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How to Fix the Unknown address error 554 Message not allowed Error

Friday, October 2nd, 2009 at 6:07 am

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Last week I started having problems sending emails to Yahoo email addresses. This started to become quite annoying and was starting to affect my online business. Whenever I sent an email it would bounce back and I would get the following message sent back:

5.1.0 – Unknown address error 554-’Message not allowed – [320]‘

I scoured the net looking for a solution but everyone kept saying that it was the ISP’s fault and that I should contact them to fix it. The only problem was that I didn’t really think it was my ISP’s problem only because I could send emails perfectly with my laptop. The problem only seemed to be occurring on my desktop PC.

But I emailed the support section of my internet service provider anyway just in case they knew something I didn’t. It wasn’t surprising when they came back and said that they couldn’t see a problem at their end.

So I put up with the problem for another few days and finally got my brother (who knows a lot more about computers than I do) to take a look.

Within a few minutes he had solved the problem and it was so simple. The date on my computer had been changed at some point and was showing a month ahead. This would have meant that any emails that I sent out would have been date stamped a month in the future. Obviously the Yahoo mail system doesn’t like this and so it bounced back my emails.

So problem solved and I am back to sending emails again.

Hopefully this will help anyone with the same problem.

How to Add Nofollow to Affiliate Links in WordPress

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 at 8:10 am

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Some time back we were having trouble with one of our blogs losing its search rankings and we decided that maybe it was because Google didn’t like the number of affiliate links on the site. We had an affiliate link on just about every blog post and some blog posts had more than one.

So we decided that one way of solving this was to add the nofollow tag to each affiliate link. I’m not really sure whether this did the trick or not as a number of other factors came into play at the time to boost our rankings again but even so we continue to add nofollow as normal practice each time we add an affiliate link.

For those who at this point are wondering what the hec nofollow is, take a look at our detailed blog post on this subject – What is dofollow and nofollow?

So how do you go about adding nofollow to an affiliate link?

There are two ways actually. The first is a manual approach and the second automatic…well probably not totally automatic but it is a bit easier than the manual method.

Manual Method

This method is quite simple but does involve you playing around with the code. Now I am going to assume that you have already had a play around with HTML code at some point otherwise you probably wouldn’t know how to add the code for your affiliate links. If you are new to WordPress however you may be wondering just where the code is hidden.

In WordPress it is found under the HTML tab. So when you are typing a blog post look up a little and you will see the HTML tab sitting just above the text box to the right.

Once you click on that tab you will see all the HTML code for the post your are writing. This is where you can insert the code for your affiliate links.

Now that you have found the code you need to add the nofollow tag. Locate your affiliate link code in the html and then insert the nofollow tag which is rel=”nofollow” just after the url. So it will look something like this:

The affiliate code may look a bit different to the above but just look for the http link in the code and pop your nofollow tag just after it.

Automatic Method

This method I like because I don’t have to play around with the code. This involves using a plugin called TinyMCE Advanced. To upload this plugin to your WordPress blog take the following steps:

1. Click on Plugins–>Add New from the left hand side menu bar on your WordPress Dasboard. This may be in a different location depending on the version of WordPress you are using so you may need to look around for it. If you have a really old version of WordPress then you will need to upload the TinyMCE plugin using a program like Filezilla.

2. In the search field type in ‘tinymce’ and click Search Plugins. The TinyMce Advanced plugin will most likely be the first one in the list of results but if not, just take a look down the list until you see it.

3. Once you have find it in the list click the INSTALL link on the right hand side of the screen. This will install and activate the plugin for you.

4. The plugin will now be displayed in your menu on the left hand side of your dashboard. Scroll down and you will find it listed under the Settings option. If you can’t see it then the plugin probably isn’t activiated. If so, click on Plugins—>Installed and you will see the plugin in the list on that page. Simply click the Activate link to activate it.

5. You can go in and configure it if you like as TinyMCE has a lot of cool features but for the sake of what we are trying to achieve here you really don’t need to.

So now that you have installed the plugin you are ready to use it. To do this you simply click on the ADD NEW post link and start creating a post. You then add an affiliate link in your post which will display as a hyperlink – something like this –> Buy an Ipod.

Add Edit Hyperlink Highlight that link with your mouse and then click on the Insert/edit Link icon on your tool bar just above your post.

