Easy to Start A Podcast: Text To Speech Blog Posts With Odiogo

Lynn Terry sent out an email this afternoon alerting her readers to a new utility that can make your blog posts more accessible to more people. In her post “New: The ClickNews Podcast“, she shared a new free service that changes your blog post text to speech.

If you look at the top of this post, you will see a little button that says, Listen Now. The service called Odiogo and it uses text to speech technology to make a blog post into a podcast. Once installed the post is changed to audio and a feed that can be followed through ITunes is made available by clicking on the Odiogo logo in the right hand column of my site. If you wish to subscribe, just click and you’ll be taken to a page where you can subscribe. The podcast can be downloaded to an MP3 player, IPod or IPhone.

The voice sounds very robotic but the owners of the site are working to make it sound more natural.

The main reason I decided to add the service was to allow those who print disabilities, e.g. poor vision, to have better access to the information I provide. As baby boomers we all know we’re starting to age and our eyesight is starting to change. I for one have noticed that my eyes aren’t what they used to be. Making my site more accessible to my readers is an important part of my marketing plan.

The other reason I added the Listen Now button is that now my blog is a podcast on ITunes and it didn’t cost me a thing, only about five minutes to set it up. Set-up is as easy as installing a plug-in to your blog.

If you’re interested in adding Odiogo to your blog, this article at Mashable will help you get set-up.

Ciao!

Reba

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The Roadmap To Become A Blogger Review

UPDATE: Report is now live at The Roadmap To Become A Blogger - GO GET IT NOW!

You can tell Yaro and Gideon of Become A Blogger are not from the United States (they’re from Australia) because I got my pre-release copy of their new free report “The Roadmap To Become A Blogger” at 4:30 on Thanksgiving Day. Of course I was enjoying a day with my family while working on getting a Thanksgiving feast ready for the dinner table and didn’t even know I’d received it until I checked my email the next morning. And then, of course, I had to go shopping with my daughters, so it sat unopened in my email inbox until today.

Quite honestly, I really didn’t have much time to truly read it today either but I did take a quick scan of the 60 some-odd page document. And after spending that time I felt it was necessary to post my review.

NOTE: This report is not yet available - it will be made available on Monday, December 1st. I don’t know what time, but it is free and I will post the link on Monday as soon as I receive it.

I have to say, this report is socked full of information. Actually, it’s information that scares me a bit. Acording to Gideon, who I’m thinking is the person who wrote the report, the days of earning money online by using a traditional blog are gone. Yes, according to him, in order for a person to start a blog today and earn a living with a blog in the traditional manner, with text and words, is past.

In comes the new age of blogging that includes video, audio, images, and social media distribution. He talks about how in order to stand out from the ‘two new blogs that are started every three seconds’, you have to do something different. I have to admit, while reading the report I was starting to feel a little behind the times. However, he makes a great point. If ‘two new blogs are started every three seconds’, how are you supposed to get readers and subsequently buyers for the products you promote?

Well, as scary as the report was for me to read, it not only opened my eyes to the fact that I might need to move further into the future, but it also does a fantastic job of outlining how to get started down the road to making money blogging. The report has five milestones that a new blogger must work through before they are able to make money. Each milestone is explained clearly and realistically. Timeframes for accomplishment are discussed as well as what to do when your plan doesn’t work.

The report, in addition to being insightful, is the one report that comes closest to giving you everything you need to know to get started down the road to making money with blogging. Of course, they don’t tell you everything, it’s still a bit theoritical, the nitty gritty details will be saved for the membership site they’re building up to. For a free report, the amount of great information you receive is fantastic and if you’re a person wanting to make money blogging, taking the time to read this report may save you months of trial and error.

I’ll post the link as soon as it’s available or you can go to Become A Blogger and sign up for the early notification list that will give you access before everyone else.

Cheers!

