I’m a musician.

I’m almost 31 years old now and I’ve only been able to confidently say that for the past year or so and with each passing day, my belief in myself grows.  It’s ok to call myself that because it’s what I do best and with the largest part of my heart.

I probably started plucking my dads guitar when I was really young, 8 or 9 even.  I remember my dad used to play a lot of beatles songs and sing them too.  He was actually pretty dam good, although you’d never hear him tout that.  I toyed with it again when I turned about 16 years old and started playing a little more.  It started catching on.  When I turned about 20 I was writing my first songs.  It’s not that I was a slow learner, I just didn’t commit to anything, even the things I loved like guitar.

I did play in some cool ass basement bands with my best friends Mike Assad and Matt Curtis from back home in Thunder Bay.  I’m not sure we were trying to get to the point of playing shows, but I can tell you the exact moment when I really decided that I wanted to be on stage playing.

I was at a bar called The InnTowner and there was a battle of the bands going on.  They were covering Counting Blue Cars by Dishwalla.  They were seriously nailing it….it sounded so good and I thought they were just the fucking coolest thing ever.  They inspired me, it was then.

But I had quit college again for the second time in two years, not much was going good for me.  I had lost my job at the A&W cause I had sex with my boss then decided not to date her cause I was a young guy in college.  She was so pissed that quitting was really the only choice I felt I had.  So the money was gone, school was out and I was broke.  So were all my friends that I was living with, all 4 of them.  5 if you count Joe.

I moved back to Alberta to be with my parents and shifted around within the province for the next 3 years.  More school drop outs, more girls and broken hearts, and more drifting.  I didn’t know what I wanted to do.  I ended up deciding to bicycle across the North and South American continents but I only made it to Florida and my partner and I couldn’t see eye to eye anymore.  We had to split and the journey ended over a year pre-mature. 

It was then that I sat there in Florida asking myself what it is that I really wanted to do with my life.  What direction do I really want to take.  I asked my heart and it answered.  Go back to your friends, your best friends.  Go back and play in a band again.  So I moved back to Thunder Bay when I was 25 years old to play music.

I was doing alright for money because I still was doing decently with my Internet Business.  So I really did have time to do the things I wanted to do.  I kept journaling strong, a habit I picked up from the daily entries I made while biking across the US.   If you read my journals from my two years in Thunder Bay, I was pretty happy, although I was never satisfied with the level my music was at.

I got into a band called Divided because my buddy Mike was the drummer.  He pretty much was the reason I stuck cause at first I don’t think Nicky Lewandowski liked me for the band that much.  But things worked out and we did really well for ourselves.  I achieved so many of my goals with that band, my first live show in which I was so excited at the open jam I yelled at the sound guy for cutting us off.  I played the biggest bar in Thunder Bay called Roxy’s as the only opener for Default.  What a great show that was….the energy was fantastic.  And I spent time recording demo music in both home studio’s as well as a semi-professional studio with Luke Gladue.  All in all it was a great time.

But Divided came to an end when frustrations from my freedom wanting to move elsewhere to further the band came up against the reality of the 3 other guys inability or unwillingness to just pick up and leave without first being big.  Something I’d run into again and again.  I was always more of the ‘take the risk’ then worry type.

I was supposed to move to Vancouver with my girlfriend, but she decided to not be with me anymore because she ended up cheating on me and couldn’t deal with the guilt or thought it wouldn’t be fair to me.  Either way, she’s was right.  So I no longer wanted to move to Vancouver as that was the spot where she broke the news to me and I didn’t want that sour taste in my mouth for that city.

So back to Edmonton in March of 2006, back to college buddies and regular bars that I once knew…only this time, with music on the mind.  I pretty much wasted the first half of the year and my bank account at the Stonehouse pub.  I was however making acquaintences with some musicians who I’d eventually form a band with first called Not In Stone, then changed to Rigveda as it evolved through players and songs.  Rigveda did alright and at least got me known in the cities music scene.  I wrote a few more songs and recorded them, some weren’t that bad.

