Meeting Notes

Hi Guys,
We had a strong turn out for the last meeting for 2010.
John Neyrot
Alex
Rich
John Mac

We talked a lot about face book and the uses.

We talked about Google Wave and the uses of it. We all agreed this would be very useful oneday.

Alex had some good suggestions about using MeetUp.com >> Search local groups of similar interest.

One step for communicating to all social sites with Ping.FM

Alex talked about his mentor, Jase Sanders and his facebook postings.
Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to you all !!!
See you in 2010.
God Bless,
John

Speaking with Carolyn Tang from ShareASale

Shakira and I are going to the Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas in Mid January 2010. Today I spoke with Carolyn Tang of Share A Sale to get a better feel of the market and understanding the their affiliate network.

We talked about the basics and she gave me some great ideas.

DataFeeds which is where you download all the products in one big Excel spreadsheet.
Webmerge is a software to merge CSV iles or Database files into a Html template. There is a free trial and then it cost $99

Carolyn recommended using this....
Using Afftrack with ShareASale
You can use the afftrack= portion of your link code to include affiliate defined tracking strings. Enter your tracking variable immediately after the afftrack= portion of your link code. This tracking variable will be echoed back to you in the Activity Details Report (http://www.shareasale.com/a-accountactivity.cfm). The tracking string must be alphanumeric, and can not contain any spaces or special characters. There is a 255 character limit. If you are using the "Shortest Code Available", Email Links or Product Links, you may need to add the afftrack= wording to your link code. A sample link would look like this:
http://www.shareasale.com/r.cfm?B=70&U=XXXX&M=47
Where the XXXX is replaced with your Affiliate ID number.
You can add the afftrack= parameter to this code along with your tracking string. The tracking string must be alphanumeric, and can not contain any spaces or special characters. If your tracking string is "123ABC", then your new link would look like this:
http://www.shareasale.com/r.cfm?B=70&U=XXXX&M=47&afftrack=123ABC
The afftrack= parameter may already be in your link - be sure to use the existing one and not to add an additional one.

For the Affiliate Summit, she recommended that I bring...

*Color copies of my website and to show merchants.

*Bring Plenty of business cards.

*Go to the Sharaasale party on Sunday to make contact.

Going to the Affiliate Summit and sign up for the Mentor program..

Carolyn recommended that I look into the RIU Affiliate program


Thank you for your time today, Carolyn!!!
God Bless,
John
Swim with the Dolphins in Tortola

Google Wave

Hi All,

Google Wave is coming. You should watch this youtube video to get an outline of what is going to happen.

If you want to sign up for Wave, go here

Watch Video


Also, if you want to buy a manual to understand and use better  click here

I am not sure how we can use the wave but maybe a way to carry on the meeting virtually this way.
God Bless,
John

Building a Successful Affiliate Website

Here is the chronological order of the success of Shopping-Bargains.com.

Created by Mike Allen

• 1995 Graduated College with Master Degree
• 1996 Made first online purchase
• 1997 -99 Learned about powerful coupon code ** Google is born ** Search engines are not very effective
  
• 1999 Shopping-Bargains.com is born ** Used free hosting ** Quickly moved shared hosting ** Joined two affiliates amazon.com and netgrocer ** joined 2 networks bfree and linkshare
  
• Learned in 1999 ** Meet the customers needs ** Quality webhosting is vital ** Affiliate marketing exist ** Content management is a lot of work ** Affiliate income is not automatic ** This hobby had potential ** Start setting goals
  
• 2000 - 2003 ** Joined Commission Junction ** Share A Sale ** Performic (bought by google) ** Added more retailers and content ** Moved to table layout and upgraded ** Aquired shoppingbargains.com (without dash) ** Trademark easier with dash (- ) in URL ** added first part time person ( this person did data entry only )
• Main Lesson 2000 - 03 ** Affiliate marketing works ** Merchant communication is great ** Manually updating content is painful (35,000 products - redesign site) ** Search engines become really big now ** search more accurate ** online advertising is very effective too ** This not hobby anymore and becomes a business ** need help ** become a LLC business ** Building the BRAND and investment in the company is vital
• 2003 - 04 ** The big migration ** Dynamic content ** Database driven ** Dedicated server is acquired ** Build database in Cold Fusion ( looking back I wish I did it in PHP instead) ** Standardize Layouts ** Navigation ** Read Quit my day job - Jeremy Palmer ** Started to interact with the affiliate industry ** Use Abestweb.com for resource ** Involve more with affiliate managers (building relationships)
• Main lesson learned 03 - 04 ** running a business is expensive ** I must focus on content, not developement ** Quality sites are trusted more ** web layout + usability really matter ** Read the book "Don't make me think" by Steve Krug ** Affiliate income fluctuates widely ** Search engines don't like change
• 2005 - present ** More industry involvement ** Advisory boards / service ** won several awards ** Blogging ** Added more retailers ** Created newsletter >> Like mail chimp for segmented list and not expensive ** Social Media - Blogging, RSS feeds, Facebook, Twitter, Some use of Video ** Tools to use - for me to coupon.com - popshops.com (all the affiliates in one spot) - google custom search (With Google Custom Search, you can harness the power of Google to create a customized search experience for your own website.) ** Business enhancements - hired more part time people ** New revenue stream - slotting (where you put perferred products on your site and get paid for it) - google ad sense, chitika
• 2005 trends noticed ** Buiness cycles and trends produce big impacts ** Search Engines algorythmes change and it effects bottom line ** Media mentions and Social can be huge ** the ecomony impacts conversions ** Legal issues arise the bigger you get ** Infrigment and typo must be addressed ** content must be protected ** more tools - open office, aff meter , affbook.com, ** go to trade shows - affiliate summit, search engine strategy, pubcon
• Suggestions to think about ** Find a problem to Solve ** Offer creative solutions ** think long term ** build your own brand ** Invest in education ** Expect to fail
• To see the whole PDF hand out < go to >

Thank you Mike... facebook/com/mike.shoppingbargains or twitter.com/mta1
God Bless,
John
swimming with the dolphins bahamas

ShareASale - SFIMA - Other Speaker

More notes from a few speakers today.

Carolyn Tang - Share A Sale an affiliate network
This network is one of the hottest in the industry - everyone is raving about its integrity, honesty, and payments.

Big affiliate site that work within their network, FatWallet.com >> Tim Storm ( started 5 years ago and has 80 employees)

Stats to keep up on:
Raw Data

1. Impressions
2. Clicks
3. Number of Orders
4. Sales$$

Derived Data

1. Conversion Rate
2. EPC >> Earning per click
3. Returns

Jay Berkowitz 10 Golden Rules
The types of Affiliate that are out there.
SEO >> Natural and Paid
Email >> Building List
High Traffic Websites
Shopping / Bargins / Coupon
Information products pages
Lead Generation pages

You might want to see this video from Tony Robbins
In this interview I meet with two very successful students, Frank Kern and John Reese. Both of them are self-made multi millionaires who made their fortunes by selling products on the Internet. What’s particularly interesting about both of them is that neither had any “real” education. Neither one finished college and they both went from being broke to becoming wealthy.

Andy Rodriguez Consulting
I thought of Johnny Hawaiian contacting this guy. If he reads this, you might want to follow through with him.

He said a supper affiliate is someone who earns at least $10,000 a month commission.
He helps companies both with finding Affiliate Networks or Growing the Affiliate business
Tools her recomended
Wordtracker >> with word tracker you can see the cost for 1 year
Syntryx >> Find affiliates for any products

andy@andyrodriguez.com

Sites to look at:
Affiliate Tips Blog by Shawn Collins
ABestWeb is the world's largest affiliate marketing forum with 60,000 members and over 943,000 posts
Affiliate Summit conference
Geekcast - pod cast about affiliate marketing
Quit your day Job
Shoemoney.com >> Not my favorite but they showed at the show where they have a photo of this guy with a check from google adsense for $132,000 for a month check. Pretty impressive. Look at the check.
zacjohnson.com - Super affiliate blog
ReveNews Blog - Discussion of Online Advertising, CPA, SEO, Affiliate and Next Generation Marketing

More to write about>>
God Bless,
John
dolphin swims miami

Trust Agents - Affiliate Marketing SFIMA

Hi Everyone,
Wow, I went to inspiring Internet class today about affiliate marketing, which was up my alley.

