This is an amusing article from the Sunday Times (UK) about unlucky businesses that did not choose their domains wisely.

Osodit.com – the unseen howlers in web addresses

WHEN Big Al’s bowling alley and restaurant wanted a jaunty name for its website, I Love Big Al’s seemed the obvious choice.  It was only when the site was up and running that the horrible truth dawned: run the words together and you might also attract visitors looking for women who swing both ways — I Love Bi Gals.  The business, in Vancouver, Washington state, is one of the tamer entries in a new compendium of websites whose names seemed safe enough at the time, but become somewhat unfortunate when strung together as a web address.

With hindsight, the compilers of a list of celebrity agents called Who Represents would probably have thought twice about calling their website whorepresents.com.

Les Bocages, a team of British tree surgeons working in Brittany, might also have chosen something other than the French word for “groves” — especially if they’d seen it written as lesbocages, which conjures up an altogether different image.

And spare a thought for the Mole Station nursery, a garden products company in New South Wales, Australia, whose web address used to be molestationnursery. It has now been changed to the not-at-all-amusing molerivernursery.

“In a world without spaces we mentally insert our own,” said Andy Geldman, a software designer and author of Slurls: They Called Their Website What? “And you might not stick yours where I stick mine.”  His book lists more than 150 such sites, anything from American Scrap Metal (or americanscrapmetal) to ustinc.com.  Website names have inspired pranksters.

At first glance you might think that Powergen, the energy firm, had made a terrible error with the site of its Italian branch: powergenitalia. Actually it has nothing to do with Powergen.

There is also suspicion that Pen Island, a firm that apparently offers a range of bespoke pens, knew exactly what it was doing when it named its website penisland.net.  Geldman has coined the name Slurls for such ambiguities, combining the words “slur” and “url”, which means uniform resource locator and is the technical term for an internet address.  Most of the ambiguities prompt the response: what were they thinking?

Log on to menlove.com and you do not expect to find the site of a Toyota dealer in sleepy Utah. Likewise, would you feel comfortable as a hotel owner renting bedlinen from ladrape.co.uk? Yet this is the site of a Cheshire firm.

Most website owners seem to be philosophical about the ambiguity. A spokesman for therapistfinder, which lists therapists in California, sighed and then admitted: “We have received a few bizarre phone calls.”  Others fail to see the funny side. A spokesman for Choose Spain, a company offering holiday villas on its website, called choosespain.com, said flatly: “It was too late to change it once we realised.”  Sometimes it takes a while for the horrible truth to sink in.

When Michelle Aisworth was setting up her mobile dog-grooming service in Warwickshire, she wanted a name that explained what the company was all about. So she chose doggiestyles for her website, completely unaware, she says, of its sexual meaning.  “I chose it because if you separate the ‘doggie’ and the ‘styles’, that’s exactly what the business does,” she said. “The ambiguity only occurred to me after I set up the website, when I Googled it.”

So the moral is this: when choosing a name for your business in this cyber age, always think how it would read on a web address. If all else fails, just look it up on Go Ogle.  ————

From The Sunday Times

Do you look in the mirror every morning and like what you see? Do you see someone who has achieved or do you see someone who is always in pursuit of that next best thing but rarely gets there? What about your achievements, successes and things that haven’t gone so great for you – well to be frank, the buck stops with that person who is looking out at you from that mirror.

Just Do It!

Once you begin to really take responsibility for how you want your life to be, then that is when wonderful things start to happen. There are 2 simple words that will determine whether you get there or not. The first of these words is BUSY – yes, that’s right. How often have you used this word to stop you doing something you really know you should be doing?
I often used that word as some way of avoiding what I really should be doing, I would be ‘busy’ on some of the social networking sites convincing myself that somehow this was productive to my online business. Yes it was, but nowhere near as productive as I could have been had I taken ACTION, the second of these 2 simple words.

I knew I needed to have focus and that focus needed to manifest itself into action. Let us study both of these words for just a second in the context solely of internet marketing:

2 words explained

BUSY – being too busy doing the wrong things will do nothing to drive your business forward. Whilst it may be wonderful to spend time looking at others’ perceived online successes, this is doing nothing for you and you are losing money every minute you are ‘busy’ doing this.

