareness of your website and all of its pages are very important in the success of your website and the interest of your visitors because fresh, up-to-date information will be accessible.

Using Google Sitemaps as part of your search engine optimization will help you in many ways. It will show you any broken links that are on your website which is diagnostically relevant and it can always have the brand new content you want to provide “on file” with Google.

This will put your website out in front of the eyes you want. Google Sitemaps will give you an edge because your pages will be on hand for potential customers to refer to and quite possibly to add to your success as conversions, sales or profits.

RECOMMENDED READING

• Juggernaut SEO

This is a guest blog post by my friend Kieran McDonogh. His “Back Against the Wall” interview series is totally awesome. He asked 10 highly successful marketers this question: “If You Had To Start From Scratch With NOTHING… And Make $1,000 From Affiliate Marketing Within 30 Days, What Would You Do?” Click Here to learn more!

OK, enough about Kieran…

Let’s get into this blog post!

– — –

What is your distribution of focus?

More specifically, what proportion of time have you allocated to focus on strategic activities that will grow your online business?

You know, those activities that you identified that would give you the biggest bang for your buck and take your business to the heights of your 2011 goals.

Activities like list building, email marketing, market selection and niche research, affiliate marketing, product creation, growth of your affiliate program, and establish quality joint venture partnerships.

All things being equal, putting time and focus into these areas will result in cementing you as an expert and authority; develop brand awareness; create and nurture relationships with your customers and joint venture partners…

It’ll increase your market reach with your product offerings, and of course put money in your back pocket through the sale of your products and commissions from others.

You’re definitely looking for growth in 2011 yeah? No one wants to stay stagnant right… or worse yet go backwards.

Having just come into the new year, many of us will have sat down with pad and pen, evaluating last years goals achieved or not; our successes and failures; what worked — what didn’t.

Jotting down ideas on what we want for 2011, where we want to take our online businesses, our income targets, our subscriber numbers, etc, etc.

Hopefully, from this self-assessment process you’ve locked your goals in writing and established your plan for world domination. We know where we’re heading and we know what the plan is to get there.

So we charge forward with our magical blueprint, ready to conquer and grow our online empire. We’re feeling empowered through the process!

But sometimes, as long-time-ago poet Robert Burns said, “The best laid plans Of Mice and Men often go awry.”

Sometimes (more frequent than not) mysterious things happen, like procrastination creep.

Things don’t seem to be unfolding as planned; you find yourself off course and missing the milestones for your goals.

What’s going wrong? Where was the sign that said you were off the track?

Well, it could simply be you didn’t keep things simple enough. Your plan was there, but it was overly complex and had too many moving parts and elements for your brain to process and keep focused on.

For course correction, we can draw on George A. Millers concept of “the magic number seven, plus or minus two.” George is referencing people’s short-term memory, which he observes has the capacity to remember “seven plus-or-minus two” chunks of information.

A good way of using this concept is to chunk or categorize your blueprint plans into areas of focus, i.e., the core areas of strategic activity you will focus on to grow your business.

Because you don’t want to overwhelm yourself with too much information, choose to focus on 6 core areas of activity for your online business. For example:

1.    Product creation
2.    List building and email marketing
3.    Affiliate marketing
4.    Develop and manage your own affiliate program
5.    Relationship building and Joint Venture partnerships
6.    Hosting your own webinars, as well as JV webinars

By focusing on a small selection of areas within your business, you simplify the whole Internet Marketing game. You only need to specialize in these areas, and nothing else.

Having only 6 core areas to focus on is easier to work with, instead of multi-tasking 50 different things and mastering none.

It means you have your own built-in filter system blocking out all the Internet Marketing noise that consistently goes on – like shiny object syndrome (“Buy my product!”), opening other marketers emails, watching product launch videos and other non-money making activities.

A big time-waster that pulls a lot of marketers away from their goals, is buying new products and trying to implement these new business models.

If “it” doesn’t fit into your 6 core activities, then forget about “it” and move on.

Rather than opening other people’s emails, recognize yourself as a leader now who pushes “send” on your emails, rather than opening them. You’re now playing by your rules and email by email growing your business.

Now I want to refresh you on this post’s initial question: “What proportion of time have you allocated to focus on strategic activities that will grow your online business?”

This is where we prioritize the 6 activities according to their money making ability within the next month.

Looking at our list above, product creation is something you can control and should be have the highest priority at number 1. As you sell your products you will be building a buyers list which you can re-market to. So list building and email marketing would be number 2, followed by affiliate marketing to that list at number 3.

Promoting your own affiliate program of your products to your list comes next at number 4. And finally, webinars and joint ventures can take some time to put together and so I would place them at position 5 and 6.

Based on this order, you now need to allocate how much time you will allocate to each activity per week.

