John L. Dilbeck: Home Business

Customized Replicated Websites for Marketing and Advertising (Part One)

Wed, 19 Jan 2005 16:14:32 GMT

I'm going to be writing a series of articles about what I've come to call customized replicated websites, for lack of a better term. I'm sure there is a particular name for this, but I'm not aware of it at this time. An example of this kind of site is Affiliate Showcase. I've been a free member of this site for a couple of years and I'm just now coming to understand how these sites work. I'm a pretty bright guy, but I've failed to understand the bigger picture until recently. Basically, as I understand it now, someone creates a site -- in this case an affiliate directory that lists thousands of affiliate programs. Then, they offer a free site to anyone who signs up. This free member can modify any affiliate programs to which they belong so that the link has their affiliate code in it. Anyone who purchases from that link earns the free member a commission. Anyone who signs up for an affiliate showcase of their own will inherit the links from the person who refers them. This means that, assuming I'm the first one to sign up, my free site will inherit all the links from the site owner, which I'll call the top-level. I can change as many links as I want and I can join as many of the programs as appeal to me. I can also suggest new affiliate programs and they'll go into the database with my affiliate code, if accepted. This means that some of the links on my page are second-level (the ones I modify) or top-level (the ones I add). (Please note: This has changed since the last time I checked a few months ago. Now, only paid executive members can add links to new programs.) If you follow my link and get a free site of your own, your pages will inherit the top-level links of the site owner, the top-level links of the programs I'm first to suggest, and the second-level links that I modified. Thus, I, and you, are free to customize our replicated sites with our own links. We are free to suggest new programs that are not in the database. But, any links that aren't modified or added, inherit the top-level links from the site owner/creator. I'm not suggesting this is a bad thing. In fact, I think it's proper for the creator/maintainer of the site to be compensated for the work done to create the system and to market it. That's what affiliate programs are all about. Since I'm free to modify the links I want to, and I'm free to join any of the affiliate programs that appeal to me, then I can get into the compensation chain. When you sign up below me, you can modify and/or join any of the programs you want and insert yourself into the compensation chain. And so it goes. Someone signs up under you and someone under that person, and so on. Each replicated site inherits a mix of your links and links modified or created by your upline. By advertising your page, you are marketing for not just yourself, but for those who are in the upline -- and this is normal, too. Some programs don't let you build downlines. Some offer two-level downlines. Others offer multi-level downlines. By advertising one page, you can market a wide range of programs, some of which you'll earn from, and others your upline will earn from. Obviously, the individuals or team that create the site and hold the top-level positions are in line to earn the most commissions. But, generally, that's not the only income stream. Most of these sites, including Affiliate Showcase, offer paid membership subscriptions. Some offer two or more different paid subscriptions with varying features. With Affiliate Showcase, you can upgrade to Pro or Executive levels, and each offers more customization of the featured ads on the home page of the site. If you are a free member, you can't modify the most prominent ads, so your upline (all the way back to the first paid member who placed the ads) are the only ones who can earn from transactions initiated by those ads. If you want to replace the ads, you must upgrade to paid status. Since it's an affiliate program, the person who referred you will earn a percentage of your upgrade payment as a commission. Paid members earn a higher percentage than free members. Again, I don't think there's anything wrong with this, it's just not obvious the first time you are exposed to the site -- at least, it wasn't obvious to me. Since the large ads on the home page are the ones most likely to grab your attention, I would think they would be the ones that earn the most. I don't know this for a fact, but I'm considering upgrading my membership to see how well it works. Two years ago, when I signed up, I had no traffic to my sites, not much experience with affiliate programs, no experience with multilevel or network marketing, and not enough money to upgrade to paid status, so I never really marketed the Affiliate Showcase site. Now, I'm going to advertise it and see what happens. Since I've joined several hundred affiliate programs during the learning phase of my online marketing business, I'll search for those and upgrade my links. I probably won't add many programs if they're not already in the database. As an experiment, I'd like to invite you to follow the link and sign up for your free Affiliate Showcase site. Sign up for any of the affiliate programs that strike your fancy, and be sure to modify the link by clicking on the edit link and adding your affiliate code. Let's see how many levels deep we can build this network in the next six months. Let's also see if we earn enough income from our experiment to make it worthwhile to upgrade to pro status. This is especially useful if you are an affiliate with SFI Marketing Group or Cognigen, both of which are in the database. Search for the program and edit your link so that anyone who signs up under you will inherit your link code. Over the next few weeks, I'll be talking about other sites that I've found that follow this or a similar system, and we can see how they work, too. At this point, I'm not asking anyone to upgrade to paid status, unless you can afford it and feel it is worth the risk. In that case, it's up to you. I'm mainly wondering what happens as we get more people signing up for the free sites and then promoting them. I'll report back as I see any results. Over the next few days, I'll be introducing sites that are designed to increase traffic to your sites, build downlines, offer free advertising, and more, and some of these programs are already listed in the Affiliate Showcase. At this point, I'm not entirely sure it's worth the effort, but I've been talking to a couple of people who swear by it. My main strategy is still to build sites and blogs with good content and optimize each page for good search engine placement. But, I can see the benefit of trying some of the customized replicated sites, too. Feel free to tell me your experiences with these types of sites and what you think about them.

