I have created products before – ones that I am currently making money off of.  But THIS particular new product I am working on is my first “How to make money” product.  You see, I’ve been doing it myself for a while now and would like to show you one of the things that has worked for me.

It involves using the Public Domain – a topic near and dear to my heart.  Stay tuned, I’ll be sharing more details shortly.

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I’m doing some spring cleaning in the middle of summer

Over the past couple of years I have acquired numerous URLs – I don’t even know just how many there are.  I’d get a “GREAT” idea and then purchase a domain name to use “some day”.  Often times these “great ideas” fizzled before I even started them.

In an effort to rid my life of stuff that doesn’t suit me any longer, I will be getting rid of these particular sites.

If the site doesn’t currently provide good valuable unique content to visitors I will no longer be holding on to it.  I’m going to take a look at each one and see if the topic of the site is one that I want to continue with.  If I want to keep it (because I truly like the topic), but the content isn’t up to snuff, I’ll add it to my “future projects” list   And I’ll give myself a time limit to work on any sites I’m sprucing up – if I don’t do anything with them by the end of 2009, they’re GONE! If I don’t want to be bothered with it…it’ll go much sooner.

Now the question becomes….just what do I do with those domains that I no longer want?  Here are what I see as my options:

• just sell the URL itself
  • this is probably the easiest of the options, but also potentially the least profitable so I’ll have to weigh the pros/cons
• build the site up to something useful and then sell the entire site
  • looks great on paper   but I don’t know if I want to be bothered.  I’d rather focus my energies on the sites that REALLY peak my interest (like this one
  • I don’t know the first thing about selling a site, let alone how to transfer one.  I know I could learn how to do this – but do I really want to spend the time doing it?
• just keep ‘em hanging around until the registration expires.
  • I’ll have to make sure that none of them are on auto-renewal
  • THIS one is actually the simplest option – but definitely ZERO profit.
• I just had a wacky idea – I could give the URLs away to folks who visit my site
  • This could be interesting.  I could give away 1 or 2 each month to people who subscribe to my newsletter.
  • Will anyone actually want them is the question.
  • Perhaps they’ll be good for people first starting out on the internet – it would be a site they can practice on.

Do you have any other nifty ideas for what I should do with them?

I’ve always heard that if you want to truly make money on the internet you should have your OWN product.  That is SO true.  Re-hashing the same ‘ol thing can bring in money – but having your OWN UNIQUE product that truly adds value to your niche can be virtually priceless.

I finally got this through my thick skull and have been mulling over the idea in my head for a while now.

BUT just WHAT could I – lil o’ me – create that someone would find useful?  That someone would just HAVE to HAVE?

What I finally did was:

• I made a conscious effort to become an “expert” of sorts on my chosen niche.
• My chosen niche is something that I TRULY enjoy learning about and helping others with.
• I found a unique twist on the niche that other marketers in this niche usually gloss over.
• I found a way to share my enthusiasm and talents in this niche with others.

Of course you need to do all of the usual preliminary work before you set out to create your masterpiece:

• Research the #’s, the stats, the hits…etc. (I personally HATE this part – but without it I’d might as well go back to a regular J-O-B)
• Look at your competition – who are they, what are they selling, is their product selling?
• IS there a market for your potential product in your chosen niche?  (translated:  are there actually real live humans out there in cyber-space who would be interested in your product?)

Then, the next steps:

• What can YOU do better than your competition does?  (I L-O-V-E this part !!!)
• If needed, do some testing to see if your product will drum up some interest.
• GO ON….CREATE YOUR MASTERPIECE!

One HUGE mistake many internet marketers make is using PLR content as is, un-edited, straight out-of-the box so to speak.  If one of your main goals is to provide valuable, unique content to your visitors and the world wide web, then you are doing everyone a disservice by just regurgitating the same ol’ PLR content that everyone and their brother is using.

For those of you who may not know, PLR stands for Private Label Rights. These rights usually give you permission to use content however you choose including editing it, adding your name as author and changing the title. So, in a lot of ways, PLR content is a lot like Public Domain.

However, in my opinion, a lot of PLR content is just (excuse the language) – CRAP! It was written to just churn something out very quickly. This is how it differs from much of what is in the Public Domain. Public Domain works (older stuff published prior to 1963 – I’m not talking about the new “donated to the Public Domain” stuff). Most Public Domain items are things that were actually published in a real book, magazine or newspaper format. These items are almost always high quality as they had to actually go through a publisher to be put into print. PLR content does not have stringent checks and balances.

