This is what we are looking at in this article – how and why you must bring something creative to your project or whatever you are trying to achieve.

Forget the Formula

There are many stories of success. Some people make a good living selling their success stories as a formula. But those that buy them rarely succeed… why?

There is no such thing as a formula to success, happiness, love or anything intangible. Once it has been done you simply can’t repeat it and get exactly the same results. I am not saying you can’t learn from other peoples success… but what you learn from them is important.

Forget the methods and look at how they solved the problem they faced. Learn the journey, not the path.

Creativity is needed

Instead of following exactly what other people have done, look at what was innovative about it. What did they do different? Where is the inspiring moment? Once you have identified other peoples creative spark, see how you can apply it to yourself.

Creativity is in us all and just needs to be trusted.

Think outside the box and don’t let others think for you

Everybody has an opinion but only yours matters. If you worry about what others think about your idea or approach, don’t. Lead your peers and don’t let them lead you. People may criticise you or support you – either way, you know you are doing something right when people are talking about you.

Go with your gut instinct and stand out.

Where did our Creativity go?

As a younger person your ideas will have been more fanciful, more outrageous and generally more unrealistic. But what is wrong with that? Over time “real life” beats us down. We look for a quick win to make things better, and a quick formula.

Take that Creativity back. Smile more and enjoy what you do. Trust your instinct.

Break the rules

Sometimes you need to break the rules. When the first cashback website launched, it was a radical idea and many people wondered if this was fair, legal and a valid business. In reality it broke boundaries and launched a whole new world for affiliates to explore.

Do less of the business plans and the market research, more of the “what will happen if I do this?”.

Feed your Creativity

Give yourself room to breath. Forget your todo list for an afternoon and take yourself out of your normal environment. Talk to great people about your ideas and get excited.

We are all motivated differently. Find your spark.

The basic principle is – people visit your store, add to basket and click checkout. They are then redirected to Amazon to complete the order. If they do, you get a percentage of that order – typically about 6% but this increases if you sell a lot of products.

Fresh Store Builder provides you all the tools you need to be a succesful Amazon Affiliate.

I wanted to give you all a bit of insight to the history of the script, my reasons for launching this project and my future plans.

How it Started…

I first became interested in the Amazon Associate program back in 2001. My first ventures into the web had seen me create some little websites, a personal e/n (i.e. blog) site and so on. The idea of earning money from promoting Amazons products was amazing and I signed up to promote some books and things. Despite a couple of sale I quickly lost interest and in all honesty, it seemed a bit unbelievable that I could earn any money this way – it seemed too easy!

I didn’t look at the Amazon Associates program really until the end of 2006. During these years I had gained a lot of experience in web programming, APIs and I had really begun to see the possibility of the web as a way to earn money. As a side project I dived into creating an integration with the Amazon API and the early version of Fresh Store Builder was born.

During this time, in 2006, a lot of changes had been made to Google which changed things dramatically. Some existing Amazon scripts like Associate-O-Matic had been performing brilliantly in the search engines just by using the original Amazon product content. A lot of affiliates had made a killing during this period, but Google introduced the duplicate content filter which killed these sites overnight.

This was my motivation for Fresh Store Builder – to create a script that would allow unique content and perform in the search engines as Associate-O-Matic had once done.

The First Version

By the end of 2007 I had launched a few UK stores in the various niches and had been making good sales. When Christmas time came around I couldn’t believe how well I was earning from Amazon – it beat everything I had hoped for and I had finally reached my goals to earn a good living from the internet. I continued to create more stores, promote them and maintain my stores.

But I got greedy and ignored my original motivation. My newer stores did not offer anything of value to a visitor in terms of unique content. I had pushed the limit by creating more stores and not focusing on quality.

The Fall from Grace

A large chunk of my stores got penalised by what is now identified as the Thin Affiliate Filter. Essentially this is a Google penalty which reduces your rankings so you got zero traffic. Why does this happen? Because Google thinks your site offers nothing of value, and is created purely to redirect users to an affiliate. Read the article above for more information on this (highly recommended read).