The first speaker was Juliene Smith who wrote the NY times best seller Trust Agents
His books and speak was about building channels and talking to many people
Blogs > Facebook > Twitter

• Building a strong Channel of People can last forever
• Controlling your future means controlling your channel platform > your network
• Emailing will help communicate to your channel of people
• Building tribes is critical
• Social Capital > facilitate the exchange of the groups
• You need to be part of every conversation
• Create websites that are visible and indexable
• Make sure you have the inside language with your group >> connection with your group >> Buzz words that ever talks about within your group
• Your offering >> Differentiate from the Crowd
• Pattern Breaking >> Be a human artist >> so your crowd can remember you
• Understanding leverage >> Social Capital = Financial Capital >> Keep the friction friction low
• You need to be the lead dog of your group. When you are the lead dog, you have less competition >> Similar to network marketing pyramid - You at the top and the rest of your group below you.
• Habit of fear won't let you take risk to be the lead dog.
  

Chris Brogan Blog advises businesses, organizations, and individuals on how to use social media and social networks to build relationships

Book to Read:

• Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant (Hardcover)
• Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives (Hardcover)

2 Website for me to look startcooking and startcooking blog

More notes to come.
God Bless,
John
swimming with the dolphins in Miami

Your offering >> Differentiate from the Crowd

Email Service Providers

Here is another story I have read about Email Service Providers (ESP) and how to use them properly. Some Companies to Look at Aweber, Listtrack, iContact, Exact Target, and Mail Chimp.

Proper Selection Process of an ESP
Real Basic....

• Handling Authentication
• Quality Control Features
• Third Party Intergration
• Foster an environment of Permission based marketing - Double Opted In emails
• Do they have Metrics to Track, opt out subscribers, spam complaints
• The ability to quickly create individual emails and campaigns
• To preview and test content and run spam checks
• Schedule delivery of Emails or Campaigns
• Set Up Autoresponders

Also, look for advanced feature ...

• Segmentation - the ability to create small email groups
• Subscribers Level of activity or interaction - Sending to the real buyers
• Abandonment - How to get those that leave your email list to come back and buy again
• Coupling emails with social media

Some ESP have autmatic RSS feeds into their email programs. I know Aweber offer this.

Some Industry with High Inbox acceptance

• Books, Music, and Movies 95%
• Food and Beverage 87%
• Sports / Outdoor 87%
• Misc Retail 82%
• Gifts and Collectables 78%

3 Basic Elements of Every Email

1. Personalization
2. Branding
3. Call to Action

Sender OK has a plug in for Outlook, Gmail, Live and Yahoo, where you add a social network into the header panel of messages

Success Story:
Dreamfields Pasta built a marketing database of excess of 280,000 brand advocates in the san of 24 months. << Check out this site

Something to think about. I have used Aweber for many years but would like to check out the other ESP to see what they offer and cost. Also, I am trying Mail Chimp for my civic association because they offer 500 email users for FREE for life. It will work great for the civic association.

God Bless,
John
Today is the perfect day to go swimming with the dolphins !!

Meeting Notes Nov 5 09

Rich and I listen to James Martells Affiliate Buzz.

They talked to internet manager to Lazy Environmentalist.

• He talked about the following:
• To fix his site, he looked page by page
• He needed to figure out with the Key Words what the customer really wanted
• Then he need to figure out what key words the search engine wanted.
• Fix the headlines
• Added H1 tags
• Took off options - Goal one product - 1 sale
• With optimization, increase google adsense by 600%
• Know your analytics - use google - Always test
• Biggest Tip >> Keep Moving and don't stop
  

Rich talked about a Key Work optimization program, Web CEO.

Rich want to talk about Benefits of Fish Oil and how these keys where optimized. He used the Web CEO tool to help.

Rich also show us his new directory which is geared toward the following keys word, compare dog food.

Rich made this Squeeze page, for Land in Belize, check it out.

Rich asked about Flip Video. here are the specs
UltraHD™, 120 minutes

The Flip UltraHD camcorder combines Flip Video's signature shoot-and-share simplicity with the power of vivid, vibrant HD video. With 120 minutes of record time, you'll never miss another minute again. And because of UltraHD's pocket-sized portability, you'll truly be able to capture HD video anytime, anywhere.

Tips to Better Google Analytics

Here is another article review I doing from Website Magazine.

I recently was using Google Analytic recently to update my swimming with the dolphins site. There is tons of information and I am glad for this article and I hope to implement some of the ideas.

The Basics

• Make sure to tag all your pages with Google Anaylitcs code
• Google has created Conversion University - This is a free Tutorial from google with video - A must
• Check for proper installation of the google analytic - Sites to help. EpikOne, Firebug, or WASP

Setting Up Goals

• what do you want your customers to do: Subscribe to mailing list, become a lead, buy your product.
• Finding out where your customers are falling out of your website.
• Not having goals will cost you money.
• Here is good article about setting up goals. Zen Cart Optimation Blog

E Commerce and Lead Gen-Tracking

• The most common misstep is the failure to filter out internal Traffic.
• On your anaylitics home page, on the bottom right is link called "filter manager". Here you can exclude internal traffic, as well from any other domain you don't want to track, like your competitors.
• Also, you might want to filter out repeat visitors.
• Filtering out unqualified visitors will help you get a handle on exactly how well you are converting qualified visitors.
• Google analitics also allows segmentation and tracking of results from adwords campaigns.

The Bottom Line: Take Action
The purpose of the Web Analytics is to turn the information into something you can optimize on your website.

Getting Started

• Look at your top entry and exit pages and optimize those with a 40% percent plus exit rate.
• Look at your top referring keywords and optimize landing pages for terms with a 40% percent plus exit rate.
• Look at your goal conversion funnels, and start optimizing

Another Resource : Grok Dot.com
Enjoy Optimizing!!
God Bless,
John
swimming with the dolphins Waikiki

BING is becoming a Fast Growing Search Engine

Just read a news brief about BING, the newer search engine from Microsoft.

What the article said....

1. Bing is the fastert growing search engine, according to Nielsen. BING's search market share in August rose 22.1 percent to 10.7 percent of all sarches, up from 9 percent in July.
2. Google still remains the big boy, with 65% share of all searches.
3. But Google only rose 2.6% in July, AOL 1.8%, Ask.com 2.9% - All have grown but not as much as Bing.
4. The only Search that fell was Yahoo, 4.2% fall.

Bing introduction to the Visual Search feature has been a hit. bing.com/visualsearch/ You need to check it out. From Bings research, more people click at an image then text.

Read this story Bing Cashback: 6 Reasons to get started now
Hope this help.
God Bless,
John
swimming with the dolphins in Miami

Video Marketing

I went to the FDMA luncheon about Video Marketing

The speaker was Jessica Kizorek

She very interesting and got some answers.

Video Turns in Buyers

There is opportunity there with Video, only 2% user are involved with Video. You need to decide is the medium for you.

Video can be a big competitive advantage for a website.

Online Consumption of video has grown and will continue to grow.

Video is the new language for the internet. Send your message quickly and to the point.

Websites that use Video. Increase sales by 72%

• Why does this increase sales?
• Absorbed with the Video
• Increase Engagement time with the website
• Deepen Connection
• Build Trust - Creditability
• Learn the best by video

Question asked about Load time. WEBMASTER: If you have the website build with the html first and then have the video load afterwards.

Sending Email with Video, you would send a email to have person look at your video. With the wording, HURRY SEE MY VIDEO >>> Then have them land on a video page.

Videos are great to have testimonial from Customer. This could be huge.

Here is a great example of website that uses. < Client Attraction Squeezepage > < Client Attraction Blog > < Client Attraction Ad Page >

Squeeze page is a new term I have not heard about. You can see what it is from Client Attraction. It where you get to advertise and have the viewer give you their email or some information.

Video is great for....

• Testimonial
• Video Email
• Invitation
• Instructional
• Reviews
• How to
• Video Blogs and commentary

Before you post your video, make sure you have someone you trust view your video. Get feedback. Putting up a bad video can be really bad for your business.

If your video is BAD, you make your product BAD and not able to sell.

She used an apple laptop and really liked it for Video. She mentioned about Photo Booth. Defination

When making a Video some points....

1. Look into the camera. Make sure your eyes are looking at the camera. Don't be trying to read lines but know the lines.
2. Lighting needs to be good.
3. Audio - It needs to be clear.

Video can....
Increase Sales by 72%
Increase Engagement by 22%
Increase Conversion Rate by 40%
2X - 3X Increase purchases

She talked briefly about the cameras. She was using the ipod video camera and uploaded to her blog right away. Very impressive.
She Mentioned about Flip Video with High Definition is very good.

