There is a problem however. My SEO sucks. Seriously, your probably here because you searched “how to suck an egg” or something random like that and are wondering what the hell have you stumbled upon. If so, my apologies, feel free to move on.. here is a site .

So over the next few weeks I’ll be working on fixing my SEO a bit. I had never bothered about it before because I wasn’t particularly concerned about whether the search engines picked up my blog as it was something I did purely out of interest and even to this day I don’t run any advertisements so my intention to profit from it is still minimal.

But after a fair bit of interest and the soon to be launch of my new product, I figured I better sort out my SEO and start generating some really targeted traffic.

Three things I will be focusing on include my Title Tags, my H1 headings, bolded text (been doing this randomly but without much substance) and keyword density. I can’t really do much with my url’s as I have a fair few incoming links and don’t want them to be broken so I guess that’s something I will pay attention to from now on. Also my in-coming links will be phrased rather than under my url, www.williambakhos.com.

Now don’t think this is something your really going to notice as I still write for the people who are interested in reading this blog, but my aim is to drive more like minded people to join this community and benefit from the information provided.

Twitter is now trying to find a way to make money. Interestingly enough they have no clue how they are going to do it. They have already stated that advertising is not an option they are currently considering for their revenue model so where will it lie?

My take on this is simple: why start a business with no revenue model whatsoever? No you might think that this is quite a narrow minded view but the main reason for thinking like this probably isn’t what you think.

Let’s use a few examples (I love my examples!) and take Facebook for example. Now Facebook has always had some type of advertising on the site and I remember the first type of ads were tower banner ads. That was pretty much it and probably didn’t make them a lot of money. But it set a precedence. Users were comfortable with the advertising. So ramping up the ads into a full blown network, although not the most successful, didn’t put too many people off because it has always been there.

Same with Google. I’ve always known Google with two columns, one for organic and the other for sponsored links. Of course at some stage it was just organic search but the ads were put in quite early on, showing a defined revenue model and the users happily accepted it.

On the other hand you’ve got other start-ups like Twitter. These guys have built a massive following and have in no way monetised it. The negative effect isn’t in the fact that they are not making money now but the inability to easily implement a revenue model in the future. Taking the earlier examples, their revenue models crept up early on and didn’t cause to much of a flutter among the users. However Twitter has always been a free, non ad-obtrusive service with a host of loyal followers. Throw in a need to charge for anything and their loyal base will be kicking and screaming. This is their own doing.. they dug a hole from day one.

You can find clear evidence of this when reports came through of an agreement to form Twitter TV and Twitter’s most famous user Ashton Kutcher, made the following statement: “Wow I hope this isn’t true. I really don’t like being sold out. May have to take a twitter hiatus”. This shows any sign of Twitter trying to profit from their micro-blogging service, they are shunned by their most loyal and popular “Tweeters”. I can’t help but feel that if they implemented some type of revenue strategy from day 1… it may not have been so difficult.

Many budding entrepreneurs struggle to start for a simple lack of inspiration. A great deal of time is spent mulling over ideas, discussing sectors and making models. This has been an issue for me in the past – I would fret over a concept for a long time before taking the plunge.

One free day I decided to look back and see which ideas, out of the many attempted, have been successful. It didn’t take very long to reach two conclusions: 1, there was a very clear, and seemingly inexplicable, relationship between planning and success & 2, the successful enterprises were all niches/markets/products which I personally enjoyed.

Now, the relationship between planning and success was inexplicable because it was inverse: from diamond brokerage to art dealing, the successful projects were ones which I dove into with very little planning.

At this point I would imagine other business writers to frown deeply but I did manage to justify this quite quickly.

I don’t know about those reading this but when an idea comes for a business it is seldom in an industry which I am intricately familiar with at the outset. I may have only scant knowledge of a business sector but still believe that the idea is a solid one with good potential. The courses of action from this point are to either do meticulous research on the sector and come up with ‘solid’ plans or to simply jump in at the deep end and learn along the way.

The reason why I believe the latter approach is over-whelming successful for me over the former is because the real world is not the most black and white of places. Written material, strategies, reviews etc. present a simplified version of the world covering only those concepts essential to the topic being presented. It is important this is done because otherwise every article in a magazine or newspaper would be the size of an encyclopaedia BUT it is not a true reflection on the real world.

An idea can sound great on paper but have very limited application in real life. I’m sure we all know the cliché about ‘the school of life’ but I find is so true for business. We are bound to make mistakes and stumble along the way but the sooner we expose ourselves to that risk of failure, the sooner we start learning and bettering our ideas.

