How To Easily Add Technorati Tags and a Digg Button To Your Blogger Posts

There are many people using Blogger.com and 1 of the disadvantages until recently has been not being able to use social bookmarking for their individual blog posts.

Even with the newer version of Blogger.com, there was no easy way to add Technorati tags or a Digg button to a blog post. If you wanted Technorati tags, you had to create them yourself and put them at the end of your article. If you wanted a Digg button, you could put 1 on your blog but not on each separate article.

Today I'll share my secret of how I easily put Technorati tags on every 1 of my postings and the code I put in my "New" Blogger template that automatically produces the Digg button.

How To Add Technorati Tags To Your Blogger Posts

I hope you're using either Windows XP or Mac OS X because those are the 2 operating systems this tool will work on.

1. Go to http://www.qumana.com/download.htm and get the download. They have instructions on installing it and using it at http://www.qumana.com/help.htm.
   


2. Use this blog editing tool to write your articles.
   


3. Before you post your article, use the "Insert Tag" button at the top to insert your Technorati tags.
   


4. Publish your post with the "Publish Post" button.
   


5. Log into Blogger and edit your post to add your blog labels for your post and to make any formatting changes necessary.

While doing it this way may sound like more work, I think it's easier than trying to format Technorati tags correctly and adding them myself.

How To Automatically Add A Digg Button On Your Blogger Posts

1. Login to your Blogger account and go to the Template - edit HTML page.


2. Download a copy of your template to your PC. (This is in case you make a mistake and need to undo what you're going to do.)


3. After you've save a backup copy of your template, click the "Expand Widgets Templates" box.


4. In your template, find the line of code that looks like:
   
   <p class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'/>
   
   (In my template it's a little more than half way down.)


5. Insert this code after that line:
   
   <a expr:href='"http://digg.com/submit?phase=3&amp;url=" + data:post.url' target='_blank'><img src="http://digg.com/img/badges/80x15-digg-badge.gif" width="80" height="15" alt="Digg!" /></a>
   
   (NOTE: When you copy this line of code, put it into a text editor and remove all the line breaks before you paste it into your template.)



6. Preview your blog and see if it worked. If it did, you should see a Digg button at the end of your postings and you can save your template. If it didn't work then you can either try again or go back to your unchanged template.



7. Once you have a Digg button on your posts you can change the button image if you want. You can see the ones available at: http://www.digg.com/tools/buttons
   
   To use a different button image just replace the part of the line that starts with <img and ends with /> with the image code for the button you want.
   
   Example:
   
   Replace
   <img src="http://digg.com/img/badges/80x15-digg-badge.gif" width="80" height="15" alt="Digg!" />
   
   With
   <img src="http://digg.com/img/badges/85x10-digg-link.gif" width="85" height="10" alt="Digg!" />

There are many social bookmarking sites and although I don't use as many as I should, you can use the methods I've used to put these 2 social bookmarks on all your Blogger posts.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. If you found this tip useful, please leave a comment.

Tags: add digg button to blogger post, add digg button, add technorati tags to blogger, add technorati tags, social bookmarking

29 Cpanel Training Videos

Last month I wrote a tip on how to build a squeeze page and included a video by Liz Tomey.

2 comments were posted for that tip and both stated:

1. Training videos are the way to go.
   

2. Some training videos on the use of a Cpanel would sure help.

In case you're not sure what a Cpanel is, it's the type of administration panel used by many hosting services and looks like the picture below.

This week I am pleased to tell you that I've found a place that has free videos on the use of a Cpanel and here's the list of what they've got:

1. How to login to CPanel
2. How to create a POP email account
3. How to create a default (catch-all) email account
4. How to create an auto-responder
5. How to create a subdomain
6. How to create custom error pages
7. How to password protect a directory
8. Using Hotlink protection
9. How to setup email forwarding
10. How to change your CPanel password
11. How to setup a Cron Job
12. How to create additional FTP accounts
13. How to backup your website
14. How to install and uninstall FrontPage extensions
15. How to keep your contact information up to date
16. How to manage URL redirects
17. How to create a MySQL database
18. Using File Manager
19. Using the Disk Usage Viewer
20. How to use the IP Deny Manager
21. How to park a domain
22. How to create an add-on domain
23. How to use the Raw Log Manager
24. Using Index Manager
25. Becoming familiar and navigating around in CPanel
26. How to use webmail from within CPanel
27. Managing MySQL databases with PHPMyAdmin
28. How to trace an email address
29. An introduction to using Fantastico

Now I've watched a few of these and even though I've been using a Cpanel for administering my web site for more than 4 years, I learned some things.

However, before I tell you where they are I have to tell you:

1. There is no audio - little popup boxes with text and arrows are used to guide you through the instructions. But if you can read short sentences you'll be able to understand what's going on.

2. The Cpanel training videos are included in a free private label rights membership site.

Now before you start throwing wet noodles at me for pointing you to a site where you have to sign up to get the information let me defend myself by stating that I looked for other Cpanel videos. And although I did find some, none of them had this extensive a list and several of the above videos were not found on any of those sites.

In addition to the 29 Cpanel videos there are 18 videos showing how to use 6 different FTP tools:

* 3 Videos showing how to Configure your website, Upload files and Manage files/folders in CuteFTP

* 3 Videos showing how to Configure your website, Upload files and Manage files/folders in WS_FTP

* 3 Videos showing how to Configure your website, Upload files and Manage files/folders in SmartFTP

* 3 Videos showing how to Configure your website, Upload files and Manage files/folders in FlashFXP

* 3 Videos showing how to Configure your website, Upload files and Manage files/folders in FTP Voyager

* 3 Videos showing how to Configure your website, Upload files and Manage files/folders in LeapFTP

Plus there are lots of PLR videos, articles and products and an affiliate program for the membership site and other products.

So my tip this week is:

Go here and claim your free membership so you can watch some good Cpanel training videos. And since they're in the download section you may as well pick up some things for your business while you're there.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. You won't see the training videos listed on the signup page but they are in there - I promise.

P.S.S. If you found this tip useful please leave a comment.

Tags: cpanel, fantastico, cpanel video, mysql, subdomain, redirect, ftp, pop email, cron, file manager

Server Side Includes (SSI) For Beginners

Unless you're a web programmer, learning HTML or learning how to use your HTML editor is 1 of your first tasks in order to create your first web site. Then after that first page is up and available, you start working on the second, then the third and so on until you have several pages built on your site. And because you want all your pages on your site to have the same look and feel to your site visitors you hopefully have created a page template.

Then, after you've gotten several pages up, you decide you need to add or change something. Maybe it's the copyright information, the contact information, a new menu link, etc. but whatever it is, it's something that appears on every or almost every page of your site.

It's at this point when you are faced with going in and modifying many pages on your site that you will become painfully aware that you really should have learned just a little about Server Side Includes (SSI) before you started.

What are Server Side Includes and why do you need to know about them?