She said that putting Youtube video on your main page is not the best thing. Gives bad image. She said have a Youtube Channel is very good but you should have Branded Player for your website. < Definition of Branded Web Video Player >

WEBMASTER out there: Do any of you out there have code or solutions for a branded player?

When I talk to her about this, she said once you load the player up on your server, then it easy to upload video to your server.

Length of Video...
45 Second is the best, no longer than 2 minute 30 seconds.

Mentioned was YouTube Insights anaylitical tool. You want to know your visitors of your video.

Tube Mogul is another way track video

Copy Doodle - Not sure where this fits in but have this website.

Overall it was a good presentation. Thanks Jessica.

God Bless,
John
swim with the dolphins Miami

301 Redirects

301 redirect is the most efficient and Search Engine Friendly method for webpage redirection.
It's not that hard to implement and it should preserve your search engine rankings for that particular page. If you have to change file names or move pages around, it's the safest option.

The code "301" is interpreted as "moved permanently".

Below are a Couple of methods to implement URL Redirection:

IIS Redirect

• In internet services manager, right click on the file or folder you wish to redirect
• Select the radio titled "a redirection to a URL".
• Enter the redirection page Check "The exact url entered above" and the "A permanent redirection for this resource"
• Click on 'Apply'

ColdFusion Redirect

<.cfheader statuscode="301" statustext="Moved permanently">
<.cfheader name="Location" value="http://www.new-url.com">

PHP Redirect

<?
Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Header( "Location: http://www.new-url.com" );
?>

ASP Redirect

<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader "Location","http://www.new-url.com/"
%>

ASP .NET Redirect

<script runat="server">
private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently";
Response.AddHeader("Location","http://www.new-url.com");
}
</script>

JSP (Java) Redirect

<%
response.setStatus(301);
response.setHeader( "Location", "http://www.new-url.com/" );
response.setHeader( "Connection", "close" );
%>

CGI PERL Redirect

$q = new CGI;
print $q->redirect("http://www.new-url.com/");

Ruby on Rails Redirect

def old_action
headers["Status"] = "301 Moved Permanently"
redirect_to http://www.new-url.com/
end

Redirect Old domain to New domain (htaccess redirect)

Create a .htaccess file with the below code, it will ensure that all your directories and pages of your old domain will get correctly redirected to your new domain.The .htaccess file needs to be placed in the root directory of your old website (i.e the same directory where your index file is placed)
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Please REPLACE www.newdomain.com in the above code with your actual domain name.

In addition to the redirect it is suggested that you contact every backlinking site to modify their backlink to point to your new website.

Note* This .htaccess method of redirection works ONLY on Linux servers having the Apache Mod-Rewrite moduled enabled.

Redirect to www (htaccess redirect)

Create a .htaccess file with the below code, it will ensure that all requests coming in to domain.com will get redirected to www.domain.com The .htaccess file needs to be placed in the root directory of your old website (i.e the same directory where your index file is placed)

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^domain.com [nc]rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

Please REPLACE domain.com and www.newdomain.com with your actual domain name.
Note* This .htaccess method of redirection works ONLY on Linux servers having the Apache Mod-Rewrite moduled enabled.

Source: http://www.webconfs.com/how-to-redirect-a-webpage.php

Word Press Website thats Making Money

Hi Guys,

We had a our weekly skype meeting, John N, Andres P, Rich M and Me were there. There was good accountablility with the group.

I listen to mentor, James Martell tonight and it was the best one in his series.

It was a study of his, Dan, who has a successful Review website.

• His site name is Piano-Keyboard-Reviews.com
• This site start in 2006
• He is boot camp member of James Martell.
• This site has had 4 evolutions, static >> drupel >> dreamweaver >> now wordpress
• He really wanted to get in the social aspect and went for the wordpress theme. If you check out the theme. It is awesome, really cool.
• He talked about the transition from the static site to the dreamweaver site. He had a lot of concerns about loosing page ranking and google key word ranks.
• During the transitions he used 301 redirect. I could not totally understand this because he said he static site was www.piano-keyboard-review and the wordpress was piano-keyboard-reviews without the www.
• He has built a lot trust with his customers.
• He is selling tones of Keyboards and is usinng on 1 affiliate to the sell keyboards from.

Questions asked him.
1. What was the biggest challenge starting in affiliate biz. A. Believing I could make money. Once I made my first check, it gave me confidence to continue.
2. How hard it was getting into the top 10 of google. A. Not very hard if you write good content and use the keyword desity rule from James.
3. What has helped you grow. A. I listen to my clients and change my website what they want.
4. What make you different from the compeition. A. I have a passion for music and keyboards.

I was really impressed with this guys website and selling ability. He is selling more this summer then he did during his christmas season in 08.

God Bless,
John
swimming with the dolphins in Florida

General Meeting Master Blaster

Hi Guys,

Rich is talking about http://www.esyndicat.com/

Rich bought unlimited directories and sharing his success because his link is on everypage. He has over 2000 directory listing.

Curtis told John H about http://www.smugmug.com/ and http://www.zenfolio.com/ to monitize his website.

John Neyrot is going to sign up for a gmail account and then sign up for Google Ad Sense.

John Mac showed his template for http://dolphinplaces.com/default.shtml

John Neyrot is going to work with DreamWeaver.

Anyone have suggestions, please make some comments.
Have a great week!!
God Bless,
John
Swimming with the Dolphins Oahu Hawaii

Skype Meeting 7-23-09

Hi Guys,

We talked on the Skype. Here are some links:

Facebook and Using it for $$$
http://www.socialmediamoneysystem.com/member.html

John Neyrot is trying to find a voting tool. We talked about using Frontpage Extension.

Rich asked "What is it do your really want to do with your business?"

John Mac said that Linked in may be a good tool for John N for looking for a Marketing type person to help him grow and sell.

John N latest promotion for boby paintint http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK9FBhUuUUo

Rich suggested to John N to start up a paypal account and start selling products. To see Rich's products, go to: http://www.usadogstoday.com/dog_food_samples.html Then go to Life's Abundance Weight Loss Dog Food section, you will see the paypal link. Its simple.

Thats all 1 hour of talking.
God Bless,
John Mac
swim with the dolphins in Miami

Linked In Seminar

Hi All,

I went to the SFIMA meeting last night and it was a good meeting because the main speaker was talking about Linkedin, which on the Social Media scale is hardly talked about.

I sat with Mike Monahan, he is the Internet Marketing manager for a cruise ship portal site, called Cruise One. He mentioned a blog that was really successful, call foursuitcases.com, it about a family that is traveling the world. They are a member of CruiseOne and he said they have a huge following on the blog. You might want to check it out, pretty cool.

LinkedIn Meeting Notes:

A place to find people and place to be found.

Not a substitute for meeting people face to face. Building Relationships!!!

There are 10 Application for Linked in. I never knew.

Linkedin has grown, from 18 million user in 07 to 44 million in 08

The average income of a user in linked is $110,000

This biggest nugget I got from this speaker is this....
All Social Media you should have a strategy before starting, don't go into it blind.
His strategy is
Part A - Pressence on the Social Site.
1. Strategy >> 2. Brand >> 3. Profile
Part B - Participation
4. Execution >> 5. Connections 6. Key - Coordinate this social site with your other marketing efforts

Brand questions to ask yourself

1. My company (or you) is known for_______?
2. 3 Adjectives to describe you or your company?
3. Describe your expertise.

Profile
Profession Discription of yourself in profile - Make you and your brand very descriptive.
7 Elements of linkedin profile >> It important to get this completed properly. If you don't you wont be ranked on Linked in.

What makes your profile complete?

• Your current position
• Two past positions
• Your education
• Your profile summary
• A profile photo
• Your specialties >> Add Key Words here to get ranked better!!
  
• At least three recommendations

To increase Participation
Join Groups
Send out Invitations >> Don't spam
What are you working on Now Section >> kind of like twitter -- Don't over use

Before growing your connections with others, make sure your profile is 100%

You can grow your connections quickly by importing your email list into Linked in

Final

• Spend 10 - 15 minutes a day on Linked in
• Define strategy
• Be clear on what your expertise is
• Proffessional description
• Value Links
• Power of Summery

Speaker Website - LinktoProsper.com

Last thing - One guy told me from the last meeting about twitter, a guest ask what is the next thing to come along we should watch for. The speak said Google Wave Check it out.