This isn’t a suggestion to skip all the ground work but, from personal experience, I have found that when this is kept to a minimum the exercise is far more dynamic and self-correcting.

The caveat I would put here is that all projects I have attempted have been carefully budgeted so I a total loss of the resources allocated to them wouldn’t hurt. Many people go into business risking a great deal: money they cannot really afford to risk in this way. In such cases research is important to assure the individual they have considered as many factors as possible.

I think my point does largely stand for to those looking at internet business opportunities, often these start from an idea to generate a small side income which can then grow. In these cases I really believe practise makes perfect. There are so many nuances with e-business that it is almost impossible to get a feel for it unless you give it a try. The most important thing is to know from the outset how much you are prepared to invest.. or lose, in the venture.

The second point comes out of the above. The most successful ideas I have realised have been ones which I was passionate about. To give an example; I’m a big art fan. I love art in all of its forms and wouldn’t restrict my interest to one particular style. Whenever I have the opportunity I seek out and buy paintings, largely by emerging artists.

At the same time I meet many people in the daily course of my work. Through initially casual conversations I discovered that people took a great interest to the works I had and were eager to occasionally buy them from me. As I realised there was an opportunity here, I started to collect more pieces with the idea of selling them. Now I represent a few emerging artists from around the world and regularly manage to secure commissions for their work. This ‘enterprise’ grew out of something very pleasurable which has never felt like work.

To compliment it I established Crimson Kaie (www.crimsonkaie.com) as showcase to let the world know about talented artists in all sorts of media and styles. The site has taken off fantastically and it has been such a pleasure to run. As a result I know many of the featured artists have had increased interest in their work and more traffic to their sites.

Again, this project has been a pure pleasure to establish and manage. It came out of a hobby and so has not felt like work even though I have put a good deal of effort and energy into it. Now I see the potential to expand the concept further and if the interest continues to hold I have a couple of ideas up my sleeve for its development.

Everything started spontaneously with no preplanning and little knowledge of the industry. The growth was natural and guided by my interest in the subject rather than financial goals. There has been some financial benefit but it has come by the way – a bonus, in a way.

I’ve always believed that entrepreneurship should be fun – the individual should enjoy what they do. Otherwise they might as well stick with the security of a traditional job.

I now apply these two approaches: skeletal planning and the ‘fun’ factor in every new venture I consider because I have seen, first hand, the benefits of this approach.

To give you a background, I’m a relatively recent blogger, with this blog only starting in late Feb 09 (from memory). So its safe to say that I am a relative unknown compared to some of the super bloggers and IM superstars such as Jeremy Shoemaker, Darren Rowse, John Chow and the rest. I’m not going to try and tell you I’m a superstar because I know I’m not, I’m new in the online world and I know where I stand and don’t really have a problem with it.

An example would be John Chow writing a great article about Blog Marketing vs Email Marketing vs Twitter Marketing. John was able to get several sales out of Twitter promoting a product (a $27 footer ad which I’m suddenly interested in at the moment!) but I have a feeling that if someone not in John’s league did the same thing, the results would be completely different. John has a brand and has effectively and intelligently been able to leverage off his brand to make Twitter work with him.

The guys I mentioned earlier have all lauded Twitter and the utility is has provided them. This is fine and dandy but they have a name and an online presence which not all of us have. By the way, I’m a big fan of the above mentioned bloggers… so by no means am I discrediting what they have to say. But what is it like for those who are not virtual brands like these guys? If they were to state: New blog post “http://ww….” then yeh, a flood of people go rushing to their blog interested in the next post and that’s very understandable as I do it myself. For example if Coca Cola brings out a new drink and a Coke rep tells you that they are bringing out a new drink then immediately, you want to know more, right? However if Florentine says they are coming out with a new flavored milk what would you say? Exactly what I would say; who the hell is Florentine? Or more appropriately, flip the page, change the channel or check the other Twitter updates.

There is a vicious cycle developing here which I believe has lead to the overwhelmingly skewed favoritism of the network. This is when people go out and read reviews of the site, chances are these reviews are conducted by the very people who already have an online presence, ie the top 20% of bloggers, IMers or webmasters. Well is a proven fact (I have proved it) that the top 20 sites in the world receive roughly 80% of the traffic therefore 80% of the audience are fed with ideas that all is good in the Twitterverse. The other 80% of blogs (the majority) make up the measly 20% of the audience. These lesser read blogs are those that will probably have alternate opinions, the opinion of the majority but because they only receive 20% of the audience, not that many are listening. Here lies a problem where the ideas and opinions are bias towards the top bloggers, IMers and webmasters… who own 80% of the audience.. Vicious circle.