So in 2008 I focused on some big contracts I had as a contractor and put the Amazon stores back to being a side project. I was shocked by the ease at which my earnings could be taken away and sought the security of the contracting work which paid well, regularly and consistently.

The Reincarnation

I didn’t give up however and by the end of 2008 I had created a complete rewrite of Fresh Store Builder. It was still the same idea but I concentrated more on making it easier to add unique content by incorporating a front end AJAX edit in place, a product Queue system and a better designed admin area.

My focus was on creating great quality Amazon Affiliate stores. I started a lot of stores but made sure that each of them had good quality content and instead of aggressively link building I let them grow naturally. By the end of 2009 I was back to the great earnings of 2007 and started to phase out my contract work.

A lot of people on forums had seen my sites and were consistently asking to buy a copy. I was considering selling the script to a few people at a high price – at around the $1000 mark – but I was quite paranoid about people stealing the script and also giving away all my secrets.

The Public Launch

As 2010 came around I thought long and hard about a change in my work. During this time I was travelling around South East Asia and had given up most of my contracting work. I long since realised that the stores could support me and my lifestyle, but I wanted something more. I was excited at the thought of running a community and helping others achieve what I have.

So I made the decision to sell the script and set it as my new goal. The original name was Fresh Associate and I started to get together the people that had shown interest.

By May 2010 I had a lot of Beta users on board using the script, getting started and helping me perfect the script. By the end of June I realised that this was going to be very popular and had launched a new design, the new name (Fresh Store Builder) and opened it to the public.

The Feedback

We got a fresh new audience by means of a Warrior Forum post which proved a big hit and also various other forums started talking about Fresh Store Builder. Our users started to boast about earnings and the stores they had created generating an interest which is snowballing.

There is now a team behind Fresh Store Builder offering support, extra services (e.g. content writing, SEO, design) and developing the script further. We are constantly adding improvements to the script based on feedback from the users.

I couldn’t have asked for a better launch for this product – all our users have been great, we have some high earning stores, all our systems are in place and above all it is great to be the founder of a succesful community.

As you can probably tell I am quite proud of all this, hence my long and dramatic blog post! But I hope this has given you the insight into the history of Fresh Store Builder and how a script like this comes to be made available to the public.

In the future I will write more about the technical challenges, tips on running a succesful product and more about why these stores are the best way to promote Amazons products. For now you can take a look on the Fresh Store Builder site for more information.

Questions? Comments? Opinions?

Let yourself be heard below!

One of the games our entire class got into was Cash Wars (CashWars.com – no longer active). It was a map based browser game in which you had a set number of moves in a day. You spent your moves moving from one square to another – you had no actual map so the moves were supposedly random – and you could increase your moves by clicking on sponsor adverts. When you reached another users base, you could attack them and steal their money. In turn, others attacked you and stole your money.

This was the basis of the game as I remember it. If you had enough money at the end of a time period (a month I think), you could cash out and receive an actual cheque.

The game was easily exploitable. Working together you could build up maps of the world and mark it with the bases of those users that had a lot of money. Automated programs would perform your moves for you based on these maps. A referral system meant that a small percentage of any money earned by someone you referred would be passed on to you; consequently people had multiple accounts.

Many websites sprung up about Cash Wars, including my own, and eventually I reached enough earnings to cash out a cheque.

Despite it being just over $21 I was delighted at the achievement and was the only person I knew to actually get money from the Internet. Friends and family didn’t believe me – this was 2001 and the concept of earning money from the internet like this was very new.

Anyway I didn’t even pay the cheque in – I would have received a tiny fraction of it due to me being in the UK and my bank charging a lot for foreign currency cheques.

Soon after the website shut down. Due to it being easily exploitable they ran out of money and had to cease trading. It was a shame as I just enjoyed playing the game, but I soon turned my attentions to other things.

