Last month I visited Ken McArthur’s JV Alert which was the best online marketing event I have been to so far. 3 days full off information and great networking opportunities. I meet some truly amazing marketers such as: Rick Butts, Paul Counts, Carrie Wilkerson, Dave Lakhani, Jonathan van Clute, Carl Zetterlund and many more. This event truly got me motivated to get more serious with my business. There are really no more excuses if you see what other people have been able to accomplish in far more difficult situations.

When I cam back from Vegas I signed up for PPC classroom, since I realized that PPC marketing is truly my strongpoint and it is also the area of online marketing that interests me the most. I have been following Amit Mehta and Anik Singal for a while and truly admire their work. Amit is one of the most real and honest online marketers I have ever seen.

As soon as I got the course I started to emerge myself into the material. The whole program is structured as an online class with lessons and tests at the end of each lesson. In combination with videos Amit does a truly great job explaining his PPC strategies. In the beginning I was worried this course would only be the same old PPC info I already found in other courses and ebooks. Oh how was I wrong. The information in this course is unique and really amazing. Amit’s techniques make PPC marketing so much more efficient and easier.

I have to admit I was so impressed by his info that I instantly started setting up campaigns. Every free minute of my day I am working on my campaigns and right now I have 4 full blown campaigns running and already made some sales. I am extremely exited for my business now, since I feel I really undestand PPC much better. I see things I never saw before and I have no doubt that I will be able to earn a full time income from PPC in the not to distant future. I am already working on my next campaign and plan to give regular updates on my progress on this blog. As Carl would say “It’s a hustle”. For me that just means “Hustle harder!”.

1. You use the same password on all your online accounts, which can be very dangerous in the long run

2. You constantly look for your passwords and waste precious time recovering your different passwords

I had the same problem and was in denial for a long time. Finally I started to write down all my password on paper next to my computer. Now I was able to find my passwords but this was definitely far from safe. After a while I noted my passwords on so many pieces of paper that I had a hard time to go through my stack of papers to find the right password.

This was the moment when I started to type my passwords into notepad and save it on my computer. This worked for some time and I successfully ignored the whole issue once again. However this was still not a long term strategy and especially not very safe. One instant that made me aware of this was when one of our computers was stolen at work. Luckily we did not have any passwords or sensitive information on this computer.

This was the moment when I started to look into a keyword software program I did quite a bit of research until I found a great free keyword manager called KeepPass. This software is easy to use and stores your passwords safely in an encrypted database file on your computer.I have been using this software now for over 3 years and I am very happy with it so far.

Just last week I realized that it is still a hassle for me if I need my passwords when I am not at my own computer. I did some more research and found another great free solution to safe passwords online. The site is called Passpack and it is very easy to set it up. You can actually use your Google (or even Twitter!) ID or multiple other online IDs to login. As added security you enter a security phrase to access your passwords. This is great, since you don’t have to setup another user account.

To sum this up, if you are looking for good free password management programs checkout these two options and depending on your needs you should be covered. I think it’s a good idea to store passwords in two places and a copy online can be a great help in case of disaster (fires or earthquakes here in California). This way you will always have access to your passwords and will never loose them again.

I started my first affiliate marketing PPC campaign in August for a couple of niche products. I have a lot of knowledge about PPC due to my job where I setup and manage PPC campaigns for our client. However, I was not using my knowledge to build my own business.

I finally decided to give it a try and setup a direct linking affiliate campaign (It helped that I got a 50 AdWords coupon from Google). In the beginning it didn’t look too good and it was quite frustrating to get clicks but no sales, but I stayed with it and kept tweaking my campaigns.

Eventually I made my first sale. This was a major relief for me since it showed me that I could make money with PPC. In August I also went on my honeymoon to Maui for two weeks, where I didn’t even check my emails. I came back and found out I made two sales while on vacation. I was more excited now. I still didn’t make a lot of money, but it was a start.

In September I grew my PPC business and made the most sales so far. While I was also working on other online marketing strategies, such as Squidoo and SEO, PPC still made the most profit for me.

I finally decide to go with PPC as my main affiliate marketing strategy for now. I feel PPC has many great advantages, especially when you get started in a niche and want to test it to see if it is worth the effort. My strategy now is the following:

1. Test niche markets and products with direct linking campaigns

2. If market is profitable expand PPC campaign

3. Build landing pages for the best phrases

4. Setup an autoresponder and squeeze pages for the niche and start building a list

This is my plan so far. Right now I am still in phase one. I consider this market research until I find a converting market/product. As soon as I have a good monthly income from one campaign I will continue with phase two.

Something I read last week gave me even more motivation to concentrate on PPC. Amit Mehta and Anik Singal released a great series of videos about successful PPC marketing for their new PPC Classroom 2.0 launch. Amit was able to grow his part time PPC business in a 2.4 Million Dollar a year income. This shows that PPC is not dead at all.

So if you are thinking about PPC give it a try and see if it is for you. I am convinced that I have finally found something that works for me and I will report about my progress on this blog.