Reba

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CBC Kelly: Choosing A Niche Market & Teaching In The Manner The Market Wants To Learn

Continuing with my Cross Blog Conversation with Kelly McCausey at Sparkplugging WAHM 2.0 after reading her response to my questions to her here, I now have a bit to say and will attempt to answer her questions to me:

Do you see yourself as a Master Translator for the Baby Boomer crowd? How do you think being a Boomer affects how someone wants to learn about making an income on the internet?

First I want to respond to Kelly’s post about specialized learning. She totally steered me away from my rant about the internet marketing gurus and the email overload I’m experiencing (see my last post in this CBC)…and that’s a good thing. I was just in fit about the whole situation. However, having had some time to reflect, having unsubscribed to some lists, and totally relooking at the information I receive from the gurus, actually there’s a lot of good info there. So, totally cutting them out of my learning experience isn’t in the best interest of either my readers or myself. Plus, at least it keeps me up to date about the market, how it’s progressing, and what’s new. That allows me to report that information here on my website.

Having said that, Kelly is so right about how there is an entirely different layer of people who want to learn in a different manner than what the gurus offer. They want closer contact with their trainer. They want small chunks of information so it’s easier to manage and afford. They want a “small school” experience verses “big state university” education.

That’s where I think I want to fit in for my niche. I don’t want to be a “big guru celebrity”. I don’t want to do presentations in front of 100s, if not 1000s of people. I don’t want a big staff and big launches. I want to help a lot of people, but in a “boutique” kind of way. And to be successful, I need to find the people who want to learn in that manner.

And that leads to Kelly’s questions for me:

Do you see yourself as a Master Translator for the Baby Boomer crowd? How do you think being a Boomer affects how someone wants to learn about making an income on the internet?

Kelly, I can’t say I’m a Master Translator for the Baby Boomer crowd, not that I don’t want to become one, but I’m having a hard time finding my “groove”. I’m finding the Baby Boomer crowd to be a bit massive and it spans over a huge age range. For that reason, I’m starting to think that having Baby Boomers as my target market won’t work because it’s too large and diverse.

And actually, if I speak honestly, I’d have to admit that I errored in choosing Baby Boomers as a niche. You see, they really are not a niche, they are a demographic, and just because they are in the same demographic does not mean they have the same interests. Because their interests are so diverse, it’s hard to write to them, it’s hard to market to them, it’s hard to do anything specifically for a Baby Boomer. I need to find a niche within the demographic so I know who I’m talking to when I write, teach, and try to sell to them. And that’s a lesson anyone reading the article must consider when choosing their niche.

Answering your question about whether I think being a Baby Boomer affects how they want to learn, probably not since being a Baby Boomer doesn’t really change how a person wants to learn. There may be some characteristics of being a Baby Boomer that would lead me to believe that a “boutique” learning experience would be preferential for the demographic but I can’t say that for certain. Because the demographic is composed of so many interests, ages, income levels, etc., there’s really no way to tell and any conclusion I would draw would be an assumption. So again, I’ve chosen a demographic, not a niche and that is something I need to correct if I ever want to find success.

So, lots of self-revelation going on here. I’m actually going to have to sit down and figure out how to tighten the focus of the site, while keeping in mind that I want to maintain a “boutique” or “Master Translator” method to my information presentation.

Kelly, was there a point in time that you realized you needed to “tighten” your focus or that you realized you had chosen a demographic instead of a niche? If so, what occurred that helped you realize you needed to make a change and how did you go about making that change? If not, are you just that smart or did you just get lucky? LOL No really, I’d love to hear your comments about how people sometimes “get it wrong” and how an evolution needs to take place before they are able to make a success of their business.

Looking forward to your response.

Ciao!

Reba

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Become A Blogger - Fantastic Blogging Training Videos

If you’re reading my series on Blogging for Money, then you will probably be interested in the wonderful site I just ran across today for new bloggers. It’s called Become A Blogger and is a MUST SEE for anyone who needs help setting up their WordPress blog.