Server Side Includes allow your web host to perform copy and paste actions on your web pages as the page is being loaded in the site visitor's browser. In other words, as your page is being loaded, your web host reads the code for your page, gets the instruction to find another file and include it on the page, follows the instructions, finds the file and merges it onto your page before showing your page in the visitor's browser.

Why do you care about Server Side Includes? Because they make it extremely quick and easy to change things that are common on many pages of your site. Instead of going into every page that has your navigation menu to add or change a link, you simply change 1 file and that change appears on every page! And, if used properly, Server Side Includes can help make your pages more responsive.

Now before you run off because you think you're not ready for doing complicated "techie" web programming, let me tell you that the hardest part of using Server Side Includes is ... drum roll please ...

You need to make sure your web host allows the use of Server Side Includes.

Because Server Side Includes have been around for a long time and because using them has become more popular, most web hosts do support them. However, Server Side Includes are a Linux/Apache specific feature, so if you're on a Windows server you'll need to find a Windows equivalent of SSI. (Sorry, I can't help you with that one.)

There are 2 ways to find out if your web host supports Server Side Includes:

1. Ask them.




2. Perform a simple test.
   
   Insert this line of code
   <!--#echo var="DATE_LOCAL" -->
   into 1 of your web pages and rename the file, "test.shtml"
   
   Upload the file to your server.
   
   Display the file in your browser.
   
   If you see the current date where you inserted that line of code, your host supports Server Side Includes.

Using Server Side Includes is just as easy as performing the above test and the only hard part is remembering to use the ".shtml" extension for your web pages.

You can use Server Side Includes to include just about every file type like; html, htm, php, jpg, gif, txt, etc. I actually use text files without the ".txt" extension for most of mine because that's how I first learned to do it. I also usually put the file to be included in the same directory as the pages that include it for the same reason. However, you are not restricted to either of those things.

So how do you get your host to paste 1 of your files into your web pages?

If you're a beginner, here are 5 easy step:

1. Create or open your web page in your HTML editor.
   

2. Select the section of your page that you want to appear on other pages.




3. Copy the HTML code for that section and paste it into another file. (I usually use Notepad and create a text file without the ".txt" extension) Name and save your new file.




4. In your web page file, replace all the code you just copied and pasted with the following:
   
   Put your file's name in place of "xxxxx". And if the file is in a different directory than your web page be sure to include the full path to the file starting from your root directory.




5. Upload your files and check them out.

Just like many other web programming techniques, there are other ways to use and write Server Side Includes. Also, it isn't necessary to use the ".shtml" extension for your web pages if you know how to modify the code in your .htaccess file. But if you're a beginner and just getting started, using the above directions will get you started and may save you a lot of time in the future when you want to make modifications to you site.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. If you found this tip helpful or have more information you would like to share, please feel free to leave a comment.

Tags: server side include, ssi, web site design, make changes to web site, shtml, navigation menu

An Article Source You May Not Know About

2 of the problems I hear the most often are:

1. I can't write.
2. I don't know what to write about.

And up until recently my first recommendation was to use article directories to either find content or to do research.

However, I recently discovered an article resource that provides more flexibility when using articles authored by someone else.

As described at Wikipedia, Creative Commons is "a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative work available for others legally to build upon and share. The organization has released several copyright licenses known as Creative Commons licenses. These licenses, depending on the one chosen, restrict only certain rights (or none) of the work."

So what does that mean to you?

• If you're looking for content, it means that now you can find articles that may be used and modified for your own commercial use by using the Creative Commons search service because it finds content across the web that is tagged with a "creative commons license".




• If you're a writer looking for traffic, it means you can put a Creative Commons License on your articles to get more exposure. There are 6 types of licenses to choose from and all you have to do is copy and paste a little code onto the page that contains the content. Just make sure you give some thought to the type of license you want on your article because Creative Commons licenses are non-revocable.

If you're looking for content or have content you're willing to share, Creative Commons may be just what you're looking for

• It's 100% free. There's no fee and no registration.

• It finds content that can be modified and used for commercial purposes.

• Articles do not have to be submitted to a directory to be found.

• Authors have control of how long the content is available. (Just remove the page and it's gone.)

So before you discount having a list or a blog because you can't or don't know what to write, give Creative Commons a look and see if it can solve your problem. For a real example see the CC logo in the right margin.)

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. Please feel free to leave a comment.

Tags: creative commons, content, article, article directory, copyright license, traffic

Watch and Learn How To Build A Squeeze Page

Everyone keeps telling you how important it is to build your list so this week I've got a video by Liz Tomey that shows you how to modify a squeeze page template and a lot more.

Watch it free here.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. If you found this tip useful, please leave a comment.

Tags: list building, email marketing, build list, squeeze page, landing page, autoresponder, aweber

One Of The Mysteries Of The Internet: Web 2.0

One of the latest buzzwords being used in the internet marketing circles is "Web 2.0" so I asked you, my readers, if you are were using any Web 2.0 methods in your business.

Only 2 people voted and 1 of the 2 votes stated they didn't really know what Web 2.0 meant!

Now I may be wrong but I am going to take a wild guess and state, the lack of response in this recent poll was because most people don't know and understand what Web 2.0 is.

So today let's examine what Web 2.0 is and how it's different from Web 1.0.

First let me state that Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0 is unlike what you're used to when it comes to most products. Usually when a new version of computer software or computer technology becomes available it is so different everyone can see the difference and improvement. Also, the move to the newer version is a clean and clear changeover.

With the internet, things evolve. So as we move from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and eventually to Web 3.0, you won't wake up 1 morning to discover a whole new internet. No 1 big internet entity is going to upgrade everything while we are all offline.

Rather, the move to Web 2.0 started several years ago and is still happening. Many people are using Web 2.0 sites, products and services without knowing that these are part of the new, improved internet.

Second, Web 2.0 doesn't have the characteristics most expect when upgrading to a newer version of something. Web 2.0 doesn't mean faster, it doesn't mean major bug fixes and it doesn't mean new capabilities. Although Web 2.0 does have these things, that's not what Web 2.0 is about.

At this point I'd like you to take a few minutes to watch a short video I've shown you before. The first third shows what Web 1.0 is and then it moves into the birth of Web 2.0 with examples of some Web 2.0 sites that you already know about.

**********

SIDE NOTE:

The video you just watched was created by an anthropology professor at K-State, my alma mater, and it is currently the best and most viewed online video showing what Web 2.0 means.

**********

So what is Web 2.0?

"Web 2.0 is linking people ...
... people sharing, trading, and collaborating ..."

Web 2.0 allows internet users to connect and interact with each other through means other than email, forums and chat rooms.

Web 2.0 is allowing the internet to actually put some meaning into "global community" by bringing it's users together and letting them share ideas, pictures and videos.

Blogger, MySpace, Squidoo, Flickr and YouTube are some of the most used and well known Web 2.0 sites. They are free places where internet users can submit things so other internet users may see them. They allow the submitted items to be viewed, commented on and provide links so the items may be shared on other sites across the web.