One huge mistake that people make with PLR content is that they use it as-is without editing it in any fashion. So much for “unique content”. Lord help you if you just pick up some un-edited PLR content and slap it up on your web site or blog. The google “duplicate content” police will kindly let you know that your site sucks by dropping your rankings. What the search engines – and humans too (remember them, that’s who you should actually be writing for) – that’s what they like.

Let’s take an example. Somewhere here I have some PLR content saved on my hard drive…let me go dig one up. Ok, here is a snippet from the PLR article:

The Best Applicatoins For The iPhone

One of the best features about the iPhone is how you can add additional applications to the phone, depending on your specific needs. If you are a business professional who needs help organizing your life, than you will love the productivity applications you can download onto your iPhone. However, if you are a simple iPhone user, who just wants to be better connected to the world around you, than there are many applications that you can choose from. One of the most popular applications for the iPhone is the WeatherBug application.

Now…I especially get a kick out of this one because “Applicatoins” is spelled wrong!

So I did a google search just on the mis-spelled title “The Best Applicatoins For The iPhone” (in quotes) and I got back:

Results 1 – 10 of about 2,080 for “The Best Applicatoins For The iPhone”.

2,080 people have re-used this article, WITH the misspelling in the title – obviously they didn’t bother to edit it all.

Adding true value to the world wide web does not involve passing around the same worn-out content. For the love of God, at least pay $5 to have the article re-written!

NOTE:  This is from a forum post I did at my favorite “internet haunt”  www.MySilentTeam.com

For at least the last 10 years I’ve chased one shiny object after another – I have soooo many great ideas, and an almost equal amount of half-completed great projects.

I sat down the other day and REALLY thought about what it was I wanted to accomplish and which unfinished project would get me towards my goal.
For me, it was to focus on one half-done, poorly designed web site that has been bringing in spurts of affiliate income for the last 6 months.
I wrote on a sticky note that I wanted to focus on this site only and do whatever I could to build it up, gain more traffic and increase income.

I keep that sticky note where I can always see it and so far I’ve spent the last 4 days focused on only ONE project! If any other good ideas or opportunities tempt me, I jot them down in a notebook and return to my original task.

In these last 4 days I have made GREAT strides with the one project/web site I am focused on. Focusing on one thing at a time is REALLY really really a good thing

Figure out which “opportunity” you believe you can see the quickest results from, set a timeline and goals….and then nose to the grind stone until your end date.

Then rinse and repeat with one of the other “opportunities”.

NOTE:  This is from a forum post I did at my favorite “internet haunt”  www.MySilentTeam.com

Yes, I know, who in the world would CHOOSE to lay themselves off?  Apparently – ME!

I’ve known for a long time that what I wanted to do was make money online.  Specifically, I was in search of my FREEDOM.

Freedom to:

• let my day flow the way I see fit
• choose to work on things that I find truly fulfilling
• share myself and my ideas with others in an attempt to make this world a better place
• spend more time with family and friends
• work outside on sunny days
• not trade dollars for hours
• not have to play “dress up” every day (ie. “business casual” – WTH IS that anyway !?!?)
• wake up every morning filled with enthusiasm for the day ahead

This freedom is something I had been longing for over the past 10+ years.  The twinge would come and go.  I’d be all psyched up about the idea of being an internet entrepreneur, then inevitably I would fall back into “reality” and become a lemming again (and that “reality* is a bunch of baloney by the way).  I guess perhaps I was lacking the self-confidence to REALLY go for it.  It is tough when you are surrounded by people who, when you mention your aspiration to be an internet entrepreneur, they smile at you with a “well, isn’t that nice” and think you’re full of it.

Sure, I found folks online who share my vision.  And Thank God for them!  At least I had found some people who didn’t think I was nuts!  So I spent years reading about Internet Marketing, trying this and that, learning all that I could and every once in a while I would take a leap forward.

This is where I learned just how powerful focusing on what you truly want can be.

A few months ago I couldn’t take the 9-to-5 J-O-B anymore.  I had just had it.  It was killing me to sit in a cube for 8 hours a day and commute 2 hours.  This was NOT how I wanted to spend my time on this journey through life.  I didn’t want to get to the end (when that would be we never know) and have regrets – would have, could have, should have.

There were number of weird coincidences that all came to a head earlier this year and facilitated my leaving the J-O-B.  It was as if I was being pushed in a certain direction – one that I was both scared and excited to go in.  I call it “The Path Less Taken” (ala Robert Frost).

And quite honestly, it hasn’t been all roses – I’ve gotten stuck with thorns, some dug very deep.  But I have grown and learned SO much both about Internet Marketing AND myself.  And the wounds have healed In recent months I’ve figured out how to successfully meld the two so that my Internet Marketing endeavors become a reflection of ME instead of just the same ‘ol re-hashed stuff a lot of folks do.

