I just noticed that Google has given us a little New Year surprise with the update of their pagerank. We have done quite well out of it with a good majority of our blogs moving up in the ranks. This blog went from a 1 to a 2…can’t really expect much more than that since I am still yet to promote it in a big way.

Some of the blogs we haven’t been working on at all have gone up to pageranks of 3 and 4….go figure! And most of the ones we are working on remained static. I don’t get it anymore and have given up trying. Pagerank really doesn’t reflect a websites worth like it once did. It really is more of a gauge to get a basic idea of how a website is going…but it’s still a bit of fun to see the changes.

So how did you go with the pagerank update?

Want to know where we learn to make money online? Head on over to Wealthy Affiliate University for all the latest info.

I am a bit of a self improvement fan – I read as much as I can about it and listen to CD’s on all sorts of subjects from living in the now to the law of attraction, setting goals, positive thinking and everything in between. One of my favorites in this arena is Tony Robbins. Most of you I am sure have heard of him but if you haven’t Tony Robbins is a leader in personal development with numerous books and CDs to his name.

Just before starting this blog post I was listening to a disk from his Personal Power program where Tony talks about the Ultimate Success Formula. He also devotes a whole section of his book – Unlimited Power, to this formula for those of you who may be interested in reading about it in more detail.

As I was listening to it, I figured that this could be applied to blogging just as easily as it applies to other aspects of life. It is a simple process and really we all know it deep down inside but most of us fail to implement it. But since we are just about to hit another new year and I am sure we are all keen and eager to make some worthwhile resolutions, I figure now was the time to get us all in the right frame of mind to make this year a success. And if you have already reached a level of ’success’ then hopefully this will help to make it even more successful than the last.

What is the Ultimate Success Formula?

The Ultimate Success Formula is made up of 4 steps:

1. Know Your Outcome

This step basically means getting clear about what you want. So setting goals is extremely important here. And believe me, I have seen the power of writing down your goals. Wanda and I use butchers paper when we are planning anything to do with our business. The other day I looked back on some of the old pages and noticed a goal we had set to make $12,000 from Amazon for just one of our websites in November 2009. We had written this some months before when at the time this sort of goal was way out of our league. I remember that Wanda suggested we put down that amount – but I was thinking of something a little more conservative and felt a small knot in my stomach when she mentioned it. But I thought what the hec, let’s just put it down on paper. Well, as any of you who have read our blog post on how much we actually made in that month you will know that we beat that figure and some.

So don’t put off writing down your blogging goals for the year and be bold with it. The best types of goals are those that are a good way beyond what you really think you can accomplish.  So if $100 a day is your goal then triple it and make your goal $300 a day. You want that goal to create a knot in your stomach like the $12,ooo goal did for me.

But just writing down your goals isn’t enough. Tony recommends ‘knowing your outcome’ in everyday situations as well. So for instance, if you have an important meeting you need to attend then decide beforehand what you want to happen. Tony suggests engaging all your senses to describe the results you want. As Tony says, this ‘enpowers your brain to create your desire’. This is something I haven’t tried before but I am going to make it my mission this week to try this out in different situations.

2. Get Yourself to Take Action

I must admit that I have difficulty in taking action. It’s not one of my strong points. Fortunately however Wanda is an action person so although I might have the ideas, she is definitely the one that gets things going with our online business. Ideas are useless without some action behind them. But even so, I have made it a goal just recently to take action more often and you know, it’s working. And the reason it’s working is because of something Tony Robbin mentioned in one of his CD’s. What he said was, the difference between those who succeed and those who don’t is that those who succeed take action. This just stuck in my head. I mean just think about it…those who suceed are those who take action…it’s such a simple concept but it is so powerful.

So if you want to get your blog to the level you desire then you need to take action and more specifically, ‘consistent action’. You need to regularly add content, you need to regularly leave blog comments and network, you need to regularly write product reviews and so on. Consistent action is the key to success with anything.

3. Notice What Is Working and What Isn’t

This is where you need to step back and see if what you are doing is getting you closer to your goals. This might mean assessing your progress on a daily, weekly or monthly basis depending on the goal you are trying to achieve.

For instance, if you have a traffic plan for your blog that involves leaving 5 blog comments a day and tweeting 10 times a day then at the end of the month you should stop and see which has resulted in the most traffic. In this way, you can see what is working and whether it is worth continuing the process. If the comments worked well then it would be worthwhile increasing it to 10 comments.

4. If You Aren’t Reaching Your Goal Then Keep Trying Until You Do

What this means is that you keep trying until you succeed. It’s like the baby analogy…if a baby gave up after it’s firt attempt to walk then it would never walk. This is the same with you and your online business. You can choose to give up after the first attempt or the second or even the third…or instead you can keep trying until you do succeed.

We literally could have given up hundreds of times but funnily enough, it never even occurred to us to do so. We got depressed and disappointed many a time and often wondered whether it was even possible to make a decent income online. I even remember us deciding that the only people who made money online were those who taught other people how to make money online.  So yes, we could have given up again and again but we never did. For some reason, in the back of our heads we just knew that we had to keep going and we would make it in the end.

