Web Design: Real-Time 404 Not Found Email Notifications

by Michael Wong on June 19, 2009

404-200Do you know whether your visitors are landing on non-existent web pages in your site? Do you know whether your site has broken HTML or image links?

I certainly didn’t until I added a real-time 404 not found email notification system to my websites. Yes, I know your log files give details of errors. But how often do you check your log files? Unless you check them for errors every day, it could be weeks or months before you discover the errors.

Once the 404 email notification system was up and running, my mailbox was flooded with reports of broken links, search engine bots trying to crawl old nonexistent files, broken image links and missing favicon images.

I was shocked just how many broken links my sites had - 196 404 not found error messages so far!

It even caught an issue with one of my affiliate campaigns. If I didn’t catch that and fix the issue, AdWords would have sent traffic to a non-existent URL. Over time, it could have cost me thousands of dollars in wasted advertising and lost business.

Can you tell I am really glad I set up this real-time 404 error email notification system on my sites? So much so that I immediately thought of writing about it so that you can also benefit.

Okay, here’s how I did it. By the way, your server must have PHP enabled otherwise this method doesn’t work. Ask your server administrator whether your server is PHP enabled and if not, ask them to enable it.

Also remember to backup any files you intend to edit. If something goes wrong, you can always revert back to your previous file.

The system uses two files; the .htaccess file which tells the server where to send users when there is an error, and the 404 error file which sends the 404 not found email notifications to you and informs the user of an error.

How to Create a .Htaccess File

A ‘.htaccess file’ (hypertext access) is the default name of a directory-level configuration file. If you don’t have a .htaccess file in the main directory of your server where you upload your files, create one by opening up a blank file in your favorite text editor and add these 3 lines of code:

ErrorDocument 401 /404.php
ErrorDocument 404 /404.php
ErrorDocument 500 /404.php

Definitions:

  • Error 401: Unauthorized - This error appears when someone tries to enter a part of the site they are not authorized to access.
  • Error 404: Not Found - This error appears when the URL someone is trying to access is incorrect and therefore the server cannot access it.
  • Error 500: Internal Server Error - This error usually is caused by CGI in which the script used in the process does not work properly.

Save the file as ‘.htaccess’ (a period followed by ‘htaccess’, without quotes. There’s nothing after htaccess)

How to View Hidden Files

If you can’t see the .htaccess file in Windows Explorer or Mac Finder, you have to enable the option to view hidden files.

On the Mac, open up Terminal and type this:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder

When it come to Windows users, there are different ways to enable hidden files depending on which version of Windows you have. I suggest you follow the instructions at How to see hidden files in Windows.

How to Create a 404 Not Found Email Notification File

Create a blank file with your text editor and add the following code:

<html>
<head><title>404 Error</title>
</head><body>
<h1>Sorry!</h1>
<table width=”60%” align=”center”><tr><td>Sorry but we couldn’t find what you’re looking for! Don’t panic - it’s not your fault. We have been notified of the error.</p>
<p>Here are a few options to find what you’re looking for:</p>
<ul>
<li>Double check the web address for typos
<li>Click the ‘BACK’ button in your web browser
<li>Search the site using the search form above
<li>Go to the <a href=”http://www.yourdomain.com”>homepage</a> (replace yourdomain.com with your website’s homepage)
</td></tr></table>
<?php
$ip = getenv (”REMOTE_ADDR”);
$requri = getenv (”REQUEST_URI”);
$servname = getenv (”SERVER_NAME”);
$combine = $ip . ” tried to load ” ;
$url = $servname . $requri ;
$httpref = getenv (”HTTP_REFERER”);
$httpagent = getenv (”HTTP_USER_AGENT”);
$today = date(”D M j Y g:i:s a T”);
$message2 = “On $today, $combine:\n
http://www.$url\n
User Agent = $httpagent \n
$httpref “;
$to = “email@yourdomain.com”;
$subject = “404 Error Report”;
$from = “From:email@yourdomain.com\r\n”;
mail($to, $subject, $message2, $from);
?>
</body>
</html>

I’m not a programmer so I borrowed the PHP code from Free Custom 404 Error php script with htaccess tutorial n block folder script. Thanks IBD Host!

Change ‘email@yourdomain.com’ to your email address and save the file as ‘404.php’. Now upload both the .htaccess and 404.php files to your main directory on your server. Test it by visiting a URL that doesn’t exist on your server. You should receive a 404 error email notice in your mailbox within a few minutes.

How to Redirect Broken/Missing Links

So what do you fix the broken links? First, you fix it if possible. If not, you add a ‘Redirect’ command to your .htaccess file like so:

Redirect /brokenlink.html http://domain.com/redirectedfile.html

The code above contains 3 parts. The first part is the word ‘Redirect’, followed by a space, then the broken/missing URL, followed by another space, then the URL you would like to redirect the user to.

Note that the broken/missing URL must be a local URL (meaning on the same domain). The redirected URL does not have to be on the same domain as the missing URL.

How to Set Up One 404 Not Found Webpage for All Your Domains

I have a dozen or so sites and didn’t want to have to maintain a 404 webpage on each site. It’s far easier to maintain just one 404 webpage. So I came up with this idea.

I originally tried to set it up so that all errors pointed to the a 404 file on the one website using these ErrorDocument commands in the .htaccess file:

ErrorDocument 401 http://redirecteddomain.com/404.php
ErrorDocument 404 http://redirecteddomain.com/404.php
ErrorDocument 500 http://redirecteddomain.com/404.php

The problem is that the error email message simply showed the error page (http://redirecteddomain.com/404.php) as the referring URL that caused the error, which didn’t help at all.

I couldn’t work out why it didn’t give me the referring URL, so I turned to my trusted techie guru, Peter Cooper, for help. And once again he came to my rescue. Thanks Peter!

He said, “You cannot use a canonical URL with ErrorDocument or it will generate a 302-Found (redirect) response, which will then result in a 200-OK on the error page itself. Use a local URL path instead.”

Now I understood why it wasn’t working. So I came up with this solution.

404 Not Found Email Notification File for Multiple Domains

I set up the 404 error email notification file using the code below. Remember to create a blank file with your text editor and add the following code:

<html>
<head><title>404 Error</title>
</head><body onload=setTimeout(”location.href=’http://www.redirecteddomain.com/404.html’”,10)>
<?php
$ip = getenv (”REMOTE_ADDR”);
$requri = getenv (”REQUEST_URI”);
$servname = getenv (”SERVER_NAME”);
$combine = $ip . ” tried to load ” ;
$url = $servname . $requri ;
$httpref = getenv (”HTTP_REFERER”);
$httpagent = getenv (”HTTP_USER_AGENT”);
$today = date(”D M j Y g:i:s a T”);
$message2 = “On $today, $combine:\n
http://www.$url\n
User Agent = $httpagent \n
$httpref “;
$to = “email@yourdomain.com”;
$subject = “404 Error Report”;
$from = “From:email@yourdomain.com\r\n”;
mail($to, $subject, $message2, $from);
?>
</body>
</html>

Change ‘redirecteddomain.com’ to the domain with the 404 landing page, and change ‘email@yourdomain.com’ to your email address. Now save the file as ‘404.php’. Upload this file to all your web sites.

Now when a user encounters an error on your site, the above file sends you a 404 error email notification. The user is then redirected to the 404 landing page (below) on your main domain.

404 Not Found Landing Page

Now create another blank file and add the following code:

<html>
<head><title>404 Error</title>
</head><body>
<table border=”0″ cellspacing=”0″ cellpadding=”0″ width=”100%”><tr><td bgcolor=”#FFFFFF” valign=”top” width=”55%”>
<h1>Sorry!</h1>
<table width=”60%” align=”center”><tr><td>Sorry but we couldn’t find what you’re looking for! Don’t panic - it’s not your fault. We have been notified of the error.</p>
<p>Here are a few options to find what you’re looking for:</p>
<ul>
<li>Double check the web address for typos
<li>Click the ‘BACK’ button in your web browser
<li>Search the site using the search form above
<li>Go to the <a href=”http://www.yourdomain.com”>homepage</a> (replace yourdomain.com with your website’s homepage)
</td></tr></table>
</body>
</html>

Save this file as ‘404.html’. Note that the file extension is ‘.html’ as opposed to ‘.php’. Upload this file to the domain to where you want the 404 error landing page to be located.

Don’t forget to upload the 404 error email notification 404.php file to your main domain as well. So you should have both the 404.php (email notification file) and 404.html (landing page) on the main domain server.

You can view my 404 error page at:

http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com/404.html

So there you have it. Set up your very own real-time 404 error email notification system and you will be notified the instant an error occurs on your websites.

A Word of Warning

You may experience a flood of 404 not found error email messages. I have received a total of 196 error messages so far, although many of them were duplicates which were sent for the same error until I fixed the relevant issue. I am still receiving error messages as I type out this article.

Don’t worry. Simply go through each email and fix every issue you find. Once you fix all the issues, the flood should slow to a trickle as and when new issues pop up. If you get annoyed with all the error messages, simply remove the ErrorDocument code from your .htaccess file.

I hope you found this article useful. There may be other ways of setting up a real-time 404 error email notification system but that’s beyond the scope of this article and my technical knowledge. ;-)

Disclaimer: Please note that the PHP/HTML code in this article may not work on all servers. If you use the suggested code, you understand and accept any advice you follow in this article is done so at your own risk, and you do not hold me liable for any damage done. Sorry, but I gotta cover my own butt! :-)

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Business Model: Piracy - Embrace Or Die

by Michael Wong on June 3, 2009

the-pirates-dilemmaA few weeks ago I read “The Pirate’s Dilemma: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism” by Matt Mason, and it left an impression on me. And last week I happen to chance upon piracy of one of my articles.

This got me thinking. If piracy is rife on the internet, why do we fight it? Pirates are stealing, sampling and remixing ‘copyrighted’ content to such a degree that it’s pointless fighting it. So why not embrace it instead?

What is a Pirate?

So what is a pirate? A pirate is someone who uses or reproduces someone else’s creative property without paying for it or obtaining permission (more on that later). A pirate is someone who robs you on the high seas. A pirate is someone who promotes efficiency, innovation an creativity, and has been doing so for hundreds of years.

Piracy is theft, there’s no doubt about that. Companies and copyright owners lose money to piracy. But piracy is everywhere nowadays. You only have to look at the millions of people who download movies, TV shows, music, software and ebooks without paying for it or obtaining permission from the author. Raise your hand if you have ever watched a pirated movie, downloaded a song, or installed a software program without paying the author for it. I would be the first to admit I have consumed pirated material. Who hasn’t?

But although piracy seems wrong, it has its place. Without piracy, the movie, recorded music, radio and cable TV industry might not be as we know it today.

Hollywood was Created by Pirates

The film industry of Hollywood was built by pirate filmmakers. Thomas Edison, the inventor of filmmaking, demanded a licensing fee from people making movies with his technology. Filmmakers fled to California where they thrived, unlicensed, until Edison’s patents expired. The recorded music, radio and cable TV industry are also the product and beneficiary of piracy.

In most civilized countries, a police force maintains order, detects and prevents crime, and enforces the laws. The Internet doesn’t have a police force. So if someone copies your content, who’s going to enforce the law?

Copyright owners are left to fend for themselves. You could hire a lawyer, but how many of us can afford to pursue every person who pirates our content. And what about pirates in countries that don’t have much respect for copyright law? They are virtually untouchable.

On the internet, digital content can be reproduced thousands of times, in seconds, for minimal cost. The cost and viability of policing it simply is not feasible.

