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I’m so excited to have a friend of mine take the time to make a great video for my blog. His name is Wayne Sharer, and he’s done a great job of explaining the basics of keyword research, and I know that if you’re just starting out and aren’t sure of the process… Wayne will clear things up for you, so pay attention!

Learn something? Well… I hope you have and that you’ll visit Wayne at http://YourTrafficStarterBlog.com. He’s got some great traffic videos for you there, and I know they’ll be helpful, especially if you’re just starting out.

I’ll be back atcha with another post on Wednesday. I’m actually on my way to New York City today. You see, Overcome Everything is nominated as one of the fastest growing companies in the country for the American Business Awards. I’m really excited because I was lucky enough to get to write the entry that landed us the nomination.

So, Tellman is taking a bunch of us to the dinner and the ceremony. Pretty cool. Wish us luck! That would be one of the coolest things that’s ever happened and it wouldn’t be too bad for business, either. Ha!

We have a premium level of The ListBuilding Club called “ListBuilding 411,” where members can ask a question each day and one of the Overcome Everything team answers it on video within 24 hours. It’s an awesome service, and I wish it had been available when I was learning. It could have shaved years off my learning curve.

Anyway, today, one of our clients asked how he could get 4 spreadsheets with multiple pages online so that he could collaborate with others. I was amazed that he’d never heard of Google Docs! And then, I’m thinking… Wait.  People know how to search with Google, but most folks don’t really get the power of Google!

Google Docs is a great way to store information online. It not only gives you the ability to get to it anytime you need to as long as you have an Internet connection, it gives you the ability to share with other folks and to keep it all private. Google Docs is great!

Of course, it’s not without limitations and irritations. Like sometimes, it won’t let you paste stuff in where you want it to go, or you can’t export or well… it’s just NOT as adaptable as MS Office applications, but it’s still worth the effort to get in there and try it. Why not? It’s free.

Google has given us a whole bunch of stuff that’s free and very helpful.

Google Calendar can help you plan your schedule.

Google Maps is more accurate than MapQuest, in my opinion, and with Google Earth, we can see our own street or what’s going on in London at 2 a..m. Why not?

Whatever would we do without GMail, and Picasa? Email and photos are all that some people do online, right?

Lest we forget, there’s Google Video and Shopping and blogs at Blogger.  And now, they’re even putting books online for us! There’s Google Alerts, so we can see what people are saying about any topic, Google Translate, and Google for our mobile phones.

But did you know that you can also create 3-D images at Google Sketchup, create your own keyboard shortcuts, let you see You Tube videos or Picassa images right in your Gmail messages, and a whole lot more through Google Labs.

Google is getting to be a very powerful resource (as though it wasn’t powerful enough already). Try some of the “hidden” perks of Google, and you might find a whole new world of stuff to help you or waste your time and not have to pay a single dime. Amazing.

Thanks to Brian Edmondson, who makes all the videos for Overcome Everything’s ListBuilding Club, I found a new flash player for my EasyBlogTricks.com blog. I need to do an overhaul there because of the changes to WordPress 2.7, but haven’t had the time. Still, this new player will really make things easier for me. I’ve had lots of trouble keeping the videos (especially the video on the front door) working.

I think I have a solution!

The site is LongTail Video at: http://www.longtailvideo.com/

There are complete installation instructions, and you can download the player free, as long as you’re not using it for commercial gain. Since EasyBlogTricks.com is just an information site, I can use it with the non-commercial license. But if it works as well as I think it will, I’ll definitely buy a commercial license for only 39 Euros, which translates to about $50. You may think that’s a lot for a video player, but this one is very customizable. It rocks!

There are plugins for things like:

• Running rolling ads in the player. Stick one into your blog’s sidebar.
• WordTube converts your site to a “YouTube” type environment in a WordPress blog. Neat.
• Viral allows you to have a share function and will allow viewers to see other videos you have created

There are different skins you can choose from, as well, from simple to insane.

The add-ons are quite interesting, too. Here’s one made just for my specific purpose:

“The Simple Flash Video Plugin builds on the plugins that already allow easy posting of .flv or .mp4 files on the popular Wordpress platform. It also enables advanced stats tracking of your viewership via Simple Stats.”

