Don't Work Until You're Seventy!

That is what this blog is all about. Hello, my name is Susan. I am a baby boomer. Born in 1952. A great year! I’ll bet we all have those “remember when” stories, I do. What did you used to watch on TV, that doesn’t even get on late night anymore? Who was the president you remember the best from times ago? Where did you go to high school? Did you go to the prom?

You see these are the things that make us baby boomers. Memories of a time gone by. We should all be proud to be of that post war generation. A difficult time our parents suffered through to give us life. I am grateful, aren’t you?

But now it is today 2008. I am 55 years old. I am still working. Really hard work.   I have been working for nearly 40 years. I am a bit tired. I want something else for myself. But…

I have two mortgages, credit card debt and a life style that I enjoy and am not willing to give up. So I continue to work. Cost of living keeps rising. I can’t afford to take a driving vacation anymore because of the expense of gasoline. Food cost keeps rising. Gas and electric are higher than they have ever been. In the city I live in it costs $9.oo just to go to the movies. It used to be $2, remember??

I can’t afford to quit working. I’m too young to collect retirement or social security. But I am a bit tired, (did I mention that already )

So, recently I have begun exploring new ways of thinking. New ways of making money. Attitude changes. Paradigm shifting. I have been doing internet marketing. I should say most of this time (about 6 months) I have been doing internet marketing education.

Unfortunately, you don’t just start doing something with no knowledge base at all. So I started learning. OMG! I have never had more information overload in my life. School for nursing was a bit challenging. Learning how the human body works and why, and then how to fix it. You would think that would be intense, which it was. But this is amazing.

Here is the problem. There are some shysters out there. They are no more interested in your advancing on their turf, than the man in the moon. But they say they are. They say they want to help you and all you need to do is buy this and that and the other thing and in the next week you will be a millionaire too. Well, before you know it you are more broke than you ever were. It is shameful. It is even embarrassing as to how gullible I was.

But finally I got connected to some really awesome people who although they admit they are making a living online, they are also really interested in helping you do the same. It is also amazing how much FREE stuff there is out there to advance your effort.

And you know what I learned from these people. You must care about someone other that just yourself.

So that is what this blog is for. I plan to journal my journey into the world of successful internet marketing. I may make some mistakes but I will become successful. I also plan to share some things with any readers I may have. I have learned a lot. I have some good recommendations and can maybe even help you avoid some of the pitfalls.

You see we have two choices. Keep working until we are seventy. Or get out of the rat race now and start learning something new.

I am getting out!

If you want to comment on anything about baby boomers. Internet marketing, or share your own experiences or things you have found please do. Together we will move forward!

To our success!

Susan

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Technorati Tags: A Blog for Baby Boomers, Didem, Food cost, Human Interest, internet marketing, internet marketing education, marketing, president, The Organ, USD, work at home, work from home

I have always been a StumbleUpon user for my internet business. It has always done well for me for traffic. It is valuable traffic for places like article writing  sites, where you get paid for pageviews. But honestly it is not so good for selling because it is not converting traffic.

But of course, if you are simply a surfer and love to look at stuff that is of interest to you. Then StumbleUpon is for you because it really does hone in on the things you love and shows you what you want to see, thereby not wasting your online pleasure time.

But back to business, it was recently noted that StumbleUpon with its 12 million members has surpassed Facebook with its 600 million members. What?!

Yep.

Check out this article, and then ask yourself whether you should be using StumbleUpon too.

StumbleUpon is one of the only companies that is designed to keep you away from their own website. By its very nature, StumbleUpon takes you everywhere else based upon your interests, stumbling habits, friends, and what’s hot in the Internet. Using an installed Toolbar or a browser frame, users “stumble” websites, stories, videos, and pictures, not knowing where they’ll be going next.

Once there, they can thumb something up or down and write a review of the page, or they can simply move on to the next stumbled site. The more that someone stumbles, the better the algorithm learns of the user’s preferences. The goal is to have an understanding of what the user enjoys so the site will serve only relevant pages.