As a result, the Internet is full of pirates. And where pirates prevail, law-abiding businesses have to adapt to the new pirate economy or perish. If you think about it, piracy is just another business model.

Hundreds of Pirates Steal my articles

One of the marketing strategies I used to get people to link to my Mike’s Marketing Tools website is to allow other people to republish my marketing tips on the condition that they include my bio and links at the end of the article. Most people comply with the request, but some don’t.

I happen to chance upon one of my articles on a website with no mention of me or the bio it was meant to include. At first, I was a bit upset. So I decided to find out just how many people have pirated that article, “27 Quick Tips To Top Search Engine Rankings“, without credit. According to Google, 381 webpages contain my article. And 108 (28%), or roughly 1 in 4 were reproduced by a pirate.

If we take that figure as a guide, it could mean a quarter of the internet’s content is created by pirates. The true figure probably isn’t that high. But it does show that content piracy is an issue content producers have to contend with.

So I know that 108 websites have pirated my article. What do I do about it? Should I go after every pirate and tell them to either give me credit where it’s due or remove the article from their website? But how many would even comply? And how much time and effort would it take?

If You Can’t Beat Them - Join Them

The thing you have to remember is that if you shut down one pirate, another one or two will invariably take their place. So it would be a fruitless exercise. History has shown us that even major companies and even entire industries can’t beat the pirates. Just look at the movie, music and software industry.

Hollywood creates about 500 movies a year. Why don’t they release movies that people probably won’t watch on the big screen and movies that aren’t likely to be box office smashes in theaters, pay per view TV, DVD and online all at the same time?

And why don’t they charge less for access to these movies? I never quite understood why they charge the same price whether you watch a $200 million blockbluster, or a $5 million movie. That’s like charging the same price for a hamburger and a steak.

Apple iTunes has shown that consumers are willing to pay for music downloads, if you give them what they want (singles), where they want (online) and how they want it (no copy protection).

The software industry has shown that you can build a business around free software (open source), by offering valued added services.

Web Content are Open Conversations

Instead of fighting piracy, maybe we should embrace it. Instead of wasting time worrying about content pirates, maybe we should think of the content that we create online (tweets, blog posts, forum posts, articles, etc) as ‘conversations’ instead of copyrighted content that we do everything in our power to protect.

Think about what a conversation is for a second. When you say something, we can’t control what happens to it. If you give advice or tell a joke to some friends, a few might pass it onto their friends. They may even change it a bit. The chances are you won’t be credited for the advice or laugh. How often do you tell a joke and give credit to the person you heard it from?

I’m not saying we should be happy that pirates steal our creative content. What I am saying is that instead of getting angry and fighting it, we should just accept that we can’t beat piracy and instead should embrace it. What is important is that we use the ‘conversations’ to build your brand and compete with the pirates.

The internet not only levels the playing field, it also spreads the wealth about, so that it’s not just earned by a select elite group of individuals and companies. The internet allows authors with average ability to earn a living from their books, music, videos, etc.

Instead of fighting movie, music, software, ebook and web content piracy, we should adapt and change the business model. If we embrace piracy as a business model, traditional business models can adapt and compete with it. If we don’t, then the pirates will laugh all the way to the bank, like many do in China and other developing countries.

Name any major movie in the last few years and it’s been available on DVD on the day of release - in China and other developing countries. By fighting piracy, the movie studios have lost millions, even billions, of dollars in revenue.

Musicians Thrive in China Despite Rampant Piracy

Some musicians have accepted piracy and even embrace it. Piracy is rampant in China, yet the music industry is thriving. The music industry would have you think musicians don’t make a living in China where piracy is rampant. That can’t be further from the truth.

Some musicians have learned that the money is not in selling their music on CD, but in selling more concert tickets at higher prices. The pirated music is merely a promotional tool and acts as a loss-leader.

Brazilian Music Embraces Piracy

In Brazil, the Tecnobrega music scene is on fire thanks to musicians embracing piracy. They don’t just look the other way, they actively encourage it. Musicians burn their own CDs and beg street vendors to sell them without giving the musicians a cut of the profits. They also upload MP3s online and give their music away to DJs. It’s allowed many more musicians to make a decent living from music than via the traditional business model. It also means more Tecnobrega music is being produced.

Pirates Fill a Need in the Market

Pirates only exist and profit because movie studios don’t fill the need demanded by customers. Instead of spending $200 million making one movie, maybe they could spend a fraction of that and in return offer cheaper movie tickets to consumers. There must be a price point where people are willing to fork out money to go watch a movie or buy a DVD instead of buying a poor quality pirated copy.

Consumers also want to be able to watch a movie how, when and where they want. But the movie studios insist on controlling distribution. Being a parent I now mostly watch the latest movies on pay TV. But even then it’s usually 6-12 months after the movie has hit the theaters. If the movie studios gave me the option to watch newly released movies in my own home, I would gladly pay for the privilege. This is more about lifestyle, less about cost. But the movie studios don’t seem to get that. Pirates do get it and are profiting from it.

Even internet marketing gurus are realizing that it’s better to embrace piracy than fight it. Instead of charging people for newsletters and ebooks, they’re giving them away for free. Once they build up a loyal following, they sell high priced marketing seminar tickets to those followers.

I finish by offering a quote by a wise man you may have heard of, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” - Charles Darwin.

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Success: Top 5 Best & Worst Business Decisions I Made in 10 Years of Running an Internet Business

by Michael Wong on May 27, 2009

Since I started my first web site in 1998 I have made many business decisions. Many turned out to be good ones, but there were a few that were rather poor in hindsight. Here’s a look back at the top five best and worst business decisions I have made during that time.

Top 5 Best Decisions

1. I Took the Risk of Starting an Internet Business

The best decision I ever made in this industry has to be taking the decision to take of risk of starting an internet business.

Back in 1998 few people had heard of the internet. So it was not surprising that no one supported my decision when I told my friends and family I was starting an internet business.

That fateful decision has enabled me to live and work around the world. I now enjoy a lifestyle that I would never have dreamt possible in my old job as a waiter. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not living a millionaire lifestyle. But I do have the freedom to do things that I would never have afforded on my old waiter’s income.

2. I Switched From a Pay Per Hour to Pay Per Performance Business

After I released my SEO book in March 2002, I was inundated with SEO work. After three months I realized that I would be better off optimizing my own websites than other people’s. There are only so many hours in a day so if I were to work on a pay per hour basis, I would severely limit my income potential.

I understood the true value of a top 10 ranking in Google or Yahoo!, and realized people just weren’t willing to pay what it’s really worth. In 2002 the typical market rate for a SEO campaign was only a few thousand dollars, and that was what website owners were expecting to pay. There were firms charging tens of thousands and even firms charging a few hundred dollars.

The fact is a top 10 ranking is potentially worth tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars. In some niches, a top 10 ranking is worth millions of dollars.

I felt the full power of being paid for my performance instead of by the hour, when I increased my income by 207% in 18 months in 2006. I achieved that not by working harder, but by working smarter.

3. I Do My Own SEO

I have always hand coded my HTML webpages and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) just came naturally to me as a result. I am so glad that I decided to do my own SEO all those years ago. The power of being able to create webpages that rank highly in Google and Yahoo! is priceless. I would not have achieved half the success that I have without that skill set.

SEO delivers targeted traffic for free. That allows me to reduce the average cost per acquisition of a customer. As a result, I am able to increase my AdWords bids which is sometimes the difference between my ads being shown for a particular affiliate offer, and a competing affiliate who does not have the benefit of the free SEO traffic.

4. I Advertised in Google AdWords

Google AdWords as we know it today was introduced in February 2002. I started advertising in AdWords in July of that year. Next to SEO, advertising in Google Adwords is the next best form of marketing I have used. AdWords allows me to micro-target potential customers by keyword and location. Aside from word of mouth marketing, which is pretty difficult to control, I don’t know of another form of marketing that is so powerful and yet cost effective.

I have spoken to small business owners who are still skeptical of the power of AdWords. I am astonished as to why they feel that way. If you are reading this article and are one of those people who are still hesitant about advertising on AdWords, let me give you some friendly advice: don’t procrastinate any longer. Make it your top priority to learn about AdWords and start a campaign as soon as possible. Google offer everything you need to know about AdWords on their website. You can run a test campaign for as little as $50. If that is too much of a risk for you, you shouldn’t be in business.

5. I Continually Expand My Knowledge

I don’t think I read an entire book at school. I used to think I didn’t enjoy reading books. That was until I started reading books on self improvement, business and internet marketing. I’m not sure just how many books I’ve read in the last ten years. I have about 150 self improvement, business and internet marketing books on my bookshelf behind me and I’ve probably read over 95% of them.

Do you read books? If not, why not? Don’t have time? Rubbish. We don’t have time to do everything we want, but we can all make time to do all the important things. Expanding your knowledge is so important that you cannot ignore it. Make the time for it.

I make time by reading when I’m waiting for downloads to complete, just before I go to sleep, on the plane, on a train, in the car while waiting for my wife or son, and so on. This might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I even read when I’m doing a number two on the toilet. If you drive to work, get audio books and listen to them instead of the radio.

You see, you can find time if you really want to. I have learnt so much from the wisdom found in books that I can honestly say a large part of my success is because of what I learnt from them. I read regularly and plan to continue to expand my mind for the rest of my life.

Top 5 Worst Decisions

1. I Sold My First Internet Company

Looking back, I think selling my company back in 2000 was probably the worst decision I have made so far. The idea of being acquired for half a million dollars in cash and stock by a start-up, backed by SoftBank Capital, which also backed Yahoo! and E*Trade, was incredibly appealing.

The reality was that I lost touch with my site visitors and newsletter subscribers, I lost all control of my sites, and every major decision I made had to be approved by senior management which often took days.

It was probably the worst time (not that it was that bad mind you) of my internet business life. And when the start-up company imploded after the dot-com bust, I had to start all over again. I felt lost during the two years between selling my company in 2000 and re-establishing myself with the launch of my SEO book in 2002.

There were upsides; I got to live and work in North Hollywood, and met my future wife, so it wasn’t all bad. I did learn a couple of lessons from that mistake; (1) only accept cash - no stock; (2) do not work for the acquiring company. You can be sure I won’t make those mistakes again.

2. I Didn’t Build a Mailing List

Virtually every major internet marketing expert recommend that you build a mailing list. The proof of the power of a mailing list is in the fact that the top 10 affiliates for all the major internet marketing product launches in I have seen recently all seem to be the same names. The one common theme between all these super affiliates are that they all have built up a large loyal following with the help of their mailing list.

I did try to build a mailing list a few years ago. Heck, I even built one up to about 10,000 subscribers. The problem was that I didn’t enjoy the process of writing a newsletter every week. I got lazy and didn’t email the list for a while. And then I did, a few of the subscribers accused me of spam. This almost got my domain shut down. So I abandoned the list and decided not to pursue that marketing channel.

I am trying to build a mailing list of sorts now. I’m using my blog and Twitter. This way I won’t be accused of spam again.

3. I Didn’t Invest in Domain Names

In the first week of 2000 one of my referrals for a domain registrar I had partnered with registered something like a couple hundred domain names. It never occurred to me that maybe that person was onto something.

It wasn’t until a few years ago that I read about Yun Ye, a Chinese American, who became a legend in the domaining industry when he sold his portfolio of 100,000 domain names for a whopping $164 million!