ACTION on the other hand is doing what needs to be done to drive your business forward and you are making money whilst doing so. You can also take pleasure in striking actions from your ‘to do’ list each day and preparing your action list for the next day. Action will turn your dreams into a reality, being forever ‘busy’ will ensure they remain just that – a dream!

What intrigued me when I first started online is that I knew I was procrastinating, avoiding, being busy – call it what you will but what was that part of my brain that convinced me I was ‘busy’ all the time when in effect I was achieving nothing.  Whilst in normal terms, ‘being busy’ and ‘taking action’ may equate to one and the same, in the world of online business, there is a huge difference.

The funny thing about both these simple words is that almost every online marketer knows the difference and can easily see it in others.   Why is it so difficult then for us to see it in ourselves?    I’ll use a simple analogy of a smoker.  They know this habit is a bad one but they persist with it – they also know the damage that their passive smoking can inflict on others – but they continue to do it. They know fully what the long term results will be but they persevere with their bad habit.

So too will being ‘BUSY’, it will just eat away at you and in the long term all you will have will be broken dreams.

Busy people will have no end of explanations for why they did or did not do something.

What to do to avoid the ‘busy’ syndrome and get some ‘action’ into your business

• Firstly, do not go near your emails or any social networking site when you first switch on your PC.
• Have a list at your side and write down 5 things each evening you must do the next day
• When you switch on your PC start at #1 on your list and work through all 5 crossing off as you do them
• once this is done, allow yourself some time on the social networking sites because these are important to internet marketers but strictly limit yourself and go on there with a clear purpose
• The same applies to the forums – allow a time and when that time is up – LEAVE the forums

You will face some setbacks and when you do, the question to ask yourself is this “are my goals and dreams worth trying to get over this hurdle?” If the answer is a resounding “YES”, then take ACTION. If your answer is a defeatist “NO”, then you need to have a bigger dream

A dream without an action plan is just that – a dream and it will never be anything more unless you take those vital action steps to make things happen.

Making money online is a skill and just like any other skill in life, it CAN be taught.  Many people online teach how to make money, or claim to teach this but what they are doing in effect is trying to sell lame products.

How do you actually make money online?

Similar to any offline business, there is a system to success, it is no good starting out in a web business ‘hoping’ and ‘wishing’ and sitting with fingers crossed; there is a process to learn and you need to learn what this process is.

Does this process take time to learn?   Yes it does and it took me 5-6 months to really learn what it was all about.  Does it work?  You bet it does but you really do need to know what you are doing if you want to build a sustainable business and you are in it for the long haul.

4 main elements to online success

Basically there are 4 main elements, all equally vital to online success and these are:   Having the correct attitude, the right mindset

• Knowing some simple web skills
• Having a product(s) (be it yours or someone elses)
• Having the skills to market your product

You have the correct mindset already if you are reading this article, because it means you are interested in, or are considering moving towards an online business.

If you are serious about wanting to make money online and you have a fear of the web, you need to get over this.  I am sure 99% of people have this fear when they first start off and I was no different.

Products – this is where I see a lot of people make mistakes.  A large majority of new marketers will spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars buying a vast range of products from experienced marketers with great promises of ‘riches’ by simply selling them on.  What happens in many cases are these products, be they DVDs, CD ROMs or elearning materials end up gathering dust under the bed, in the garage or sitting on a computer hard drive and never opened up.  Why is this?  It is because most people do not know WHAT to actually do with the products.

Do you know how the majority of people make their money online?  They sell directly to their own list.  This means they sell directly to people who are already on their database.  How do they get people on this database?  Well they work very hard to capture our details when we first visit their website, we enter our name and email and we are entered straight into the marketers’ list or database.

How do they make money from their list?

The marketers spend a lot of time and energy into building their list by sending out regular emails talking about themselves and offering value to the people on their list by way of free products etc.  They start to build up respect and trust with the people on their lists and then every time they have a product, they send out an email to this list.  Because they have spent time cultivating and building a relationship with their list, it normally always results in a sale.   You will hear the saying time and time again in internet marketing “the money is in the list” and this is absolutely true.

