Catherine › Comments

Please make sure that you check with hosting account the number of mails you can send per day..they got me with that limitation.. - Juan Pablo

yes it does collect it all plus you can send mails out with it directly from wordpress - Catherine

Hey, the page looks smooth :) I mean that there aren't really a lot of things you could do to promote the TV drama, but IMO even tough the page is smooth, it is still a little bit dull and lacks of interesting content. Maybe some actor, TV drama descriptions, reviews of the previous series and etc. You can easily find this info at http://en.wikipedia.org :) Good luck! - Robertas Domarkas

Nice job Catherine. You perked my interest in the product. Now I'm wondering... can programs be recorded to be watched at a different time or are you stuck watching whatever showing? - Susan

I poured countless hours into studying, reading and building up a handful of affiliate blogs. Even though I managed to make a little more than $10 in the first 30days of the course it wasn't long before I was left feeling defeated. I had spent a total of 3 months of late nights working on the internet with just modest returns. I slowly eased off the internet and started thinking of my next endevour. Go back to the business structures I knew best. - Michael Roberts

A month or two before Christmas I decided to check up on my affiliate sites. To my suprise they were bringing in hundreds of dollars each...every month. I just about fell out of my chair. Not because seeing a fat paycheck waiting for me was so cool....but the since of accomplishment was an amazing feeling. Being rewarded for my hard work. - Michael Roberts

I re-dedicated my self to internet marketing and had the aggressive plan of building 8 affiliate websites every single month. Along the way I had guidance of friends, family and a great community with other 30DC members. Going back through the 30DC course, joining the Immediate Edge, buying Frank Kerns Mass Control and having a great mentor as Tim Buchalka were all factors in helping me acheive my sucess. - Michael Roberts

Now I have quite a few affiliate websites and during the process of optimizing and building these sites....I thought there had to be an easier way. I grabbed a pen and paper, swiped the laptop and hid away in a quiet room of my house. I came out about 3 hours later with my idea on how I would simplify this proccess...and Trraffic-Bug was born. ( http://www.Traffic-Bug.com ) - Michael Roberts

I wanted to write this little snipit to tell people that anything is possible. Once you set your mind to something with enough motivation and determination you can truly achieve your dreams. This is no get rich quick thought process but one that requires time, good idea and hours and hours of work. I recommend you all read "Think and Grow Rich" (a classic that is very inspirational.) So if you have been in the 30DC for awhile or have just joined...hang in there. - Michael Roberts

Keep working hard and don't settle for mediocrocy. If I can make this internet thing work then I know you can. I did want to stress how important it is for you all to have a group that you can bounce ideas off of. I have a very close small group of people that are invaluable to me. Without a team or mentor your success will surly be a longer harder road. This long winded speech is now done! :) But I wanted to help my community even more on the exact proccess that has helped me. - Michael Roberts

and so I am almost finished putting together what was suppose to be a 20 page ebook but has grown almost into 60 pages. This ebook has all the tricks and tips easily consolidated into one easy source. I will be sure to post the link in here so you can all get the copy for free.... - Michael Roberts

My last little bit I wanted to say was Thank-You to Ed, Dan and Robert for there truly life changing course. I think it is human nature to associate value with price.....and so many people think they should spend thousands of dollars on other products to help them...when really 30dc and immediate edge are one of the "Authorities" on seo tactics. (Not that there aren't other great products out there) - *Frank Kern and Tim Buchalka also offer great materials* -So thank you 30DC! (Twitter @Mroberts23) - Michael Roberts

Very inspirational story, Michael! Thank you for sharing about what you've been through... I'm really going to push myself to work twice as hard tomorrow! - Art Y.

