But there’s still the criticisms of affiliate review sites like Site Review Authority that are audaciously suggesting items of significantly questionable quality. That sort of thing is addressed by forum boards however that cannot always work well.

The same applies to people choosing to work from home.

Nevertheless balancing all the elements in our lives is a constant juggling act in which we must give and take. When we find the right balance, all the spheres of our lives will come together to form a perfect circle around us. Balance is elusive when you start a business and work extraordinary hours. As for freedom–it doesn’t make any difference how much you have if you can’t feel relaxed when you do have time.

My book Achieving Objectives Made Easy! Practical goal setting tools & proven time management techniques will help you discover the areas of your life you would like to improve on and at the same time it’ll show you how to accomplish this. Eventually you’ll feel more enjoyment and relaxation in your life.

And it only takes an investment of less than 12$.

If you are looking for something wholesome to read on your next break. 

Take action now.

PS: I’m leaving for the provence now to enjoy some French sun.
No computers. No internet. No blogging. For at least a month. ;-) 

Take care,

XSitePro 2

If you’re not familiar with XSitePro (where have you been for the last three years?!) it’s a web site
design tool that has been specially designed with Internet marketers and online businesses in mind.

The list of features in XSitePro V1 was great, and I used it along with other favorites like wordpress blogs, dreamweaver and site build it.

However, ’Version 2′ takes it to a whole new level. It is quite simply the most feature packed web site design tool you’ll ever find.

But here’s the really great thing …

XSitePro2 is ideal whether you’re a newbie or a power user.

For the beginner it’s far easier to master than tools like Dreamweaver, there’s a great tutorial to help you get started, and the manuals that come with it are the best I’ve ever seen.

For power users it has a list of features that will help you create great sites quicker and easier than
ever before and do some things that were simply not possible until now.

Rather than me list all of the incredible features XSitePro 2 offers, I recommend you whiz over to their
web site now and take a look for yourself - It’s a long and mouth watering list.

Domain Dashboard makes it possible to:
-Manage all your WHM and cPanel accounts from one control panel – that’s right no more shuttling between programs and using different login info to access your servers.
-Have all your domain information automatically entered – think of all the time you’ll save not having to enter information for each and every one of your websites!
-Manage all your WHM and cPanel accounts from one control panel!
-Have all your domain information automatically entered!

Domain Dashboard completely automates the most tedious webmaster tasks associated with managing multiple domains, saving you days of time.
Create hundreds of domain accounts at one time with the push of a button.
Domain Dashboard is a tool that manages multiple websites.
The benefits to domain dashboard is search engine optimization along with being able to monitor your rankings and identify those who have been indexed to the search engines through back link searches with top search engines.
Domain Dashboard regularly scans my domains for certain data. The software is works super-fast and needs only a few minutes for all my domains to pull down statistical data.

Domain Dashboard is, in my opinion, one of the revolutionary ones.

Non affiliate link

Is it really the biggest factor in becoming successful?

Recent studies have shown that attitude, above education and other factors, has the biggest impact on your future success. If you have dreams that you want to achieve, you better start by evaluating your attitude.

Having a positive attitude and becoming a positive thinker is the most important step you can take in achieving your dreams. The best part is that it is relatively easy to become a positive thinker. It is just a matter of changing your habits of thought.

Positive thinking just requires that you change the way you handle the circumstances of your life. You want to start paying attention to the thoughts that you have throughout the day. Most of us have an internal monologue that goes through our minds during the day. Have you ever paid close attention to those thoughts?

Make it a habit to start monitoring your thoughts. Notice how many times in the day you are feeling discouraged, critical, sad, depressed or any one of many negative emotions. To set yourself up for better success, you’ve got to start thinking more positively.

When you become a positive thinker, you do not let one bad event ruin the rest of your day, or worse, the rest of your life. So many people walk around with a chip on their shoulder, and most of them do not even have a right to be mad. They are holding onto trivial matters and making themselves miserable.

Embrace the power of positive thinking by releasing those grudges. Allow yourself to react to bad events in your life, but pick yourself up again and keep on going toward your goal. Do not hold onto those bad feelings, and do not make yourself miserable. There is no point in holding onto those negative thoughts.

Positive thinking is not about being detached from reality. It is about taking charge of your reality, and taking charge of your thoughts. Whatever you concentrate on for most of the day is what you will create in your life. If you are concentrating on the negative, guess what you will get more of?

Become a positive thinker by focusing on the good in your life. You will begin to see more good come into your life, and then you will realize the true power of positive thinking.

To begin, you need to create a website for your business, not so much as a means of acquiring customers via cyberspace, but a customer service, education, and information center. For example, your website could offer answers to all the commonly asked questions, diagrams, etc. accessible free, 24 hours a day. You could even make a portion of your site “access restricted,” for customers, clients, subscribers, or “members” only, adding mystique to your marketing, and adding perceived value for your clientele!

