It wasn’t until I decided to look at where some of the traffic leaving my site actually ends up that I realised something interesting. I do not consider my blog to be successful at all. It has only been online a month, and although in that month I managed 100 subscribers to my list it still is a very basic blog that nobody actively search for just yet. So it is mighty surprising to see some of the places people end up after leaving my blog.

The name Christine Moreno has been searched for 5 times this last week by people leaving my site. That’s 5 Google searches, which means people actually googled her name after reading my blog. Agreed it’s only 5 now, but 5 at this stage where my blog is in it’s infancy is very promising for Christine when my blog obtains huge growth. Why is that interesting? Well Christine is this years newest Internet Marketing success story and she has been commenting on my blog. I have not mentioned her name before in any post, however by posting comments on my blog entries (often being the first to do so) she has managed to attract attention from my blog traffic, the same people coincidentally who would also be interested in Christine’s soon to be released JV product.

But lets dig a little deeper and figure why Christine is getting these ‘google searches’ and not the other commenters.

Look through this blog and all the comments that have been left. What do you notice?

• Christine is the most consistent – She has not commented on all entries but is by far the most consistent commenter I have. This means that she is seen often by readers of my blog, and they learn to recognise her (due to the Gravatar) just as they recognise me.
• Her tone of comments shows she follows my journey and that she also has some Internet Marketing insights to offer.
• I’ve said it before and I say it again – Her Gravatar. It’s branding her and it’s working.
• She shows she knows something about me on the posts. Agreed we have met in person and know a few things about each other that the regular reader may not, but look at her comments, she does not say anything to do with my personal life but more about my style, something which most readers should be able to easily pick up on.

So, what do we learn?

1. Firstly, that following my advice really does work.  Christine found how to apply a gravatar from my blog post, and my analysis has shown it works.
2. Targeted and focused comments on blogs, not only bring back-links but also direct traffic back towards you.
3. Christine stands out as my blog is still in it’s early life cycle. Commenting on up and coming blogs such as mine, gives you the most exposure (as you have less competition) and allows people to remember you.

So, go out and find successful blogs in your niche, learn from them and add value with your comments. You have nothing to lose but a lot to gain…

But today 2nd March I give up….  NO! Not on the challenge but on a mini objective I had. I have not been posting regular these last 2 weeks as I have been experimenting to see if I can eliminate all traffic to my blog. Not by closing the blog down but by eliminating my promotion activities so I can truly see what works, what brings continuous traffic and what is only short term traffic.

And you know what? Today I give up. I just cannot stop visitors finding this blog. Google alone seems to like my blog and is indexing my blog for some very strange terms including a visitor today who found my blog by the term ‘Apprentice status update’ . Totally irrelevant to the theme of my blog I agree, but the important point here is that within four weeks I have got to a stage where my blog is receiving fresh daily visitors without me doing anything more.

What this proves:

• Google is starting to like my blog (I have managed to obtain almost 400 back-links in February which has helped enormously)
• My other traffic sources are bringing in continuous traffic (I give exact details in my newsletter, so sign up if you want to know what they are)
• I know it works, so with some sensible tweaking I should double traffic in March and help ensure it is better targeted traffic
• If I can do it in four weeks, on no budget and with a new blog, you can too.

More details to be sent via my newsletter this week.

Now, I’m a professional business process consultant and I very quickly try to figure out if something is practical or not. 100 people with personal one on one coaching sounded far too much to me. For me one on one coaching means at least 1 hour per person per month. Even at that low estimate it is 100 hours each months he has to give up. Oh, by the way all the coaching was FREE! I write him a comment stating I wished him the best of luck as I don’t think it would be possible to give them all one on one coaching. A mini argument developed and it ended in me challenging him. I take only 5 student and I would earn more with these 5 people then his 100 combined.

Naturally, we agreed some rules to the challenge and the challenge began! Immediately a number of people who started PMing me and soon I was at almost 200 messages with potential applicant. So how did I weed down these applicants? Simple, I deleted the ones who:

• Simply asked ‘can I have a spot’ without expressing anything about themselves (I took whoever put some effort in too round two)
• Those who asked silly questions about who i am, which they could have easily found out by viewing some of the sites in my signature or reading my previous posts (Do your own research, I’m not offering a FREE service then going to beg you, I have 100’s of applicants). Sensible questions about me were accepted.
• Those who had not upgraded at WF. I need people who are active and ready to help themselves. Since this was started on the WF, I wanted to give some respect back.

