eAction

The bi-weekly blog/ezine to encourage and share action steps with those trying to make a living on the net, and involving God in all they do.

Well! Today I don’t seem to be starting out the day with an internet connection. I have enough to do offline for a few hours, so I’m not ready to panic yet, but I AM used to constant access whenever I want it.

Question is; when is it time to start banging my spoon like a tyke in a high chair, insisting that I want what I want right now? Or perhaps, if I’m grown up and mature, it isn’t that time - ever.

Maybe it’s just time to go inquire and see if my ISP is aware of the problem, and what do about it. One other time they said to simply re-boot. That day however, repeated re-boots didn’t help. They had other problems, but by the evening they had worked through them.

Ah-ha! One phone call and a savvy technician to walk me through a few steps, and my connection was restored! See, we don’t have to bang a spoon to get help. Just ask nicely.

Last time I talked of my 10 point plan for a money-making site. There are other methods of making money online, that is just the one I’m using most, and think the most highly of. However, I try to be fair and sometimes look over other models, just in case I’m missing something.

There’s the multi-level marketing plan, or networking, as some prefer to call it. These are Programs or Plans that you sign up for, and then it is your job to sell the products, and or recruit people to join under you, because then you’ll make a percentage of their profits. Question is, who in all your down and down-down lines is going to sell lots of product so those of you in the higher levels can make some income?

Currently there are many such Plans that get around that, by insisting that everyone who joins automatically agrees to order a minimum amount every month. These are referred to as drop-shipments. You either use up the products yourself, or you sell them or give them away as samples, but at least those who recruited you are earning a percentage of your monthly spending.

In the final analysis, you have to be not only outgoing and able to make friends easily, but be able to persuade them to join and to spend money. I had a small taste once, and I know this is NOT my forte.

Besides these two, the site about your passion with links to affiliate products who have their own good quality selling sites, and this networking multi-level-marketing method, there is selling merchandise on eBay and other auction sites. This one tempts me a bit, but I see that there could be a whole lot of work and time involved, so at this stage I’m only reading up on it. I have met a few who have done very well, and who are offering e-books and short email courses on their methods. (For example, Jason James: Auction Resources).

I haven’t read everything yet, but it seems they start by selling extra stuff around the house, and once they learn the ropes at eBay, they find large quantities of wholesale products that the producers will ship for them. All they need to do is handle the eBay ads and customer correspondence. Their supplier will do the shipping for them as soon as they email them the winning bidder’s address. Some of them really like to get their hands on digital, or downloadable products, such as e-books, software, pictures, etc. There is no shipping hassle at all then. Just give the winning bidder the download link, and take care of the feedback comments (because that raises your ratings), and move on.

Yesterday I stumbled on another method I’d like to research a bit more. It’s a bit of a twist on the affiliate links’ site, in that it has a page pre-coded with feeds from Amazon, eBay, AdSense, and ClickBank. There is some space for you to add your personal content, but the site comes with many such pages, each on a different keyword. No matter what keyword the visitor used to land on your site, he or she is surrounded with ads, ALL coded to make you money. Personally, I thought these kit-sites looked too heavy with ads to me. If it was done a bit more discretely, I could see trying that.

Amazon wrote yesterday that they are allowing affiliate to set up a one page “aStore” now. All you do is pre-choose 9 items you want to be displayed, and copy the java script into your web page, and they will keep your aStore fed with live links from their site, and all the links will take customers to Amazon to finish the sale. So it will look like your store, but they will do the work for you. Hmm! Now that has possibilities too!

I joined up with two affiliate programs this week who do the same thing. The affiliate newsletter from ChristianBook.com mentioned such a plan too. It must be a new trend that is catching on. So yes, that means we must not forget the “Store” model of web site. You create a product that you can sell, and build a single sales page for that product, or create a site with several items. Now you don’t even have to get an e-commerce system installed first, just paste in the code, and let the experts run your store from behind the curtain.