Very inspiring Mike. Your enthusiasm and 'realness' (if that is a real word) are a real boost - good luck with www.traffic-bug.com, I'm sure it will be massive - David

Congratulations Michael. So great to hear about someone taking massive action and reaping the rewards - Lisa

This has been helpful and inspiring. Retracing the path you took, I could identify with some of those moments and emotions. I agree that having a team and a mentor can help make the IM process a lot less bumpy. Thank you for sharing your experience, telling us what have worked for you, and giving us clear indication of which programs to follow. I wish you great success for Traffic Bug. - Buff Toast

Congratulations and way to go Michael! Thanks also for offering to help and contributing to the community. It's folks like you that inspire us to drive forward. The very best of luck for Traffic Bug, I am sure it's going to be a killer :-) - Ritesh Lal

This is great news Michael!!, well done!, I take my hat off to anyone that earns over $100 on Amazon alone!, what did you sell?, a kidney?.:) - Elliot Webb

Thats Awesome Michael ! Onwards and upwards from here, ian_hagerty - IanHagerty from twhirl

wow that is really inspirational, great to hear a success! - Catherine

Many congratulations Michael - that is seriously cool! I look forward to getting your ebook :) - Isha (Marysia)

Michael, thanks so much for your great post/sharing. I just turned 70 and have been beating myself up for drinking so slowly from the IM fire hydrant and "accomplishing" so little for it. I'm inspired by your story - so thanks again and keep up the great work! Tom in ABQ - Tom Miles

we knew you would make it Michael, well done, so great to hear this kind of stuff :)) - Tash

Thank you Art, David, Buff, Ritesh, Elliot, Ian, Catherine, Marysia, Tom and Tash for your kind words. It has always been helpful for me to know that there is a nice community out there that is so positive, encouraging and helpful. I am excited for my chance to help you all back in return. Until then thank you! :) - Michael Roberts

:) A new revolution in internet marketing is beginning... I too want to thank everyone for all your help. Before I found the Thirty Day Challenge, I was wandering aimlessly, studying everything about IM I could with little sleep. Everything was scattered, and I couldn't piece it together. Needless to say, I fell sick from overwork and couldn't study anymore. Wandering through some sites to relax, somehow I found the TDC... Thank you everyone! - Art Y.

Congratulations Michael, you inspire us all :) - Jorge Blanco

These comments are so genuine and inspiring-thanks guys-I learnt everything I know here too,but theres still some simple obvious things we newbies need, like - anyone know how to protect our google adsense code? Thx - Inspired Writing Research

I'm not sure there's a way to do that... other than regularly checking? - Art Y.

I started with a template and modified it in Dreamweaver but it kept crashing so I used Kompozer and it worked very well. It's free and easy to use. - Karen

That's v nice Karen. Your articles are pretty long and detailed - are you outsourcing the writing, or are you working towards making it an authority site (massive competition on your main keyword!)? Am also curious as to why you chose not to have the blog format. - Isha (Marysia)

At the footer there is a "Home" link that is going to nowhere - TrafficBug

I wrote the articles myself with more than one keyword in each article. It does have some competition but the secondary keywords will bring in the traffic. I just wanted it to look like a website and will attach a blog to it for updates. I am building a mini network of backlinks and 2.0 websites for it. Thanks TrafficBug I will take care of the "Home" link. - Karen

Ic. Great site :) By the way, your Tips About Taking Care of Aquariums link is not working too. - Art Y.

Great one Karen "the secondary keywords will bring in the traffic" why didn't I think of that... - Isha (Marysia)

Very well done site! - Peter Johnson

Very nice site, Karen. Soon I am going to start another aquarium. I had them for years. I had tropical fish, and also had some Piranhhas. I kept a tank of goldfish to feed to the Pirhhans, and had a third tank with Cardinal Neon Tetras. The Tetras like acid PH. Your site will be useful to me. Ed. - Edward Kimble

Good job gettig a site up - that's my highest hurdle. Just a question: do you thik it would help to talk up the book a little, wither in the Download box or - probably better - at the bottom of each article page. Just something to read that makes me want to look at the book more. Just a thought - wonder what the other 30dc people think. - Davey from twhirl

