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AndrewHawkes.com Here is an ad we did for Andrew Hawkes love to hear your feed back about it. If you want to know more about creating your brand go and check Andrew's site out
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Personal Branding…. It’s too important to Leave to Chance
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only90daystofreedom.com Working from home lets me see all of the little things that my boy does as he grows
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Article or Post Ideas… Where to get them…
So you want to write a new post or article but what do you write about and where can you get some information? A Friend of Mine Amy Scott Grant has spoken of this and gave me some great insight into what to write about, and it is really quite simple. Write about things that excite you, it doesn't necessarily have to be specific to your business opportunity or and niche in particular. By doing this you are going to attract the people that have similar interests to you which is great as you have a better chance of them becoming a raging fan and perhaps even making a purchase from you in the future.
OK so that was and still is useful information... however how do you get your blog noticed? Talk about a trending topic so here in this clip I show you two really simple and easy ways in which you can do just that... so enjoy the clip.
So as you can see... it really is simple right? I think so... so let me know how you get on when using this technique to inspire your inner writer.
Talk soon
To Your Success
About the Author
Andrew Hawkes is an Entrepreneur that has had good times and bad, he draws on all the experiences that he has had, military and in business, to provide solid information that anyone can use and understand to improve the results in thier own life and therefore show others to imrpove thiers. He believes that anyone can make a difference in the world and that ultimately anything is possible.
Procrastination the Killer of Production….
Its funny where you get your post and article ideas from, in fact I am going to do a post on exactly that... however for now what I wanted to talk about was procrastination.
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✘It comes today as I was on a international conference call earlier today and that really was the meat of the topic. It takes on many forms... it can come in the form of "research" it can come in the form of "I have to do this before I can do that" At the end of the day all it is really doing is putting off the things that need to be done in order to bring the money in or get the job done to do the things you enjoy more... the bitter irony of this is that if you put half as much effort into doing the things that need to be done as the things you would like to be doing you would have so much time to do the things that you would like to be doing you wouldn't know what to do!
Its funny because it can happen at anytime... heck you may be doing it right now? Well not this instance as you are reading this to learn how to avoid it 
So what can you do? Well having a clear understanding of what you are trying to achieve is a great start... have your day, or better yet your week mapped out (I have spoken of this before) When planning your week make sure that you have a good balance of what you enjoy and what you may consider to be arduous. By creating a balance, and sticking to what you have planned then you stand a much better chance of accomplishment. In fact by simply having a plan your in increase you productivity by over 70% simply becuase you have something to refer to, this works two fold as you know where you are headed and why and you can see what you have already accomplished and seeing that you immediately feel better (some people even put little things that are done without thinking so there is progress on the list).
Ok so not a long post... but hopefully a useful one. Just something that was on my mind...
Till the next time
To Your SuccessAbout the Author
Andrew Hawkes is an Entrepreneur that has had good times and bad, he draws on all the experiences that he has had, military and in business, to provide solid information that anyone can use and understand to improve the results in thier own life and therefore show others to imrpove thiers. He believes that anyone can make a difference in the world and that ultimately anything is possible.
Top 10 Word Press Plugins… My Picks.
So you're BLOGGING.... are you doing it for a release, a place to vent your frustration at the world or are you BLOGGING to be of service to others? Do you want to make money from your BLOG or are you happy in the knowledge that people are getting value from what you are sharing?
For me it is a mix of both! Not that I have much frustration at the world... sometimes I like to just let my thoughts come out, and it is always good to reflect on what you have thought... well most of the time!
If you are using your BLOG as part of your personal branding campaign (as discussed in previous posts) then there are some Word Press Plugins that I believe you shouldn't be without. There are literally 1000's of plugins that you can get for your word press blog platform (self hosted) most of them are free, there are some that you pay a one time fee for and there are others that you pay a monthly membership fee for... It depends on what you are trying to achieve...
So here in this post I am going to share with you some of the plugins for wordpress that I use personally... so anything you see here I have tested and have had good results with.
As this particular BLOG is set up for branding and sharing information (most are set up to at least share info) you are going to see a few similar plugins... all have their functions. You can attain all plugins by clicking on the images.
Like anything on the internet, there are certain things you have to do to get traffic (unless you are Paris Hilton or someone famous!) making your BLOG SEO (search engine optimization) friendly will help you this there are a number of plugins that you are able to get to do this... the one I use is 'All in One SEO'
Semper Fi Wb Design are regularly updating this plugin and has proven the be the best and most user friendly that I have used. It allows you to ad titles and descriptions in an SEO friendly format and has a number of other options included.
Along the lines of SEO you will also continuously be creating anchor text links on your pages and in your posts, this helps your visibility in the search engines and can be time consuming... if there are links that you continually use (or you are bringing content from other sources) then you want to be able to quickly and effortlessly create links in the text... again there are plenty of plugins available for your word press blog of the two that I have I use one more than the other, so this is the one that I would recommend
KB Linker an extremely user friendly and easy to update plugin that allows you to input multiple links at once.