So what if your Florentine? (by the way I have completely made that name up, but lets use it as an example). What is Twitter like for all the other Florentines? Well, it’s a pretty lonely place to be honest. The truth is, apart from friends and family, not many people actually care what you have to say but at the same time they want you to care about what they have to say. You feel like a 8 yr old, you can speak, people can hear you but not many people are that interested in listening. You yell, wave, RT, @, RTT and still silence. No love. Just another 40 Tweets with affiliate hoplinks in them. Well maybe it’s just another step, you need to wait until your a little ‘order’ and maybe people will start listening.

In conclusion, “what are you doing?”. Apart from the select few, does anyone really care?

Every business person or pioneer is criticized especially when they allow themselves to stand out and be noticed. It’s inevitable but still it never becomes truly easy to accept until you successful embrace it. How you manage criticism will affect the way you react to it. The one thing you need to understand is that you NEED criticism. If you are in a position to be criticized then you have elevated yourself above to norm and stood out from a crowd.

There is no time where this is most relevant than in today’s environment where Internet rules and people can hide behind aliases and alter-egos benefiting from the anonymity that the Internet provides. You only need to visit Youtube and have a read of the comments to get a thorough understanding of this. Many people are out there simply to put people down as it covers there own insecurities by giving it to others.

Yesterday I sent out a request for reviews for my new ebook and had a very interesting response from a forum member. You can see the full thread here. Usually I give people the benefit of the doubt because constructive criticism is a good thing and I want to hear what people have to say. Never ignore constructive criticism as its the best way forward no matter what field your in. On the other hand some people take things a little bit too far and when I realize someone is wanting to play a semantics, I just lose interest. The conversation moved from healthy banter through to someone simply out there to put you down, no matter what. Interestingly I did a Google search on the person involved because simply I’ve never heard of the guy yet he seemed to think he was a guru of some sort. I won’t say much more but check out my Google search here and needless to say, the results were very interesting. I won’t jump to conclusions but if these searches are anything to go by, frankly based on his conduct, I’m not surprised!

I’m not alone by any means, in fact, I’ve had it pretty good. There are some prominent examples of this all around us. People openly criticize Bill Gates yet fail to point out that he’s given many billions of dollars to charities over the years and also single-handedly turned computer software on its head. But who cares really, he’s put himself out there so why not point the finger? We criticize governments and head of states all the time, yet the same criticism is someone else’s praise. But we don’t care, we point the finger at the guy at the top. Michael Schumacher was always criticized for his racing tactics, not unlike Ayrton Senna. They dominate so lets chop ‘em down.

Why? Because we love to find faults in those people who have stuck their head up and stood tall, its human nature. However if you take a look at the people mentioned above these are all people who have excelled without peer in their respective fields. So whenever I am criticised I can’t help but smile because to attract criticism means that you have done something that is being noticed and that can’t be a bad thing. A side note, that little banter I had on the forum actually drove a whole heap of traffic to my blog and had plenty of people sign up to my newsletter. I couldn’t help but smile.

Next time your criticized for your work stand and feel good about it because everyone who has succeeded has at some point in time been exposed to strong criticism, good and bad. Your task is to embrace it and know that in theory, its one of the greatest forms of complement.

I recommend having a read of Yaro’s article about this as it’s another good insight

I stumbled across this site a little while ago which I thought I would share with you. It’s called BubblePly.com. It’s a cool free service that allows you to put text and comments on any online video as well as an embedded link. The potential for Internet Marketers and the Video Marketing industry is huge.

So here is the scenario, you grab a video from Youtube, stick a link in it, post it on your blog and submit it to Digg, Reddit or Twitter and if people like the video then they will (hopefully) pass it on or bump it up the social network ratings order. The great thing about this is that this video could have a link to any site you wish as well as a related affiliate product.

Below is an example I just created:

I thought back to my experiences from selling custom designed clothing through to creating a mobile advertising network and one thing really stood out. I have been reluctant to mention this because it’s not exactly the most positive thinking in the world and if anybody knows me, I’m probably one of the most positive guys out there. Yet whenever I thought of this particular aspect it would drum out strong emotions and proved an overwhelming factor and contributor, whether I was running a business or in my earlier years in the corporate cage. That is: don’t think things may go wrong because they will.