Yaro Starak, who’s blogging course “Blog Mastermind,” I recommended in a earlier post, and Gideon Shalwick, a world-renowned author of entrepreneurship books, have teamed up to bring you a fabulous series of videos that will teach you everything you need to know to get your blog up and running. And amazingly enough, these videos are FREEEEEEEE!!

When you go over to their site, you’ll find they recommend the same webhosting company I recommend, HostGator.com, however, when you get to the section on installing your WordPress blog, they do it from scratch. I explain in my article “Where Should You Host Your Money Making Blog” that HostGator uses C-Panel and they have Fantastico. Fantastico is a program that installs WordPress for you. Why do it from scratch if Fantastico will do it for you? Well, you might just want to learn how to do it, but once you’ve done that, just use Fantastico.

I put their first video in the right-hand column of the my sight, you can watch it while you’re still reading this article. If you like it just click the following link and go watch all ten videos:

Become A Blogger

Here’s a list of all ten free videos, I also gave a link to similar articles I have on this site:

1. Why You Should Use WordPress - My Post => WordPress-Simply A Necessity
2. How To Get Your Own Domain Name - My Post => Where Should You Host Your Money Making Blog?
3. How To Get A Webhost - My Post => Where Should You Host Your Money Making Blog?
4. How To Install WordPress
5. How To Upload Files To Your Webhost Using FTP
6. Choosing A WordPress Theme For Your New Blog
7. How To Install And Use WordPress Plugins - My Post => Setting Up Your Blog Properly-Part 1
8. How To Create Your First Blog Post
9. What RSS is and Why You Need It - My Post => What Is RSS & How To Use Google Reader
10. How To Use FeedBurner for Super Charging Your RSS Capabilities

Also, while I have your attention, on December 1st Yaro and Gideon are going to release a free report called “Roadmap To Become A Blogger”. When you visit their site to view the videos, you’ll see a sign-up box in the right-hand column of their site. If you go ahead and sign-up there, you will be on their early notification list for when the release occurs so you won’t forget. If you’re thinking about blogging for a living, I’m sure the report will be one you want to read, so don’t miss out and get yourself signed up.

Cheers!

Reba

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Only2Clicks - Great Tool

I found a great tool the other day that I thought I’d share, it’s called Only2Clicks. It’s like Favorites or Bookmarks on your browser but it’s web-based so you can use it even when you don’t have your own computer. For me, that’s nice because I don’t like to save my favorites on the computer I use at work or if I’m at a friend’s house and want to look-up something quick, I can just go to Only2Clicks to find it.

Basically, you sign-up and then you add links to your favorite websites. You can categorize them with tabs across the top of the page. Each bookmark shows a screenshot of the web page. And that’s it. It’s that simple.

Here’s a screenshot of one of my categories (tabs).

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Setting-Up Your Blog Properly – Part 2

As stated in Part 1, after installing your WordPress blog on your own domain, there are 3 steps you need to take to get your blog set-up properly so it will not only be indexed by the search engines but also be easy to run and a good place for your visitors to go. I’m going to cover each step in a separate post, this is Part 2.

These steps are specific to a WordPress blog hosted on your own domain. The free or hosted services like Blogger and WordPress.com will not allow you to accomplish what is described in these articles. These are the three steps:

1. Part 1 - Add the proper plug-ins
2. Part 2 - Change the permalinks
3. Part 3 - Find a quality theme and activate the widgets

Changing Permalinks

The default setting in WordPress sets the URL of each blog post as Yourdomain.com/?p=123. If you allow your URLs to look like this, you are missing a chance to add your keywords into the URL. Having your keywords in your URL can help your post get ranked in the search engines much quicker. This can easily be corrected.