I finally realized that maybe I should invest in domain names. So I registered a couple of hundred ‘.com’ domains that I thought I could sell for a profit. Boy, was I wrong! I have had a couple of inquiries but I haven’t sold a single domain so far. I even got conned by someone pretending to be interested in one of my domains. It’s a long story but the gist of it is they insist on a domain appraisal to get a ‘professionally assessed’ value. Naturally, the company they recommend has some kind of affiliation with the domain buyer. The bottom-line is that I got conned out of about $70 which is a cheap lesson to learn.

This year I changed my domain investment strategies. I have invested over $10,000 in domains in the last couple of months and intend to invest much more. I am quietly confident my new strategy will prove profitable in due course. I will share with you my new strategy in a future post so stay tuned.

4. I Didn’t Follow the Latest Fad

I have never been one to follow the latest fad. I started blogging years after I knew about it. I still have not joined Facebook despite the fact that most of my friends use it. I only joined Twitter because I thought I better register my name before someone else does.

In an earlier post, “8 Ordinary People Achieving Extraordinary EBusiness Success“, I talk about Ashley Qualls who built WhateverLife.com, a website offering MySpace page layouts for free. The site has raked in more than $1 million in Google AdSense advertising revenue. The business brings in as much as $70,000 a month. Ashley has even rejected offers to buy her young company, including one for $1.5 million and a car (valued up to $100,000)!

I have been to MySpace but have never set up my own MySpace page. As such, it never occurred to me that people would be interested in page layouts to decorate their MySpace page. If I had joined the MySpace fad, maybe the idea of offering free page layouts would have crossed my mind and I could have had the pleasure of rejecting an offer for $1.5 million and a car.

Since I started using Twitter I have come up with some interesting web app ideas. I found known about Twitter for a couple of years now - I should have joined earlier. The lesson from this mistake is that from now on I will jump on every new fad (even before it becomes popular) that comes along, so that I don’t miss the gravy train in future.

5. I Didn’t Build on my Success

I often read about successful business owners who say they reinvest every penny back into their business. I have to admit I have not done that until now. I have used the money to provide a good life for my family and I.

Like most people, I don’t enjoy paying taxes. But I accept that is part of life and if I want the government to provide good services, I have to pay my fair share of taxes. But my tax bill is getting ridiculous. So I’ve decided that I will take just enough out of the business to maintain our family’s lifestyle, and reinvest the rest back into the business.

I will use the money to invest in domain names, especially premium domain names. I was going to invest in real estate, but realized that online real estate (domain names) is potentially a better investment in many ways. The cost of entry is lower, the returns are potentially (and typically) much higher, and it is much easier to convert back into cash, if I need the money.

Final Words

Some wise person (not me!) once said, it is good to learn from one’s mistake, but it is wise to learn from someone else’s mistake. I hope you learnt something from the best and worst business decisions I have made during the last ten years in this industry.

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JUMBO Keyword: First Month’s Marketing Results

by Michael Wong on May 21, 2009

jumbo-keyword-2001It’s been over six weeks since I launched JUMBOKeyword.com, my free online AdWords tool offering 70+ 1-click Google AdWords, keywords and text editing functions to help you create, manage and edit hundreds, even thousands, of AdWords keywords quickly and easily.

I thought it would be interesting to look back at my first month’s marketing efforts and discuss the results achieved. The stats were provided by Google Analytics.

Time span

April 6 to May 5, 2009

Web Site Statistics (Google Analytics)

Visitors: 52,162
Unique visitors: 44,822
Average time on site: 25 seconds

Fifty-two thousand visitors may sound impressive to some people (or not depending on your point of view), but it’s not really because I paid for most of the traffic. The real test would be when I switch off the paid traffic.

Visitors (125 countries/territories)

United States: 46,692
China: 1,815
United Kingdom: 347
India: 303
Canada: 257
Ireland: 185
Australia: 173
Germany: 124
Indonesia: 104
Turkey: 103

Top Traffic Sources

Direct / None: 15,258
Bravenet: 14,282
Google AdWords: 2,065
Mikes-Marketing-Tools.com: 1,466
StumbleUpon: 4,642
Google (organic): 770
JavaScript-2.com: 78
JohnChow.com: 52
Search (organic): 64
Ask.com: 45
MichaelWong.com: 34
Twitter.com: 26
URLWire.com: 18

Length of Visits

Length of Visit Visits % of visitors
0-10 seconds 43,759 83.89%
11-30 seconds 3,801 7.29%
31-60 seconds 1,587 3.04%
61-180 seconds 1,698 3.26%
181-600 seconds 891 1.71%
601-1,800 seconds 368 0.71%
1,801+ seconds 58 0.11%

We can safely say that a visit between 0-10 seconds means the visitor left the site without using the keyword editor. I would expect the average time on site to increase as I reduce my advertising efforts and rely on repeat visitors.

I am going to list the various marketing and advertising methods I used to promote JUMBO Keyword .com. I provide exact statistics and my thoughts on each method’s effectiveness.

Bravenet Media (Pop-Unders)

bravenet-200I purchased a $500 pop-under campaign with Bravenet Media, which sells advertising for its Bravenet network. I bought advertising on Bravenet because Bravenet had delivered positive return-on-investments on a pay-per-sale offer I promoted last year.

I wanted the campaign to just target U.S. visitors, with a frequency cap of one unique visit per 24 hours. That cost of $6CPM meant I would receive 83,333 impressions or visitors.

The campaign went live on April 17 and wrapped up on May 1, resulting in about 6,000 impressions a day. But when I checked my Google Analytics stats, it registered just 46,580 impressions for the landing page that I gave Bravenet. So in effect I was charged $10.73 CPM, not $6 CPM.

I brought this to the attention of the sales rep, Melanie Peake. She told me that before they attempt to deliver a pop under, they test to see if a user is blocking pop-ups. If they are not, they deliver a pop-under. But if they are, they deliver a floating div - in other words, a pop-up.

All along I thought I was getting 83,333 pop-unders for $500. Now she says I got a mixture of pop-unders and pop-ups. I don’t like pop-ups because they are intrusive and most people simply close pop-ups. I told her that they cannot promise pop-unders and then deliver pop-ups. They are two different products. I would never buy pop-ups for the reason I gave above.

Another thing was that I didn’t understand why Google Analytics didn’t track the pop-up impressions. Melanie told me that floating divs are loaded in iframes, and iframes are not tracked through Google Analytics. Hmm… I’m none the wiser.

Anyway, Melanie did the right thing and offered to deliver an addition 66,226 pop-under impressions, which I gladly accepted. By the way, I forgot to mention that out of all the impressions Bravenet delivered, an impressive 99.54% were from the United States.

It’s difficult to judge whether the campaign was a success or not. It delivered the traffic from the targeted market, the United States. The test will be how many people return to the site.

If you want to try Bravenet Media, I recommend you:

  • insist on receiving only pop-unders - no pop-divs or pop-ups
  • target U.S. visitors only or whatever country you want (non-U.S. visitors should be cheaper)
  • set a frequency cap of one unique visit per 24 hours
  • provide a landing page so you can monitor the quantity and quality of the traffic
  • monitor the traffic with traffic analysis software such as Google Analytics
  • use a tracking ID if you’re promoting a pay-per-lead/sale offer

Google AdWords (Pay Per Click)

google-adwordsGoogle AdWords advertisers are everywhere so I set up two Google AdWords campaigns targeting all languages and all countries.

One campaign was for the Google search and search partners network, while the other was for the content network. The reason why I didn’t combine both the content network and the search networks into one campaign is because I use different keyword formats to target search and content networks, a technique that most affiliate marketing experts recommend.

My keyword categories included AdWords, Google advertising, Google products (GoogleCash, etc.), keywords, and pay per click. I set a max cost-per-click (CPC) of $0.10 and a budget of $10 per day for the content campaign.

I value search traffic higher than content traffic because they are proactively searching for a solution. Hence, I set a higher CPC of $0.20 and a budget of $20 per day for the search campaign.

The Google search and search partners network campaign produced the following results:

Clicks Impressions CTR Avg. CPC Cost Avg. Pos
1,335 329,801 0.40% $0.11 $153.07 5.0

The content network campaign produced these results:

Clicks Impressions CTR Avg. CPC Cost Avg. Pos
3,884 2,719,466 0.14% $0.05 $191.74 4.1

The fact that the content network generated almost three times the clicks for half the cost didn’t surprise me. What surprised me was that virtually no content traffic came from English speaking countries such as the United States, UK, Canada, Australia. They were all from countries like China, Turkey, and Taiwan.

I had made a mistake targeting non-English speaking users. They generally don’t end up being paying customers (for affiliate and advertised products) so the value of that traffic was minimal to say the least.

As a result, I decided to remove all languages except for English, and remove all countries except for nine English speaking countries, including Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, Malaysia, New Xealand, Singapore, United Kingdom, and the United States.

I also removed Google search partner and just kept Google search traffic to minimize the risk of click fraud and ensure the traffic was of the highest quality. The search campaign click through rate dropped marginally from 0.40% to 0.39%, while the average CPC increased 54% (6 cents) from 11 cents to 17 cents.

The content campaign click through rate dropped by half almost, from 0.14% to 0.08%, while the average CPC dropped from 5 to 4 cents.

StumbleUpon (Targeted Visitors)

stumbleupon-jk-200StumbleUpon is a social booking service where users bookmark sites they ’stumble upon’ and are offered similar sites other users have bookmarked. With over six million users, it is one of the most popular social bookmarking services around.

StumbleUpon users are shown websites in a framed window, so it’s almost as good as a pop-under. Each visitor costs just 5 cents, so it is very cost effective.

I paid $500 into my account and set up two campaigns; one targeting ‘internet-tools’, and the other targeting ‘marketing’. You can choose from 500 categories. I set a maximum of 100 visitors per day, targeting U.S., male only users, between the ages of 18 and 65.

StumbleUpon provide daily visitor stats (last 23 days only), along with the percentage of users who liked or disliked my site. I didn’t take much notice of these stats before until now. I see that in the internet-tools category, I can see 5 liked and 10 disliked ratings. Whereas in the marketing category, there are 56 liked ratings and only 15 users who disliked the tool.

While the internet-tools users are overwhelming negative towards the tool, the marketing crowd were the opposite. The lack of responses, especially positive responses, in the internet-tools category made me realize that I am wasting my time targeting the internet-tools category. Hence, I have paused that campaign.

Google Analytics show that while not every visitor was from the United States, 97.4% of visitors were, which is acceptable. The disturbing statistic is that the average time on site is a mere 3 seconds, which is poor.

I have just paused the internet-tools campaign so that may help improve the average time that StumbleUpon users spend on the site. Although the remaining campaign is targeting users interested in marketing, I think the category is too broad for my AdWords tool. There is no category for AdWords or pay-per-click, so I think I will stop the campaign, which I have just done.

Google SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

I have been doing SEO since the late 90s so I guess I know a thing or two when it comes to SEO. I specialize in optimizing for Google so any rankings I get for Yahoo! or MSN Live are a bonus.

I registered JUMBOKeyword.com in January 23 of this year and launched the site in April 6. In just over 5 weeks, JUMBO Keyword .com has already achieved some decent top 30 search engine rankings.

Keyword Google Yahoo! MSN Live
adwords keyword tool #8 #8 #12
adwords software - #22 -
adwords tool #18 #28 -
google adwords tool #9 #29 #29

Those rankings aren’t generating a great deal of search engine traffic at this time. That should improve when the rankings improve over the coming months. I will explain how I achieved these rankings in a future post (maybe the next post).

Michael Wong .com Blog (Blogging)

michael-wong-site-2001My Michael Wong .com blog has been around for a few years, but I haven’t been much of a blogger and let the site lapse into something I wasn’t too proud of.