Sweet! Tracking stats and a cool player, too!

If you’re into video, and you should be, this is a site you should definitely check out. I’m learning more about video and all the cool things you can do with it every day, and it’s becoming the medium of choice online. Think of these things:

• People are used to watching TV. It’s only natural that since the speed of our connections continues to improve that video will become more and more popular with the Internet audience. Just look at YouTube and how fast it’s grown over the past 3 years.
• Creating video is often easier than writing. Many people hate to write, and video is a perfect solution. Video products will become the norm, rather than the exception.
• Video is fun to create and to edit. Making short films and editing them to show to an audience is getter easier and more fun to do all the time.

So, it’s time you jumped into video. If you’re already there, trust me… you need to check out LongTail and their very cool product.

We’ve done it again. Well, Tellman has done it again actually, and I’m pretty excited by this new coaching program we have going — ListBuilding 411.

How’s it work?

Members are able to ask one question per day, either in writing or on video, and a member of the Overcome Everything staff responds to each question with a video answer. It’s actually an upgrade to The ListBuilding Club, so that’s also included in the price, which is really sweet.

So far, we’ve been getting rave reviews for 411. It’s really cool to be able to help all these people, too. I’m managing the program, so I see all the questions that come in and am able to assign answering to the people that make the most sense.  With 14 of us with varying levels of expertise on every topic from copywriting to tech, there’s nothing we can’t handle.

I’ve found a couple of drawbacks from a customer standpoint. Some aren’t able to get their question posed clearly enough to be understood on video or we don’t get what they’re trying to say. So, we have to go back to them and get additional information, which delays their answer, or we try to answer the question, but it’s not the answer they wanted. But everyone in the program is very nice and we love working with them. Everyone gets their issues aired and fixed in a very short time.

If you’re working in a vacuum and don’t have anyone to talk to about this Internet marketing stuff (which only we IMers understand, right?), it has to be cool to know that there are people ready and able to help. Wish I’d had that support when I was first starting out. If you’re like me, you struggle to find the right stuff to concentrate on and you spin your wheels a lot. Getting someone who knows what to do and how to help you get things going in the right direction fast has to be relieving.

Anyway, if you’re one of those folks, I’m not selling here, just writing about a cool service. Nobody else is doing this! You can check it out at http://ListBuildingClub.com/411

I just wish I’d had the LBC 5 years ago when I started this incredible journey.

People are always asking me about my books, and since I have to come up with a video for the Overcome Everything channel each week, I decided to show folks my prior life. I did a lot of bleeding from the soul for these. You’d think that an accomplished author would be wealthy and famous…

Not

So, I came online to help sell these books, and now, look at me. Raving SEO, Internet marketing afficionado, and making more money than I ever have in my life. If I can come from an academic background (more or less, I was a banker for 20 years before writing) and be successful at this Internet marketing biz, you can, too.

‘Course, I wouldn’t have done it without Tellman. He was my mentor, which made all the difference. The cool thing is that you can have Tellman as your mentor, too. Just go over and Join The ListBuilding Club. It will set you straight down the path to IM success… I kid you not.

Anyway, check out this video and let me know what you think…

One question that I’m often asked by my customers is, “How do I find stuff to post to my blog?”

Seems really tough to some folks. I get that. I really do.

I have always had a love/hate relationship with writing. I’m a professional writer, so the words just flow out of my fingers, more or less, but even for me, it’s sometimes hard coming up with what to write on my own. In fact, I rarely use my own brain to come up with topics, in case you haven’t noticed.

At the end of my work day for Overcome Everything, it’s time for blogging, which I try to do Monday through Friday. Sometimes, that doesn’t happen. This week, I spent most of my life on the telephone between the re-launch of The ListBuilding Club and the “Listathon” which we did Wednesday and Thursday. Ahhhh!!! It’s so much fun, but at the end of a day like those, you’re just exhausted.

So, I don’t rely on my own brain, which is very tired by the end of one of THOSE days.

First, I go into my email. I get newsletters from Site Pro News, Media Post and several other sites about search and Internet marketing, plus Jack Humphrey’s Friday Traffic Report. I can usually find something interesting in one of those that will give me an idea for blogging. I read articles on the SEO sites and such, too, so it’s easy to bounce off one piece or another.