What type of advice is that? You might be thinking what an outrageous thing to say and then move on to a more feel good blog about ‘how to set up an Adwords account’ or ‘10 ways to drive instant traffic to your blog’. Feel free, I don’t mind because the day you start doing things on your own you’ll remember what I said and think “that Bakhos guy knew what he was talking about”.

Let me explain a bit more. The top business people in the world understand this theory. Richard Branson is highly regarded as one of the riskiest entrepreneurs around however there is one thing that distinguishes him from the other go getters. Similar to other business people he would look for opportunities by finding a market which has not been given a fair go by current industry players. Then he would deliver great value backed by a profitable revenue model. However it was not until this final step would he make a decision to go through with it. He always made an effort to protect the bottom line. What is the worst case scenario? What if everything failed where will we be? Then if this worst case scenario proved not to be so bad then he would move into the new business venture. It’s this final bottom line aspect I am talking about.

Whenever I was in a position of authority something would go wrong. It could have been while on duty for a $700 million venue when a pregnant lady slips and lands awkwardly. Or maybe reprimanding a public nuisance while his wife falls into a panic seizure within minutes in the same venue? Maybe it might be one of your own company employees approving copyright material when it was yet to be approved by the copyright holder? Then you find out the material has been broadcast live 2 days after the fact then having to work like crazy to sort a potential disaster. Or it could be working on a contract for well over 2 years only to find the other party has decided to hold off for an(other) indefinite period. The reason I won’t mention names is because you would most certainly be familiar with the major groups involved here.

Believe me its scary and nerve racking but the one thing that has saved me has been the ability to understand and embrace the previously mentioned fact. I know that it’s not if something will go wrong, its being prepared for what will go wrong. The other mistake is trying to anticipate what is going to fall through because very rarely is it what you expect it to be. Also if your expecting potential issues in a particular area then sort that out before you commit to anything!

Keep an open mind, look after your bottom line, stay alert and react quickly and assertively to any unexpected challenges that come your way. In business, as in life, good times are easy and this does not attribute to your success. It’s how we deal with unexpected challenges which separates the average from the superstars.

The manifesto is very close to completion and is a bootstrapper’s formidable guide to online marketing and earning a living online.

I have set myself a target for Wednesday 27th May for the release of my eBook. Guess how much I’m selling it for? $297? $197? $97? 47?! $7! How about nothing. $0. I’m not charging a cent for this book at all. I believe the basic principles outlined in this book should be given away so that everyone can learn them and remove any excuse not to try.

I get extremely frustrated when great online markets with valuable information decide to run a course but then charge $497 or $297 a month. This immediately eliminates those who genuinely want to try but can’t because they simply don’t have the money to invest. It doesn’t make sense really does it? You provide a beginners course but then charge corporate rates. By no means am I knocking their product as I think many of these courses are worth many times more than what they actually charge. However it simply does not give everyone a chance to learn not only the basic principles but great marketing techniques as well.

A few things the eBook will contain:

• How to determine what product to sell
• Using your blog to full advantage
• 1 single step to increase affiliates conversions by over 200%
• Drop shipping guide
• The mega profitable eBay loophole that 99% of sellers don’t know
• Loads more.

Once again, all you need to do to get your hands on a copy when it comes out is to sign up to my mailing list. You can do this on the right hand column of this blog (and get your Free copy of Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich) or using the form below. Hope your excited like I am!

So how do you combine these two well known theories and turn them into one powerful marketing and sales technique? One and a half words – eBay.

There is a strange divide between people who swear by the monster marketplace and others who shun it like an Italian motorcar. I’m a bit of both, I love Ferrari’s but I drive an Alfa. What I’m trying to get at is that you may not be experiencing the full potential of the available resource but that doesn’t mean that it does not exist.

When I first started selling on eBay I did the normal thing. I sold something, sent out a great product, got good feedback and then moved on to the next customer. I would comfortably say that the majority of the sellers do this because that’s the way you do things right? Not quite.

Lets dissect things a little more. eBay is a massive marketplace full of millions of buyers ready and willing to buy stuff. Ready and willing to buy stuff. Those are some really powerful words right there. If you put a product up for sale on eBay you are exposing it to a market that is there not just surfing for fun, but are genuine buyers. That’s the first thing to take note of but it’s nothing that we don’t know already and many hundreds of ambitious entrepreneurs have used this fact to make thousands and thousands of sales.