Web 2.0 is making the internet 1 big global community where everyone has the opportunity to become a recognized expert at something.

The above video is an example of what I mean. Before this video became available, I'd never heard of Mike Wesch and his ideas of Media Ecology and Cultural Anthropology. You'd probably never heard of K-State (BTW, it's a really good school in other fields of study too). Now, that video has been viewed 2,442,062+ times, has received 5334 comments and has been bookmarked by 22,008 viewers. That's a lot of people who now know more about Web 2.0 and the creator of the video. Professor Wesch has become a recognized expert to more than 2 million people!

To quote 1 of the more recent comments on another of Professor Wesch's YouTube videos,

"That's Awesome! Web2.0 is really connect people together in a way that's never been done before!

We have passed the information age.

We are NOW in the Communication AGE!"

Web 2.0 is not just another buzzword. It means we now have the capability to actively communicate and share with other internet users. So the next time you're asked, are you using any Web 2.0 methods with your online business, you'll know what they're asking and how to respond.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. If you found this tip useful please leave a comment.

Tags: web 2.0, internet marketing, communications, blogging, youtube, myspace

To Squidoo Or Not To Squidoo, That Is The Question

Over this last week I've been reading a lot about how online marketers can use the free lenses at Squidoo to make money. And although I haven't tried it yet, I am considering it because it's basically a free way to get a web page with a good page rank and, of course, includes the opportunity to earn income.

With that said, today I'd like to share some of the information and videos I discovered this week.

1. If you go to squidoo.com you'll see that the home page has a page rank of 6 out of 10. You'll also see that there are currently 21 main groups that contain anywhere from 47 to 365 subgroups within them. I checked out some of the lenses and never found a lens that had a Google page rank less than 3 out of 10. There may be some, I just didn't find them.




2. On the squdoo.com download page you can get a free TypePad Blogging Widget, Buttons and Badges for your Squidoo lens, a Squidoo-Firefox Extension and free ebooks like Everyone Is An Expert.




3. Squidoo.com lets you build your own lens through the use of modules and some of these modules can earn money because they are linked to affiliate programs like Amazon, Cafepress, GoogleAds and eBay. You earn 50% of the affiliate commissions for these purchases and squidoo.com donates 5% to charities and keeps 45% to maintain the site. You can also donate your commissions to a host of charities automatically if you want.




4. While there are millions of lenses on squidoo.com, some of them do really well in the search engines. I found http://www.squidoo.com/meatsnacks/ listed on the first page of Google and AOL and http://www.squidoo.com/jerky/ listed on the second page of Yahoo. Both of these lens were set up to make money and recruit a downline for Jerky Direct.
   
   Since http://www.squidoo.com/jerky/ offered to share their lens stats, I discovered that the lens had 196 unique visitors this last week. And while that doesn't seem like very many, that same lens had almost 5,000 unique visitors in February. (Bet they were on the first page of Yahoo that month.) And although I don't know if they made any sales, since they had almost 5,000 highly targeted visitors, the odds are they got a few sales and signups.




5. The person who owns http://www.squidoo.com/jerky/ has a free membership site, SquidooSecrets, where he shares a lot of information on how to use squidoo to earn money.




6. I've reviewed the information shared both at SquidooSecrets and in Squidoo Blueprint and found that they both state pretty much the same thing on how to set up a lens to make money. The primary difference between what they offer is that Squidoo Blueprint gives a lot more information on how to put content on your lens, how to get a good page rank, how to avoid being deleted from squidoo for having a spam lens and how to get more traffic to your lens. So if you want to use squidoo.com as a marketing tool, I'd suggest you first get a free membership at SquidooSecrets and play with building a lens. Then if you're lens isn't getting traffic or making any money, invest in Squidoo Blueprint to get some ideas to fix those problems.




7. If you're interested in squidoo but not ready to join a free membership site, I found 3 very good videos by Tiffany Dow of SocialMarketing101 on YouTube. You can click the links below to watch the videos.
   
   How To Set Up A Squidoo Lens
   
   Make Money On Squidoo
   
   Adding An Opt-In Box To A Squidoo Lens
   

Will a squidoo lens make money for you? As with all other forms of web marketing, there are no guarantees. However, squidoo is becoming a popular place for people to gather in groups, it is possible to get good search engine placement and creating a lens is free. To Squidoo or Not To Squidoo, the choice is yours.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. If you found this tip useful, please leave a comment on the blog.

Tags: squidoo, sqidoo secrets, squidoo blueprint, social marketing, make money, squidoo lens

1 Way To Lower Your Home Office Expenses

When you have your own online business you get to be the one who pays all the bills and buys all the supplies. So this week's tip isn't about how to make money but rather on how to same some.

As you learn how to design web sites, how to build a list, how to write copy, etc. you have probably gotten some ebooks, reports and articles that contain information that helps you. And you may have even printed some. I know I do when I find a good one and want to make notes or have it available when I am not at my computer.

But soon you discover that you're going through printer paper and ink faster than you can afford to buy it. Plus, the shelves and file drawers are soon full and you run out of places to store what you've printed.

So today let's talk about how to save ink, paper and storage space for all that wonderful material you want to print.

The easiest way to save ink, paper and space for your printed material is to print more than 1 page per piece of paper. No, I don't mean printing front and back although you can do that too. I mean printing 2 or more pages on the same side of a single piece of paper.

Now unfortunately the ability to print multiple pages on a single sheet of paper is not available for ebooks that are .exe files or at least I haven't found a way yet. However, it is possible to print multiple pages of a pdf ebook on a single sheet and here's how:

To print some or all of a pdf ebook and have multiple pages on 1 sheet of paper:

1. Go to the file menu in the upper left corner of the ebook and click print.




2. When the Print popup box appears find the area labeled Print Range. You can select to print All, Current View, Current Page or a Subset of the pages in the ebook. All is the default and will print the entire ebook. Current View is the part of ebook that is showing on your screen. Current Page is the complete page for what is showing on your screen. To print a few selected pages of the ebook simply select Pages and enter the page numbers of those pages you want like 3 - 5 or 5, 6.




3. Next, find the area labeled Page Handling and set Page Scaling to "Multiple pages per sheet." The default for this field is "None" so if you don't change it, you will only get 1 printed page per sheet. In the next field, select the number of pages per sheet you want.




4. After you have made your selections you can see how the printed page will look on the right side of the popup box and when you're happy with how it looks you can click the print button.

Printing long articles and email reports requires a little more work and the use of a word processor like MS Word or OpenOffice Writer.

1. Highlight the text of what you want to print by placing your mouse at the beginning of the text you want to copy and then while holding down your left mouse button, drag your mouse to the end of the text you want. When the text is highlighted release the left mouse button and either click the right mouse button and select copy or do a "cntl c".




2. Open a new document in your word processor and paste the selected content onto the page by either going to the Edit menu and selecting Paste, doing a "cntl v" or clicking the right mouse button and selecting Paste.




