Is there any way to make this goal seem more realistic? Can you make the ‘hugeness’ of this dream more manageable? The good news is, yes you can.

If you think about your goal in more detail, you will soon realize that it is made up of smaller goals. These smaller goals can be broken down into manageable stages. Breaking your goals into these smaller stages will make them seem more easily attainable.

Compare these two statements: “My goal is to have a book published” and “My goal is to take creative writing classes and join writer networks so as I can improve my writing and find out how to submit a manuscript to a publishing house.”

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How often in the day do you dither in reaching a decision? Do you weigh up all the pros and cons and still find it difficult to make a choice? Are you hampered by the fear that your decision will be the wrong one?

Let’s start with something as simple as going through the daily mail. You’ve put it in a pile to do something about it, maybe later. But you have to act on it. The pile is overflowing and you need to decide what to do with each piece of paper. Try the DRAFT technique and see if it helps with being decisive about the mail.

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Consequences of procrastination can be many. Things such as: loss of opportunities (not tendering for the job you’ve wanted to try but haven’t had the courage to attempt), failing exams (put off studying until the night before and having to cram), or even medical problems (avoiding going to the dentist). Procrastination is the one of the main things good time management will help you eradicate.

It is rare that a procrastinator will do nothing. They might do smaller simpler tasks such as writing out a shopping list or filing away journals - things that need to be done. But what they are really doing is not doing something more important. How can you avoid the trap of procrastination?

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Let’s have a look at them in more detail.

Over-scheduling, as discussed before, is a huge obstacle. When creating a realistic schedule don’t try and cram too much into your day. Set time estimates and make sure you are working on your high priorities at the time of day when you have the most energy.

Are you a perfectionist? If you don’t think that anyone can do the job as well as you, you’ll end up doing everything, or re-doing tasks until they are perfect.

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So now I am working on getting more links to the site. For that I depend on Social Power Linking to show me how.

Social Power Linking is a membership site created and operated by Jack Humphrey. He is a master at getting links. He is completely white hat, above board, and does not teach anything that could get your site banned. I like that.

The site is full of videos, audios and reports that discuss the latest and best ways of getting links, including using:

• Twitter
• Digg
• Propeller
• Squidoo and HubPages and more

The membership gives you detailed reports on how to set up Squidoo lenses, Hubpages, how to arrange your main site so it is taking best advantage of all the sites you have pointing to it, and on and on. Jack spoke at a webinar yesterday that was about 2 hours of quality content on major Web 2.0 sites we should be using to get more visitors to our sites. It was awesome! Social Power Linking members get access to stuff like that every month.

The membership also gives you access to a 60 Day Plan that puts your site on steroids. Follow the plan for 60 days and you will increase the amount of visitors coming to your site, no question about it. It’s a plan that Jack’s clients pay thousands of dollars a month to have him implement for them, and you get it with the small membership fee.

What is really amazing is the price - you get all this information, including monthly webinars and so on, for less than $30 a month! Jack must be crazy! That’s less than $1 a day!

But Jack’s insanity is to your advantage. In fact, do what I have done and sign up for quarterly, semi-annual, or annual billing and save more money. I love it when membership sites give you that option.

Here’s a great video that Jack put together to demonstrate how one page on his site is making him over $400 a month. He used linking strategies (which he shares at Social Power Linking) to get visitors to the page and put an affiliate link to Traffic Geyser on it.

It demonstrates how using Social Power Linking strategies, along with good keywords and a quality product (Traffic Geyser in this instance) can make you money.

So join me at Social Power Linking and discover how to get obscene amounts of traffic to your site.

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There are many ways to get visitors, such as article marketing, leaving comments (not spam) at various niche-related blogs, submitting to social bookmarking and social news sites, putting up Squidoo lenses, and so on. Some people who read your articles, see your comments, or visit your Squidoo lens will follow the link to your site.

But the rules are constantly changing. Now there is Twitter, Mashable, Pownce and more that you can use to drive visitors to your site. How do you keep up with it all? Where do you hear about the latest Web 2.0 techniques?