With the launch of JUMBO Keyword .com I decided it was time to relaunch my blog. So I have upgraded the design and set myself a schedule of writing at least one quality post per week.

If I can manage more than that I will, but quality posts take time to research and write.

JohnChow.com (Blog Review)

johnchow-200I know the value of bloggers, so I paid for a review at JohnChow.com. The review cost me $500 which is not cheap but I thought it would be a worthwhile investment because John Chow is one of the best known internet marketing blogs around. According to John, his site attracts 200,00 unique visitors and 300,000 page views a month. And it has over 49,000 RSS subscribers.

So I ordered the review via ReviewMe.com on Wednesday. Four days went by before the order was accepted. The review, “One-Click Keyword Editing with Jumbo Keyword“, was posted on John’s site around on Sunday night, around midnight.

The site states that sponsored reviews will receive at least 12 hours as the top front page post. Twelve hours as the top front page post from Sunday midnight to Monday midday isn’t exactly what I call prime time!

The review itself was surprisingly long and includes several screenshots - so far so good. However, upon closer inspection the review is dry and lacks personality. I get the impression that whoever wrote the review had never used AdWords or edited big lists of keywords. And no wonder! The review was not written by John Chow - but a Michael Kwan. A quick Google search reveals a freelance writer by that name. John’s site doesn’t promise he would write the review so I don’t have grounds to complain.

I emailed John and told him that I felt giving my review 12 hours as the top post from Sunday midnight to Monday midday was rather poor timing. And if there was any chance he could leave the review at the top of the homepage for at least 12 ‘business hours’, I would be grateful. John duly obliged. I tip my hat to John for doing the right thing.

Okay, how about the traffic? Well, the review has been out for over 2 weeks now. According to Google Analytics, JohnChow.com has sent a mere 55 visitors. At least they stayed an average of 1 minute 14 seconds, so they’re quality visitors.

Is that it? Yep! I’m afraid so as far as traffic from his site shows. Google Analytics could be lying to me, but I haven’t done anything to upset it lately so I don’t think it is.

So what happened to the 47,000 RSS subscribers? Did all of them miss the article because the review was posted Sunday night? I don’t know. All I know is that Google Analytics recorded just 55 visitors from JohnChow.com. The review shows 26 comments so at least a few people did read the review and commented on it.

One thing I didn’t count on was that John tweeted the blog post to his 27,600 Twitter followers. The tweet lead back to his blog post, not directly to my site. Despite that, it was still a nice surprise. As a result, at least nine of his followers retweeted about JUMBO Keyword .com to their 18,011 followers.

So what are my conclusions? Would I do it all again? Yes, but only because of the tweets. If it weren’t for the tweets, I would say the $500 investment represented terrible value for money.

I would also do things a bit differently. I would request that John write the review. He may not do $500 reviews anymore - but it doesn’t hurt to ask. If John won’t write the review, I would insist that whoever writes it has some experience with AdWords and keyword editing, and that they actually use the tool before writing the review. I would also request they include one or two specific keyword phrases for the links to my site.

I would also insist that the review is posted first thing in the morning, around 11am EST (Eastern Standard Time) to get maximum exposure. I would also choose Tuesday to Thursday, which are always touted as the best days to send out a newsletter. Same with the tweet.

Publicity

I contacted the editors of 23 prominent internet marketing and productivity blogs, 10 search engine and marketing news sites, and an affiliate marketing newsletter about JUMBO Keyword .com.

As far as I am aware, not one has mentioned it so far which is disappointing. Most didn’t even bother to reply. At least Seth Godin responded with, “neato”.

I know an AdWords tool won’t change the world, but I thought it was good enough to warrant a mention in some of those sites. I guess I was mistaken.

Are we getting to the stage where unless a site gets millions in venture capital, or is started by someone well known, or it’s a game changer, it doesn’t break through the noise and get a mention on a prominent blog or news site? Or are we at that stage already?

Twitter (Micro-blogging)

twitterI have known about Twitter for a while but didn’t take much notice until I decided to relaunch my blog. I figured that if I was to allocate some time and effort to the blog, I should also do the same with Twitter. The buzz around Twitter has been building for months and I just couldn’t let the hottest thing since Facebook (which I’m still not a member of) pass me by. I also thought that if I didn’t register @Michael_Wong (some cybersquatter is sitting on @MichaelWong), someone else might register it.

So I signed up and decided to display the tweets on my blog. And once I decided to do that, I couldn’t exactly not tweet. So I did. I soon realized just how powerful Twitter can be. Twitter is like RSS but better. Like RSS, followers have to opt in to follow you, so you can’t get into trouble for spamming. And they can opt out at any time. So there’s no possible way they can complain of spam.

I don’t spam - never have, never will. But I did get into a slight bit of bother a few years back. I built up a mailing list of about 10,000 people but I didn’t email the list for a while. After a few months, I sent out an email and a few people, who had obviously forgotten that they had subscribed to my double opt-in list, complained to my web host and domain registrar, GoDaddy.com.

GoDaddy immediately threatened to disable my MichaelWong.com domain. I think there were 2 complaints out of 10,000 subscribers, but that’s all it takes. That is the domain I use for my main email address so it would have caused a massive headache if it was shut down. I decided not to build another email list. I know all the big marketing experts say it’s essential to build a list. I have left a lot of money on the table by not building a list. But the fact is the trouble just isn’t worth the effort.

Anyway, back to Twitter. The benefits of Twitter include:

  • Anyone can see how many followers a user has
  • Tweeting takes a lot less effort than sending out an email to your list or writing a blog post
  • Users are much more likely to retweet something they like to their followers than send an email to their list or write a post in their blog
  • You can respond to any user without being accused of spam
  • It’s free: email lists can cost a bit to maintain when you have thousands of subscribers. Whether you have 100 or 1 million followers, it’s always free to communicate with them on Twitter.

The results speak for themselves. I had no mentions in blogs or newsletters. But at least 35 Twitter users who liked JUMBO Keyword .com enough that they tweeted about it to their 108,000 followers. I didn’t include John Chow’s 27,600 in that number because I paid for the review.

I think the main downside with Twitter is that users follow so many people and some users tweet so often that there is too much noise. Hence, most tweets just pass users by. Another issue is time. People tweet any time day or night, and unless someone is actively reading every tweet they receive or is following every tweet on their computer or mobile phone, the chances are most tweets just aren’t getting noticed.

Still, I consider Twitter to be a good marketing channel. It gives you the potential to reach a large audience, quickly, for free. SEO and Google AdWords is still the best form of marketing for me. But SEO takes time, and AdWords can cost a bit.

Press Release (URLWire)

urlwire-200Aside from when I sold my last internet company, this is my first press release. I wrote the release and decided to hire Eric Ward of URLWire.com to send out the release. I hired Eric because I’ve known about him since the late 90s. According to his web site, he has been in the industry since 1994 and has announced thousands of web sites including Amazon.com, Microsoft and AOL, to name a few.

Unlike most press release websites, his site really gives you the impression that his contacts/subscribers welcome his announcements. He says he doesn’t just send an email blast to everyone on his list. Instead he selectively emails those contacts that he feels would be interested in your website.

Anyway, I paid $495 for a press release on April 9. For technical reasons, Eric didn’t announce my site until May 5. According to Google Analytics, URLWire has sent just 45 visitors. Google shows 530 web pages mentioning the release but they link back to the announcement in URLWire.com. These seem to be automated news feeds, not write ups.

Conclusion? I would use Eric’s services again, but only if I really had a major news-worthy story to tell. Trying to get mainstream media to take notice of a free AdWords keyword tool without a real story just doesn’t work - at least not for me.

With blogs, Twitter, social bookmarking (Digg, StumbleUpon, etc.), forums and newsletters, news of a great web site will spread like wildfire without having a press release. Journalists and reporters typically hunt down stories on the web nowadays. Ten years from now press releases might be ancient history.

Conclusions

I am glad I tried all those marketing tactics. Some worked better than others. There are many other marketing tactics I didn’t try, including viral marketing, video marketing, submitting articles to article directories, blog commenting, etc. There just aren’t enough hours in the day for me to do everything.

To be frank with you, JUMBO Keyword .com hasn’t taken off anywhere as quickly as I had hoped. I will give it a couple more months before deciding whether it’s worth me putting any more effort into it.

I gave it a fair go (as Aussies here like to say) and learnt some valuable lessons. I hope sharing my experience with you helps you too. Subscribe to my free email updates, RSS feed or follow me on Twitter at @Michael_Wong for more marketing results in the future.

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Success: 8 Ordinary People Achieving Extraordinary EBusiness Success

by Michael Wong on May 14, 2009

A 17 year old high school dropout rejects an offer of $1.5 million and a car for her MySpace layout website. Markus Frind earns $10 million a year working just 10 hours a week on his free online dating site. A 62 year old grandmother creates the world’s most popular online greeting cards site, valued at an estimated $23 million. These are some of the incredible success stories explored in this article.

It has been said that the internet levels the playing field for everyone. Now more than ever, anyone with enough desire can find success and riches with the help of the internet.

We have all read the story of how the Google guys became Billionaires. But let’s be honest with ourselves - most people, including me, don’t have the ability to create a search engine like Google.

I get more excitement and inspiration from reading about ordinary people achieving extraordinary success - the type of achievable success that makes you think why didn’t I think of that.

These types of stories give hope that anyone, irrespective of sex, age, education, or location can become extraordinarily successful online. You don’t even have to be particularly talented or skilled, or have any business experience.

Here are the stories of eight ordinary people achieving extraordinary success online.

17 Year Old Girl Rejects $1.5 Million + Car Offer

ashley-quallsAshley Qualls, a mere 17 years old, dropped out of high school, bought a house for $250,000, helped launch artists such as Lily Allen, and rejected offers to buy her young company, including one for $1.5 million and a car (valued up to $100,000)!

Ashley’s web site, WhateverLife.com, which offers MySpace page layouts for free has raked in more than $1 million in Google AdSense advertising revenue. The business brings in as much as $70,000 a month.

According to Google Analytics, Whateverlife attracts more than 7 million individuals and 60 million page views a month. Quantcast ranked Whateverlife.com a staggering number 349 out of more than 20 million sites. Wow! She’s how old?

Source: Girl Power (Fast Company: December 19, 2007)

How To Earn $10 Million A Year Working Just 10 Hours A Week

markus-frindMarkus Frind, created the online dating site, PlentyofFish.com, and working 10 hours a week earns net profits of $10 million a year. Thirty-two year old Markus runs the web site from his 83-square-metre Vancouver apartment.

Markus built the Plenty of Fish site in 2003 as an exercise to help teach himself a new programming language, ASP.net. The site became popular with English-speaking Canadians, then spread across U.S. cities with minimal advertising.

According to data from comScore Media Metrix for November 2007, Plenty of Fish had 1.4 million visitors in the United States. In December, site served up 1.2 billion page views. It has 600,000 registered customers, despite the fact that each month it purges 30 percent of users for being inactive.

Plenty of Fish makes money from banner ads, Google AdSense and affiliate marketing links that send users to other dating sites. Markus boasts of making $10,000 a day from Google Adsense alone. He even posted a photo of an AdSense check for $901,733.84, which Google confirmed as being genuine.

Customers submit 50,000 new photos every day, each of which has to be verified that it is an actual person and does not contain nudity. Volunteers review each and every photo. Some have made it their principal pastime. Among Plenty of Fish’s volunteers were 120 who last year evaluated more than 100,000 images each.

Source: From 10 Hours a Week, $10 Million a Year (The New York Times: January 13, 2008) - You have to log in or sign up to a free NYT account for access. However, if you visit the URL via the Google search result link, you can view the article without having to log in or sign up.