I see many newcomers to the industry make the same mistake in believing that simply having a product online will result in sales.  This may have been true some 8 or 9 years ago but no more.

Common mistakes made

As outlined above, many people misled into the industry believing they will make their fortune overnight become rapidly disillusioned.  Their initial all important enthusiasm (correct mindset and attitude) gets slowly chipped away.  Goodbye excitement quickly changes to hello resentment and they will start to say things like “the web is a con; you can’t make any money on it….”  Well, yes you can but you need to know WHAT and HOW you should be working your business.

The successful online marketers today work smarter, not necessarily harder but smarter.  By that I mean they focus on building their lists.  This business is a marathon and not a sprint.  You may be excited to get you site online and let everyone know about your product and this is great; this enthusiasm is encouraged and supported.

However, if you could just slightly change your thinking to concentrate, at least for a while on simply building a list, this will probably be the one defining element that will separate you from the majority of people who do NOT make money online.

In summary, the three most important elements to your business are:

• Building your list
• List building
• Building your list

There is a HUGE difference between having a website and having a business.  Whilst you do need a website, there are thousands if not millions of websites out there not making money.  Therefore having a website is not having a web business.

Having a product is also NOT a business, again there are hundreds of thousands of websites that have a product but make no money.

So, to finish off, what is the key to having a successful online web business?  The answer………Customers - or in other words ‘YOUR LIST’.

Want to work with me and start off the RIGHT way?  Just enter your details on the right hand side of the page here and get lots of FREE information that will start you off, and more importantly make sure you STAY on the path to MAKING MONEY ONLINE.

What is the purpose of writing articles?

The purpose of writing articles is first and foremost to educate people, to give something of value to the reader, to pass your knowledge or expertise of a particular subject onto others.

Within the internet marketing industry and in fact many other industries, it can be a lucrative way of driving traffic to your website and the other real beauty is it is FREE.  What I love about Ezine Articles is that writing just one article can mean a Google position on many different pages within your niche.  The added bonus is that once you have had your article published, it is out there sending traffic to you for many, many years to come.

Before writing – what is the purpose of your specific article?

Any good article author will tell you that you should always sit down before you write any article and determine what the purpose of that particular article is.  For example, if your intention is to rate in the Search Engines then you will need to use long tail keywords so your article will appear when people type that keyword into the Search Engine.

If you are writing an article to submit to a blog post or a niche related forum where your target  market hangs out, then you don’t even need to bother too much about keywords at all.  Your purpose on this occasion is not to appear on the Search Engine Results page but to offer something of value to your hungry audience.

Search Engine Ratings or Value to the Reader?

I have never written any article yet that has started with me aiming solely to get ratings in the search engines.  Instead what I have tried to do is to answer the questions that I sought answers to when I first came into internet marketing.  If during my many visits to the forums that are out there, I see a reoccurring question then I will do some research if necessary and attempt to write an article on that also.  Again this is about providing value rather than ratings.

Now this doesn’t mean that I totally ignore the Search Engines but just that I do not dwell on it so much.  The day I made the decision to no longer focus on keywords, keywords, and more keywords was the day I felt a huge burden lift from me.

There is also a lot of software out there that promises to take the ‘arduous’ task of writing articles away from you.  Some claim that you only need write one article and their software will spin it to make several more articles out of that one.

My question to you then is “what is your purpose of writing articles?”  “What are you attempting to achieve?”  I ask this because in my opinion, the fact that you have opted for an easy way out suggests that this is all about ‘you’ and ‘taking’ rather than ‘giving’ value to your readers first and foremost.

Well, how arrogant does that title sound when you read it aloud?

But it was a comment made to me the other day and I have to admit it left me quite shocked.  I was showing a contact on one of the social networking sites some excellent training I had received and the remark to me was “how can someone who has only been in the Internet Marketing business for less than 2 years teach me anything”?

