The Web Woman

This is a presentation I put together with some stills captured from the website of Dr. Stanley Greenfield, an audio testimonial and some title slides with background music. This is not the finished product, but I thought it might be instructive to let you see the progression of how this sort of thing is done.

The final product will be shorter and will use higher quality photos as well as potentially some actual video and will be therefore much more interesting and to the point. I will display further iterations of this product with annotations and the actual final product when it is completed.

Enjoy.

This video is one of many you can expect from now on, on The Web Woman. More info about this will appear in the post attached to this.  For now, I am just getting it up so I can see what it looks like.

Actually, a lot more than you think.

SEO works, but optimizing for search engine rankings is only a part of the puzzle.

Social Networking works, but only when you follow the rules. Facebook, Twitter and MySpace all have their place and, depending on your target market, they can be very successful in sending you traffic.

Blogs and podcasts work, but you need to understand what makes them viral and useful to your target audience.

Even email campaigns and banners work, but you need to know when and how to use them.

What really works is going to depend a lot on how consistently you use it and if you really understand the principles that power it. Personally, I have learned a lot just by puttering and testing different techniques myself. Over the next several months we will be exploring many different internet marketing techniques in several new training programs I am developing.

So, stay tuned, boys and girls. This is about to get really fun and very profitable for us all.

Thank you for your support!

Click On Book Cover

I am excited to be able to give this ebook to all my internet marketing students and friends.  7 Simple Ways to Make Money with Your Website or Blog is a great summary of many different ways of monetizing your blog or podcast without turning off your subscribers.  It includes a ton of great resources including one of the most phenomenal affiliate programs I may have ever seen.

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I found this while doing research on the re-vamping of The Web Woman site. I was looking for some subtle ways to monetize the site in a way that would most benefit my subscribers and visitors and take the least amount of time away from my teaching and helping time.

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If you have ever wondered how to take your blog or podcast to the place where it can generate an income for you, I highly recommend you download this free ebook.

For the last several days I have been working on phase 1 of the update process.  Updating, renovating, and re-purposing can be daunting.

My first step was to create the syllabi for my new internet marketing courses.  I am completely re-designing what was The Cookie Cutter Group to a new Internet Marketing Training Group on Groupsites.com. The new site will be a place for my students to acquire resources and tools, ask questions, interact with other students and post their homework.

I will be teaching these classes live at junior colleges and perhaps for some commercial institutions.  The class will cover a no-nonsense, zero hype course on marketing on the internet.  I will be posting the syllabus for this class on this website in the near future.

In addition to the live classes, I will be taping the classes to produce an online video course with all the resources and tools available in the live class.  In this way I can reach the maximum number of people with my proven marketing methods.

I am looking forward to sharing my progress with my Web Woman fans.

After many distractions and challenges, I have decided to re-activate The Web Woman part of my business.

As a result, this site is getting a makeover as well as my Cookie Cutter Groupsite.  You will see a number of changes including the addition of several new pages, a change in the theme and look of the site and the use of some cool new plugins.

I have pretty much let this site sit and percolate for awhile as I worked on my Yaktivate.com business.  I have come to the realization that it is time to get The Web Woman back into gear and help as many people as I can to de-mystify the process of marketing on the internet.

This will be a combination of video and audio podcasts as well as blog posts.  I hope my regular followers will enjoy the changes and improvements over the next several months.  And…to practice what I preach, I will be adding to the site a bite at a time, so check back often, as you never know what will show up next here.

I think my clients get tired of hearing me say, “The internet is NOT instant pudding.”

I actually have had a client who contacted me with the request I teach a class about how to be a success on the internet in 15 minutes a week.  My response to her was, “If you can find someone to teach that class, get me their email address and sign me up.”

In reconsidering that response, I think I would say that you CAN be a success on the internet with 15 minutes a week, if you don’t care how long it takes.  The problem is that people want success with no effort, investment or risk and they want it now.  To those people I would say, would you like to buy a used unicorn?  About the same idea.

The really big problem with me is the bottom feeders who live off of those who believe that somehow that should be possible.

Of course you have to buy their seriously expensive course, which they have no problem telling you to get a second mortgage on your home to pay for.  There’s almost always a guarantee, but if you don’t succeed, it won’t be their fault.  It will be because you weren’t motivated enough or you didn’t put the right stamp on the envelope, or the planets weren’t in alignment (which was in the fine print somewhere).

Just spend the money in the casino or on lottery tickets.  At least you actually have some chance of winning there.

