John Dilbeck Recommends

It’s been awhile since I’ve found something I want to recommend in this blog.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t stand by what I’ve said in other places, it just means that I’m segmenting this blog for special recommendations, such as Site Build It!, which continues to be my top recommendation for building an online business.

Today, I want to talk about a very hot topic: social networking.

I know you’ve heard of sites like MySpace and Facebook. You may even have an account on one or both of them - I do.

There are many other social networking sites, and I participate, to a greater or lesser extent, on a few of them.

However, with millions of users, it’s easy to get lost in the crowd. Almost as bad is the fact that the great majority of users have interests that just don’t correlate with yours, so finding like-minded people to network with can be a challenge.

So, for about six months or so, I’ve been looking for a good platform to build my own social networks. They will be much smaller, but they will be very targeted to a specific subject. As a result, as they grow and more members participate, they should rank well in the search engines for their specific topic, and they should attract more members over time who would like to participate and network there.

Of course, these sites will never have millions of members, maybe not even hundreds of members. That’s not the point. They will be tightly-focused on their subject and that has to make them easier to promote.

It also reduces wasted time and energy dealing with people and topics that don’t share your primary focus.

What site am I talking about?

It’s not much of a secret since I already told you in the title, is it?

I recommend Ning.com for building social networking sites.

I first learned of Ning.com when my friend, Pat Thompson, invited me to join her The Tea Room. This is a small, but interesting group of people. I’m sure more people will be attracted to Pat and her community as time goes by.

After experiencing what I could do in The Tea Room, I did some searching to see what else I could find on Ning.com.

I found that Chris Tinney had created the Home Based Business Community, and it already had 233 members, many of whom I know well and quite a few names I recognized. I haven’t had the time to get really active there, but it’s on my list of things to do. I’ve been a member of a couple of his forums and have learned a great deal from the discussions I’ve read and participated in. I like his new home based business community better than a forum because I can customize my own profile page, create groups, blog, and have more opportunities to present myself as I want. This applies to all the other communities on Ning.com.

I joined a couple more communities and liked what I was seeing, so I decided to look into creating my own communities for my special interests.

Surprisingly, you can build an entire community on Ning.com for free. If it grows successful enough that you need more storage and bandwidth, it’s not very expensive to expand.

And, if you want to cover the costs of your community, for about $20 per month, you can have Ning.com remove their advertising and run your own. Primarily, this would probably be Google Adsense ads, but it would also mean you could show Yahoo ads, Chikita, and many others, should you want. There’s no reason you can’t turn your community into a profit center when it starts attracting enough members and visitors.

Ning.com offers all the standard features you would want in a social networking site: customizable personal profiles, individual blogs, a forum, the ability to create groups on sub-topics, uploading photos, syndicating RSS feeds from other sites, generation of RSS feeds from many parts of your community, and more.

It does not offer some of the things I would like, such as sticky threads in the forum, but that’s a minor quibble compared to what it does offer.

So, about two weeks ago, I started building my own communities.

In some, there is already active participation by multiple members; in others, I’m there all alone. But, it’s only been two weeks. It can take months or years to attract people to niche sites, and I’m in this for the long haul.

Another reason for choosing Ning.com instead of installing my own open source scripts is that I’ve learned how popular sites attract spammers, hackers, and other problems. I’ve shut down several communities and an article directory because I just don’t have the time and energy to manage everything, including security and updating the scripts all the time.

With Ning.com, you have a choice. You can run on their current script, or you can purchase the source code (for a very reasonable fee) and modify it as much as you want. I’ll go with the former and let them manage the script while I concentrate on building the community and adding appropriate content as I find the time.

So, there are many options at Ning.com.

Managing a new community is relatively easy and straightforward. It takes some work to become comfortable with all the tools, but you don’t have to use everything it offers.

For example, Ning.com provides the ability to upload and show photos, videos, and sound. On my communities, I encourage uploading photos, but don’t offer videos and sound - at least, not now.

It’s your community, you can set the features and rules for your site.

The first community I started is the Murphy NC 28906 Community, and it is getting off to a pretty good start. I’ve been promoting Murphy for several years and enjoy helping spread the word about our wonderful community and the people who live and work here.

I built a portal for the community using PHP-Nuke a couple of years ago, but had to take it down due to hackers and problems with using the script. That was my first attempt at building a social networking site, and the current site built on the Ning.com platform is doing much better, even in its initial introduction period.