3. When you have all the content you want in the document, under the File menu, click Print Preview or Page Preview.




4. On the tool bar there's a button for doing multiple pages. If you don't recognize it, slowly slide your mouse over the buttons and read the labels.




5. After you've selected the number of multiple pages, simply click the Print button.

Printing multiple pages on a single sheet is a great way to reduce the amount of ink, paper and shelf space required for your printed material and a great way to cut your costs without giving up any of the benefits of having printed copies. Also, by selecting the pages you print you can quit printing the unnecessary pages that are often at the beginning and end of an ebook. Instead of using 65 sheets of paper to print a single ebook you can print only those pages that contain the information you want and print them 2 or more to a sheet.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. If you found this tip useful, please leave a comment.

Tags: home office, print, print ebook, print multiple pages, save paper, save ink, save space, save money

7 Ways To Win The "Make Money Online" Game

What do online product creators, service providers, affiliates and resellers have in common?

They are all trying to make money online and they all face the same problem with making money.

While others say not having a site or not owning a list is the biggest problem, I will argue that competition is the biggest problem because everyone with an online business must continually work this problem. Whether you have a site or not, whether you have a list or not, you must always be working to beat out your competition for those same dollars your competitors are trying to get. Yes, competition is the biggest problem you face when you first start your online business and it remains your biggest problem as long as you continue to work your business.

Today I am not going to share any brand ways on how to beat your competitors because you probably already know these 7 ways and so do your competitors.

However knowing the 7 ways is not the way to make money online.

The way to make money online is to actually use 1 or more of these 7 ways to beat your competitors.

7 Ways To Win The "Make Money Online" Game

1. Be the first person to promote the product or service.
   
   If you have a list or purchase ezine ads then being the first person to announce a product gives you a better chance of making a sale. Because your target market will probably be getting lots of ads for this product from the lists they are on, it is to your advantage to evaluate if it's something you want to market and, if it is, get your mailing out first.
   
   
2. Always offer your page viewer a list to join.
   
   We all know how important this is yet most of us don't do it. I'm even guilty of not providing a list offer on most of my sales pages. But building a list is critical and a list offer should be made on every page.
   
   
3. Offer an incentive for buying from you.
   
   When you are competing with a jillion other people selling the same thing, you have got to give your potential buyer a reason for buying from you. Resellers learned this way to beat out their competitors a long time ago and started offering bonuses. And now "guru" affiliates are doing it too by offering rebates and bonuses.
   
   
4. Give unadvertised bonuses to your customers.
   
   Giving unadvertised bonuses to your customers can help you in 2 ways. First, you show your customer that you not only deliver what's expected, but you give them more than expected. This makes them more willing to buy from you again. Second, your unadvertised bonus may be something that includes your affiliate links or a viral product that promotes your site.
   
   
5. Create an upsell and cross promote.
   This method only works when you are able to capture information about your customers.
   
   You've bought products or joined membership sites and seen the one-time-offers. This is 1 type of an upsell. But you don't have to create a one-time-offer. Just make another offer on your product delivery page or send your customers an email.
   
   
6. Write an ezine article.
   
   To make money online you must sell something and you should be familiar with what you are selling. Since you are familiar with the product or service you know enough about what it has to offer to write an article. Just give enough information to get the reader hungry for more in depth information and drive traffic to your sales page with your article.
   
   
7. Improve the sales material.
   
   Every sales page and email ad can always be improved. If you are a product/ service provider then you need to be testing and tracking your sales page and ads until you find the 1 that works the best. If you are a reseller then you should modify the products sales page so it doesn't look and read just like all the other resellers pages. And while affiliates can't modify the sales pages, they can modify the pre-written ads until they find the ad words that get people to click their affiliate link.

Marketing is the name of the "Make Money Online" game. You and your competitors are all working with the same product and it's what you do to market the product that makes the difference.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. Was this article useful? Please feel free to leave a comment.

The Quick, Easy And Free Way To Create A Shadow For Your Website Images

As you may well know, CSS is used to create style sheets for web pages. Unfortunately, using CSS style sheets is well beyond the capabilities of many web site owners because most books and tutorials are written in total geek. So today we're going to take a quick peek into some of the mysterious and wonderful capabilities of CSS without sinking into the black hole of CSS style sheet programming.

As a web site owner, you probably have one or more pictures on your web site. You've got some type of photo or clip art in your page header and maybe you've sprinkled a few more throughout your site. These pictures are fine however they may look like they have just been glued to the page.

One quick and easy CSS trick can help you fix that glued on problem. Instead of just pasting your plan image to your web page, you can use a drop shadow to border your image and make it stand out.

To create a drop shadow for your web site images you simply need to use 1 of these 2 pieces of code.

CSS Trick # 1:

<div
style="width:115px;height:115px;filter:shadow(color:gray);">
<img
src=yourpicturefile.jpg width="100"
height="100" style="border:1px solid black;"></div>

CSS Trick #2:

<div
style="width:115px;height:115px;filter:shadow(color:gray,strength:18, direction:132);">
<img
src=yourpicturefile.jpg width="100"
height="100" style="border:1px solid black;"></div>

Here's how to understand what's going on in the above snippets of code.

First, it's the <div> tags that make these CSS tricks work so be sure to leave those tags in place.

Second, the width and height are set to be larger than your picture size. In the above examples, the picture I am putting on the site is named, yourpicturefile.jpg and has a width and height of 100 pixels. So to make sure my shadow shows up, the width and height for my <div> tag is sized slightly larger. You can adjust these numbers until you are happy with the size of your shadow.

Third, after the size of my picture you see a style for the border around my picture. If you don't want a border then replace the 1px with a 0px. If you want a thicker border then change the 1px to a larger number. Just be sure to keep the px part.

Now here's the difference between these 2 CSS tricks. The first snippet of code generates a simple shadow that is always the same color, brightness and in the same location for every picture it's used with. The second snippet of code give you control over the color of the shadow, how bright it is and where it is located. You can play around with these attributes until you are happy with how your drop shadow looks.

Now when you go off and use 1 of these tricks, you will find that your pictures don't appear exactly where you want them. To position your picture beside some text, the easiest way is to create an HTML table with the text in 1 column and the code for your shadowed picture in another column. If your picture is all by itself and you want to have it be left justified, centered or right justified then use 1 more CSS trick to put it where you want it.

To position your stand-alone picture put a <div align="center"> before the code from 1 of the above pieces of code and a </div> after it. Keep the quotes and use either the word, left, center or right to put your picture where you want it.

See how easy it was! You don't have to be a CSS expert to put shadows on your images when you know a couple of CSS tricks.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. If you found this tip useful, please leave a comment.

Tags: css tricks, drop shadow, web site design

How To Link The Titles Of Your Blog Posts

1 of the things I've been trying to figure out is how to make the titles of my blog articles link to themselves since this is recommended for search engine optimization.

I've done quite a bit of reading and found several sites that give the code for doing this on Blogger. Unfortunately, most of these directions totally confused me. Then, by accident, I found that Blogger actually does what I wanted automatically if I just let it do its own thing.