The service is particularly popular with newer and smaller websites. While Facebook is a tremendous traffic generation tool, it requires time and creation of relationships, ie more “likes” to a website’s page or more shares by visitors. Large sites with a ton of traffic benefit most from Facebook’s sharing abilities.

read the rest of this blog post

We’ve talked about Squidoo before. It is an extremely positive strong favorite of Google. So if you do your SEO and good Keyword Research, You will be found on Squidoo and whatever you are selling has a chance of getting sold. Simple!

Well not quite, there are a couple of things to know here. First of all Keyword research is, of course, important, but when you are on Squidoo you will notice that as you build your lens, there is a place for you to put your tags.  This is NOT the place to put all those great keywords that  you just painstakingly researched. You see Squidoo is very stong internally as well as externally. Those tags that we put into the lens as you are making it are for comparison to other lens that may have been made for the same topic or at least the same tags. And shoppers will find your lens if you choose your tags well according to popularity on Squidoo.

This will usually not be the same keywords you research for Google. But you need those keywords too. Because when people do a search on Google for your product they will find you according to the popularity of the Google Keywords that chose and because Squidoo is so popular with Google, your site will show up near the top of the list.

So you see you have two ways of getting your product found. Someone can go to Google and type in the keywords you researched and then peppered into your Squidoo lens and be found. Or someone could go to Squidoo directly and type in the tags that you put into your lens as you built it and find your lens that way.

Either way you have the opportunity to make a sale at Amazon. Sweet. Here is my marketing lens that I made about Flavorwave Turbo Oven. I really hope you’ll take the time to think about this and help me out by looking at my lens. You know that traffic thing.

Flavor Wave Turbo Cooking Oven

Everything we do should move us toward our goal of independence. We must remember that.

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Technorati Tags: convection oven, cooking, flavorwave, flavorwave turbo oven, halogen oven, healthy cooking, Keyword research, Lens, marketing, Search engine optimization, squidoo

Why should you comment on anyone else’s blog? Does it serve any purpose? Can you get away without doing it?

Well this is kind of a complex subject. Because done right it can give your site such a wonderful lift. A nice backlink which makes you stand out better for Google, and it builds a community rapport.

But done wrong it is really a detriment, and it can cause pain to yourself and to others. And you can look like a real jerk. A friend of mine on Factoidz where I also write,  has written a very informative article about blog commenting and what the four types indicate. I think you’ll find it interesting and helpful.

After commenting on so many blogs and reading and replying to comments on my own blogs and articles, it is safe to say that all blog commenters can be categorized into four groups.

*The other bloggers
There are more blogs than you can count out there and new ones are launched pretty much every minute. Even I started 3 new blogs recently. With so many blogs, come many bloggers. Commenting on other blogs might be a part of a strategy to get a link back to your blog, engage with similar-minded people, help build your own community, just say what you think or a combination of these.

But if … From: Blogging: The 4 Main Types of Blog Commenters This is a blogging article that categorizes blog commenters (people who comment on blogs) into 4 main categories and how each of these should be approached.

Technorati Tags: backlinks, Blogs, Google, Internet, internet marketing, Social information processing

I am taking the challenge again this year. It used to be called the thirty day challenge, but this year Ed Dale is doing it completely different. It is really remarkable. Apparently he took the issues discerned by the challengers and addressed each one and came up with a much better method of teaching the challenge. In a way that pretty much guarantees you would be able to finish it. One week on and one week off.

But there is something really new this year. Ed is teaching what has taken him two full years of work to come up with. To make it so we can get it. and then apply it in our own businesses. I have to tell you I am really excited. Here is a quote from Ed Dale that he sent to us in a letter today.

If your not doing the challenge this year or a past veteran

These next two modules (and the previous Module on Posterous)
include perhaps the most important lessons I’ve ever taught.

The’re the culmination of two years of study, research and testing.

It’s rare you can say there is a genuine new traffic method.

It seems even more ridiculous to claim it’s capable of delivering
more traffic and more backlinks to your sites than anything else.

It costs you nothing to do.

It’s awesome.

Just one thing…..

There’s a MASSIVE CATCH.