God Bless You All !!!
Johnny Mac
Swimming with the Dolphins Miami

Feed Front Magazine Review

Hi Guys,

I was reading FeedFront the Affilate Summit magazine they sent out and I wanted to highlight a few points they made in the magazine.

1. Things I wish I knew 10 years ago - Article 1

• Don't Skip on the Basics Like Web Hosting, Web Design, domain names, and third party solutions like Aweber for emails and Membersgate for membership sites.
• Time to Work Hard is NOW
• Solving People's problems = Making Money

2. Google Site Map Protocol May need Riches Help with this

3. Four Great Tools for Twitter
Search Twitter.com
Twitscoop
Monitter
Tweetdeck

I think that is it.
God Bless,
John

Photo Gallery Software / Blogs

Hi All,

Just thought I would share these free downloads for Photo Gallery Software for your server.

• Zenphoto
• Coppermine
• Pixelpost

They all look cool and a great source of building content very easily. I know the social aspect of flicker is really good but building your own content is great for you SEO. Tough call.

Anyway, if any of you guys check out these products, I would love to hear from you which one you think would work well and easy?
God Bless,
John

FreeDictionary.com - MasterBlaster Meeting June 4 Meeting

Hi All,

Here is are some note from our meeting on June 4th. It was really cool and different. We had a chance to interview Steve Boymel the owner of FreeDictionary.com. We did this on Skype.

• Always loved the computer, since he was little. A programer at heart.
• Work during the dot com period and build a business with venture capital dollars and the business crashed during the bust.
• Went back to school and for a MBA degree after the failed business.
  
• Graduated with a MBA with a computer Technology degree. During his MBA as a class project started freedictionary.com 2004.
• His theory is to build an Asset. His website is an asset. Like real estate and wants to build for the long haul. He builds his site with White Hat intention. ( Which means he stays google compliant)
  
• He will never use venture capital dollars again. He uses only his own and partner's money to build the business.
  
• He believes heavily is to go to big web SEO related conferences. He goes to at least 7 a year. The big one he goes to WebMasterWorld in Las Vegas. Pubcom This show is in November every year.
• He makes a lots of money from Advertising from his website.
• He is involved with Web 3.0 now, more than web 2.0
• He follows and listen to Matt Cutts a lot from google.
• He mention about this 1 man show, who owns plentyoffish.com and makes a lot a money. He said this guy works about 1 - 2 hours a day and is very focus on this site.
• He now has about 15 part time programers. He has a partner and makes a great living from this website now.
  
• He mentioned a great tidbit. Since he started, he has listen to his users all the time and has built the site from their suggestions. It has paid off. The way he has gotten feedback with a feedback link. I need to do this right away. All he has is Feedback link at different places on the website. Left sidebar and bottom footer.
• You need to check out freedictionary.com pagerank, wow an 8. That is amazing!!!

We plan to try to record others who we interview and try to have a podcast for the next time. Rich Mattheisz was going to send me a link to record from the computer. Alex mentioned about Gold Wave Audio. If any other suggestion for recording, please let me know.
God bless,
John
Swim with the Dolphins Key Largo

Pod Casting for Success

Hi All,

I was listening to a podcast on the success of Podcasting.

Here are the tips it gave:
1. Finding your guest to interview. You find these type of guest from your customers or local associations.
2. Schedule your interview. Find someone to interview for your type of business.
3. Research on the Topic - Outline. Ask for a Bio from your guest.
4. Come up with a List of Questions for you and send to your guest for them to prepare.
5. Find a place that is quit for the interview. Don't worry about Mistakes.
6. Find a phone to use for recording. This podcast said to use landline to landline for best quality and record. But I did some research and I think Skpe to Skpe would be the best quality due to the fact that you can digitize the recording and edit it. < Read More on this Part 1 >. < More Part 2>
7. Be at Ease - Prepare 30 minutes before interview. Be Alert. Have quite. Make the call. Read the intro and Bio of Guest. Start the interview. Thank the guest at the end of the interview.
8. Edit Podcast. Click and Read #6. This part sounds a little tricky to me.
9. Publish the Podcast to Podcast Directories for exposure. < A Good directory list to check out>
10. Email all your customer that you have publish a new podcast. Get the word out there.

Has anyone done a podcast? Anyone have anything to share on it? Everything seems easy to me except the part of recording the podcast and editing the podcast. It seems if someone had that experience the rest would be simple. It would be nice to record our next meeting.
God Bless,
John
swim with the dolphins miami

Great Article - Content Creator? Then Forget Analytics. Use Digg.

Here is a great article about finding content and relevant data using Digg.  Good info about how to use Digg to search for relevant key words, content and links rather than raw data from Google.

Here is the link: 

http://www.talentzoo.com/news.php?articleID=2118

Here is the story:

 

"Who can figure out Google Analytics? I can’t. The data is fascinating and it certainly makes one’s curiosity complacent. But how do civilians use this information -- some of which clearly has nothing to do with you or what you are creating?

 

How then, does one leverage website analytical data into a marketing strategy that will drive people to a blog or other conventional website?

 

For now, let’s forget Google Analytics. Use Digg instead. Digg distinctly determines the value of content and its relevance. It is a valuable marketing tool for pinpointing what -- and how -- to create targeted, well written content. Content that could leverage existing -- and popular -- web information and push visitors to your site with strategic use of expected and accepted tags and keywords.

 

Suppose you are a fitness and weight loss writer and you need a relevant and “hot” topic within your beat / scope. Search Digg “Lifestyle > Health.” What are the topics people have Dugg the most? Easily evaluate what is relevant to you, your audience and how you can determine what topic is worth writing about, i.e.: will get you the hits slash exposure you are obviously seeking.

 

Now, the magic

 

There is a valuable and free service for journalist looking for sources. Peter Shankman’s “Help a Reporter Out” or “HARO.”  I was fortunate to find Peter after reading Timothy Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Work Week and doing some further research. The queries from reporters and the quality of responses are considerably better. As Peter said in his book, “under promise and over deliver.” HARO does. I use it for my own motivation column on Examiner.com.

 

Leverage all of this with Twitter; absolutely certain to always request responses sent to Twitter in Twitter format (@stefanpinto). You gain credibility on Twitter by doing this and you will immensely increase your followers, not to mention the quality of followers.

 

Now, these services are merely tools. Results are not typical and vary depending on how much effort, dedication, time and perseverance you put into it. If you are good at what you do, it doesn’t matter what service you use, the cream always rises to the top.

 

Go on, be clever"

Have a great day!

Curtis Copeland - Professional Photographer South Florida

Social Media Conference at FDMA

Hi Guys,

It was a good FDMA Good conference today, but a little bit of information over load. I am going to do my best to put down my notes here and hopefully will be useful to you. I wrote my tail off, there were so much information it was hard for me to keep.

As I walked in there was about 1/2 hour of networking and talked to interesting guy about the business and he suggest a few things to me.

1. To expand my presence on the internet I might want to be an affiliate and look for affiliate software to accomplish this: Need to do a google search for the software.
2. He said to change content, even just a sentence. Google loves this and the spider will come back often to check your page. I need to change my index page at least 1X a month.
   

First Speaker: Understanding Social Media, Social Networking, and Social Marketing presented by Peter Leshaw

Social Profiles

1. Blogsport, Wordpress, twitter
2. Youtube, Flickr - Make sure to tag your videos and photos properly
   
3. Digg (where to write a comment about an article and add a vote about it. It helps the article get noticed), Delicious (saves your books on their website)
   
4. Facebook, Linkedin

Peter mention about Location based Social Networking. He uses with his iphone when he travels to find people on facebook who are near where he is. Like he is in Miami and he is able to communicate with the local people using the GPS portion of the iphone.

Buzz about Blogs

1. Search Engine Favor site that are frequently updated like blogs
2. Blogs are easy to format and use
3. Blogs allow comments
4. RSS

Using Reader to Read RSS - Yahoo and Google have readers

What Peter does when writing a post:

• 50% Writes about the key word he is trying to convey
• 25% about the product he is trying to sell
• 25% about buy the product
• Does not use more than 250 words

Social Profiles
When setting up your social profile....