So here's how to get your blog article titles to link to themselves on Blogger.

1. Under the Setting tabs go to Formatting


2. Enable "Show Link Field"


3. When you write your blog post, do not enter anything in the URL field under the Post Title and the URL for your article title will be the article's page on your blog.

If you want your title to link to another URL, then of course you will want to enter the URL into the field when you create your article.

Sometimes it's the simplest things that really slow us down.

Have a great time blogging and feel free to leave a comment.

To Your Success,
Susan

Tags: blog

Fix You Ordered and Unordered Lists On Blogger

Until today every list I posted on this blog showed up as an unordered list (bullet list) - even the ones I formatted to be ordered (numbered).

Well, no longer will I have that problem here because I discovered the fix and here it is:

In my blogger template I found the code that looked like this:

/* unordered list style */

ul {
list-style: none;
margin-left: 10px;
padding: 0;
}

li {
list-style: none;
padding-left: 14px;
margin-bottom: 3px;
background: url(http://www.blogblog.com/tictac_blue/tictac_blue.gif) no-repeat 0
6px;
}

And all my lists were coming out unordered (ul).

I simply removed the code to let all my lists default to the standard and now everything is working the way it should.

So if you're having problems with getting both types of lists to display on your blogger blog

1. make a backup copy of your template (in case you mess up and have to start over)


2. look for code that is like mine above


3. copy and paste it somewhere in case ever want to put it back


4. remove the code from your blogger template


5. preview your blog to see if it worked

In case your blog is always showing numbered lists then the code you need to look for will be very similar but will start with ol {

Hope this helps and please leave a comment and let me know if it did.

To Your Success,
Susan

Powered by Qumana

Free Editing Tool For Bloggers

While looking at all the neat tools that are now available to add things to your blog, I stumbled upon a free tool that makes writing blog posts a lot easier for those of us using Blogger.com.

No, it doesn't come up with content, although that would be a nice feature.

What it does is it allows you to write your post in a window like this:

Now the great things about using this window is that it lets you do everything the blogger post window does plus it lets you check your spelling and makes it easier to format your article.

Ever tried to indent with blogger? I just did it.

Ever tried to copy and paste from a web page only to find that there was a lot more editing needed to make it look right?

That's no longer a problem since this let's you copy to your hearts delight and it looks like you want the first time.

Lists like this always gave me trouble before.

1. type a line
   
   ad some more text
   


2. type another line
   
   and even more text
   


3. got the idea?

Since I just got the tool a few minutes ago, it may even do more that I haven't discovered yet.

Here's where you can get your own copy of this wonderful free tool

http://www.qumana.com/index.htm

Hope to see you blogging more.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. I just discovered that depending on your blog's settings and the other blog tools you may have installed on your blog, your post may only be put on your list of postings as a draft and you'll have to login and publish it manually. Still, with the spelling feature and the extra formatting features I think this is a great find.

Let me know what you think about this tool by leaving a comment.

Tags: blog

Powered by Qumana

"Answers To Your 5 Most Recent Questions"

It's a well known fact that if 1 person asks a question then there are others with the same question but afraid to ask. So today I am going to answer the 5 questions I've received over the last few days.

Question 1: How do I post comments on your blog?
Since Alan and Paul have both asked this question and because posting comments on blogs is a good way to get links back to your site, everyone needs to know how to post comments on a blog.

Answer: - For my 2 blogs where I've asked for your comments you simply go to the bottom of the article and find the line that has:

Comments (xx) Trackback

(The x's above are a number.)

Click the word Comments and a popup box appears where you can read the current comments. Scroll to the end of the box and that's where you will find the form to fill out to leave your comments.

The form has a place for your name, email address, URL (that's the page you want to be your "Homepage" in your comment) and, of course, your comment. When you click the "Publish" button, the name you entered, the URL and your comments are added to the article's other comments. Your email address is optional and if you include it, it will not appear in your comments. Your comment will appear on my blog almost instantly and you can read it if you click the "Comments" link again.

As for other blogs that accept comments, their method of getting your comments may be slightly different but it will be very similar. Just look for a place at the end of their blog post that identifies the comments for the posted article and click the link. Then follow the directions for posting your comment. Because some blog owners must approve all comments before they allow them to appear, it may take some time before you'll see your comment.

If you search a blog and can not find a link to read the posted comments then you are probably reading a blog that does not allow comments.

Question 2: I've just taken over a site and need help getting members
While Chris's question was specifically about getting members for a new site, others have asked similar questions because they wanted help with getting traffic or conversions.

Answer (First Part): To get members/conversions you must first get some targeted traffic to your site and because most of those who write don't have money to spend to get targeted traffic I usually recommend the following free methods of getting traffic:

1. Writing and submitting articles for article directories.
2. Free or inexpensive ezine ads.
3. Offering something in a give away (this is a form of Joint Venture).
4. Listing your site in a directory of similar sites if there are any.
5. Joining and posting comments on blogs and forums where readers are interested in things related to your site.
6. Do what you can to optimize your site for the search engines.
   
   Depending on the type of site the reader has, I sometimes recommend:
   
   
7. Traffic exchange programs.
8. Safelists.
9. Setting up an eBay store.
10. Finding sites offering related products/services and partner with them to promote each others site. (A Partner or Joint Venture, Not Just Adding A Link On A Links Page.) This may include putting a link on each others site and sending out a recommendations to their list.

Answer (Second Part): If you are getting some targeted traffic and not getting members/conversions then make sure:

1. Your site is focused on the 1 thing you want your site visitors to do. Do not confuse or distract them by making too many offers, posting a lot of banner ads or sending them off your site to check out other things of interest.
2. Your site doesn't have a lot of typos, bad grammar and misspellings.
3. You've got an attention grabbing headline that can be seen when the visitor first arrives on your site.
4. You've listed the benefits of your product/service.
5. You've told the site visitor exactly what to do.
6. You've made it easy for them to perform the desired action.

Question 3: My site has been hacked into, what do I do?
Since mine was not the only site hacked into recently, Gaida asked what she should do.

Answer: From my own experience, I found that the following steps worked the best.

1. Contact your hosting provider immediately if they have not contacted you first and work with them to get your site clean.
2. If your host hasn't disabled your site then you must while you're cleaning it up. The easiest way would be to set up a redirect link to another site or a page stating the "site is temporarily out of service" for your index page.
3. Before you start cleaning, make sure your pc is virus and spyware free and keep it that way. It's easy to re-infect your pc while working the pages of your infected site so you'll need to check it often.
4. When your pc is clean, immediately login to the admin panel of your site and change your password. You may have to do this again if you infect your pc while cleaning your site. Just make sure your pc is clean every time you do this.
5. If you have a clean copy of the pages of your site then you can simply upload all of them except for your index (home) page. Then check to make sure everything is working correctly. If it is then upload your index page and check it.
6. If you don't have a clean copy of all the pages on your site then kick yourself really hard because you should. But if you don't or if you have a really large site with lots of pages then you may want to do some spot checking and only replace the infected pages. Because it is easy to re-infect your pc doing this, you'll need to check your pc often.
   