Are you serious about building a home business?

Fri, 07 Jan 2005 11:48:03 GMT

If not, stop reading. I'm looking for serious people who are willing to spend at least one hour per day marketing their home-based business and at least one dollar per day investing in it.

Blog readership jumped 58% in 2004

Wed, 05 Jan 2005 07:38:11 GMT

It looks like I picked the right year to focus on adding more blogs and more RSS (also known as XML) feeds to my sites! From the Pew Internet & American Life Project site:

By the end of 2004 blogs had established themselves as a key part of online culture. Two surveys by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in November established new contours for the blogosphere: 8 million American adults say they have created blogs; blog readership jumped 58% in 2004 and now stands at 27% of internet users; 5% of internet users say they use RSS aggregators or XML readers to get the news and other information delivered from blogs and content-rich Web sites as it is posted online; and 12% of internet users have posted comments or other material on blogs. Still, 62% of internet users do not know what a blog is.

If you're one of the 62% who don't know what a blog is or what RSS is all about, let me recommend the following sites to start learning about them. RSS was co-developed by Dave Winer and you should read about Radio Userland, the product I use to manage this blog and nearly 5,000 pages on several websites. Also, be sure to read All about RSS. Another good resource, and one that keeps getting better, is written by Ken Evoy. One of Ken's claims to fame is presiding over the company that developed Site Build It!, which I think is the best web design, hosting, and promotion service on the planet. I am one very happy customer. The product just keeps getting better. Visit the Site Build It! link first so you can see where he's coming from. Then, go read the information he wrote about RSS: Really Simple Syndication for his Site Build It! customers. I spent several months in late 2004 developing my blogging infrastructure and staking my claim on several blogs at blogger.com. Now that the development work is mostly done, I can pass along newsworthy information to a wider audience faster and more efficiently than ever before. Also, from the other side of the story, I use Radio Userland to read others' RSS feeds using the news aggregator that is built in. I subscribe to a little over 50 feeds and read them on a more-or-less daily basis. It's a lot easier to read the RSS feed and then click on a link that interests me than it is to remember to go to all 50 of those sites and try to find the new information. I'm to the point now that I'd rather get newsletters and site updates in an RSS feed than in an email message or newsletter. I have commented on quite a few blogs and I always meet an interesting person on the other end when he or she responds to my comments. One of the most interesting recent developments -- for me at least -- has been the addition of RSS feeds to the Site Build It! customer forums. Now, instead of having to go to the forum every day, I added the RSS feed and I can easily read down the list of posts to see which ones I want to read and perhaps respond to. This is a very busy forum, and the addition of the RSS feed has shaved a couple of hours off my forum reading time every day. I think we'll be seeing much more about blogs (also known as weblogs or journals), RSS, XML, and similar topics this year. If you have a business with information that changes on a regular basis, you should look into blogs and RSS syndication.

Many announcements from SFI Marketing Group this weekend.

Tue, 04 Jan 2005 13:33:24 GMT

Gery Carson, founder and president of SFI Marketing group, announced many new changes to the company this weekend. I won't go over all of them here, however. You can see some of the changes in my SFI Blog. Here are the headlines:

If you're interested in becoming an SFI affiliate, I'd love to welcome you to my team.

Site Build It! - Buy-1-Get-1 Free Sale until Midnight Dec. 25. Get two websites for the price of one!

Sun, 19 Dec 2004 12:19:36 GMT

I've been telling you for a long time how much I like Site Build It! and how much the tools included with this outstanding website design, hosting, and promotion service have helped me earn more with my sites. From now until midnight on Christmas Day, you can buy one SBI account and get a second one free. That's an outstanding bargain and I just wish I had the time and energy to take advantage of it. If you are looking for a way to build a site that attracts targeted visitors instead of sitting there and growing cobwebs, this is your opportunity. You can get both sites for the price of one -- or you can keep one and give it to a friend, relative, or colleague to help them build their business, too. I host my Act On Your Dream! site using Site Build It! and I couldn't be happier. I haven't had the time to build that site to where I want it, but that will be one of my major priorities in January and February. I can tell you, however, that I've been using the tools that are included with an SBI site to help me on all my other websites, even though they are hosted on other services. If I were starting all over from scratch and if I were only going to build a few websites, there is no doubt in my mind that I'd use Site Build It! to do it. If you want to build your business and promote it online, don't pass up this opportunity! If you wait just one second after midnight on December 26, you'll miss the special sale. Don't delay.