Then in September of 2007 I joined Hollywood Assassyn which I am still currently in.  This band has by far had the most potential of all the bands I have been in.  We are recording a full album at a real studio with a real producer and I’m hoping for the best of things to come.

I’m also writing a lot of accoustic music that I plan on releasing as solo stuff.  I did try to introduce it to Hollywood but it never took.  That’s ok, I like having two projects anyways.

So now I’m sitting here writing all this stuff and remembering that I started off so long ago playing music.  I never would however call myself a musician.  There were always people around me who looked the part better, or talked the game better and sometimes they just were better.  But I never once really looked at myself that way.  I always felt like I was just faking it because I loved it so much and I wanted to be a part of it.

But I don’t know, something slowly changes and then you wake up a realize that you really are that person you used to look at and want to be.  I can play drums, guitar, bass, sing, write, perform.  I’ve played in at least 10 different bands or versions of bands and I’ve probably played live on stage 50 times at least, some of which were pretty big openers.  I’ve recorded and written over 20 songs….not many, but I’m a slow writer and it’s getting easier every time I sit down to do it.

I am a musician.  Not because I’m faking it anymore…it’s because every choice I make in life has at least something to do with music and it’s the direction I took 6 years ago when I turned 25 and I still haven’t changed course.  I’ve travelled down that path for that long and I don’t want to quit.  I’m a musician and music will always be a part of my life because it’s in me.  It’s what god gave me.  And I love it.

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ya, I really do hate starting off a new blog entry with a bunch of crappy excuses as to why I haven’t written in so long.  Make a long story short…I’m lazy.  Isn’t that the dream of most Internet Marketers tho?  To make so much money that they can be lazy and not work?  Ha ha….that’s not at all the case with me.

My last post talks about my new band Hollywood Assassyn which I’m still in, and we are doing great.  We ended up getting 4th place in our provice of Alberta for the music competition, pretty solid finish if you ask me considering how new of a band we are.

Then I also decided to get a ‘real job’ as a renovations worker.  Me and my girlfriend Angela want to slowly work our way into the real estate market and knowing how to a lot of the work ourselves would really help.  So I took the job, not so much for the money, but for the knowledge.    Boy oh boy…for someone who has been sitting behind a keyboard for the past 10 years, I sure quickly realized how hard so many people in life work.

I mean, I’ve only been working the real work for 2 months and every night I come home so tired and so drained.  All I want to do is eat and watch tv to fall asleep to so that I can do it again tomorrow morning!  I mean, I even like my job because I know that I’m learning some very valuable skills, and my girlfriend has seen me lose a lot of my belly which is cool too…but maaaan does it ever suck the life out of me.

I mean, I love Internet Marketing and I love reading about new things that are going on.  I love setting up JV’s and crafting emails and all that great stuff.  I love meeting new people and talking about new ideas and ways to make money online.  I love it all…but over the past two working months, I have had the hardest time actually getting to work and not just ‘Facebooking’.  Add me if you like by the way!

I got a really good taste of something that most people go through everyday…and to be totally honest without being disrespectful…I hate it.  I hate that my most creative and inspiring hours are spent making someone else rich while so many great ideas or work bursts of energy pass by cause I’m somewhere else doing someone else’s work.

So I have cut myself down to part time and vowed to renew my energies into things that I love, or that make me a lot of money so that I can set myself free again.  Free to play my guitar, and record songs, and write messages like these to you great people who read them, and discover new territory on the internet, and sleep in a little and all that great stuff.

Listen….if you read this and you can relate to what I’m talking about…like if you hate that your best hours are givin to someone else making them rich while they lay around by the pool on vacation…you have DO SOMETHING about it.  You have to make a move.  Make ANY move…it doesn’t matter how small or insignificant you may feel it is.  MAKE THAT MOVE.

