I devoured everything I could on the subjects of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and online site promotion because I was witnessing what one can do with a little focused effort.

You are promoting your website when you:

• Add your website to pixel sites.
• Add your website URL to blog posts.
• Add a website URL to forums posts.
• Submit your homepage to web directories.
• Add your website to your Twitter Bio.
• Edit your email signature to include your website URL.
• Use Traffic Exchanges.
• Include your website in your forum signature.
• Regularly add great content to a website (Google will love you for this.)
• Include a website URL in EVERY Press Release you write.

Not Search Engine Optimization

Each of these things are an effort in promoting your website and all of them lend to your off-page organic seach engine optimization efforts.

Online Advertising (buying advertising for traffic) and all the things above are NOT web search engine optimization. They are website promotion but as I said, they can have search ranking benefits.

What IS SEO?

When asked, most people will tell you SEO is about getting to the first page on Google for a given keyword OR getting to #1 on that page. SEO is actually the process one goes through to get there. The page one result is the goal, not the definition.

The process goes a little something like this…

• Identify your audience (Who are you trying to reach? Target market?).
• Evaluate your competition.
• Create a relevant keyword list.
• Take necessary action for both On Page (Title and Meta description tags, Anchor text and so on)  and Off Page (both free and paid website promotion).

While website promotion does have an effect on your search rankings, doing everything you can to maximize the on page factors is critical.

My attention has been focused elsewhere so I’ve been neglecting emails, comments and phone calls but before you jump to conclusions, let me explain…

Throughout the past week I’ve gotten a number of emails from readers asking if I’m doing OK. I really appreciate the concern but I really am feeling great. This past week has been something of a marvel and I’ll try and do it justice while I explain.

About 4 months ago my Mother called me asking if they could use the video cam I had recently purchased for a project. When asked about the details of the project (what can I say, I’m naturally curious) she briskly told me she didn’t want to talk about it because she and her accomplice (a friend) didn’t want the cat getting out of the bag, so to speak.

Thankfully I don’t always take no for an answer, so she entrusted me with the mission at hand.

As it turned out, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition had been requesting nominations for project applicants in the area and my mother (along with her friend) decided to nominate a friend of the families family.

With this knowledge she admonished me not to tell a soul so I zipped my lips and didn’t breath a word. The months flew by, as they always do, and after a couple months I inquired about the status of their nomination.

Amazingly, the family we worked to nominate was 1 of 5 to be chosen, or so goes the rumor…

By this time I was starting to get really excited for the prospective winners because I knew just how much it would help them out. So, I focused on the thought of them winning and let it go (just as the law of attraction states). In the remaining time before the decision day it never even entered my mind that they would be turned down.

Now fast forward to last Monday and another phone call with her. According to what she was told, they would find out who won the following day and on Wednesday they would begin working on the house of the family they chose.

Even at this point I wasn’t the least bit concerned. I was confident they would win and that Ty Pennington would be knocking on their door at any time.

I spent the rest of my day Monday with friends and I happened to mention the show and asked if they knew about a contest of sorts going on in the area. They knew the show, and one of my friends had heard through the grapevine that the mother was a school teacher and the father was a bus driver.

Jackpot! Ding! Ding! Ding!

This fit the description of the family nominated so I was about 95% certain it was the family my mom nominated. As it turns out, I was right. After placing a few calls Tuesday afternoon and late evening I confirmed it. They won.

On Wednesday they sent the family on vacation, Thursday they started by bringing the house down and its been facinating to watch them build the house in a matter of days. I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of cordinating and planning it takes to make it all happen.

Best of all … in a matter of hours the family will be shown their new home.

So now you know why I’ve been distracted as of late. I do apologize for being slow with my replies to your emails, your concern is noted and appreciated.

The only difference, in this case, is you’re on the information ’superhighway’ AND in a lot of cases the advertising is free (or next to no cost). Sometimes people find it hard to believe you can make money online without spending great sums of money but you can.

This goes right along with my post about the butterfly affect in network marketing. You start out small but if you keep at it, people will find you through many different types of advertising avenues.

As a result of the efforts I’ve put into effect in the past and continue to do today, I have gotten the attention of more than one industry leader. They all tell me they are impressed with the things I’ve accomplished but since I had only begun at the time I didn’t really put a lot of faith into what they said.

After all, I had little confidence in myself and that translated into not really believing them. However, time and my continued efforts proved them right. By continuing my blogging, article marketing, forum marketing and so on, I generated leads for the networking side of the business but more importantly (in my eyes) I began to generate between 50-100 product sales a month.

And still do to this day, with that number slowly growing over time.

Don’t underestimate the power of what you can do through accumulated effort.

The Butterfly Effect refers to the idea of a butterfly’s wings possibly creating tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in a certain location.

The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations of events. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different.

Of course the butterfly cannot literally cause a tornado.

