We have GROWN and MOVED!!!

Please visit me at any of the following websites to see how our company has skyrocketed in less than 7 months:

Web-success101.com – Learn how to start a business website and bring in the traffic. Get your site indexed on page one of Google in less than 30 days.

Babblefind.com – Ruthlessly Ranking all the new stuff on the web including, Twitter tools, Affiliate programs, WordPress themes and more.

CustomBlogForFree.com – We will set up a Business or Personal Blog for you FOR FREE!

ThatCouponGirl.com – Get all the best deals and learn how to budget your food bill in today’s economic crisis

WhySpousesCheat.com – Sometimes marriages do fail. Here are the reasons why spouses stray and how you can tell if yours may be next.

Search Engine Rankings….THERE IS A LOOPHOLE IN THE SYSTEM….oh how I love loopholes!

If you build it, they will come….it only works in the movies, seriously. Here on the internet you actually need keywords to get you to page 1 status of the search engines. I don’t like to waste my time with programs that don’t work, but here’s something good for you……..REALLY GOOD. And this is officially going to be the last thing I’m going to tell you about in 2008! You know I am not a “product promoter.” I do everything by good old fashioned hard work, but if there is actually a loophole in the search engine system that not everyone knows about, then I’m going to promote it. (and there is)…. Most of the time you have to go through all the weeks and months of hard work to get a website to the top, but loopholes are fun too.

I remember when I got out of paying over $10,000 in back IRS taxes that my ex husband owed. When we were married, he had a flooring installation business…….Well, he made about 1200 per week. This was back in 1992 so it was really good money……..Anyway, when it came tax time, we knew NOTHING about business, and had six kids to take care of (yes…six), so we used the money he made. Set 25% away for tax time? Yea right. When we finally did our taxes, we owed over 10k. I, being the dummyhead that I was, filed jointly with him….so we both owed it. When we divorced due to his drug use a few years later, I had 3 toddlers to take care of, no job and couldn’t get a tax return……So I did what any person would do to get myself further in trouble….I went into a sort of “denial” and just didn’t file taxes for the next 5 years. Smart, huh?

Once I met my current husband (who was actually normal and financially stable) I had to bite the bullet and take my problem to an accountant…I knew I was in trouble. But guess what? The accountant told me that there was a LOOPHOLE…He went to court for me and pleaded something called an “innocent spouse” claim. It seemed too good to be true, but it wasn’t. Due to a loophole, I became innocent AND I got to file for the past years that I had left hanging. I not only DIDN’T owe the money, but I ended up with 3 checks from the IRS totaling over 9 thousand dollars. This all happened within 4 months of my first accountant appointment. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? Loopholes can be fun, and lucrative. But if you don’t know about them, like I didn’t know about the innocent spouse paperwork, you can’t take advantage of it.

Well, just like the IRS loophole, there is a search engine loophole. A legitimate loophole that will have you at the top of the search engine rankings…seriously. I got my money, and am continuing to enjoy awesome profits from writing and building small websites that have killer rankings.

I can’t help you with your taxes, but I can help you with this. Merry Christmas!

Get to the Top of the Search Engine Pages

What to Sell on Ebay for FAST MONEY

It’s almost Christmas, and if you haven’t made much money writing this year, you still do have time to step up the pace with selling some quick 3 day auctions (or even one day, or buy it now’s) on Ebay. You’ll get some fast cash and be able to finish your Christmas shopping.

I know this year has been pretty slim for all of us. I have used a few wholesale product sites in the past and they all are legitimate. I’ve never found one that gave me old or bogus information. I think those days are pretty much over. Scammers get found out and banned pretty quickly.

If you need some extra cash for the holidays, or beyond, I’ve found a good site to get the products that you need. I’ve done everything from shopped at Goodwill for things to resell, to yard sales, and even my own items. I even tried to sell baby blankets that I was making….Bottom line, brokering is by far the best way to do things. Why? Because YOU ARE NOT TOUCHING ANYTHING.