That first experience of earning money on the internet set me on the path that led me to where I am today. I often think of this when I need a bit of motivation to push myself to the next level.

Check out http://www.wealthwars.com/ if you are looking for an example of how Cash Wars worked

What was your first online earnings?
Did you play Cash Wars? What were your first Internet adventures?

Let me know below!

This, in my opinion, is the number 1 piece of advice I wish I had listened to at the start. Essentially do good work and respect the ethos of the internet.

There are many opportunities to cut corners – don’t do it. Do work that you are proud of and helps other people.

I aim to do more video blogs – it is quicker and in some cases better to get your point across.

What do you think?

Do you have any top tips for internet marketing? Want to ask a question? Have something you wish to say?

If so, comment below!

photo credit: Tim Dorr

The following is a guest post written and provided by Jonas Bates of webhostgear.com

When you’re in the market for a new web hosting account, you will soon realize that you have a large number of choices in front of you. While you have to weigh out the common web hosting options such as Cpanel hosting vs. Plesk hosting, dedicated hosting vs. a VPS account or reseller hosting, or using a Windows server vs. choosing the common Linux hosting option, there is a bigger decision you need to make. Should you choose a USA-based hosting account, or would it be better to host your website on a UK-based server?

To help you make your decision, here are some of the differences you can expect when choosing between UK and US-based hosting accounts.

Hosting costs and service quality

In terms of service options and overall quality, web hosting server companies are the same around the world. Regardless of the language or location, web hosting packages are, by and large, the same everywhere.

When you get into pricing, however, that’s where the differences start. If US Dollars and British Pounds were equal in value, pricing would be relatively similar in both the US and UK for web hosting accounts. Shared hosting accounts, for example, generally cost anywhere from £2.99 to £35.99 in the UK, but even though the pricing is similar in the USA, because of the differences in the value of the US dollar, US hosting is generally cheaper than UK hosting packages.

Support differences

Overall support, much like the available web hosting service options, is relatively similar in both the US and UK. However, there is one difference that can make a big difference for you — time zone differences. If you live in the USA, for example, you will receive responses to your support inquiries during UK time, and if you live in the UK, you will likely receive answers to your questions and trouble tickets during US business hours. Though, it is important to note that if you choose a web hosting company that offers support around the clock, you can bypass the problems associated with the large time zone differences.

Effects on SEO and search engine marketing

There is debate on how much affect hosting can have on your search engine placements, although it is generally considered to be less of a concern now than previously. Google can determine your geographical location using your domain name (e.g. .co.uk is assumed to be a UK site) and the instructions you give them via Google Webmaster Tools.

One consideration is the speed of your site, which is often noted as important for search engine positions by Google themselves. Hosting a site in the target country (e.g. UK for UK visitors) will make the site quicker for them and potentially makes your site better in the eyes of search engines.

To obtain the best search engine placement results for your particular market, it’s a good idea to host your website in the country where most of your visitors are.

Visitor experience

One important difference between US and UK hosting that is often overlooked by website owners is the visitor experience. Specifically, page load times and script execution. Anymore, it’s relatively rare to find a website that doesn’t use technology such as JavaScript or Ajax. These technologies can be problematic for website visitors who are located far away from your website’s geographic location as client-side scripting languages, such as those mentioned, must load before your web page will display to your visitors.

By choosing a web hosting account that is geographically close to your largest audience, you’re helping to keep your website page load times to a minimum.

While web hosting plans and platforms are largely the same regardless of where you set them up, and popular hosting options, such as Cpanel hosting, are available worldwide, there are still some significant differences between UK and US web hosting. For best results, you should do a little research on where your market is before you choose one hosting location over the other.

This has been a guest post by Jonas Bates of Webhostgear.com – providers of great web hosting reviews, information on hosting and resource for everything from choosing a web hosting server to comparisons of the top web hosting companies.

photo credit: Yodel Anecdotal

It is hard to say quite where these beliefs come from but it is fair to say that many people are exploiting this attitude in order to make a lot of money themselves.