Ok, so that is how I got to round two. Round three would have to be even tougher, and I would like to know who really wanted to make it, who was really ready to learn and put the effort in and who was ready with the mindset for success. I did not for one minute claim to have all the answers in my original thread, but what I did guarantee is that a lot of my high flying internet colleagues would be pitching in to give them great advice and guidance along the way. So, I’m going to expose them to my inner circle there had to be something special about them.

Want to know how many people impressed me? ONE!

Want to know about him?

• Lives in community housing as is currently homeless after losing everything in a bad venture
• Is really willing and ready to make this work as he has a real motive – wants to get out of his bad situation
• Is young, dynamic and resourceful. Even though he has nothing, he is using creative ways to make enough money to survive each day. A do or die attitude/

How did he impress me?

• He was the ONLY person who found the blog which was in my signature and used the ‘contact’ form on the blog rather then a PM on the warrior forum (massive points for standing out and proving you did some research)
• He went through every post I had made on WF and quoted me on some of my best one’s. One of which advised people on how to impress their mentor (yep, contact them via their blog, quote something you like about their past posts etc!)
• He didn’t just send one request and forget about it. After a few hours he sent me a PM on the Warrior Forum to make sure I got the message from the contact form. Then every 12 hours or so he sent another PM giving me some more info and telling me why it would mean so much to him

Want to know how many times the others tried to recontact me? ZERO

Now, I originally stated on my thread that I would take five people, but currently if I’m honest I’m only ready to take one. Any guesses who??!

I do however believe in second chances. So this is what I have done:

1. Wrote this post on my blog! If they are following me they will know what to do.
2. I rewrote a pm to everyone who got to round 2, and asked them to give me their skype details. Those who simply just give the skype details with asking anything about what the call will be about, or don’t do a little research (like reading this post) before the skype call get eliminated.

On Tuesday I will send a message to people on my mailing list with an update on how this story turns out! (I will also be offering a chance of FREE coaching to my subscribers next week also). And just to note, my competitor backed out of the challenge !

Having talked to a few people this week, it seems a common problem. But, does it have to be that way?

NO, not at all. Here I outline the big mistake that people make when setting goals which can prevent you from keeping focus upon the important tasks.

The BIG mistake

Read any self help book these days (trust me, I’ve read a lot of them) and you will find all end of suggestions on keeping focused. Most of them give you some practical tips such as keeping a tidy work space, planning your activities etc, but there is one area most of them fall flat. What is that area? Vision.

What is Vision. Vision is knowing why you want to achieve what you set out to achieve. What are the advantages of it and what kind of lifestyle you will enjoy when you get there. For many people, this is motivation enough, but scientific research has shown, that people have an inbuilt tendency to believe the way life works out, happens for a reason and in hindsight we always believe it happened for the best. Read carefully now and I’ll describe the big mistake in most books on this subject.

Let me put it another way, we set out with the best of intentions and with high motivation of achieving a better life. However, on our way there we may look at our life and think, actually it was ok the way it was, and then we start to slow down and lose focus. Look back at anything in your life that happened, isn’t there something that occurred as a result of that event which made you think, it had to happen or this other thing would not have happened? Research suggests that we all thinking this way, and that is the root cause of the mistake.

Think about it, when you set goals you:

• Think of something that you would be happy achieving
• Something that will leave you satisfied
• Something which you think is worthy of being completed

Now, think back to the root cause of the mistake I mention above. What are the consequences or most likely occurrence:

• You lose motivation as forget what advantage this satisfaction will bring
• The false feeling that you got away with being unfocused for so long and you survived, so allowing yourself to be unfocused a little more will not harm you.
• You remain unfocused and unmotivated.

How to fix it

Yes, the following ARE IMPORTANT

• Setting you goals and making them measurable, sensible and time restrained
• Having a tidy workspace and all that
• Knowing what helps you work and avoiding distractions

BUT the BIG MISTAKE is thinking this is enough.

There is one crucial step most ‘experts’ seem to leave out. Most will tell you to think of positive goals and keep thinking of the positive but I argue this is a mistake. YOU MUST THINK OF THE NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCE’S OF NOT COMPLETING YOUR ACTION.