• Brand your profile, is about you or your company. Try to keep it the same.
• Customize your profile
• Describe yourself - your chance to be on soapbox, interests, other thing
• Provide images, videos, links, etc
• Share your content with others

Reputation Management

• Tracking social profiles for mention on you or your company. Use google alerts for this.
• Look for positive and negative reviews and prepare what to say. See case where Domino Pizza. What do you say or do. Guys video Tape theme. Very Negative
  

Some Tools for Twitter
Tweet Beep, Blog Pulse, search.twitter.com, back tweets ( I tried to look at these and its greek to me - Maybe someone can try and explain)

Some other tools for Social Media
UserName Check ( Very cool ), Ice Rocket,

Off subject, but he mentions - A tool he used Poll Daddy (Free Polling on Site),

Peter Leshaw : An Internet Marketer's Blog

2nd Speaker: Who has the time for Twitter by Jeff Yaniga: Pitney Bowes

What is Twitter

1. Twitter is One Way Mirror
2. Twitter is like being at a networking event - handing out cards on steroids
3. You are looking for good partners - not everyone out there
4. You speak your mind - your own soap box within 140 characters
5. A place to sell your stuff
6. Everything is searchable on twitter

Navigation Twitter

1. Sign Up today if you haven't
2. One Line Bio of yourself - important
3. Your URL/ Signup Name important choice
4. Location
5. Create a back ground or Custom Background - Need to ask Johnnie Hawaiian how he did his background

Follow Others on Twitter - and Why do you follow others

1. You need to look other sites to see what kind of comments they are making.
2. You can unfollow anyone - You will know if someone is spammer and you can unfollow them
3. If you follow someone, the more you follow will get people to follow you.

He used this term, "ReTweet" a lot and I am not exactly sure what that means. ( Can anyone explain)

You can put any URL in a Tweet message. You may need to shorten a URL and you can use, tinyurl.com - It will shorten any URL to 25 characters.

Within your twitter dashboard, you can have many Twitter Account. So you can have 1 personal and another for your business, all under the same dashboard.

Direct - Company uses twitter as a public relation tool. For example, if you were at Starbucks and sent a tweet saying, "I am at starbuck" and starbuck and send a tweet back.
Indirect - Employees Post as Individual

Be prepared for good and bad tweets about you (especially companies)

Example of growth - Starbucks had 30, 270 followers Jan 09, today has 181, 776 followers.

He talked about Hash Tags a lot. I am having a hard time understand, but here is great description of what it is. < Hash Tags >

Monitor your reputation on Twitter
Search the web - Google alerts

Read your Tweet Feeds daily

3rd Speaker: Marketing Fusion
New Way of Business

1. Two Way Dialog with Customers now
2. Now it is conversational vs Broadcasting a message
3. Goal - Create a longterm value and loyalty
4. Sell by Servicing

Matrix Fusion
Holistic (Parts of the Business)- web - Social Media

Loader the Business Message the more consumers turn off

What Customers Want

• Control Frequency of your business message
• Surprise and Delight your customers
• Listen to your customers and Respond
• You will get deeper trust over time

Email is the center of communication with all the technologies

• Mobile
• Social Media
• Online Connector
• Push / Pull messages - Twitter

Email is the link
The inbox has morphed as the center

• Computer
• Social Media
• Mobile

Not Wider but Deeper with Customer

• Mine Customer
• Upsell
• Use analysis as way to earn creditbilty
• Cross Sell

Tool she talked about - What people are talk about you on Social Network - Radian6

Find out what social items your customers are using, facebook, twitter and start promoting your social networks to them. Ask them, in surveys or emails.

4th Speaker: Facebook

Why be on it: Growing 100 million user and growing
If you are using your name as a brand, your facebook page may show up really high google.

5 Keys for Success

• Have a Strategy - Listen to others
• Use Personals
• Select Friends carefully
• Be Active Regularly
• Always add value to your site
• Be consistant, authentic, and congruent

Daily Activity

• Update Status
• Big Clients
• Update your profile
• Feedback
• News feed - read them
• comment on photos
• watch conversation
• video comments
• 90% accept friends
• acknowledge birthdays ( a really good idea - create birthday gift page on your website for your friend to go to - )

Key elements of Good Profile
1. Have a Picture of yourself
2. Real Name
3. Profile description important
4. Unique landing page
5. Right click your name to address for your facebook URL of yours
6. Change your tabs to ones you need to use >> Add Friend Feed Tab
7. Add Videos
8. Add Links
9. Add Application to your site

Making a New Friends
1. Don't take any friends without a face
2. Put your Facebook or Twitter URL on your email signature
3. Put a Face Badge on you site or blog - Wordpress has a widget

Profile Page Vs Fan Page

1. Once you get 5000 friends you can get a fan page
2. Build your personal brand
3. Fan Page can be a Biz Page

Page Vs Groups

• Pages and Group has a discussion group
• Page let Application in and not groups
• Page has stats, not groups

Here is important Ratio with Facebook and Twitter
-If you have Large amount of Friends:
7 content messages vs 1 self promotion
-Small amount of Friends
15 content messages vs 1 self promotion

I hope this notes are use ful for you guys !!!
God Bless,
John
Swim with the Dolphins in Miami

How Twitter and Facebook Now Compete with Google

A great article about how Social newtorks are now becoming a resource for information rather than Google. Here is the article from Mark Cuban .

"Last year I wrote a blog post entitled “If the news is important it will find me”. The point was that we all live in so many social networks, that someone will send us an update if something in the world happens that we would be interested in. Back then I was guessing. A year later I have data.

For the 1st time ever, more people are finding my blog from Twitter and Facebook referrals than via Google. The total number of people coming to my blog is increasing. The percentage of people who find it via Google is declining. Significantly.

Thats huge. Why ? Because of the behavior implications for users, and because of the business implications for Twitter, Facebook and Google.

What if I decide to follow someone on twitter or facebook who is a guru on the types of cars Im interested in buying ? Could I not just query them and get a response and referral to a site that gives me the information Im looking for ? ie,

Anyone know a great source for information on Ford f150 trucks ? Need to buy one

@mcuban follow the @greatdealsotrucksguy

Anyone else like this guy

@mcuban I used it. Great source.

@greatdealsontrucksguy – any suggestions on where to get a used ford f150 in Dallas ? @mcuban – Try this site. xyz.com They know their stuff. Or the response could be. @mcuban whats your price point ? Or it could just be a generic response. In either event, my actions are going to be influenced. I followed this “person” for a reason. In this case

The best example of this is #follow fridays on Twitter. Where users recommend people to follow. Users being influenced by users. A far different experience than the Google search experience. Its also where Twitters anonymity will benefit it as users are able to interact with privacy. Something you really cant do on FB. On FB if you have a friend who knows about trucks. You just email them with a question. Maybe you put it out there to your network. But chances are that network is limited in numbers. Those limits are not in place for twitter.

From a business perspective, Im sure Im not alone in getting more referrals from Twitter than Google Search. Thats money in the bank for Twitter and FB for commercial accounts. There is no reason why a big or small company, say Charmim selling toilet paper, cant set up a twitter account and do whatever marketing they can to build the largest number of followers possible. From there, Twitter could charge them on a cost per referral click originating from their followers. As long as they cost per click is lower than competing options, why wouldn’t they do it ?

Things change. We are seeing a change in our referral logs right now. That could translate into systemic change in user behavior and business opportunity""

this brings up a whole new paradigm for us internet marketers. How do we become the "go-to" resource for potential clients when we are not connected to them via a Social Network? This could be an all night discussion!

Shall we chat about it?
Thoughts to ponder,

Curtis Copeland Professional Photographer for South Florida and Internationally

Using Tweeter

Hi Guys,

Here is an article from Curtis about Tweeter.

<Click Here to Read>

Who would like to tweeter with me? I want to try it but I am not sure how it works and would feel safe (poor word) to learn how to use it better if we tweet between each other.

I am hoping all of us will agree to sign up and try it with each other. What do you say? Please reply and tell me who will sign up.
God Bless,
John

Directory Listing

Hi All,

Rich gave me this list of directory website that have page rank and get source of helping your back links for your websites.

It will take you a while to plug in the information into the submission form but it will be worth it if you have time.