There are so many training courses, auto website generators, traffic boosters, SEO tools, Auto Twitter tools etc. exploiting this attitude that it is hard to keep track. Generally their sales page promises instant results, gives examples of successful users and shows you how little time and effort it takes to execute.

Unfortunately these tools are almost always trying to outsmart the one company that you do not want to mess with – Google. The main aim is to try and exploit the free traffic you would get from being listed high in Google for a popular keyword.

No matter how many tools you try and how clever you think these ideas are, you will never outsmart Google in the long run. To avoid sending you to auto-generated websites, websites filled with advert or even websites with malicious intent Google use some of the most sophisticated technology in existence.

Note – at this point it is worth mentioning that some people operate their online business this way, knowing that they will not overcome Google permanently. They work on a scattergun approach and make money while they can constantly changing, throwing away websites and trying new methods. This method may well be successful but I have no experience in it and don’t believe it is worth the effort. I also don’t believe in tricking users is in any way worth monetary compensation.

Google uses many methods to fight spam in the search engine results. Naturally, they do not want to recommend bad websites and your trust is fundamental to their success – if you find bad websites at Google you will use another search engine. In this article we explore the “Thin Affiliate” label Google has defined, how it is determined, the consequences of being one and how to recover from it if you are.

So, what is a “Thin Affiliate” and how does it relate to tricking Google?

Essentially Google does not want to send people to sites that do not offer valuable content. “Thin Affiliate” is a label applied when Google thinks you have created a site that is completely focused on affiliate links (PPC ads, paid adverts, links to other merchants etc.) and doesn’t offer anything else of value.

A good example of this would be a script that creates a website from eBay listings. It is focused on a certain group of products (e.g. Car Exhausts) and provides several category pages (e.g. Exhausts for different models). Each page lists the current eBay auction results with links, earning the website owner money for every click and/or sale.

Google doesn’t like this because the website is not offering anything new to the user. This model can be easily replicated and if they don’t take action, Googles search engine results would be littered with this type of website, pushing genuine Car Exhaust sellers down the listings.

Another example would be a blog that reviews laptops. The reviews are automatically generated from a mixture of Amazon reviews, other merchant sites and related information. The result is a jumbled mess and the content may even be “spun” (a process of replacing words automatically in order to create unique content) which makes the content unreadable. Not only is the site not offering anything new but it is not of benefit to the visitor in any way.

Unfortunately, the idea of a “Thin Affiliate” site is not always so black and white. You might create a website with a few unique articles and pages with links to eBay the same as our above example. Does the unique content mean Google will not penalise your site? What is the line that we must not cross?

How is your site determined to be Thin Affiliate?

There are many automatic methods that Google employ to penalise sites. If you have duplicate content, poor quality content, an unresponsive site, too much advertising, you are using cloaking etc. then it is likely that Google will recognise this programatically (i.e. without any human intervention) and you will be penalised automatically.

Being a Thin Affiliate is somewhat open to interpretation and not so easy to recognise using automatic methods. However, you could be penalised automatically for reasons like the following:

• No Content – if you have nothing at all on your site except adverts you will be penalised
• Duplicate or poor content – It is possible to tell the quality of your content automatically and Google are very likely to use this technology. Content spinning, duplicate content and badly written content will get you penalised
• Turnkey Solutions – Using a script that is known to generate thin affiliate sites can get you an automatic penalty. These scripts have a “footprint” i.e. something that gives away your site is using a particular script (e.g. html markup, particular file names/locations etc.)
• User Behaviour – it is possible that Google monitors its users behaviour to see how they react to a site. e.g. if the majority of users click back to Google, then it is safe to assume the site doesn’t offer anything of value for that keyword

While these types of automatic methods are no doubt in place, it appears that a lot of manual reviewing is being done by Google in this area. That is an actual person is taking a look at your site and deciding wether to cut off the traffic from Google or not. This is extremely important to remember – it is easy to circumvent filters and stay within a boundary, but a manual reviewer can always see your site for what it is.

