Taken this morning by the hospital photographer.

I’m writing as I look across the hospital room at my beautiful wife. She’s fallen asleep for a few moments, our son Jaiden, cradled in her arms. Jaiden Andrew Wold was born yesterday morning at 3:20 AM, weighing 7 pounds, 3 ounces. He is amazing.

It’s time for me to simplify my inventory.

Being a serial entrepreneur, I am often guilty of starting great ideas and not seeing them through. I’m working very hard to overcome that, though, and the first step is simplifying my choices. My ventures into niche marketing have proved successful over the years. I have websites to this day that bring in an AdSense check each and every month. Much of the work I’ve started, though, isn’t living up to its potential.

And so, inspired by a desire to simplify and a reminder that most of these domains will be up for renewal next month, I’m putting them up for sale.

For the next 48 hours (until May 19 at 9 AM EST), the website inventory and domains listed below are for sale. If I’m unable to sell them, I’ll be letting them expire.

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Notes: Domains with content are all at least 2 years old and most nearly 3. Where applicable, I’ve included AdSense earnings.

PestControlArticles.com
$15.06 so far this year.
$55.98 last year.

PestControlSpot.com
$6.39 so far this far.
$12.09 last year.
Site currently down – Site provided as a zip file.

MyGlucoseMeters.com
$40+ last year, CJ affiliate program has expired.

EzcemaSpot.com
$3.72 so far this year.
$3.92 last year.

LasikSurgerySpot.com
$0.60 last year.

VOIPCove.com
$1.55 last year.

BustDiabetes.com
$1.44 last year.

TheHealthVine.com
$200+ last year via subdomain websites.

Domains:

BustDebt.com
OrganicFoodSpot.com
RawFoodCove.com
iPodProfits.com
CosmeticSurgerySpot.com
YouthFinances.com
CelluliteCorner.com
PestExtra.com
EmpireManager.com

Price:

$300 for everything.

Send payment via PayPal to sirjonathan@gmail.com. I’ll then unlock all the domains and send authorization codes along with zip files containing the content for each domain. The websites and domains are all offered as is.

If you have questions, please feel free to comment or email me at the above address.

I’m willing to consider individual offers on domains, but would prefer to deal with one buyer.

Thank you for considering this offer. I encourage you to take them up only as you’re certain that you’d be developing them or would be able to resell them. Don’t make the mistake I made :).

Have a great rest of the day,

Jonathan Wold

What I’m sharing now is an answer to my prayer to God that day for His help. May it bless and inspire you as it has me.

The 3Cs of a Successful Website

1. Context
2. Credibility
3. Call-to-Action

Let’s dive right in.

Context

When a visitor lands on your website, you only have a few seconds to get their attention before they’re gone. You need to give them an immediate context that says, “I have exactly what you’re looking for.”

Here are a few ways you can do that:

• Business/Project Name – Oftentimes, your business or project name will convey a basic sense of what it is you do. If this is the case, make sure you’ve made the most of it and you introduce your website with the right name.
• 3-Second Speech – You need to be able to convey what it is you do in three seconds or less. Work on it until you’ve got it down. Once you have it down, use the text in a prominent place on your website to give context.

Credibility

After you’ve established context, you need to give your visitors a clear and obvious reason to believe that you’re a credible authority and that you can help them.

Here are a few tips for establishing credibility:

• Testimonials – Share what others have said about you.
• Photos – Share a personal photo, a photo of your office location, photos of your products. Avoid using stock photography.
• Endorsements – “As Featured On”, “As Seen On”, “Recommended By”- Seek after and feature relevant (think back to “context”) endorsements
• Videos – Show the product in use, give a quick tour of your office, share a brief message from the president. Keep it simple and well done.

You’ll recognize a consistent theme here: let others establish your credibility.

Call To Action

This is where many websites fail. As you’ve established context and credibility, you must follow through with a clear call to action. To make it clear, your “call” needs to answer three basic questions:

1. What do you want me to do? – Tell your visitors, very clearly, what it is you want from them.
2. How do you want me to do it? – Don’t assume they know what the next step is, guide them clearly and let them know exactly what they need to do next.
3. What’s in it for me? – Why should they care? What do they get for doing what you’ve asked them to? This is the “benefit”. Don’t talk about the features of your great product or service, outline clearly the benefit they will receive.

Now, let’s pull it all together with an example.

I’ll pick on our own business, Sabramedia.