So if something isn’t working for you, then change the way you are doing it. There is no point doing the same thing over and over if you aren’t getting results. Focus on what is working for you rather than what isn’t and put all your efforts into it.

Modelling

Tony Robbins finishes up by saying that there is a way of speeding up this entire process and that is through the process of ‘modelling’.  in other words, finding someone who is already a success at what you want to do and modelling off them.

This is something we have consistently done in the past even when we didn’t have much money to invest. We saw it as a way of speeding up the process so we have been students of James Martell, Yaro Starak, Kyle and Carson from Wealthy Affiliate and various other gurus through their ebooks and guides. If we only get one really good piece of advice from each of them then we feel it is worth it.

Just a quick heads up to let you all know ab0ut the Best of the Best Famous Bloggers contest. This contest is being run by Hesham who runs the Famous Bloggers Club.

The prizes are fantastic including cash, site reviews, Wordpress themes, advertising space, professional logo design, sponsored tweets, promotion for your blog and much more. All the prizes are extremely useful for any blogger.

To enter you need to submit one or more articles to the Famous Bloggers Club. If your article is considered the most popular based on the number of tweets, Blog Engage votes and comments then you could win a great prize.

To read more click the link…. Famous Bloggers Contest

Since our recent blog post detailing our November income from Amazon, we have had a number of requests from people asking us to provide more detail on what we did to actually achieve that amount of money.  So I started to write up a blog post for it last week but it turned into a bit of an epic….I am at over 3000 words so far and I haven’t even scratched the surface.

So we’ve come to the conclusion that it really needs to be put into an ebook. However, we realise that many of you would rather not wait around while we do that and would prefer to get into it and start making money with Amazon as soon as possible. So we have put together this blog post to tell you how we structure our reviews for maximum conversions to help you achieve the same success.

Value First…Money Second

Now many of you who are regulars to this blog will know that I do tend to go on about providing value to your readers. With product reviews it is even more important. If you want to convert your visitors into sales you need to provide as much information as possible to help them make an informed decision as to whether the product you are promoting is the right one for them.

People want to be told what to buy and most don’t want to do the research themselves so they love it when they see a page of content that concisely puts together everything they need to know about that product.

So here are the steps we use for creating quality product reviews that convert. Bear in mind, that at this point we assume you already have a product in mind for review.

Step 1: List the features of the product

The first thing we do with any product we review is to list the features and functions of the product. So say for instance we are going to review the iPod Touch (my favorite toy at the moment) – these would be at least some of the features/functions:

• on/off button
• sound control button
• earphones
• colors available
• technical specifications
• password protection
• battery life
• apps store
• watching videos
• using the internet
• touch screen control
• using email
• itunes
• listening to music
• clock/alarm function
• settings
• Google maps
• calendar function
• contacts function
• notes function
• photos

Try to be as detailed as possible when you are writing up the list, even if it seems trivial. Remember that when buying online, a person can’t physically hold the product so detail is important.

Step 2: Add Content

Now take each of the features/functions in your list, create a heading for each and write a paragraph or two about it. This is where your research comes into play. Remember that you don’t need to own the product to write a good review (although it helps) but you really need to research, research, research. This means scouring the net to see what other people have to say about each of those features. The best place for this is Amazon and in particular the reviews left by real people who actually use the product.

It can also mean contacting the manufacturer for more detailed information.

At this point, you may be thinking that this is all going to take time and just seems a little like hard work….BUT, just remember that you only have to write the review once and it could potentially make you money for years to come.

When writing this sort of content you don’t want to just rehash the features and benefits that can be found on any website. You really want to get into as much detail as possible.

The trick with writing these reviews is not to write it like you are trying to sell something. To start with we wrote a lot of reviews like this and they were really not that effective. Instead we find the best way is to write the review as if  you were telling a friend about the product.

Step 3: Add Your Introduction

The goal here is to get your readers to read your entire review and the introduction is critical to that success. You could start your review off by saying “Today I am going to review the iPod Touch…but that’s kind of boring. Instead try using a real life story.

For instance I might write something like: ” When Wanda and I were in the US attending a conference, we happened upon the Apple Store in New York. If you’ve ever been there you’ll know what an experience that is, but we happened to be there the day after the iPhone was released to the world, actually we were on a hop on hop off tourist bus and when the guide pointed out the iPod store – we hopped off.”

I would then go on to say how great I thought the iPhone was but since I didn’t want to buy into a phone plan I waited and eventually ended up buying an iPod Touch instead. That would then lead me straight into the review.

You’d have to agree that it sounds a little more interesting than simply saying “Today we are going to review the iPod Touch”.

Step 4: Add Your Affiliate Links

The final step is to add affiliate links. This simply means finding about three or four spots in your review to add a link. We generally add the first link in the second or third paragraph of our content. So for our iPod Touch review we might add an Amazon link when the phrase ‘iPod Touch’ first appears in the second paragraph.