The location for the event was a circus tent at the Long Beach shoreline village. The location itself was already very different than most self-development seminars and the circus tent gave the event a very different atmosphere. I have to say I liked this ideas since it made the whole seminar more fun and entertaining. This approach of mixing entertainment with education is a great idea.

The two days I visited the seminar provided a lot of great information. Brendon talked about overcoming your fears and getting rid of the herd mentality that so many of us have. He also talked in depth about his secrets of getting Fortune 500 companies and large non-profit organizations to sponsor you and work with you on your project. This was some truly amazing information.

One of the great elements of this event was that the circus tent belonged to an actual circus and the members of the circus performed their shows in between the speakers. This was really cool. Hearing these inspirational people and seeing a great show. A truly unique experience.

Brandon invited a lot of great speakers to his seminar. One of them was Bill Harris from the movie “The Secret” who talked about the importance of dreams and monitoring your thoughts. Another speaker was John Gray the famous autor of the bestseller “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus“. His presentation was very educational and at the same time hilarious funny. He explained in great detail why men and women act in different ways and what the sexes need to do to reduce their stress and live a more full filling life together. His information was especially great for women since they learned how to loose weight the easy way without going on a diet.

Also present at the event was Marianne Williamson who was also featured in “The Secret” movie. She gave some great information about the importance of spirit and meditation and opened my eyes in these aspects.

Next to the great shows and information at this seminar I also met some truly great people, such as Ken McArthur the author of the book “Impact: How to Get Noticed, Motivate Millions, and Make a Difference in a Noisy World” and the amazing Jeff Wellman from layoffyourboss.com.

Ken has started a truly inspirational project to raise awareness for the problem of teen suicide and help to save thousands of lives! His Impact Action Team did a great job speaking up for this cause at the Life’s Golden Ticket event.

All in all this was a truly great event. An amazing combination of eductaion, entertainment, networking and raising awareness for a good cause. Bendon is a great inspirational teacher and I am sure I will be back at one of his future events.

One thing I really love about this software and that stands out from all the other free keyword tools is the option to find competitors PPC ads. Since I do quite a bit of PPC this helps me a lot to analyze the competition and fine tune my ads.

Another great functionality is the backlink analysis, so you can see who links to your website or the competitors website. You can even see the anchor tags that other websites use to link to you or your competitor.

Additional to all the keyword, traffic and competitor analysis Traffic Travis also includes a ranking checker, so you can see where you rank in the search engines for your keywords. Altogether this free software has a nice set of functions that can be very helpful. I have to admit the logo is a little bit cheesy, but this might be a hint for all the online marketers and seo experts to loosen up a little and take things with humor.

If you are marketing online keyword research is a vital part of your business, so any tool that helps to make this easier is great. Check out Traffic Travis for yourself.

I was always aware that time management is a crucial factor for success. However I also always struggled with this aspect of my business and life. If you don’t know how to manage your time it can be a very stressful and frustrating experience. Especially with the many distractions that the Internet has for us it can be hard to focus on the things that are really important.

Eben’s time management strategies are on point and I learned quite a bit from this video. To view it click here.

The main points I took away from this video are:

1. Be persistent in what you do

2. Take at least 2 hours to focus exclusively on one thing

3. Remove distractions (email, phone, interruptions etc.)

4. Develop routines

5. Take time to recharge

I am already working on implementing some of these strategies. I am checking my email less often and allow myself to focus only on one thing. I also started with a morning routine. This is difficlut for me since i am not a morning person, but I will go step by step. For now I started working out for 30 minutes every morning.

Another thing that Eben didn’t mention is to make a list every day with all the things you want to do and work on it by importance. Another thing is to track your time, to see what you spend the most time on. I wrote about a great tool for this in another post.

I am very interested in time management and increasing my productivity and I am looking forward to the next video from Eben to see what other strategies he recommends.

The first impression of the store was good. A lot of space, very clean, and a lot of fresh produce. The look of the store is comparable to a whole foods store. However the prices are a little bit lower. The best thing however was that the carry raw milk. I was very happy to find this out since I was driving all the way down to Huntington Beach to Mothers Market to get my milk. This will save me a lot of gas and make shopping for milk way more convenient.

The store also has a great selection of fresh fruit and vegetables. I was also looking at the meat and fish and both looked very good and fresh. They have organic and all natural chicken and meat. The only thing I don’t like is the big candy selection in the middle of the store. I guess they do this because candy sells good to kids and is a money maker. However I would prefer less candy in a health food store. But then again I don’t have to buy it.

My wife and I had a great time shopping at Spouts and it looks like this will be our new regular store. We will probably no longer drive to Whole Foods or Mothers Market, since we get all the products we need here. We are still going to Trader Joe’s and the farmers market though. Produce and prices there are just too good.

We stayed in a beautiful condo in South Kihei which has the most amazing beaches on the island (and also the most sunshine). During our time in Maui we also rented a car and explored the island on our own. I can only recommend Maui to anyone who loves the beach and warm tropical weather. Here are my top Maui picks. All these places can be easily explored by car (and you don’t need a 4W drive either).