You know all the sayings, 1000 mile journey begins with the first step…ya it’s corny and cheesy and overused, but it’s also true.  There are opportunities out there that you can do part time at first and grow into a business later.  Trust me…how do you think I got my start?  I mean some people start off rich, but you and me ain’t that person are we?  We have to work our own asses off to get anywhere. 

But if you don’t work your own ass off, it’s always gonna be there all big and chunky and slowing you down where ever you go.  ;o)

Please feel free to comment on my blog and share with me your story or thoughts.  I will write again soon with one way that I’m making a move to an even more financially and energetically free lifestyle.

With love, and now even a little real life experience to relate to you with…
Ian

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The last 10 weeks of my life have been so awesome. I have been playing with a new band who I feel really suits a style of music I love to play. 80’s/90’s rock Seattle style. Think ‘Alice In Chains’ meets ‘Metallica’ and ‘STP’. It’s good music.

The circumstances under which I met this band were completely ridiculous and off chance. People were involved in the formation of this band as far back as Rigveda’s 3rd show where a friend introduced me to another friend who like our style and introduced me to the idea of an Alice In Chains style project.

Months went by with the idea never really dying but no true focus went into it…it was all into my own band Rigveda.

So things didn’t quite work out with that guy, and the other guy who was supposed to be the other singer happened to be at a show I was also at about month later. I had the opportunity to talk to him at The Band Ranch which I played a solo accoustic set at, but I couldn’t work up the nerve. For some reason I thought he might be a dick or something. I dunno.

I remember when I first moved to Edmonton, I actually saw that guys band online and listened to them and read all about them. A friend of mine Riley, at the Stonehouse Pub told me about them. I remember thinking it would be rad if I could play with a band like that, but they were touring and on an indie label and stuff. Way out of my league. Maybe that’s why I thought he’d have an attitude…cause he’d been to pretty cool places in music in my mind.

Well at the show, I just said whatever and I ended up shootin the shit with him and his buddy who he was there with. I introduced myself as the other player that was supposed to be in the Alice In Chains type project, and told him how bad I wanted to play and that it was frustrating not to be playin.

He asked what I did and I told him sing and play pretty tight rythm, but not great leads. He said that’s what they were looking for and invited me to try out. He introduced me to his friend he was there with who also happened to be the bass player for the new project which was less than 1 year old.

That guy was Jay Chamulke and his friend Sylvain Maltais. The name of the band was Hollywood Assassyn. They sent me on my way with a website address where I could hear some of their toons and decide if I wanted to move forward. Within one week we had our first jam. Pretty dam fast.

I met the drummer Troy that practice who had been playing with Jay for 5 years or something, so they were pretty tight when I got there and the music style was also real good…right up my alley. Right on, perfect. Learn your shit, don’t mess it up.

After my 2nd jam, they told me we had a show booked in two weeks and 1 more booked 2 more weeks after that for the full set. Presssure? Ya, I was a little worried, but loved the tunes so it’s a lot easier to learn em when you dig em.

The first show was the Bodog Battle of the Bands which is a Canada/USA/Europe wide battle with something like 5,000 bands entering. The eventual winner gets a $1,000,000 recording contract. So for our first show ever, we played a quick 4 songs set to see if we could make it to the next level.

54 bands in Edmonton entered to qualify for the live show through online voting and we finished #6 in Canada which also placed us #1 in Edmonton and Alberta. 30 bands were eliminated and the top 24 bands played the live show that night at Jet Night Club in Edmonton.

We freaking won that. After only 4 jams with the band, we came in 1st place and qualified for the city finals. wow…talk about awesome.

So I mean there was some pretty good stuff going on for us, but we hadn’t played live yet together, so I honestly didn’t put to much into the show. All I wanted to do was have a good show so the guys would want to keep me in the band…I liked it man! We’d finish where we finish and whatever right? But after realizing we won, I was in a new head space.

I know this band can do even better…it’s only our first show man. Shit…there might really be something here.

