I am super excited right now, because I am using a dual screen monitor.

I was just reading the Warrior Forum and ran across a post about dual screens.  I use a laptop to work on, so I did not think I could have a dual screen setup.  Boy was I wrong.

I have had a 19 inch monitor that I’ve been wanting to use, but did not think I could use it in a dual screen manner, so it really just sat in my closet.  Well, after figuring out that I could use a laptop and a monitor for a dual screen set up I hooked up that monitor up as quick as I could.

Now, I have a dual screen setup and I am happier than ever.  It is going to make my work life so much easier.

My desk is kind of like a two-tier desk, so I have one monitor on top of the other.  My laptop is on the one tear and the monitor is on the other.  So, I set it up so he monitors work like they are stacked on top of each other.  Here’s a screenshot of what my monitor now looks like stacked on top of each other.

I just opened two browser windows to give you an idea of what the setup looks like.  Here it is…

I’m pretty happy with the way it all looks.  I want to eventually buy a Mac and go with a three monitor setup, this will definitely do until that happens.

Let me know what you think and leave a comment below.

You can easily build a huge opt in list using your blog.

It is amazing to me that most people blogging today are not building a list.

What I mean, is when you go to their blog it is almost impossible to find a place to put your name and e-mail address in to get updates.  You are leaving a ton of money and traffic on the table if you are not using your blog to build an opt in list.

I use various techniques to build my list with a blog.  I’ve put together a video that shows you exactly what I do.

One thing you should realize it’s building a list not only gives you an extra revenue stream, but it also gives you an instant traffic flow.

If you need traffic to a site, all you need to do is send an e-mail.  Most people do not get this.  A lot of bloggers just feel that building an e-mail list is spam.  That can not be further from the truth.

To be honest, some readers may be looking for a way to hear from you on a consistent basis.  If you do not give them that option, well you’re losing out on repeat visitors.

So, below I have put together a nice little video that will show you exactly the places you can use to build your opt in list on your blog…

There are many different ways to market your products and services online.  There are free ways to market, and there are paid ways to market your products.

Today I want to talk about one of my personal favorite free ways to market.  That is making money with forum marketing.

Imagine making money, friends and connections all at the same time.  That is what forum marketing allows you to do.  You can find a forum in your market in which you can surround yourself with the like-minded people.  That is huge!

People will be more likely to buy from a friend than from a stranger.  So, if you go into the forum with the attitude of making friends and providing value, the sales will no doubt follow.

My favorite marketing forum is the Warrior Forum.  This forum is an amazing place to grow your online business.  The Great Thing about the Warrior Forum is some of the top names in Internet marketing frequent this forum.

Not only that, but most of the big names started out learning on that very forum.  The warrior forum is truly a great place to learn and grow your business with forum marketing.

Anyway, here are my top three tips to making money with form marketing…

1.  Provide value

Sometimes new people assume that it is okay to go out and blatantly advertise their products or services on a forum.  This is unacceptable forum etiquette.  You must give before you can get from the forum.

You do not necessarily need to provide tons of content from your knowledge.  If you are new this would be practically impossible for you, but you can provide value by asking good questions.

2.  Develop relationships

Most people talk about finding JV partners and affiliates to help promote your products, but it is very hard to get people to promote your products if they do not know you.

Forum marketing is a great way to build valuable friendships and business relationships that can subsequently help build your business.

3.  Stay out of of the drama

Sometimes you’ll see a ton of fighting and drama on any forum.  It would be best if you would completely stay out of these types of engagements.  They can only lead to negative things for you.  Remember, the Internet is a history of everything you do.  People can easily find anything you say on public forum.

If you’d like to learn more ins and outs of forum marketing, Brian McElroy has just put together an all-star cast of forum marketers.

Brian is going to be doing a series of online interviews that while on earth the secrets to making massive amounts of money using forum marketing.

This interview series is going to be absolutely free.  All it will cost you is a name and e-mail address.  You really need to check it out here…

http://Focused2Win.com/goto/forum

Shannon Herod

P. S. Brian has really put together a who’s who of forum marketers in this course.  You can learn from the best and it is free, so go check it out.

http://Focused2Win.com/goto/forum

Click to play

As you know I am an avid tester and love experimenting with
new things on my blog. I believe driving traffic through
blogs is one of the best strategies for traffic and
monetization.

Anyone can start a blog and start making money if they know
the right things to do. That is what is so great about
blogging. Plus, you get to express yourself and let your
voice be heard.

Anyway, my point today is I found a plug-in I know you will
be interested in.

I've been searching for a plug-in that allows me to maximize
my affiliate earnings without hurting my page rank in the
process. This plug-in does just that and I was extremely
excited when I finally found it.

I would imagine anything that can help you make more money
with your blog would interest you. This is assuming that
you are in fact blogging. If you are not, well that is a
totally different e-mail.

Imagine being able to automatically inject your blog as
full of keyword-based affiliate links as you can and it
would not drain your page rank with the Google. That was always
my main concern when putting text ads on my blog.

If I did not manually create an affiliate link and insert a
no follow tag I would lose a little bit of page rank love
from Google. Well, not anymore. I found a super plug in
that not only allows you to insert affiliate links into
your blog by using key words, but it also will allow you to
add a no follow attribute plus many other options.

This plug-in really has been a plug-in I've been looking
for to help maximize my affiliate earnings and also not
impact my rankings in the search engines.

Well, I've had this plug-in installed for the last couple
of days and everything is looking great. The plug-in is
not free but believe me when I say it is well worth the
price being asked.

The plug-in is called Ninja Affiliate by Maxblogpress.
Check it out today and let me know what you think.

Shannon

P.S. If you are not promoting affiliate links in your blog you
are really losing out on a ton of money. 