For more about various business models I’ve looked at, check out; The SiteSell Models

This is especially for my 5 Pillar or Sitesell Sub-affiliates. Did you know that you can login to your private admin area at the 5 Pillar Club and create specially coded links for the various pages we want to advertise? Yes. You choose “Track it!” from the drop down menu and give each one a name, (like #1, or #2) and a short one or two word description, so you remember later what this was about, or where you are going to place these links. Choose from the next drop-down menu, which Sitesell URL you want to link to, then click on that long grey button.

Presto! You’ll have a link you can copy and use on your site, or in ezines, etc.

Later you can login to your 5 Pillar Club area again, and check to see how many unique visitors, and non-unique clicks, how many sales if any, and what your conversion rate is for that link. This is a great way to determine which links are effective and which ones need moving or doing over differently. All at no charge!

I’ll try to remember next time to tell you how to use a folder on your own site to create re-directs that will shorten those long URLs. If I forget, be sure to remind me, okay?

This is further to my previous blog about downloading and installing Linux ISOs. To be more specific, Suse. I’ve just finished downloading all 6 ISOs to make the CD set for installing Suse 10.1. All have burned right away on the first try. Since I had some problems last year when I tried this, I thought it might be wise to spell out the steps I took this time, in case that might help you.

To start, I tried various Suse sites and clicked on the Download links until I came to this page; Open Suse Released Version. Near the bottom of that page is a chart. I know my computer is just a generic Pentium III, so the first line of links was for me. (The middle line is for fancy whiz-bang new computers that are out of my league and the PPC line is for Mac and Apple computers, also something I don’t have).

I had already ordered a DVD of Suse 10.1 last weekend, but my niece wants to try switching to Suse now as well, and she does not have a DVD drive, so I decided - hey, why not give it a try again?

So over several days this week, some during the day, and in the background, and some at night, when I left my computer running, I’ve been downloading and burning these CDs in the K3B program, and it has worked out quite well.

I’ve read that it is not recommended to be downloading such a large file as an ISO, and I see why. Many other actions, even downloading email is slowed down and takes longer than I’m used to. However, when I was mostly just writing, and not going to all kinds of sites online, or working with emails, and PDF attachments, then there was no problem with the downloading in the background. I just had to give it time because some of those ISO files took anywhere from 5 to 9 hours of continuous download. That’s why I spread it out over several days.

Normally I shut down the computer over night, but here I clicked on the next CD on that chart, and watched to make sure the download was happening, and then I turned out the lights and went to bed.

Now, in K3B, with a blank CD in your Burner-drive, what you do is click on “Data CD” Then, in the upper left window, go to the folder where the downloaded file is. When it shows up in the upper right window, Simply click on it. The next window pops up and the Md5sum check is beginning before you bring the scroll bar down on the upper action screen to find it. When the green checkmark appears, you can click on the “Burn” button on the upper right corner.

Or, drag the file with your mouse from that window to the lower window. Then you need to go up to “Tools” and from that menu, select, “Burn CD image.” Now that other window pops up and you can check for the Md5sum action bar as it is being checked. When the green checkmark appears on the left, you know your download went fine, and you can click on the “Burn” button at the top right.

In a matter of minutes K3B ejects the burned CD and blows that lovely “Ta-da-Ta-DA!” trumpet. That means SUCCESS.

(Note: if the MD5sum did not check out okay, it means something went wrong with the download, and you don’t have a full or complete ISO. You’ll be wasting your CD if you try to burn that file. You’ll need to download it all over again).

I sometimes push the CD back into the burner, close the windows that did the burning, and in the main screen go to the drive (by name) which holds it. In just a moment or two I can see the files that are on the new CD and convince myself that I really did do a successful burn.

Now, switch back to the folder where you have the next ISO file downloaded, remove the finished CD and put it into a sleeve marked with the name, etc. and pop another blank CD into the burner drive. When you have the set all made, you are ready to install.

Hopefully by my next blog entry here, I will have done a full install again, and will be able to describe the steps.

Meantime, I’m thinking, if I’m going to make copies of this first set for others, I’ll soon need a good source for low-cost CDs!