We played three more live shows with the next 6 weeks, 2 good shows and 1 kinda not so good show. I even introduced a new song that took to the band. We also managed to sneak into PowerSound Studios and record 2 the two tracks ‘Heed’ and ‘Pretty Shade of Blue’ with Phil Anderson who was also on my list of ‘people I want to work with in Edmonton.’

Those two tracks were the first two that I was on recording, but actually the 5th and 6th songs already recorded at PowerSound with Phil Anderson. The bands barely 10 months old and already have 6 songs recorded at one of Edmonton’s premier studios with one of Edmontons more respected producers. That’s more the speed I have been looking for all my life.

Everything tho for myself was all leading up to preparation for the Edmonton City finals. I wanted so badly to improve our performance and really truly impress the judges.

Finally it was time to play the Edmonton city finals for the Bodog Battle, a big show for me personally, the Edmonton finals. My goal was to leave Thunder Bay to come make an impact in the Edmonton music scene. That’s not really an easy thing to do unless your super fucking committed, or a retardedly great player. I’m the first one. So for me this show could play a pivitol role in me achieving one of my first major goals in music.

We were at home practicing our set 3 times over while the first bands were already playing their live sets. nice boys…nice.

The crowd responded quite well to our set and each time our name was called over the PA it was followed by tons of cheers. I finally brought out backing vocals for all 4 songs in the set. I had to learn the songs first on guitar so that I could play them by memory, then the words, then the harmonies, then get comfortable doing it all together. It’s kinda tuff but I knew by city finals that if we made it, I’d be ready. I remember telling that to Syl. It will come. I felt like we played and sounded pretty good.

Well…we won that round too! 1st place baby. I just found out today that after all the judging and voting we came out in the number 1 spot a-g-a-i-n. I’m blown away.

It’s not that I don’t think we are good, or that we don’t deserve it. It’s just to actually see us there at #1 among all those other bands in Edmonton, of which some are super good, is such a fucked up feeling of accomplishment. It’s pretty cool.

And not only did we finish #1 in online voting, #1 at the first live round, and #1 at the city finals, we were the only band to make that happen in Canada so far. A clean sweep…that’s cool. I’m stupified…I love it.

So we are headed down to Calgary, AB to play the Back Alley Night club on Jan 27th of 2008. I’ve watched some great bands play there and always had my mind on playing that bar. It’s THE bar that I wanted to play in Calgary, and now my first live show in Calgary, will be there. Unreal.

If we make it past that round, we are off to Toronto to play against the top bands in Canada. Whoa…one step at a time is what I have to tell myself now all the time. I’ve already gone father than I thought I would go at the start of this all. Now all that’s left to do is hang on and see how much farther this is actually going to take me. I’m in baby…

Yet Troy and Jay remain totally calm and collected about it all while I’m the rookie who’s finding it hard to contain my excitement. I feel Syl’s excitement too. I’m learning a lot from these guys and the success I’ve experienced in only 2 and a half months in the band far has been completely what I’ve always wanted. A whirlwind.

I love being the rookie, there so much more to learn as that person.

Hollywood Assassyn is the band I’m in, and I love it.

http://www.hollywoodassassyn.net

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Hey Everyone,

   So I’ve been in a new band here in Edmonton now for about 2 months.  My old band called Rigveda has officially parted ways and moved on to other projects.

  I was supposed to move to Vancouver, BC but didn’t quite make it.  However luck would have it that I got into a new project that I’m enjoying quite a lot.  We are called Hollywood Assassyn and we are an originals only 4 piece hard rock band.  I play lead guitar and sing back up vocals, I’m back into the same position I was in my first gigging band Divided.

  So in the very short time that we have been together, we have already accomplished everything all my previous bands took me 4 years to do.  First off, placed Top 6 in Canada and #1 in Edmonton in an online voting portion of a huge battle of the bands called the Bodog Battle.  That earned us a spot in a live show for the city with the top 24 online bands out of the 54 total.  The live show happened at Jett Night Club and was my first show with the band.  Of the 12 bands who played, we ended up winning the show…wow, what a great start.