Directories
http://business.epagini.com/
http://directory.classifieds1000.com/
http://directory.seoexecutive.com/
http://www.777WEBLINK.COM
http://www.9dir.com
http://www.a1weblink.com
http://www.a2zwebindex.com/
http://www.achx.com/
http://www.addurl-links.com
http://www.addyourwebpage.net
http://www.a-livedirectory.com
http://www.allurls.info/
http://www.anaximanderdirectory.com
http://www.aokdirectory.com/
http://www.AWESOMEDIR.COM
http://www.az-links.info
http://www.backlinkdirectory.info
http://www.bestdots.info/
http://www.best-buy-deal.com
http://www.best-net-sites.com/
http://www.blfree.com
http://www.BrightDirectory.com/
http://www.businessespana.com/
http://www.canlinks.net/
http://www.concensus.org/
http://www.crazyleafdesign.com/webdirectory/
http://www.creativeagency.eu/
http://www.dir365.org/
http://www.directdirectory.co.uk/
http://www.directory.pkdesign.sk/
http://www.directoryglobe.com/
http://www.directorylover.com/
http://www.DIRECTORYWONDER.COM
http://www.dirsubmission.net/
http://www.DIRWORLD.NET
http://www.DREAMDIRECTORY.NET
http://www.duslerdunyasi.com/
http://www.duwf.com/
http://www.EASYWEBDIR.COM
http://www.e-centrex-directory.com/
http://www.environmentpage.com/
http://www.esgsite.com/
http://www.esiq.org/
http://www.etkal.com/
http://www.everythingreduced.net/
http://www.ewebindex.com
http://www.ezinfo.org/
http://www.fat64.net/
http://www.finest4.com/
http://www.freeonlinedirectory.info/
http://www.freewebsitedirectory.com/
http://www.geeez.com/
http://www.gi8.net/
http://www.gilas.net
http://www.goldlinks.org/
http://www.graydirectory.com
http://www.hitshappening.com/
http://www.host-it-planet.com/phpLD/
http://www.huckepack.org/
http://www.iadvertising.biz
http://www.jayde.com/
http://www.jtob.com/
http://www.kingoftheweb.net/directory/
http://www.landlost.com/
http://www.linkcentre.com/
http://www.linkecho.com
http://www.linkitseo.com
http://www.linkpark.org/
http://www.LINKSGAIN.NET
http://www.LINKS-HUB.COM
http://www.LINKS-HUB.COM
http://www.linksider.com/
http://www.linksubmitdir.com/
http://www.listingtop.com
http://www.listmyniche.com/
http://www.webmixture.com/
http://www.marvistastreet.com/
http://www.mydirectlinks.info
http://www.mydirectorylink.com/
http://www.mydirectorylive.com/
http://www.nameproz.com
http://www.neonlinks.com/
http://www.newfreedirectory.com.ar/
http://www.nonar.com/
http://www.NotoriousDirectory.com/
http://www.omega55.com
http://www.one-sublime-directory.com/
http://www.ONLINEWEBLINK.NET
http://www.parsonsdomains.com/
http://www.pegasusdirectory.com/
http://www.pickedlinks.com/
http://www.plentylinks.com/
http://www.publimix.net
http://www.publimix.net/
http://www.pukt.com/
http://www.quidirectory.com
http://www.qos-team.com/
http://www.rankbl.com
http://www.roundshot.us/
http://www.sahodesign.com/
http://www.samsdirectory.com/
http://www.searchforresults.com
http://www.searchsight.com/Directory.htm
http://www.segta.net/
http://www.seo-friendly-pr.com/
http://www.seo-friendly-rank.com/
http://www.seo-friendly-ranking.com/
http://www.seo-optimization-friendly.com/
http://www.seorange.com
http://www.seowebindex.com/
http://www.SEOWEBLINK.NET
http://www.shapel.org
http://www.sitepassage.com/
http://www.sizzlingdirectory.com/
http://www.somuch.com/
http://www.surfcell.co.uk/
http://www.tcpls.net/
http://www.TEXT-LINK-DIR.COM
http://www.thalesdirectory.com/
http://www.theseoking.com/
http://www.tiptopdirectory.com/
http://www.topseodir.info/
http://www.trumpdir.com/
http://www.ubdaily.com
http://www.ucdirectorylinks.com
http://www.ucdirectorylinks.com
http://www.ukdirectory.com.ar
http://www.urlblend.com/
http://www.urlfusion.com/
http://www.vccllc.com/
http://www.viesearch.com/
http://www.viseox.net/
http://www.wannaberichtoowebdirectory.info/
http://www.webmixture.com/
http://www.webnetclick.com/
http://www.WEBWORLDLINK.COM
http://www.welldonedirectory.com/
http://www.whatclicks.com/
http://www.wikidweb.com/
http://www.wlinker.com
http://www.yesdirectory.net/
http://www.yvir.com/
http://www.zbestlinks.com/

You will need to copy and paste the links to view the sites.

Rich can you comment here and put the website here of the directory submission service you used? Rich used this service for some great success and you may want to consider doing it too.

God Bless,
John
Swim with the Dolphins Miami

Affiliate Website Pit Falls

Hi Guys,

As I have mentioned, I have been following James Martell, an affiliate guru. I have signed up for his affiliate newsletter and this is some points, 5 points, about making positive and income producing website.

1. Give Creditability to your site. Put your face on the website. Stand out and build trust with your face on your website. Brand yourself as the expert.
http://www.epilepsymoms.com/
and
http://www.kitcarconnection.com/

You will see Jame's face and his wife's face on both sites. He recommend to put your face on the top right hand corner and every page.

2. Ad your Name to Blog Posts. Articles you Write, - Full Name. Get people know you are a real resource. Just like a book, people buy the author. Everyone knows Steven King and will buy his books. You do the same.

3. Add your photo to your blog and articles you write- Adds creditability
Photo size 80X80 or 50X50
See example http://epilepsymoms.com/blog

4. When writing blogs or articles or stories - Add personality - Read stories about your reality. Stay away from boring facts and add some real personality.

5. Adding Audio to your website with your voice to your website.
You will see an example: http://www.epilepsymoms.com/ He said it doesn't matter whether you have the voice on or off. Your choice.

Your goal is to have your visitors believe in you. Stay away from Vanilla website where it looks and feels like all the other. If the customer doesn't believe in you, they won't buy from you.
God Bless,
John
Swim with the Dolphins Man

Developer Tools Web Sites

Hi All,

Alex sent me a link to a cool developer tool website from Yahoo.

It has some neat tools that some of you maybe looking for < Web Tools >

Thanks Alex.

Any of you guys out there have other sites to add to this? Post a comment if you do.
God Bless,
John

Meeting Notes May 7

Hi All,

Attendance: John Mac, Rich R, Alex, and (new) Miguel,

1.Miguel mention that he went to a seminar and where they were showing a place to make a website in 15 minutes or less. The Software is called cyberspaceinabox.com This software cost about $4,000

The programs pulls in feeds from all different sources and makes a webpage. It pulls feeds from ebay, amazon, blogs and other sources.

To see an example of a site, go tommybahamahats.com

2. Alex talked about Widgets and pulling feeds with it.

3. Alex talked about MasterTemplates.com. Where you can find FREE templates that have a way of pulling feeds. This is the poor man way of cyberspaceinabox.com, more time and work.

4. Think about a master plan for group site out there. We need to come up with a mission and then make a website to make some money. We all need to come up with mission for a group website.

5. Next meeting we are going to talk owner of thefreedictionary.com
This site has reached over 1 billion visitors in 5 years
Some questions to ask:
How is he making money?
Where is he getting content?
How did he build the form, from scratch or from software?
Where is his vision for his site.

John need to get Alex his skpe address and phone # for the meeting.

6. One of the best email management programs out there: aweber.com If you have a website, you need to have this.

7. Rich created a new logo: http://super-food-nutrition.com/ He did it on his own. He did a great job. Rich maybe you can comment on which program you used, you weren't sure.

8. Rich created a new site: http://food-based-nutrition.com/

9. We discussed Xhtml and great resource for this subject and many web related go to: About.com To learn the basic about Xhtml Click Here. Alex has signed up for other internet related subject with about and like the emails he is receiveing from them, good information.

10. We had a demo of the iphone vs blackberry. The iphone was very impressive especially with all the features. You can't beat it.

11. John needs to fix his reservation pages. Rich gave great suggestions.
1. Work on the Miami registration page. ( if you want to see it now, it will change)
2. lighten color or white within box
3. Only have 1 activity date
3a. Can we find a calendar date box ?
4. Take out where they are staying box ( move to below)
5. Modify additional info box - take out q1, q2, q3, q7. Modify 4,5,6 - make like MS form
6. Make a separate form for the Transportation service.

Welcome Miguel. It was great to have a new person involved!!!