62 Year Old Grandmother Creates The World’s Most Popular Online Greeting Card Site

jacquie-lawsonJacquie Lawson, a 62 year old grandmother in the village of Lurgashall, West Sussex, England, created JacquieLawson.com, the market leader in online greeting cards.

According to Nielsen/NetRatings, JacquieLawson.com had 22.7 million visitors in December, more than double that of its closest rival, AmericanGreetings.com.

The web site has 531,227 members, each paying a £4.50 ($6.80) annual subscription fee, generating nearly £2.4 million ($3.6 million). Websites like JacquieLawson.com usually sell for 5-6 times income, so JacquieLawson.com could be worth nearly £15 million ($23 million). Five years ago the egreeting cards site, BlueMountain.com, went for $35 million.

Trained at St Martin’s School of Art in London, Jacquie worked as a freelance artist for years. She got her first PC in 1998 and began using the animation program Macromedia Flash in 2000. After six weeks of trial and error she finished her first electronic Christmas card and sent it to 30 friends, then went to Australia. When she returned she had 1,600 messages from people all over the world who had received her card. Many asked that if she produced another card, she let them see it.

The following November, a simple website was born, only to crash under huge demand. Jacquie’s friend, Andrew Dukes, and nephew, Mike Hughes-Chamberlain, helped her set up a more sophisticated website. The rest is history as they say.

Jacquie, who had been designing her cards slowly with a mouse, now uses a touch-sensitive tablet and stylus.

Source: UK’s cottage industry beats US internet giants (Guardian: February 12, 2006)

Super Affiliate Earns $1.4 Million A Year

jeremy-palmerJeremy Palmer, an expert on affiliate marketing, earned gross profits of $837,465 on revenue slightly over $1.4 million.

Jeremy discovered affiliate programs in 2003 after noticing that some of the affiliates for the small financial services company he was working for were earning thousands of dollars in commissions. So he added some affiliate links to a website he owned. He says the commissions he generated encouraged him to build more affiliate sites in other industries.

Within two months Jeremy was making more money from his affiliate sites than he did at his day job. Within six months he was making twice as much, so he decided to quit his day job to focus exclusively on his affiliate business.

Jeremy generated $100,000 from his websites in his first year as an affiliate, and over $1 million in his second year. In 2005, he won Commission Junction’s Horizon Award for Innovation. That year, he grossed $1.1 million, and went on to make $1.4 million in 2006.

Jeremy’s stats for 2006 make interesting reading:

Revenue: $1.4+ million
PPC Spend: $560,000+
Gross Profit: $837,465

Not bad for a one-man band business!

Source: Should you trust the million-dollar affiliate? (Associate Programs: September 25, 2007)

Blogger Wins $300,000 Book Deal 2 Months After Launching Blog

christian-landerChristian Lander, created the funny blog, Stuff White People Like, and won a book deal with major publisher, Random House, for an advance fee of $300,000, just two months after starting the blog.

Stuff White People Like is a blog that takes satirical aim at the interests of North American left-leaning, city-dwelling white folk. The site attracted almost 15 million visitors in a little over two months.

The blog was created in January 2008 by white Canadian, Christian Lander, and co-authored with his Filipino Canadian friend, Myles Valentin, after Valentin teased Lander about his watching the HBO television series The Wire. The blog became popular very quickly, registering over 300,000 daily hits and over 40 million total hits by the end of September 2008.

The Stuff White People Like book was released on July 1, 2008, and has made several bestseller lists.

Source: Why Blog? Reason No. 92: Book Deal (The New York Times: March 30, 2008)

Mortgage Stress Relief Arrives In The Form Of $800,000 Income From IPhone Game

ethan-nicholasIn August 2008, Ethan Nicholas and his wife, Nicole, were having trouble making their mortgage payments. Medical bills from the birth of their younger son were piling up. Then he remembered reading about the guy who had made a quarter-million dollars in a hurry by writing a video game called Trism for the iPhone.

Although Ethan had years of programming experience, he had never programmed for the iPhone. Because he grew up playing shoot-em-up computer games, he decided to write an artillery game. He sketched out some graphics and bought inexpensive stock photos and audio files.

For six weeks, Ethan worked day and night - by day at his job at Sun, and after-hours on his iPhone game. On its first day of release, iShoot which sold for $4.99 earned Ethan $1,000. The second day, $2,000. On the third day, the figure slid down to $50, where it hovered for the next several weeks.

In January, he released a free version of the game with fewer features, hoping to spark sales of the paid version. It worked: iShoot Lite has been downloaded more than 2 million times, and many people have upgraded to the paid version, which now costs $2.99. On its peak day - January 11 - iShoot sold nearly 17,000 copies, earning Ethan $35,000.

In the same article, Kostas Eleftheriou and two friends made more than $100,000 in three months with iSteam, a program they wrote in seven days. iSteam fogs up the face of an iPhone like a bathroom mirror, and you swipe a finger across the phone’s surface, iSteam’s pretend moisture is wiped away with a realistic-sounding squeak. When the phone is tipped on its side, droplets of condensation roll as if pulled by gravity.

Both Ethan and Kostas were inspired by Steve Demeter, who made $250,000 in two months with a game called Trism, which involves aligning rows of brightly colored triangles.

Source: Coder’s Half-Million-Dollar Baby Proves iPhone Gold Rush Is Still On (Wired: February 12, 2009)

Self-Taught Make-Up Artist Launches Cosmetics Line

lauren-luke1A British self-taught make-up artist built such a loyal YouTube following with her video tips on how to imitate celebrity looks that she just launched her own line of cosmetics: By Lauren Luke.

Lauren, a 26-year-old single mom and former taxi dispatcher, started selling cosmetics on eBay. To help her customers, she started making YouTube tutorials which have attracted over 40 million views in 18 months.

Lauren sells her By Lauren Luke line exclusively through her website to customers in the US, Canada and Europe. Each kit comes with a video tutorial on how best to apply the make-up.

Source: From YouTube tutorials to her own make-up line (Springwise: April 30, 2009)

Mysterious Chinese American Sells Domain Portfolio For World Record Price

yun-yeI have left what I think is the most incredible success story to last. There are many domainers who have made a fortune with domain names, but this story is the most widely reported. When I read the story, I thought to myself, why didn’t I think of that.

In November 2004, Yun Ye, a Chinese American, became a legend in the domaining industry when he sold his portfolio of 100,000 domain names to Marchex for a whopping $164 million!

Yun Ye began building his enormous collection of domains after graduating from the University of Maryland in 1998. Yun gobbled up thousands of expired domains, often names that the previous owner had either forgotten or decided not to renew.

When Yun Ye was building his portfolio, the only way to make money from domain names was reselling them. In 2000 that changed when paid search started to take off. Advertisers would pay for each visitor that Pay Per Click (PPC) search engines, such as Overture (which later became Yahoo! Search Marketing), sent. And Overture would pay domainers like Yun Ye for placing their ads on their domains.

Yun Ye’s portfolio of names were bringing in more than $20 million a year in revenues, with $19 million in profits. Marchex paid the equivalent of 8.6 times annual earnings, based on figures provided in SEC documents.

Yun Ye is intensely private and dealt with Marchex only under the agreement that they never mention his name. To this day, Marchex execs refer to the deal by the company name Yun Ye adopted for the transaction: Name Development.

To give you an idea of the amazing prices premium domains can command, here are 10 domains that attracted 7-figure price tags:

$7.5M - Business.com
$7.0M - Beer.com
$6.0M - Diamond.com
$5.5M - Casino.com
$5.0M - Korea.com
$5.0M - AsSeenOnTV.com
$3.5M - Shop.com
$3.3M - Wine.com
$3.0M - Loans.com
$2.5M - Tom.com

Source: Masters of their Domains (CNN Money: December 1, 2005)

I hope these incredible ebusiness success stories inspire you to find your own success online. I haven’t quite achieved the same level of success that some of these people have achieved. But the internet has given me and my family the quality of life that I could only have dreamt about 10 years ago.

If you come across other amazing ebusiness success stories, please let me know by tweeting me at @michael_wong or emailing me at @Michael. If I receive enough amazing success stories, I will look at doing a follow up article. I wish you every success with your online business.

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Success: 38 Software Products & Services I Use to Make a 6-Figure Income Online

by Michael Wong on May 6, 2009

michael-wong-site-200In my effort to share with you everything I have learnt in the last 10 years of making a living online, I share with you the 38 software products and services I use to run my internet business.

I have always used Dell computers running Microsoft Windows since I discovered the internet in 1997.

But then a couple of years ago my hard drive died and I decided it was time to switch to an Apple Mac. I am so glad I did.

The Mac operating system (OS) is much more user friendly and fun to use. Although the Mac OS X crashes every now and then, it crashes far less often than Windows OS.

The main reason I didn’t switch earlier was because I was worried about not being able to run Windows programs. I used to write reviews on internet marketing software for my Mike’s Marketing Tools site, and the majority of marketing software is created for Windows. But with the new Intel based Apple computers, I can have my Mac OS and also run Windows OS for running Windows software. In fact I can do both at the same time.

Because I use an Apple Mac, the majority of the software programs mentioned in this list are for the Mac. Where possible, I have include the Windows equivalent. Even if I don’t list a Windows equivalent, it will give you an idea as to why I use the program. You can go and find a Windows equivalent on software sites like Download.com.

Out of the 38 products and services, 30 are free. The products and services I pay for add up to $757.84, plus recurring payments of $262.95 per month. You can see it clearly doesn’t cost a great deal of money to set up a profitable business online.

I haven’t listed hardware equipment such as a computer, fax/printer, office desk and chair, etc. The cost of those really depend on your budget and taste.

Here are the 38 software programs and services I currently use to make a 6-figure income online:

Advertising Server: OpenX (Free)

openx200For years I have been using an open source advertising server software to serve ads throughout my various web sites. It used to be called phpAdsNew but is now known as OpenX.

OpenX offers all the features you would want from an advertising server, including displaying all types and sizes of ads, targeting, and extensive reporting. The amazing thing about this amazing piece of software is that it’s free!

OpenX is open source, and therefore free, and runs on a server that supports PHP and MySQL or PostgreSQL-configured database.

AdWords Keyword Tool: JUMBO Keyword .com (Free)

jumbo-keyword-200Okay, this is a plug for my latest web site. But I do genuinely use it all the time so I think it’s fair that I include it in this list.

As a full time affiliate marketer and AdWords advertiser I build big lists of keywords using keyword databases such as the Google AdWords Keyword Tool and Wordtracker.

Large keyword lists require a lot of editing and cleaning which is tedious work. For years I have used regular expressions in a text editor to help me clean the keywords. Once the keywords were cleaned, I would use my AdWords Wrapper tool to convert keywords into the various AdWords keyword matching options.

The regular expression functions helped speed up the cleaning process, but I only knew a few functions so it still took too much time and effort. This is why I decided to create JUMBO Keyword .com. It is a free AdWords keyword tool offering 70+ 1-click Google AdWords keyword editing functions.

Now I can edit hundreds, even thousands, of AdWords keywords, as well as convert cleaned keywords into the various AdWords keyword matching options with just a click of the mouse.

Email: Google GMail (Free)

gmail-200I switched over to Google’s GMail in January 2008 after using Eudora for 8 years. I wish I had switched earlier.

GMail is much easier to use than Eudora because it has a nicer user interface and an excellent spam filter. With Eudora, I had to set up all the spam filters and it was a constant struggle keeping up with new spam techniques. I used to have to manually delete hundreds of spam emails a week. With Gmail, only a handful of spam emails appear in my inbox each week.