The BIG Mistake, The missing step to keeping Focus

So, the mistake is clear. Human nature means we often forget the incentive to stay focused as our minds have a natural tendency to believe everything eventually turns out for the best. Keeping a positive goal will not change this mindset, reminding yourself of the consequences will.

Why is it that most student have four weeks for an assignment but often they leave it to the last minute? Why is it that you have important work to do, but you focus on the less important tasks until you have no choice? BECAUSE YOU ARE FULLY AWARE OF THE CONSEQUENCES.

There is however a simply easy way to overcome this BIG mistake and here it is:

When ever you create you goals and you stick them up on your wall, also write down the consequences of not achieving them. Trust me, this one is powerful. By not meeting your goal what will happen. What will you miss out on, what improvements in your life will be jeopardised and what will even be worse then it is now.

For me this is simple. As part of my challenge, if I do not make money by the end of next week, I have nowhere to live and nothing to eat, simple. But, I was always focusing on the positive that I will make money and somehow started to relax. By reminded myself of the consequences I now have no choice but to take action NOW.

Remember out brains have a tendency to think things will work out for the best, and we have to shake that belief. We have to prove to ourselves that life will not be better unless we take action and we have to remind ourselves what we have to lose. Write these things down and also place it on your wall next to your goals. It will act as a reminder that your goals will offer some advantage to accomplish and life will be worse if you do not complete it.

Final thoughs:

Everyday you need to remind you of both the goal and the consequences of not achieving them. The reason for this is scientific yet most of us get caught up in being overly positive and forget to remind ourselves constantly that you truly believe completing your goals will lead to a better life. A colleague of mine taught me a great 5 minute routine, which you should complete every morning to help you stay focused. I will put this on my blog via a video message in the coming days. I hope by then, you will have already started considering the consequences of not completing your goals.

In my first week, the only visitors I had were people I had convinced to pay the blog a visit (new contacts made this year as I cannot use last years contacts). So, I was 100% surprised when I noticed comments left by people I had not invited.

I then  installed a newsletter subscription box, and was surprised again to find within 5 minutes I had my first two subscribers! (Click here for a post I made about it, when it happened). How could people be finding my blog useful so quickly and how were they even finding me. To help answer this I quickly installed a statistics plugin, and almost fell off my seat when I saw over 400 people had visited me that day.

Zero to four hundred daily views within 10 days of a new blog. WOW, even though I know I will complete this challenge I did not expect that so quickly.

The plugin I installed, tells me where the viewer came from, and even what search terms were used to find me.

I’m not going to tell you everything about my traffic here, only subscribers to my Newsletter will have access to this information tomorrow.

These last few days, I resisted posting as I concentrated on making some tweaks to the blog and giving my promotion a rest to see if had diminishing return (lower usefulness over time) or a constant usefulness.

If I’m honest I’m not happy with what I achieved personally over the weekend, but at least today I was over productive and hope in some way to have compensated.

Week Overview:

Highs:

• Zero to 400 viewers in one day
• Understanding where they came from
• Adding 100+ people to my new mailing list
• Full belief in my Venture and a newly drawn fantastic action plan

Lows:

• Not to productive second weekend
• A slight loss of focus as I got excited and sidetracked (lucky I knew the signs and caught myself early)
• Not completing my aim of completing my ebook, which I previously wanted to earn money from in Week 3 (situation is rectifiable but it is a failure on my week 2 goal and due to losing focus)

Targets for this week

• Obtain sales from my ebook (even a dollar, I just must start earning)
• Add 100 more people to my newsletter list
• Add 2 further traffic generation methods

Stay up to date with me by joining my mailing list. I also give exclusive insights into my methods there, which I would not print on this blog.

It’s my Birthday tomorrow, so need to make sure it’s my most productive day ever. Wish me luck !

I’m a firm believer of just getting started. So, I always tell my students, do not worry about a beautiful design, having the whole years articles planned etc, JUST GET STARTED. Why because that is where 90% of people fail, so firstly do what 10% of successful people do and just make sure everything is just good enough to get started.

However, there comes a time where you need to start working on improving things. The aim initially is just to get started, but the mindset should be to continually improve things until they are the best. So, after seeing a number of students follow my lead in starting a new blog, I though I should now share 7 tips on where to focus improvements within 15 days of setting up a new blog.

