AlanAllport.Com

The Active Net Biz newsletter mentioned in my last post is now Online and ready to take subscriptions!

As I mentioned, it’s taken more years than is good for it to get off the ground, but now, at last, I’ve got the domain up and running and put the sign up form on it this morning. It’s nothing to write home about from an aesthetic point of view but I’m a simple guy – what can I say!

I intend to more than make up for any artistic shortcomings by providing lots of very high quality, useable content in my own inimitable style!

What are you waiting for? Get along to:

http://www.activenetbiz.com/

And sign up today. The first issue is awaiting you.

There’ll be lots of thought-provoking articles on a wide range of IM-related topics in up-and-coming issues along with a select few product recommendations (no pitch fests – promise!) – my own products along with those of reputable sources. I’ll also be giving away lots of great free reports and giving you a taste of who I am and what’s going on in my life – warts and all (but I’ll try not to make you sick!)

Hope you check it out and I can’t wait to have you as a valued subscriber.

A name I’ve used before many years ago now – Active Net Biz – is about to be resurrected for my Internet Marketing newsletter – really something I should’ve done a long time ago (the original plans for me to have an IM newsletter under the Active Net Biz banner date back to 2002 so nobody can say I rush into things, can they?) Anyway, a regular newsletter giving lots of quality free information and downloads on a range of Internet marketing subjects interspersed with personal observations is something I’ve wanted to do for years, so now I’m determined to bring this to fruition at the tail end of this year so it’s fully active into 2011.

I’m also going to be putting a couple of ebook products up for sale – one on article marketing and the other on list building. In addition to these, I’m currently putting the finishing touches to my Internet Marketing Coaching Program which I mentioned several months ago on this blog. I’ve not fully decided on exactly what format this should take, but a monthly subscription is probably favourite – but I may make it available for a discounted one-off fee too. Will have to think about that one.

Anyway, busy, busy, busy, so I’d better get back to it.

I’ll put an update on this blog as each component becomes available.

Well it’s nearly the end of another year and as well as looking forward to a happy Christmas, any switched on Internet marketer will be looking towards next year and indulging in a bit of business planning at this time of year.

I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions I have to admit, but I’m certainly thinking about the IM products I’ll be releasing next year and I’ve made a decision.

I’ve decided that it’s a much better plan with an eye on the longterm to focus on creating Internet marketing products that focus on the nuts and bolts, the evergreen, the stuff that’s been there and worked since IM began and show no sign of going away anytime soon.

So, just what type of products am I talking about? Products that teach article marketing, affiliate marketing, blogging, getting traffic in standard and basic ways, listbuilding  etc.

So how do these products differ from the ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ type of product? First of all I guess I’d better define a ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ product. This is the type of product that, for example, depends upon a particular type of social networking site still being in the ascendency e.g. Twitter or Facebook. Let’s not forget that Myspace was the original biggie in this type of social networking site and it has been well and truly eclipsed by Twitter and Facebook now.

The other problem with creating products focused on teaching people how to market on Facebook, Twitter or Squidoo etc. is that they regularly change their terms of service etc. so that you have to keep regularly updating any product that you create based on them.

I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t create any products teaching people how to market using Facebook etc. if you have some good information to impart, but what I am suggesting is that it isn’t a good idea to make these products your flagship products.

I think it’s a good idea to base your flagship products around the evergreen subjects like article marketing where the nuts and bolts don’t change too much from year to year – you’ll likely have a more stress-free life as a result.

Whatever the type of products you end up going with I seriously suggest that you set aside some time over the next couple of weeks to plan at least a tentative campaign for 2011.

I’ve just received a notification from a fellow Internet marketer, Adrian Ling, that he’s received a new phishing scam via an email purporting to be about an order he’d placed with Online retailer Amazon.

Now at this time of the year a lot of us are placing orders with Amazon – which is precisely why these particular scam artists are using this tactic right now.

Be very careful which emails you choose to open – better to be safe than sorry.

If you do happen to open the email and something looks fishy (or should that be phishy?) about it, then be very careful not to click on any links within it.

A tactic I use is to hover my mouse pointer over the link and look at the bottom left corner of my browser window where you will see the actual Web address you’ll be taken to should you click the link – in a scam email this will definitely be different from the legitimate-looking link the scammers have put in the email body.

Anyway, be careful out there – it can be a very dodgy world we live in Online.

To check out the full story, go to Adrian Ling’s blog by clicking here.

Well here we are again – a few inches of snow and Britain grinds to a halt – well not quite but almost. We really don’t cope very well at all with the white stuff from the skies.