Or, I can go to You Tube and find a video to post, or I post a video of my own.

I can go into my member calls from Blogging4Boomers and select a bit of audio to publish.

It’s totally easy for me to find stuff to blog, and it can be easy for you, too. Learn something you didn’t know before. Catch up on the news in your niche. Make a video or find one on one of the video sites, or interview someone — an expert — and post that interview to your blog.

There are so many ways to blog, it really boggles the mind.

So, have you gotten IT yet?

We have been selling this program for $3,995… I kid you not.

And now, Tellman has lost it.

Totally gone bonkers.

But, he’s a pretty nice guy and decided that he wanted to do something cool for people. So, he’s just giving this whole Perpetual Marketing Machine program…

AWAY!

I still can’t believe it.

It’s not going to last much longer, though, so if you want THE definitive guide on how to make money and build a humongous list for nada, it’s time to visit http://easyseotricks.com/13th

I did this earlier this year, and it’s increased the size of my list dramatically, plus I’ve tripled my income.

What’s to lose? Get over there and grab it before it’s too late.

Yep, so Tellman’s gone nuts again and is giving stuff away like crazy.

Have you seen the Secret Stocking yet? Even I don’t know what’s inside entirely, but it’s good. I’m 100% sure of that.

But even if there were NOTHING inside, you’re still getting the Ultra Marketing Marathon, a $97 product as a bonus! That’s an awesome product in and of itself.

If you want to get in on this, you’d better hurry: http://easyseotricks.com/secret The price goes up every time someone buys and last I looked it was at $19.42… UNDER $20!

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a few days off around the holidays and I plan to use it to make me smarter. This is a perfect opportunity for you to curl up with your iPod or laptop and just make your brain bigger.

Knowledge is power!

So, today is Monday, and as with every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc., I’m working like crazy. I totally love what I do, but our company is growing and there are tons of interesting things coming up.

Today, Tellman launched “The Tellman Show” on video, for example. (You can see it at http://www.viddler.com/explore/Tellman/videos/10/ )

He’s just incredible and has more ideas and energy than any person I’ve ever met before. I love being part of his company–Overcome Everything, where I have the awesome job of being Content Manager.

To be honest, I’ve never worked with a group of people that I respected and cared for so much. It’s very cool, and after two years, I wouldn’t trade what I do at OE for any other job.

So, here’s the thing…

I’m to the point where I need people, so I’m gathering a team.

• I need a videographer who can make Camtasias and work with Sony Vegas, for example.
• I need writers… People who can write articles, special reports, or whatever else that’s not copy.
• I need graphics savvy people who can dress up a report or physical product.
• I need people who are comfortable with fulfillment and getting all that together.

Might YOU fit the bill?

Are you looking for some extra income, albeit sporadic? This isn’t like a job, it’s like extra help when the time presents itself, like when we’re doing two launches simultaneously, or rushing to get the latest newsletter down the pipeline. I need people for when the work just gets too heavy for me & Brian to handle. Brian Edmondson does an awesome job of creating videos, but he’s only one guy, too.

So, here’s what I’d like you to do:

Post your resume online. Then, come to the blog here and post a comment, letting me know where it is. I’ll happily check it out, and if I can utilize your incredible skills, I’ll contact you. Please remember to add your email address to your CV (resume).

And… Here’s a trick so you don’t get spammed…

Make your email address an image. Use screen capture software to take a picture of your email address and make the picture clickable. The spammy robots will never know.

Anyway, if you’re interested and have the skills, let me know! I need someone who knows English very well and is pretty well versed in Internet Marketing, too. So, keep that in mind. Not every project will be about that, but when the project requires IM knowledge, it’s important that you know what we need.

Looking forward to working with some of you! It’s always a blast!

In my travels, I’ve become involved with tons and tons of video. I mean, we use video in The ListBuilding Club. I use video in my own site, Blogging4Boomers.com and with various other projects. I really enjoy it and we just bought a Mino Flip Cam. It totally rocks! It’s so simple that anyone can use it. Point and make a video.

Where I find issue is with distribution. I mean I like Tube Mogul a lot. It’s a free distribution service, but it only sends out videos, no podcasts, and no social bookmarks, either. But it has better stats than other services.