Davey, good idea...I hadn't thought of that...I don't want to be pushy but a sentence or two wouldn't hurt, I think. What does everyone else think? I noticed on Ed's site that he never mentions the books, it's just sitting on the side waiting for someone to click on it. So I don't know...Any thoughts? - Karen

Your very 1st ebook. Congrats Karen! Davey made a good point. I took a look at Ed's Vintage Electric Guitar Blog, there is a short descriptive para of the ebook just beneath the book image. Gurubob taught us how to do tis in Day4. - Buff Toast

Usually, when we click on a sales offer, it leads to a sale page - with book description, price, guarantee back(was mentioned in another thread) and pay button. Perhaps you might want to follow this process? And my last suggestion is subjective - larger font size for a easy read. - Buff Toast

Great site! I agree about the larger font - finding it quite hard to read. - Jen

thanks, do you have an example of what you made out of it? - Catherine

just google images "latex example" to see all the typesetting attributes of LaTEX (and Lyx BTW) http://bit.ly/pQM1v - Jorge Blanco

I forgot to add LaTEX and Lyx are for books, articles, reports, etc i.e. printed media, so they are not made to handle tons of images at a time. If you are gointo make something very graphical (like Ed's reports) you may have to look elsewhere. Also, Open Office has PDF export capabilities, you may want to look into that as well. - Jorge Blanco

thanks, I am doing something very graphical so will look at Open Office, if anyone uses anything else please let me know and if you like it too! have also found that Open office imports worksheets from Powerpoint so I can carry on with my powerpoint one and move it across! - Catherine

Microsoft OfficeWord 2007 with the PDF plugin works great. If you have the suite or use other Microsoft 2007 apps it makes it easy to pull them into your PDF. If you do not have MS Office Word Than I would say Open Office is the next best thing. - Ron"micronet"Harwood

My favourite is pages - thats what I do the 30dc plus stuff - Ed Dale

A follow up question to Catherine's question: Where do you get the artwork that allows you write the title of your e-book on a sharply designed picture of a book. It makes your product look more substantially published even though it may be a download. - Frank Dobner

We use bog standard Illustrator - Kim Baillie

Kim, is the product you are referring to - http://www.bogpriser.dk/work-80... ? - Frank Dobner

Build it in (or import it into) OpenOffice - exporting to PDF is standard. I do all my ebooks in this suite. As well it will import HTML, text, and various others besides MSWord docs. And it's fr.e.e.--- OpenOffice actually is much better than MSWord for this (or anything else you use MSOffice for, for that matter). IMHO, anyway... - Robert Worstell

Peter, that's a great article - bookmark it. Also, be aware of other peeps' copyrights. - Isha (Marysia)

I wouldn't invest too much time at the legal stuff at the beginning. If you don't have revenue flowing in, then I would say it's not that important. I would focus on generating revenue first, and after thant, setup a corporation and hire an accountant. A couple of years ago, I had a Yahoo Store where I sold dog supplies. I setup a corporation and did all the tax, accounting and legal... more... - Hector Sanchez

Wow! Do we really need an accountant? - Art Y.

he he, good job I am an accountant anyway! - Catherine

No, you don't necessarily need an accountant. All your records are on the net or in your emails, so should be pretty simple to prove your income and internet/computer expenditures. Hector, I'd agree. I've been self-employed since forever, have never been a corp and always done my accounts myself - keep it simple I say until you see Complicated on the horizon. I hired an accountant one... more... - Isha (Marysia)

Stay clean, abide by the rules (eg privacy statements where required, Terms & Conditions of various affiliates & online services, acknowledge other peeps' copyrights, don't spam esp if that's against your country's laws, and abide by any other laws such as Data Protection Act in the UK), and as soon as you start having money come in contact your tax office to find out what they need from you and when. It's all reasonably important but they were all probably things you were going to do anyway. - Isha (Marysia)

Depends who is asking. If you are a newbie I would say " sounds like a question that should be asked ONCE you have built a business" until then it is a ready made excuse to waste time procrastinating thinking about it - Allison

Great article Mark. That is exactly what I was looking for. I am a lawyer and I want to find out about the legal issues that confront internet marketers. Thanks for your help. - Peter Johnson

http://ezinearticles.com/... Here it is! - Art Y.

