I can’t believe this year is nearly over, it just seems like only a few weeks ago when I was writing my post, “2008 Reflection”.

But now when I actually give myself a minute to sit back and reflect on 2009, I realize just how much my life has changed, not just in my business but also in my private life too…and fortunately they are all positive changes.

Back in March this year, I left my job as a Casino Manager onboard cruise ships. I had spent 13 years at sea working on

Cruise Ship in Bermuda

the ships and it really has been an incredible chapter in my life. It has taken me all over the world, and I have been very fortunate to have experienced some amazing countries and cultures.

I left my job on the ships to take up Internet Marketing full time, and also to move out and live in Thailand. I have been

Beach in Thailand

living here with my girlfriend since May, and now we are expecting our first child in February next year. I am so happy I made these big changes this year, because I am just loving my life out here in beautiful Thailand and really excited to become a father soon.

On a professional level, my business has just really taken off in the last few months. The change for the better all really started when I joined Alex Jeffreys coaching program back in July. Alex showed me how to focus on the right things in my business, and also installed in me the importance of having a clear plan.

This has been invaluable to me and is the reason for my business increasing 10 fold in the last few months. When I joined Alex’s coaching back in July, my list was at around 500 subscribers, now it is over 6000. I have now created my own product, and I am also building niche websites at the rate of about 1 a week and I have just finished hosting my own Giveaway event. Of course my earnings have increased dramatically because of all this.

But I am not going to slow down. In fact, I am planning to build my business to much larger proportions in 2010.

How You Can Succeed in 2010

Now I want to help you start the New Year off in the right way and get some momentum going for you.

As I mentioned earlier, to succeed you need to have a plan and a clear picture of where you want to be and how you are going to get there.

What I suggest you do before the new year starts, is to get yourself a pen and note pad and give yourself a couple of hours where you can close yourself off from any distractions. Whether you do this by shutting yourself in your office or bedroom, or by going to sit in Starbucks on your own. Just as long as you can sit down and concentrate without the normal daily distractions getting in the way.

What you need to do is decide where you want to be in your business and your life by the end of 2010. Set yourself realistic goals for both your professional and personal life.

To achieve these goals you need to have a clear plan of how you are going to get there. The best way to do this is to break your plan down into four 90 day plans, then your first 90 day plan into a monthly plan, then your first monthly plan into a weekly plan. You should then always give yourself a to-do list for the next day, with all of the jobs you list helping you achieve your long term goals.

Creating your plan should be a priority for you. I will readily say that without a plan YOU WILL NOT SUCCEED. It’s as simple as that.

So I strongly urge you to find a couple of hours before the end of this year to sit down, shut out any distractions and work out your 1 year, 90 day, 1 month and your first weeks plans.

What I Will be Doing to Help You

Last month I made a post titled “Help me to help you”. I will be using the responses there to base some of my next blog posts around.

These are some of the things I will be covering:

- How to create a website
- Market research, how to find a profitable niche
- Time management
- How to stay focused
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

I have created a new category in my Blog called “Action Steps” and this is where I will be posting these instructional posts.

I would just like to take this opportunity to say that I look forward to working with you in the New Year. I wish you and your families all the best for the holidays, and here’s to a VERY prosperous 2010 to us all.

I am writing this post to get a clearer picture of what I can do to help people move along in their online business. My aim with my Blog is to provide a place for you to come and find information that is going to be of use to you, whether this be by making video tutorials for you, or telling you about relevant resources that you can use.


So, in order for me to focus on the specific problems that you are experiencing I would like to invite you to place a reply underneath this Blog post and include the following information:

- How much experience do you have with Internet Marketing?


- What methods / strategies have you used to date to try and make money online?


- What have been your biggest hurdles so far?


- What would you like to see me include on my Blog that can help you in your online business?

Now, to reward you for taking the time to reply, I am going to give 10 free gifts to everyone who leaves a response below. Please make sure you leave your primary email address in your post so I can send you the download link for your gifts.

If you want to see what you will receive be leaving a reply, click here

If you enter Giveaway events and you need to use a professional looking squeeze page then an excellent free resource to use is called Instant Squeeze Page Generator.

When you sign up, you will see various different up-sells and cross-sells, but these are not required for just making a squeeze page, so the free option is sufficient if this is all you want to use it for.





