Erich Stauffer

Tag: Ed Dale

  • Comments Sense

    There are as many ways to run a commenting system as there are ways to comment. In this post I talk about some of the main strategies and how common sense sometimes doesn’t apply.

    There are main choices to a comment system:

    1. Turn comments off or don’t use them.
    2. Turn comments on with a website, but filter for spam.
    3. Turn comments on, but if a website is added, don’t allow.
    4. Turn comments on, allow all comments with or without a website.

    Michael Hyatt, a popular blogger and public speaker, uses Disqus for his comments system and encourages people to not just comment, but to backlink as well. This means that he falls into the 4th category of allowing all comments with or without a website. Michael knows this helps the commentor with their SEO and yet he still allows it.

    Douglas Karr’s site, DKNewMedia also uses Disqus for it’s comment system, but he falls into the 3rd category which doesn’t allow comments with a website. Doug is a social media guru and knows a lot about SEO and blogging so he probably doesn’t want his Google juice spilling out all over the Internet’s floor.

    I don’t use Disqus, opting for the standard-issue WordPress commenting system. I use Akismet to help filter for spam and I manually approve or decline comments. I will allow links to websites in comments as long as they are relevant and not obscene. This puts me in the 2nd category.

    And instead of giving an example of the 1st category of no comments at all, I wanted to mention Ed Dale‘s commenting system of choice: Facebook comments. Ed believes in the transparency that Facebook comments provides. He likes knowing exactly who is making the comment. In Facebook comments you don’t have the opportunity for a website backlink, just a link to your profile. (more…)

  • How to Start an Internet Marketing Business

    I spoke a little bit about how to start an Internet marketing business on my blog, An Entrepreneurial Mind, but wanted to go into more detail here about how I got started in Internet marketing and what products I’d recommend. I got started in Internet marketing almost by mistake. I was doing some research about how to promote a particular site and kept running across initials like “IM” and “MS” and “30DC.” After looking into them I realized that there was thing called Internet marketing (IM) and a lot of people used Market Samurai (MS) because of going through the Thirty Day Challenge (30DC). I ended up going through what is now called The Challenge (since their was no fee for awesomeness) and got to really like Ed Dale. I eventually bought Market Samurai and have used that extensively for research. One thing I didn’t learn from any one place though was an overall strategy for how to go from start to finish on a project or a business.

    For a long time, I had a card hanging up on my wall that said, “There is a process to success,” which was a quote from Chris Farrell. Chris runs an Internet marketing service that teaches people how to make money online in easy, step-by-step processes from start to finish. What Chris has said, Ed Dale would add, “There’s a process for everything. Creativity is a process. If you’ve ever found yourself sitting in front of the computer wondering what to do next. That’s not a Focus problem…It’s a PROCESS problem.” Learn the processes of successful people and repeat them to be successful yourself. It’s not easy, it’s a process, and one that is learnable. Sir Ken Robinson, an author, speaker, and international advisor on education in the arts to government, non-profits, and education, says that, “Innovation and creativity are learnable skills, not inborn talents.”

    I’ve just recently purchased and received Sir Ken’s newest book, The Element, which tackles the challenge of determining and pursuing work that is aligned with individual talents and passions to achieve well-being and success. ‘The element’ is what Sir Ken identifies as the point where the activities individuals enjoy and are naturally good at, come together. I’m looking forward to reading it, but even more looking forward to doing it. I once had a mentor tell me that my mind was always running on a parallel track to what I was working on during the day because I was aligned with my true passion, but that once I did, I would “take off on fire.” That’s partly why I wrote what I did under my new executive coaching blog, Are You on Fire? If you’re not on fire for what you do, what’s stopping you? If you’re tired of that pit in your stomach every time you think about your work, it’s time to consider a change and if you’re looking for help on how to make money online, remember Chris Farrell’s membership program.

  • Internet Marketing Major Players

    Here are my Internet Marketing heroes:

    • Ed Dale – Australian; started 30 day challenge; convinced Dan Raine to cash out all of his websites for millions
    • Dan Raine – British; runs Immediate Edge with help from Ed Dale; male yeast infection guy
    • Trey Smith – American; Internet marketer who recently started iOS app training business; friends with Ed Dale
    • Matt Carter – the other Australian; not associated with Ed Dale; runs most popular Internet marketing blog; the beta fish guy
    • Carey Bergeron – American; friends with Matt Carter; makes money from Adsense; runs Adsense Guild
    • Ryan Lee – American; known for being a millionaire Internet marketer; starts out promoting other products, then makes his own versions to sell
    • Greg Jacobs – Mage Monster, millionaire
    • Mark Ling – known for Traffic Travis
    • Andrew Hansen – online entrepreneur originally from Queensland, Australia – now living in London, known for his Affiliate Mini Site Strategy
    • Frank Kern – started out creating information products for pets (mostly dogs) and now trains Internet Marketers

    By the way, I just finished reading The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandingo. It’s pretty good.