Oic... Umm...does any know which type of revenue we get from online needs to be taxed? Like, are donations subject to tax? If people donate money to our blogs... - Art Y.

I'd say phone your local tax office. That way you can both chat with someone and get them to send you any info & leaflets that they think you'd find useful. Tax laws are going to differ from country to country. - Isha (Marysia)

Ok - Art Y.

Art. If you are in the USA, or are a US citizen, you have to pay income tax on all income earned from any source. Donations are taxable income unless your site is part of a non-profit corporation. - Peter Johnson

I'm not living in the US though... - Art Y.

thanks, looks like I should be covered provided I keep my directions simple and not the same as any other writer, will get started writing the recipes and then see if they are too similar to anyone else - Catherine

We use a combination of Photo Editor and Illustrator. Photos need to be brighter than usual for the right effect on websites. - Kim Baillie

Hi Catherine - thanks for the comment Peter as I too have a recipe ebook. (gluten free bread) I use Picnic for photos because its free and Ed showed us how to use it in 30DC. - Janelle Cranston

If you look at cook books, they take a photo at about 15 degrees (ie they are looking over the plate to get the best view). Don't overcrowd the plate when plating up and put the plate on a off white linen table cloth. Have the table cloth come up at the back like a curve to create an infinite horizon. Use a flash. If you are indoors make sure you use the white balance feature on your... more... - gerry

http://www.picnik.com/ - Jonathan Jenkins

If the recipes came from individuals that created the recipes, then you should have no problem. If they are not original, I would check into whether recipes can really be copyrighted at all. - Frank Dobner

great advice thanks everyone! - Catherine

Great! Its been an amazing experience for me too! Nice to have some focus on how to create and market a website! - Catherine

good onya go grrrl - JayP

wow, thats a lot of hits per day!....I'm hoping sales pick up in the new year... - besht

Sales on our niche stuff has increased for now...I know a lot of thirty day challangers are fine - some have seen sales drop off. It really depends - high priced options might struggle a bit... - Ed Dale

Ive seen a sales slump!, and its lasted about 3 months, nothing to do with the economy more to the fact that I suck, and would probably make more money selling ice to eskimo's;)) - Elliot Webb

Any slump in IM'ing will probably depend on your niche. This economy might open new doors. - Mike C. Steinberg

I have a niche that gets teen to mid 20s buyers from the USA and Europe, it dropped dead suddenly about 8 weeks ago. No warning. It was so sudden I checked everything to see if there was an issue but nope, people are still clicking through to buy page... just not buying *shrugs* - Allison

I have had my sales go up on 2 sites. But one site always does good this time of year. Another site has dropped off. Not just dropped but, almost stopped! - Sheryl Loch

my niche is baseball so yes..but I made my first ever bat sale in November..go figure. - Brian McClure

One niche where I can usually get a decent return had me barely breaking even last month. I've put it on hold for now. - Gus

My business is growing but I am in a different type of business marketing in a totally different way http://www.osoeasy.info - Greg Martin

My sales dropped off a cliff in November. Niche is parents with misbehaving kids - ?? Jim Proser - Jim Proser

Ha Jim P Yours is easy to figure out - it's because Santa is watching :-) Should pick up again at about the 26th of December LOL - Elizabeth

I agree it all depends on the niche, with seasonality distorting each in different ways. I've seen some overall slowing of traffic to a multiple niche site which may indicate a more general trend. Record month for one market, almost stopped in others. For this reason I'd be wary of over specialising in the longer run. - Andy Roberts

In reply to Mike C. Steinberg comment... yes exactly, I am in network marketing and right now because of the economy the home business arena is going through a boom because everyone is looking for opportunity. http://www.onlinemlmrocks.com/ - Greg Martin

Flower Farm, Mandalong, NSW Australia (don't mention the cricket!) - Kim Baillie

Gold Coast Australia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Greg Martin