You should now have a pop-up menu on your screen. Click the ‘Advance’ tab on that pop-up and then the ‘Relationship Page to Target’ drop-down box. You will see ’nofollow’ as one of the options. Just click that and then click Update. The ‘nofollow’ attribute should now be added to your affiliate link.

Releasing Blockages to Making Money Online

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 at 9:44 am

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Money Symbols Not too long ago, I wrote a blog post titled How Do You Really Feel About Money. The reason I wrote it was because at the time I was reading The Science of Getting Rich and from it I had gained a whole new perspective on money and wealth creation in general, and I just felt I had to share it.

What made me write this second post was that the original post got such a large number of visitors from Twitter and I felt a bit more clarification was in order.

I guess its no shock that most people are trying to get more money into their lives. Money is one of those things that most people have very intense feelings about. They can love it with a passion or hate it so intensely that they don’t want anything to do with it.

I am not sure why we have set ourselves up to have a particular belief about money but my feeling is that it all relates to how we were brought up. Now I am not here to blame our parents for anything ….they had their beliefs based on how they were brought up and so did their parents…so no one is to blame here….and in fact, if you are going to start blaming your parents then you probably need to make sure you aren’t doing the same thing with your own children.

Have you ever gone shopping with the kids and listened to how you actually communicate your feelings about money to them? The conversation usually goes something like this..”Mom, mom I want that new Lego toy.”…”No, you can’t have that, it’s too expensive, we can’t afford it.”…or you might say “Well you will have to work hard to save up for it and then you might be able to buy it” or “That’s way too expensive for us” or “Money doesn’t grow on trees”. What happens is that you set your kids up to believe that money is in limited supply and that they have to work hard to get it.

Of course you don’t want to just buy everything in the store just because your kids ask for it, but just be aware how you respond and see whether you are actually setting them up with negative beliefs about money….a simple “No, not today” is a good response to these sorts of demands.

I have studied this topic quite a bit because as I said in my previous post, we were stuck in a situation where the amount of income we were generating from our websites just wasn’t increasing. This was despite the fact that we were working harder and longer hours to do just that.

Now I had read in numerous self improvement type books that you don’t really need to work hard to make money…but since I was brought up to think that working hard makes you money that was a belief I held and it was difficult to get rid of.

At that time I also read Steve Pavlina’s post titled The Power of Now which talks about a very similar situation he was going through. He didn’t speak so much about making money but more about creating a shift in thinking that changed his life.

So even though I didn’t quite believe it at first, I could see that it was starting to ring true for me that I didn’t really need to work as hard as I was to make a successful living online. So what I did was start to take more time to enjoy myself rather than sitting in front of a computer all day.

Bear in mind, however, that I love sitting in front of a computer so this is not necessarily all work to me. In the morning the first thing I do after having a shower is turn on the computer, the first thing I do when I come home is turn on the computer and the last thing I do at night is turn off the computer. The computer is on all day in my house because I love it. Even so, I realized that just about my entire time was devoted to working online and I needed to relax with other things.

This was also an issue with Wanda (my best friend and business partner) who felt guilty anytime we did something other than work on our online business. She is an absolute dynamo when working on our business and can get through a ton of work in a day. For her, taking time out was a difficult concept but slowly she also started to relax a little more and work less on the business.

So did this make a difference to our income?…you bet it did…at this point in time, we are working much less on our internet business than we used to and spending more time relaxing and having fun and yet the money is increasing.

I really feel that the combination of releasing that blockage I had about having to work to make money, not working as hard and reading and applying the concepts in The Science of Getting Rich made a big difference in the amount of income we are now receiving.

So what’s blocking you from making more money?

Just knowing how you feel about money can release the blockage. So sit for a minute and really think about your beliefs about money. When you talk about money what sorts of words come out of your mouth? Here’s some that I can think of:

You need to work hard to make money
I never have enough money
I only ever have enough to pay the bills
I’m living from pay check to pay check
Money doesn’t grow on trees
My parents always argued about money
When we argue it is always about money
Money is only for the rich
Rich people are evil
The rich are hoarding all the money so there’s not enough for the rest of us
I worry that I won’t have enough so I save and don’t spend anything
There’s never enough money to go around
Money is the root of all evil
And one that I really love is “Money doesn’t make you happy” – maybe not, but would you rather be unhappy with a lot of money or unhappy with no money?