You will also need to use an HTML editor to paste your squeeze page code into and make some minor adjustments (don’t worry, it’s not difficult)

- You can sign up for Instant Squeeze Page Generator here

- You can download Kompozer (This is the update for Nvu) for free here

As you may or may not know, I am currently being mentored by Alex Jeffreys, and this week as part of our weekly live webinar he spoiled us with an incredible bonus, and that was Rich Schefren on the webinar speaking to us live.

If you don’t know who Rich Schefren is, he is the guru to the gurus and is the mentor to online megastars such as Mike Filsaime, Jeff Walker, Jim Edwards, Joel Comm, Ryan Deiss, Willie Crawford and Alex Jeffreys himself to name just a few.

Alex always talks so highly of Rich Schefren, so to be able to listen to him speak to us and give us a bit of a glimpse inside his mind was an incredible opportunity. To listen to the man, he just made so much sense in everything that he said, but he didn’t make things complicated, he likes to use simple methods and he actually said that from his experience the simple business models were often far more successful than the complicated ones.

What Rich also told us that made a lot of sense was to “create a business by design”. What he meant by this is that you map out your business progress, rather than just working away like a crazy person for 12 hours a day without really knowing where your business is going. What he said to do was to build a team bit by bit to run your business as it grows, handing over the responsibility of different aspects of the business until finally you have your team running your business completely for you and “your plate is clear and you are free”. This isn’t to say that you no longer have any interaction within your business, it just means you can take a step back and keep an eye over the business as a whole rather than getting weighed down with one thing and missing everything else that is going on around you.

I have made up a list of effective methods of generating traffic, all of these I have used to get traffic to my own Blog.

1. Articles. In order for your article to be effective you need to do your keyword research. I always use Google Adwords keyword tool, which you can use for free here. I look for longtail keywords that have a local and global search from 100 to 5000 a month. I also try and use the ones that have around 50% to 75% competition (anymore than that and you will find it very hard to get indexed on the search engines). Once you have found your keywords (and try and find as many as you can), then type your keyword phrase into Google and look how many sites your are competing against for your keyword phrase. If it is anymore than 1 million then I would say don’t bother, it will be too hard for you get your article showing high enough  in the search engines for anyone to read it, not without some serious backlinking anyway. I always try to look for a competition of around 250,000 to 500,000.

2. Twitter. When used properly Twitter can be a very powerful tool. If you have made a Blog post that you believe provides value and can help people then you can Tweet about it and add a link to that post. Just be careful not to be to SPAMy and send out link after link, just send out the odd Tweet, maybe one or two a day to a informative Blog post you have written and you will see good traffic come from this.

3. Blog Carnivals. Every time I write a Blog post I submit it to relative Blog Carnivals. The permalink and description of the Blog post is published on the carnival, and any interested readers will visit your Blog by clicking on your perma link to read the entire post. To optimize this I use a piece of software that submits to all of the relative Blog Carnivals at the click of a button. It’s very effective and has been a great traffic tool for me. You can see the software I use here.

4. Oil Rig Hopping. This is a phrase that I got from my mentor, Alex Jeffreys. What it means is to go and comment on other peoples Blogs. Find Blogs that are in the same niche as yours, read through their posts and leave a relative comment to their post. Your comment should be interactive and always try and add value to the Blog post. Don’t just say “great post, come and have a look at my site”. The Blog owner will probably never approve this as it is just SPAM. If you can add value then other people reading will notice your comment and are then likely to pay a visit to your Blog to see what you have going on there.

5. Email List. You should always treat your list like gold, and if you have created some valuable and informative content on your Blog, then you should always tell your mailing list about it. Your Blog is where you can brand yourself and your business, so if you keep posting great content there then your list will be happy you told them about it and likely to come back aswell.

6. Viral Competition. Set up a viral competition on your Blog. Give away something then ask your readers to send an email out to their subscribers to tell them about it. Only when they have done that will they receive their free gift.

7. Yahoo Answers. Yahoo Answers can be a good place to divert traffic back to your Blog. Look for questions that are relevant to any of the posts you have made in your Blog. When you find one, provide an informative answer there on Yahoo answers and then add as the end that you have more information about this on your Blog and add your link. Don’t just SPAM it and say, “I have the solution for you on my site”. Give them an answer there, just subtly mention that you have further information that can help them on your Blog and add your link.

8. YouTube. I have only recently discovered the power behind videos. YouTube is one of the most highly trafficked sites on the web, so the possibilities of very getting high traffic to your site from here is very real. Your video doesn’t have to be long, just make it interesting and informative and add a link back to your Blog. Use your description box to add a call to action and include your link right at the start.

If you implement one of these methods each day then you will see your traffic levels go up significantly.