Last time my feature was about a Biblical lesson I had learned about whom or what to lean on when we run into problems. Today I’m on a similar theme. You see, I’ve been telling a continuing five-part story at the Vacation Bible School for kids at our church this week. I chose to tell the life of Amy Carmichael who dared to do some great things for God. As a single missionary in India, she had a burden to rescue the children sold or given to the temples to be trained as temple prostitutes.

Today my story revolved around the many ways God had provided for her and her home of many rescued children. Not because Amy begged and pleaded for funds from others, but because of her policy, “It is enough to ask the Father.” So her children learned to pray and ask their Heavenly Father when they needed anything. He provided for their food and clothing. He provided a car, and a camp grounds higher in the mountains to cool off in the very hot weather, and He provided funds for a hospital, and a doctor and nurses. What started out as one little girl that ran away from the temple and came to her for help, grew to thirty, and then more and more until there were over 700, and then 1000 in that Dohnavur compound!

So today I’m feeling convicted. Although I resolved to trust God and ask only the Heavenly Father, when I moved home nearly 23 years ago to care for my aged parents, I have slacked off and not asked for all that I should have or could have. Now I am thinking especially in relationship to my business ventures. In the last month or two I’ve begun to pray specifically most days, for more income, and lo, an affiliate commission check, and I received some birthday gift monies too. Yet, I know I should be asking for still bigger and better resources to forge ahead.

I want to pledge to do just that! I invite you to do the same.

Oh, and don’t hesitate to donate some of your time to serve others. God will not be beholden or in debt to us, so He will repay you in surprising ways.

Yesterday on a forum someone made a plea to go check out her “program” so she could make some money. Dutifully, I went to have a look. Seems like a nice program, but I’ve got myself into enough without trying add another business, so I tried to write her an encouraging note. In a few lines I found myself advising her to get a site of her own, and to ….

Ah-ha. There I was, trying to explain how to turn a web site about something you are passionate about into a money-making site. Then I stopped as I didn’t know whether she cared for all those steps. What if it was more than she could handle?

As I’m thinking about this some more today I realize that some of the things I’ve learned over a span of about seven years, are totally new to others. I should not assume that you know all this either. So let me try to spell it out simply.

1. You need to put up a simple site about your passion - whatever you know the most about. Outline the topics you’ll cover, and the slant your site will take on it.

2. Join Google’s AdSense program. (there’s no charge). While you are building the web page template, or when you have it built for you, see that you get the code for those units of ads into two or three spots on the template page. The idea is that you will get paid by Google when visitors click on those ads. Some people are making more from those AdSense ads than they do from anything else on their sites.

3. If you have joined some programs, or wish, you can join several affiliate programs that have products you use and like, and that are related to your passion-topic. Work your coded links into the template too. That way, once the template is finished, your advertising will more or less be on autopilot. Your favourite programs can be linked in this way too.

4. Collect all the information you can find on your passion, and write short, winsome articles about that topic, and put each article on another page on your site. How-tos are best. Got photos? Or taking pictures? Add those too, but don’t overload any one page.

5. Remember, once you have a basic template web page made, use it over and over for each page, so that their format will all look alike. You simply filling in the blank body area with your next article or photos, or how-to, whatever, and fill in the three meta tags hidden in the top head section; Title, Description, and keywords. Name the page for the main keyword on it, or the two-to-three words of its title, and link to it from the index, and/or your sitemap page.

7. If you have product to sell, prepare a good sales page for it, with clear links to how to buy it.

6. It’s a good idea to make one page a sitemap, or link page from which a lost person can find the page they are looking for. If you make one that meets Google’s standards, their robots will check your site more often and make sure it shows up in their search engine.

7. Try to exchange links with people who have similar sites, but whose sites are perhaps more popular than yours already. Add these links to a links page, although I read that it’s better to call it something else if you can. The SEs don’t like pages that are nothing but links. (So I call mine vines, or connections, or handshakes, etc.) That makes your site look like better quality stuff to the search engines and gains you points.

8. When the basic site is there (you’ll be adding more and more pages all the time), you can pause to list it in various directories, and then in the major search engines.