I tend to be a bit dysfunctional and although I think I can do it all, I can only play Superman for so long before my world comes crashing down around me. Whenever I have to make products to sell or go to Goodwill and find baby clothes so I can put lots together for resale, it gets overwhelming and tiring. Like I said, everything is an adventure for me at first, but it soon turns into a bother and I’m left once again with ZERO ideas for things to sell.

I have a few sources for wholesale products, but this one is my favorite. It costs a bit to get the information, but as they say….nothing worth anything is totally free. If you hop on board right now you can still be in time for the Christmas panic…..lol

Ebay Wholesale Products

Web Content: When in Doubt, Follow the Big Dogs

Building your business website may have taken quite a bite out of your marketing budget. Now that it’s up, running properly, and looking so professional, many business owners fail to take the next logical step in launching a successful marketing plan: web content.

Web content, that all important word lineup potential customers scan when they click on your site. Remember the key word here; professional. You spent all that money to give the illusion of a successful, established company;  even though you may be brokering out of your Uncle’s garage. So why are you filling your site with generic, canned fluff that no one wants to read?

The initial design of your site causes an immediate reaction in your client’s mind that lasts about one hundredth of a millisecond. It either looks professional or it doesn’t, simple as that. If your site comes across as tacky and is slow loading or missing images, guess what? The attention span leaves just as  quickly as it arrived and you get a “bounce.” What is a bounce? It’s that thing that happens when your potential client takes one look at your home page, decides that he need not waste another second of his life on it, and clicks right back off. This is NOT what you are after.

Content is just as important as web design. If you have everything right, a natural progression will take place. Mental web design assessment will lead to a quick scan of article titles. This should lead to a chosen piece of content being read and hopefully a click-through to a second and third page, if enough interest has been generated.

Web content is part of the overall strategic planning of your site. The content needs to make sense. It needs to be there for a reason, it needs to be intelligent, relevant, and compelling. Most of all, it has to eventually lead your reader somewhere. If your site is filled with generic, flat content or worse yet, a poorly regurgitated version of someone else’s article, you are going to be the one who loses in the end.

Several years ago, The Financial Times announced that it had done a house cleaning and sold off several of it’s publications. Why? According to Stephen Hill, CEO for Pearson’s FT Group, “Our newspapers, magazines and online services are now all focused on what we do best — providing our customers with the very best business and financial news, comment, analysis and data.” Wow! That’s a mouthful. The Financial Times is specializing their web content. The niche is getting “niche-ier”

If The Financial Times, a publisher with a remarkable reputation, is specializing their content, what does that say for the little guys? If Yahoo had to reshape its portal strategy for profitability, why do we think that we can fill our website with any old sludge and attract the fickle attention of the masses?

Content is king. If your business is on the web you are going to have to commit to publishing relevant, quality content on a consistent basis. If you can’t do that, you shouldn’t be on the web. Your site will just stagnate and become a huge waste of time for all involved.

So how much content should you provide and what kind? The basic rule is this: Whatever your niche is, keep it as focused as possible. Put the side-blinders on and don’t deviate. People need a lot of content, but that doesn’t mean that you should provide all of it. Websites can get carried away with an ‘everything you ever wanted to know about everything’ approach.

If a website is too cluttered with a broad range of information, then the really important stuff can get lost. Lawn fertilizer information is far from breaking news, but when you need it you really need it. Potential customers may be interested in general articles about your industry, but if it’s product features and instructions they’re after, they need to be able to get to them quickly.

The bottom line is this: If you want to be here today and here tomorrow, model your website after the leaders, not the losers.

Movin On Up to the East Side…

Okay, so it didn’t happen like “Sha-Zam!” That’s how I wanted it to go down. In my mind I’d go from making 100 dollars a week to 1,000 just like that. It’s certainly not “just like that,” but it IS going. I’ve literally walked from one stepping stone to the next.

For those of you who don’t know my story, the quick play-by-play is simply this… I came back to the world of freelance writing sometime in early October and I set myself a lofty goal of earning ONE THOUSAND PER WEEK by the end of the year. Crazy, I know….but it seems to me that a crazy goal is somewhat better than no goal at all.