I also like the fact that (assuming I am logged into GMail) my emails automatically appear in my account and GMail notifies me that I have a new email the moment it arrives. With Eudora, I had to download emails to my computer before I could even filter them. This meant Eudora would download all the spam emails as well, which was a complete waste of time and bandwidth.

Email Back-Up: Apple Mail (Free) / Outlook Express (Free)

mail-200In December 2006, GMail users reported mass email deletions. Rumors were that GMail was hacked using a hole exploit in Firefox 2 - the issues have since been resolved.

Google’s official policy is that once emails are deleted, they are gone forever. So, if you value your emails, I highly recommend you back-up your GMail emails by downloading it to your computer.

I own a Apple Mac and use the Apple Mail program that comes with it. Windows users can use Outlook Express. Google has easy to follow instructions on how to back up your email using your computer’s email software.

FTP: FileZilla (Free)

I use the open source FileZilla FTP software for uploading my web pages to my server. FileZilla is free and runs on Windows XP/Vista, Mac OS X 10.5+, and Linux.

Google AdWords: AdWords Editor (Free)

adwords-editor-200AdWords Editor is a free Google application for managing AdWords ad campaigns. I can download all my accounts (I have a few), mass update campaigns, and re-upload the changes to AdWords.

I still prefer to set up campaigns via the AdWords website. But I use AdWords Editor when I want to make bulk changes (such as updating bids or adding keywords), and also to copy or move a large number of items between ad groups and campaigns.

AdWords Editor is free and runs on Windows 2000/XP/Vista and Mac OS X 10.4+.

Image Editor: Picnik (Free) + Picturesque (Free) / Paint Shop Pro ($69.99)

picnik-200Not being much of an artist, I do as little image editing as I have to. On occasions when I have to edit an image, I used to use Paint Shop Pro (PSP) on my Windows computer. Paint Shop Pro runs on Windows XP/Vista and costs $69.99.

The main reason for using PSP is because I’m cheap and didn’t want to spend $600-700 on Adobe PhotoShop or Illustrator. :-)

I haven’t really found a replacement for PSP on my Mac. But the only graphics editing functions I really use are cropping and resizing thumbnail images. I have been able to replicate those functions using Picnik, a free online photo editing web app.

I also use Picturesque which allows me to quickly and effortlessly add 3D effects, reflections, corner curves, shadows, glows and strokes to any image. You can see of an example of an image created with Picturesque on the JUMBO Keyword .com homepage. Picturesque is free and runs on Mac OS X.

Instant Messenging: Skype (Free) / GMail Chat (Free)

skype-chat-200I use Skype Chat to chat (via instant messaging) to freelancers. Russian and India freelancers are a bit shy about chatting with their voice.

Skype is free and runs on Windows 2000/XP/Vista, Mac OS X 10.3+, Linux, Windows Mobile, and iPhone.

I also use GMail Chat to instant message with my friends who also use GMail.

Internet Connection Monitor: Little Snitch ($29.95)

little-snitch-200Windows users typically have Firewalls, like Norton or ZoneAlarm, installed on their computer. These programs typically monitor your internet connection and notify you if a program, such as spyware, tries to send data from your computer.

Most Mac users, like myself, don’t use firewall software because there is no need. So I use Little Snitch to monitor which programs are sending out data from my Apple Mac. Little Snitch costs $29.95 and runs on Mac OS X 10.4+.

Link Checker: Xenu’s Link Sleuth (Free)

xenu-link-sleuth-200I use Xenu’s Link Sleuth to check my web sites for broken links, images, frames, plug-ins, backgrounds, local image maps, style sheets, scripts and java applets.

The great thing about Link Sleuth is that it is free. Link Sleuth only works on Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista.

Local Data Back-Up: Time Machine (Free) + 1 TB Time Capsule ($499)

The Apple Mac OS X comes with Time Machine, a software program that automatically backs up everything on my Mac. I use Time Machine and a 1 Terabyte Time Capsule external hard drive to make local backups of everything.

My Dell computer’s hard drive literally died on me a couple of years ago. I took the hard drive to a data recovery specialist, but even after a week of intensive work they were unable to save the drive or recover any data from it.

Luckily I had backed up everything except for a few months of emails. Learn from my mistake. Back up your computer’s data on another hard drive! Don’t say I didn’t want you.

Long Distance Voice/Video Chat: Skype (Free) / iChat (Free)

I use Skype (and sometimes the Apple Mac’s iChat) to chat with freelancers and friends who live overseas. Skype voice chat requires both parties to have Skype installed on their respective computers. And if both parties have a web cam, we can see each other as we chat.

If you have never tried Skype, I highly recommend that you do. You will be pleasantly surprised by the sound quality. Skype gives you the feeling that the person on the other end is in the same room as you.

I have even had a 3 way chat with my cousins in Hong Kong and England. I was in Australia. The sound quality was excellent, but only if I switched off the video. I felt like they were in the same room as me.

The quality of video picture is excellent when the window is small. But as you expand the window, the quality deteriorates.

Long Distance VOIP Phone Calls: Skype (From ¢2.1/minute)

skypeout-200I use Skype to make cheap international VOIP calls if the person I want to talk to doesn’t have Skype installed or isn’t online. I can call landlines and mobiles from 2.1 cents per minute.

VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) calls are carried over the internet instead of phone lines. The sound quality varies but are generally as good as the sound quality of calls made from standard landline and mobile phones.

Skype also offer two unlimited landline call plans; (1) unlimited calls to a single country for $5.95/month, and (2) unlimited calls to 40 countries for $12.95 per month.

You can also get an online number for friends, family and business colleagues who don’t use Skype. Anyone can dial your online number from any phone or mobile and you take the call on Skype. Skype offers online numbers in over 20 countries so when people call your online number, they only pay the local rate - you don’t pay anything to answer the call.

Music: iTunes (Free)

I love listening to music while I work, especially when I’m doing tedious repetitive stuff like cleaning large numbers of keywords for AdWords campaigns.

I have Apple’s iTunes on my Mac and use it to manage my music collection. I listen to all kinds of music, including Pop, Chinese, Trance and R&B. My favorite album is probably Substance by New Order. It’s wicked!

Online Backup Service: Mozy ($4.95/month) / Carbonite ($54.95/year)

mozy-200Local backup onto an external hard drive is good, but it’s not enough. I also have off-site backup in case something happens to my computer and local backup. I live under a flight path so a plane could land on my home - not likely, but possible! There’s also the threat of fire destroying the hard drives and someone breaking into my home and stealing my computer and backup drive.

It’s better to be safe than sorry, so I back up my data online using Mozy. The great thing thing about Mozy is that it automatically backs up the data in the background on a regular a basis - I don’t have to do anything.

After the initial backup (which can take a few days depending on the amount of data you have), Mozy only backs up files that have been added or changed. So far, I have 94.5 GB of data backed up on Mozy.

Mozy offer unlimited (yes, unlimited!) backup for just $4.95 per month and runs on Windows 2000/XP/Vista, and Mac OS X 10.4+.

A word of warning if you, like me and probably millions of Australian internet users, are on an internet plan with a bandwidth allowance that includes outgoing data. The initial backup can take you over the bandwidth limit allowed on your plan, so you might need to change your plan for a couple of months, or spread the backup over several months if you have a lot of data to back up.

When I had a Windows PC, I used Carbonite to back up my data. I switched to Mozy because Carbonite didn’t work on the Mac when I purchased my Mac. They have since added Mac support. Carbonite costs $54.95 per year and runs on Windows XP/Vista and Mac OS X 10.4+.

Phone/Fax Number: JConnect ($15/month)

jconnect-200Pssst… this is one of my best kept secrets so don’t tell anyone: I have been able to work and live around the world with the help of a JConnect phone and fax number.

I used to live in Los Angeles (L.A.) but moved to Hong Kong and now Australia. Before I left L.A. I set up a JConnect phone and fax number with a local area code (you can choose from over 2,000 cities around the world). So the number looks just like a regular phone number. Whenever someone leaves a voicemail or sends me a fax, JConnect emails me the voicemail/fax.

This, along with my California registered company and mail forwarding address enable me to operate a business out of California, even though I haven’t lived in the United States since 2002. The phone and fax number only costs $15 per month, so it’s very cost effective.

Photo Management: iPhoto (Free) / Picasa (Free)

I use Apple’s iPhoto to organize all the photos on my computer. For Microsoft Windows users, I recommend Google’s Picasa - that’s what I used to use when I had a PC. Picasa is free and runs on XP/Vista, Mac OS X 10.4.9+, and Linux.

Screen Capture: Skitch (Free)

skitch-200The Apple Mac has screen capture functions, but I prefer to use Skitch because it also include some basic functions to edit the screen capture without having to open another graphic editing program. Skitch is free and runs on Mac OS X 10.4.6+.

Server Uptime Monitor: Uptime (Free)

Web hosts typically promise something like 99.9% server uptime. But how can you be sure that your server is working 99.9% of the time? And what about the other 0.1% of the time? 0.1% is 8.76 hours of downtime a year.

This is why I use Uptime to monitor my server to ensure it is working properly. Uptime periodically requests a page from my server and emails me if the site is unreachable. If my server is unreachable, Uptime will continue checking my site until it becomes reachable again, at which point it will email me to let me know my server is back up again.

There have been occasions in the past when my server was inaccessible for long periods. Without Uptime monitoring I would not have known about it. Do you know when your server goes down?

Spreadsheet: Apple iWork Numbers ($79)

Apple iWork Numbers is Apple’s equivalent of Microsoft’s Office Excel. I can import Excel files into Numbers, and export Number files as Excel documents that can be opened and edited with Excel.

Text Editor: Smultron (Free) / EditPlus ($35)

smultron-200I used a text editor to write my HTML pages, make notes, brainstorming and plan my business. There are probably better programs for doing those tasks, but I prefer the simplicity of a text editor. It means I can access all those details from one program.

I used to use EditPlus when I had a Windows PC, but switched to Smultron when I moved to the Apple Mac.

Smultron is free and runs on Mac OS X 10.5+. EditPlus costs $35 and runs on Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista.

Typing Shortcuts: TextExpander ($29.95) / Perfect Keyboard ($19.95)

textexpander-200I respond to a lot of emails, and hand type HTML code - I guess I’m old fashioned. The problem is that I am not trained in touch typing, so I’m relatively slow.

When I had a Windows PC, I used to use Perfect Keyboard to help me retype commonly used email responses and HTML code with just a few keystrokes. I also used it to automatically fix common typos, such as ‘teh’ and ‘can;t’. I switched over to TextExpander when I moved to the Mac.

TextExpander runs on Mac OS X 10.4+, and costs $29.95. Perfect Keyboard runs on Windows 98/Me/NT4/2000/XP/Vista, and costs $19.95.

Web Browsers: Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, Chrome (All free)

firefox-200I use Firefox to surf the web because it offers many add-ons that allow me to customize my browser and help increase productivity.

I also create my own webpages and it is important to make sure they display properly on all popular web browsers. So I also have Internet Explorer, Apple Safari, Opera and Google’s Chrome installed on my computer. All the web browsers are free.

Web Browser (FireFox) Add-ons

There are thousands of add-ons you can install to customize your Firefox browser.

Here are 7 add-ons that I use:

  • 1Password ($39.95) / Roboform ($29.95)

    1password-200As an affiliate marketer I have far too many login usernames and passwords that I care to remember.

    Hence, I use 1Password to manage my login usernames and passwords. Features include password generation and sharing data across web browsers.