At the moment, it falls under the “bad example” category. Take a look: Sabramedia.com

The website, while beautiful, doesn’t offer a clear sense of what exactly it is that we do. Unless you’re a personal referral, you’re left wandering the site and uncertain about what to do next.

Here’s a good example of a “3 Second Speech” that explains clearly what it is that we do:

“At Sabramedia, we create and invest in ecommerce businesses.”

Here’s how we’ll be answering the 3 C’s for ourselves. Use it as inspiration for your own business.

1. Context – We’re marketing to business owners and entrepreneurs who are already in or are ready to break into the world of ecommerce. When they visit the website, we want to give them an immediate context that says, “Hey, we speak your language. We understand business, we’ve been there, we’ve had success, we want to help you and share in your success.”
2. Credibility – The majority of our business comes through personal referral. We’ll feature client testimonials and case studies that continue that work of referral.
3. Call To Action – Our call will start out as an invitation to a special report offering a step-by-step behind the scenes look at the launch of one of our ecommerce businesses. To get the report, we’ll ask for their name and email and, in exchange, they’ll be receiving a detailed look at some of our best work. We’ll use that report to generate leads for future ecommerce businesse ventures.

There’s some food for thought. Now, go look at your own website or business idea. Ask yourself the questions:

• “Who am I sharing my message to?” (Context)
• “How can I connect with them in less than 3 seconds?” (Context)
• “Why should they believe what I’m telling them?” (Credibility)
• “What am I asking my audience to do?” (Call to Action)

Call to Action: Let me know what you think about what I’ve shared. Did it inspire you? Can you apply this to what you’re working on now? Write a comment and let me know what you’re doing with what you learned.

Starting this month, I’m opening the doors for up to 3 WordPress projects. After full-time work in Sabramedia and spending evenings with my beautiful wife Joslyn, I have some time available in the early week day mornings and on Sundays.

If you’d like to learn more, take a look at my WordPress freelance page. I look forward to hearing from you :).

Until next time,

Jonathan Wold

I earn a good income as the Marketing Director and partner in a web development company in Jasper, Indiana. On the side, my wife and I have several successful niche projects that bring in regular income as well.

I have debt, though.

You see, in the years proceeding married life I had failed to develop positive habits of money management. I was convicted on it, somewhat, but the conviction rarely led to action. I was making more money than a lot of young people my age and, unfortunately, I wasn’t taking good care of it. For a long time, my sense of budgeting was, “Oh, I’ll just make more money..”. Friends and family tried to encourage me in a better direction but I wouldn’t let it all sink in.

And so, as a young unmarried man with good income, I began acquiring credit card debt like there was no tomorrow. After all, I reasoned, I’d be paying it right off. 3 years later, I am still paying it off and I’ve spent thousands in interest. Not a very wise use of funds.

As a married man, though, I’ve been humbled and, thankfully, begun to realize the great responsibility I have to wisely manage the income I’m blessed with. I’ve also been convicted that I should not be carrying around this high load of debt and have begun working extra hard to remove it from our lives. My dear wife has been very loving and supportive through it all and, bringing no debt to the marriage, has accepted my debt as her own and is working with me to take it off our shoulders.

Early in 2008, thanks to the support of a dear friend, I stopped using credit cards entirely and even gave them into my friend’s safe keeping to ensure that I wouldn’t yield in a moment of weakness.

It was hard..

At one point, in a crisis with no savings in the bank and a wedding in just a few short weeks, I took my car to the bank to apply for a loan. Providence opened the doors shortly thereafter that I didn’t need the loan, but “wow” was that a wake up call. Credit cards had given me so much “safety” and, because of that safety, I’d never really had to feel what it was like to experience financial difficulty.

That brings us to today.

With a family of 5 (2 adults, 1 dog, 1 bird, and a fish) to provide for, my wife and I have decided to turn up the heat on our finances and practice an even tighter level of economy. We’re working hard to cut out all the “extras” in our life and, as a big part of that, we’ve made the difficult decision to “downsize” our home.

Now, we’re looking at a much smaller home (Single bedroom, 1 bath, no garage). We’ve yet to see how it will all work out, but the principles are in place. Dave Ramsey has a quote from his book, The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness (highly recommended), which goes as follows:

“If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.”

So, we’re learning our lessons.

We moved to cash spending and started an envelope budgeting system and, though there have been some challenges, we’ve found it to be a solid step in the right direction for us.

Look forward to more posts on the subject, especially relating to “fighting debt”.

Have a wonderful rest of the day,

Jonathan Wold

I’ve been following some of the principles of more efficient time management for awhile now, but until this morning, they just hadn’t been brought together.