It is not too late to join the challenge. If you are serious about making a success business online, you really owe it to yourself. Besides aren’t you curious about what the catch is. It’s free, It’s easy, It’s The Challenge.

It should always be the first thing you do in any internet endeavor..Keyword Research.  I can’t even begin to count the number of times I tried things online without it.  Needless to say, it was a monster failure.

What is keyword research? When you go to Google and type in something you are looking for…that thing you typed is a keyword. You might think a keyword is just that,  A Word. Well that is wrong information. A keyword is a word or phrase that is typed into a search engine by someone looking for something.

Okay, we know what a keyword is, but what now? ;Here is the deal. You want to find a keyword that is popular by the fact that a good number of people search for it every day. AND there is not too many people out there that are already working it. Low competition.
So how do you figure it out. How do you choose the keyword you want to build your empire on. Well you might think it is really difficult. We are talking about millions of people using the internet, but it doesn’t have to be.

You need the right tools.  I have talked to you about the thirty day challenge. It is an annual event hosted by Ed Dale for teaching people like you and me how to make money online. Well through the thirty day challenge I learned about Market Samarai.

Market Samurai is a marketing tool that is so advanced it cannot be easily explained, but let me tell you, keyword research becomes the easiest thing ever with it.

Here is a video from the thirty day challenge 2009 that is an introduction to keyword research with the Samurai. It is extremely interesting, and it is important that you get this mastered. Have a look.

Market Samurai has a free trial version. It is not the complete power of this tool but it has all the keyword research included. You owe it to yourself to check this out.   http://www.marketsamurai.com/

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Technorati Tags: Ed Dale, Keywords, make money online, Market Samurai, marketing, Samurai, Technology/Internet, thirty day challenge, Web search engine

I have been working very hard on Google adsense. It seemed dumb to ignore such an obvious source of income. Is it an easy source of income? NO it is not. Should you give it a try anyway? Absolutely!!!

What I have learned over the last few months is that you must test, test, test, Get yourself set up with Google Analytics, Be sure to do the url analytics, And see what works and what doesn’t work. And then make the necessary changes to try something new and then test and test and test some more.

And remember while you are testing, you are going to earn, maybe not as much as you would like, But definitely you will make some money.

But here is the thing, You can not create one blog, fill it with adsense and sit back and watch your bank account fill. It ain’t gonna happin!

So what I have been doing is building several blogs that I actually have a love for the subject of the blogs. This is important because you are not going to stick with something if you are not interested in it, at least a little. And blogging does require that you give it some attention occasionally. But another thing I have discovered is that you do not have to post every few seconds to your blog to keep it ranking well in Google.

The Big Guru’s told me that I had to post on the blog at least 2-3 times a week. At the very least, weekly. Well you remember from reading this blog, I am still working at the J.O.B. although I am happy to announce I have been able to cut back on a few hours. Which gives me a little more time to work online, but life still happens, and I am a woman. So my home, my family, my husband takes up enough of my 24 hours each day that I could not blog one, let alone all of my blogs 2-3 times a week.

I worried myself sick over my impending failure, due to my inability to be a “real” blogger. I was posting every few weeks on one at a time. That is what I could do. So that is what I did.

If you find a good keyword and make really good content, your blog will get some traffic. Good content is key. Good content will get you excellent adsense ads and that will get you more clicks.

Let me take you through getting your url channels set up so you can watch your adsense and begin your test, test, testing.

FIRST: Go to your Google Adsense account and click the Adsense Set Up tab.

SECOND: click the “Channels” under the Set Up tab. 

NEXT: click the “URL channels”, about 1/2 way down the page.

THEN: click “add new url channels”

Here, put the url of the page you want to monitor your ads. It will show up on your channel reports and you can see how active a page is for adsense and if the ads you placed there are working for you.

Don’t be afraid to switch out your ads. Try different configurations, color schemes, corner shapes or whatever. Just keep testing. You’ll be surprised what you learn, not to mention it’s just fun to see where the clicks are coming from.

Google Analytics allows you 200 total Channels  to track, so every page that you want to track how well your adsense is doing on, just add the url and analytics will do the rest.

