It seems that Road Rage has morphed into yet another form. This time it is Buzz Group Rage. It seems there are people who just have no tolerance whatsoever for anyone who asks a question of a Buzz Group or expresses an opinion different to theirs, or one that might upset them.

My own experience of Buzz Group Rage was with my very first message to a Buzz Group for social marketing. The name of the Buzz Group is not important. What happened is and I am wondering if it is taking place all over the Internet at other Buzz Groups?

The instructions on joining the group were to submit posts to various social networks and then ask members of the Buzz Group to buzz the posts. The rules as I understood them to be, were to only Buzz posts that were in my niche, related niches or niches I was genuinely interested in.

Call me naive but what I saw was Buzz Group members buzzing everyone’s posts with complete disregard for the rules. So, silly me sent a message to all group members asking what was going on. maybe I could have not used the words "Group Monitors".

"Hi Buzz Group,
>
> I’m new to this group. I have just read an email from XXXXXX about buzzing ANY posts, rather than ones associated with your niche. 
> Can we get a statement from the Group Monitors please?"

All seemed to be going well and I was getting into the swing of things.

Then I got this email from one of the group members:

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 I use Godaddy.com to register all my Domains. I started with them and see no reason to change. You will need to register your first domain name too and I recommend using Godaddy.com.

Before beginning this next step make sure you have installed RoboForm. Because by the time you have registered your domain, hosted it on Hostgator, installed WordPress with MySQL database, Web20Wealth and RapidActionProfits you will have so many user names, logins and passwords your head will spin. And that is just for your first Blog.

Don’t even start this process without Roboform installed in your browser.

What I intend to do on this blog is try and find places on the Web which already cover much of what has to be done to create your first blog. I do not believe in re-inventing the wheel if there is already something out there that is hopefully FREE or can SAVE you money, or has a SMALL COST associated with it, but clearly explains what needs to be done.

So my first search on Google was for a video on GoDaddy Domain Name Registration. I typed in the Google Search windows “Godaddy Videos”. There were 30 videos covering subjects from the Superbowl to actually registering a domain name. Some of the videos are entertaining but distracting! We’re here to work ;0). Take a peak later if you want to.

This is the one I want you to see. By doing a Google Search on the Web for Discount Coupons you can significantly reduce the cost of your GoDaddy Domain Name Registration. Take a look and then get yourself a coupon just like they do in the video, before you register your domain name.

How To Buy A Domain Name From GoDaddy And Get Top Discounts, By - video powered by MetacafeYou can go to Earn Money Online Blog to see a post on the latest Godaddy Discount Coupons.

Click here to go to the GoDaddy Web Site for Domain Name Registration to find and register your domain name.

Technorati Tags: Godaddy.com,Godaddy Discount Coupons,Domain Name Registration

Before you start any serious blogging it might pay you to read some of the top blogs from some of the professional bloggers. I’ll mention just three in this article. But their blogs will give you lots of information on blogging which is priceless.

Yaro Starak is one of the Blogging Guru’s you should take a good look at. He has several sites devoted to blogging. These include:

http://www.becomeablogger.com/ -If you are new to blogging this is the place to go. There you can watch a video on how to set up your first blog and create your first post.

There is also a FREE Report Blog Profits Blueprint that you can download and read and begin to understand how Blogs can make money.

http://www.blogmastermind.com/ -This is Yaro’s site for his Training Program which is full right now but you can subscribe to be notified when he opens the course up again.

http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com – Here is another site from Yaro. This one concentrates on Blogging as a business and has lots of informations on how to do this. But read the article “How to Write Great Blog Content – The Pillar Article”.  This is one of the secrets to successful and profitable blogging. He mentions “Flagship Content by Chris Garrett and “Cornerstone Content” by Brian Clark also bloggers you should take note of.

Blog Pulling Power – Creating Flagship Content – This is one of Chris Garretts’ Blogs. He talks about flagship content, which is the same as the Pillar Articles mentioned by Yaro. Chris describes flagship content as “Is there anything that you could point to that your blog really owns? It could be a single post, a series of posts, an over-arching “message”. Now think about your favorite blogs. I am sure you go back to these blogs because of good quality regularly updated content but is there also a reference or series that you can refer to again and again?”

http://www.CopyBlogger.com is one of Brian Clark’s blogs you must read. You can also get the article “How to Create Cornerstone Content That Google Loves”. Take a look around the rest of the Blog too to find great content.