    1Password costs $39.95 and runs on Mac OS X 10.4.11+ and Safari 3, Firefox 2/3, Camino 1.5, OmniWeb 5.7, DEVONagent 2.3, and NetNewsWire 3.1. 1Password is also available for iPhone/iPod touch and Palm.

    When I had a Windows PC, I used Roboform to manage my login usernames and passwords. Roboform costs $29.95 and runs on Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003/Vista (all 32-bit versions), IE 6/7/8 and Firefox 2/3.

  • Better Gmail (Free)

    Better GMail lets me customize GMail with options such as show inbox count first, show unread message count in the Favicon tab, add row highlights, attachment icons, filter assistant, show message details, hide chat, hide invite boxes, and hide spam count.

  • CustomizeGoogle (Free)

    customizegoogleCustomizeGoogle offers far too many options to list them all here.

    The main options I use include adding position counter to Google search results, rewrite links to point straight to images in image search results, stream search results, and always secure (https) GMail, Google Calendar, Docs and Spreadsheets.

  • Firesizer (Free)

    firesizerFiresizer lets me resize my web browser window to 640×480, 800×600, or 1024×768 pixels. I can also add custom sizes or remove any of those default sizes.

  • Google Gears (Free)

    Google Gears allows me to continue reading, writing (without losing anything GMail had not auto-saved) and editing emails in GMail even when I can’t access GMail or I am off-line.

    Google Gears is available on Mac OS X 10.4+ (Firefox 1.5+ or Safari 3.1.1+), Windows XP/Vista (Firefox 1.5+ or Internet Explorer 6.0+), Windows Mobile (IE Mobile 5+, Opera Mobile), Linux and Android.

  • Tab Mix Plus (Free)

    Tab Mix Plus enhances the Firefox tabs with all manner of features. You can add duplicate tabs, control tab focus, undo closed tabs and windows, add tab options to the Tab Context Menu, and much more.

  • TableTools (Free)

    TableTools adds options to copy, sort, or filter HTML tables you find on any web page. This helps retain the table structure when I copy and paste them from a web page to a spreadsheet.

Web Hosting: Softlayer (From $258/month)

softlayer-200I have used several web hosts in my 11 years of running an online business. Each has been better than the last. I switched to Softlayer a few years ago at the recommendation of my tech guru, Peter Cooper.

Like most people, I used virtual hosting for the first few years I was online. Virtual hosting is sharing a server with hundreds, even thousands, of other web sites.

As my business grew I decided it was wise to get my own server, otherwise known as a dedicated server. This way I have full control over the server and don’t have the possibility of unscrupulous sites on the same server using up an unfair share of resources and slowing down other sites on the server.

The server I have with Softlayer is an Intel Xeon 3220-Quad Core 2.4GHz processor and 2 GB of RAM, and bandwidth allowance of 2,000 GB. Remember that I got this a few years ago, so you can probably get a faster processor now for the same price.

As soon as I switched to the quad-core (4 core) processor, I immediately noticed a big difference in the response time of my websites. The Marketing Forum Watch page in my Mike’s Marketing Tools site is quite resource intensive and used to take as long as 20 seconds to download on the old server. On the new quad-core server, it only takes a second or two. That’s a huge difference!

The one major downside with having your own server is that you need to know how to set up and maintain the server. I am not a techie so I don’t. Luckily Peter takes care of that side of the business for me.

I pay $258 per month which is a lot of money. I can skimp and save on other parts of my business, but web hosting is not one of them. After all, if my server is down, then I’m not open for business. If I had a real store, I would probably pay tens of thousands per year in rent. If I compare that to what I’m paying for web hosting, I think web hosting is a bargain.

If you have multiple web sites or your site is slow, I recommend looking at upgrading to your own dedicated server, especially one with a multiple-core processor.

Windows Operating System: VMWare Fusion ($79.99) / Parallels ($79.99)

vmware-fusion-200The latest Intel-based Macs allow you to run Windows and Mac applications side-by-side, without rebooting. You can even drag files between the two operating systems.

You accomplish this by creating a virtual machine running Microsoft Windows operating system (OS) inside of your Mac OS.

There are basically two main programs for doing this; VMware Fusion and Parallels. I did a lot of research to find out which is better, but I couldn’t find any conclusive evidence to support one version over the other. Users like both Parallels and VMware Fusion. So I chose VMWare Fusion although I can’t recall why.

Both VMware Fusion and Parallels cost $79.99 and require an Intel Mac, 1GB of RAM, Mac OS X 10.4.11+, and a copy of Microsoft Windows.

Word Processor: Apple iWork Pages ($79)

pages-200Apple iWork Pages is Apple’s equivalent of Microsoft’s Office Word

I can import Word files into Pages, and export Pages files as Word documents that can be opened and edited with Word.

So there you have the 38 software products & services I currently use to make a 6-figure income online.

Here is a recap of all the software products and services:

If you have any comments, tweet me at @Michael_Wong. Thanks!

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Michael Wong: The Life & Times of An Internet Marketer

by Michael Wong on April 28, 2009

mike73Disclosure: If you click on a product link in my blog and purchase the product, I will earn a commission from the referral. This helps to pay the bills. The links to these merchants do not necessarily mean I endorse their products (unless I say otherwise, such as in a review). Please make sure the product is suitable for your requirements before making a purchase.

What is This Blog About?

I have been making a living online since 1998 and in this blog I will be spilling my guts out on everything I’ve learnt over the last 10 years, and continue to learn on a daily basis. Topics including Google AdWords, SEO, affiliate marketing, internet marketing, ebusiness success stories, and self improvement. I highly recommend subscribing to the free email updates using the form at the bottom of this page so that you don’t miss any future posts. For more information about me, continue reading… [...]

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Success: How the Pareto Principle Increased my Income by 207% in 18 Months

by Michael Wong on April 22, 2009

The 80/20 PrincipleIn a previous post, “Success: How I Broke Through My Glass Ceiling“, I mentioned that I increased my income by 207% in just over 18 months. One thing I didn’t mention was how I did that.

Here’s how: I applied ‘the Pareto Principle’ to my business.

What is the Pareto Principle you may ask?

I discovered the Pareto Principle in Richard Koch’s international best selling book, “The 80/20 Principle“. It states that a minority of causes, inputs, or effort usually lead to the majority of results, outputs or rewards.

If you take it literally, this means 80% of sales or profits come from 20% of products or customers. But don’t take the 80/20 figure literally. The percentages don’t even have to add up to 100%. You could have 95% of profits come from 15% of customers or 65% of sales come from 5% of products.

The Pareto Principle was discovered in 1897 by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. His discovery has been called many names, including the Pareto Principle, the Pareto Law, Pareto’s Law, the 80/20 rule, the Principle of Least Effort, and the Principle of Imbalance.

So what did Vilfredo Pareto discover?

He happened to be looking at patterns of wealth and income in 19th century England. He found that most income and wealth went to a minority of the people in his sample. Pareto’s other finding, one that really excited him, was that this pattern of imbalance was repeated consistently whenever he looked at data referring to different time periods or countries.

I applied the Pareto Principle to my own business and discovered that 70.7% of sales came from 17% of products. As a result of this new found knowledge, I refocused the majority of my promotional efforts and budget on those top selling products.

The results were dramatic: within 4 months sales from the top selling products increased by 91.7%, and overall sales increased by 71.6%.

I have followed the Pareto Principle ever since. I am so thankful I picked up a copy of Richard Koch’s excellent book, “The 80/20 Principle” at Amazon.com. I rate it amongst the top 5 most influential books of my life.

You don’t need to read Richard’s book to understand the Pareto Principle and apply it to your business. But if you do read it, you will have a better understanding of how you can apply it to different areas of your business, your career, and even your life.

This post is not meant to be a review. But to give you an idea of how highly I rate this book, I give it 2 thumbs up and a score of 9/10.

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Success: How I Broke Through My Glass Ceiling

by Michael Wong on April 21, 2009

moneyOne of the biggest revelations of my life happened to me at a seminar in 2006.

I was attending a 3 day financial success seminar in Sydney, Australia, organized by Mal Emery.

This was my first seminar but it was what I thought it would be: a room full of self-confessed seminar junkies. Experts would preach on stage for about an hour or two on all manner of products from copywriting to real estate investing. At the end of their  speech they pitch their high priced products - I’m talking thousands, even tens of thousands, of dollars for a single product. Crazy huh?

I can’t remember most of the speakers but I do recall seeing Stephen Pierce and Ted Nicholas. Ted was very lively and entertaining, especially for someone so ‘mature’ in his years.

All those speakers on stage were supposedly very successful at what they do and making a lot of money. Yet they had nothing in common, at least not from what I could see. They came in all different sizes. Some were tall, short, thin, ‘plump’, young, old, male, female. Some were more attractive than others. Some even came across as a bit ’shady’, although I’m sure they weren’t.

I thought I was doing okay but these people seemed to be so much more successful than I was. By the end of the seminar I didn’t learn anything worth noting from the speakers. But something occurred to me. It was something so profound that it changed my life forever.

It occurred to me that if all of these people with nothing in common from what I could see, or had any special abilities to speak of, could all be incredibly successful and make lots of money, then why couldn’t I? There was no good reason that I could think of that I couldn’t achieve the same level of success and make as much money as those people on stage.

In that moment the invisible success and income ceiling that had always subconsciously hovered above my head disappeared. I’m not sure why it was there - it just was. Maybe it was due to my upbringing. We were always quite poor, so the concept of making a lot of money just wasn’t something that belonged in my head.

Anyway, I no longer felt like I wasn’t worth it. I felt like I was free and able to be as successful and make as money as I wanted. From that moment on I felt like I could, and decided that I was going to achieve a far greater level of success than I had experienced up to that point in my life.

The result? I increased my income by 207% in just over 18 months. Sorry but I’m not going to reveal how much I make - that’s not me. Let’s just say I feel incredibly lucky for the success that I have achieved. I will never take it for granted though because I’ve seen first hand how success can come back to bite you if you do.

It sounds corny but I never imagined when I discovered the internet back in 1997 that I would one day make the kind of money I am making now. It’s probably not a lot of money by some people’s standards. But for someone from a dirt poor background, left nothing but a burden of debt when his dad passed away (mum left dad when I was 8), who never made it to college and was scraping a living as a waiter for 10 years, it’s a dream come true. And that is an understatement.

I read somewhere that when sales people start a new job, they tend to make only as much money as they did at their old job. For some unknown reason when they reach the previous income level they would stop and not make any more even though they may have plenty of time left. Isn’t that odd? Maybe these people also have the invisible success ceiling that held me back for so many years.

Psychologists tell us that we set these ‘glass ceilings’ based on our beliefs. When we hit our success ceiling, it triggers limiting beliefs that reinforces the ceiling. The result is that we subconsciously do things that stops us from going above the glass ceiling. In short, limiting beliefs are mental blocks that stand in the way of success for most people. I never knew I had this limiting belief. I’m happy I’ve been able to burst my invisible glass ceiling. I hope my story helps you to do the same.

My goals are much bigger nowadays. I now dream about building a website that would one day be acquired by the likes of Google or Yahoo! for $20 million. Yeah I’m dreaming. Maybe it will never happen, but that’s okay. So long as I have fun trying, I am happy.

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Blogging: sCategory Permalink WordPress Plugin

by Michael Wong on April 20, 2009

scategories-permalink

I use WordPress to power this blog and use the permalink option of %category% to create SEO-friendly URLs.

But it has one major limitation: it uses the category with the lowest category ID to create the permalink.

This is okay if you only select one category. But if you select two or more categories, the category with the lowest ID isn’t always the category you want to appear in the permalink URL.