The successful Internet Marketer I had introduced this person to is an Award Winning Internet Coach, and when he hosts webinars, no less than 800 of his members turn out to hear and be educated with what he has to teach.  So, for someone to make such a snap judgement after listening to only a few minutes intro, left me quite speechless (not an easy feat by any stretch of the imagination lol).

You see, I have never been someone who is afraid to admit they don’t know something and I always say “a day wasted is a day I haven’t learned something”.  I am never too proud to ask whoever is the best person to teach me how to do something and that is because I do not judge people.

What I’ve found since coming into this industry is there are a lot of ruthless people – yes we find this in all walks of life but there seems to be an abundance of them in Internet Marketing.  People who profess to ‘know it all’ and really only ‘think they know it all’.  No human being ever ‘knows it all’ when it comes to anything, there is always room for improvement.

So, please forgive me venting in this blog post, but my message is to this type of person ‘don’t think you’re all that, allow yourself to swallow that pride you have but be careful of choking!  I would also ask you to be prepared to accept that newer people into the industry bring fresh eyes to what is an ever evolving and fast moving business that doesn’t rest on its laurels – you may do this inadvertently because ‘no-one can teach you anything’ and this will be at your peril!

A question I am asked time and time again is “can a complete newcomer make money online”.  My response to that is, and always will be “absolutely YES, if the correct mindset is in place”.  The correct mindset CAN make money online.

Now if you’re reading this article here and already you have those doubts in your head, those nagging fears and you’re questioning yourself in this business, do you know what? – That is absolutely fine, it really is and I almost embrace that.  I was like that when I started out in the online industry.  I was excited about my new business, of course I had fears and I questioned myself many, many times as to whether I could do this.

There has never been a better time than right now to start an online business.  Please do not start thinking that you’re too late, that you should have done this years ago, that you’ve missed the boat because nothing could be further from the truth.

Just think about Google for a second, Google is almost 12 years old.  Imagine 12 years into the car industry or the computer industry or the airline industry.  Do you think people are saying “oh well, it’s almost 12 years old now, we’ve missed the boat”.  Absolutely they are not, people are always looking for the next best thing, how to improve on what is already out there and the world of the internet is no different.

Here we are into the second decade of the 21^st century and this is the perfect time to start, to really consider an online business.  The web is still in its infancy, yet it’s not a fad, it’s not a phase, it’s not going to disappear.

The fundamental fact about the internet, if you decide to really take this seriously, is that you can reach an unlimited audience and the entry costs are pretty much next to nothing.  Compare this to any other business and there simply is no comparison.  This opportunity that is in right in front of both you and I has never been seen before in our lifetime but I suspect there’s a part of you that actually does know that, and it will never be seen again.

Now if you’re familiar with Robert Kiyosaki and his books on success, he always says that the way to success is to stand in front of a trend.  We are all in front of the biggest trend we will ever see.  My question to you therefore is, what are you going to do about it?  Are you going to sit there and let it pass and in a few years from now turn round and say “oh, I should have got involved” or are you going to dive in despite having some fears, which I’m sure you do have, and actually get involved?

Can a Beginner Really Make Money Online?

YES, YES, YES!  Like any business though, there will be a certain number of new skills you will have to learn first.  For some reason, the web has got a kind of reputation of being really quick and you don’t have to do any work.  That is not strictly true, it’s not particularly quick, and it’s not particularly easy.  Great incomes can be made however, but only AFTER a new Skillset is learnt.

The problem or difficulty facing most people starting out online is that all these new skills are more of less thrown at you at once and we end up with ‘information overload’.  It’s at this point that many people give up, they tell themselves it’s not for them, it’s too difficult, they don’t have the skills to make money online.

What I’d like to do now is to take these new skills and break them down.  The new skills you will need to get comfortable with are:

• Correct mindset
• Simple web skills – get over that web fear
• How to create a webpage
• How to upload
• Autoresponders
• How to generate traffic

The very definition of a skill is that it can be learnt, that is what a skill is.  Just think of a baby trying to walk, takes its first steps then falls down.  Mother then says out loud “oh well, that’s it, this one’s never going to be a walker”.  No, the baby is developing a skill that needs to be perfected and the only way this is going to happen is to take a few bumps along the way, get frustrated but the baby never gives up.  You are a baby in the world of internet marketing, you will take many bumps along the way, you will probably want to tear your hair out in frustration but what you must NEVER do is GIVE UP.