Last weekend I joined several of my close friends and family on the last Sabbath of Indiana family camp. While my wife and I had only been able to make it for one day, several of our friends and family members had been there for the days prior. During those days, they’d each been inspired on the topic of time management and scheduling. As a result, upon their return home, they began putting the principles into practice and working to set themselves and their homes on schedule. Their enthusiasm planted seeds of inspiration in my heart also.

A few months ago, my dear wife had put a lot of thought and energy into a schedule for our family which we then proceeded to follow faithfully for about 2-3 days. A busy school life and the slant towards unpredictability that newlyweds are often prone too was set against us and, though we recognized the definite importance, we let our schedule slide.

How many of you have experienced that before? Why is it that time management seems so difficult?

Several years ago (and a few of you faithful readers may recall this) I put a lot of energy into a “mastery of time management”. I had good intentions and did make apparent progress, but I was lacking a few critical ingredients.

As a Christian I now understand it my God-given responsibility to be a good steward of the time and energy He’s given me. To experience continual success, as a husband and as a businessman, I must be a master of the time God has allotted me and not a servant to it.

It’s quite a challenge. It can and must be done, though.

Here’s an outline of the schedule that I’ve set this morning.

4:00 AM – Arise and shine. Get up and begin my morning prayer and study time.

5:00 AM – Prayer and study ends. Go for a short walk. Return and plan the remainder of the morning.

5:30 AM – For the next 2 hours, my time is spent between answering emails, blogging, and working on side projects. Over the next few weeks, I will continue to focus on improving how this particular block of time is spent.

7:30 AM – Walk with my wife.

8:00 AM – Breakfast and preparation for work. Leave around 8:40.

9:00 AM – After prayer, work begins at our office in Jasper, Indiana.

—

Getting up at 4 AM can be a challenge my friends. Some of you have tried it and, like me, after a good night’s rest, wouldn’t ever think of starting your day another way. Even with good intentions, though, and a recognition of the potential that the early morning offers, it’s not an easy thing.

Each night before going to bed, I pray that God would wake me up the next day and, very importantly, that He would give me the desire to get up. The warmth of bed is inviting when your eyes first open, especially on these cold fall and winter mornings. If I don’t get up immediately, my eyes will close and I will sleep.

God has never let me down. He always seems to know exactly how much sleep I need. Since I began the habit 2 years ago, even on days when I had early morning appointments, I have never had to use an alarm clock. There’s something jarring and unhealthy about the alarm clock suddenly pulling us out of restful sleep into a state of unhappy alertness. In my study of the Scriptures I found testimonies of others that relied on God to wake them up morning by morning (Isaiah 50:4) and I decided to exercise that same faith and rely on God to wake me up. Alarm clock free for all this time, I get much better sleep and no longer dread the early morning hours. Try it and see for yourself.

And with that, I’m off to start on my next morning project. I’ll continue to keep you posted on my progress with scheduling and I look forward to hearing your personal reports as well.

Have a wonderful new day,

Jonathan Wold

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been working together to bring consistency to our life. While we continue to be flexible, we tend towards a bedtime of no later than 10:30 and, ideally, closer to 9:30.

With my work as a partner in a development and niche marketing company, several side projects, work in my local church, and a family of my own, finding time for blogging, etc., unless I have control over my time, is impossible.

Here’s how a typical day will go.

I wake up, without an alarm clock, around 5-6 AM. I get up, drink a full glass of water, and then go into our guest room/office and spend time in Bible study, inspirational reading, and prayer. 45 minutes or so later, I close my time in prayer and then begin tackling the day. I’ll divide my time between answering emails, blogging, and working on side projects. This will typically go on until it’s time to eat and get ready for work. Depending on our schedule that morning, I’ll eat breakfast with my sweet wife, spend a bit of time together, and then off I go to work.

On some mornings, I’ll tune in to a message on audioverse.org while washing the dishes or doing some other general cleaning around the house. My wife takes excellent care of our home and helping out every now and then when things get backed up is the least I can do.

So, is it worth it?

Yes! A thousand times over, yes!

That extra time in the morning makes all the difference my friends.

In just the past few weeks, as I’ve had the extra time, I’ve been able to learn more, to move forward on my side projects, and be better prepared for the day’s work.

If you are already an early riser, I encourage you to keep it up. I’d love to hear your personal experiences.

