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WordPress to Godaddy — Five Things to Know Ahead of Time

Posted by admin on 14 April 2010, 10:47 am Sticky post

After a long and sometimes painful process of moving SuccessvilleNews from one platform and style to a new, strictly blog information style, there are some things I wish I had known ahead of time.

Here are five things I wish they had told me.

1. Domain name transfer. I had the domain name “SuccessvilleNews.com” hosted at Blinkweb, and they don’t allow you to point it somewhere else. That meant I had to transfer the domain name to another host who could do what I wanted to do with it. What they didn’t tell me was that this process takes a full five days, if everything goes right.

2. When you are in your Godaddy hosting account, it LOOKS like you are in WordPress, but YOU AREN’T. I have had JackBeddall.com with Godaddy from its inception, so I assumed when I was adding and editing posts, I mistakenly thought I was in WordPress. The two look almost exactly alike, but they are two separate places.

That means that if you start your blog on WordPress while you are waiting for the domain name change, and choose a bunch of basic layout stuff, you are wasting your time. The only things that make the migration are posts, comments, categories, and pages. Formatting choices don’t come with you.

3. Permalinks. You have better choices for the permalinks at Godady. The biggest difference is that your links to posts inside the blog will be much shorter if you have your blog hosted.

4. Java script. If you want to put anything containing Java script (like opt-in box, twitter link, etc.), you have to have the hosting. WordPress does not allow any kind of java or embed code, except for a few sites like Youtube. That means that if you start in WordPress, you will have a period of time in Godaddy where the site is live, but you don’t really have some of the things you want there.

5. Style choices. You have a much wider array of choices at WordPress. I set SuccessvilleNews up with a three column format, and Godaddy’s default options don’t include that. That means it’s live, but doesn’t look like you want it to look until you make some drastic changes.

With all that said, it isn’t strictly necessary to have your blog hosted somewhere else. You can use the wordpress hosting. However, when you do, the default URL will be something like “yourblogname.wordpress.com.” You can always point a different URL to it, but that still leaves you with some ungainly long URLs for different pages or posts.

The biggest benefit of Godaddy hosting is the analytics available. I had been shortening all my links with bit.ly, and then posting them so I could count clicks. With the Godaddy statistics, I can see everything from which pages are getting seen, how long people stay on each page, where they are coming from, and about a dozen other things. Necessary stuff, and easily worth the $5 a month or so it costs.

You now know what I didn’t know. Lucky you.


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The Money ISN’T “The List.” The Money is IN The List.

Posted by admin on 7 June 2010, 8:29 am

Somewhere in the first couple days of your Internet marketing career, you will hear or read someone say that “the money is in the list.”

That may or may not make sense immediately, but in a short period of time, you change whatever it is you are doing for activities, and begin building your list. Or, in a lot of businesses aimed at newbies, building “A” list, not “your” list.

It makes sense that if the money is in the list, then the bigger the list, the more money. It makes sense, but it isn’t true, and here’s why.

If all you want is “a list,” you can purchase one of any size. You can join a business that promises to “add everyone who joins beneath you” to your list. There are a number of options available to you that will make you think you have a profitable list, but sorely disappoint you.

It took me almost two years to finally look closely at the original statement. It doesn’t say the money is “the list,” but rather that the money is “IN the list.” I’ve never seen anyone make that distinction before, but I think it’s way more true than we’d like to admit.

To prove my point, answer this question. Which would you rather have, a list of a thousand people who are on the “list” for the same reason you are (to promote a business and not respond to one), or a list of a dozen people who are actively looking for whatever it is you do, and who read and respond to your communications?

Building a clean, responsive list is not the same thing as building a list. It won’t ever be perfect, but it’s what you should shoot for. Numbers for number’s sake aren’t the answer. It’s QUALITY numbers that count. Making that change alone in your list building efforts will show you dramatic effects, and almost immediately.

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When Are You Spread Too Thin?

Posted by admin on 3 June 2010, 8:57 am

Too much going on? Join the club.

Here is a familiar scenario. You decide you want to build an online business. It could be a network marketing business, an affiliate business, or a retail business. You just want to build it online. Need a website. Check. Need a capture page. Check. Need an autoresponder. Check. Write some articles, blogs, posts on forums. Check. Create a social network presence. Check. Tweak everything. Check.