So get on it, make some blogs, put some adsense on them, track how well they do in your analytics account and start making some money!

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Technorati Tags: AdSense, AdWords, bank account fill, blog, Google, Google Inc., Human Interest, internet marketing, Statistical hypothesis testing, Technology/Internet, Vroom Framework, Web 2.0

I have been working so hard to figure out this entire Internet Marketing thing. I mean it!

This is not easy. I have blogged, I have internet marketed, I have had things for sell and then upsell. I have given things away and then caught them on the back end. I have captured customer’s emails and I have marketed to them. I have made a ton of Squidoo lenses. I have done it all. My leaning curve is growing daily.

There are two things I have to say about it all.

1. I have accomplished the most difficulty job of chasing that elusive first dollar AND I CAUGHT IT!
2. I LOVE this business!!!

No I am not a millionaire, I am not even a thousand-aire, but I have hit the over a hundred dollar mark. I have written and sold some ebooks and I have sold quite a few affiliate products, and I am making money with my Squidoo lenses. So I am feeling pretty happy with my efforts.

So the number one thing that “they” say about internet marketing is that once you have managed to make your first dollar on line that you have arrived. You have made it. You are now among the ranks of successful marketers. All you have to do is duplicate whatever you have done and rinse and repeat.

Isn’t that a cute cliché, rinse and repeat, I actually get it and it is the truth, you have to do it. For instance if one Squidoo lens makes me money then 50 will make me more. If one product sold makes me money, then whatever I did to sell it, do it 100 more times. Yeah, I get it.

Sounds easy doesn’t it? Well it ain’t! And that is what I have been doing. If I sold one ebook, why can’t I sell 50 more? Oh sure I can make 50 lenses, actually right now the count is 37, but what does it take for those lenses to make me money. Which affiliate product is going to sell best and where should I sell it? These are all the questions that must be answered.

I think a lot of the legwork must be done by you. There are some wonderful people out there that actually want to help you succeed but there are a bunch of scoundrels too. The information is there and then you have to try it and then try something different. And start over again.

Keep trying and eventually we are going to find what works and what we like. An important distinction. We must like what we are doing. But that elusive first dollar is out there and you can grab it. I did.

And now I am learning where to spend my time. Where to focus my attention. Where to expend my energy. And that is a lesson unto itself.

But that is another post. For now, just keep fighting for yourself and your future and keeping trying. You must not give up. It can be done. No magic, no miracle, just good hard work.

See you next time.

Technorati Tags: internet marketng, make money online, work at home

One of the things that is really important about working from home is starting to make some money. If you spend day after day toiling at your new craft and you see nothing for your effort, you may become discouraged and give up.

DON’T DO IT!

You see this is one of those things that can get you in a lot of trouble with yourself. You must be able to see some progress. There are some measuring tools, like Google analytics or statcounter, which you can use to see progress. But money is number one.

When I first started I tried a few things. Remember I used to get over 200 e-mails a day from all the gurus lists that I was on. Each of them telling me just what it was that I needed to do, and what latest must have product I needed to buy, with money I had not yet earned. Well what did I learn?

Of course, I already told you to get off those lists! They are sucking you under, they are killing your productivity and they are breaking your spirit. Is that clear for you? I mean it.

But logically why is that the wise thing for you to do? Well, we have already spoken of in some length about time and how little of it you have when you are working at home. Remember, you are a mother or father, breadwinner, housecleaner, teacher, peacekeeper, and veterinarian. First of all, just when will you spend some of your precious online time reading emails that are truly just sucking the life out of your internet business?

And second of all, Every time you choose to try something new, you now have to invest your time and effort into learning it, getting together whatever you need to put it into play and then put it into practice. Now you are spending precious time to learn a new task, and you are not doing anything to advance your business that you have already established.

Remember, and this is key to your online success, so wait for it…

You need only three things to become successful online.

1. You need a product in a market that has buyers. (market/keyword research first, then product)
2. You need a place to sell this product (website of some kind, blog, lens, hubpage etc)
3. You need people to sell it to. (traffic)

Pretty easy huh? Well if you said yes to that question, you really need to rethink a thing or two.