Within 15 days of a new blog you should:

1) Know where the spell check button is within your chosen text software.

Time take: 1-5 min per article

I personally focused first on writing good articles. I didn’t stop myself to check spellings, I simply let the writing flow. I decided to write my posts within the Wordpress editor but I did not know where the spellcheck was, so didn’t spend to much time on it, I simply made sure the article was good enough and then posted it.

After a week however, I found the button and started using it. Initially people can forgive a few spelling mistakes, but if you do not take the time to spell check you documents, then you will look less and less professional and possibly hinder your blogs growth.

(In Wordpress the spell check button is simply the one with ABC and a tick mark underneath)

2) Adding an avatar image to your own comments.

Time taken: 5 min

Adding an image to your blog comments, not only makes them more personal but also makes your comments stand out, heck it’s your blog, why shouldn’t your comments stand out?

In Wordpress these are known as Gravatar and have some cool benefits which you can read about by clicking here. I also provide instructions on how to add them.

For other blogging programs do a quick search on the Internet to find a solution.

These two simple things, make your posts readable and look professional, and

In the next part of this series I will be giving more advanced tips, as I will assume you are done with the learning phase of your new blog. This includes adding an image (Favicon) to your website tab, as well as ways to increase your subscriber count.  ‘7 Things you should do within 30 days of a new blog’ article coming soon.

The picture is often known as an avatar (picture connected to your profile) and is used often on Forums. Since, blogs are becoming increasingly popular the concept naturally followed to blogs, but on blogs such as WordPress they are know as ‘Gravatar’ images.

Here is a  list of benefits for adding a ‘Gravatar’ or image to your blog comments:

• Your comments becomes easier to see. How many times have you seen a really long post and really just glossed over the pictures? The same is true with comment, if there is a long list, people will scroll down and stop if something catches their eye. And in a mountain of text, that something is often an image, or Avatar.
• You start to brand yourself. People often say, I cannot remember names but I can remember faces. The same reference is true online. People often forget your usernames, or often don’t read them, but will focus on a picture. A picture therefore is memorable, and once people start to recognise your picture they will spot your blog comment from the others.
• It shows your a person. Believe it or not blogs get a lot of spam. I know a colleague who has over 200 spam posts a days (or they are flags as spam). The only one’s he reviews are the one’s with a picutre, and anyone who takes the time to add a picture (or ‘Gravatar’) is most likely to be human and not a Spam bot.
• It builds trust. In line with being a real person to the person running the blog, you become a real person to everyone who reads your comment. Your no longer feel like an internet name but like somebody they can start to feel accustomed to.
• Gravatar’s are consistant. That’s right, post your comment on ANY Wordpress blog and use the same email address, and you will always be represented by the same picture.
• It’s harder for someone to pretend to be you. Yep, it happens, sometimes people use your name to make comments, hoping that people will read them due to your fame. Having an avatar helps prevent this, as the spammer must make an extra effort to pretend to be you (yeah, this does not prevent it, but certainly creates another hoop for the spammer)

Ok, so now your sold, how much is it and where to get one. Well, It’s FREE ! Time needed, 5-10 minutes:

1. Simply click here to be directed to Gravatar
2. Scroll down a little to where it says ‘Get your Gravatar today’  (mid way down the page on the left hand side)
3. Follow the simple instructions to add you email address, confirm it and then add your image.
4. Click Finish and see your instant avatars on WordPress blog comments!

Now, there is no excuse not to have your picture associated with your comments.

For some reason new business owners spend a great deal of time on planning activities. Yes, this is of course good, it’s never a good idea to enter into any business venture without doing your research first. However, the point I am about to make is that you only need to know enough to get started, then you should perfect things and expand as you go along. Why? Because otherwise you get caught in a trap of  ‘Information Overload’ which ends up slowing you down.

Take this example of a client of mine:

Aim – To start an Internet based business to sell her bags which are hand made by herself.

Experience – She has sold them previously at events and fairs and they sell well.

Reason for wanting an Internet based business:  Sales decline in Winter months due to lack of events to attend, so an Internet based business will allow her to continue selling all year round.

So, you see that is a great business that has existing sales, and just needs to be converted online. After the initial discussion we didn’t meet for two months, so when we finally did, I asked her for an update.