In the beginning, when there are only a few things to do, you concentrate on them and do each task as well as you can. Then, the task list goes from two to five to 12 to 112. Not enough time to get to everything, let alone do everything well. You are now spread too thin.

This article isn’t about managing your time, or getting organized. It’s about knowing WHEN it’s time to do something differently. Here are some warning signs about being spread too thin.

1. You are never caught up. This doesn’t mean caught up as in “I had time to add three more things to do today.” It means caught up as in “I got every meaningful task done today.” When you start to sacrifice the necessary for the optional, you are spread too thin.

2. You selectively choose volume over importance in your task selection. You have a list of twenty things to do. The most important two could take up most of your day, but you can do fifteen of the others in just a few hours. You choose to do the fifteen so your day looks productive, but the most important things have gone ignored. Three days later, you get tired of seeing them, so you drop them from the list without doing them.

3. You never take a break. You are definitely spread too thin if there is never enough time to take a break with your family and friends.

4. You are learning but never mastering. Big paychecks are given to the BEST in every business or market. They aren’t given to people who know something about everything but a lot about nothing. If you are jumping from one thing to another without ever getting really good at something, you are spread too thin.

5. You are always doing one thing but thinking of another. If, when you are doing one task, your mind keeps drifting to all of the other things you should or could be doing, you are spread too thin. If you are so busy you can’t even concentrate on what’s important (the immediate task at hand), your efficiency drops significantly.

How about you? Are you spread too thin? What are some other sure signs?


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A Beginner’s Text Message Advertising Tutorial

Posted by admin on 20 May 2010, 11:05 am

In business, there are only two questions owners ask about anything new: “What is it?” and “What can it do for me?” All other questions are merely to clarify one of those two.

For today’s business owner, the “newest” new is “text message advertising.” So, let’s answer the questions.

What is it?

If you have been out and about at all in the last few years, you have seen nearly every teenager busily pecking away on their cell phone– not talking, but texting. According to CTIA. the wireless industry’s closest thing to a trade group, there are more text messages sent every day than there are people on the planet.

Short Message Service (SMS) has a 160 character limit, which is both good and bad. It can be bad in that you can’t exactly text all the juicy details about something, but it’s good in that it nearly guarantees a read. Estimates range in both read rates and time lapse to read, but they all come in at over 90% read within minutes. Compared to newspaper, email, direct mail, or any other way to get a message out, it’s as close to a guaranteed read as there is.

What can it do for me?

In short, (no pun intended) SMS can increase the number of new customers you have, and increase the repeat business you get from existing customers.

Let’s use a restaurant as an example. You go into the restaurant, and are informed either by something on the table, or by the waiter, that if you text SHORTCODEADS to 69302, you will receive a free drink with your meal. (In this example, “SHORTCODEADS” is a keyword, and “69302″ is a shortcode.) You take out your cell phone, send the text, and a few seconds later receive a text message back that you will receive the free drink by showing the message to the cashier.

Forward two weeks. It’s Thursday morning, and you are wondering what you are going to do for lunch. Your phone beeps, and you see you have a new message. It says, “Between 11 and 1 TODAY, get a free dessert with any entree at Jack’s. Show this message to cashier to redeem.” Decision made.

It doesn’t have to be a restaurant. Retail stores can have a sale exclusively for subscribers. Sports teams sell more tickets with special promotions. Golf courses can promote an early evening special. Youth groups can let everyone know that summer camp fees are due tomorrow. The list is literally endless.

If you see a use for SMS in your business– and if you don’t now, you soon will– there are a few things to know before you start.

1. Be legal. Right now, the SMS field is not plagued by spam the way email is. Estimates now are that over 90% of all emails are either sent straight to spam or are not read. It’s hard to find an email from anyone except a close friend that doesn’t contain some kind of pitch and link in it. In spite of strict anti-spam laws, there are still companies that mine for email addresses and then sell them as legitimate.

If you use SMS to advertise, be sure you get the information legitimately, and always give them a way to stop. Don’t send a message to anyone who has not first sent you a text to get something, and don’t send them anything after they say they’d like to stop.

2. Be informed of your options. Decide what you want your messaging service to do for you. If you are a church that wants to send out a “devotion for the day,” your needs will be entirely different than if you want people to get a message to come into your store when they are close by.