The second link may appear somewhere around the middle and the third right at the end of the review. This final link would be part of a sentence that tells the reader where they can purchase the product. You can do this in a couple of ways:

1. Provide a list of merchants who sell the product so that the reader can do their own price comparison. Note that you wouldn’t actually add the prices here as they can change and you would be forever updating the page – just list the merchant names and a link to each.
2. Provide one link to one merchant – we always use Amazon as they generally have the best prices.

Although we do use both options, we tend to go with the second option more often as Amazon convert extremely well for us.

Some final tips…

• Although you want to be completely honest with your review, you don’t want to focus too heavily on the negatives….after all, your goal is to make sales. To avoid this, try and choose products that get excellent ratings so you don’t have to worry about the negatives.
• Don’t ever make things up. In other words, don’t say the product is good when it clearly isn’t. Your goal is to get your readers to trust your opinion. And don’t say you have the product if you don’t. Your readers will pick up on this sort of thing and you will lose their trust.

And finally…

One thing to remember is that a majority of the reviews on the net are of poor quality and lack the detail that most people look for in a good review. Just try and add as much value as you can to your reviews and you will be streets ahead of the rest of them.

I’ve been waiting what seems like forever for a Google invite and finally got one a couple of weeks ago. But you know what?…its only this week that I finally got around to logging in and checking it out properly. Pretty bad I know since there are thousands still dying to get in and try out Google Wave.

I’ve only had a quick play but have already integrated the ability to tweet from my Google Wave account and now I am trying to see how it integrates with Wordpress. I have downloaded a Wordpress plugin called Wavr which allows you to imbed Waves into a blog post.

So to see if this works and also how it works, I have created a Wave in Google Wave and imbedded it below. If nothing shows up then I obviously didn’t do it right but if it does I will be adding to the Wave to as it is supposed to automatically add each addition of content to this blog post. So let’s see…I am going to Publish this post right now…I’m excited!

Update: Well I can’t seem to get it working just yet. As you can see below there is a Page Not Found window. Too late for me to play around with it now so I will see if I can get it working tomorrow.

Another Update: Seems to work in Firefox but I can’t see it in Internet Explorer…and what’s with the green background.?

Latest Update: I’ve decided to remove the plugin because it really isn’t working consistently. Instead I have put in a screen print below of how it looks in Firefox.

Okay, that’s get it clear from the start….I am in love with Windows 7….no, really I am….and to be quite honest I wouldn’t have thought that I would ever hear myself say those words ever about a Microsoft product, but there you go.

But I guess after Windows Vista anything has gotta be good so maybe my judgment is clouded just a little. Even so I didn’t have that same initial reaction when I first used Windows 7 that I did with Vista. For Vista, I sat cursing for the first couple of hours as I removed all the bells and whistles and most of the security features…only then did it finally became usable.

With Windows 7 on the other hand, I was immediately taken aback at how basic it all is.

When I hit the desktop for the first time there were a couple of icons on the screen and nothing else – no clocks, or menus or anything else to slow the start-up of the system. Even so, when I first started using it, I was still slightly suspicious about it all – I mean who wouldn’t be….this is Microsoft we’re talking about. But the more I played around with it, the more I realised how good this operating system really is.

As a blogger, sitting at my computer is pretty much a full-time occupation so having the best tools at my disposal is a must.

Both Vista and XP were developed without really thinking of the user and when they WERE actually thinking of the user they were thinking of EVERY user so that the system was bloated with all sorts of features that really weren’t necessary.

Windows 7 is simple and to the point. It’s what you need to get the job done and that’s exactly what I need.

What I Like about Windows 7

• There are less clicks to get things done on Windows 7. For instance the Show Desktop button is now to the far right on the task bar. And I absolutely love the Shutdown button. You know what happens when you click it?….it shuts down! Amazing huh?! It doesn’t ask me if I am sure I want to shut down….it just shuts down. And there is only one click to actually get to that button unlike Vista which takes me three clicks to get to it.
• Split Screen – sure you can split screens with Vista and XP but Windows 7 does it so much easier. Simply drag one browser window to the far right and another window to the far left – it will automatically split them. Or you can use the Windows key and press the left and right arrow keys. Or even better, right click on the Taskbar and select ‘Show Windows Side by Side. I like the split screen option – I can be a little more productive in a lot of my tasks using split screen.
• The pin option makes things a lot easier too. If you want to add something to the taskbar for instance, just right click on the program and click Pin to Taskbar.
• Windows Explorer is also arranged a little more neatly.

Despite the fact that I really like Windows 7, it does have its flaws. For instance for some reason it doesn’t come with an email program – you have to download it. Not a huge issue but for people with slow connections and limited downloads, they may find this annoying.

Also the taskbar is not as straight forward as it once was. For instance, say I have Firefox open but I want to open up a new instance of Firefox. I can’t just click the Firefox icon on the taskbar to do that as all it will do is open the same window. The only way I can open a new window is to right click on the icon and click ‘Firefox’ in the pop-up menu.

But despite these couple of negatives I am finding Windows 7 a joy to work with. It just sits there in the background while I work unlike Vista which would intrude on everything I did.

This is what an operating system should be like and I love it.