After the last really bad snow earlier this year (just where has this year gone?) we were promised by those in power that they would look into how our entire transport infrastructure seems to come crashing down whenever we have adverse weather conditions of a winter variety, with a view to ensuring that we would be better prepared ‘next time’.

Well, I guess now is next time, and are we better prepared? Not so’s you’d notice, no. I really do not know what we elect/pay these clowns for (the politicians that is). Once again, while they’ve had their well-publicised snouts in the trough, they do absolutely nothing constructive whatsoever and we, the ordinary people, have to do it all ourselves as usual. Anyway, in the spirit of goodwill to all men (and women) that should pervade at this festive time of year, I think I’ll leave it there.

And in the spirit of  ’here we go again’, yes, I’ve left the bulk of my Christmas shopping to the last minute as well. Not quite as last minute as the Christmas Eve rush of days of yore, but late enough.

So, what have I done today? Walked into Wolverhampton through the snow, that’s what – a journey of about six miles each way. It even started snowing again on the way back when I was laden down with bags.

Good thing is, the effort I made in the adverse conditions seems to have concentrated my mind and I’ve managed to get all of my shopping finished. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have done this had there been no snow on the ground – I would probably have made at least another two trips this week. As it is, I have no intention of attempting anything other than strictly local shopping for the remainder of this week – I’m staying tucked up at home, thank you very much.

If you celebrate Christmas  (or any other festival at this time of year come to that), I hope your preparations have been a little less eventful than mine and that you get some time just to relax and enjoy family and friends over the next couple of weeks.

If you’re at all like me, you’ll be totally fed up with the hype-filled sales pages for most IM products these days.

You know what I’m talking about…and if you actually whip your credit card out and actually buy the product based on the promises in the sales page, you just know how disappointed you usually are when the product itself just totally fails to live up to the sales letter details.

Let’s face it, most Internet marketing products being sold today (and we all know just how many seem to be being released on a just about weekly basis these days) are just rehashes of stuff that’s basically been around for years.

To be honest, there are not that many different individual approaches that actually work well when it comes to Internet Marketing (for the best one that’s totally stood the test of time, see the post immediately before this one ‘What Is The Best Way To Start A Web-based Business?‘).

Traffic generation methods come and go – and the fact that a lot of the ‘flavor of the month’ ones disappear really quickly should make you wary of them – but really what you’re really talking about in terms of a business plan is having a product or service to sell (your own or someone elses via an affiliate program), a Website with some content to do some pre-selling and provide some informative content related to the product or service, and ideally a means of collecting a name and email address from your Website visitors so that you can put them into an autoresponder sequence. All that you need then is to put a program together that generates a sufficient amount of traffic to your site to make the whole thing work.

My favorite traffic tactic that’s definitely stood the test of time big time is article marketing (I’ll be providing a lot more information on this in the future – watch this space!), along with backlinking of other types (I’m going to be testing out some backlinking software shortly and will be reporting back on this in due course too).

Don’t get caught up in all the hype. Don’t believe the promises of an instant full time income whilst sitting on your butt doing nothing – ain’t gonna happen I’m afraid – if it sounds like it’s too good to be true then it almost definitely will be just that – too good to be true.

Stick with the tried and tested – there are no secrets, there are just a few basic things that just plain work – but they all require you to put in the work, so just roll up your sleeves and get used to it!

Just exactly how do you start a Web business? That’s a question I get asked all of the time – and I guess it’s probably a question that most people who run their own Internet business also get asked on a regular basis.

I actually think that the answer should be the same whether the person asking the question is looking to start an information-based business where they are going to be supplying their own info products – ebooks etc. or those of others via affiliate programs, or whether the person asking the question is looking to supply physical products of their own or physical products via affiliate programs.

The best way to start an Internet business of either of the above types is by giving information away for free as an incentive for people to join your list.

You basically need three things to put this strategy together:

1. A ‘special report’ to give away as your freebie, which can be as short as about ten pages, so it need not be onerous to write – it should, of course, be of interest to the people in the market you are aiming at.
2. A squeeze page spelling out why your target audience should want to download your free report. This page will have a sign up form for collecting the name and email address of the prospect.
3. An autoresponder system to store the names and email addresses so that you can follow up with them over and over again.

Whatever the latest flavor of the month Internet marketing system may be that you’re getting bombarded with right now, just remember that the above system, and variations of it, have stood the test of time and form the basis of all solid Online businesses now and will continue to do so in the future.