Next on my list of plugins is Link Within... this is a plugin that I have only recently added, and it is a beauty... you see it shows other 
relevant posts in your blog so that you can retain peoples engagement in your site. Its free and it is simple to use... no really simple!
Sexy Bookmarks No doubt you understand that in order for your message to get out there for people to hear, you must make it easy for your readers to share it with others, and 
again there are HEAPS of plugins for this... I use a few however as this is my top ten I am sharing this one, if you want to know about more leave a comment and I will get it to you... Sexy Bookmarks is great as encompasses pretty much ALL of the social media networks. It is easy to set up and they are regularly updating the plugin, that is good as you know it is being well utilized. This helps you help others to get your message out!.
Twitter tools... this plugin pretty much brings twitter to your blog... it will make a digest of all your tweets in a week, month, or even daily if you ask it to, it allows you to post to twitter directly from your word press BLOG and it also sends a tweet to twitter on your behalf everytime you update your BLOG (if you ask it to ) Really simple to use, simply input your details for your twitter account and you're away!
reCAPTCHA... you will have no doubt seen and more than likely used this... this is what keeps the spammers at bae... it effectively stops robots from leaving
comments on your BLOG. Why would they do that you ask? Black Hat SEO Tactics... it basically is giving them back links. It is mildly customizable you can choose between black and red.
Easy Uploader This is one of my favorite plugins... and the reason is because it is simple and it saves ALOT of time... This plugin allows you to upload new themes and new plugins into your word press blog without the need to use an FTP client... and what is more it allows you to upload them in the zip format and will recognize them without you having to do anything! So if you have a favorite theme or plugins that you use frequently and are looking at starting another BLOG for another venture then you can upload them quickly.
When you have added content to your BLOG or updated posts, added new ones what have you... you are going to want to add 'tags' to your post, these can act
basically like more key words if you like (for lack of a better explanation) So this is another great time saver, the 'auto tagger' will scour through the post you have just made and pick out relevant tags for your post, there is an option to ad more and also or to take some out that you may not necessarily want there. Saves time and gives you tags you might not have though of yourself.
Comment Luv, this is a great little plugin if you are commenting a lot on other peoples BLOGS (Great for SEO) when you make a comment on someone else's blog post it leaves a trail back to your last post, so it has the title etc... there so people can see it and follow it back, works really well if the post you are commenting on is related to your latest post.
And rounding up my ten picks is the great little plugin, Comment Prompt, that reminds or prompts people to make a comment on your post (left last for a reason *nudge nudge*)
You see most people don't think to leave a comment, they usually have a thought about your post, however in most cases people don't even realize that they can leave a comment, so what this does is it sits in at the end of the post and says 'hey you have read the post, what do you think' and prompts or reminds them to leave one. This is important if you want to build your rankings on the search engines in what ever niche you are trying to rank in.
So there they are, my ten picks for Word Press Plugins... There are so many, and this doesn't even begin to scratch the surface.... to the point that while writing this post I have decided to do my top five money making plugins... so stay tuned for that.
I am sure you will have found this information useful so be sure to share it round If you haven't already then join my monthly news letter so you can get the low down on what is happening around the traps.
Enjoy, make it a great day!
To Your SuccessAbout the Author
Andrew Hawkes is an Entrepreneur that has had good times and bad, he draws on all the experiences that he has had, military and in business, to provide solid information that anyone can use and understand to improve the results in thier own life and therefore show others to imrpove thiers. He believes that anyone can make a difference in the world and that ultimately anything is possible.
Creating Your Personal Brand
This is a subject that is really more important than people realise, and more often than not when overlooked can become the downfall of any person and any business.
I have spoken before about not being congruent with who you are, and really knowing who you are before your create your brand can be quite important. But what if you are not sure of who you are? You know you have a gift to share, you know you can stand as a testament of triumph... but for what? And more importantly can you create brand awareness without knowing? Well... not really. You can make nice pretty pages (and we can show you how to do that) however they really serve no purpose if you have no clue as to what it is you are representing.
So then this is assuming you know who you are and what you want to represent. Now given that you know what and who you are then the rest should really come into line and you will understand the logic in behind what we are doing.
Personal Branding is in fact just that, it is creating an association between yourself (your image and outlook) and a given field or cause (this can even be a niche of something bigger). Now of course these fields and causes can and do vary significantly... I mean can you have more than one association? Of course you can. Let's look at Sir Richard Branson, he in himself is iconic, yet he is not his brand, 'Virgin' is his brand... And although it made its entry into this world as a mail order record company it soon become a major player in the music industry with its 'Virgin Mega Stores' and of course its record label. Yet when people talk of virgin today there is many things associated with the brand. Mobile Phone Plans... Air Lines... Money (yes they lend money)... holidays, just to name a few of the associations that they have.