A short time ago I talked about the importance of Internet Marketing and maintaining your marketing strategy. Today I’d like to cover your validity in any given niche and getting started in it.

Instead of confusing you with more scientific talk I’ll get straight to the point. Like the butterfly, each of the actions you take CAN change the direction of your life, business or relationships.

Big or Small — Just Get Started

One of the biggest problems I had getting started was feeling gun shy when it came to executing some of the internet marketing strategies needed to grow my business. I didn’t know where to start and each of the little tasks didn’t feel like they were adding up to be anything of significance.

The problem with that line of thought is that it was holding me back when doing the little tasks are exactly what I needed to be doing.

The idea that a butterfly can alter weather is a pretty extreme example but each ad, blog post, twitter update and video you create is doing the same thing for your business.

Each one of those items becomes a calling card, leading people to you and that is exactly what you are looking for right?

Don’t Be Intimidated By Tigers

Butterflies are gentle and beautiful creatures, they inspire a kind of fascination for the things of our world–nature to be exact.

We often look at our competitors and decide that we couldn’t possibly do so well as them. So why try? They seem so impressive but you can use this to your advantage.

As a butterfly you have the opportunity to begin small and build your marketing into something which is strong and brings you the traffic and conversions you desire.

Those you perceive to be tigers of marketing have already found their place within your niche. You get to manuveur around them, finding the holes in their marketing, reaching the people they aren’t talking too.

This is the way of the butterfly in markething.

If you feel like your presence OR your efforts are very small you should know they can have lasting effects. Network Marketing is about talking to people and presenting one of two things: Your business opportunity or some products (depending on how they found you).

In a sense, each time you place an ad, evaluate a keyword, or publish a blog post you are flapping your butterfly wings. Deciding not to do any of these things is effectively deciding not to affect change.

You wouldn’t be in network marketing if you didn’t want to make some changes and right now the internet is one of the best places to develop a strategy to generate customers.

Watching television has not been something spend a lot of time doing these days. Honestly, I’d much rather be working on my projects, listening to iTunesU podcasts or reading a good book.

Having said that, I came across some excerpts from a TV sitcom called The Big Bang Theory. In my opinion, sitcoms haven’t had intelligent and good humor in them for many years so I’ve never watched them but this show caught my attention.

Probably because it surrounds a group of highly intelligent young men who happen to be physics geniuses.

Why do I bring this up here?

Because I find the show to be entertaining, for one, but there is an intelligence about the show that tickles my fancy. The clip you watched above (if you haven’t check it out!) illustrates my point. Every word sheldon speaks is true and is the real nature of teleporting.

Its physics, humor and fun all wrapped up into one sitcom.

I’ve discovered that I naturally require things to be of a higher caliber if I’m going to invest my time and money into them. I enjoy the show because it touches on an area of science I find fascinating and it makes me laugh–something I need in order to relax and step away from all the work.

Have you noticed this in your own life?

If you haven’t, perhaps you could start as I did. Actively searching for the people and things you want to surround you. In time this will become natural and they will be drawn to you without so much effort.

Nobody said having all the joy, love, freedom and fun in your life would come easy. The fact is, you need to take action and reach for it.

I’d love to hear what you find interesting. What brings you joy? You never know. We might find things in common.

A few weeks back I received a galley of Mark’s most recent book release The Encore Effect: How to Acheive Remarkable Performance in Anything You Do. My friendship with Mark began when I first reviewed The Fred Factor and since then he has been kind enough to share his work with me before they are released.

With that said, lets have a look at The Encore Effect.

Much of Mark’s insight throughout the book are inline with the things I’ve always discussed here.

Passion. Discipline. Action. Or PDA as he calls them.

Without overcomplicating (as some authors are want to do in their prose about this very subject) Mark gives you straight forward advice for cultivating passion, taking action, and engaging people.

One of my favorite statements in the book is when he points out that you can think good thoughts all day long but nothing will happen unless you take action. This is something that so many people who are introduced to The Secret and the law of attraction tend to miss.

It is my opinion that Mark Sanborn has delivered another remarkable book and as I have with all of his other books, I recommend reading The Encore Effect.

In a lot of ways it can be like a second job. Calling leads, following up with them, training the people who decide to join you … generating your own leads…

You get the idea.

Since the beginning, my favored way of reaching out to people has been to communicate via the web using social media and other platforms to tell people about products and services.

In my first year, while learning the ropes of internet marketing and digging into all the varied areas and means of marketing online I would often hear about the mentors outsourcing most if not all of the work outside of idea generation.

Anyone who has spent time in a network marketing opportunity can attest to the fact that buying and calling leads (and recently the outcropping that you should generate your own quality leads) has been big business.

In a way you might argue that buying leads is a form of outsourcing but I’ve always wondered why mentors in networking didn’t teach their people about outsourcing the work they didn’t like or couldn’t handle to people who can.