Product creation is going to be a critical factor in the growth phase of your online business, so should be allocated the biggest chunk of your focus, consuming 50% of your time.

So, if you spend 40 hours per week on your business then 20 hours of it should be spent developing new products.

Next, list building and email marketing is allocated 15% or 6 hours per week. This is the same for affiliate marketing which gets the same amount of attention. And so on down the list.

As you begin to form the habits necessary to implement this distribution of time, you will develop personal systems you use to more effectively spend your time across these activities.

Regularly, you need to check in on your progress and check you are on track to achieving your goals – weekly, monthly, quarterly.

Since you chose these areas of focus from your over-riding blueprint that links into your goals, you should be well on track to achieving your 2011 goals without the distractions and natural information overload that comes with the territory.

Your areas of activity will be different from the examples used in this post. So will your distribution of time. We’re all at different stages of developing our business and have different directions, but the example activities should give some insight into the power of this process.

So using the seven, plus or minus two what are your areas of focus to meet your goals, and in what proportion will you distribute your attention across these core activities each week?

###########

Kieran McDonogh is an Internet Marketer and product creator. His interview series includes a string of A-listers including Jason Fladlien, Chris Farrell and John S Rhodes, providing solid strategies to help others grow their business using affiliate marketing. You can find more information at http://www.backagainstthewall.org/

So, I have to ask…

Would you ever consider building a business before selecting a niche?

Is it possible to get started as an entrepreneur without knowing your niche?

Well, consider this…

You can set up a blog on “weight loss” and write about all kinds of stuff: fat loss, weight loss shakes, supplements, diet pills, exercise equipment, fitness training and so on.

By doing this you’ve sort of selected a niche (“weight loss”) but not really. It’s extremely broad and you’re probably going to fail.

(Hey, I’m just being honest here. Would you expect anything less from me?)

So, this “weight loss” business is kind of silly — you’re getting crushed! — and you’re not making progress… but suddenly, everything changes –

A very tiny shift in thinking…

In a flash of brilliance — bravo! — you realize that you’ve been collecting data.  You were clever enough to set up Google Analytics.

You look through your log files and the cool reports… you then realize that you’re actually getting a lot of traffic for “organic wheat flax” and then… even better… you’re showing up all over the web due to backlinks and great comments on Twitter and Facebook.

You’ve *instantly* got a niche and the kernel of a REAL BUSINESS…

You’re the Super Organic Wheat Flax Dude (or S.O.W.F. Lady if you prefer…)

You dig a little more and this organic wheat flax thing is totally hot, there are several good products, you start doing smart affiliate stuff and you even start building a super targeted email list and a premium information product.

You’ve got a business and a niche now…

All it took was a small adjustment in thinking.

…and the real niche came AFTER you started you business and when you were about to give up entirely.

Your small shift in thinking produced dramatic results. Your business and your niche… bam! It all came from small changes.

(This also demonstrates that picking a niche can come after you start shooting bullets at random targets. This can totally work… or, you can pick a niche and build a business.)

(Oh, and I suppose this also shows you that “luck” can be manufactured. You did work and you were prepared and you did some groovy thinking. And, you started asking better questions. Bonanza!)

OK –

So, which came first… the business or the niche? You tell me. Was weight loss the real niche here, then you built the business? Or, was the real niche organic wheat flax? And, did that come first? Or, did the business come first, then the niche?

Chicken. Egg.

Egg. Chicken.

…

The real “truth” is that the focus on the egg and the chicken DISTRACTS YOU!

I’ve warped your mind… please forgive me.

Let’s look at the *real* factors that matter:

1. You did some work. Not a lot, but you did do a little work to get your “weight loss” (and now, organic wheat flax) business set up. You added value to the market. You produced something… you CREATED AN ASSET.

(Nice job!)

2. You changed your thinking about the real problem. You made a small “MENTAL SHIFT” to get your real money niche selected and your business moving in exactly the right direction.

Do you see that… by changing the *rules* of the game… and that by playing a new game entirely… YOU are in control of your financial destiny?

Do you see how WEALTH is created out of thin air, just by using ideas and small amounts of leveraged work… not your blood-soaked and brain-bleeding all-night work sessions?

1. CREATE ASSETS (things that throw off cash)

2. MENTAL SHIFT (simple, easy innovations)

You are capable of this…

Forget chickens and eggs and forget getting sucked into the blender-of-doom!

Design your own game… made of assets and subtle innovations.

How are you going to change your business using these new insights? SHARE your important thoughts right now…

~ John

p.s. This blog post reminds me of how I felt when I first saw “Planet of Apes” and the whole Statue of Liberty thing at the end. It’s like… whoah! “That’s what happened?” Same game, but instantly you understand that the rules… changed.

** Pow! **