1. Road to Hana

The road to Hana is one of the great driving tour on Maui. The landscape is amazing with beautiful views over the rugged windward side of the island. During the drive there are many waterfalls and hiking opportunities to explore the rainforest. We used the book “Maui Revealed” as our guidebook and for the most part the places that they recommend are fantastic. However we noticed that some of the waterfalls didn’t have a lot of water and one was even dried out.

One of the main beautiful waterfalls on the road to Hana.

The waterfalls are definitely one of the highlights of the road to Hana. Swimming below a waterfall is a great experience. I recommend for anyone to bring reef shoes, since the ground below the waterfall can be very slippery and ruff. Also you can’t really see the ground once you are in the water (the water is very cold by the way, but also refreshing).

Scenic views on the road to Hana.

Many waterfalls require a short hike in the rainforest, so if mosquitoes like you bring some good bug-off. The drive can be difficult sometimes. The road is narrow and curvy and requires a lot of breaking. Hana itself is not very spectacular and we didn’t find a good place to eat. It might be a better idea to stop at one of the local places at the road that offer BBQ, than try to find an actual restaurant. After Hana the rainforest stops and you can find some good beaches. We had planned to travel around the east side of the island by car, but found out that the road was closed due to an earthquake that happened in 2006. As you can see on the picture there was no other way to go but turn around, since this was the only road. Unfortunately we had not planned to drive all the way back along Hana, so this part of the trip was so pleasant. I definitely can’t recommend driving the road to Hana by night, so get back early enough!

2. Haleakale crater

This is the main crater of Maui with an elevation of over 10,000 feet. It is quite a drive up there, but the road is nice and smooth and easier than the road to Hana. The mountain is often surrounded by clouds, but once you are high enough you leave the clouds behind and it gets sunny again. The air up there is very thin and you should bring a sweater since it’s cool and windy. There are some good hiking trails up there and on a good day you can see the big island.

3. South Maui lava fields and secret beaches

One day we drove all the way to the end of the road in South Maui. We left the car at Perouse Bay and did a nice hike through the lava fields. You are basically surrounded by lava and the path is quite ruff. Bring good shoes and sunscreen, since there is no shade. It took us around 1 hour and 30 minutes to get to a beautiful hidden beach with great snorkeling. This is a wonderful hike to start early in the morning, you have to watch the trail though, since there are not many signs to navigate by.

4. Blowhole and west Maui drive

The drive around west Maui is a must if you visit the island. Lahaina offers great shopping and an historic town. Further up north you find some very nice beaches and amazing scenery with a rugged coastline. One of the highlights for us was the Nakalele blowhole. A short hike from the parking lot the ocean presses water up this hole in the rocks and creates some amazing fountains. A great place for a salt water shower, which can be quite refreshing on a hot day. The road around the Westside is very narrow with a one lane street along the coastline, so I recommend driving very careful.

5. Snorkeling with the turtles

You don’t have to take an expensive ocean tour to snorkel with the turtles. We actually found that the turtles like to be close to the beach and can be watched easily while snorkeling. We saw the most turtles while snorkeling at Maluaka beach next to the Maui Prince hotel. This is only a short drive from Kihei and this beach is most of the time not very crowded. It’s good to arrive early though, since the wind starts to get rough around noon.

Of course there are many more great places to see and also we haven’t taken any of the tours to the neighboring islands. We definitely plan to come back and explore more of Maui’s beauty.

I will take a break from the online world for the next 10 days and relax on the beach in Maui. Also my wife and I will renew our vows on Saturday. It will be a small and intimate ceremony with our closest friends and family. I am very excited to go to Maui, since I haven’t been on vacation for a while. I heard a lot of good things about Maui and we have been to Oahu before and loved it.

If I find a internet cafe in Maui I might post a quick update, but so far it looks like a online free time for me.

Aloha!!!

I was wondering how large the effect of the earthquake was on Google searches that day and user behavior in general. Here are the results:

Keyword “Earthquake” on Google

Keyword “Earthquake California” on Google

Keyword “Earthquake Los Angeles” on Google

All these examples show that searches about the earthquake shot up the day of the event, while before the event there were almost no searches at all. So how is this relevant? I think this show very nicely how a large event (for example a product launch in online marketing or a press release) can create an enormous buzz in a very short time.

The buzz gets bigger since more and more users use social media to communicate it. If your business sells earthquake related products like preparation kits this would have been the perfect opportunity to generate large amounts of traffic in no time.

Of course we can’t predict events like this, but to me it shows how important it is for companies to constantly monitor online conversations and have plans ready if event happen. This way you can leverage outside news and events to advance your business and in this case to help people be better prepared for earthquakes.

This might also be relevant to SEO, since “in case” optimization would ensure that your website comes up in the top results for event related keywords. If your product can help people I believe this would be a great way of event related marketing.

Btw I found some really good (and free) information on the subject. Here are some good links about earthquake preparation:

The Earthquake Preparedness Handbook

www.redcross.org/services/prepare/0,1082,0_241_,00.html

www.amerrescue.org/quakprep.htm