You can join social sites such as Social Marketing Central (click the link in the sidebar). That’s a social site, similar in purpose to Facebook and MySpace, but for marketers interested in Web 2.0. At Social Marketing Central people discuss the best Web 2.0 tools.

You can also join memberships such as Social Power Linking. For less than $1 a day you get excellent training for getting links to your site. If you sign up for 3 months, 6 months, or a year, you get significant discounts.

They have one training in particular that walks you through 60 days to getting more traffic to your site. I’m going through it now, and it is top-notch.

If you don’t have a blog yet and do not know how to set one up, then Authority Site Center is the place to start. There you get a blog set up for you, in whatever niche you choose. You get the training for selecting a niche, including researching keywords and more, all for about $3 a day. That is a great bargain considering all you get for that price.

Authority Site Center has gone through some major upgrades in the last year. They have a well-organized training center that walks you through every step, from researching possible niches to optimizing your blog for search engine optimization, and everything in between.

I’ve been with them for over 2 years. Before I signed up with ASC I was wandering. I had no idea how to decide on a niche, how to choose keywords, how to set up a blog, or how to monetize it. I can’t say enough good things about ASC.

So here are three possible memberships to keep current on the latest Web 2.0 techniques:

• Social Marketing Central, which is a no-cost membership
• Social Power Linking, which is a very-low-cost membership
• Authority Site Center, which is a low-cost membership

There are memberships out there that cost hundreds of dollars a month. I don’t think it is necessary to break the bank when there are great alternatives that cost so little.

If you need complete training, including niche research, keyword research, and so on, I highly recommend Authority Site Center. If you have a blog and you know how to monetize it, then perhaps all you need is Social Power Linking for discovering the latest ways to attract more visitors. If you don’t have $1 a day to spend on learning traffic strategies, then at least sign up for Social Marketing Central by clicking on the link in the sidebar where it says “I’m a member of Social Marketing Central.” Then join some of the groups there and start learning how to use Web 2.0 techniques to get visitors.

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The topic for April: Skin care

For many months I’ve been very careful to not spend any of my money on gimmics. I’m very happy with my Authority Site Center membership and a few memberships to PLR article sites. But Niche in a Box struck me as something that is high quality that could generate revenue.

Basically, each month members get to download about 15 web sites that include 20 PLR articles (high quality, I’ve already checked them out), sales letter, blog, web site, ebook, autoresponder messages, and so on. There are 52 blog posts pre-written that you can drip to your site for one year. An autoresponder membership is provided (a $19.95 a month value). So there is no need to sign up with Aweber if you don’t already have an account.

If members are not comfortable using the auto installer (included), for $40 (as of today) they can have the sites set up for them. That’s really cheap, if your time is worth more to you than a few dollars.

Why did I sign up when I am already a member of Authority Site Center? ASC makes you one site a month (if you are a full member), but you have to fill it with your own content. It’s a great way to make an authority site, and I have several. I am very happy with ASC, have been with them for over two years, and will continue to be a member.

I saw Niche In a Box as a way to increase the number of sites I have up, linking them to my authority site to increase traffic to my main sites, and expanding my home business.

What I like:

• keyword research is done for me
• updates are provided every few months to keep my sites’ content changing
• everything is done for me so all I have to do is use the provided software to upload it to my domains
• PLR articles, autoresponder messages, and a year’s worth of blog posts are included
• all I have to do is promote the sites

I say “all I have to do is promote the sites” as if that is easy and requires little time. It requires steady effort and an hour or two a day (or more, depending on how much traffic you want) to do it right, but I think that is the easy part. The hard part is keyword research, creating the sites and all the content, making the sales page and opt-in page, and so on. All this is provided so that I can concentrate on promotion.

Check out the sales page and see what you think: Niche in a Box

I’ve been reading posts in the members forum and am impressed with the other members, as well as the membership owner, JP. JP has included a lot of training materials, too, including hours of videos, many PDFs, and more. It’s obvious from the forum posts that the members think highly of JP.