  We’ve played 2 more live shows and have been paid a total of $580 for those two shows.  Plus we already have t-shirts printed up and sold a few at our 3rd live show which was one of the best we have played yet.  We are already better and we keep getting better.

  When I came into the band they already had 4 of their songs recorded at Power Sound Studio’s in Edmonton, they are considered by many musicians here the premier recording studio in Edmonton.  However, we have already been back into the studio to record 2 more songs of which I played on.  So now we have 6 songs recorded in total.

  So that’s all been in 2 months.  We have 2 more shows already booked and have been offered a pretty good deal to record a radio ready album at Power Sound and we are thinking of taking it.  We’ll see what happens.  We just aren’t slowing down.  Word of mouth is spreading for the band already and it just seems the ball is really rolling.  It’s pretty great.

  I’m also working for a music promotions company in Edmonton called JCL Productions which books mainly touring bands into local venues and helps promote the shows and takes care of the bands needs when they are here.  Possibly we are trying to expand into getting more gigs in town and more artists booked.

  I’m also going to start bartending at my local watering hole, the Stonehouse Pub in order to make some extra bucks to help me pay for the bands needs as well as meet some potential new fans!  I don’t really have any experience with it, but I seem to know a lot of people and the bar likes that I’m in a band and working for a music comany, cause that’s potential new customers for them.

  And then there’s work.  Oh work.  Ha ha…I’ve never really been the biggest fan of work, but really who has?  I do love Internet Marketing.  I love the freedom it has provided me with.  But I’ve been getting so busy with music and promoting and then living, it’s been hard to get myself to work.

  But I do have a really great product that is built, it’s called Smart Subscriber.  About 98% of the work to run this program is done.  I pretty much just have to release it to the public.  It’s actually been ready for about 4 months and I was supposed to release it a long time ago.  But I’m scared.

  I have put so much into this product that I fear it won’t work and I’ll feel like a miserable failure.  So I’m pretty sure the answer is just to take the plunge and release it.  And since you care enough about me to read all the way to the end of this post, I want you to see it.  But could you do me a favor?

  Could you please tell me what you think of it, and where you think it could be better.  If I can make it all better according to most of your suggestions, then I’m sure it will increase my chances of having a better release!  Just click on this Smart Subscriber link to go check it out.

  So that’s what’s been going on with my life in those areas!  I hope it’s at least, entertaining.

  PS.  Before you go, it would also be great if you do leave me some comments right here on the blog.  Comment about anything, the music or what you think of the Smart Subscriber.  I just want to get into the habit of you guys really telling me what YOU think!  Your thoughts will be readable by everyone.

  I’ll comment back too!  I want to make this blog more a means of communication between me and you ok!  Cool!

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Hey everyone,

  So I’m pretty sure from the header graphic that you know I’m a musician as well as an Internet Marketer.  Well this post is more about music than business.

  I recently got into a new band named Hollywood Assassyn.  It was pure luck how I even found these other guys but once I jammed with them, I really dug the music and it was an easy decision for me to want to stay.  That didn’t necessarily mean they would accept me.

  Well after only 2 jams,  they told me we were entered into a huge music competition called the Bodog Battle of the Bands and that our first show was only 3 more weeks away, talk about pressure hey!  You may have even heard of Bodog,  or seen it on tv it’s pretty big.  USA, Canada and Europe are all involved and they are in a search for 10 bands from across the countries to sign 1 of them to a $1,000,000 contract.

  So when I joined the band, they were already #7 out of 844 bands in Canada for the online voting portion of the voting.  That’s pretty dam good, but any computer savy musician could get a lot of votes for his band, so it’s more the live shows that I felt that really mattered. 

  I had a total of 4 practices with my new band before the first live competition in my home town of Edmonton, not very many.  And 24 bands out of 54 entered into online voting made it to the live shows.  We played a quick 20 minute 4 song set and got of the stage.  Then I partied like a rock star.  At the end of the night, they announced in NO-PARTICULAR-ORDER the top 12 who would be making it to the next round which is the finals of Edmonton.  I was pretty excited to hear ‘Hollywood Assassyn’ called out 2nd. 