If you are a serious blogger this plugin is a must have.

 http://focused2win.com/goto/ninja

O.K. as most of you know I have not participated in any of the big “Guru”
launches, but Brad and Andy have gone too far.

As you may know they have launched Stomping the Search Engines 2 and
are giving it away for just shipping for trying a month of the Net Effect.

I signed up for this offer and am eagerly awaiting my copy to review.

Anyway, I was not going to send an email about this because you are most
likely getting hammered right now, but I would have been doing you an
injustice if I didn’t

Let me explain…

Brad and Andy just released a “Shock and Awe” bonus for this launch and
well it did just that to me.

I am in shock and in awe of the bonus they added.

you really need to grab this offer. It is only going to cost you like 9 bucks for
shipping and your jaw is going to drop when you see what they have put
together.

I am not exaggerating when I say this is the best offer Internet marketing
has seen.

They have put together an offer that is so ridiculous you would be crazy to
pass it up.

Go check out the video to see what I mean…

http://shannonherod.com/recommends/stomper

Shannon

P.S Did I mention this was a free offer. You only pay shipping

http://shannonherod.com/recommends/stomper

Making money online does not need to be hard, but for some reason we tend to complicate the heck out of things.

The reason I believe most new marketers fail is a phenomenon I call information paralysis.

Information paralysis is simply information overload, but to the point you are so paralyzed by the information you never take action.

This is one of the main reasons people fail, in my opinion. It is not due to the fact that they do not know what to do to succeed. It is due to the fact they know too much and never take action.

So, how do you overcome information paralysis? The answer is simple.

Focus

Focus is the one quality that can overcome this information paralysis monster. If you can learn to focus on one strategy to accomplish one goal you’re on your way to success.

Here’s a quick two-part formula to you started on your way to being focused

First grab a sheet of paper and write down exactly what you want. Next you simply form a workable strategy and focus on nothing but that strategy until you accomplish your goal.

This is a simple post with a simple strategy, but it can make the difference between failure and success.

I learned long ago success is simple unless you make it hard.

One question I seem to get over and over again is how do I monetize my blog. The short answer… Ninja Affiliate Plug-in By MaxBlogPress

I am not a big fan of spending traffic away for just pennies, so that really eliminates Adsense as one online monetization strategies.

My top two strategies to monetize a blog are listed building and affiliate programs.

Today I want to cover the latter and talk about affiliate marketing on a blog.

I recently got my hands on a plug-in that makes making money with your blog a breeze.  The name of the plug-in is called Ninja Affiliate by MaxBlogPress.

This plug-in seriously kicks butt and I will tell you why…

The Ninja Affiliate plug-in is a simple plug-in that is going to change the way you monetize your blog with affiliate text links forever.

Not only can you automatically inject affiliate links into your blog using keywords, but you can also close to those links, make them look good (i.e yourdomain.com/goto/link), track stats and much more.

The developer has really put a condom of thought into this plug-in.  It truly goes way beyond any other plug-in I have ever used to manage my affiliate links on my blog.

The Ninja Affiliate plug-in can be configured to inject affiliate links right into your comments also, that option really has my head spinning

Not only are your readers contributing and commenting on your blog, but they are also helping you monetize it as well.

The great thing about the links in the comments is they are much more noticeable.  People are not use to seeing comments with the links in them so they automatically stand out.  The first post I made after installing this plug-in I actually got a couple of comments, and then I got a comment asking how the links were automatically put into the comment.  Obviously someone noticed the links.  That is cool.

I could go on and on about this plug-in, I like it that much, but you need to go check out for yourself.  The plug-in is not free is definitely worth the price.

Go check out Ninja Affiliate plug-in now by clicking here.

I have always built my list using double opt in methods. I’ve recently started looking at numbers and have questioned my decision to do so.

Using double opt in I would assume builds a fairly qualified list, but how many of the qualified buyers are you actually missing out on that do not get the confirmation message?

You see, I recently bought a product and subscribed to the update list, but I got distracted and never hit the confirmation link.

When I went to look for this confirmation message I had already accidentally deleted it. Being a customer of Aweber I knew that the confirmation message could not be resent.

Now I want to be on the list, but I cannot get on the list. At lease for the next 30 days anyway.

So I started looking through my list of buyers and looking at the numbers. I was getting a 70% confirmation rate for my buyers. So out of every thousand buyers I was losing 300 of them. I have to think that a vast majority of those 300 buyers would love to hear from me.

So, what do you think? Is it better to do double opt in or single opt in? I would love to hear your comments below.

One of the main reasons most people fail when trying to start an Internet marketing business is the lack of focus. The person starting out does not have much business experience, if any at all, and is pulled in multiple directions trying to figure out which way is up.

As new opportunities present themselves they bounce from one opportunity to another. This usually results in one thing, and that is failure.

The reason being is you never give one thing a chance to work. You’re so focused on making the big bucks quick that you never actually build a business.

This was my problem online when I first started. I was chasing around opportunity after opportunity like a puppy chasing his tail. I would look back at my month and could not figure out how the heck I did not make any money. I mean come on… I set up some adsense sites, I tried affiliate marketing, I tried building a list and I did article marketing, but none of it worked.

Well, my problem was I was not focused. That could be your problem too and the reason you’re not succeeding right now.

Here’s a small tip that can help you get focused right a way.

Take a strategy or technique to make money online and stick to it. Sounds easy I know, but is more difficult than you may think for some people.

This is how I did it. I actually wrote out the technique I would use and I wrote it out on a piece of paper. I then kept that piece of paper in plain sight when ever I was working. Whenever I felt like I was getting off task I would just look at that paper and ask myself if what I was doing helps accomplish that goal.

If the task did not help accomplish the goal I would simply quit doing what I was doing and move towards something that did. You’ll be amazed at how much that will help you succeed.