East London, UK - Andy Roberts

Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia - where all that great RUM is made!! - Sharon Fleming from twhirl

Plymouth, UK, where the best gin in the world is made ;-) - Lisa

Vancouver, Canada. Land of fruits and nuts! - Glenn Palmer

All these fabulous foods and drinks - Kettering is the home of Weetabix! Ha. - san

Killaloe, Co. Clare, Ireland - Frank Donnelly

Middletown, NJ USA - uhhh, famous for ummmm, ummmm, thinking.....okay oh yea - Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi - we make great rock n roll LOL! - Elizabeth

I love Gin, I love Gin. It wasn't Plymouth Gin tonight, but work paid so it was sweet! Middletown is the city of ROCK! How can you umm about that!! - san

Waterloo, Belgium. Where Napoleon Lost his Empire. - Juan Pablo

Merthyr in Wales! - Catherine

Well if we're playing "home of" games I'm here to win! London, home to the centre of the universe! (and my little bit of London - Hackney - home of erm... hackney-cabs) - Isha (Marysia)

I'm not following you (sorry), but I'll play: Portland, Oregon, home of most excellent microbrewed beer, Everclear (a band), Bill Plympton and Will Vinton (great but strange animators)! - LJF Wolffe

I should probably add that Plymouth's lesser claim to fame is sailing point for the Pilgrims and home to the Mayflower Steps - Lisa

Hackney Carriages - did you know that technically they should all carry a bale of hay in the boot? It's an old English law, but true! - san

I don't have a free account, but if this is a limit on the posts via the WPD interface, then you just revert to the normal WP Admin dashboard and post from there. - Mark McGimpsey

WP Admin is better anyway. The WPD dashboard is too limited generally. The only thing I really like on it is the %IMAGE% way of embedding pics and even that isn't strictly necessary. - Glenn Palmer

I've moved to Word Press too, its much better than WPD and its quite easy to use - Catherine

Personally 9 times out of 10, I use the Admin dashboard myself simply because of other plugins such as Photodropper and Zemanta appear in the 'write post editor', and you can save as a draft which you can't yet do from the WordPress Direct dashboard. As an initial install though, WPD is superb. - Mark McGimpsey

Initial setup of wordpress is a snap. The tough part is figuring out things like which plug-ins to use and difficulties with themes. - Glenn Palmer

Try creating your blog at wordpress.com and not Wordpress Direct, you will get full options then. You will get alot less plugins though... But it is well worth the effort. - Luke Martin from twhirl

I thought you couldn't market on wordpress.com . . . am I wrong (again)? - LJF Wolffe

I disagree Luke. Use WordPress Direct for the install. If you don't you just throw away all the advantages of the optimised SEO install. If you don't like the theme then chose another. If you go outside of the WPD themes then you take the chance that a security issue with the theme may stop some of the WPD software from working. What you are saying here Luke is contrary to the #30DC teaching and would not be in a new persons interests. Sorry to be blunt. - Mark McGimpsey

For a total newbie WPD is best for sure. More experienced people could simply copy the plug-ins directory from the WPD install to the new setup. I'm not aware of any security problems caused by themes. - Glenn Palmer

Sorry I should have made that clearer. I was referring to some themes that are not widget enabled, and I think (I may be wrong) that the WPD themes have extra .php pages for the sidebar setup. Also the WPD themes are pre-configured for example in the permalinks which I think isn't in a standard install. Ed Dale didn't advise using WPD for any other reason than he believes it to be the best initial install available. - Mark McGimpsey

This is a bit like getting an exclusive recipe for a great cake, then making it a mediocre one by thinking you can improve on it. I don't know more than Ed Dale, Dan Raine, and Bob Sommerville, so why try to do it differently? - Mark McGimpsey

By the sound of it, WPD is the worst tool that you could use... 25 posts, that's a histerically low amount of posts that you can use... I wouldn't use it if you paid me. I would start recommending it if they took of the 25 post limit for free users. - Luke Martin from twhirl