I forgot to mention that Ning.com offers a complete friend system and private messaging, in addition to commenting on a member’s profile page and discussing things in the forums.

The forums offer the ability to create new sections and sub-sections if your community needs those features.

The second site I’ve introduced is about CafePress Shops, where people can come together and talk about selling their designs at CafePress.com and talk about issues related to marketing, traffic building, and everything else that is part of selling online.

I have three other sites in the works, but I’m not ready to announce them, yet.

Unlike me, you may not want to create multiple communities. Perhaps you’re looking for a community based on your particular interests. It’s much easier, and takes less time, to join an existing community, rather than building your own. So, you can search on Google using “ning.com (your specific subject)” and maybe find an existing community.

If, on the other hand, you really want to build a social networking community with lots of features and an easy-to-use interface, I think you should look into Ning.com. I’m happy I did.

Act on your dream,

JD

Ken Evoy and Sitesell recently announced the release of Content 2.0, an optional add-on module for Site Build It!

Here is a copy of their press release:

Montreal, Quebec, Canada (PRWEB) August 30 2007 — Sitesell.com, the originator of Site Build It! and champion of using quality content to drive small business sites, today takes Web 2.0 to new heights. For the first time, small businesses can make it easy for their visitors to craft original Web pages including photos and captions. Other visitors comment upon and rate those Web pages. The process is optimized for search engine results driving long tail keyword traffic and viral spread.

Content 2.0 is available at SiteSell.com for the annual subscription price of $99 as an add-on module to Site Build It! (SBI!), SiteSell’s flagship business-building product.

(End of the press release)

Not every website that is built using SBI will need or be able to use Content 2.0 effectively, but many sites are already using it with success.

If you would like more information on Sitesell and SBI!, please visit Sitesell.com.

Act on your dream!

JD

Have you been thinking about trying Site Build It?

If you have, Ken is offering his annual holiday special. Until midnight, December 25, 2006, you can buy one and get one free.

That is a real bargain.

You have several options.

You can buy one for yourself and get a second one free. If you choose to do this, you can start building one and wait up to nine months to start the second site.

Or…

Buy one for yourself and give the second one to your husband, wife, son, daughter, mom, dad, friend, business associate, or anyone else to whom you want to offer the gift of learning how to build a part-time (or full-time) online business using the proven tools and techniques that Ken will teach you and your friend.

Or, team up with someone else and buy two sites. Split the cost and Sitesell Support will help you transfer the second site to whomever it should belong.

You don’t have to take advantage of the special pricing, but now is the time to do it if you want to save money. You could even buy now, and find someone next week or next month to sell the second site to.

Just don’t miss this special if you have been on the fence about getting Site Build It for yourself.

I can tell you that finding Ken Evoy a few years ago has made a big difference in my life.

I have been Mom’s full-time caretaker for about five and a half years now. When I decided to bring her back home instead of putting her in a nursing home, I knew I would have to find a way to work inside the house near her and still earn a living. I closed my metalsmithing business and concentrated on helping her.

After I’d quickly blown through my savings, I had to get serious about earning an income while still working at home.

Luckily, amongst all the Internet marketing hype that was calculated to relieve me of my hard-earned money, I found Ken Evoy.

I learned how to start earning money from affiliate marketing by reading his Affiliate Masters Course, and started making sales and earning commission checks when I put what I learned to work on some of my web sites.

Later, I purchased his Make Your Site Sell! ebook. That was the best $30 I ever spent and now I earn it back many times over every month.

I took what I learned and re-built all my sites (and this took about six months). In a matter of weeks, my sites were being found and people started buying what I recommended. It was the real turning point in my home business.

This fall, Ken decided to give away Make Your Site Sell! as a free download. Even though I still believe it is worth much more than the previous price, it is now free. If you have a website and you want to earn more from it, download this book and read it. Then put to work what you learn from it.

Ken explains on the site why he decided to give away Make Your Site Sell! and concentrate on making Site Build It even better.

Eventually, I was able to scrape up enough to purchase my own Site Build It subscription.

For just $300 a year, I got not only a website, but an ever-growing collection of integrated tools (meaning I never have to install and manage scripts), a members-only community of thousands of helpful SBI site owners, regular newsletters with information to help me improve my sites and earn more, and the benefit of Ken Evoy’s wisdom and experience.

In a sea of Internet marketing hype, Ken presents the voice of experience, calm, and making slow progress towards building our businesses.