Following Up on the SFI Big Announcement

Sun, 05 Dec 2004 10:20:01 GMT

On December 1, 2004, Gery Carson made a major announcement about the SFI Marketing Group's compensation plan for 2005. I'll be posting more thoughts about SFI and the changes in the compensation plan on my SFI Blog.

News of Big Changes to the SFI Marketing Group Compensation Plan in 2005

Sun, 05 Dec 2004 08:55:01 GMT

Following is the announcement from Gery Carson, CEO of SFI Marketing Group: 12/1/04 Dear SFI Affiliate, During the first eleven months of this year, SFI has made an abundance of improvements and enhancements. These include:

Completely redesigned and centralized our affiliate website (www.sfimg.com)
All new Veriuni store
New offline marketing tools
Launched a greatly improved Wholesale program
Added a toll-free order line
Live, online support added to www.sfimg.com and IAHBE
Introduced a number of new products
Added the "Next Step" training center
Redesigned Smart Start
Introduced the new "Welcome New Affiliate" self-mailer
Introduced SFI Partner Stores
Added the option to receive commissions via PayPal
Added a search engine to www.sfimg.com
Sent out a weekly newsletter EVERY Friday since January
Overhauled Eagle Co-op
Introduced E-Cards
Introduced new and improved Gateways
Added a variety of new reports and business management tools
Introduced ValuePaks
Published a new SFI book
Added 93 magazines to the magazine rack
Achieved whitelist status with AOL, Yahoo, and other major ISPs for greatly increased email deliverability

Obviously, we are working very hard to make SFI the best it can be. That is why, on January 1st, I'm very pleased to announce that we will also be introducing a brand new improved compensation plan. We had several key objectives in redesigning the compensation plan:

Provide a strong incentive to become MIQ
Provide a strong incentive to retain MIQ status (reduce attrition)
Provide significant earnings opportunity, both front-end and back-end, on personal referrals
Provide a platform that encourages and rewards strong, synergistic (teamworking) relationships between uplines and downlines
Increase the percentage of Standing Orders
Provide a strong incentive to take immediate and daily action
Show exciting income potential in an easy-to-understand way
Provide an upfront "show me the money" component to clearly demonstrate SFI is real to new affiliates
Provide the opportunity for new affiliates to realistically earn income monthly to establish SFI's potential
Provide a strong incentive to continually advance in rank
Provide a strong incentive to develop leaders in ones team
Provide a strong incentive to build a large sales team
Provide a robust retail sales program
Provide the "big money" opportunity that heavy hitters are looking for

It was a major challenge to achieve all of these objectives and we went through many, many drafts since we began the redesign work in the Summer. You might also like to know that we worked with over 20 of SFI's top leaders in designing the new plan. In announcing the new plan today, I'm thrilled to say that not only did we MEET all of our objectives, but I believe we clearly EXCEEDED them with some truly powerful and unique features. If you're ready to check it out, here's the URL with all the details: http://www.sfimg.com/TNet (If you're not an SFI affiliate, you can join here and get access to that information.) After you've taken a look, be sure to continue reading on as I have lots of other exciting information and news to share with you today. We'll start with this excerpt from "Choosing The Best Network Marketing Company":

"What you want is a compensation plan that shifts some money upfront so the new person can see a check in their first few weeks. By giving the new people that taste of success, you lock them in, and they'll stay involved and keep working long enough for the 'back-end' residual-type income to kick in. The point is, almost every type of compensation plan can ultimately deliver a monster income on a big downline, but first you've got to have a product line capable of attracting and sustaining that kind of growth. AND, you've got to have a means for new people coming in to get a taste of the potential income, or you'll be losing people as fast as you can bring new people in to replace them. In short, if you've got top products and an upfront bonus in your compensation plan, everything will take care of itself --it becomes self-perpetuating. If you don't have both of these crucial elements, however, your business is going to be a losing proposition --one big, frustrating Catch-22."