Most likely your site will be flagged for review based on automatic detection, like the above. For example, if a lot of users are returning to Google straight after visiting your site then your site is added to a review list. Someone will then manually visit your site and make a decision on its value – is it a Thin Affiliate site or does it actually offer something useful?

It is possible that your site can escape a manual review for a long time or possibly even indefinitely, especially if your site is well established. However it can be reviewed at any time for many reasons – a competitor reporting you, visitors reporting you, change in Googles algorithm etc. so don’t assume it will not happen to you.

With all this considered, determining wether your site is Thin Affiliate or not becomes quite simple. If you were to review your site without bias, would you consider it useful?

How can I avoid being labelled a Thin Affiliate?

Back in 2007 Shoemoney posted a video with essentially the message don’t make google look stupid. The point is simple – Google is bigger than you, smarter than you, has more resources than you and will catch you out if you try and trick them. Don’t make them look stupid by putting useless sites in their index. According to Jeremy, Google use this video internally to educate their staff and help them understand more about this issue.

The only true way to avoid being labelled a Thin Affiliate is to make your site good. Add great, compelling, unique content. Provide a useful service. Offer reviews, advice, tips or even just a good way to compare products. Whatever you do, make sure its useful to visitors and you are proud to put your name to it.

What penalties can I get?

Typically you will receive a -50 penalty, which means you will be listed 50 places lower than you would have done previously for search terms. You may still get traffic from extremely unique keywords but expect your traffic from Google virtually disappear.

From my experience you won’t get banned outright and remember that other search engines behave differently – you may still get good traffic from Yahoo and Bing especially. Google will never contact you to tell you whats happened, nor will they give you any information whatsoever if you ask them. They keep all of this 100% secret to protect their methods so we can only maker educated guesses on what has happened.

My conclusion is that Google will not remove your site completely from the search engines because it is too clear a sign that you have done something wrong. By issuing the -50 penalty, many people will just assume that they have not got enough links or popularity and will continue to try and promote their site. This is my speculation, but I believe Google are happy for people to waste time like this instead of working on another way to get bad sites to the top of the search listings.

A complete ban is not likely for a Thin Affiliate site – this is usually reserved for Black Hat techniques (e.g. cloaking, blog farms etc.) and sites that are frequently unavailable.

How do I recover from a penalty?

It is the same as with any penalty from Google – fix the problem and apply to have your site reconsidered via Google Webmaster Tools.

Essentially if you have received this penalty, you need to add value to your site. Google deals with a lot of affiliate sites and as such they are not high in their priority if you are contesting a penalty – you will likely get ignored. Therefore you need to overcompensate and turn your site into something that they must pay attention to. Getting attention and links from other high authority sites will help, although it may still take a couple of months for Google to get round to reviewing your changes.

Some people may consider it a write off and start again with a new site and domain. This might be a better option, depending on how much time and money you put into the original site.

The Conclusion

So we have looked at what Google defines as a Thin Affiliate site, how they spot it, how to avoid it and how to recover from it. Essentially I would recommend your philosophy is to create a great website. Initially don’t focus too much on what Google wants, conversion rates, the best affiliate networks etc. – simply create a great website that people want to visit, with great content and some innovative ideas. Create a website you are proud of and that you are happy to tell your friends about.

Do this and you will never have to worry about being a Thin Affiliate.

What do you think?

Have you any experience with being labelled a Thin Affiliate? Want some advice on your site? Have something you wish to say?

If so, comment below!

Our first two reviews will be for the following books from Packt Publishing.

Magento 1.3 Sales Tactics Cookbook

A look at various techniques to increase sales when using the open souce eCommerce system Magento. Includes SEO techniques, improving customer experience, cross promotion and selling internationally.

From Packt: “Build a professional Magento sales web site, with the help of easy-to-follow steps and ample screenshots, to solve real-world business needs and requirements. Develop your web site by using your creativity and exploiting the sales techniques that suit your needs. # Provide visitors with attractive and innovative features to make your site sell.”