After you log-in to your blog, click on Settings – and then Permalinks. You will see the following:

Click Custom Structure and enter /%category%/%postname%

This will make the URLS for your blog posts appear in the following format:

“Yourdomain.com/category(your keyword)/postname

If you’re reading this post from its own page (not the home page or the blog page), you can look at the URL in your browser’s address field and see it’s formatted as described – http://www.internetmarketingboomer.com/hot-topics/setting-up-your-blog-properly–part-2/

This is an important step to take in making sure your blog is set-up to be indexed by the search engines and listed with the proper keywords.

My next post will cover finding a quality theme and activating widgets on your blog.

Cheers!

Reba

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CBC Kelly: Are All Who Portray Themselves As Successful Really So?

Continuing with my Cross Blog Conversation with Kelly McCausey at Sparkplugging WAHM 2.0 after she answered my questions to her here, I’m now going to attempt to answer…

Do you ever look at someone who calls themselves successful and think ‘eh…they don’t seem all that successful to me.’? What creates the disconnect between what someone thinks about themselves and what others see? What do you see that seems to make their self statements unbelievable?

You know Kelly, your question comes at a time when I’m starting to scrutinize who and what I want to promote on my website and at the forefront of my mind are all the ’so called’ internet marketing gurus. ‘Fake it ’til you make it’ seems to be the mantra of the times for these people and for that and other reasons I won’t get into right now, I’m starting to get really picky in who and what I promote. And Kelly, the reason I have to do this goes right back to the heart of your question.

I’m sure many internet marketers feel that in order to compete in a competitive industry they have to ‘fake it ’til they make it’. And I agree that a certain level of confidence is necessary for a small business to survive, but when I get 15-20 emails from one marketer in a week about his new launch, I begin to wonder if the ’scarcity tactic’ he’s trying to employ is truth or fiction. And what about when they come back after the stated closing date and re-open the offer? What am I to think but that they didn’t sell enough the first time around? The way they treat their list, it’s a wonder they make any sales at all.

For the last few years I’ve been working a day job and haven’t been entrenched in the internet marketing scene until I started this website. Now that I’ve been at it for a few months I am blown away at the incestuous nature of the people who lead this industry. The arrogant portrayal of themselves and their million dollar launches after they and all their friends (always the same group) bombard my email box is getting to be quite annoying. Can you believe I had 30 emails in a ten day span from one marketer with 10 of those emails coming on one day? Not to mention all his “friend’s” emails promoting the same product launch? Geesh. I’m sorry, I’m starting to rant, but it’s really starting to get to me.

I read a fantastic blog post by Rick Butts the other day titled “I Am Joe’s Email List - An Open Letter To Internet Marketers” and I guess that’s what got me started thinking. The post was from last summer but like I said, I’m just now getting back into the industry, so please forgive me if it’s a post ‘everyone’ has already read.

Now, having said all that, I do want to add that I’m not talking about ALL the top people in this industry, I still find a few that honestly give great information along with a few offers here and there. These people and their products are the ones I will continue to promote. And if you look through my site I don’t think you’re going to find any offers from the “idiot emailing gurus”, at least not recently.

So anyway, back to your questions, how can I tell the difference between someone who’s really successful and someone who’s faking? What gives them away? I don’t know that I can always tell the difference, especially when it’s someone who’s been faking for a long time. When little clues come across like I mentioned above I tend to wonder, but really there’s no way to know for sure. I just hope that ultimately honesty will prevail.

But you know, to quite honest, I really don’t care if someone’s ‘fakin’ it ’til they make,’ it just doesn’t matter. If their product is good and worth the money they ask for it, let ‘um fake it. Just don’t act like an email idiot. Give me good information along side the offers. Give me a reason to look forward to hearing from you. And you know, I think there are some people out there that fit that bill, and those are the people I’m going to continue promoting.

Kelly, I guess my answer turned into a bit of a rant, I’m sorry about that. I hope I actually answered your question.  So now, my question for you. Do you think the online community is hungry for offerings that are more “boutique” in nature? Can an affiliate marketer make a success of themselves without the “idiot emailing gurus” by marketing great products by writers and teachers that are not part of the “internet marketing guru inner circle”?