You should spend some time on reading everything these three guys write on their blogs. It is free education but more than that they will show you by their example how to create really great blogs. 

Brian Clark’s closing paragraph really puts it so well -

The first goal of cornerstone content is usefulness and relevancy to the website visitor, no matter how they arrive. The second goal is to make that content so compelling and comprehensive that people are willing—no, make that excited—to link to it.

Are you beginning to get excited about the possibilities of becoming a professional blogger like these guys?

By the way the Crap Detector doesn’t even register a reading with these guys.

Before you even think about creating an Internet Business or a Blog you need to get software to manage all the user names and passwords you will generate.

I’m sure you know almost everything you do on the Internet requires user names and passwords.

In 18 months I have created something like 600 user names and passwords as I have signed up for anything and everything that looked interesting to me. Initially I would save the user names and passwords in One Note but each time I wanted to login to a site I’d have to search One Note to find the User Name and Password I used, then type them in. It was tedious, time consuming and frustrating because I’d often type the password incorrectly too.

Then I went looking for some software to save all the user names and passwords in. I found a couple of programs but again it was hard to manage them and use them easily.

Sometimes I found myself signing up for so many sites that I could not remember the passwords I’d used just a few minutes earlier. As a Baby Boomer I do find my short-term memory is not as good as it once was! But why remember silly things that a computer can easily manage?

Then I stumbled upon RoboForm – which “Remembers Passwords so you don’t have to”. I got the FREE version first. Although it has some limitations it gave me enough information to realize this was the best thing for me to use.

When I am researching on the Internet I often sign up for a site and then move quickly to other sites of interest. With RoboForm I can immediately capture the login information and easily come back later to take a closer look at the site.

RoboForm installs as a Tool bar on Internet Explorer or FireFox, so is always available to you when surfing the Internet. If you sign up for any site it will prompt you for a user name and password and save it within the RoboForm database.

The next time you want to go to that site you can locate it in the RoboForm list and click it. It will take you straight to the site and enter your user name and password for you.

It is an incredible time saver and you never have to go looking for it as it is there as soon as you open the explorer. There are several other features besides remembering your passwords.

I am an Affiliate for RoboForm        

If you are new to Internet marketing you need to know about Affiliate Programs. RoboForm allows people to sell their software and earn a commission. This is called an affiliate program. They do this by providing the affiliate with a link that includes the Affiliate user code. If you believe the information I have provided is of benefit to you and you decide to purchase the Pro version for $29.95 please use the links on this Post.

You can download the Free Version from here : RoboForm Free Version,  It has my Affiliate Code embedded in it and should you purchase RoboForm Pro later on, I will get the commission on the sale.

You too can become a RoboForm Affiliate for FREE. Affiliate Marketing is one tool you should use too, to start generating income from the Internet.

That’s a very controversial statement to make, especially when there are so many good membership sites out there. So let me clarify it based on my own experience.

I have subscribed to several types of membership sites during the last eighteen months. I did this for two reasons. The first reason is I was looking for the “Holy Grail” that would help make it easy for me to be successful on the Internet. The other reason is I wanted to see what these sites offered. Since starting my Internet Empire Quest I have paid membership fees from $9.00 to $197 a month to probably twenty or more Membership sites. At most I paid for two or three months then cancelled. Why?

Some had sample periods for several days or for $1 or some other trial method so I was able to take a look for minimum cost.

Many of the membership sites were well organized and had lots of good information.

But I found I had several problems:

• I found I was not really ready for some sites to take advantage of their information
• Some I found complex and time consuming to use
• Some got my “Crap Detector” buzzing!
• Some I realized were not what I wanted to do in the Internet
• Others were great but I could not apply myself to doing what I should be doing consistently

From the list I’d say my lack of ability to concentrate was the biggest problem. I just saw too many other things on the Internet that seemed “easier” once I’d signed up for a Membership site. Or I would promise myself this time it was different and I really would do what the site was telling me I must do. It would last for a few days and then my “real work” or a family issue would break my determination and there I was paying a monthly fee and not even visiting the site to follow through.

I have run a Computer Consultancy business for 25 years and have been consistent and reasonably successful. However I have found as I have gotten older my concentration has waned. I lose interest in something new quite quickly and can get sidetracked by a new product sent to me in my email. I go to bed at night determined to stick to my plan the next day. On rising I find myself looking forward to opening my email and clicking on all the new links to new products and membership sites. I start doing the things I said I would not do. In this I am consistent!