I just read the most interesting rant.  My ever present mentor, Seth Godin, occasionally introduces me to a new product or concept or person who captures my complete attention.  So, I am reading his blog yesterday and discovered a real gem.

Peter Shankstone works in the same field as Seth and myself.  He is a marketer down to his toes and an entrepreneur.  He has this amazing site, Help a Reporter Out, that I beleive will revolutionize the way marketers publicize themselves.

He also lives the same lifestyle as I do, as any entrepreneur does.  I can’t begin to tell you the number of times people have told me, “Why don’t you just get a REAL job?”  usually with considerable heat in their voice.

So just what is a “real job” anyway?

I raised six children and for the first eight years I was a “stay at home” mom.  Eventually we had a few financial crunches that meant I had to go out into the workplace to supplement our income.  I was always amazed at the number of people who all of a sudden approved of me because I was bringing in a paycheck.

I started earning my own money at 13 as a very in demand babysitter, paid for all my clothes and activities from that point on.  I went into the military at 18 and went on to become a wife and mother.  I had Avon routes, did Tupperware, was introduced to network marketing and even became a professional birthday clown, alway so I could have a personal income, but none of that ever seemed to count.

It wasn’t until I was sitting at a desk in a cubicle that I had any approval.

“Bonnie is doing another one of her schemes.” They would say and shake their head.

So the joke’s on them, because I still don’t work at a desk.  I work in a recliner, I work in a chaise lounge, I work in an airplane seat, I work a trade show or in a restaurant.  I own a desk, but I seldom sit at it.  The beautiful part of this is that I am a partner in an internet marketing company that has team members all over the world and none of them work in a cubicle either.  We don’t track hours in our company, we track results.

So this year I will be traveling all over the US, to Australia, Japan, Costa Rica and Sweden, none of which will be “vacations”, but all of which will be amazing fun.

Oh…so most of your are still wondering about the title of this article.

Goobi stands for “Get out of bed incentive”.  It means having the kind of work that wakes you up in the morning without an alarm clock.  Your eyes pop open to a new day and you think:  “Wow!  I get to do this again today and these people are willing to pay me for it!”

We believe that everyone in our company should feel that way about the work they do with us.  We get the job done, but it doesn’t have to be onerous or unenjoyable.  We want every single person who works with us (not “for” us) to really feel like they have their dream job.  It can be done.

Having said that, nothing comes without some elbow grease.  “The Secret” is really about finding something you are passionate about and committed to and then working it with your heart and soul.  Then the work and sacrifice are worth it and every day is a new adventure.  The bottom line goes up and the satisfaction is worth every minute, every penny, every tear you put into it.

Got Goobi?

Seth Godin wrote a great post today about the role “luck” plays in the success of a business.

Around here we have our own definition of “luck”:

Luck is where preparedness meets opportunity.

If you have gone to the trouble to read, research, practice, rehearse, or “work” on anything.  If you have put in hours of sweat and focus into a project.  If you have gone out and networked your little heart out.  If you have invested your time, heart, effort and hard-earned cash into your project.  If you have done any of these things and more, you are more likely to be “lucky”.

I am constantly amazed at the number of naive innocents out there who still think they can set up a website and be rolling in dough in under 90 days by putting in only a few hours a week.  If it were that easy everyone would be doing it.  Oh…whoops, everyone is doing it!  Unfortunately, very few are making any money.

I can’t tell you the number of clients who have come to me deep in debt, struggling to make ends meet and need to make a living wage on the internet by next week to save their bacon and keep the wolf from the door.  Too bad, so sad…it simply doesn’t work that way. Success on the internet is achieved the same way success anywhere is achieved, you have to pay for it.

You pay for internet marketing success by doing all the right things.  You work on creating blogs, podcasts, forums, communities to create real relationships with your readers, listeners, tribes.  You publish articles related to your “long tail” niche.  You participate in discussions all over the net about your passions.  You go out of your way to help other people who can use your help.  You create a position of strength by joining with others with a similar passion for your cause.  You share credit and relationships with others in your field.  Creating a website isn’t even a first step.

Actually, you can make major inroads on the internet without ever owning a classic website.  I know people making serious money by having a series of “lenses” on Squidoo and simply linking to affiliate sites. But like anything else it takes work.

I think it was Edison who said, “Most people don’t recognize Opportunity when it comes knocking because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

Nothing is free and everyone is as lucky as they deserve to be.