Ken is not one of the “gurus” who cleverly craft a marketing business to drain us of the money that remains in our wallets and bank accounts. If you go to Ken’s Blog and read his article on “Mooch Marketing,” you’ll know what I’m talking about.

I have never lost money when I follow Ken’s advice. More often than not, I increase the size of my commission checks, and for that I remain grateful to Ken.

I don’t want to mislead you. I am not getting rich and I don’t think I will, but that’s not my goal.

Right now, my main goal is to do what I love doing, and earn enough from it so I can continue to care for Mom and let her live in the house she has lived in for over 30 years.

I have worked hard at this, but I have to share part of the credit with Ken Evoy for being able to make this work.

You will note, I hope, that I don’t mention anyone else when sharing the credit for building my home business. I have learned from others. I have lost hard-earned money to others. Ken helps me keep on course and continue to build my business.

I do maintain quite a few other sites that are not powered by Site Build It, but I’m re-evaluating that decision. I have had problems with hackers destroying several of my sites. I’ve had problems with updating and maintaining scripts on them.

I am seriously considering closing most of my non-SBI sites and putting my efforts into doing more with Site Build It rather than continually bashing my head against the wall with the other sites.

I have learned a lot, and if I had to drop all my sites but one, it would be powered by Site Build It.

I hope you enjoy your holiday season and have a happy, prosperous, and healthy new year!

John L. Dilbeck

AYearFromNow.com - Act On Your Dream!

My primary blog: John Dilbeck And Friends

Recently, Ken Evoy, CEO of Sitesell, and developer of Site Build It!, started blogging.

His Sitesell Blog discusses topics related to Internet Marketing, Sitesell products, and wider common-sense posts about living a better life and helping others do the same.

I recommend Ken, his products, and his blog to you.

Act on your dream!

JD

You’ve been wanting to build your online business, right?

Have you compared Site Build It! to other hosting options?

If you haven’t, why don’t you take a few moments and do so now?

This can be the year you take control and start working for yourself.

Buy one Site Build It site for the regular price and you can get a second one for only $100 more. You can keep this second site for yourself or give it to your spouse, sibling, child, parent, other family member, friend, or business associate. Challenge each other to achieve the success you want.

You don’t get a free SBI, but you do get the second one for about one-third the normal price for the first year.

What are you waiting for?

Site Build It can’t guarantee your success with your online business, but it will surely give you a huge advantage over any other way that I know of.

Where will you be a year from now if you get started with your Site Build It site right now?

This offer will expire at the stroke of midnight on September 6, 2006. Don’t miss it.

firstRSS, by Chris Hatcher, is an outstanding plugin for syndicating (publishing) RSS feeds in your WordPress 2 pages.

Previously, I was using CaRP for this purpose on static PHP pages and dynamic WordPress 1.5 pages. It continues to be my script of choice for static PHP pages.

However, when upgrading several of my blogs, including Blog Feed Syndication and 21st Century Webhosting, from WordPress 1.5 to version 2, all my feed syndication died. I was using the plugin runPHP to execute CaRP commands in my blog pages, but it didn’t work when I upgraded the blogs.

I tested several solutions before I found firstRSS, which worked the best and was, by far, the easiest to use.

All you have to do is install the plugin in WordPress 2, activate it, and use a very simple call to list headlines or show full RSS feeds in your WordPress 2 pages. It is supposed to work in postings, too, but I have no need at this point for doing that and I have not tested it.

Converting from runPHP to firstRSS did require editing all the pages that were publishing remote RSS feeds, but it was easy to do, if a bit tedious.

I heartily recommend firstRSS to you if you want to publish RSS feeds in pages on your blogs powered by WordPress 2.

Thanks, Chris, for an elegant and easy-to-use way of syndicating these feeds.

Update: January 16, 2008…

I no longer recommend Ultimate Rep.

Following Kevin Anderson’s untimely death in 2007, the program stagnated and then declined rapidly.

Yesterday, when I went to my subdomain there, I got an error message. Apparently, the site is down and that may be permanent.

Either way, without Kevin’s genius and drive behind it, Ultimate Rep is no longer recommended.

Original post:

I am a very happy member of Ultimate Rep, a program designed primarily to market Cognigen’s products and services.

Kevin Anderson, the founder of Cognigen Networks, is the brains behind the Ultimate Rep program.