We’ve been using Traffic Geyser and when I say “we” I mean, me personally and Overcome Everything. We use it for all of the videos we send out (and that’s a LOT of videos). It’s a great way to submit not just the video but the podcast, a blog entry, and the social bookmarking is included. It’s $97 a month, but you can get a $1 trial.

However, I’m finding that some of my descriptions aren’t getting through, so no option is perfect.

But…

My friend, Cyndi Parker, has just opened a site called Easy Push Button Traffic. It’s the same price as Traffic Geyser, and it not only distributes video and podcasts, it also distributes articles and press releases. How cool is that?

If the software works as well as the affiliate manager does, it’s sweet! It’s probably the best affiliate area I’ve seen. Lots of tools, all well organized, and I know Cyndi. She’s a very cool lady.

Anyway, it’s an alternative to Traffic Geyser, which I also enjoy. I encourage you to check them both out and see which one is right for you.

I love the first Tuesday of the month. That’s when Kyle Battis, Brian Edmondson, and I do the monthly “Marathon” calls. We call them that because they last for three hours! During them, we answer questions about the content for the month in the ListBuilding Club and Internet marketing questions in general.

Why do I love it?

I just love helping folks who are new to this business. If I’d had The ListBuilding Club 5 years ago when I started with Internet Marketing, I’d be so much further ahead than I am now. And the ability to ask experts questions about what I was doing would have been invaluable.

The people on the calls are generally stuck with something. Either they need to focus on a niche, they have a technical issue that is easily solved by someone who’s been around a while, or they need explanations of the who, what, when, where, and why. I totally love being able to part the clouds for them. Some of the simplest things can be so danged frustrating when you start!

That’s what makes the ListBuilding Club so awesome. You can have a business up and running in a very short period of time, if you just watch the videos and take action! That’s the thing most people leave out. They watch and go, “Yeah! I should do that,” but they never do.  What’s cool about the members of the ListBuilding Club is that most of them take the time to DO, and they’re finding varied levels of success.

It’s awesome!

And I have to say that Brian Edmondson is awesome with video. His instruction is simple, but not simplistic. He’s straght-forward and has a good camera presence so that people warm up to him instantly. He makes the learning painless.

I could go on and on, but it’s because I’m kind of high right now. No, not THAT kind of high… The kind that makes feel good about helping people.

Love it!

Wow… Where do the days go? It seems like I’ve been back to work for a month, and it’s only been five days.

Not that I don’t love every minute of what I do because it is tons of fun, but the weekends are even more fun because I get to do and investigate stuff of my own.

This weekend, I have to prepare for a call I’m doing for Erik Stafford. That will be fun. We really had a blast on the call he did for me this week. So, I’m looking forward to that. If you want to hear the replay of Erik’s call with me, just go to http://easyseotricks.com/Erik . I’ll post information about the call I’m doing for him here ASAP.

We also had a product launch at Overcome Everything this week, and unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you know it’s Whack the Recession.  You can check that out at http://easyseotricks.com/whack Great product! Smart advice and from Tellman, Harris, and Shawn. (Who didn’t know that?) I had to get transcripts made last weekend for it, so I can tell you it’s A-#1, the Duke. If you’re struggling to make money online, you really need to check it out.

I remember what struggling was like. I thought I’d NEVER make a dime because I just kept trying and trying and nothing was happening. Then, I met Tellman and my life is very, very different from what it was like two years ago.

I remember last year at this time, too. I was doing some consulting for Overcome Everything and ran into a cool guy named Don Griffiths. I’m doing a deal with him next week, so keep your eyes peeled for that. He’s a smart guy and he’s made tons and tons of progress since last year. Why? Because he took ACTION and now his list is exploding!

That’s the word, you know–A-C-T-I-O-N.

If you buy a bunch of stuff and don’t read it, listen to it, or watch it, or if you do and just don’t do anything about it, what’s your deal? I mean, are you going to be successful at this?

Hell, no. You’ll never be successful at anything. You can’t win if you’re not even in the game!

Take action to make it happen. If you want some periodic ass kicking, then just sign up for my list.   I totally want to work with you.

So, I’m off! Get your stuff in gear and you’ll come to see how much fun it is to make money in your jammies.