When you have the above components in place all that remains is to send traffic to your squeeze page. You can use various methods to do this, but the best one to start with – and another one which has stood the test of time – is by writing articles containing links back to your squeeze page and submitting them to the top Online article directories.

The above is a pretty simple system – no rocket science there – but it is solid, dependable and will continue to work when lots of the latest whizz bang techniques have fallen by the wayside.

I’ll be bringing you more details of the above system – including downloadable reports – in the future, so remember to keep checking back.

And stop being attracted to the latest shiny object!

At long last I’ve managed to get Web Traffic Mechanic ready for you to download at absolutely no cost – yes it’s FREE, and you like free don’t you?

If you’re having problems getting traffic to your Websites and squeeze pages, or even if you’re an old hand just looking for a few extra traffic tactics that you might not have tried before, then this free guide could be just what you need to get the stat counter on your Website jumping.

Ok, so you do have to opt in to a newsletter by giving your name and email address, but I promise I won’t bombard you with emails trying to sell you stuff all the time (just some of the time!) and I promise to let you in on all of the very best traffic tactics around as I find out about them and as I prove they work for me.

What exactly is covered in this free Web traffic guide? Check out some of the tactics discussed below:

• How to generate unstoppable traffic using free resources
• Fast and powerful backlinking strategies
• The #1 traffic source that will instantly catapult your Website into the search engines
• Critical components for the best search engine rankings and how you can set them up in as little as 15 minutes
• The best way to create powerful article campaigns that will lead to floods of customers for your offers
• And much, much more!

Check Web Traffic Mechanic out by clicking HERE NOW!

I’ve had a Dell Streak 5-inch touchscreen tablet PC for about a week and a half now – and I absolutely love it!

Already I wouldn’t want to be without it. It’s a super little Internet browsing device – it does a good job on the ‘real’ Internet, not just the mobile one. It works on the Android platform so there’s a ton of downloadable apps available for it – not quite in the iPhone league maybe, but it’s getting there – and with Google behind it, no more than you’d expect.

If you’re on the move in the UK and you want decent Internet access your only choice is mobile broadband, and the unlocked Streak will take a data sim from any UK mobile network.

Yes, you can use it as a mobile phone with a voice sim, although I guess some people will think it a little large to be holding up to the ear – I guess it’s horses for courses, this is really a device for people whose priority is a decent, pocketable Internet device that can also double as a mobile phone, rather than the other way around.

For me, I just wanted a useable and ultra-portable Internet browser, and this device with an excellent HD screen of 800 x 480 resolution is brilliant for this. I’ve never had a mobile phone – I sometimes feel that I must be the last man in the world who hasn’t – I guess I almost have one now – nice to know that the device is capable of performing this function if I want it to.

The Streak takes its place alongside my 8″ Sony Vaio P-Series that I’ve had since last October – 1600 pixel resolution across an 8″ widescreen can really put a strain on these ageing eyes as it was set up out of the box, but otherwise I like it and it is light and compact enough to be easily carried around.

I’ve upgraded it from Vista to Windows 7 – and I would definitely recommend this as Windows 7 isn’t such a system hog. Think I’ve definitely got my portable computing sorted for the moment!

Check the Dell Streak Out Here

Check the Sony Vaio P-Series Out Here

If you’re here now and have been here before you might just notice that my blog looks a little different today.

I was getting a little bored with the previous theme so I decided to design a new one last night. Installed it this morning without too many hiccups. Did an update to WordPress 3 at the same time and wondered if I’d messed things up completely – got a ‘Site Is Undergoing Maintenance’ message when I tried to view my blog (if you did too then I apologise). Anyway, all seems well again now – although I did have a frantic few minutes backing up the database, just in case I had to do a completely new install – ah, the joys of Website ownership, eh?

Anyway, it’s a simple little theme – ‘cos I’m a simple guy and don’t really like anything too fussy. I did toy with the idea of installing one of those new slick, professional themes like Flexsqueeze, but decided against it. I don’t profess to be a great designer when it comes to color co-ordination and all that jazz, so if you don’t find it easy on the eyes, I’m sorry. I can always change it again later without too much hassle – I guess that’s the beauty of WordPress as a blogging/Website-building platform.

I’m changing focus with my Internet marketing business at the moment, got a lot of new stuff in the pipeline and I intend to start giving out a lot of excellent quality information for free, so watch out for that if you’re interested in starting – or improving – an Internet business of your own. I highly recommend getting something going that brings in an income via the Internet, I really do – particularly in these precarious times in the traditional job market.

So, stay tuned for lots of exciting developments!