  Then for the last 4 days I have been online pressing refresh because on the Bodog website, they list each city and their show details including the actual placing of each band after the show.  The show was judged on audience voting as well as the Bodog panel of judges.

  Well this morning I woke up and found out that my new band had placed first overall!  Holy man I’m so excited…so I thought I’d share it with you and also give you a couple of links if you wanted to check out our music and some pictures from the show and what not!  So here’s the links.

  The link to the Edmonton live show page showing us placing first!  Click here.  By the way, if you click on our band name, you’ll see a button to vote.  It would be great if you could vote for us to keep us high up in the standings.  You’ll have to register to vote, but I would really appreciate it!

  http://www.myspace.com/hollywoodassassynmusic is our MySpace page where you can view pics of me and the boys playing the battle and listen to the tunes.

  Ok that’s all for now.  The next show is Dec 3rd and the Top 3 make it to the Alberta, Canada finals and we truly hope to be there but are already blessed and honored to be #1 in Edmonton.

  Yeeeeeeee haaaaaaawwww!

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Hey all,

  So Keith Wellman just released some new content on a few new ideas on how to build a solid opt in list really quickly.  He outlines some really cool new strategies instead of the same old “put up a sqeeze page and send traffic” ideas.  For instance,  here’s an idea that I read that is simply ingenious!

  Hire a programmer from Rent A Coder or Scriptlance.  Get them to take an already exisiting piece of software on the market, that you chose, and recreate it in a free version.  Now give away the software on sites like Download.com or even offer it to other newsletter publishers as a great no strings free gift for their own subscribers.

  Offer the freebie WITHOUT a subscribe box on your page.  Just the download link for the software.  But then have the programmer make it so that the software must be registered to work properly!  Have all the registrations by email point to your own autoresponder and voila!  You’ve just created a new way to get tons of targetted subscribers without using a traditional methods.

  The downside is that there are upfront programming costs involved, but they aren’t really that high.  The upside, is that you can easily create a way for this to become a viral beast and you’ll really grow your list.

  Good idea hey!?

  Now if you want to see more ways like this one to help you create your own opt in list, just follow the link below by clicking on it.

  Opt In List Building Secrets

  Enjoy it!

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Awesome!

  I’m glad you came to read this….as I said in the email, I truly feel your going to love what’s here.

  Have you ever thought that maybe one of the easiest ways to start turning a profit online is to purchase an already successful and established business.  It seems logical doesn’t it?

  I mean why not take a business that is in the Affiliate/Internet Marketing niche that you are already in, knowing that it’s already being sold elsewhere with high conversions, and just buy the whole dang business outright.  Why not?!?! 

  I mean, you’d have your own already-tested-to-be-profitable business in your hands.  Best of all, all that hard work of researching the right market, creating the product from scratch, building the website, adding the back-end content, finding/hiring/firing the sales copy writers, and graphic designers, would all be done already.

  Makes sense doesn’t it?

  Ah…your right…it could be very expensive however to front the costs for an already successful business.  I mean no one sells their profit machines cheaply do they?  And let’s face it, even though you are probably going to make your investment back pretty dam fast, you really don’t have the kind of money to fork over to purchase an entirely successful business, do you?  I understand that one for sure.

  But what if you could get that business?  What if the price is actually way less expensive than you think and the business you are going to own is actually even-better than you imagine or than I am describing? 

  Well….guess what?

 Terry Tellford is selling off his business and if you act fast enough, you can purchase it from him, and it’s not going to be as expensive as you think.  Check it out below.

So Here’s What You’ll Get Today:

(But be quick, we’re only accepting
500 people. First Come First Served.)