This technique would work whether you have a brick and mortar or internet based business. For example, a restaurant could do this with “secret recipes” and special VIP offers; a clothing retailer with etiquette and fashion tips and special offers, and so on. Of course, you’ll also want a promotional area on your website designed for new customers and you’ll then want to add your website address to video brochures, audio recordings and infomercials for your advertising and marketing materials.

Second, begin collecting and organizing the email addresses of your customers and collecting the email address of visitors to your site.

With the list, you can do virtually free, push button marketing anytime you like, as often as you like. You can send out an email newsletter to your customers, or other information like tip sheets.

Let’s say you have a rather ordinary business; kitchen and bath business, for example. Here are a few of the things you might transmit by email to your customer list:

1. Resources to upgrade your countertops to granite or marble
2. Cabinet grade tips and suggestions
3. Special offers for new plumbing fixtures
4. Tips on determining the grade of cabinet materials
5. New product information

Keep in mind, regardless of your business or product you can use the above techniques for creating and marketing your website and business.

Third, in seeking publicity from the media, being able to fax, email or mail very brief, provocative news releases that refer the recipients to your website for more information is very useful.

Everybody in the media is online. And, some are lazy, so if they can research a story without leaving their chair, believe me, that’s the way they’re going to do it. If you go the route of writing articles for publication in your industry journals or article forums, you can even post a whole collection of them on your site, and invite any publication to download and use whatever they like.

In summary of my advice to most business owners about the internet: do Not be seduced, do Not buy into the hype and expect miracles or invest inordinate amounts of time or money. Do Not let the internet take away from your commitment to more reliable, predictable, results-measurable advertising and marketing media. But DO get involved. At whatever pace is comfortable for you, begin learning about the internet, getting your business on the Net, and experimenting with practical applications like those just described. Proceed calmly, deliberately, strategically.

Above all else, Just Do It!

Procrastination is a sly thing. Sometimes putting things off is not serious, sometimes it is serious. It can quickly become a habit.

One thing you need to remember, putting off until later may be too late, especially if it involves relationships. Waiting to let someone know how much you care about them could be disastrous. Too often we lose that person to someone else or perhaps to a tragic or early death. Then it is too late.

Chronic lateness is a form of procrastination as well. It could be lateness to meetings, appointments, social engagements, and the like. Or it could be tardiness in getting things done on time or meeting deadlines. The consequences over time could be very costly. It has even been known to be the cause of some divorces.

Procrastinators are not time conscious and cannot manage their time very well. One reason could be a feeling in inadequacy or incompetence. By putting things off they don’t challenge their self-worth. Rather than doing something badly, they just don’t do them at all. The fear of criticism keeps them from even starting the project or task.

Most self-improvement books approach the subject of procrastination from an egotistic point of view. They say you should not worry what other people think or say. Just do what you want.

The truth is, the root cause of procrastination is often due to a lack of concern for others. If a person is really interested in self-improvement, he probably isn’t a procrastinator anyway. He has “bigger fish to fry.”

Procrastination is a form of avoidance. In order to overcome it one must see the reason or value of doing the task and its relative importance among the many things one must do or wants to do. This involves setting priorities.

Self-advancement can be motivating only to a point. For something to be worth doing, not being put off, it must involve more than just self-interest. It must have a real purpose by being done.

So the next time you wonder why certain things you intended to do get put off so often, ask yourself: Are these things really important? Will they serve a useful purpose? If so, what is preventing me from doing it?

As to chronic lateness, experts believe the habit is learned early in life, usually from other members of the family. That carries over to school, work, and relationships. To break the habit of being always late, one should move up the deadline mentally. If the appointment you need to go to is at 7:00 p.m., aim for 6:30 or 6:45. Even if you are late by your mental deadline, you should be on time for the appointment.

There are many books and articles for putting an end to “putting it off.” Start reading some of them today.

More information (eka my book on time management and goal setting) can be found here.

To generate traffic to your site, you may have to do some dirty work. You have to distribute the backlinks of your site. Backlinks are the URL’s of your site posted in different places all over the internet. These are live links that people can click so that they get directed to your website. In order to amass traffic, you have to specifically add your backlinks - thousands of them to be exact - to key places over the internet.

Backlinks work two ways in generating traffic. The first way is the most obvious. When people see your backlink as they go about their surfing habits, then there is a 50-50 chance that they’ll visit your site. If you get people interested enough, then they will definitely check out your website and see the things you have to offer.

The best places to put your backlinks are websites that have regular high-density traffic. Well-populated forums and social networks are your best bets. These places have a lot of people coming in and out on a regular basis. You will definitely want your backlinks showing on your forum signature so that every time you make a comment on something, your backlink shows with your post.

You can apply this tip on almost all forums found over the internet today. Most of them allow at least one live backlink signature for each member. So go get yourself active in a forum with hundreds of thousands of members. With every post you make, you’ll have one important backlink to add up to your website’s advertising requirements.