If you've reviewed the new comp plan, we've obviously taken the above advice to heart. For starters, SFI's new "Team Network" system will force significant growth under thousands of new affiliates, giving them that critical taste of success, while simultaneously demonstrating tremendous future potential. To help "prime the pump" even further, we have also earmarked 4% of CV companywide towards a first month guaranteed commission check. This component of the new plan means that all new MIQs, starting in January, will get a commission check their first month (we'll send it, regardless of amount). Then, the T-Net structure will help ensure the checks keep coming. And with the Business Builders Bonuses, new affiliates can create significant commission checks right out of the chute! And these are just SOME of the powerful components of T-Net. When you grasp the entire picture and understand how all the new dynamics work together, I'm betting you will be as excited as I and many top SFI leaders are about this new plan. Now let's look at some other powerful features... NEW EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS SYSTEM If you know how now or can learn how to generate a steady stream of affiliate registrations, the new email notifications system could be HUGE for you! Starting January 1st, we will begin plugging in new affiliates under you in your personal T-Net network as they sign up (placed in the next available open slot). Starting the next day, for 29 days, they will then begin receiving a daily "Network Growth" recap email of all the new affiliates that have been placed under them. The email will explain that these new affiliates have been placed under them and they can be earning 6% on each, plus have the opportunity to earn on everything these affiliates go on to do, etc. To lock in this benefit, the affiliate receiving the recap simply needs to upgrade (become MIQ) within 30 days of their sign-up date (which we of course let them know in the recap). If they fail to upgrade by their 30-day deadline, they lose their spot in the network and everything below rolls up. If you skimmed the last two paragraphs, go back and read it again, as this is one of the truly MAJOR new components of the SFI system. Because the 2x12 network is so narrow, substantial growth will naturally flow down level after level. With the combination of your own efforts, PLUS the efforts of your upline, PLUS the efforts of your downline, a large percentage of your affiliates could be receiving these exciting notifications. Over a month's time, the number of affiliates placed under them could be VERY substantial. Indeed, many of our top leaders have been known to bring in literally HUNDREDS of new affiliates a DAY! Are the affiliates above all this activity going to want to lose their position and lose all this potential income? Of course not! New affiliates will now have a HUGE incentive to become MIQ and remain MIQ. NEW BUILT-IN COMPANYWIDE AD CO-OP An all-new company-sponsored ad co-op will go into affect in January. Up to 12 free shares will be included in the benefits of the rank of Platinum Team Leader. Bronze Team Leaders will receive one free share, Silver two free shares, and Gold four free shares. In other words, by simply referring 2 MIQs (the basic qualifications for Bronze Team Leader), you would receive one free share in the ad co-op and up to 12 free shares in advancing to Platinum. You receive these free shares automatically every month that you are qualified at that rank and all affiliates generated for you by the ad co-op of course flow into your network, increasing momentum and growth for all. NEW RETAIL PROGRAM SFI has always endeavored to have a strong retail program. As of January 1st, our strongest retail program yet will be in place. Starting January 1st, when you make a sale to a NON-affiliate, it will be considered a retail sale and you will earn a straight 40% (of CV) commission. It DOUBLES to 80% if you have at least 10 total SVP for the month. Special note: We have eliminated the old comp plan's "initial sale" and "subsequent sale" labels. In other words, with the new plan, a sale is a sale. Period. Whether the customer is buying for the first time or the 50th time from you, you're going to earn 40% (80% if your total personal SVP for the month is 10 or more). Bottom line: If you want to focus on personal retail sales, we now have a very robust compensation plan that pays you up to 80% of our CV (Commission Volume) on every product you sell. OTHER FEATURES OF T-NET Here are some other features of the T-NET plan that you may not have realized or that are not yet documented elsewhere: 1. You can earn from every income stream without any group volume requirements. 2. You can earn over $10,000/mo. with JUST TWO personally sponsored MIQ affiliates. 3. You can earn infinitely deep into your organization on all personally-sponsored MIQ affiliates. 4. There will be monthly compression of the network for maximum payout. This means that should someone drop out, the next affiliate below that spot moves up to fill the gap. This ensures maximization of the number of affiliates in your payline and a constant clearing of the "dead wood" in your organization which allows your best people to rise to the top. 5. OVER THREE TIMES as many affiliates will be receiving commission checks as there are today. That's thousands of more people every month with proof that SFI is the real deal, and we believe this will pay huge dividends. 6. If one of your personally-referred affiliates sponsors someone, then downgrades, the commissions of that "orphaned" affiliate can now roll-up to you. =================== IMPORTANT =================== With the exception of brand new affiliates joining SFI after December 1st, to be part of the T-Net Network when we compile it on January 1st, you MUST BE MIQ on December 31, 2004. We will do our best to make sure everyone gets this important message. However, you can really help yourself by doing everything you can during December to help as many of your non-MIQ affiliates get upgraded so that they start the new year with the best possible position in the new T-Net network. Of course, not only that, but for all your personally-sponsored affiliates who upgrade via a standard 10 SVP/20 CV personal purchase in December, you'll earn a Seller's Commission of $16 for each one. To help you reach as many of your affiliates as possible, we've set up a special co-op postcard mailing. For just 29 cents apiece, we'll send out a full-color postcard via first-class mail to all of your personally-sponsored affiliates (USA-resident s only). If you don't wish to mail to ALL, you can mail to your top 25, top 100, top 500, or whatever number you want. We will use a "Power Rating" formula which weighs the number of referrals, months they've been MIQ, etc. to determine who your top affiliates are. You can get more information and/or order your postcard mailing at: [URL deleted -- This is for affiliates who have sponsored other affiliates, only.] Note!! The DEADLINE to order your postcards is Monday, December 6th. ================================================ IMPORTANT QUESTIONS & ANSWERS To keep the length of this announcement letter down, we've set up a separate Webpage of over 30 important questions and answers about the new comp plan. We STRONGLY urge you to go to this Q&A Webpage and review this information: https://www.sfimg.com/Reference/TNetFAQ.sfi (If you're not an SFI affiliate, you can join here and get access to that information.) JANUARY 1ST SNEAK PEEKS & CLOSING THOUGHTS In addition to a powerful, new compensation plan, an incredible new email notification system, and a company-sponsored ad co-op, here are some of the other major items coming to SFI in January:

Introduction of a new full-color prospecting booklet
Gateways, emails, and Smart Start translated into Spanish
The launch of a new fundraising division
Exciting new sales, recruiting, and team-building contests
New products
AND SOME OTHER SURPRISES!