No! it is not easy. But it is doable.

More on the details of the above later, but now we need to start seeing some money.

This is what I have been doing and I am starting to see some money. Squidoo.

Squidoo is a website that allows you to build a “lens” (the name they use to describe the website you build) The lens can be on any subject you like, writing about something you know and then expanding the lens into all kinds of fun interactive “modules” or pieces of your lens. It is great! However, this is not play time, you are an internet marketer. So if you want to use your lens to sell something so you will earn some money, keyword research would be good, and then build the lens around that keyword. You can also put as many links into your lens as you like pointing back to your main site if it has anything to do with your keyword.

That is an advanced thought. If you had taken the thirty day challenge you would know exactly what I am talking about. You still can, just go over to the Thirty Day Challenge and sign up. It is free! This is not an affiliate link, I get nothing but the count of the number of people taking the challenge through my link. So check it out.

But for now I just want you to focus on making some money. You can just build lens and not sell a thing. You see Squidoo has Google adsense on them and you can earn money from just that. Or if you put a Amazon or ebay module on your lens and sell something, you earn additional income. You have to tell Squidoo when you make your profile that you want to be paid cash or they will give it all to charity, so don’t forget that.

Now the catch here is that you only earn of percentage of the whole pot if your lens are ranking well. They need to be in the top 100 of your category. There is a ton of stuff you will learn when you sign up to Squidoo, which by the way is a FREE service. 100%! Getting them into the top 100 is the fun part. You have to be interactive and give a little. You know look at other people’s lens and vote on them and favorite them and duel on them. And join the forum, to learn from as well as to interact some more. All this behavior is rewarded by Squidoo. Plus your nicely ranking lens that are interesting and interactive can earn you some cash.

Some people on Squidoo are earning hundreds of dollars every month. Some even over a thousand. Could you use that? I know I can. Just to start reducing debt or replacing JOB income

Here is an example of one of my lens. CLICK HERE, and by the way, vote for it if you like it while you are there. I hope you will take the time to look into Squidoo, it has turned into a way to lighten the load for me, and it is fun, filled with genuinely nice people. And as an added benefit, well loved by Google. A win-win situation.

Until next time,

Susan

Technorati Tags: A Blog for Baby Boomers, Google Adsense, internet marketing, lensmasters, make money online, squidoo, squidoo lens, work from home

First of all, I took the Thirty Day Challenge the whole month of August. It was fantastic! I think my brain grew I was so stimulated by the information that I learned.

For those that are not familiar with the 30DC, it is a month long intense learning seminar put on by Ed Dale and Dan Raine, an Aussie and a Brit that have one goal: to make you successful as an internet marketer. It really is outstanding. This was year four. I came in late last year so didn’t get the full affect of it. But this year, made me know I will not miss another year of this great FREE service.

Yes! It is 100% free. They do give you the option of spending some money. For instance this year, we could buy our own domain name $8, and we could get our own hosting $7. But they always give you free alternatives that are ever bit as good for the purposes of the challenge.

The goal of the challenge is for you to make your first dollar online. And of course after that to go ahead and make a business come to fruition.

I learned about keyword research, blogging-the proper way, search engines and what makes them tick, social marketing. The list goes on. I loved it. I wish you all could have been there, maybe some of you were. If so, I would love to have your comments.

I made some very good friends. They were my team mates and each of us supported the other in our blogging efforts. It was actually quite remarkable My blog, Baby Knitting Patterns Blog, is actually number 5 on Google for my keyword. Isn’t that great?!

You should also check out my friends’ blogs too, for the quality of work that the thirty day challenge produces. Debra McGauley, produces a gorgeous and wonderfully entertaining blog filled with fascinating ideas for county living. Her blog is A Little Bit Country Decorations.

And my friend Arthur Sherin made a blog that is so educational and filled with great ideas all about herbs. His main idea is aero herb gardening. But he covers everything from indoor gardening to container gardening and all to do wit all kinds of herb. You must see his blog called Aero Herb Garden. I know you will enjoy them both.

After the challenge was over, I have been seriously implementing all that I learned, unfortunately that equates to my neglecting you all.