As we Baby Boomers get older I’d like to think it is not just me with this problem. So if you are looking to start an Internet business or Blog for money or just do it for interests sake you need to find out if you suffer from “my problem”. Don’t spend any money on paid Membership sites, or anything to do with the Internet for that matter until you know for sure.

It probably will pay all us Baby Boomers to take a concentration test to avoid starting an Internet business when our concentration skills are in need of improving. It could save a lot of frustration. Queendom.com has a concentration test that might just help identify if you have a problem.

I have no affiliation to Queedom.com and do not receive any commission for send you there via the link above.

In my next Post I will write about what I consider to be one of the most useful programs for your Blogging business.

This blog is about “How to Blog for Money” but it is just as important to know “How not to lose Money”. This article tells you why I am qualified to talk about how not to lose money. As with most successful business it is the first rule – don’t lose money.

My first venture into the Internet Business was a disaster. I invested $18,500 USD with Stores On Line to help me build three Web sites to sell products. I spent many hours (not included in the $18,500) creating the first site and did sell some product but it was hard work.

Stores On Line support was just too hard to use. It took some months to get the payment processor approved. Then it took weeks for me to have it cancelled. The coaching and marketing was a joke. It was an experience I would not want you to go through.

I found out later that a year earlier in Australia their Australian agent or subsidiary had to pay back approximately $600,000 to people who had purchased their packages. StoresOnLIne is still operating in Australia.

If you Google StoresOnLine you will see thousands of entries on them. Many they have set up themselves, to counter the negative sites. A forum is also on line so you can check it out yourselves here at the Online Merchant Forum.

Despite all of this I got bitten with the Internet Marketer’s Bug and have kept working at it. I have now gained a good understanding of the Internet.

Since then I have tried many products includes Google Cash, Affiliate Radar PPCRiches and SpeedPPC. Many I have asked for and got a refund. Some were good products whilst others looked like rubbish to me. Many were not what I wanted to do after I looked at them in more detail. But not one of them were as difficult to deal with as StoresOnLine was.

The result is whilst I have spent some money on eBooks and low cost software I have gained a good education on Internet Marketing and have decided to write about what I haver found useful and helpful that may lead to making money from a Blog.

I can also write about blogging from a Baby Boomer’s perspective since I will be 60 this year and am in semi-retirement.

In the next few posts I will talk about what software I have found the most useful for getting started on the Internet. There are many things you should know that you can do yourself or out-source.

Don’t forget to turn on your Crap Detector though!

Tags: baby+boomers, blogging, storesonline.com

The title of this post speaks volumes. I just thought that was such a great phrase I wanted to use it in my first post on this new Blog. I’d like to thank Leo Kottke for saying it on a radio program the other day. You may know him as a fantastic 12 string Guitarist (http://www.leokottke.com/cgi-bin/ontour/leotour.cgi). But my first impression of him was a guy who speaks a lot of common sense. He was talking about his profession, but the phrase is just as relevant to the Internet.. He went on to say something I think is even more profound,  ”We are all born with a Crap Detector”.

The problem is we often turn off our “Crap Detector” as we desperately try to get our Blog or Web Site up and running. And that’s when the wisdom of the two statements becomes relevant. We stop thinking and start buying, believing that the “Holy Grail” to our problems is the next eBook, or eCourse we purchase.

It never is - and it never will be. As with all good things we succed in little steps then look back and see how far we have come. As we look back we will see all the detours and all the back-tracking we did to get to where we are now. We see we have often gone a great distance but we travelled two or three times that distance to get there. This is called learning and experience and it cannot be avoided if we are to succeed.

Oh sure, we can outsource much of the technical stuff and that will give us a ride for part of the way. But at some point we have to do the walking and make it happen ourselves.

It is imperative you understand the Internet environment and work your way through selecting only those tools and services that are going to assist you achieve your goal and rejecting those tempting ‘nice to haves” that will drop in your lap to distract you, as you journey towards your goal.

This Blog will try and guide Baby Boomer Internet Newbies through the Internet. I will try and ensure FREE really is FREE and where it is not, I will try and point out how you will end up paying for it.

But remember as soon as you open up the Internet make sure your CRAP DETECTOR is turned ON!