In other words, if I’m not good at cold calling why would I suffer the drags of participating in it when I could pay someone to do a quality job and therefore improve my metrics. Not only paying me, but paying for a quality job done.

Why don’t they? Well, mostly because people just don’t consider it a viable option because they figure it will be to expensive. Is it? For some it might be but you can have a great deal of work outsourced for reasonable prices if you do your research.

When Does Outsourcing Become a Good Idea?

How soon can you afford it?

In order to be successful in a network marketing business you need to approach it like a business. Participating in a network marketing opportunity is technically not taking real ownership in a business, you’re leveraging someone elses creation to build a business of your own.

With that in mind, you’ll be doing many of the things I mentioned above and you can’t be expected to do it all alone.

What Should I Outsource? Lead with Your Strengths

The standard rule of thumb is to outsource the work you don’t enjoy or don’t have time enough in your schedule to do yourself. In other words, if you aren’t a catchy writer and don’t particularly enjoy writing a blog. Outsource it.

Hate calling leads. Outsource it.

Can’t create a website yourself but need one? Outsource it.

Focus on the things you enjoy and gradually build your business and the resources you have at your disposal over time. Nobody is saying you have to go creating and outsourcing everything tomorrow. I certainly didn’t build everything in a day. And as the famous saying goes…

Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Outsourcing Resources

Two places you can begin to find qualified individuals and/or companies to do all sorts of jobs for you are as follows. They are also online resources so they are linked to their associated websites. You can begin looking here or do further research on outsourcing as a whole.

Rent A Coder

Elance

[Note: I don't get a penny for recommending either of these services. I mention them because countless people have used them and had great success completing projects with them.]

Whether its to buy a plane ticket, purchase health food or searching for a “How-to” on just about anything and everything (BTW, did you know that ‘How to’ is the most searched for keyword phrase).

Right now we are experiencing a down turn in our economy but online commerce continues to flourish. All of this adds up to exposure, sales and an additional income stream.

If you’ve started a business the one thing you need is customers and without a way to reach people you aren’t going to stay in business very long. Using the power of the internet and social marketing you can get the exposure and the leverage to make a name for yourself as well.

I’ve watched countless people start working on their internet marketing only to let it slide and diminish once they’ve reached an intended goal. Then they wonder why their sales funnel dries up and progress falls away.

To me this is a mistake.

It isn’t about the instant gratification of the sale, its about putting yourself in a postion (using communication channels online) to be known for your services and/or products. There is no faster or inexpensive way to do this than to use the internet and social marketing.

The problem is we feel the weight and the call of so many of these things waiting in the wings to be resolved.

I know I feel this day in and day out.

Someone recently asked me why I wasn’t posting here as much as I once did. The answer? Those other responsibilities. While my networking businesses are growing (especially in product sales to customers) I’ve come to a decision that its time to step it up a notch.

A business plan is in the works and I’ll be writing a book as well as many other things I have planned for the future. These things take time and my attention so I continue to be in this state of flux, working on all of my marketing and my plans for the future.

This blog is apart of those plans and I will continue to share my thoughts and experiences here. In time I’ll be able to outsource some of the particulars such as the SEO and marketing campaigns but for right now, I hold the responsibility.

How do I deal with it? By recognizing that I can only do so much in a day and knowing that it will all come together in time.

After all, I look forward to these times when I can talk with you.

Over the last 10 years or so the idea of putting a smile on your face to inhance your mood has been gaining a lot of ground. However, Charles Darwin and William James (philosopher and psychologist) expressed ideas to the affirmative more than a century ago.

The idea is that by putting a smile on your face you are taking a step to either fortify or change your existing mood. So, in theory, putting a smile on your face is a step towards changing your mood if you are feeling sad.

How does this attract more prospects?

Through charisma and approachability.

Think about it. If you’re writing a blog post, marketing materials or even your over all business plan but you aren’t feeling a flow of positivity, it will show up in your writing. Trust me, people can sense these things, even through text on a computer screen.

Excitement, positiviity and character are difficult to demonstrate when you aren’t feeling up to par.

In general, its also a lot easier to approach someone or have a conversation with them if they aren’t frowning or carrying a cloud over their head all the time. As business owners we are always talking to people face to face about our businesses–networking is our life’s blood.

Don’t want to chase them off with a frown. Try smiling or giving them a big toothy grin.

And finally, many network marketers spend time on the phone cold calling leads. This is not a practice I enjoy, nor do I recommend it to people. It can be brutal but there are a lot of people who are very good at it and enjoy it.

The simple fact is that if you own a business, network marketing or otherwise, you will be spending time on the phone talking with prospects, current customers and associates. It may seem counter intutitive to smile while you are talking on the phone but that smile shines through the receiver.

Putting business aside, smiling is good for your general health. Try smiling more often, especially when you don’t always feel like it. Regardless of the kind of impact smiling has on changing your mood, it can’t hurt to smile more.

Try it.

You might like it. :)