A Website is an online presence and it doesn’t matter what the content is for it as long as there is something online.  Every website has a domain name, and this is similar to a book having a title, your website has a title referred to as a domain name.

Although you may only have one domain name, every website can have different pages. These are known as WebPages.   Using the book analogy again, this is like hundreds of pages within the book but they all come under the one title.  A website can have hundreds, even thousands of pages all under the one domain name.

Creating a webpage – some things to note

You need an html editor and I use Kompozer, it is free to download and very simple to use.  It has a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) format, so it is very similar to putting together a word document.

A Home Page is the page that visitors see when they type in your domain name, it is your main page of your website and in the html editor it is entitled the index.html page.  You will physically save it as index.html when you are working on your home page in Kompozer.

If you have a second page you are working on in Kompozer, this must be given a different title, remember it is only your home page that you save as index.html.  An example of a page you may want to include in your website is an ‘about me’ page.  When you save this unnamed page in Kompozer as this title you must not include any spaces, for example you must save it as aboutme.html.  If you look at my blog site you will see I have different pages set up there – http://www.businessmentorblog.com.  Try clicking on the different pages and watch in the address bar when you do so and you will see how businessmentorblog.com is what would be my index.html page and I have saved the other pages as different headings.

To go straight to a webpage within your website, you simply type in the main domain name followed by a / and then the name of the page you want to go to.

Why not start right here, right now.  Enter your details in the box there at the top right hand side of my page and just see what this new online world has waiting for you.

I made this short video this morning for 2 reasons.  One was to alert new people into the world of Internet Marketing that all may not be as it seems and secondly, my annoyance that someone who I know is a decent and hard working woman has lost everything she worked really hard for.

She hasn’t lost it, she has chosen to walk away rather than partake in something that goes against what she believes in.

I remember when this new product was being launched around November 2009 and I was being signposted to it by some credible people in the industry.  It was being hailed as the next best thing and the high paying commissions put it head and shoulders above anything else or so the marketing gurus would have us believe.

I couldn’t see what all the hype was about, wasn’t able really to get what I thought was tangible evidence of how it all worked so decided to opt in myself for the FREE trial.  As soon as I did this, everything started moving really fast – pressure to get payment details set up (dodgy move #1), pressure to take part in Skype discussions for hours (dodgy set up #2), call with CEO during which he tells me he loves me (really dodgy move #3) but quite funny.

You see, being a Glaswegian, the only time you tell someone you love them is when you have a belly full of vodka and you’re wanting someone to buy you a kebab from the van outside the pub at 2am on a Sunday morning LOL!

Anyway, I watched this business with interest, got into the back office and still was unable to find out EXACTLY what it was.  I looked around, watched others marketing it and making promises, but I just WAS NOT GETTING IT!

One woman in particular and whom I refer to in my video was a very active participant.  A bundle of fun, full of positivity, building teams right, left and centre and in general full of praise for this product.  When I say she was full of praise, I was still unable to glean what the heck it was.

2 weeks had gone by now and I was no further forward.  I knew that if I remained on there for another 2 weeks, I was going to be short changed by over $120 monthly.  One quick visit to Paypal and that problem was remedied.

So, in summary, unless you know exactly what you are buying, see actual proof that it works and know and absolutely trust the seller, then please exercise extreme caution and wariness.

There are lots of scammers out there, pouncing on new marketers, giving you their sob story of how they went from nothing to billionaire in a few short months – THIS CANNOT AND DOES NOT HAPPEN so please do not fall for it.

Enjoy your business for what it is, this industry is so amazing and can be so rewarding, as long as you stay in safe waters and swim around the sharks or take a harpoon and jab them out of your way!