If you attempt to truly know yourself and use that as a guideline for what you do online then the sky is the limit!

Two people who have been the biggest inspiration to me are Jim Cockrum and John Thornhill.  The overwhelming MAJORITY of the information that these two share with people is wonderful.  Of course there are always some things that I perosnally filter out – stuff that just isn’t for me – but that doesn’t mean that it won’t resonate with someone else.

Both Jim and John share gobs of free information online that can help you proceed down the “Path Less Taken”.

Check them out here:  www.JimCockrum.com and  here:  www.PlanetSMSblog.com

Enjoy!

This brings a smile to my face.  Whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed with all that I want to accomplish, I think of this.

Dory (Ellen) from Finding Nemo…

As you may no from previous posts, I just put up this site recently.

I had been real apprehensive about doing this, but now that it is up – I really like it.  And this theme I chose puts my name in REALLY BIG letters (in case you didn’t notice…lol).  I feel like I have my name up on a movie marque   Who knows…maybe it will be someday.  I don’t have any aspirations to be an actress – but – I wouldn’t mind speaking at some conferences – or *gasp* putting together my OWN conference in the future.

Well, there it is, I put it out there – I could inspire others to do Internet Marketing With a Conscience   Wouldn’t that be a nice addition to a conference focused on Internet Marketing?  I definitely think so.  If you do to….feel free to Contact Me about speaking with your group, or perhaps doing a few “guest posts” on your blog.

Just had another thought….wouldn’t it be neat to find a web site that made putting your name “in lights” easy to do?  Kinda like using Photoshop to put your kid’s picture on a box of Wheaties or your friend’s picture on the cover of Time magazine.  I know I “could” sit down and fiddle with Photoshop, get some public domain picture of a movie marque and alter it to put my name on it – but that’s not how I want to spend my time right now.  If you know of a easy-as-pie, point and click, no special talent needed way to do this…please let me know

Ok – enough of the ego stuff.  I seriously am working hard on squelching that a bit.  It’s having the opportunity to share with people my message that is much more important than getting the ego boost….and MUCH more rewarding too.

On a slightly (very slight) related thing…check out this site www.icanhascheezburger.com for some laughs.  Folks upload pictures and add funny captions to them – but watch out! This site can suck you in for quite a while if you let it.

Enjoy!

That’s a weighty question now isn’t it?

If you don’t know what the “Public Domain” is you might think it refers to our National Park Land

Public Domain refers to published items that are no longer covered by copyright.  This refers to all items published in the US prior to 1923, items published between 1923-1977 WITHOUT a proper copyright notice, items published between 1923-1963 that HAD a copyright notice, but copyright was not renewed, and lastly, many government publications.  The above rules only apply to works published in the United States.  The rules for other countries get all sorts of confusing.  I have to look up the terms each time I encounter a possible Public Domain work published outside the U.S.

No copyright (in the U.S.) means that they can be used in any fashion, by anybody without any credit given to the original author – no permission needed!

Here’s where the questions and acusations come up…

• Isn’t that plagarism?
• You’re STEALING someone elses work!
• How could YOU do that !?!?
• Why would you do that? – that’s old useless stuff in them there ol’ books!

The reality is that it is LEGAL to “do that”.

There are plenty of people who have taken items in the Public Domain, slightly altered the text and re-published the same work as their own.

Do I totally agree with doing that?  No, I don’t – but people are free to do that if they wish.

There are also numerous people who take a Public Domain work, improve upon it in some fashion, give credit to the original author and then publish the work.  They might have their name on there as a co-author or editor.  Do a web search for “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill – everybody and their brother has re-done that one.  I don’t think you’ll find anyone trying to pass off that book as their own original work though – that would just be plain silly!

I believe that it is ethical to use Public Domain material.  I believe that it is only fair to give some sort of credit to the original author.

Whenever I use Public Domain material I see it as a recycling project.  I am taking long-lost ideas from books that are usually buried in someone’s basement or in the far off archive of the library – I’m taking these old musty books and turning them into something bright, shiny and new.  Those almost lost ideas are then given new life and shared with a new generation that otherwise may not have known of their existence.

I could even get all Houdini like and say I’m helping long-dead authors to speak from the grave…spooky!

That’s my view on it

Well, today is the day….I FINALLY bought a URL with my Name in it

I had avoided doing this for a long, long time.  But now the time is right.  I believe that I have a lot of truly useful information to share with you.  As well as humorous ramblings from time to time.

I just moved over some old blog posts from my old site that primarily focused on eBay.  That site is going to be gone soon.  I wonder if I’m going to get a slap from Google for copying my own content?  LOL.

Off I go to install plug-ins, tweak some things and continue with setting up BethSawickie.com