If you are a radio station or some other kind of advertising medium that wants to resell your service, you will want to see how many keywords you can get, and how many subkeywords from each of them. Find out how many response messages you can send, and how many new messages. As with anything else you purchase, it’s better to do your research ahead of time than to wish you had.

If you are a non-profit agency, or even a political candidate who is wanting to receive donations for something, you will want to know if that is possible.

3. Continue with traditional marketing methods. Text message marketing is not yet the be-all and end-all. You will still need to continue with at least some of your traditional methods. Including your keyword and short code in your other advertising will increase your responses. As your text messaging data base grows, your other advertising venues can decline.

4. GIVE. People don’t willingly give out their cell phone numbers to strangers, and if you are going to capture a phone number, you need to make sure they get value for it. “Free” is the operative word.

Campaigns that are exclusive to the texting data base are extremely popular. Before hours and after hours campaigns are getting huge responses. They need to feel like they are getting something special, and not just a text that gives them something everyone else also is getting.

5. Be respectful. (Show restraint). Two to four messages a month will probably be more effective than bombarding them every day or so. Too much, and as soon as they see who the message is from, they delete it.

Also, don’t be cute with your audience. “Was gr8 2 c u” may work when a teen is texting a teen, but not for business. In all of your messages, show respect for your clientele.

The field is wide open. The possibilities are endless. Text message marketing is here to stay, whether you use it for your business or not.

For more information, and a quick demo of how it can work, (including a no obligation, free trial) visit ShortCodeAds

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BIZ Updates Pay Plan in Favor of Reps

Posted by admin on 17 May 2010, 3:59 pm

BIZ Global Media, a leading provider of text message advertising, has upgraded their compensation plan to front end load it.

Previously, the business cost $295 to start, and $149 a month to continue. Representatives earned $900 from filling a 2X3 matrix, which was 14 people.

The new plan pays $500 for a completed 2×2 matrix, (6 people total), and then pays $150 a month for that matrix each month. With downline overrides of $50 per completed matrix for up to five levels, and no limitations on cycles per day, week, or month, representatives have the opportunity to earn a significant income quickly.

They did not change the retail structure of the products, which pay from 40-75% up front commissions, and 40% monthly residual.

Further details can be found at The82222Biz. Click on “opportunity,” and then the “download compensation plan pdf” link on the right

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Random Facts You HAVE to Deal With in Business

Posted by admin on 12 May 2010, 12:08 pm

Here is a series of random facts that you have to deal with in any business you are doing.

–If you are one in a million in China, there are 1,300 just like you.
–Soon, China will be the number one English speaking nation in the world
–The 25% of India’s population with the highest IQs is larger than the population of the US. Translation: India has more honors kids than the US has kids
–The top 10 in demand jobs in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004
–We are currently training kids for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that haven’t been invented, to solve problems we don’t know are problems yet.
–The US Dept of Labor estimates that today’s learner will have 10–14 jobs by the time they are 38.
–1 in 4 workers has been with their current employer less than one year, and 1 in 2 less than 5 years.
–1 of 8 couples married last year met online.
–If Facebook were a country, it would be the 4th largest in the world.
–The #1 ranked country in Broadband Internet connection is Bermuda. The US is 19th.
–There are 37 billion searches on Google every month. In 2006, there were 2.7 billion.
–It took radio 38 yrs to reach an audience of 50 million. TV 13 yrs. Internet 4 yrs. Ipod 3 yrs. FB 2 yrs.
–There are 540k words in the English language. 5x as many as in Shakespeare’s time.
–The NYT contains more information in a week than a person was likely to come across in their life in the 18th century.
–It is estimated that 4 exabytes (4X10^19) will be generated this year. That’s more than the previous 5000 years.
–The amount of technical information is doubling every two years. That means that for a four year student, half of what they learn in year one is outdated by year three.
–NTT Japan has pushed 14T bits/sec down a fiber optic cable. That’s 210 million phone calls per second, or 2660 complete cds.
–About 90% of all emails sent are either sent straight to spam, or are never read.
–More text messages are sent every day than there are people on the planet.
–About 90% of all text messages sent are read within five minutes.

I’d like to hear your comments about any of these statistics.

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