I’ve gained so much technical knowledge these last 6 months or so now that I think I get a wee bit carried away with myself and sometimes I think I’m a lot better than I really am.  I try and be too adventurous and it always comes back to bite me on the proverbial.

What I’ve been trying to do for the last xx hours is something that probably sounds really simple to some people and it is to do with setting up accounts.  It was in place, or so I thought until I went to move some accounts around and realised I hadn’t quite got it right with one of them in the first place.  In the end I got so frustrated with trying to backtrack etc, I just closed the account and opened a new one.

Do you ever find yourself doing that, taking the long way round things when a really simple solution is staring you straight in the face?  Pragmatism is a large part of my personality and most pragmatists don’t take time to read instructions, they just plough straight in.  Well that is me over and over, and I never learn.  It doesn’t always result in errors but when it does, I would give anything to be the opposite type of personality and be a reflector.  Someone who doesn’t make decisions quickly but takes lots and lots of time to evaluate, to weigh up all the pros and cons and then takes things one baby step at a time.

So, that’s where I’m at right now.

On the positive side, I attended a fantastic webinar with our marketing group tonight and learned of really exciting things happening.  I’m always amazed at how we never sit still, there’s always some other high money making venture waiting to be thrust into our laps.

Tonight was extra exciting though – not only is there some really HOT STUFF coming our way but we are putting on a timebound promotion where people can try before they buy with all our marketing and coaching club.  All this for just $1 - I just can’t see how it is possible but if that’s what the boss says, that’s what we can offer.  I just wish I had this opportunity to access the best training materials and make lots of money for just $1 – I would have been laughing all the way to the bank.

So, here it is - grab it while you can because it won’t be there forever and could be taken down at any time.

“Change What Needs Changing, Not What’s Easy”

This is an excerpt from a book entitled ‘Change is Good, You Go First’ by the authors highlighted in the title.   I particularly liked the message I took after reading it and thought others may enjoy it also.

A few years ago, British Rail had a real fall-off in business. Looking for marketing answers, they went searching for a new ad agency – one that could deliver an ad campaign that would bring their customers back.

When the British Rail executives went to the offices of a prominent London ad agency to discuss their needs, they were met by a very rude receptionist, who insisted that they wait.

Finally, an unkempt person led them to a conference room – a dirty, scruffy room cluttered with plates of stale food. The executives were again, left to wait. A few agency people drifted in and out of the room, basically ignoring the executives who grew impatient by the minute. When the execs tried to ask what was going on, the agency people brushed them off and went about their work.

Eventually, the execs had enough. As they angrily started to get up, completely disgusted with the way they’d been treated, one of the agency people finally showed up.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “your treatment here at our Agency is not typical of how we treat our clients – in fact, we’ve gone out of our way to stage this meeting for you. We’ve behaved this way to point out to you what it’s like to be a customer of British Rail. Your real problem at British Rail isn’t your advertising, it’s your people. We suggest you let us address your employee attitude problem before we attempt to change your advertising.”

The British Rail executives were shocked – but the agency got the account! The agency had the remarkable conviction to point out the problem because it knew exactly what needed to change.

As Yogi Berra once said…

“Before we build a better mousetrap,
We need to find out if there are any mice out there.”

I found many similarities in what I read with what I and every other internet marketer is trying to achieve.  How do you treat your customers?  Are they valuable to you and your imminent success?  Of course they are because withouth them we have no business.

What I have always strived to do in any business I am in is first and foremost to find out what it is my customers are wanting and then I supply it.  If I personally can’t supply it, I will research and find someone who can so I will always look for a solution.

It can be very easy to become complacent, you make a few sales and that is the done deal – I don’t think it is at all, it is only the beginning of your journey with that person.  Continue to under promise and over deliver and you will have a customer for life!

Working at home in my own business, I know that my overall success or failure is solely down to me and how I treat people.  By continuing to value each and every person I come into contact with, I quickly built up a reputation as someone of trust, integrity and honesty and I really could not and would not work any other way.

If you too share similar values to me and want to change your life, then why not get in touch.  Simply enter your details at the top of this page, get a FREE eBook in the process and I’ll see you on the other side.