To my pleasant surprise, I have good things to report…

WEEK ONE – I started out with “Textbroker” (all I can say is ugh). I made 5.00 that week.

WEEK TWO – Moved on to “Need An Article.” This was different. They pay weekly and I made exactly $110 that week.

WEEK THREE – Still with NAA, I made around $80 (But I’m working my ass off. They only pay $5 per 500 words)

WEEK FOUR – Still with NAA, I made $120. Approved to write for two channels on BrightHub. They pay $10 per 500 word article.

WEEK FIVE – Started with Quality Gal. Made $30 from their test articles and $100 with NAA.

WEEK SIX – Approved for Quality Gal. Made around $60 from them and $80 with NAA if I remember right. (Quality Gal pays $10-$12 per 500 word article)

WEEK SEVEN – Approved to Write for Demand Studios. They pay $15 per article. It’s already Tuesday, and DS pays on Friday, but next week I am going to try my best to make at least $350. It’s not 1,000 but it’s not a kick in the pants either…. Exactly what is the meaning of that phrase?

In the meantime I apply for different clients that I find on Craigslist (I have a pretty kick butt resume…finally) and an engaging, intelligent cover letter that I adjust with each job I apply for (to give each one a personal touch).

I must add the fact that the progress I made during my first six weeks was without a resume, portfolio, or samples of my writing. I had to write a few test articles here and there, but I basically came into the game with nothing, nada, zip, zero… I’d say that should be pretty encouraging to the newcomer who may be reading this post. You CAN do it, and you DON’T have to work for peanuts, or pennies.

Set your standards a little higher each week. Keep reaching for your goal, even if it’s with baby steps…You WILL get there if you don’t quit!

Portrait of an Achiever & Who Do You Think You Are?

PORTRAIT OF AN ACHIEVER
Failed in Business – Bankruptcy, 1831
Defeated for Legislature, 1832
Sweetheart/Fiancée Dies, 1835
Nervous Breakdown, 1836
Defeated in Election, 1836
Defeated for U.S. Congress, 1843
Defeated again for U.S. Congress 1846
Defeated once again for U.S. Congress, 1848
Defeated for U.S. Senate, 1855
Defeated for U.S Vice President, 1856
Defeated again for U.S. Senate, 1858

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Elected President of the U.S.A., 1860

“You can not fail…unless you quit!”
-Abraham Lincoln

Ah, you gotta love em. Those lovelies who, for lack of better things to do, make their little path throughout this earth by trying to crap on other people’s ideas and excitement.

If it were not for the pecimests, Eeyore would not exist.

Last week I had a comment on one of my blog entries: ‘One thousand per week by December’

I’m glad I moderate my blog comments because I deleted it. But I kind of ’sat on it’ in my mind for the last few days and I suppose I’ve been stewing on it a tad. The jist of the comment basically said, “You are going to do what? What gives you the right? You haven’t even got your feet wet. You need at least a year behind you before you even consider running your own brokering business. You don’t have enough experience. You expect others to work for you? HAH!”

Well, I’ve stewed and stewed, and now that my stew is just right, I’m going to tell you dear lady, exactly who I think I am:

I am Robin Marie Hale, a wife and mother of four who lives in a beautiful two story cape cod home located in Southwest, Florida. But I wasn’t always married, and I didn’t always live here.

Just four years ago I lived in a dirty little apartment across the street from the mall. Let’s just say it wasn’t the elite part of town. It was a two bedroom, but I had three children. We made a bedroom for my son in the dining room. Who says rooms have to be what they were designed for. All of our furniture was stuff that other people had put at the end of their driveway because it wasn’t good enough for them anymore…It was good enough for us. I remember how happy I was the day that the maintenance man “Heimey” knocked on my apartment door, smelling of alcohol. He came to tell me that someone had just thrown out an entertainment center that was really nice. He helped my son carry it up to our living room. We dusted it and proudly put our little television on it. We could get in exactly two channels. We had no idea what was on the cable stations. We had never been able to pay for cable. I remember thinking how good God was. He had that special knack of making sure that I found out about the nice trash that people threw away before the garbage man got to it. My son still has that entertainment center in his bedroom. He is 17 now. I offered to buy him a brand new bedroom set, but he declined. ‘It wouldn’t mean anything to me.” was his reasoning.