Let me say now that unlike some of the programs I recommend, I’m not sure Cognigen and Ultimate Rep are for everyone.

Some programs are easy to promote, such as GDI or BringYourBuddy, but Cognigen concerns telecommunications products such as cell phones, Internet access, broadband, VoIP, webhosting, domain registration, and other similar services. It takes quite a bit of work for a new agent to “learn the ropes” and feel comfortable with everything Cognigen offers.

Likewise, Ultimate Rep is a rather complicated program and will take some time and effort to really make use of it. However, once you’ve got everything set up, it offers some powerful tools to promote your Cognigen business and several other income programs. If you work your Ultimate Rep promotions diligently, you can build several residual income streams, in addition to Cognigen.

When Ultimate Rep was first announced, it was a requirement that all members had to be paid members of Empowerism, because Empowerism had an excellent autoresponder with 18 followup messages.

Empowerism announced around the beginning of August that they were discontinuing their autoresponder service, and, as a result, Kevin announced that Ultimate Rep members no longer had to be paid members of Empowerism.

That means that Ultimate Rep is now completely free to join and you can use it to promote Cognigen and any of the other programs you choose. This should make it a bit more attractive to people who did not want to join Empowerism.

Kevin announced that he is personally writing the code for an autoresponder that will do the followup to prospects who inquire about Ultimate Rep. This means that the messages can be customized even better to promote Ultimate Rep.

So, although it is causing some disruption and means more work for Kevin, I think that this is a very positive change for Ultimate Rep.

If you’ve been on the fence, now you can get a free membership and see what’s going on with Ultimate Rep from the inside.

I now recommend that all Cognigen agents get a free membership in Ultimate Rep. You don’t have to join anything you don’t want, and, like Cognigen, you don’t have to pay to be a member.

Don’t wait, go get it.

Update: January 16, 2008

I no longer recommend Home Income Team.

I think it is a great way to learn a lot of effective ways to market online and has a good downline builder.

There are two reasons I canceled my membership and don’t recommend it:

1. It’s primary program is GDI and I’m not happy with it, so I don’t promote it any longer.

2. There is a heavy emphasis on safelists and I have a very bad feeling about them. There’s too much emphasis on gaming the system. Yes, they may be effective for some people, but I’m not going to recommend that you use a safelist. I believe that you’re much better off building your list slowly than trying to take shortcuts.

Other than that, I think Michael Cobb’s system is good. If you want to join, see Soren Jordansen’s sign-up page at:

http://www.home-income-team.com/info/signeuhausen

Original post:

Michael Cobb’s Home Income Team site has been revised for 2006.

Several changes were introduced and now the program is free for anyone. Previously, you had to join at least one paid premium program to participate.

I just wrote an article about the revision and some of the features, including the new home income site free website builder on my Ultimate Downlines blog.

I like the revised and updated 2006 version of the Home Income Team and recommend that you get your free membership today.

I have been spending a lot of time working with Peter Dobler’s Power Blog and the more I work with it, the more I like it.

I just wrote a page about the Power Blog on my Ultimate Downlines blog that tells you much more.

I highly recommend the Power Blog and urge you to get your free membership today.

Context: advertising, free advertising, viral advertising, online advertising

In under five minutes, you can get your FREE viral classifieds mini site and start a flood of new visitors to your website.

It’s easy. It’s free.

Do it today and pass the word along.

Context: Kevin Anderson, Ultimate Rep, Cognigen Networks, sponsoring, success, online business

A couple of days ago, I received an email from Kevin Anderson, who founded Cognigen Networks, and is now busy working on building Ultimate Rep, which recommends several companies. By joining the affiliate programs for each of those companies, and following the directions in our Ultimate Rep backoffice, each of us can develop several streams of income and build multiple downlines.

Kevin has picked some very interesting companies to support and I’ve been busy for the last week or so joining some new companies and learning how to promote what they offer.

Anyway, as I said, I received an email from Kevin, and, in it, he said:

John, I’ve decided to share my greatest frustration with you. I KNOW, with all my being, that if I can just get people to LISTEN to me, and PAY ATTENTION to what I teach, there is no member of UltimateRep who cannot earn good money with a few months of effort. The problem is getting people to listen. If you are actively promoting your UltimateRep business, then you share my frustration; because most of your leads are not becoming members, and most of those who do become members do not take the steps they need to take to build a successful online business; even though the steps are spelled out in great detail on the member’s site.