View Magento 1.3 Sales Tactics Cookbook on Packt Publishing

WordPress and Flash 10x Cookbook

Exploring the use of WordPress along with Flash to create rich blogs and websites. This book, amongst other things, covers the technical aspects of embedding flash in WordPress, essential plugins, video bloggin, using audio and creating animations, buttons etc. in Flash.

From Packt: “Over 50 simple but incredibly effective recipes to take control of dynamic Flash content in WordPress. Learn how to make your WordPress blog or website stand out with Flash. Embed, encode, and distribute your video content in your WordPress site or blog. Build your own .swf files using various plugins. Develop your own Flash audio player using audio and podcasting plugins.”

View Magento 1.3 Sales Tactics Cookbook on Packt Publishing

If you have any requests or suggestions for reviews of books, online courses, seminars, conferences etc. simply get in touch here with the details.

photo credit: Ezu

This is a guest post from Craig Smith of Trinity Insight.

Any internet marketer knows the importance of “optimization”. Simply stated, optimization is the effort to improve previous performance.

On the web, we do this via online testing and the monitoring of key metrics that associate to business goals. In the past, businesses were confined to conducting “split tests”, otherwise testing version “A” versus version “B”. These tests, albeit effective, were difficult to scale in measuring multiple elements on a page.

Enter multivariate testing; a new form of testing based upon technologies that allow for the measurement of multiple aspects of a webpage.

Multivariate testing is the process of creating varied “recipes” of web content, that are served to your visitors in order to decipher intelligence into which mix of messaging and imagery works best. In the past, this type of solution was only available to the very large enterprises who had substantial dollars to spend on additions to their content management systems. As eCommerce and internet marketing has progressed however, so has the availability of tools that execute these conversion improvement functions.

Simply put, there is no reason why your organization or business should not be improving your conversion rates through online optimization.

Why you need to execute multivariate testing

Testing is a fundamental aspect of direct marketing. Ask any cataloger over the last 100 years. They have been testing covers, layouts, imagery within the print medium as long as the market has been active.

For a print business, the goal is clear. Test different variations of catalogs in order to isolate the best performing version for upcoming campaigns. Seems pretty basic and simple right? Well, it is, but 90% of businesses that I talk to on a daily basis are not involved in testing in the online medium, even within the available tools today.

Think of your website as a brochure that has 2 seconds to peak someone’s interest. That is the exact environment that exists today. With homepage and key landing page bounce rates exceeding 40% many times, the lost opportunity with not testing is substantial.

Be it your unique value proposition on your homepage, messaging that relates to your key services or products, or just the shape and size of a button that you want to test, multivariate testing will help answer questions about your users and web content with hard data not gut feelings.

How it works

Most multivariate testing solutions are based upon Javascript technology and the “injection” and “swapping” of content within a page. The most widely used multivariate testing platform is Google Website Optimizer and this tool is also based upon Javascript.

Basically, each area of your webpage that you want to test is encapsulated with Javascript within the test set up process. Alternatives to each location are defined within the test set up and you set goal pages to accurately track which version performed best.

As users come to your site, they get served different versions. The version that they received is populated within their cookies, this way on subsequent visits they receive the same version.

A variety of metrics can be utilized to gauge performance with the most popular being conversion. Other metrics that can be leveraged are time on site, pages per visit, or the aforementioned bounce rate metric.

Challenges with multivariate testing

As in any technology solution, there are always challenges. With multivariate testing, challenges come into play with content management systems and eCommerce platforms. Because these systems are based upon templates and the use of databases to render content, some additional work needs to be done to ensure that tests function properly.

Also serving as a hurdle can be the “tagging” process that needs to be done regarding the site elements on a page. In situations which software is licensed and access to the source code is not readily available, the tagging process needs to be done by a software vendor and can equal headaches and expensive per hour fees for remedial steps.