JP instructs people how to get traffic to their sites using free methods (I like that). It is the same things I have been learning at Authority Site Center, so I know that JP is on target and knows what he is talking about.

So to answer the question “is it worth the price,” I’d say yes. The monthly membership price is very low considering all that I get.

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The audios make up a long teleseminar with Liz Tomey and Jeff Dedrick, two people who make a living online. These people know what they are talking about.

Part one:

Part two:

Part three:

Part four:

Part five:

Jeff Dedrick and Liz Tomey have been making a living online for years using private label rights products as well as membership sites. If you are like me, you have hundreds or thousands or PLR articles on your hard drive that you would like to put on your web sites, but perhaps you are concerned about duplicate content.

To get around that problem I was re-writing a lot of the PLR articles I have before placing them on my sites. But that takes a lot of time. But now I use Need-An-Article to re-write the PLR articles I own. They only charge a few dollars for each.

Then I put these unique articles on my blogs and submit them to social bookmarking and social news sites, and submit them to article directories.

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You can do one or more of any of these:

• Google AdWords
• Social Bookmarking
• Social News Sites
• Article Marketing
• Commenting on other Blogs

Of all of these, only Google AdWords costs money. All the others you can do yourself for free, or you can pay others to create articles, submit your posts to the social bookmarking and social news sites, and to comment on blogs with a link back to your site.

Smart people don’t touch Google AdWords without first getting some training, usually from Perry Marshall. He’s the best. I don’t know how many people have lost thousands of dollars with Google AdWords, but it’s not uncommon. So be sure to get some training before using this super tool.

Here’s a social bookmarking tip: It’s best to have friends submit your posts to social bookmarking and social news sites. Many of these sites do not want people submitting their own work.

Another tip that will help you get more votes on these sites is to have friends vote for your posts at these sites. Your goal is to get onto page one of these sites, and to do that you have to get lots of votes.

You might want to get a group of friends together who will vote for each. But be careful, as some of these social sites do not like the same group of people voting for each other’s posts. Writing posts that are controversial helps, too.

Article marketing is often overlooked. It’s still a great way to get quality keyword links pointing to your site, as well as deep linking to certain posts that are on your site.

If you write your own articles and submit them yourself to the major article directories, it is completely free. If you use a service like Need-An-Article (they do a lot of work for me) and then use Submit Your Articles, there will be a minimal cost you will pay out for getting visitors and links.

For the first year I wrote all my own articles and used Submit Your Articles to get them in front of a lot more people than if I had submitted the articles to a few article directories. Now I request about 20 articles from Need-An-Article each week and use these for original content on some of my sites and to submit to article directories. I can submit 8 a month with Submit Your Article, the rest I submit by hand to EzineArticles.com.

Using these two services is a bit time-saver and it allows me to keep up with posting to about 20 sites, submitting some of the original posts to social sites, and doing other business-growing items that take time.

If you want to submit articles by hand to the top article directories, here are the ones I recommend:

EzineArticles.com
ArticleAlley.com
GoArticles.com
IdeaMarketers.com
ArticlesBase.com

There are more, and you can find them by doing a search for “article directory.” There are hundreds of them.

Commenting on blogs and including your site’s URL is another good way to get visitors and links. The best is to be the first one to comment. Find some blogs that are in your topic and keep an eye on them for new posts that you can comment on.

That covers the five ways to get visitors to your site. There are more, but these are probably the best.

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Mike is known as the Internet Audio Guy and the Internet Video Guy. He has been in the audio and video business for over 30 years and knows all about it.

Jeff Herring is known as the Article Guy. He is proof that article marketing is not dead.

Go to the site and listen to edition one: Article Guy Audio Guy Cafe. It is filled with great information, such as:

• does Google hate duplicate content
• what software should you use to create audio and video content for your site
• how do you know what products people want
• is there a cheap way of recording a webinar
• what percentage of your blog article should be unique compared to the article you submit to article directories
• what are some services that submit your articles automatically
• and much more

This is a great audio that you shouldn’t miss. It’s free, it’s full of great information, and you can’t find two more knowledgeable people when it comes to article marketing and audio/video production.

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