If you’re not yet, how about giving it a try? It’s not an easy thing if you’re unused to it. I know what it’s like to be up till 2 AM and sleep till noon. It’s a hard cycle to break and for some it’s easy to decide that “Well, I’m just not a morning person”. It’s a habit, though, and like any other habit, old ones can be broken and new ones formed.

As I grow older and responsibilities increase the desire to have a mastery of my time and health continues to grow stronger. And as I am learning to control my time and keep priorities straight (God, family, work, ministry, side projects), I’ve been blessed with good health and success in the work that I take on.

I have much to learn and I look forward to more trials and a greater depth of experience.

Have a wonderful new day my friends.

Jonathan Wold

Using the design work of another has been a “no no” in my mind for a long time. Why? Well, why not just do it myself?

And that’s what I’d done.

The previous design of this blog had been put together by yours truly and it had taken me quite some time. I worked hard at it and had some positive feedback.

Design isn’t my strength, though. God has given me talents and abilities in other areas and rather than letting pride hold me back, I’ve stepped forward to make the most of the talents that God has blessed others with. If I had the time, I’d be interesting in learning more and putting the energy into an original design. The time I do have, though, needs to be focused on using the gifts I already have, working to improve and sharpen them.

I finished a book by Ben Carson this morning entitled “Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story“. I highly recommend it.

In it, Ben talks about the importance of “THINKing BIG”. He encourages us to begin with determination and the full use of the gifts God has given us, then to go on for training and a sharpening of our skills. Look at the obstacles in life as hurdles, not barriers. Each hurdle conquered prepares us for the next.

In our business, we encourage each other to focus on our talents and work towards mastery. Making the decision to use an existing WordPress theme helped me clear up the block my “old design” was giving me and focus on writing once again. I was reminded to practice what I preach.

Have a wonderful rest of the day,

Jonathan Wold

It’s been some time since my hands have given expression to thought on this humble blog. I’ve contemplated new posts every now and then and, in one case, even began preparing a first draft. I didn’t finish, though, and a busy life provided little opportunity to think about blogging let alone to blog.

An email changed that, though.

I received an email letting me know that a sponsor was willing to pay for a new post on my blog. The sum of money was what I’d originally asked for when joining the service a year or more ago. I’d intentionally set it high as I hadn’t fully decided whether “sponsored reviews” was a direction I wanted to pursue.

That email got me thinking. Initially, I said yes. I’d looked over the site and, contrary to finding anything objectionable, found it interesting enough. With little time on my hands between family, work, and a few side projects, though, I hadn’t actually had time to write the review until this morning, a few days before the deadline.

I took a short walk before sunrise this morning and after asking God for wisdom, I came to my decision. I wouldn’t write the review.

Integrity is crucial. Those who requested the review had, understandably, requested that I not mention it being a paid review. That could easily lead my readers to believe that it was a personal endorsement when, in actuality, had it not been for the offer to be paid, I wouldn’t have written about this particular site.

So, it was a simple decision. The small sum I’d make upfront wasn’t worth the risk of losing your trust.

And, there was an added blessed in all this..

I’m blogging again :).

Have a wonderful rest of the day and look forward to more.

Jonathan Wold

Dear Friends,

A formal update has been on my mind for sometime now, but has been readily usurped by the happy demands of married life and work at Sabramedia. I’m writing this brief update today from the kitchen table in our new home. Joslyn and I, married for a few days over a month now, have been working hard putting our home together and it’s nice to finally watch as things are settling into place. Thank you for all your well wishes and support.

Just a little while back, my brother Joshua and I began work on a collective sale of our niche websites to free up focus for work in our web development startup. You can see the work in progress on our sale over at: http://www.woldboys.com

Of note today, though, is a website Joslyn and I have been working on for over 2 years, MoldBlogger.com.

As of April, 2008, the website was bringing in over 4,000 unique and highly targetted visitors on the topic of mold. The “Ask A Question” feature gets an average of 4-5 questions per week. In May, traffic climbed higher to over 5,000 visitors. In June, we’re projected to pass 6,000, with 23 RSS Subscribers and no advertising. Among many other terms, the site is #1 on Google for “mold blog”.

The site is unmonetized at the moment. I have plans to pursue advertising contracts, but am balancing that decision between the time involved and the potential of selling the website and passing the opportunity on to someone else.

Interested? Let me know. I’m giving this a short window of opportunity before making a decision.

Working on MoldBlogger.com has been an awesome opportunity. My wife and I have learned a lot and we’ve had a tremendous amount of positive feedback. Before deciding the next step, though, we want to carefully consider our options.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to further updates in the near future.

Jonathan Wold