Secondly when people buy a product from you on eBay you are required to communicate via email to finalize the sale. Now I’m guessing that little light bulb is flashing inside your head thinking you know where I’m heading with this. Your also thinking how could you possibly have not thought of this? Well looking at eBay’s terms and conditions there is good reason why you haven’t already thought of it or dismissed it entirely:

• Using member contact information obtained from eBay or using any eBay system to offer to sell any listed item outside of eBay
• Canceling a listing to sell to a buyer who became aware of the item through eBay.
• Ending a listing early to sell the item at a higher price to the winning bidder
• Offering to sell an item to a bidder in a Reserve Not Met listing without going through Second Chance Offer
• Offering to sell duplicate or additional merchandise to under-bidders without going through Second Chance Offer
• Sending unsolicited (without prior permission) commercial email offers to bidders for the same or similar products that they have bid on in the past

We need to read between the lines here a bit. If you run through the text in more detail you will notice that eBay makes a specific point of mentioning that sellers are not to use details obtained within eBay to sell any listed items outside of eBay.

So you can’t go and use the details you gather from eBay to sell the listed product outside of eBay but this is also the loophole: it doesnt actually say you can’t use this information to sell non-listed or alternative products outside of eBay.

As an eBay seller, once an item is sold, what you now have are the details of people who have already bought from you in a buyers environment. That’s the marketers dream right there and the potential is enormous.

Some brief action points to consider after a sale:

1. Send your buyers a digital thank you note (as well as a physical one when you send out your product)
2. Offer them a great bonus gift if they sign-up to your mailing list for great offers.
3. Once they sign up send through the bonus
4. Over the next 7 or so days build a healthy relationship giving away excellent products and information.
5. Sell to them again.
6. Then again.

Go the normal way and you’ll come out ok. Think outside the square and do that little extra and you’ll get your Ferrari.

What is “The Lock In”? Not sure if it has been used before but I’d like to claim that I coined the term. I’m sure someone will jump at me but until then, I coined it.. there. The Lock-in is what I call it when you buy a product or service and you are then locked-in to that agreement even though their is no obligation to do so.

I’ll throw out a few examples. Have you ever used Salesforce as a CRM system? Have you ever decided to export your database to an excel file or similar? There is no function to do so and therefore you are “locked-in”. Your contract has finished and you want to try another CRM system but you can’t export your data easily so your stuck. The lock-in. You probably end up choosing to continue with their overpriced service simply because the cost and effort or switching is really not worth it. The lock-in. There is a way in fact to extract information from Salesforce but its through a function so far fetched from anything mentioning “export data”. And oh yes, there is a mighty big “import” function their for you, don’t worry. But export? Ha! Dream on! It’s hide and seek Salesforce style.

Apple does this well too. If you buy an Apple computer, iPod, iPhone or whatever and you need accessories then you better buy Apple products. The lock-in. Software? Gotta be Apple. They are no doubt getting a little bit better but its there and it’s obvious but tolerable. It’s tolerable because Apple has loyal and dedicated users who take pride in using Apple products.

I recently was confronted with the lock-in when it came to my car. I drive an Alfa Romeo 147 GTA. Looks great, goes great but built by a bunch of lock-in specialists. I needed a light fixed on the car and I thought it should be no big deal. Well this car has ‘lock-in’ written all over it. In order to change the headlight you need to remove to whole front bumper of the car, charged at $160 per hour by Alfa specialists. Then they need a special Xenon light bulb which can only be provided by Alfa (think of the charger of your phone, only one particular adapter will work) and this costs $475 for the bulb alone. That’s not a typo, thats Four Hundred and Seventy Five dollars for a light bulb! Oh and by the way the ballast/transformer powering the light is damaged and I’ll need genuine Alfa ballast for this too. That will cost $1490. Once again, not a typo. So 4 hours of labor removing the bumper and installing the parts, plus the Ballast and Bulb will set you back a total of $2605. $2650 to change 1 single light on my car! Thats one mighty lock-in.

I understand why it’s done and any good entrepreneur or businessmen will look at working with some level of ‘lock-in’. In cases such as Apple, they can get away with it as their products have a ‘cool’ factor plus they have a great brand associated with it. Salesforces is purely frustrating until you figure out how to do it. Alfa is ridiculous as you are only buying parts that provide a functional aspect to the car. I understand if I needed a new set of wheels, thats different but the lock-in though all the mechanical aspects is just plain ludicrous.

My final  thoughts on the lock-in? I’d buy Apple for sure. I’d use Salesforce again and although it can be inconvenient their lock isnt so hefty. I will never buy an Alfa Romeo again. Ever.

Take note: when you use your ‘lock-in’ use with immense care because a lock-in can be used positively in a manner to promote your business and improve relations with your customer. In the same light it can also cost you a customer for life.