Looking forward to your response Kelly!

Reba

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Internet Marketing Inner Circle - More Treasures Than Expected

Several months ago I started following a man on Twitter that I didn’t know much about. That man was Willie Crawford (Willie on Twitter). Very soon after that I realized from watching his Tweets that Willie is a man that knows his stuff and would be a great resource for me and my business.

If you use Twitter, you’ll understand what I’m talking about when I refer to your Twitter timeline. When you follow a lot of people, your timeline moves very quickly, on mine a post will usually move to the second page within five minutes or less. So, after a while, you start to filter the Tweets and only read the ones from the people you are most interested in. Those usually consist of Tweets from your friends or from those you know you can learn something from, all the others seem to fade to the background. Well, let me tell you, I make a concerted effort to read all of Willie’s Tweets, I even go so far as to click on his profile from time to time to see if I missed anything. I also follow the links he posts. To me, Willie is an authority that can make a difference to my business and I don’t want to miss anything he has to offer, especially if it’s free.

It wasn’t long and a natural progression started to fall into place. I began to think that joining Willie’s membership site, The Internet Marketing Inner Circle (TIMIC for short), could benefit me. I thought about it for quite a long time, probably close to six weeks from the first time I read the sales page. I even Tweeted to Willie asking him to give me a reason to join and, of course, he responded. But I still didn’t join. I couldn’t get myself to part with the monthly fee. I had recently purchased some of the big “gurus” programs and spent a lot of money. It just wasn’t the right time yet. So more time went by.

Well, finally the time came and I parted with the $37 monthly membership fee (I can’t afford the lifetime membership yet - notice I said YET). What a surprise! I’ve been a member now for about two weeks and I am so happy I joined. This membership is one I will belong to for a very long time (I’ve been known to hop around). I have learned more and met more people on Willie’s messageboard that will help my business than in any membership I’ve ever belonged to (with exception of one - MomMasterminds - more on that in a different post and those members belong to a different crowd).  The people who are members aren’t the usual run of the mill members, they are solid business people and are so willing to help the membership with their wealth of knowledge. It’s really quite amazing.

I was reading through the board this morning and came across a post where one member was ready to give up. He wasn’t sad about it, he was MAD. No one in his family, including his wife, seemed to understand what he was trying to do. The support that came out of his post was beautiful. One member offered to pay for a report that would help him to evaluate his business. Another posted a link to a wonderful report about how long it takes to be successful.

But the best thing I’ve found about the site is the amount of collaboration that goes on. Currently there is a project that the membership is pulling together to build an ebook. There are proposals and joint ventures being planned, there’s information sharing on a level that I’ve never seen, a level where no one is afraid to share their knowledge, time, and even their treasure. And always there, always helping, always prodding us to be better and not waste our time, is Willie. The same guy I started following on Twitter several months ago and thought so much of.

Thank you Willie, you’re an inspiration.

If you’re interested in joining, just follow the link to Willie’s sales page:

The Internet Marketing Inner Circle

Cheers!

Reba

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Setting-Up Your Blog Properly – Part 1

After installing your WordPress blog on your own domain, there are three steps you need to take to get your blog set-up properly so it will not only be indexed by the search engines but also be easy to run and a good place for your visitors to go. I’m going to cover each step in a separate post, this is Part 1.

These steps are specific to a WordPress blog hosted on your own domain. The free or hosted services like Blogger and WordPress.com will not allow you to accomplish what is described in these articles. These are the three steps:

1. Part 1 - Add the proper plug-ins
2. Part 2 - Change the permalinks
3. Part 3 - Find a quality theme and activate the widgets

Adding the proper plug-ins

The first thing in setting up your blog is to add the proper plug-ins. Plug-ins add to the operation of your blog and some adjust how your blog operates. The proper plug-ins can make a huge difference in how the search engines treat your blog. Other plug-ins make a big difference in how your posts are presented to your visitors.