Thats only 25 posts through the WPD interface - it doesn't stop you posting as normal through the WP Admin dashboard. - Mark McGimpsey

Ed and the rest at 30dc are the best! My point was simply that a more experienced person could duplicate the SEO in a standard WP install to get around some WPD limits. That is all. Don't intend to flame or criticize anyone and therefore abandon this thread. - Glenn Palmer

There are so many ways to use WPD - remember its a install system - you can use it to set-up and then use other tools to manage - which is really cool. Once you get experienced - i would get someone to design up my own theme - but thats way down the track - Ed Dale

I had never used WordPress before 30 Day Challenge in August. I could not imagine trying to learn all of that in addition to EVERYTHING that they are trying to teach you. Now that I have set up several blogs...I STILL use it for the install ease and all my blog being under one "roof." It is well worth the price of my membership to not have to bother with knowing all that other... more... - Wendy Merritt from twhirl

It is an easy way to be introduced to wordpress, but basically you are giving them access to your server. Every single plug in is available, along with tutorials on the plug ins. Personally, I do not like the way some of them worked anyways. They are going to change their business structure based on a blog comment. Yeh right. It's an attempt to force free users to upgrade. Paid users will leave shortly once they learn how easy it is to upload your own widgets. - Brian McClure

Well, yes of course Brian. How else would the software do the automatic install? I'm not exactly a newbie with installing blogs, and yes, I have used Fantastico (which was and still is a great tool), but WPD is better. Also yes, I add more plugins, but that's the whole idea - you have what you need to get going and the rest you can add to your own taste. No, I don't agree paid users will leave for the reason you give, but they might once they get all the blogs they want up and running with content. - Mark McGimpsey

Interestingly this thread is turning into a smaller version of the one over on Mashable. - Mark McGimpsey

Is this 25 post limit a limit on the blog, or just a limit on the auto posting software? I definately have over 30 posts on my blog, but some were posted from the wordpress backend. - Riaan from twhirl

Just on the WPDirect program. - Mark McGimpsey

I'm a newbie and was wondering would I be better off using blogger rather than WPD, that 25 post limit is a pain, as I don't want to spend money unless I make money and it might take more thn 25 posts. Can you have banners adds on wordpress.com. - Frank Donnelly

Congrats! - shawnsmith

Congrats Jenny! - Jorge Blanco

great! I know what you mean, I'm addicted too! - Catherine

Contgratulations Jenny! - Isha (Marysia)

Great news Jenny! You are on your way - keep it up! - Corinne Mitchell

LJF - does that annoy your friends with your status changing so often? It was mentioned to me recently - Alistair (alpinefolk)

I don't tweet that often, and nobody's mentioned it to me so far. I've made sure @replies don't change my status, so that helps. My bigger problem is stuff getting posted twice on FB, once from the status change and once from the FriendFeed. 8-{ - LJF Wolffe

I heard about a website called http://www.hellotxt.com through another IM'er and have only this morning signed up. It looks really good and you can update your status across heaps of different networks. Facebook, twitter, friendfeed, tumblr, and on and on... - Scott Mackenzie

I cant post any more than 2 sites to weebly, so am stuck on that one, I dont want to pay the pro fee, all these subscriptions are getting expensive - Catherine

Thats cool, do what you can, then social bookmark each content page of your website (not all in one go - otherwise your stats will see a big spike then drop to nothing) do your social bookmarking one page a day or so. Don't forget your article marketing (ezine articles especially) - Steve

Those are the ones I did - worked great - not sure about hub pages though, is it just the one link from the profile we can expect? Or more with extra pages? - Inspired Writing Research

Hi, I have also had good success using clearblogs.com. I have been cross-linking between squidoo, hubpages & clearblogs. I also link each of those sites to my niche site. Creating this matrix works amazingly well. On my brand new niche, www.leftygolfpro.com, hit stats went from 0 to over 400 in about 3 days. - Gary Utz