If you are trying to make money online some of the words coming out of your mouth might be:

They got in early which is why they are making all the money
It’s too late for me to make any money online – all of the good ideas have been taken
It’s takes a lot of hard work to make money online
It takes years to make a good living online
The only ones that are making money are the ones that tell others how to make money
Making money online is all a scam

Remember that your sub-conscious is an amazing thing and will give you exactly what you ask for. So when all you think about is that you never have enough money then that’s what you will get.

To have an abundance of money requires a change in thinking. To some extent you have to learn to love money. This doesn’t mean that you have to roll around in wads of cash and admire it lovingly all day. It just means appreciating it for what it can give you. It has the ability to give you an amazing feeling of freedom…wouldn’t you love to be able to buy whatever you like whenever you like, to look after your family and friends in times of need, to give money to charity without being stingy, to travel the world at a moments notice without having to save for it first or worrying about whether you can get some time of work?

The paradox is that many people say they hate money but they are constantly moaning about how they never have enough and that they need more. Money will not come to you if you hate it. Money will not come to you if you consistently talk about the lack of it and it will not come to you if you have negative beliefs about it.

You need to change your thinking in order for money to come to you in abundance.

Resources you might like…and all free!

I really recommend reading the Science of Getting Rich – this is a definite must for anyone who wants to change their thinking about money. The Science of Getting Rich is a powerful book written in 1910 so can be a little wordy at times but the concepts are still as current as they were a hundred years ago. Apparently The Secret was based on this little book.

It’s also freely available so you can download it from a variety of sites on the net. Just type into Google “science of getting rich download’ to find it.

You can also sign up for the free Bob Proctor 7 Day Course on The Science of Getting Rich which I thought was very good. He also has a paid version but I haven’t signed up for it so can’t say whether that is worth the money or not. If it is as good as his 7 day course then I would have to say that it is.

There are also free audio versions of the book which you can download here:

Spooky Action – This site has the recordings by chapter which I like as you can just download the chapters you really want to listen to again and again.

Internet Archive – You can download the full version in one file from this site or alternatively you can stream it.

How Do You Really Feel About Money? – The Science of Getting Rich

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 12:19 pm

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I have been on the net for quite some time now – since 1994 to be exact…and during that time I have seen every end of the spectrum when it comes to making money online. I’ve seen some people make massive amounts of money in short periods of time whilst others struggle for months or years without ever making a cent. So what is it that makes one person get all the money while others flounder? Is it a matter of luck, expertise or is it something else?

Since we were at the point where we needed to move to the next level in our affiliate business these were questions I was starting to ask myself. I wondered why we were seemingly ‘stuck’ making the same amount of money even though we were putting more effort into the business.

During that time we attended an internet marketing conference in Sydney where one of the presenters spoke about releasing blockages to making money. He made each of the audience members go through a simple exercise to see how we really felt about money. After the speaker finished, the lady next to me told me how she didn’t realise how she had always unconciously given away money, in one way or another, as soon as she received it. Her reasoning was that as a child, although her parents made sufficient money, whenever they argued it was always about money. Forever more, this woman equated money with something bad and so was always either repelling it or giving it away.

Personally, I have always liked money. For me it is a means of having complete freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want…within reason of course. So if my problem doesn’t relate to not liking money then what is holding me back from moving to the next level of affiliate income? I knew I had to find out.

Fortunately when you start asking questions like this the Universe invariably starts pushing things right under your nose to help you answer them. For me it was finding a free ebook on the net called The Science of Getting Rich. This little gem was written back in 1910 by a man by the name of Wallace D Wattles.

The book details how, if you do things in a Certain Way, you can become wealthy. Apparently it was one of the inspirations for The Secret so if you have seen the movie you will have some understanding how this all works. This book was that good, I literally read through it in one sitting.

After finishing the book my enthusiasm increased dramatically and I was really pumped. I felt like this was they key I was looking for. Interestingly enough, an hour or so after finishing the book I checked my Amazon sales for the day and we had one of the best days ever….was it just coindence or was it the effect of reading the book? Who knows, but I wasn’t complaining.

I immediately emailed the book to Wanda (my business partner) who read it the next day. She also read it in one go and her response was “Wow, that’s pretty powerful stuff!”

So all this happened a few weeks ago and from just reading the book and absorbing the concepts we have already seen our sales increase. It is amazing what a change in thinking can do. I am so enthused about it that I am currently rereading the book and highlighting important bits as I really want to ensure I am doing things in that Certain Way.

This is well worth a read - I highly recommend it! The book is available free on the internet. I downloaded mine here but just have a search in Google and you will see plenty of available downloads.