Regardless of these challenges, multivariate testing is something that is a must if you operate a web-based or eCommerce business. To not test different types of layouts, promotions, and calls to action is flying blind and leaving dollars on the table. Complacency is the enemy of efficiency and don’t be complacent with the conversion rate of your website. Start multivariate testing today.

About the author

Craig Smith is the CEO of Trinity Insight – a leading eCommerce consulting company that specializes in multivariate testing.

photo credit: Thomas Hawk

Nobody can argue against the amount of opportunity we have in this day and age. Particularly in our industry, the internet, there are so many potential lives we could lead that we can literally be anybody we want to be.

There lies the problem. Who do you want to be?

Would you like to be a famous and respected blogger? A drop shipper, selling the latest products from China all around the world? A PPC expert making money from all the affiliate networks? Or perhaps you would like to dominate the latest porn niche?

As I will explore in this article, I don’t believe it is what you choose that matters – more the fact that you do choose it.

Why can choice be bad?

In generations passed choices were limited. If you had access to a guitar, a grand piano or a football and some friends the chances are you would spend a lot of time doing that. To pass the boredom. You would be more likely to master it, to stick with it and make something useful of it.

In our generation, you can have a guitar if you want. Next week you can get access to a grand piano. At the weekend you can play a game of football, see the latest film, play the latest video game and so on. Do you ever get bored anymore? Your time and attention is split between so many things, how could we expect to master one of them?

Despite this, it does happen and it just requires discipline. In this instance you need to pick your field, pick it early and stick with it.

Are there any quick wins anymore?

In my opinion, there have never been any quick wins. I believe in luck… and let me explain what I mean by that.

I am in no way disregarding that it requires talent to achieve something good. It is essential. What I am saying is that many people have the talent it takes to start a software company, become a professional athlete or run a successful website. I believe there are many brilliant people who aren’t achieving what they are capable of and some that do.

The difference is timing or as I prefer, the luck factor.

In the excellent book outliers by Malcom Gladwell, this point is made very well and includes great examples such as Bill Gates (who was lucky enough to have programming access on a computer at the right time – just before the home computer revolution took off) and the hockey players who have statistically more chance of making professional if they are born in January (because try out cut off dates meaning they are older and stronger than players born in December).

Luck is not all you need, but it is a big factor.

How do you get lucky? Become the best you can be in your area. Don’t take on too much and when that opportunity comes along you will be ready.

How does this relate to internet businesses?

In our industry, there are an unlimited amount of opportunities. Every week there is a new tool, a new ebook, a new technique, a new script or a new research method that can make us millions. All of these opportunities have something in common – they give you the impression that making money is easy. Just follow these 5 simple steps and you could earn $1000 a day.

Lawyers call this technique “papering”. A typical web professional has so much information, potential opportunities and even blogs to read telling you about all this stuff that they have less time to actually do something. Lawyers will do this to each other during cases so that they have to spend more time (and money) on sorting out the latest letters, procedures etc.

Don’t let anyone steal your focus or steal your time.

As any web professional worth their salt (and not actively trying to sell you something) will tell you that you have to work hard to achieve success. I would like to add to this and say you need to work honestly.

Yes there are many of the blackhat crowd making a living by creating intriguing Facebook groups that require you to sign up to something or gaming the search engines with the latest trick, but it is not a predictable or stable path to follow. If your going down that path, your reading at the wrong place.

Don’t be tempted by the latest tricks. Don’t let anyone distract your focus. Have a great game plan, have 100% confidence in your plan and have 100% stubborn focus to see that plan through.

Are you a jack of all trades?

… and a master of none? If your skills are in marketing, why do you need to know how to code HTML? Focus on what is important and what you are good at. Do this throughout your life and accept the things that you just don’t have the time to fit into your life.

Committing to doing something is actually a very expensive thing to do. If you start down the path of learning a new language you are giving yourself less time to do other things – see your family, play football or finish that latest project. Analyse your life constantly and don’t take on any new hobbies or commitments unless you are 100% sure it will benefit you and fit in your life.