When all of these new programs, products, and enhancements are in place in January, we believe SFI will take another huge leap forward. Indeed, the SYNERGY of everything combined and working together will be extremely powerful. There will be lots of additional information coming out in the following days and weeks as we edge closer to January 1st. We are also planning conference calls, etc. to get everyone fully up to speed and ready to hit the ground running in January. In the meantime, if you want to start boosting your commission check right now, you need to get started immediately on a gameplan for contacting your affiliates. Remember, they must be MIQ on December 31st, 2004 to secure the best possible position in T-Net. After December 31st this opportunity for them will be gone forever. I hope you are as excited as I am. 2005 is going to be a breakout year for SFI and I'm going to do everything I can to make it be YOUR best year ever, too. Gery Carson
SFI Founder & President

ShopForT1 News

Sat, 04 Dec 2004 23:29:40 GMT

Your opportunities with ShopForT1 continue to increase on a regular basis, as more and more Cognigen agents are seeing that T1 (and larger circuit) sales have closed and they are seeing the commissions. You are encouraged to take the time to understand what you have to offer here, since ShopForT1 is one of the absolute best deals around today. You find a need for bandwidth, the lead is entered into the system, and a technical professional closes the sale for you! It just doesn't get any better than that! With the advent and ever-increasing demand for VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol, or broadband phone) services for businesses, ShopForT1 is aligned with both Broadvox and Packet8 to provide a bundled solution for customers. This can be a tremendous cost savings for businesses, since a data-only T1 is typically less expensive than an integrated T1 line (combining data and voice circuits). The ShopForT1 closers understand this and are explaining it to customers as a cost-effective option on a regular basis. The carriers that are represented by ShopForT1 are also noticing the tremendous success, and are continually amazed at the number of orders that are closed. As a result of this, these carriers are regularly offering very generous spiffs, bonuses, and increased commissions to compensate ShopForT1 (and you, the agent) for this continued success. Is there really an opportunity here? You bet! Consider that within the United States there are well over a MILLION T1 lines being used. This is a substantial market for you to go after. Now, consider that if a T1 line has been in place for more than 2 years, it is very likely that the customer is paying much more than he should be for it. If that T1 line has been in place for more than 3 years, it is almost certain that the customer is paying more than he needs to for that service. Even "techno-savvy" customers sometimes find it difficult to understand how ShopForT1 can offer such low prices from top-tier carriers. One ShopForT1 closer tells the story that one customer didn't believe the prices he was being quoted by the closer over the phone, so he asked the closer to print the quote and get it notarized, and then fax it to him! How can ShopForT1 offer such prices from these top-tier carriers? The name of the game is VOLUME. Based on the volume of business that ShopForT1 provides to all of our carriers every month, those carriers guarantee the best prices possible. That's why the closers don't hesitate to tell the customer which carriers are being quoted, because the guarantee is that the customer cannot go to that same carrier directly and get a better price on the same service. For you, the agent, ShopForT1 can represent a gold mine. Consider that you don't need to close the sale -- the sale is closed for you by a professional technical consultant at no cost to you or the customer. Also consider that a T1 line or larger circuit is almost always sold on a 1, 2, or 3 year contract. This means that you have a guaranteed commission every month from that customer for the life of the contract, and may ALSO get a one-time bonus or spiff from it. It just doesn't get any better than this. Well, we have said that before and it still continues to get better and better, with more tools being added regularly. Don't miss the boat on this tremendous opportunity.

Packet8 Broadband Phone Service (VoIP) Launches to Tremendous Demand

Sat, 04 Dec 2004 22:45:22 GMT

Cognigen agents now have the opportunity to market Packet8, 8x8's broadband phone service for both business and residential subscribers. Using high-speed connections to make voice and video calls over the Internet, Broadband Phone (a.k.a. VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol) is one of the biggest growth industries around, and Packet8 is ranked as one of the top three services available. Packet8 is an affordable and easy-to-use broadband telephone and videophone service. Designed with both residential and business customers in mind, Packet8 allows anyone with broadband (high-speed) Internet access to use their regular phone to make UNLIMITED calls to anywhere in the U.S. and Canada for as little as $19.95 per month. Business plans start at $34.95. Packet8 subscribers with videophones can make video calls for as little as $29.95 per month. All Packet8 subscribers get world wide UNLIMITED calling to other Packet8 subscribers at no extra charge. From now until midnight (PST) on December 31, 2004, all customers who sign up for Packet8 services from a Cognigen representative will receive a $19.95 discount off activation. For this limited time, the discount has been increased from $5.00 to $19.95. Prior to this promotion, the initial charge to the customer was an activation fee of $24.95 and the first monthly service fee of $19.95.