So why can they have so many associations? It is simply because 'Virgin' is a name they people trust, the name itself is now synonymous with great value and as someone who fights for the underdog. Making the brand it self a winner among everyday people.
So where do we start? In today's day and age there are a plethora of opportunities and ways in which you are able to brand yourself and start to promote yourself as an expert in pretty much any field you choose. There is a blog (hint, hint) YouTube, Facebook, Myspace (apparently people still use it) Twitter... the list really could go on and on. And it can really come down to your imagination in the ways in which you could get yourself out there.
A good friend of mine Nat King has a great article on one of the ways to help with your branding on her site check it out for a good place to start with your blog.
Now this article could go on for days and days, really it could... I am about time and good use of it, so rather than type it all out here I thought a practical run through would suit a little better... So I did exactly that, I have put together a four step Personal Branding Video Course, and you can get started right here. Simply fill out the form for instant FREE access;
I am sure you will find value in this series, and of course if there are any improvements you would like to see then by all means let me know and I will get it sorted out!
To your Success
To Your SuccessAbout the Author
Andrew Hawkes is an Entrepreneur that has had good times and bad, he draws on all the experiences that he has had, military and in business, to provide solid information that anyone can use and understand to improve the results in thier own life and therefore show others to imrpove thiers. He believes that anyone can make a difference in the world and that ultimately anything is possible.
Effective Marketing
What is effective and what is not? Everywhere you look or at least everywhere you search you see everyman and his dog trying to tell you that they have the best marketing strategy available, they are Google Experts they can increase your conversion by 400,000,000%... OK so that is a slight exaggeration, however where do you draw the line and find out who is for real and who is just out to take your money?
It is a fair question... more to the point though, what works and what is just a waste of time and effort... I heard once that any publicity is good publicity... so on that guise it all works, however wouldn't you rather invest your time where you are going to get the maximum return for your effort? I am sorry to say that there is no magic bullet when it comes to marketing. There are so many ways in which you can do it, certainly in today's web 2.0 world, there is video, there are articles (tried and true), you can create your own newsletter (you still need an audience).
Well first of all if you are going to be doing any Marketing, unless you are recording the data so you can see what is working and what is not then you are wasting you time. There are a number of different ways in which you can track how your marketing is doing, and it was not so long ago people were actually selling user scripts that would allow you to ad tracking to your pages... well a lot has happened in a short amount of time. Google have refined their Analytics service and to be fair there is really no need to look at anything else, this does a great job for tracking... well everything you need it to... and its free!
Right so now we can track it...
Marketing is all about connecting with your Audience, so who is your audience? By that I mean who is your ideal customer or prospect? This is really quite important, the reason being that not everyone is going to find the same things appealing. So choosing or rather realising who you are talking to or targeting is going to be very important in what you put out as your marketing efforts.
One of the quickest and easiest ways in which to reach your audiences is simple, VIDEO, there are some great advantages to video, the biggest of all is that the Google Monster LOVES video, over half the traffic online today is from Video, so it would make sense to get into that as part of your marketing efforts. There are a number of ways you can do it too, most PC,s and all MAC's come with built in webcams these days, so no longer do you need to have a camcorder to be able to get your mug on the internet. However if you are a little shy or really don't want your face there to begin with until you are comfortable with having it there, there is still another way. Make a presentation in Power Point (PC) or Keynote (MAC) and take a screencast of it... again this can be done for FREE even if you don't have Power Point, Keynote or Camtasia. There are open source (FREE) applications for almost everything. Power Point for example you can get 
Open Office, this is an open source app that has ALL off the MS office applications, so you can use this and make your Power Point presentation (I believe it is even available for MAC).
So great now you have your message to send out, you still need to capture it right? So again, there is 
open source screen capture software too, you can google it or you could use something like this BB Flashback Express. This has pretty much all the functions and usability that you would expect to find from Camtasia, only its free. It is up to you as to what you choose to use, just get in there and start.
Now you have your video... what next? OK upload it to YouTube if you don't have an account, sign up for one it is free, there is an advanced marketing strategy that includes setting up multiple youtube accounts, however that is for another post
Again there are plenty of free video sites also that you can sign up with that will help you to get your message out there.
Make sure you track what is happening... and have fun with it... the moment it stops being fun... try another angle!
Let me know of your success.
To Your SuccessAbout the Author
Andrew Hawkes is an Entrepreneur that has had good times and bad, he draws on all the experiences that he has had, military and in business, to provide solid information that anyone can use and understand to improve the results in thier own life and therefore show others to imrpove thiers. He believes that anyone can make a difference in the world and that ultimately anything is possible.
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