I love it! You will, too.

So… This morning I wake up. It’s my birthday! And so, I’m like, happy about it, but not like a kid, you know? When you’ve had as many birthdays as I have, it just seems like another day.

I call in to the manager’s meeting that we have every morning at Overcome Everything, and I’m waiting to tell Tellman what’s on our team’s plate for the day.

Then, my husband pokes his head in to say, “There’s a police officer here to talk to you.”

I’m like, “What about?” He just shrugs and looks worried. Here, I’m thinking it’s donation time again.

So, I walk into the living room, and there’s a guy in his mid- to late thirties, probably, in a uniform. He says, “Are you the owner of a 2008 black CTS with the license number XXX-XXX?”

“Yes. What’s this about? Would you like to sit down?” I ask him.

“No, that’s OK… I was up late last night and I should just keep standing.” Now, I can smell the alcohol on his breath, and I’m thinking, Wow! He’s probably hungover. What the hell?

So, he says, “Were you driving in Creekwood Shopping Center on Wednesday?”

“I guess,” I said. There’s a Starbuck’s in there and other stuff we’re always going to, so I figured I could have been, but couldn’t quite remember.

So he turns the page, and says that they had a complaint from the Sheriff’s aunt. She was driving a yellow VW and said that I cut her off and forced her into the grass.

Now, I’ll show you how dumb a person can be:

1) The guy was wearing a wrinkled shirt with his undershirt hanging out at the sleeves and neckline. My dad was a cop. He was always starched and pressed (’course that was the olden days, but…) with shoes shining so clearly that I could see my face in them.

2) This part of Bradenton is really unincorporated Manatee County. Bradenton Police don’t really have jurisdiction.

3) That shopping center has no grass to be driven into.

But I’m not thinking, right? I’m just like, “Well, that’s totally wrong. First, I wouldn’t do that and second, I never did that.”

So he says, “Well, if you can’t own up to this, I have to take you downtown.”

Now, I’m totally furious. It’s my birthday and I have to go to downtown Bradenton in a police car so that my neighbors could watch me walk out in handcuffs, to totally ruin my day. I mean, these folks get upset when a blade of grass isn’t standing at attention. This would be bad.

Not only that, but he tells me he has to frisk me to get up against the wall!

As he’s telling me to put my arm behind my back to be cuffed, a thought goes through my head…

TELLMAN

Big bright lights go off in my brain and it finally takes over and starts working. This is no cop!

I was PUNKED.

It was totally hilarious, after the fact, and when I got back on the phone we all had a good laugh over it. Tellman really made my day. It started out hilarious and just keeps getting better.

But do you see how you can miss the details of things when you let your emotions get over on you? I wasn’t thinking logically because I was so totally humiliated by the allegations and really angry because there was nothing I could do, though I knew I was innocent. The anger just infused my brain and made me stupid.

Duh.

Don’t let your emotions rule you. Don’t take failure personally. Don’t let it get you down.

Just remember that with every failed project, you’re a winner. You know what NOT to do again. Just consider whatever didn’t turn out the way you’d hoped as a learning experience and move on. Next time, it will be easier and work better.

Christine Comaford-Lynch has a great philosophy about accepting rejection, and I wont’ go into it because this post is really long, but you should check out Rules for Renegades at RulesforRenegades.com and go to the “Cool Resources” section.

But first…

I had a totally awesome day. And because it’s my birthday and I’ve been laughing and doing stuff I love to do all day, I thought I’d let you in on something totally free and totally cool.

Go to http://easyseotricks.com/IMG2

Get some cool free stuff to help you continue down your ultimate path to success. I have a really good ebook in there about keyword research. Go get it. Free.

And… ALWAYS remember to pay attention to the details, or you could get punk’d.

If you haven’t been online all that long, you probably forget the days when all web pages had to be written by hand in a text editor, like Notepad, TextPad, WordPad, and all those other pads. Everyone had to learn HTML because that was the only way to get your stuff onto the Web.

Enter WYSIWYG, which means, “What You See Is What You Get.” WYSIWYG HTML editors abound from the free versions, such as Nvu to the expensive alternatives like DreamWeaver. And you know what most of them have in common? Overblown code that can make you nuts if you half know what you’re doing!