I think that is it.
God Bless,
John

Chitika Premium for Publishers

Hi All,

I have heard and read some more about this source of making income with your content website. It called Chitika and it compatible with Google Ad Sense. If you want to check it out, go to:

Read More Chitika for Publisher

Here is the video from the site:


You might want to watch it and it could work for some of us.
God Bless,
John

HTML to XHTML

Hi All,

This might be of more interest for the webmasters of our group. I still don't understand this totally and trying to figure what I need to do with my few websites. Rich M., one of our faithful members, has talked to us about XHTML and how he is designing all his new websites to meet the XHTML standards.

I have installed the newest version of wordpress and word press is stressing how their code is XHTML compliant. Also, I am listening to an affiliate marketing seminar and the moderator is saying how important it is to make sure your websites are XHTML compliant.

Here is link from WordPress about XHTML about the subject.

I am hoping my webmaster friends can tell me what I need to do with the website I have and h0w to move it into the XHTML compliant websites.

There is website that can show if your site is compliant - XHTML tool

I understand basic html but I am confused with the code changes in XHTML. Hopefully we discussed this some more and help us all. If you can add to this subject, please add some comments.
God Bless,
John

Blogging - Carving Out a Plan for Profit

Hi Guys,

I received the latest issue of Website Magazine and the cover story was about Blogging, so I am going to highlight some of the major points of the article.

1. To start a good blog, go and see what your competition is doing blogging wise.
2. Go to Compete.com and put your competitor websites in there and see who is getting the most traffic. Try to find 10 competitors.
   
3. When going to your competition blogs, see which topics are getting the most comments for other viewers. - This will give you some ideas on what readers are interested in hearing about.
4. Earning Money with your blog - Google Adsense, Value Click, Tribal Fusion
   
5. Email subscriptions offer an excellent way to send targeted offers. Consider an email signup box in a prominent position on your page. Feedburner (now owned by google) has a free email collection service.
6. If you feel your content is strong, consider exclusive content and paid subscriptions. The Word Press has a membership plugin and require payment to see all or some content on the blog.
   
7. You need to incorporate Video to your blog
8. To help get advertiser creditability - Make sure you tell about how many facebook, myspace friends you have, or twitter followers, or digg friends you have.
9. Earning money - You can also use affiliate links
   
10. Another way to Earn Money - You can be a paid for content provider. You will need to let your readers know you are being paid for posting your content. To be an advertiser writer go to ReviewMe and PayPerPost
11. Earning Money with supportive services - Blurb.com gives publishers a free downlowad to take content directly from your blog and lay in out into a book format for publishing. Also Lulu.com is another publishing option.
12. As you write your post - MAKE sure you make note of important topics or those that are just scratching the surface of a greater issues.
13. Basic SEO for blogging - Create sitemaps and submitting them to the search engines, key word optimization, linking strategies.
14. Blog Networks - Technorati and MyBlogLog, and facebook's Networkedblogs
15. Good idea to get involved with social sharing, Digg.com, Mixx.com and Bookmarking sites like Delicious.com. While these sites can be beneficial but take a lot time, stay focused.
16. Blogs have evolved from online diaries to essential business tools. Use your blog to inform readers, extend your brand and make new contacts. But at all times and through ever step of the way use your blog to profit.

They noted in the article about DailyCoyote.net, a highly successful award winning blog.
Some points she made in the article.

• When Dooce.com link to her, the blog boomed
• She blog post regularly every day at the same time. Her readers count on it and expect it
• The best source of income is the subscribtions to daily photos, calendar prints and the book deal
• She spends about 25 hours a week on the blog
• She uses twitter help grow

I hope this helps you guys. I really feel blogging could be the tool to help grow anyone's business.
God Bless,
John

Skpe Meeting Night

Hi All,

Attending:
John Mac
Rich M
John N

Look at this site: http://www.addthis.com/tour

I think I will using this link and try it on my DolphinWorld.org site.

We are going to have a great speaker at May 7th meeting from Alex. Dictionary.com will talk with us.

I have installed this program http://www.ccleaner.com/ on my computer its free and it cleans all temp files very easily.

Rich is busy with his websites, adding more banners and graphics. John N is going to Jamaica and will start using Tweeter tonight. He wants to tweet his trip to Jamaica.

Anyone have anything to add to the notes?
God Bless,
John

Windows Key Board Short Cuts

Hi All,

Here are some Windows Key Board short cuts. They will cut increase your speed doing work with your PC. You Apples user don't need to worry about this.

I hope this helpful. Does anyone out there have any shortcuts that is not on this list that you want to share?
God Bless,
John

Windows system key combinations

• F1: Help
• CTRL+ESC: Open Start menu
• ALT+TAB: Switch between open programs
• ALT+F4: Quit program
• SHIFT+DELETE: Delete item permanently

Windows program key combinations

• CTRL+C: Copy
• CTRL+X: Cut
• CTRL+V: Paste
• CTRL+Z: Undo
• CTRL+B: Bold
• CTRL+U: Underline
• CTRL+I: Italic

Mouse click/keyboard modifier combinations for shell objects

• SHIFT+right click: Displays a shortcut menu containing alternative commands
• SHIFT+double click: Runs the alternate default command (the second item on the menu)
• ALT+double click: Displays properties
• SHIFT+DELETE: Deletes an item immediately without placing it in the Recycle Bin

General keyboard-only commands

• F1: Starts Windows Help
• F10: Activates menu bar options
• SHIFT+F10 Opens a shortcut menu for the selected item (this is the same as right-clicking an object
• CTRL+ESC: Opens the Start menu (use the ARROW keys to select an item)
• CTRL+ESC or ESC: Selects the Start button (press TAB to select the taskbar, or press SHIFT+F10 for a context menu)
• ALT+DOWN ARROW: Opens a drop-down list box
• ALT+TAB: Switch to another running program (hold down the ALT key and then press the TAB key to view the task-switching window)
• SHIFT: Press and hold down the SHIFT key while you insert a CD-ROM to bypass the automatic-run feature
• ALT+SPACE: Displays the main window's System menu (from the System menu, you can restore, move, resize, minimize, maximize, or close the window)
• ALT+- (ALT+hyphen): Displays the Multiple Document Interface (MDI) child window's System menu (from the MDI child window's System menu, you can restore, move, resize, minimize, maximize, or close the child window)
• CTRL+TAB: Switch to the next child window of a Multiple Document Interface (MDI) program
• ALT+underlined letter in menu: Opens the menu
• ALT+F4: Closes the current window
• CTRL+F4: Closes the current Multiple Document Interface (MDI) window
• ALT+F6: Switch between multiple windows in the same program (for example, when the Notepad Find dialog box is displayed, ALT+F6 switches between the Find dialog box and the main Notepad window)

Shell objects and general folder/Windows Explorer shortcuts

For a selected object:

• F2: Rename object
• F3: Find all files
• CTRL+X: Cut
• CTRL+C: Copy
• CTRL+V: Paste
• SHIFT+DELETE: Delete selection immediately, without moving the item to the Recycle Bin
• ALT+ENTER: Open the properties for the selected object

To copy a file

Press and hold down the CTRL key while you drag the file to another folder.

To create a shortcut

Press and hold down CTRL+SHIFT while you drag a file to the desktop or a folder.

General folder/shortcut control

• F4: Selects the Go To A Different Folder box and moves down the entries in the box (if the toolbar is active in Windows Explorer)
• F5: Refreshes the current window.
• F6: Moves among panes in Windows Explorer
• CTRL+G: Opens the Go To Folder tool (in Windows 95 Windows Explorer only)
• CTRL+Z: Undo the last command
• CTRL+A: Select all the items in the current window
• BACKSPACE: Switch to the parent folder
• SHIFT+click+Close button: For folders, close the current folder plus all parent folders

Windows Explorer tree control

• Numeric Keypad *: Expands everything under the current selection
• Numeric Keypad +: Expands the current selection
• Numeric Keypad -: Collapses the current selection.
• RIGHT ARROW: Expands the current selection if it is not expanded, otherwise goes to the first child
• LEFT ARROW: Collapses the current selection if it is expanded, otherwise goes to the parent

Properties control

• CTRL+TAB/CTRL+SHIFT+TAB: Move through the property tabs

Accessibility shortcuts

• Press SHIFT five times: Toggles StickyKeys on and off
• Press down and hold the right SHIFT key for eight seconds: Toggles FilterKeys on and off
• Press down and hold the NUM LOCK key for five seconds: Toggles ToggleKeys on and off
• Left ALT+left SHIFT+NUM LOCK: Toggles MouseKeys on and off
• Left ALT+left SHIFT+PRINT SCREEN: Toggles high contrast on and off