Before that apartment, when my kids were toddlers, we lived in a trailer that had holes in the floor. We could actually see the ground. I kept a dresser over the part that had the biggest hole so animals wouldn’t come in. We didn’t stay there too long though; their dad was so addicted to crack that we didn’t have any belongings or money, so we had to move.

Years before that (before my kids were born) I lived in a nice house in an elite suburb of Detroit. Our family was very wealthy and I should have felt lucky to live there, but I couldn’t wait until I turned 18, so I could leave. My grandfather had molested me so many times when I was a toddler that I was strangely scarred and eventually had to go through alot of therapy with counselors and at my church.

Somewhere in between all of those weird times I had several bouts with alcoholism. But thank God I was sober and a wonderful mommy as soon as my children came along. They were my saviors. And then I found God, and He pretty much fixed the rest of me up. Oh I’m still pretty strange, and have several vices. But Abraham Lincoln said, “It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.” So I’ve got Abe on my side.

Well, that’s just the bad part of my story. All throughout my life I’ve read books. I’ve always loved words. They were my greatest escape. A good book could take me places that a bottle of alcohol couldn’t even begin to. After reading I learned to write. I wrote every day, anything. My third grade teacher and my college professor both told me that I had the gift of writing. ‘I had the gift.’ That was a blow to my lack of self esteem and my anxiety warped emotions. ‘I had the gift.’

I wrote a few children’s articles at first and then by the time I started writing for television I couldn’t be stopped. I was free! Free from the glaring looks and hurtful words of my mother who only told me what a failure I would be. Free from everyone’s opinions and judgments.

That was a rampage….A little scurry through days and moments and slices of my past. I said all that to say this, dear lady. Who do I think I am? I am Robin Marie Hale. I’ve been through hell and back, but I’m still here. I’m an overcomer, a success story, a portrait of an achiever. And if I want to start a business today, then it shall be done…today. My success doesn’t answer to your opinions of how I should go about things. I feel sorry for you, for you are stuck in the drudgery of the every day simpleton. It is not enough for you to hold yourself back; you would wish to hold the masses back as well.

A word of wisdom to my simpleton friend: I, Robin Hale would much rather try and fail, than fail to try.

There is no shame in failure. The shame should be in the strange contentment that comes over those who simply exist in this life. They exist without the tiniest thought of breaking out of their self-constructed barriers. And so it is when they are so bogged down with the heaviness of their own sorry disposition, that they shall never feel what it is like to really fly. And you know what? The wind on your face way up there is very, very refreshing.

Hey You! Look to the right…See the new heading called IMPORTANT STUFF? Click on it!

It’s Wednesday and I have jury duty tomorrow. I’m going to take the advice of Tina Fey off of 30 Rock and dress up in my Princess Leia outfit. When they question me to find out if I’m mentally competant, I’m going to tell them that I don’t think I qualify.  The ability to read minds definitely gives me an unfair advantage over the others on the jury….

Ok, so if you look to the right you will see a little heading at the top of the column called “Important Stuff”. If you click on it every now and then, you will find updated job postings, good writing forums and job boards, and whatever other random fodder I feel should be there.

“I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn’t much improved my opinion of them.” — The Little Prince, written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

My Laptop is Such a Little Jokester…(and some new writing leads for you)

My laptop has found creative and fun ways to entertain itself. Unfortunately, these cute little tricks are not in the least bit entertaining, or even mildly amusing, to me.

Here is the latest; and trust me on this one, this ONE thing is enough to make me want to poke someone’s eyes out with a fork. It’s only 7:41 am, and I already feel my blood beginning to boil.