   Since you know at least 1 of the pages that was hacked, start there by either reading the code or uploading a clean copy. Also, you'll want to either read or upload all the other files that may be used by this page, i.e. javascript, xml, shtml, etc. Then check to make sure this page works correctly.
   
   After you've gotten your corrupted page working properly, surf your site and see if you can find any other corrupted pages. If you do then clean them and their called files.
7. After you've gotten your site cleaned, contact your host provider so they can reactivate you site. If they did not deactivate your site, you should still contact them so they know you've worked the issue. (You should always try to keep a good working relationship with your host provider.)

Question 4: Will you join me or will you look at...?
These types of questions come in a lot, too many times to list all the senders' names.

Answer: I read them all, look at the offer and try to send a reply. Hopefully I haven't missed any. Usually the answer is, thanks for sending me the information however I am not joining anything right now. However, there are always exceptions.

If the offer is for something that would really benefit you, my reader, I usually accept even when I don't get anything more than you. Examples include the free hosting we had available for awhile and some of the free ebooks donated by readers.

If the offer is for something that I think can help me with my business but I'm not ready for it yet, I save the offer so I can use the sent link when I do join or signup. (Recently I pulled up an old email to join a paid membership site.)

Telling you this doesn't mean I want you to send me an offer nor does it mean I want you to stop sending them. It simply means that, like most people who have been online for awhile, I am already in a lot of things and have become more selective with what I join and do. Also, I know more about what works for me and what I am planning for the next step in my business. If I don't accept your offer it doesn't mean that I necessarily think your offer is bad (I'll tell you if I do) or that what your recommending is bad. Remember, there's only 1 of me and I can't do everything everybody does. So if something is working for you, stay with it.

Question 5: Solo Ad
This is not really a question but I get several every week from readers so I've decided to respond to these mailings.

Answer: When I receive an email with a subject line that looks like an ad from an email address I don't recognize I always delete it without even opening it and this may include yours. Sorry to have to admit this but I don't have everyone's email address memorized.

If you use my contact email address to send a pre-written solo ad I can almost guarantee I didn't read it. But whether I read it or not, I can guarantee I didn't click the included link unless I was somehow able to identify you as a reader. And using the standard statement of "I read your ezine and thought you would be interested in ..." doesn't work.

While I don't use a spam blocker of any type, I do have my email automatically sorted into the proper folders when it arrives. 99% or more of your email will find it's way into the proper folder and the remainder will land in my Junk folder. The subject line of all the email in my readers folder gets read and unless its a pre-written solo ad subject line, it will get opened. As for the ones that make it to the Junk folder, most of them will get automatically deleted unless you are using a subject line I've directed you to use. (Some of your classified ads go into the Junk folder but I retrieve them and file them correctly. It's because of these ads that I post the classifieds online rather than email them since the classified announcement has a better chance of not being filed as Junk.)

The reason I am mentioning the solo ads from readers is so you'll know that you are wasting your valuable time sending them to me. While I love getting personal messages from you, solo ads I can live without.

I hope the above answers helped you. If your question didn't appear then send it to me and I'll get back to you.

Remember, there's no such thing as a dumb question if you don't know the answer. And if more people asked these questions there would be a lot less confusion in working your business.

To Your Success,
Susan

Restoration of service in progress.

Have you ever gone to a site and seen the message:

"There's been ..issues. Restoration of service in progress."

OR

"Account suspended ..."?

If you went to 1 of my sites a few days ago you did and here's
what happened.

My hosting provider discovered I had some phishing software on my susancarrollhome site and immediately closed it down and sent me an email. As soon as I saw the email I replied to their request to help them determine if I had placed the illegal software on my site.

Since I hadn't placed the software there, my provider and I both worked quickly to get it off and to get my site back up again.

Finding the "bad" code wasn't easy since the hackers had not placed it on any of my html pages. They had placed it in several java and php files. However, with both of us working the problem, we managed to get through all my files to get them cleaned up and working properly again.

How did the phishers get their software on my site?

They logged in to my ftp port and edited some of my files to place their code.

Was my ftp port password protected?

Yes, and I don't share my private login information for my hosted accounts with anyone. Nor do I keep them written down where anyone can find it. I also do not use easy-to-guess passwords.

Who hacked my account and how did they find my password?

While I don't know the name of the person who performed this illegal action, both I and my hosting provider know their IP address and the country where it is located. (My host may know more however they did not share that information with me.) As to how they discovered my password, who knows?

What can you and I do to protect our sites?

For 1 thing, we must start changing our passwords regularly. This is something no one, not even me, likes to do. We get used to a password and it's easy for us to remember so we tend to be lazy and keep it around. Unfortunately, the longer you use the same password, the more vulnerable it is.

How often do we need to change our passwords?

Good question and I really don't know the correct answer. As for me, I intend to start changing my passwords at least once a month.

Will changing our passwords more often keep our sites totally protected from hackers?

No, but it's a start.

How about getting a "hacker safe" certificate?

After reading this article and this forum, it's not something I recommend right now.

What other measures can we take?

The 2 things I discovered about the hacker who invaded my site was that they were lazy and smart. They only infected files that were in my main directory, my image directory and my recommends directory. All of these directories get the most traffic and it's easy to identify what's in them. Possibly giving directories names that don't imply what's in them and moving most of your pages and scripts to subdirectories may help keep them safe.

Currently all my sites have new passwords and are safe and I am working to keep them that way because I don't want you to see:

"Account suspended ..." again.

To Your Success,
Susan Carroll

A Habit, An Addiction Or Both?

This month's poll question was, "When you go online, is checking your email the first thing you do most of the time?"

100% of those who voted said, "Yes."

There were also some comments.

• "yes - it's usually the first thing that I do."
  
  
• "Yes, email is the first thing I check when I get on my computer.Every time!!! I have a 'thing' about mail. I'm not able to drive pastmy snail mailbox either! I pick up snail mail and then check myemail!!"
  
  
• "and then it's "which email account do I check first?"
  
  
• "Of course, because I have to look for your mail! :)"

Of all the comments received however, Mitch had the best since he shared the secret of how your email should be read.

• "I check it, skim it actually, but only for a message from someone who may be on my list. Everything else is put on hold until I finish my work pertaining to my sites, etc. Trying to read all that mail is a huge time waster. I think it's why many folks never make it on-line. They get distracted joining one new thing after another and never have the time to implement any of it. They kill their own success. Any mail after a couple of days should be deleted. It takes away any attempt to 'catch up' which isn't going to happen. There is no doubt, another one covering the same thing that just came in." Mitch

Now I want you to read the last comment again and this time pay close attention to the second paragraph because Mitch is right on target.

Breaking the habit of reading your email first is hard since we adopt the misconception at a very early age that we must check our mail immediately or we'll miss out on something important. As a child we ran to our parent's mailbox to get the mail in the hope that someone had sent us something.