9. If you get impatient for traffic from the search engines, you can also go list your site at various classifieds, but be prepared for huge dumps of emails selling YOU their stuff. Some people say the classifieds are not even necessary if you created a good site, and are listed in the search engines with popular keywords.

10. As you are able, add things like a newsletter, and a daily or weekly blog, and/or a forum for interaction with your visitors.

This plan beats timidly tapping strangers on the shoulder and saying, “Excuse me… Would you - please - go buy something from this program that I signed up with?”

(Incidentally, I learned this from reading the 5 Pillar Reports which I receive as an affiliate of SiteSell. Learn how to get it too. 5 Pillar Start There’s a free download of a 5-part course too).

They are upgrading their search engine for a measurable performance, but to show appreciation for patience until these upgrades are completed, they are giving away big bonuses!

Until TODAY, Thursday, August 17, 2006 5pm Pacific Time USA, All FREE Affiliate sign-ups that ACTIVATE/VALIDATE will earn $100 PPC instead of $25 PPC for a FREE Affiliate ACTIVATION or $50 PPC as a Keyword Sponsor. This is in an effort to have you experience what it’s like to be a Keyword Manager who receive $100 PPC for every FREE Affiliate referral.

This literally means that every 2 NEW FREE Affiliate sign-ups you have earned enough PPC to purchase a TOP Keyword Position.

I normally scoff at time-limited offers because I think they are lures, but IF you were planning to try out this new search engine and see if it really helps you to advertise your site, and earn cash besides, than TODAY would be the best day to sign up for the most bang for your effort. No cost to you!

Well, not until you decide this is working - and want to upgrade to “Keyword Sponsor.”

Sign up from my affiliate link BigDaddyPays Or just try out the search engine: SearchBigDaddy

About two years ago I tried downloading the ISO for some Linux systems, and ran into hassles. It would download for hours, only for me to find that i hadn’t got it all after all, or once I had it burned on a CD it wasn’t done right, so i went to ordering my distros online (Mandrake 9.2 and SuSE 9.3) and all went much better.

However, now my brother called and his Windows XP has crashed for the umpteenth time, so he is asking for a Linux system. Well, …that’s nice, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to give up my set of 5 CDs for installing my SuSE. Sometimes I do pull them out to look for another program to install, Or, last year when I made some bigger mistakes I had to re-install from scratch. But I told my brother I’d see what I could do about getting myself version 10.1 and he could have my older set of CDs.

In doing some checking around on the net I made some discoveries. For one thing, there are some sites now offering FREE copies of various Linux systems. Ubuntu is one. Some others were out of stock for the time being. Others are selling them for like .99/CD or maybe 2.50 each disc.

Furthermore, it is possible to download a smaller mini-ISO file, burn it to a CD and then use it to start your install - but then it goes online and finishes it from there. Ah-ha. So I’ve tried that. Got the CD burned, but need a block of some hours to see about the install.

Just now it occurs to me that I could just as easily burn copies of my SuSE 9.3 for my brother too. Why didn’t I think of that sooner? The Ubuntu will take a few weeks to get here, but I can take him this mini-ISO and if that doesn’t work, we’ll use a copy of my other set. (I wonder if Sunday afternoon works for him?)

All this means that there are several options when you are ready to try out Linux;
1. Search online for a free give-away. I understand they can be found inside computer magazine covers sometimes.
2. Download just the installer mini-ISO and burn it to a CD as an image (not the way you do backups).
3. Get someone to make copies of their Linux Distro set of CDs or a DVD. Install from that.

Incidentally, on one blog I checked out the writer had advised some friends to get the same as he had, so that if they ran into problems he would better be able to guide them. That’s sound advise too.

A friend and I were working this last week and weekend on solving a problem with her site and email. We learned all over again that faithful standby principle, that when a problem comes, instead of getting upset and full despair, just work at it little by little, confident that together with others, you WILL solve it. If you keep at it.

We did. Turned out that I had forgotten a trailing slash like this - / Do you think I’ll ever forget it again? Not a chance! That lesson is permanently engraved on my mind. All thanks to a problem we had to solve little by little over several days.