Microsoft Natural Keyboard keys

• Windows Logo: Start menu
• Windows Logo+R: Run dialog box
• Windows Logo+M: Minimize all
• SHIFT+Windows Logo+M: Undo minimize all
• Windows Logo+F1: Help
• Windows Logo+E: Windows Explorer
• Windows Logo+F: Find files or folders
• Windows Logo+D: Minimizes all open windows and displays the desktop
• CTRL+Windows Logo+F: Find computer
• CTRL+Windows Logo+TAB: Moves focus from Start, to the Quick Launch toolbar, to the system tray (use RIGHT ARROW or LEFT ARROW to move focus to items on the Quick Launch toolbar and the system tray)
• Windows Logo+TAB: Cycle through taskbar buttons
• Windows Logo+Break: System Properties dialog box
• Application key: Displays a shortcut menu for the selected item

Microsoft Natural Keyboard with IntelliType software installed

• Windows Logo+L: Log off Windows
• Windows Logo+P: Starts Print Manager
• Windows Logo+C: Opens Control Panel
• Windows Logo+V: Starts Clipboard
• Windows Logo+K: Opens Keyboard Properties dialog box
• Windows Logo+I: Opens Mouse Properties dialog box
• Windows Logo+A: Starts Accessibility Options (if installed)
• Windows Logo+SPACEBAR: Displays the list of Microsoft IntelliType shortcut keys
• Windows Logo+S: Toggles CAPS LOCK on and off

Dialog box keyboard commands

• TAB: Move to the next control in the dialog box
• SHIFT+TAB: Move to the previous control in the dialog box
• SPACEBAR: If the current control is a button, this clicks the button. If the current control is a check box, this toggles the check box. If the current control is an option, this selects the option.
• ENTER: Equivalent to clicking the selected button (the button with the outline)
• ESC: Equivalent to clicking the Cancel button
• ALT+underlined letter in dialog box item: Move to the corresponding item

---

APPLIES TO

• Windows Server 2008 Datacenter
• Windows Server 2008 Enterprise
• Windows Server 2008 Standard
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition (32-bit x86)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise x64 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition (32-bit x86)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition for Itanium-based Systems
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard x64 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition (32-bit x86)
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
• Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition
• Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition
• Microsoft Windows 98 Standard Edition
• Microsoft Windows 95
• Windows Vista Business
• Windows Vista Enterprise
• Windows Vista Home Basic
• Windows Vista Home Premium
• Windows Vista Starter
• Windows Vista Ultimate
• Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional
• Microsoft Windows XP Starter Edition
• Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition

Successful Website

Hi All,

Alex's friend has this very success website.

Free Dictionary.com Check it out for ideas.

Alex said his friend will speak with us when we meet again.

God Bless,
John

Note from General Meeting - April 2 2009

Hi Guys,

Who was here:
John M
Rich M

Some things we talked about:

1. Looked at Rich's banners and did a blog post on it. Please add some feed back for Rich.

2. Talked about Zeus and latest updates. If you don't know about Zeus, it is a link exchange program. I used to use it a lot and Rich still use it more than. It definitely helps with back links. Go to: Zeus Program

Rich needs to fix his submission pages for the links - interior pages were not work. John needs to fix TropicalAdventure.com links pages.

3. We talked about the webmaster tools from Google. We looked at my back links for www.dolphinworld.org - I had over 2,000 back links. Its a great tools to use.
( Check out tutorial of tool)

4. We talked about the graphics that Allen created for me to use on myspace. Rich liked that idea and may use it for some his pet sites. To see dolphin myspace graphics

5. The next Skype meeting we are going to start the Google Adword professional Series. Next Skype meeting April 16.

Anyone seen anything new about Business, Internet, Affiliate Marketing, please post on this blog.

Don't forget to add your website on this blog, get a free back link !!!

I think that is it.
God Bless,
John

Website Advertising Banners for Rich

Hi All,

We need your opinion of what banners you like.

Rich is has made a bunch of new banners from Photoshop CS3.

Please go to:
http://www.best-whole-food-nutrition.com/testbanners.htm

Please rate the 3 468 width X 60 ( retangle) and the other 3 150 width X 400 ( almost like a square).

Just comment in the blog to make it more helpful for Rich and deciding what would make people click the ad.

God Bless,
John

My thoughts on IE 8

Gentlemen,

Firstly I'd like to say 'well done' with the blog. I think it's a great idea and hopfully will help us all. My only qualm is with the name, seems like John forgot to include Brasil in the title. Oh well!

I think I was the first (if not only) one of us to install IE 8. I'm pretty sure I was the first one to uninstall it as well. John asked me to provide a little feedback, so here goes:

The installation was painless and everything went according to plan. Visually, for the user, there is little difference in the appearance of the browser itself. The biggest change is that is seems to render pages like the other browsers (Chrome, Opera and Firefox). Hopefully this will alleviate, if not end, the nightmare of having to create separate style sheets for IE. There is a cute little button to the right of the address bar that allows IE 8 to diaplay a page as if it were an older version of IE - this is interesting for designers and programmers.

IE 8 is still in beta and so is not being widely used yet, but we should be prepared to make our pages readable in all versions. The easiest way to do this (so far) is to force the new browser to view the page as if it were the old browser. This is accomplished by adding a single line of code to the header of each page:
<meta equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=7"> .
This code forces the browser to use the rendering engine of IE7.

So far the reviews of the new browser has been mostly positive, but there have also been a few detractors (if you have MS then you won't like IE8 - no matter how good it is).

Here are a few links to more infomation:
WIKI PAGE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_8
Official Page: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/Internet-explorer/default.aspx
Microsoft Developer Network Page about how the new browser works with CSS:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms531205(vs.85).aspx (very good - recemmended!!!)

If you're wondering why I uninstalled it so quickly...
I has to do with an online banking program that I use that didn't work with the new browser version. I couldn't figure out how to run versions 7 and 8 at the same time so I ended up uninstalling 8 so that I could access my bank account again. As soon as my bank creates a program that is compatible with IE 8, I plan to upgrade again. I liked the new browser very much.

FYI I'm running Windows Vista Home Basic on an Intel Core 2 Duo at 3 Ghz with 4 GB of memory.

That's all for me for this week. I won't be able to attend the meeting this week as I will be traveling.

Have a great Meeting!!!

Note from Skype Meeting - March 26

Internet Mastermind

Rich M

John Mac

John N

1. Talking about adding his banner to site and using the masking with photoshop.
1. Part of the masking is part of layers to create an animation
2. You can stack 8000 layers with photo shop
3. Rich is having a hard time with started the masking process
4. Rich is showing his banners http://www.best-whole-food-nutrition.com/testbanners.htm
5. Masking is the process of touch a part of the image and pull it out the world LIVE in the image. Would put Purple on Live. And put in the Word LIVE with each letter L – I – V – E . Each letter could pop in.
6. Rich talked about Gradient mask where the photos fade out slightly. Look at Richs vegetables banner on top to see an example. Should be a 20% gradient mask.
7. Once you learn one adobe program, it will help learn other programs

Rich is talking with John Hawaiian about Photoshop 3.

1. How do you take out the word LIVE out of photo.
2. John N need show this live. We will work on this the next time.

Rich start working with Dream weaver

1. Look at http://super-food-nutrition.com/nuriche_live.html
1. Look at his menu on the side and click on the menu and see the drop down menus
2. He created it with a CSS file
3. This page is new website compliant and make the website look better on all web browsers

Curtis Article about Twitter

http://raven-seo-tools.com:80/blog/366/step-by-step-howto-guide-for-marketing-on-twitter

1. Curtis Copeland and showing his life on twitter and facebook. He love to talk to people.
2. Rich is not going invest time here
3. John H is going to twitt. He knows he get more business.
4. We talked about increasing his personal photographery business.

We will have internetmaster Blog. We will start a blog tonight

1. Masterblaster Internet mastermind blog

John Mac Blog Changes http://dolphinworld.net/wordpress/

1. The right column needs some help
1. Fix the blue area where where the google search engine box. The blue area expanes out too far on big monitor.
2. Take out Retail item, dolphin Store, Toys and books
3. Replace with a google banner only 160 X 600

New Internet Explorer 8

Be prepared for its arrival – Maybe Carlo can write something in the blog about this.

We talked about starting some sort of Educational component:1. We agreed to start the google adword professional classes and getting certified

2. http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/index.html

3. Look at this page and be prepared for the next Skype meeting

We meet again next – LIVE at my house – Thursday April 2