There are literally thousands of plug-ins with more being added to the selection on a daily basis. You can find a directory of available plug-ins at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ and this link can also be found on the dashboard of your WordPress blog (the first page when you log-in to your blog).  The list below is what I am using at this time.

• Akismet – Is automatically installed with WordPress; helps prevent comment spam.
• All-In-One SEO Pack – adjusts your blog so it is search engine friendly.
• Google XML Sitemaps – Creates a sitemap for your blog that is compliant with Google and others. Once your sitemap is created, you should submit it to Google Webmaster Tools.
• CommentLuv - Shows a link to the last post from the commenter’s blog in their comment. Helps promote comments.
• Sociable - Automatically add links on your posts, pages and RSS feed to your favorite social bookmarking sites.
• Subscribe To Comments – Allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry.
• WP tags to Technorati – Automatically creates tags to link to Technorati for you
• Ultimate Google Analytics – Enables Google Analytics on your blog. Has an option to also track external links, mailto links and links to downloads on your own site.
• WordPress Duplicate Content Cure – A simple, yet effective SEO plug-in that prevents search engines from indexing WordPress pages that contain duplicate content, like archives and category pages.

Now there are plenty of others but those are the minimum I would recommend to make your blog work better and be more search engine friendly.

To install the plug-ins you will need to FTP them into the wp-content folder within your blog. Once uploaded, log-in to your blog, go to the Plug-In link in the upper right corner, then find the plug-in listed and click on the “Activate” link.

Tomorrow we’ll change the PermaLinks so they are search engine friendly.

Ciao!

Reba

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Jimmy D. Brown’s PLR Sale

I’m just going to give you a quick note about Jimmy D. Brown’s PLR Sale. Apparently he did this last year and now he’s doing it again.

I know we haven’t talked about PLR here at Internet Marketing Boomer, but as a quick lesson, it stands for Private Label Rights and when you buy articles, reports or e-books with PLR rights, you have the right to change them however you want and put your name on the result as the author.

Pretty exciting huh? To have the ability to buy some of Jimmy D. Brown’s products, make some changes and then sell them as your own? Yeah! That’s sweet.

Anyway, on to the offer.

Jimmy D. Brown is offering PLR rights to some of his best reports and products (some NEVER-BEFORE-RELEASED!) for a very limited time only.

There are three packages available at:

http://www.internetmarketingboomer.com/info/jimmy-d-brown-plr-sale

Jimmy’s Bronze package is absolutely FREE!! Yay! Just go to the site and download.

The Silver And Gold packages are *literally* pennies on the dollar (try 97% off regular price for the gold pack!)

There are so many things you can do with these products -

* Create your own original articles.
* Build rebrandable reports.
* Edit them and sell them as your own.
* Convert them into audio products.
* Develop a coaching program around them.
* Stock a membership site with them.
* Extract parts for blog posts.

The ideas are endless …

… but the availability of these packages is not!

So, I strongly encourage you to go right now and download the free Bronze PLR Package before it is no longer available.

http://www.internetmarketingboomer.com/info/jimmy-d-brown-plr-sale

And check out the other two packages while you’re there.

Even if you don’t plan on using them until down the road, you won’t find better quality content for the price. And, they simply won’t be around very long.

http://www.internetmarketingboomer.com/info/jimmy-d-brown-plr-sale

Cheers!

Reba

P.S. - If you’re not ready to buy the silver or gold package, you owe it to yourself to at least grab the free bronze package. Remember - you get full PLR rights to the article and report. Rebrand it and hand it out to your website visitors, you can even sell it. Grab the bronze package at no cost to you at the following link:

http://www.internetmarketingboomer.com/info/jimmy-d-brown-plr-sale

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