Well, I know at least that much and the WYSIWYG editors I’ve tried from MSWord to that freebie, Nvu work, but how well? Often the code they create isn’t compatible with all browsers. For example, some center a table with <table align=”center”>. Firefox doesn’t mind, but Internet Explorer says, “So what?” You have to physically go in and add the <center> and </center> tags fore and aft. Annoying!

Here’s a link to the Boing Boing short for an interview with the NY Times Design Director, who says they hand-code everything:

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/30/nytimescom-handcodes.html

Probably a very good idea, if you’re uber picky about how your code looks.

But… also important for another reason.

Our Tech genius at Overcome Everything, Johnny Meehan, just discovered something very unhappy, at least for me, who uses Nvu a lot—it doesn’t work with Google Analytics. For some reason the code it manufactures makes the Analytics stats come out all wrong. Please don’t ask me why or what they are… I don’t have a clue. Johnny’s the genius. I’m just lucky to work with him.

I recently did a page for one of the OE sites that was totally screwy when I tried to edit it and enter new content into the page. Pfffttt!!! It got me so crazy that I just hand-coded the whole page from scratch. It was much, much simpler.

Anyway, WYSIWYG is great for pages that don’t have to be reworked or for pages that you’re throwing up in a hurry or whatever. I use it, too. But… if you want reliability, learn some HTML.

It’s not rocket science.

Kind of scary, that headline. But no… It’s a good tired and excited, so get your minds right.

Pat has been so quiet for the last couple of weeks because like everyone at Overcome Everything, I’m working my butt off. We’ve been doing Squeezathons, making reports, newsletters, videos, CDs and tons and tons of stuff for the launch of Listbuilding.com tomorrow.

I can’t believe the day has almost arrived!

I remember Tellman talking about it in early February and thinking, well… we have LOTS of time.

But time goes quickly. I’m excited about the whole thing, not because the company stands to make a bunch of money (and that’s always a good thing), but because I know how many people’s lives have been touched by the whole thing. I mean now, more than 300 people have squeeze pages up and running that never did before. That’s a BIG squeeze, eh?

I feel pretty good to know that I had some part in that, but we’ve all been working hard. We’re an incredible team of hard-working people and it’s actually ready to happen! Everyone involved is running like monkeys to get things in order before the big day.

And have you seen the list of teachers for the coaching classes? Holy cow! It’s a who’s who of marketing. All my heroes in one course. wow.

Shawn & Tellman totally went all out on that one. There will be stuff in the course that just can’t be had anywhere else. You need to be on the calls. You need to soak up every bit of this that you can, especially if you’re new to Internet marketing. If you haven’t yet…

WTHeck are you waiting for?

Here’s the deal: http://PatMarcello.ListBuilding.com

Man, this is one of the biggest things in Internet Marketing history!

I feel very blessed to have been part of helping so many people. That’s totally cool.

If you’re not a subscriber of McAfee, you probably don’t see the little green, grey, and red icons that appear next to your website in Google’s search results pages.

Green means you’re a good site.

Grey means they haven’t a clue about your site.

Red means you are a bad site or connected to a bad site.

Well…

We were getting about 1,000 unique organic hits per week for one of the Overcome Everything sites, and like a stone, it plummeted on the page and in hits. When I checked the site out on Google, I saw the BLASTED red X. It really threw me.

I mean, the site is an ADD site, and it’s a PR5. Quality site. No nastiness.

So, I clicked on the X, and found that we’re being penalized because we use HyperTracker.com for tracking links. Well…

That’s just crap.

We had to remove all the links from HyperTracker and are waiting to get our green X back.

If I were HyperTracker, I think I’d sue. McAfee is losing customers for HyperTracker, and their service isn’t 100% but it’s pretty good. Now, we fear to use it at all for the bad connotation. Will Google eventually see that red X, too, and say that our site is in a “bad neighborhood” and lower our page rank and lose our first page position, as well? Better not happen.

As an SEO, I think it totally sucks. McAfee is targeting the wrong sites and I plan to write them a long letter explaining how they’re mucking things up. I’ve been a customer since I’ve been online, and that’s 12 years now, and I’m thinking of switching services.

I hear the free virus scans are good.