I earn a great living online myself; but how much greater would it be, if I was a better sponsor, better able to build relationships with those I sponsor, and better able to inspire others to put in the minimal effort needed?

I immediately recognized the truth of his words and could feel the frustration coming through the screen as I continuted to read.

Here’s someone who made a fortune building Cognigen. He developed one of the first, if not the first replicated website for his affiliates. This was a huge development, because it meant we could build our own businesses by promoting our subdomain, i.e., johndilbeck.LD.net, on the corporate website and all our affiliate codes would be carried through all the pages of the site, but we wouldn’t have to maintain it. In other words, someone at Cognigen would manage and maintain LD.net, and I just have to promote my version of the site, which is always up-to-date with no effort on my part.

All an affiliate has to do is become an Independent Representative and refer people to his or her automatically-replicated website. The folks at corporate work behind the scenes keeping it up to date for us — and we don’t have to pay for any of this!

Our job is to advertise and promote the products and services offered by the companies that have marketing agreements with Cognigen. Eventually, as we continue to make sales, we get to cash the commission checks we receive.

What could be simpler?

We join the company under an existing sponsor and devote our energies to referring people to our websites. Then we follow up on questions and do our best to help our visitors understand what the company offers.

I’m a happy rep for Cognigen, and I’m also a happy customer. I register many of my domain names and host several websites using their services.

I’m not much interested in phones, long distance calling, cell phones, and some of the other core products Cognigen offers, but I’m happy to tell you about them.

Other reps are totally devoted to the latest cell phone and all its snazzy new features (and couldn’t care less about the Internet services that interest me most). They, and their friends, can get some of the best deals available through Cognigen. You, too, can get outstanding deals on new cell phone service through Cognigen.

So, over the last couple of years, I’ve become something of a Kevin Anderson fan.

I’ve been watching as he continues to develop Ultimate Rep. He is using some of the skills he learned in building Cognigen to help us promote several other companies. Now, instead of earning just one stream of income, we can create a half-dozen or more revenue sources.

I don’t know nearly as much about all of this as Kevin does, and I’m enjoying following his lead.

It was just last week that I finally recognized the potential of Ultimate Rep and started working the system.

As Kevin said, it takes only a small amount of effort to join the programs, learn what each company is doing and what they offer, and then drive traffic to the site so that others, perhaps you, can do the same. Working together, we all can do our part to build our income.

On the other hand, of course, we all lose when any of us doesn’t do our part.

I’m trying my best to build my online business. What about you?

You will not get rich over night with no effort. But, with persistent effort, over time, you can earn a nice income while working from home. Three years ago, I didn’t know much of anything about Internet marketing, and now I earn 100% of my income by representing a variety of companies and recommending the products and services they offer.

At first, I didn’t think I would ever earn anything, and I wasn’t totally convinced that it wasn’t all a great scam.

Now, every time the mail runs, I’m happy to see which company is sending me a check. I don’t get a check every day, but I’m getting more and more of them, and they are getting larger. I know all I have to do is continue to recommend products and services I’m happy to use to visitors like you.

I also know that I need to watch carefully and not recommend anything that isn’t a great buy.

Whether you buy or not, and whether or not you decide to join any of the businesses I represent, I’m happy you found your way here and I hope you’ll come back. Please subscribe to my RSS feed using your feed reader or via email.

I’ll do my best to recommend something that can change your life for the better.

And if you want to start your own business, I’m happy to talk to you about it.

Any thoughts or comments?

Context: LinkScout, affiliate marketing, free advertising, search engine, link exchange, affiliate programs

You can get a free affiliate marketing suite at LinkScout.

Why?

The main reason I recommend this site is because you can easily add your affiliate programs, network marketing programs, websites, blogs, lenses, forums, affiliate sites and links, and more, and advertise just one URL.

You can build a site here for free, but it is well worth the $10 per month or $79 per year (as of May 5, 2006), to have a paid Associate membership. You can read about the extra benefits of an Associate membership and decide for yourself how valuable this could be to you in terms of saving both time and money.

I’ve had a free membership for about two years and it’s been tucked away in the back of my mind for when I was ready to upgrade and get serious about marketing both their services and my products and services.

I’ll be talking more about LinkScout as I learn to use it more effectively.

If you want to sell more online, it is well worth investing $10 per month to centralize your advertising.

If you are involved in affiliate marketing or mlm, you should sign up for your free membership today.