Current situation: Still no Internet site, but have spent over $1000 educating herself on Internet marketing and is currently studying Up-selling (the art of selling additional products to a customer once they are ready to checkout on your online store)

My reply:    OK… but have you at least sorted which software you are using and which hosting service you will use?

Her: No, I will do that once I know how the store will work..

Me: ARRRHHHHHH !

Do you see what happened here? She forgot to focus on what was really important and got lost in the detail.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO WORRY ABOUT UPSELLING UNTIL YOU HAVE CUSTOMERS!

So obtaining customer should be you No.1 priority. For that to happen, you need a simple sales page, hosting and a way to take payments.  But at the beginning – KEEP IT SIMPLE.

I tried to explain, that by wasting two months without an online store she was possible losing customers. And regardless of whether she was learning ‘upselling’ or not, that was definitely money she was losing.

Folks, I cannot stress this enough. Make sure whatever you are doing is ‘Just Good enough’ first and then work on perfecting it. According to Pareto’s law it is only 20% of what we do that is important, so don’t waste your time trying to perfect something when there are more important things to focus on.

Want to know how this story ends?

We went back to her home office and took the following immediate action:

1. Found a good hosting company (the same one I use and recommend) – 10 minutes work
2. Brought a good domain name and transferred the DNS to point to the right host – 10 minutes work
3. Searched for a free website template, made some simply changes, added 3 pictures of her product and some contact information.  – 30 minutes
4. Decided it was easier at this stage to take payment by cheques until she decided on a merchant account or paypal.
5. Waited for the site to go live (have to wait for DNS – so out of our control)

We put less then one hours work into the site and it was up and running. Yes, it was not the prettiest site I had seen but it was good enough and it did the core job. Of course, she was going to work on improving it, but at least now she had started, and was able to see what needed to be done.

You want to know what happened? She went to a event that weekend where she was selling her bags, and she added a leaflet in every bag telling people about her website. When she had got home, she had received 2 emails from people, who had purchased from her that day. They had shown the bag to some friends and they wanted one too, but they didn’t know how to get one, so when they saw the leaflet they tried the website!

You see, if we focus on what core functions are important we can get started and make something good enough to work. Do not get stuck in a spiral of ‘Information Overload’  just get started with what is important.

Just Being Good Enough is a concept I inferred from my favourite writer Malcolm Gladwell. In his book ‘Outliers’ he makes the case, that for luck to have it’s effect on you, you must take some action. However, that action does not have to be perfect, it only ever has to be ‘Good Enough’.

A perfect example of this occured today on this very blog. Take a look at the optin box on the right hand side. It’s not the prettiest is it? However it proved good enough, as within 3 minutes of me adding it, I acquired my first subscriber.

Just this morning I wrote a post about my 3  tasks of the day, one of those tasks being to add an opt-in box. I looked around the Internet for 15 minutes to find some fancy opt-in boxes before I stopped myself.

I always teach my students to complete one task at a time and get the important stuff first, yet here I was looking for a fancy design, when my first task should have been to get a working opt-in form on my blog, and then consider making it prettier.

This has reminded me yet again, how right I am to always tell my followers not to worry about something being 100%. Yes always aim to improve something until it is 100% but firstly make it good enough, that where you energy should go, and then work on making it 100%

Too many people I know, have great products and services but get stuck trying to make the perfect plan or website. I hope those reading will be as excited as I am, that being good enough is all it takes to see results.

And just finishing this post, barely 10 minutes after installing the box, I have 2 subscribers. Not mind blowing but pretty good for a one week old blog… Maybe people are starting to believe I will complete this challenge too…

For those who have not read my Prioritising post, you may want to read that first by clicking here.

Aiming to complete just 3 tasks each day will ensure that my work output is measurable and that I am focused.

My 3 tasks for today:

1) Find out why within one week of starting this blog, I received 50 visitors yesterday

-  Find a Wordpress plug-in which will tell me where my visitors are coming from

2)  Add a newsletter subscription box to this blog

-  Set up a mailing list with my preferred supplier

- Talk to people I know who have installed one

- Search the Internet for Wordpress modules which may do the job

3)  Submit good comments on 10 blogs that relate to one of the posts I have already written.

-  Pick a post I particularly like

-  Find 10 blogs with similar themes, read a post and submit a useful comment

That’s it. That’s my must do for the day. Whatever else I do is a bonus!