Another place to put your backlinks is on social networking websites. Social networking websites have exploded recently. The main idea of these websites is for you to acquire a good number of friends, that are referred as your social network. And with more people associated with you, you are more likely to promote your website better. You can effectively invite people who are part of your social network to take a look at your site and see the things they can enjoy there. You can put the backlink on your own page. And of course, you can also post them all over your social network as a comment, message, or testimonial to your friends.

But this is just one way of how backlinks work. The other way backlinks become beneficial in generating website traffic is directly related to how search engines work.

Link popularity is one of the algorithms considered by search engines when it comes to ranking your page. The more popular your page is, the better they fare in the search engine results. And your selected keywords and backlinks have a lot to do with it. The more backlinks you have, the more popular your website gets.

So if a person types your website’s name, or sometimes even your chosen keywords in the search box, your website will show at the top of the results page. And in that position, you are more likely to get traffic to your site. Search engine marketing has always been the focus of most internet marketing strategies devised over the internet.

To add to the number of your active backlinks, you can submit your site to numerous link directories over the internet. Link directories are websites that are primarily dedicated to keeping a list of all submitted URL’s of other websites. The links are classified according to their respective categories. In effect, these websites look like an online yellow pages directory. Most of them offer their listing for free. However, there are others that require some sort of a fee for inclusion purposes.

So get yourself thousands of backlinks to make your site more popular. Backlinks will definitely drive that much-needed traffic to your site so don’t think twice about spending some time and effort in distributing them all over the internet. Just keep in mind that half of the success of your website depends on them.

I have several blogs and I am looking for ways to make some profit on it. I use Google Adsense and other pay per click advertising. However, I was looking for something that different and that’s when I came across ScratchBack.

You know the “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” concept? That’s what ScratchBack is. Visitors to my blog, tip me and in return they receive a link from my website to theirs.

This is so easy to do anyone can do it. Believe me if I can do it, you can too. You really don’t need any skills to set this up. It’s easy and in a matter of just a few minutes you can have it up and ready to make money.

It all begins with Top Spot. This is a widget you attach to your website or blog. You simply choose how you want your Top Spots area to look and the number of links you want to show up on it.

You can choose to show text links or images either one. You’ll also need to decide how many links you want to show up on the wideget. You have a choice of 5,10,15,or 20 links.

You also set the amount for the tips with a minimum of $1.00. ScratchBack has a few suggestions on how to set your tips, but they won’t tell you how much you can set them for.

Next, decide whether the links will show up automatically or you’ll approve them before they are seen on your Top Spot widget.

Once you have it set up the way you want it, copy and paste the HTML code to your site and you’re set.

You must have a PayPal account to be paid by ScratchBack. At the time of this review ScratchBack is in the beta stage and is paying site owners 90% of the tip amount.

If you’re worried about paid links effecting your search engine rankings, ScratchBack uses no follow so there is no threat there. They won’t penalize you for using ScratchBack because of this and you can have both ScratchBack and pay per click advertising, such as Adsense on your site.

You can put your Top Spot widget on any and all of your sites. You can create as many TopSpot widget as you like and can even have one custom designed for a small fee. You can’t put more than one on each website page though. Only one will show up on each page.

Ever since the birth of the World Wide Web, people are always finding ways to effectively drive traffic to their precious websites. Webmasters are always on the lookout for the freshest concept in driving this traffic to their sites. Who wouldn’t, this traffic spells big bucks to many or a chance for somebody to be popular in his or her chosen field (although, the former reason is more likely). One of the proven ways to effectively drive traffic to a website is through a blog carnival.

What is a blog carnival? It is a type of event in the blogosphere world, very much like a magazine, wherein it publishes specific blog topics regularly, sometimes on a weekly or on a monthly basis, depending on the blog carnival organizer or host. Each blog carnival issue is like a blog article which includes permalinks links of other blog articles for that specific topic.

There are a lot of blog carnival versions, but usually, someone who wishes to orchestrate a carnival should post all the info on the topic or theme to their blog, and invite readers to tender related articles to be included in an upcoming blog carnival issue. The blog carnival organizer/host then gathers the links of the tendered articles, edits and glosses them in a creative way, then publishes the compilation to their blog.

A lot of carnival blogs have their own home page or primary organizer, they are the ones who line up invited bloggers to host each issue. It means the carnival goes and appears on many blog sites every time.

Blog issue hosts, writers, and readers in an online community form within specific carnivals. The carnivals give a collection of most recent blog posts within the online community on a specific topic, and then the issue host gives a certain level of glossing and editing that aids readers to hit upon the posts that interest them. The writers who tendered their articles for the blog carnivals are then recognized and rewarded with the much needed traffic to their websites, wherein the issue host gives them a link or a positive review.

The moment you start out in the blogosphere world, you should really consider joining these blog carnivals, because it will help you jumpstart your career in blogging. Carnival blogs, by far, are the easiest way to get traffic and links for free. Remember also that in the process of tendering articles, you should only tender to carnival blogs that have a theme or topic that is related to your articles.

Carnival blogs are comparable to an audition, they give you the opportunity to showcase what you are truly made of, aside from the fact that it is easy and it drives traffic. That is what we all want, right?