As adults, however, you know that your mail consists of bills, advertising and occasionally a personal card or letter. You learn to collect it, sort it and fill it accordingly.

Then you go online, get an email account and revert back to your child like dream that someone is going to send you something good and you must read everything immediately. This is especially true when you get your first email account and not much email.

When you're only getting 10 or fewer emails a day it doesn't take much time to read them all and it may even give you some pleasure knowing that at least 10 people know your email address and want to send you something.

But soon hundreds of people know your email address and all of them want to send you something. Some of them may even be sending you multiple emails every day. Suddenly you realize that your inbox is filling up and you need to keep it cleaned out. Nobody wants a cluttered inbox!

At this point it's time to apply your snail mail method of checking and filing your mail to your email inbox. Like Mitch, you need to see if there's an email from a subscriber or a customer that requires an immediate response and then leave the rest of them alone until you've finished your assigned business task for the day.

To help you sort and file your email you may want to set up some folders and have your email sorted automatically. Most email readers allow you to create sub-folders and will automatically sort your incoming email.

If possible, you should create a folder just for your subscribers, customers, affiliates and jv partners. This will help you identify the email that requires an immediate response.

You may want to create 1 or more folders for some ezine mailings since the you always want to read them. (Like mine, I hope!) Others may be routed to a generic type of "read when there's time" folder since these senders only send "good stuff" occasionally.

As for the rest of your email, these can wait until you "really" have nothing else to do since you're probably just going to delete them anyway.

Once your email is sorted you must learn to only read the "really important" ones at the beginning of your work day. The "really important" ones are those from your subscribers, customers, affiliates and jv partners because they are the ones helping you with your business.

As for the rest of your email, read them according to the priority you have given the folder where it's been filed and only after you have finished your planned task.

After a few days you may find that you're getting a large backlog of email in some of your folders and unsorted email. Then, again at the end of your work day, you should spend a couple of minutes to do some massive deleting since you will never have the time to read it all. Sure you can skim the headlines and check some of it. If you find something good then keep it but I am betting that 99.99% of it will go straight to the trash.

Here are a couple of questions to help emphasize how important it is to not read all your email when you first logon.

1. When are you the most productive, at the beginning of your workday, the middle of your workday or at the end of your workday?
   
   
2. Of all the email you check when you first logon, how much of it was worth reading and how much went straight to the trash after you'd wasted your time checking it out?
   
   
3. How hard is it for you to stop reading your email before you've looked at all of them?

Many find that reading email is like an addiction because once they have read one they want to read another and then another and then ...

So as much as I hate to say it, if reading your email is the first thing you do when you go online, stop!

Stop wasting your most productive time with the mindless activity of reading all your email and undermining yourself and your business.

To Your Success,
Susan

Where In The World Are You?

Last week I was reading 1 of my favorite blogs and thought "Wow, what a great idea!"

As a FriendsWhoCare reader you already know we publish a little information for my subscribers like where your site is located and your ads.

Unfortunately we don't get much of chance to know much about you. So this week we're going to change all that and start getting acquainted with each other. We'll start by telling each other where we are located.

And I'll even give you 2 incentives for sharing your location.

1. You may find you have 1 or more FriendsWhoCare Members living nearby.


2. You can include a link to your site or blog.

So post a comment and tell us where in the world you are located. Please include your first name. Your last name is optional. And definitely include a link to your site or blog.

In case you don't know how to make a link in a blog comment here's a simple example:

-----

Hi,
I live in Fort Scott, Kansas.
Susan Carroll

The code for the link looks like:

<a href="http://www.friendswhocare.us/join.htm">Susan Carroll</a>

Just replace the link with your own and my name with the words you want to show in the browser.

-----

See how easy it is.

So please post a comment with your location and let's start learning a little about each other.

To Your Success,
Susan

Free Advertising Tools

Free Advertising is all over the internet but much of it is ineffective and may be wasting your time! So what do the informed readers of the "FriendsWhoCare
Newsletter" use?

Today we've introduced a new page at FriendsWhoCare.us to help you find some good, free advertising resources and even share yours. It's called "The Best Free Advertising" and it's where you can find out how we get traffic to our sites.

Take a look. And if you don't find your favorite free advertising method please add it.

Right now it's totally free to add your favorite free advertising secret.

To Your Success,
Susan

5 Things I've Heard And Always Remembered

It seems there are quite a few blog memes (a game of blog tag) going around the web. Because I’m always up for a new game and this one sounds like fun, let’s start our own game of blog-tag at FriendsWhoCare.

Here are my 5 things I’ve heard and always remembered:

1. “If you're going to do something do it right the first time.” My mother said this to me so many times I think it must be stamped onto my forehead. I don’t think she meant it in a bad way but rather was her way of saying, keep trying until you master it and then keep doing it the right way.
   
   
2. Walt Disney once said, "If you can dream it, you can do it." These words inspire me to keep trying even when I’ve failed at something several times.
   
   
3. When I had a job, a maintenance engineer friend told me “If it's not broke don't fix it.” This sounded like good advice to me.
   
   
4. “Chocolate may not make your problem go away but it will make you feel better.” This is something I said and believed before it was scientifically proven. I said it so many times to my kids as they were growing up it’s probably my fault they love chocolate as much as I do.
   
   
5. When my youngest daughter got married and moved out she called 1 day and asked a question I’ll never forget, “Why didn't you warn me that it was so hard being grownup?” Since no one warned me, I didn’t know I was suppose to warn her!

Now, it's your turn. Post your 5 things you've heard and always remembered on your own blog.

Gaida Rodgers, Pam Triick, Manoj R. and Leeuna Foster ... Tag, you're it!

Let's have some fun,
Susan

Tag, You're It!

It seems there is always something new to learn and a few days ago I learned about blog memes. And while they may not be new to you I'd never heard of them before.

So what is a blog meme?

Simply put, it's an idea that is shared and passed from one blog to another blog. The most common form of a blog meme is a question that is asked on 1 blog and answered on many other blogs.

The way a blog meme gets started is 1 blogger will ask and answer a question on their blog and then "tag" other blog owners. Those who have been "tagged" then put the question and their answer on their blog and then "tag" other blog owners. There is no set rule on how many bloggers may be "tagged" however, 5 and 7 seem to be the favorite numbers for the current blog memes being circulated right now.

Now there are some rules for participating in a blog meme and they are:

• Don't "tag" a blogger that you don't already have some kind of prior relationship with.
  
• When you "tag" someone you must name those you are "tagging" and provide a link to their blog in your meme post.
  
• If you're "tagged", don't just "ignore" the tag. Always respond to the blogger tagging you.
  
• Unless you have a really good reason for not participating, you should always participate in the meme.
  
• When you participate you should provide a link and a trackback to the person who tagged you.
  
• If you know who started the meme, you should provide a link and a trackback to the originator of the meme.

Because Blogger doesn't provide trackback capability and many bloggers don't use them you can post a comment on both the originator's and the blogger-who-tagged-you blogs with a link to your meme response.