The last time I posted I talked about all the things that can distract you when you work at home. Well, I am happy to say I believe I have now mastered that. Yet another thing I got out of the 30DC. I am now so much better at focusing, and actually getting things done.

So no excuses needed. I have actually been doing what I am always telling you do. Follow your dream. Find an alternative to the back breaking, mind numbing work that is called the JOB! Get yourself involved in some new type of income. Get started with an online income and make some changes in your life that will lead to your freedom.

It is doable, I am living proof. Have I quit my job yet?

Not yet, but it is coming. Just watch me!

Technorati Tags: aero herb garden, Baby knitting patterns, country decorations, Dan Raine, Ed Dale, make money online, thirty day challenge, work at home

You may notice that it has been awhile since I last posted. It certainly is not due to lack of interest but there are two reasons why it has been so long. Maybe we can discuss these.

1.  Lack of confidence

2.  Everything from here to the moon demanding my time!

We’ve already talked at some length about what not to do when you are working at home in a previous post. Well I let most of those things cause me to lose focus this last month. Very disturbing when the teacher doesn’t even abide by her own rules. Well I tried, really I did. But anyone that works from home or even tries to start working from home will run into this. It is amazing how many things get in the way of your staying productive.

Now the wonderful thing is once you are actually making a living online. You will no longer even have this problem. I promise. It is getting established as a work at home entrepreneur that causes the problem.

Everyone in your life is so much more in need of your time and attention. And if anything can go wrong in your home it will. For instance, my precious dog, that I love with all my heart, out of the blue, developed separation anxiety. One day while I was at the hospital at my JOB, she ate my kitchen door frame. Both sides as high as she could reach. ATE IT! I am not exaggerating! Well for the next few days I was occupied with plaster and sanding and painting. What a mess. But it crunched into my internet time. See what I mean.  Thank goodness I don’t have human children. I can’t imagine the time consumption in that area.

The second thing was Lack of confidence. This one is more difficult to talk about.

I have been approached by so many different people that are well meaning and of course have the solution to my problems. But you simply can not afford to get caught up in that. Everyone is actually trying to make a living online. Just like you. And many many of them are wonderful people that really  do know what they are doing. But…it may not be the thing that you need to include in your online business. But how do you know?

Here’s the thing, it may actually be that whatever is being offered to you could be the best thing to ever come along since sliced bread. But if it is distracting you from moving forward with your business. It’s garbage, at least for today.

See, despite what they say about being your last opportunity and you’ll never see this offer again. So what? Internet marketing is always going to be there and it is recycled from time to time. What works works. It just gets packaged in a new box with a new ribbon ever so often. If you like research, check it out in the history of internet marketing.

That is what happened to me, I became afraid that I was going to miss out on some spectacular something or other. And remember what I told you about information overload?

It is paralyzing.

I was paralyzed. So I listened and read and watched and worried and basically did nothing. Then I read the most amazing Blog entry by one of my mentors that I sort of forgot about or at least pushed to the back burner, and it was like a two by four to the forehead.

Well, I am back. Here is my advice to you.

Please, please, please, choose one or two mentors, people that you just feel good about. People that have steered you right a couple times. And people that do not constantly ask you to open your wallet. Sure they have things to offer but you know it and you’ll take care of that when you can afford it and in your time.

You must decide on your business model. What method are you going to use to get traffic to your site? What is your site? What is your product? When you choose your mentor you will figure all this out. It will make sense to you. Model what you are going to do after someone who is already doing it successfully. That is all there is to it. Why re-invent the wheel? It rolls pretty good already.

Once you decide these things, don’t let ANYTHING distract you from moving forward. One of my mentors actually has a list of things for me to do, in order, and then boom things start happening. When I finally came back to my senses and followed that plan… Well, surprise, surpise…it worked.

Internet marketing is not hard, but it is necessary to be paid attention. You must work it. You must follow the steps. You must NOT be distracted.

I am seriously going to follow my own advise. I hope you do too.

To our success!!

Susan

Technorati Tags: internet marketing, marketing, work at home, work from home