I've been a busy boy...

Fri, 05 Nov 2004 10:39:01 GMT

As I wrote back on July 20th, I was sick for some time and just wasn't able to get anything done. Boy, did that change! Between then and now, I've been adding to websits and blogs every day. New websites: A Year From Now -- Act on Your Dream!, Dilbeck Communications, and Cherokee County, North Carolina. AYearFromNow.com is hosted on what I think is the best web design, webhosting, and website promotion service available on the planet: Site Build It!. I haven't had the time to really flesh out this site yet, but that is planned for this winter. Are you interested in telling your success story? DilbeckCommunications.com is hosted by Hosting With Us and this is a great webhosting service that offers quality hosting, outstanding support, and good prices. To build this site, I had to learn PHP-Nuke and PHP programming, but now that I know how to do it, the site is coming along nicely. CherokeeCountyNC.com is a portal for residents of, and visitors to, Cherokee County, North Carolina, where I live. I've been thinking about building this site for about a year and after I learned PHP-Nuke it seemed to be just what I wanted to build the site. It, too, is hosted by Hosting With Us. I'll probably be putting most of my efforts into expanding and maintaining this site. With email getting so bogged down by spam and spam filters, I've decided to look into other ways to communicate and I've been looking at options for building blogs and syndicating the content. Now, I know that I've been blogging ever since I started my subdomain on EditThisPage.com and Dave Winer and Userland were on the bleeding edge of blogging, even before it had a name. I've been using Radio Userland for years to build my static sites and to maintain this blog. Over the years, many others have joined in and there are now many tools for blogging. I've been experimenting with Blogger.com and running my feeds through FeedBurner.com to parse the Atom files that Blogger uses, instead of the more-common RSS. I've managed to get syndication working for all my blogs and you can see this at work at JohnDilbeck.com/blogs/. I'm also experimenting with using Blogger to build static pages on CherokeeCountyNC.com, so, a couple of days ago, I changed the settings so that Blogger.com will FTP the Cherokee County, North Carolina Blog to blog.cherokeecountync.com. My thinking is that this will build new static pages on the site, in addition to the dynamic pages built by PHP-Nuke. I believe that the search engines will index the static pages better than the dynamic pages, but I don't know this for sure, and that's why I'm testing it. It's been a wild couple of months, but a lot of progress has been made. Feedburner.com was a great find and I heartily endorse their products. Blogger.com was also a great find and I endorse their product as well. After the hacker problems I had on GeorgiaDragRacing.com, I've been removing almost all the scripts from my static sites and moving towards other services that I can integrate into my sites using FTP and/or javascript. Some work better and some not as well. So far, I'm not sure which I think is the best. Still testing. At this point, I don't have any plans to build any more sites over the next three months, but I have some ideas for new sites this spring. Over the next few weeks, I'll be updating my sites and fleshing out the new ones. You're invited to visit!

New Products from Cognigen

Mon, 07 Jun 2004 17:09:09 GMT

Over the last few weeks, Cognigen has introduced four new services related to long distance phone calling, domain registration, webhosting, and wireless service. PNG Power 3000 -- Flat rate long distance service with 3000 anytime minutes for $29.95 per month. No need to switch long distance... HostingWithUs Web Hosting Service -- Quality web hosting from $5.95 per month! No setup fee nor a 3, 6, or 12 month prepay to get our low prices. Be sure to check out the features and low prices on bulk reseller hosting which is ideal for online marketers who have many websites. (I know I'll be getting one of these accounts later this month.) DomainsWithUs Domain Name Registration -- A domain name of your choice, registered at $9.75 per year. Search all the extensions. All popular features are included. FonCentral Specializing in T-Mobile -- Great personal and family plans, get a free phone with up to a $100 cash back. Cellular portability available! These are the four newest products available from Cognigen. You can see all our services at my Cognigen sales site. In addition to the products listed above, we offer services from some of the best telecommunications businesses in the world. You can choose from long distance calling services, bundled local and long distance, 800 toll-free services, high-speed Internet access (including DSL, T1, T3 and higher), phone calling cards, dial-up Internet access, broadband phone (VoIP), dial-around long distance, conference calling, voice messaging, web services, wireless cell phones, satellite TV, computers and more. Many of these services are available to both residential and business customers -- often at the same price! All products are not available at all locations. The web page for each product will help you determine what is available at your home or office. I appreciate your business!

21st Century Sales website updated and expanded.