Ok, how do I explain this except to say that the curser thingy that shows you where the computer is about to type “dances”…. Oh yes I said it… it dances… all over the freaking screen. I can’t even type one sentence without making a huge mess. I’ve checked it for stuck keys or dirt on the mouse pad area. Nope.

There isn’t even a rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes it jumps all the way up to the spot where you type in a web address while other times, when I’m not looking, it sneaks up a sentence or two and sometimes even highlights ten or twelve words so they get erased when I type the next letter. Needless to say, “control/z” has become my close companion.

Today I’m writing a test article for a company that pays $350 per article. They are research based. I am psyched! Once I get approved, or even denied, I will let you all know who the company is. (ooh the whole screen just got small as I was typing that…ya, it’s pissing me off)

Here are a few leads I’ve found over the past few days that may interest you:

• Coffee Break For Writers: A website that pays $15 for each article they accept. Articles are all on the subject of freelance writing, SEO content, how to break into freelance writing, etc.

• AMT Communications: Specializes in writing online articles for a wide variety of niches for various websites, emarketplaces and print publications. We are looking for dedicated freelance writers. Send cover letter and one original submission to: job-909708099@craigslist.org Duties: Daily submission of (1) 450-words article of any niche or (7) 450-words articles a week.Payment rate is negotiable and based on per article completed. Further payment details to be discussed.

• Albany, New York: This is a part-time, on-going opportunity to write articles and website content, product descriptions, etc. Our freelance writing service is currently expanding, adding new clients weekly, and needs additional writers to take on writing projects.  You will work with our clients to produce written website content for a variety of websites and on a variety of topics. We are looking to work directly with writers, rather than with writing services, or middlemen, etc. Pay is dependent on experience and requirements, and is commensurate with standard writing rates for these types of projects. Compensation: $20-$80 per article  Reply to: job-893377351@craigslist.org

Ground Floor…

My freelance writing business has been born.
I made my banner on Photoshop, I have my introduction letter for potential clients, and I have three good writers who are willing to write for me as soon as I get some clients. I am going to try the SUPER ‘IN YOUR FACE’ approach…lol (meaning I’m going to make cold calls to the clients instead of waiting for them to come to me).

I’m also still writing for some other places, but at least it’s progress.
Did you know that Thomas Edison found over 6,000 combinations that did not work, before he found the correct combination that produced electricity?

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing.” –Abraham Lincoln

Partnership Marketing

Marketing “NOT AS USUAL”

No, I’m not going to do the ‘If I build it, they will come’ technique for my writing broker business. Anyone who thinks that you can pop up a website and suddenly have a lucrative business is dillusional at best.

I’m going to actively approach companies and blogsites that have crappy content, choppy sentences, horrifying grammatical errors, etc. I think that should keep me busy for a while…lol

I still have not been approached by anyone who would like to go into business with me. There’s no catch, no investment (except for some time). I’m going to transition into it while still freelance writing for my current clients.

There are a lot of women on WAHM who are writing their asses off for these websites that have a ‘revenue sharing’ program. I don’t see why someone wouldn’t want to hook their wagon to me instead? What are these people going to do when they have spent all that time writing hundreds of articles and the website goes under? At least this is a real, do-able business idea.

Maybe I’m supposed to do it by myself? I think not. But if I have to.

I just found an awesome resource for locating writers and writing gigs. It’s called CraigsList Reader and it’s a program that does a mass search of your keywords and gives you the results from all over the USA or the world at one shot. That was a much needed invention. Kudos to the company that made it. I’ve been using it this morning and it works very well.

Going to church soon so I guess I’ll go get ready. Our family goes to Word of Life in Fort Myers, Florida. It is the coolest church ever. Every week I cry my head off during the service. They have an 18 month program that helps people get off of drugs, alcohol, and other life problems. Whenever they get up and give their testimony, it is so powerful I can’t even tell you. I’ve never attended a church that I was excited to go to on Sunday morning. Word of Life is definitely NOT “church as usual!”