The most successful people are absolute masters of one thing, and know little about other things. As Seth Godin points out in his excellent book “All Marketers are Liars“, a frog can catch a living fly but not a dead one. It is an absolute master at catching flies with their tongue as that is all they are made for. Be the frog; find your skill and make it better.

If you are doing something, do it properly

My dad always said “if your going to do a job, do it properly” and I always try to remember this in my life. If you are going to start learning a new language make sure you do it to the best of your abilities. If you can’t, just don’t do it yet.

This applies to all areas of our life and business. Don’t start a new website unless your sure you can do it the best you can. I would make a guess that 80% of the internet is half finished projects, or projects that don’t get the time they need. Imagine what we could do with all that half effort and add it up to a full effort.

Do less, do more

Try doing less. Stop trying to read a book every week. Have less friends. Work on less projects.

What will happen? You will feel like you got more done. The books you read, you will read properly and take value from. You will have better friends and you will be a better friend. The projects you do work on will be more succesful.

Was it worth it? Is it worth it?

Are you getting anything from the book your reading? If not, drop it. Are you losing weight at the gym? Try a class instead. Do you check your emails every day? Try every other day.

Don’t take anything for granted in your life. There are many ways were we can cut down on the things we are doing, the time we are spending and the effort that we are wasting. Take some inspiration from places like Life Hacker and optimise your life.

How else can you stay focused and own your time?

• Drop wrong opportunities quickly – don’t throw good time after bad
• Plan your projects, set goals and stick to them
• Review your goals and processes regularly (I recommend every week) – are you on track? Can you put any projects on hold
• “How do you eat an elephant” – one piece at a time. Keep faith in the big tasks by splitting them into manageable chunks
• Be aware of priority – don’t let anything jump the queue unless it benefits you
• For those things you want to do, but can’t right now – put them on a list. Keep them safe and review often. But don’t do them until you can give them 100%
• Put all projects on hold, move them off main lists

Thank you for reading – I hope this inspires you to achieve more and make more fantastic contributions to this world. If you have any other tips, comments or questions comment below!

photo credit: Tony Austin

You are an extremely lucky person if you have never lost anything from your computer. As every day goes by more and more of our lives are held on hardware that at any time could fail without notice; photographs, movies, journals, business records, website files, databases, designs, contacts, emails and more.

This might sound like the introduction to a new backup solution but the truth is this is more like a self motivating post. Despite losing photographs, work and many gigabytes of MP3 I still don’t have a reliable backup solution. It is forever on my todo list and never completed, as there is always something better to be doing.

Until my inevitable post describing the loss of my entire digital life, I just wanted to talk quickly about using optical discs (DVDs and CDs especially) for backup; don’t do it.

Most likely you are using more sophisticated methods such as an external hard drive, but if you have any old backups on disc, get them somewhere safe. Why? Simply because optical discs degrade over time.

The lifespan of a DVDr could be anything from 2 years to 30 years depending on the quality, storage, temperature and exposure to light. As anyone who has burned discs before will know, even discs in the same spindle are of varying quality; some work and some don’t.

Without the need for research, debate, analysis or testing it is safe to say you shouldn’t use CDs or DVDs for backup if you have anything but short term intentions. With the amount of alternatives available, it is best just to get out of this habit and look at something else.

A quick overview of alternative methods:

• Cloud Storage – store your data online at places like Amazon S3 or Dreamhost Files Forever (my recommendation – let someone else worry about the hardware).
• Dropbox – Great automatic solution, requires no maintenance, but limited in size
• External Hard Drives – Applications like Time Machine on the Mac make this easy, but still could fail.
• Crashplan – Looked like a good solution. Similar to dropbox but with more space and scope. When I tried it took too long to upload and drained bandwidth.

Whatever backup system you use make sure it is feasible, automatic and reliable. Most importantly, just make sure you have one! (note to self…)

Suggestions, criticisms or opinions? Get involved and comment below!