Mon, 07 Jun 2004 16:03:16 GMT

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been redesigning my 21st Century Sales site. I'm busily expanding it to offer great resources for people who want to build profitable home businesses. While there are many types of home businesses, this site is targeted towards online marketing and sales, with an emphasis on earning income by marketing affiliate programs. I've found this to be an excellent way to build extra streams of income without having to invest a lot of money. Of course, as with any business, it takes time, effort and some money to build a business to the point where it starts returning a profit. Normally, I expect to put in three to five years and a lot of time and money before I start earning a profit. This has gone faster than any other business I've ever started or helped to start. In the past, I've had to invest many thousands of dollars up-front and then put in the time and effort to make things work. With this business -- my home-based online marketing business -- I've been able to invest as little as three or four dollars every day (around $100 per month) and I'm already earning a growing profit all without incurring any debt. It's not financed by loans or credit cards, and that's a first for me. I love being out of debt. Now that it has reached the breakeven point, I don't even have to invest the small amount I was spending out of pocket each month. Overhead, advertising, and promotional expenses are now coming out of revenue, and as I reinvest a substantial portion of that revenue, I look forward to watching the business grow even faster. You, my customer, have made this possible and I appreciate it. I'll continue to offer the best opportunities I can find along with tips and advice based on my continuing research. I appreciate your business. Thank you! 21st Century Sales is one site in my growing network of Dilbeck Marketing websites. There are several more on the drawing board and I'll be introducing them over the next several months.

My SFI team continues to grow -- now on five continents!

Mon, 07 Jun 2004 15:40:01 GMT

I just noticed that my SFI sales team, while still a very young venture, already has affiliates on five continents. Only with the invention and wide distribution of the Information Superhighway would something like this be possible with the expenditure of so little money in promotion and advertising. Of course, it is also a testament to SFI Marketing Group, a company that has been investing millions of dollars and years of effort to build a great marketing organization. I've been a team leader for just a few months, but it's only because of all the effort they put into building the infrastructure, hiring a great staff, creating training systems, programming their computer systems, negotiating contracts with suppliers, and handling shipping and customer service that I've been able to jump in and start building a sales team with them so quickly. I'm looking forward to helping the affiliates who have joined my team build successful home businesses of their own. Together we'll help each other succeed. Thanks to each of you! A company is only as good as the products we sell, and I'm happy to see our selection of quality products grow and improve. If you're interested in building a home business of your own and you're willing to invest time, effort, and two or three dollars per day to promote and grow it, I invite you to join my sales team, too.

NicheBot.com

Tue, 01 Jun 2004 11:04:43 GMT

Recently, Google.com and WordTracker.com joined forces to create a site that makes it simple to do quick research for finding niches that may be profitable for your website. You can test it at NicheBot.com. It's easy to use. If you need more detailed research, they refer you directly to WordTracker.com. Last October, I wrote an article on building web traffic, and I updated it earlier today. You can learn more about finding niches and building traffic to your site there. I recommend several tools that I use on my sites. The updated article is: Building Website Traffic. Finding a niche and building a site with real, helpful content is the only way that I know of to compete with the big companies that have much more time and more people than we'll ever have. They can control the general keywords and can afford to spend thousands of dollars in advertising every month. For those of us with smaller budgets and less resources, we have to be more agile and look for treasure in the niches. If you can identify a niche and build a website that has great content, you can build traffic and eventually monetize that traffic by selling your products, services, or recommending products for sale through affiliate programs or arranging to get finders fees for sending targeted leads to other companies. You can learn a lot more about this from Ken Evoy. He teaches you how to find profitable niches in his Affiliate Masters Course which you can download free. It's in PDF format.

Built my version of the SFI Veriuni Store

Tue, 01 Jun 2004 10:50:42 GMT

Back in January, 2004, SFI Marketing Group introduced their new Veriuni Store, which makes well over 700 products available for their affiliates to sell. I started analyzing the store in February and researching keywords and phrases in March and April. As soon as I finished the emergency work I had to do on GeorgiaDragRacing.com in May, I turned my attention to building my version of the SFI Veriuni Store on JohnDilbeck.com. I did this for a couple of reasons. Some of the affiliates on my sales team were having trouble finding all the products they could sell and building links to them. So, I, to the best of my knowledge, built a site that links to all the current products using simple HTML. Now anyone on my sales team can find a product they want to link to and use my code as a sample they can modify by replacing my SFI ID with theirs and posting the links to their sites or blogs. The other reason is so that I can attract new customers and sell the products myself. Please feel free to visit the store and purchase whatever strikes your fancy. We offer hundreds of magazine subscriptions at competitive prices. I invite you to subscribe to the magazines of your choice.