	Proven Sales Letter One that’s converting at an average 8.6%. That means 8 out of every 100 people that read the sales letter, sign up as a member.
	Instant Access For Your New Members. As soon as your new member pays you, they get instant access to the membership area!
	100% Profit From Every Sale. You keep 100% of the monthly recurring income or Lifetime membership fee!
	Affiliate Rights. You can set up your own affiliate program and have other people sell memberships for you.
	Flexible Sales Terms. You decide how you want to sell the memberships. Monthly recurring, lifetime, or premium offer.

  Want to know more?  Hurry and check out the website below, because I guarantee you that this one is going to sell pretty dam fast!

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Hey there,

  So before I even start you reading this, I want you to zip over to Google.com and do a search for ‘free month of hosting’.  You should be able to find TheGuruMarketer.com, which is my site, sitting there on the 1st page beating out almost 50,000,000 other pages.  That’s a pretty competitive keyword phrase if you ask me and it’s ranked on first page of Google.  WOW!

  So how did it happen?

  Alright…here’s the dealio.  Most SEO experts will tell you that one of the most important things you need to do is optimize your webpage for the specific keyword you want to be found for.  But if you look at the source code of the page mentioned above, you’ll notice I don’t have either the META NAME=”keywords” or META NAME=”description” tags in my head.  I also don’t have the keyword phrase ‘free month of hosting’ or ‘free month hosting’ in my first paragraph of text, which is considered to be a great way to improve keyword density and ranking.

  I simpy have the page title set to “TheGuruMarketer.com - Free Month of Hosting.”  That’s it.  So why without those key attributes is that page still ranking so darn high?

  It actually came down to one thing, incoming links with high Page Rank values.   I have just over 50 incoming links to my site, according to Alexa.com and if you look at that list you’ll see quite a few of them are from blogs of other sites where I have either left a comment, or made a post.  The important thing about those websites is that they have a high Page Rank value and Google really likes that.

  So once I figured this out, it was off to the races on trying to find good blogs with high page rank values that I could start commenting on and getting incoming links to my sites for various keywords.  But man…let me tell you it’s a pretty hard task to find relevant blogs with high page ranks.  Finding even a handful can take hours.

  But alas, I have found a savior and best of all, it’s free.  It’s called Comment Hut and it’s a nifty piece of software that takes all the work out of finding relevant blogs with high page rank values for you to get involved with and start commenting on. 

  Yes I said it’s free.  So if you want a free copy for yourself, head over to the Comment Hut page.  There’s a video you can watch that will explain what the software does and how it works.  You’ll be able to grab your free copy from there as well!

  For my next post, I’m going to write up a step by step blue print guide that you can use to find a good niche market with great products to promote, find the highest searched keywords for your niche that have low search competition, and how to set up a page dedicated to drawing free search engine traffic, and making sales using tools such as Comment Hut, Micro Niche Finder, Word Press Blogs, and guides such as Blogging To The Bank 2.0.

  Ya ya…hope you like it!

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Hey Guys and Gals,

  So last week I was telling everyone about how I was being bombarded with emails for the new Sal The Site Stealer ebook.  About half the marketers lists I am on are promoting this ebook like crazy.  So I went and purchased a copy myself to see what everything is all about.

  The first thing I noticed is that the ebook comes with about 10-15 extra un-announced bonuses which really surprised me.  Hmm…maybe he was trying to compensate for a crappy ebook?  Well I browsed the bonuses but went ahead to read the ebook.  It turns out the bonuses are actually complimentary guides, videos, and software that come very handy at certain sections of the ebook.

  The ebook itself is actually really good!  I mean ‘really’ good.  It’s no longer a surprise to me why it sold over 4000 copies in it’s first week. 

  I know a heck of a lot about Internet Marketing, so some of the information in the first chapter was a little repetitive for me.  The first of 5 Levels: “The Swipe and Grab” was pretty basic stuff about grabbing headlines and split testing them on your own sites, but quickly into the 2nd Level: “Swipe and Run”, I was really finding out some great new tricks of the trade on how to take a successful site and ’steal it.’

  I do want to state that even though he calls it stealing, it’s not.  You are simply taking techniques that worked for people before you and modifying them to suit your needs.  It’s all explained in the ebook.