The reasons for participating in a blog meme are fairly obvious and they are:

1. Increased exposure and visibility for all the blogs involved.
2. Increased link popularity.
3. Increased traffic.
4. Another reason to post.
5. It's fun.

Blog memes work across all niches. Just make sure the questions are fairly quick and easy to answer and try to make the topic interesting or fun. When you name your meme you should think in terms of "headlines." Remember to include the names and links of those you're "tagging" and either a trackback or a comment to those you "tag." To get a better response from those you "tag" you should email them to let them know they've been "tagged" and either provide an incentive or explain the advantages for passing on the meme.

Blog memes are a fun form of viral marketing. They can spread across the internet as fast as email chain letters except a blog meme carries the link to your blog with them.

Because memes are fun and I have a blog, I am going to start 1. Read "5 Things I've Heard And Always Remembered" to see my meme and see if you've been "tagged."

To Your Success,
Susan
post tags: blog meme, blog tag

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day From
FriendsWhoCare

Hope you find your pot of gold soon,
Susan
PS To add this message to your site simply copy 1 line of code and paste it inside the
<body> ... </body> tags.

<script src="http://www.friendswhocare.us/irishgreeting.js"></script>

More About What's Stopping You?

This week's tip was about the invisible barriers we build that hold us back from reaching our desired goals.

Because thinking you know what you can and can not do before you start something is one of those barriers and is a big factor in how well you will succeed, I would like you to watch a video another online marketer shared with me.

I hope this video will make you think twice the next time you tell yourself you don't know how or can't do something.

Don't give up on YOU.

Believe in yourself.

I do and and have high hopes for your success.

To Your Success,
Susan

PS If you would like to share this video with others just paste this code onto your site.

<script language="javascript" type='text/javascript' src="http://www.susancarrollhome.com/cansucceed.js"></script>

What's Stopping You?

"If you always do what you've always done,

you'll always get what you've always got."

—Author Unknown

If you're trying to do internet marketing you must believe the above quote... at least to some degree.

You're tired of going to the same job year after year. You're tired of living paycheck to paycheck. You dream of having enough time and money to enjoy your life and family.

So you enter the world of internet marketing where all you have to do is get targeted web traffic to your offer and convert visitors to buyers.

It sounds easy doesn't it?

But then you discover the real truths:

• You need your own web site.
• You need to build your own web page.
• You need to build your own list.
• You need to automate.
• You need to get traffic.
• You need to write good copy to get conversions.

And the list goes on and on and on...

And since you don't know anything about what's needed to do internet marketing you start learning. You read. You study. You take notes. You try to learn as much possible so you can achieve your dream of having a successful online business.

And then ...

You Put Up An Invisible Barrier that stops you and your business dead in it's tracks.

What is the invisible barrier that's stopping you?

It's different for different people.

• Some stop before they ever get their own site online because they think they're not ready to build a web page or don't know how to upload one to a host.
• Some stop when they need to build a list because they don't know what to say in their messages or don't know how to put a form on their site.
• Some stop when they need to automate a task that is taking so much of their time they can't do anything else because they think they can't make an automation tool work or upload a script.
• Some stop when it's time to drive traffic to their site because they think they don't know how or they don't have the money to pay for traffic.
• Some stop when their first sales page attempt doesn't perform well and they think they can't write good sales copy.

And the list goes on and on and on...

If you've built your own invisible barrier that allows you to see what's possible but is stopping you from achieving it you need to ask yourself 2 questions.

1. Why have you built a barrier to keep you from having your own successful online business?
   
   
2. What can you do to tear the barrier down?

The most common answer for the first question is - FEAR. You're afraid of actually performing the task that needs to be done. You doubt your own capabilities and think you'll either not be able to do it or you won't be able to do it right.

The second most common answer for why you've built a barrier is - You Don't Want To Do It. Sure you want a good site that gets lots of targeted traffic and makes a ton of sales but you don't Want to do what it takes. You know what must be done but look at it as a task that you Must do - not a task that you Want to do.

So how do you tear down the invisible barrier you've built? It's not easy because you have to change how you look at yourself, your business and the tasks that need to be done.

To make your invisible barrier come crashing down and to open up all the opportunities that lie before you have to:

• Discover your own inner strength and determination to become successful. You have to believe in yourself even when others think it's a waste of time and call you a fool for trying. When you need to do something you've never done before you have to learn what you can and then try it. Maybe you'll do it right and maybe you won't. If you get it right, congratulate yourself and remember how you did it so you can do it again. If you don't get it right then learn from your mistakes and keep trying until you do. Be glad you're becoming an internet marketer and not the first person who attempted to fly. And keep reminding yourself that you are not happy with what you've got and want more. Let those who don't understand and support you keep getting what they've got while you drive yourself to a better place.
  
  
• You have to change your way of thinking about the tasks you must perform. Don't look at them as jobs that must be done. Instead look at them as things you want to do. No one does the things they don't want to do in a timely manner or to the best level possible. But, when you want to do something you do it as soon as you can and put all your energy into it. And that's how you must face every internet marketing task - as something you want to do.

Does it sound almost impossible to tear down your invisible barrier? It's not because you've done both of those things before. You just don't remember.

When you were small and learning to walk do you think you actually wanted to learn to walk? It's doubtful. What you really wanted to do was to get somewhere to do something and walking was the task you had to learn how to do to make it happen.

Did you walk the first time you tried. Some do but most don't.

Did your family encourage you to try again. Probably, but then they didn't know why you were trying, did they? Had they known you wanted to chase a ball out into the street or go visit the neighbor's dog by yourself they may not have been so encouraging. And after you learned to walk did you family still encourage you to walk everywhere you wanted or did they try to stop you? We all know they tried to stop you and that you kept trying until you were old enough to understand the reason for the barriers they put up.

The barriers you've put up that are stopping you from having a successful online business are your barriers. You built them and you can tear them down. All you have to do is find that inner strength, desire and determination you had as a child and use it to do something different and achieve different results.

To Your Success,
Susan

Are You Affected By The New DST

Beginning in 2007, Daylight Savings Time (DST) in the US and Canada will start three weeks earlier on March 11, 2007, and end one week later on November 4, 2007, resulting in a new DST period that is four weeks longer than previously observed.

Depending on where you live and which time zone you have selected, it is possible that the time zone settings for your computer's system clock may be incorrect during this four week period unless certain updates are applied to your computer.

While the change in daylight saving time applies to U.S. and Canada, the change may impact customers based outside North America.

Rather that repost all the information about who is affected by the new DST, I am giving you the link to a Microsoft article that identifies who needs to update and provides the tools they have developed for their customers to address the DST change.

When I downloaded the updates I did find that I already had the XP update since I have automatic updates turned on. However, there is an update for Outlook users and it had not been automatically downloaded.

You can go here to read the article and update your software if necessary.

http://support.microsoft.com/gp/dst_topissues#A1

To Your Success,
Susan