Luckily for me and probably many other WordPress users, Dmytro Shteflyuk encountered the same problem and created the sCategory Permalink plugin to overcome this issue. With this plugin you can select as many categories as you like for a post and select the category you want to use in the permalink.

I just installed it on this blog (WordPress 2.7.1) and it works great! Thanks Dmytro! Dymytro, you should add a tip form to your site so that I can buy you a beer.

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SEO: Dash or Underscore in URLs

by Michael Wong on April 20, 2009

googleI just recommended to a friend, Dr. Jamie Fettig, that he change his web site URLs from ‘keyword1_keyword2′ to ‘keyword1-keyword2′.

Why?

Because according to Matt Cutts (a software engineer at Google), he recommends using dashes for Google. According to his article, “Dashes vs. underscores“, if you have a URL like ‘keyword1_keyword2′ Google will only return that page if the user searches for ‘keyword1_keyword2′ (which almost never happens).

If you have a URL like ‘keyword1-keyword2′, that page can be returned for the searches for ‘keyword1′, ‘keyword2′, and even “keyword1 keyword2″.

Don’t forget to inform Googlebot and other search engine crawlers that a page has moved to a permanent location by adding 301 redirects to your site’s .htaccess file:

Redirect 301 /old_directory http://www.example.com/new-directory

Redirect 301 /old_page.html http://www.example.com/new-page.html

Redirect 301 /old_directory/old_page.html http://www.example.com/new-directory/new-page.html

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Social Bookmarking: Add to Any

by Michael Wong on April 20, 2009

add-to-anyLast Tuesday I added AddThis social bookmarking button to this blog and JUMBO Keyword .com to give me some stats on how many and what method users are bookmarking and sharing my sites.

Today I checked my AddThis stats and noticed 5 people sharing my JUMBO Keyword site using ‘other’ services not offered by AddThis. I also wasn’t that happy with the simple Feedburner RSS feed option I had because I knew people use a variety of RSS feed readers. And AddThis doesn’t offer a better option.

At the same time (I can’t recall how now) I found the Add to Any (also known as AddtoAny) which is similar to AddThis but offered many more options.

Add to Any offers:

  • 123 options to social bookmarking/sharing options compared to 46 on AddThis
  • 73 RSS feed subscription options compared to 12 on AddThis
  • Google Analytics which should offer more comprehensive stats than the basic visitor and service stats offered by AddThis

Add to Any also offers more customization options and you don’t even have to sign up for an account.

So I replaced the AddThis buttons with Add to Any. You can check out the buttons at the top of every page. I’ll keep you posted on how Add to Any works out.

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Software: Thesis Theme for WordPress Review

by Michael Wong on April 17, 2009

thesis-themesWhen my techie guru, Peter Cooper, installed WordPress on my server for me, he recommended that I get Thesis Theme for WordPress.

Peter rarely recommends commercial software and I wasn’t sure I wanted to pay $87 (Personal Option), let alone $164 (Developer’s Option), for some site theme that I could create myself or ‘borrow’ from somewhere. So I asked him why he recommended it.

He told me, “It’s just a really great base theme to work from. It’s what the default WordPress theme really should be. Very easy to customize, good practices out of the box, lots of design settings you can make without needing to touch code.”

Hmm… that sounded interesting but I still wasn’t totally convinced that I should shell out $164 so I did a bit more digging. I came across a video created by a happy customer and promoted on the Thesis Theme web site where she explains in her own words why she loves Thesis Theme.

What Thesis Theme offers is more than just a WordPress theme. It’s a point and click system to help you customize the look and feel of your blog, by editing the layout, navigation links, fonts, display options, etc., without having to touch the CSS or HTML code. I was sold!

I have years of experience with HTML but my CSS knowledge is quite basic, so this sounded good to me. I went with the Developer’s Option because it allows me to use Thesis on every site that I own, and I don’t have to retain the attribution link in the footer (I just didn’t like the idea of paying for the software and giving the author a link as well).

A word of warning: The Developer’s Option allows you to use Thesis on an unlimited number of sites that ‘you’ own. It doesn’t allow you to use it on your clients’ web sites. For that privilege you have to pay $40 per site. This option is only available in the Developer’s Option.

The Personal Option only allows you to use Thesis on one site and on a localized development server. The footer attribution link must remain intact. You may however upgrade to the Developer’s Option from the Personal Option for $77.

I’m no techie but I installed Thesis Theme onto my server myself by following their easy to follow instructions. It was relatively easy.

I’ve been using Thesis Theme for a day now. I love tweaking designs and Thesis has made it so much easier and quicker to tweak the design without having to hunt down the right code to edit in the CSS or HTML templates. Time is money so if a tool can save me time, then that’s good enough for me. I’m sure some people would expect a lot more for their money, but I consider it money well spent.

If you don’t intend to use Thesis on more than one blog and can live with the footer attribution link, then I suggest sticking with the Personal Option. You can always upgrade later on. And if you’re comfortable with CSS, then Thesis Theme probably won’t help you much.

I always had trouble changing from 2 column to 3 column and back again, and adding/removing tabbed navigation links in my old blog. Thesis Theme makes that a doddle.

Having said that, it’s not perfect though. For some unknown reason (or maybe I’m just blind - my wife keeps telling me I am - I tell her it’s a guy thing but she doesn’t believe me) Thesis Theme doesn’t have options to change the font colors, only the size and font typeface. So I had to search the files to find the right color variables to change which is time consuming. Thesis Theme does has a nice feature that lets you add custom CSS changes to a custom.css file so that the changes are not lost everytime you upgrade to the latest version.

I also noticed a couple of bugs but I am using the latest beta version so maybe these bugs will be ironed out by the time the official version is released.

Overall I would recommend Thesis Theme but only if you aren’t comfortable editing CSS code manually. It will save you a lot of time and headaches. It’s a bit expensive for what it offers, and as such I give Thesis Theme for WordPress a thumbs up and a score of 7/10. Thanks for the recommendation, Peter!

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Blogging: Top Secret - I Cheated!

by Michael Wong on April 16, 2009

top-secretPssst… I’m going to tell you a secret. I’ve only just set up my Michael Wong blog today. I wrote all the previous posts in a text editor. I’ve only just copied them over to the blog and backdated them all.

I know that’s cheating but you can forgive me just this once, right? I promise I won’t do it again.

I’ve never been that keen on blogging - seemed like too much work. But I’ve enjoyed setting up this new blog and Twittering or tweeting. I hope the fun continues.

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Blogging: Twitter.com/Michael_Wong

by Michael Wong on April 15, 2009

twitterI’ve finally decided to sign up to Twitter using my name before some cybersquatter nicks it. You can follow me at Twitter.com/Michael_Wong. The tweets are also available on the right side of this blog.

Some one had already signed up using Twitter.com/MichaelWong. The account shows no signs of activity whatsoever. Do people register Twitter accounts in people’s names in the hope of selling the rights to use the account at some point? I guess there is some value in that. But I can’t imagine Twitter would allow this. Maybe they should open up a marketplace to allow users to buy and sell Twitter accounts.

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Social Bookmarking: AddThis

by Michael Wong on April 14, 2009

addthisI’ve already noticed a few people mention JUMBO Keyword .com in Twitter, so I thought I would add a AddThis social bookmarking button to give me some stats on how many and what method users are bookmarking and sharing the web app. I’ll let you know how it works out in a future post.

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JUMBO Keyword: 1st Week’s Marketing Results

by Michael Wong on April 13, 2009

Website Category Visitors CPC Cost
Google AdWords Google search + search network 728 $0.13 $96.60
Content network 1,437 $0.07 $96.46
StumbleUpon marketing 485 $0.05 $28.50
internet-tools 485 $0.05 $28.50
Total 3,135 $0.08 $250.10

It’s been a week since I launched JUMBO Keyword .com and here are the results from my marketing campaign so far. See earlier posts for details of marketing campaigns I have set up.

According to Google Analytics, the site received 2,896 visits from 2,730 ‘absolute unique visitors’. It attracted 3,583 pageviews, an average of 1.24 pageviews. There is only one page on the site but I also track the outgoing product links which helps explain the 0.24 pageviews.

The time on site is only 32 seconds because the majority (90.28%) of visitors leave the site within 0-10 seconds. That should come down when I rely less on new visitors coming from advertising and more on returning visitors.

My other sites referred 312 visitors or about 11% of the total.

It’s interesting that the Google Analytics visitor stats are lower than the Google AdWords and StumbleUpon numbers combined. One possible explanation could be that they are overcharging me for clicks. Another possible explanation could be that some visitors leave the site before the site has even finished downloading. The site is about 100k in size and with a dial-up connection it could take bit too long to download for some people.

The final possibility is click fraud: people clicking AdWords or AdSense ads who then land on my site but leave before the site even downloads. One way to combat this would be to remove the list of countries where click fraud are likely to come from in my AdWords campaign.

A closer inspection of the Google Analytics numbers show 860 visits from StumbleUpon compared to 870 reported by StumbleUpon so that is okay.

The Google numbers are rather disturbing though. Google Analytics shows just 923 visits from all sites that aren’t StumbleUpon or one of my sites. Now considering that Google AdWords show 2,165 clicks, that is a big difference.

I think click fraud is a real possibility, especially in the Content Network, so I’m going to remove all the countries except for the major ones like USA, UK, Canada, Australia, etc.

I am encouraged by the fact that some users are staying on the site for as long as 10-30 minutes. It means people are using the site.

I have decided it’s time to reduce the Google AdWords bid by 50% to bring it closer to the cost-per-click that I would like to achieve: $0.05 per search click and $0.02-$0.03 per content click.

Stay tuned for more results in the coming weeks.

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Link Building: Broken Links

by Michael Wong on April 10, 2009

broken-linkVladimir Jakimov of Asidus.com has informed me that a link from one of my web sites to JUMBO Keyword .com is broken. A quick check reveals that he’s right. Thanks Vladimir!

I thought I better check the link on the other sites. My worse fears were confirmed - the links from all 13 websites to JUMBO Keyword are broken! I had missed out a quotation mark at the beginning of the link code. I give myself a slap around the head. Ouch!

I told Vladimir that I owed him one and he told me he is looking for sales partners for his Flash content management system, WebWizard.com.mk. Unfortunately I don’t know of any relevant sales partners I could send his way. If you are interested or know someone who might be, contact Vladimir (dot) Jakimov (at) Asidus (dot) com. Okay, I think I’ve repaid the favor.

The moral of the story is to always double check your links!

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PR: Hiring a Press Release Expert

by Michael Wong on April 9, 2009

urlwireI think JUMBO Keyword .com is good enough to warrant a press release to get some exposure and links. So I decide to hire a press release expert.

I signed up with Eric Ward’s URLwire service for $495. I chose Eric because he will personally send out the announcement to targeted editors who welcome announcements from him. This should do better than standard press release services that blast your release to everyone on their list.

Eric has an impressive track record having announced the likes of Amazon.com, AOL and Microsoft back in the ’90s - at least that’s what his site says. I’ll let you know how the press release performs in a future post.

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PPC: StumbleUpon Advertising Campaign

by Michael Wong on April 9, 2009

stumbleuponI started an ad campaign at StumbleUpon for JUMBO Keyword .com. I’m targeting ‘marketing’ and ‘internet-tools’ in the USA. With a budget of $500 and $0.05 per visitor, the campaign will generate 10,000 visitors. I set a maximum of 100 views/day for each campaign, and a total daily budget of $15/day. This should ensure I get a regular stream of visitors over a period of a month. I’ll let you know how this marketing tactic performs in a future post.

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