  Sal uses a lot of flow chart diagrams to explain the methods he’s using and maybe that’s why it clicked for me.  I could just understand it so well.  I was extremely pleased to this point.

  And at Level 3:  “Knock Over the Whole Store” is where I realized that this ebook is definately going to be responsible for helping me to monetize all my sites in new and exciting ways that I have seen before, but for some reason this ebook explains them in a way that makes it all click for me.  A few of the business models he explains in this level are;

 - Resell Rights
 - One Time Offers
 - Free Product (Front End) + One Time Offer (Back End)
 - Squeeze Page & Thank You Page tricks.
 - Down Selling (This is a way to still capture sales from lost OTO offers)
 - Make Your Money Back (An advanced technique to get your affiliates selling right away)
 - Membership Sites

  Now I know reading that, you have probably heard of all those techniquese…but trust me when I say from experience that in this ebook, Sal explains how to use each of these systems in your own business and even couple these techniques for huge profits.

  Ok, I haven’t gotten to read Level 4 & 5 fully yet because I stopped to write this post out of excitement for the ebook.  But I browsed them and Level 4 is about how to use resell rights to turn huge profits.  Sal even talks about how most people think that the whole resell rights game is dead….but that’s only a sentiment shared by those who aren’t doing it properly.  He gives great examples.

  Level 5 is huge…and it’s an advanced blue print that teaches you about taking the first 4 Levels and putting them all on steriods.

  As I already mentioned, I haven’t finished reading 4 and 5, but once I do, I’ll post again and give you my synopsis on what they are about.  I should do that on Monday.

  But, this ebook is once again, another brilliant one with tons of great information in it that applies to most levels of internet marketers.  I really do suggest you get a copy as well as all those bonuses!

  I did love the ebook so much as well that I actually purchased the resell rights and I have lowered the price back down to what it was originally offered at, $37.  The ebook is now selling at $57 normally.  So if you want to grab a copy and save yourself $20,  do it from the link below.

  Grab your copy of Sal The Site Stealer now.  I give it two thumbs up for sure!

  PS. You will still get all of the bonuses and included stuff…because the download page is actually hosted on his site.

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hey everyone,

  Ok so my last post I was simply telling you about how I got ranked in Google on the first page for a whole bunch of keywords I found using Micro Niche Finder and using Squidoo as the blog I posted on.

  It worked amazingly well and within 7 days I was ranked as high as #1 for more than one keyword which I found amazingly surprising!  But then something really strange happened…

  I was checking my ranks for my keywords and I noticed that my actual blog, yes this same website you are reading right now also started ranking for those same keywords!  What?!?  In the broad matches of the short-tailed keywords, I was actually ranking much higher (up to 30 places) for my blog post than my Squidoo sites!  Wow!  

  The only problem is that I have no idea why the blog is ranking higher than the Squidoo sites.  Either way I don’t really care, but it has sparked a curiosity in me to see if I can’t get higher rankings for other keywords using the same methods.

  So the keyword I have chosen to use this time is ‘opt in list building’.

  I was searching for opt in list building on Google to see how one of my other sites, TheOptInStrategy.com ranks and I noticed that it ranked at 180 amount over 2 million sites.  That’s not bad…but it’s not great either.  I also noticed that I hadn’t actually done any sort of page optimization for the site either.  So I quickly changed that and here is what I added.

<meta name=“Keywords” content=“opt in list building, optin list-building, opt in list-building, list building, opt in email”>
<meta name=“Description” content=“TheOptInStrategy.com is a free ebook about opt in list building. If you want to build your opt in email list then download this free guide that will have you on your way to an opt in email list.”>   I simply added some meta tags and now here’s the test.  I’m going to ping this blog post using PinGoat.com and see in a couple weeks how my search engine rankings for this keyword phrase improve, if at all.

  If you have any comments, suggestions, or questions, please let me know ok!

  I’ll post again in a week!

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