Rebuilding GeorgiaDragRacing.com

Tue, 01 Jun 2004 10:37:29 GMT

I got side-tracked in May. For several months, I've been fighting one or more hackers who have been breaking into my brother's site at GeorgiaDragRacing.com and installing software that attacked other computers and ran an Internet Relay Chat -- both of which are not allowed by our hosting company who have been working with us to put a stop to this. On May 5, 2004, I received a notice from our SysAdmin that the hackers had installed software once again and he had detected and deleted it. He told me that he'd been patient for a long time, but this was the final notice. One more break-in and our account would be cancelled and we'd have to find another company to host the site. There are over 2,500 pages on that site! Since I didn't know how they were breaking in and I'd done everthing I knew, it was time for drastic action. After a long talk with David, my brother, we decided to completely rebuild the site and remove all the scripts that we were using to power the photo album, bookstore, forum, and news updating. It was going to be a big job, but it would be less work than moving everything -- including thousands of photos -- to another site. So, I looked for alternate ways to do what we'd been doing with PERL and PHP scripts. We decided to create a blog at blogger.com for the news updates, which can now be found at gdrn.blogspot.com. The photos will be hosted at ImageStation.com until we find another site that is easier to use. The bookstore was completely rebuilt using javascript and direct links to Amazon.com and the forum was deleted in favor of the mailing list hosted by Yahoo groups. So, I had to completely redesign everything and rebuild all the pages of the site. It took about three weeks of working around the clock to get it finished, but now we're moving on using the new tools. Most of the functionality was saved, but it was a huge job and it pulled me away from the other tasks I had scheduled for this month. There are probably quite a few broken links on the site and I'll have to find and squash those bugs as they come up. So, why am I telling you about this? When building a business on the Internet, you may not always have total control over what happens. We had to make a decision and I had to do a lot of work to do our best to keep the site open. Now, we're running no custom scripts and nobody but me knows the password to the site. Hopefully, that will foil the hackers. In this case, the bad guys won the battle, but I still intend to win the war.

Which do you want? A website or a place to tell about your passion?

Sun, 23 May 2004 21:05:47 GMT

Everyone has a passion in life. There are thousands of companies that offer a way to build a website. There is only one that offers a way to explore your passion and tell the world about it. Perhaps your passion is a hobby or a business. Perhaps you want to help others. Whatever it is, there is a right way and a wrong way of presenting it to the world over the Internet. The wrong way is to get a cheap web host and put up a website that recreates your brochure. Who's going to find that? The right way is to write about your passion. Build a website full of excellent content that offers information others want to find. In the offline world, it's all about location. In the online world, it's all about information. If you provide good information, the search engines will rank it highly and people will find you. This builds traffic, and a website with no traffic is just a waste of time and money. There is exactly one company that will teach you how to write about your passion and build a website that automatically attracts targeted traffic with no tricks and no need for advanced technical skills. Site Build It will help you tell the world about your passion. It all starts by wanting to share your passion with the world -- that's where you come in.

Congratulations to my growing SFI sales team!

Sun, 02 May 2004 23:19:59 GMT

Congratulations to Oluwapelumi Olorunninwo, of Idimu, AL, Nigeria, for growing his SFI sales team in April, 2004. Of all the entry-level people in my sales team, Oluwapelumi added more new affiliates to his team than anyone else. You are invited to visit his SFI store. He would appreciate any purchase you might like to make! You are also welcome to join his SFI team. Congratulations to the following for becoming Multi-Income Qualified in April, 2004 and for starting to build their SFI sales teams! Kendra Tucker, Owings Mills, MD, USA
Visit SFI store -- Join SFI team. Stacy Harris, Calgary, AB, Canada
Visit SFI store -- Join SFI team. Jennifer Anderson, Jacksonville, FL, USA
Visit SFI store -- Join SFI team. Our sales team is growing, and we're building a bigger presence around the world -- already on four continents.

Home Business Tips Newsletter -- May 1, 2004 -- Posted

Sun, 02 May 2004 23:11:00 GMT

The May 1, 2004 edition of my Home Business Tips newsletter has been posted. Congratulations to my SFI sales team for growing their businesses in April!

Promote Your Business and Save Money!

Mon, 26 Apr 2004 05:26:07 GMT

Dilbeck Marketing has slashed the prices on all our custom printed business promotion products to celebrate the arrival of spring. In addition to large discounts, we've added many new products that you can use to promote your business, organization, or cause. Our entire selection of business cards, stationery, labels, buttons, magnets, bumperstickers, rubber stamps, and many other items are now on sale. All prices have been dramatically lowered for a limited time. Our prices have always been competitive, and now they are even better. Not only have we lowered our prices, we've added hundreds of new items: * Have you been looking for short run commercial print items? We have 'em! Buy small quantities of custom designed announcements, bookmarks, full-color letterhead, greeting cards, and post cards. They're printed digitally for fast delivery and outstanding quality and price. * We've added a new class of stock business documents including mailers, LazerStock, VersaSeal, HCFA forms, and integrated products for all your business document needs. * This is an election year and everyone should vote for the candidate of their choice! You can get the word out with a wide range of affordable election labels that include bumper stickers, lapel labels, name badges, and bend and peel business cards. We continue to offer a full line of patriotic labels and American flags -- now on sale. Don't delay! Take advantage of our dramatically lowered prices while they last. dilbeckmarketing.clickprint.com -- A service of Dilbeck Marketing in association with Clickprint.com. Thanks!