These days it is becoming more and more popular for people to plan on creating their online appearance. This first step is done easily most of the times. But shifting a normal blog into an online business to earn some extra money, if not even making it to the main income stream is more challenging for most.

What are the reasons for that? There are so many examples of people out there in the net, who reached the goal of earning a good living online, while at the same time gaining more freedom of lifestyle. And these people are not holding back their knowledge and share publically how they did it. So what is the reason many people cannot follow through even if all the knowledge is out there.

Well – one of my personal experiences is that the amount of knowledge out there can be overwhelming. Just when we think we have it all together and can finally start, we find another email in our outlook saying we have to study the newest „whatever“, cause the „old internet“ as it was before will be dead tomorrow and the old recipes will not work anymore.

Of course we all have to keep an eye on developments and stay up to date. But rarely we have to throw all our knowledge over board and start over instantly.

So it is what it is today and tomorrow: a few simple steps we have to follow through. Or let`s say reading these simple steps is simple:-). Doing what we read for some reason needs some extra energy, even if the the actions required sound so easy. Acting on concepts is more challenging than reading about concepts. And we know it all out of experience: knowing is not doing. Its neuroscience involved. We have to build brain cells for the required action and that takes a little time at first and we have to overcome some resistance level. So we need to push ourselfes a bit after the brain cells are established (wait at least a night after reading the information at best). Then take step by step and be aware the first steps are the toughest, it get`s a lot easier later once the momentum is going and our brain pattern built.

So once again, here are the exacts steps to follow, if you plan on making some money online:

Step 1. Find your Market

Please be aware I am stating market and not passion or expertise as you often read, too. To be an expert or have a passion is nice and will help you write content, but there is no use in it, if there is no market (meaning people wanting to buy products in that segment). In an ideal world market, passion and expertise come togehter for you in your niche. But even if that is not the case, you can become an expert fairly fast with some research (at least enough expert for the online business you want to start). Know what your customers want by searching in forums or google it and give the hungry buyers just what they ask for. It is much easier to sell what people allready want, than to convince people to buy what they should want (in your opinion).

Step 2. Get your webpage online

Find a nice domain, which in best case is benefit driven and has some of your markets keywords in it (that is not a must, as my site is built around my name, too). You can find plenty and easy to follow descriptions on how to set up a webpage and where to host it (hostgator.com for example). I do not need to repeat it here. You can nowadays also outsource this for little money and focus solely on your content.

Step 3. Find a way of interacting with your visitors

Give your visitors the chance to write comments and and have an optin page (people leave their email adress and name for further contact) installed, so you can keep communicating with them. Of course, allways offer an unsubscribe button, too. Send out quality content on a regular basis via e-mail, build a relationship and have them revisit your site, so at some stage, they might want to buy your products (which you have created meanwhile: for example an ebook). For leaving their information you might want to provide them with a free report or some information of value for them, so there is some incentive for action.
You can deliver that report using an autorespondersystem like Aweber for example. That way you do not have to send out all manually by email.

Step 4. Find readers and build traffic

You can allways get traffic easy by using a google adwords campagne and pay for every click. If you don`t know what a campagne like that is, just google it, the system itself has an easy to follow instruction. So if you have the budget to do so, you might choose this to find some quick successes. At the beginning though, you might want to consider using “organic traffic” (not paid traffic). This can be done by writing good content with keywords and the put it on your blog and several article directories (like www.ezinearticles.com for example).
Also publish your content on facebook and twitter and get it spread in the net. Maybe team up with friends and let them spread it, too.

Step 5. Last not least, have products ready and offer them to you customers/readers

Of course we can feel happy if we are passionate about a topic and people come to our site and discuss these topics with us. There is already some mental value or payment if you want involved. If you want to use your blog or website to earn money though, you have to be prepared to have some really high class content to sell at your webpage, so people who like your material can purchase it. After all, if you earn money with your blog your are more free to put more energy in it and produce even more value. A win-win situation with your readers.

So, I hope you found some of these steps helpful. Very likely you have read similar articles like this. But repetition is also supporting a learning curve and if this article gets you to implementing things then the goal would be reached. Once again, be patient with yourself at the beginning. The first steps are the hardest part.

To your learning success,

Dirk

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1. How to Add More Profitable Products to Your Product Funnel

One of our most innovative, popular thinkers takes on-in exhilarating style-one of our key questions: Where do good ideas come from?

With Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson pairs the insight of his bestselling Everything Bad Is Good for You and the dazzling erudition of The Ghost Map and The Invention of Air to address an urgent and universal question: What sparks the flash of brilliance? How does groundbreaking innovation happen? Answering in his infectious, culturally omnivorous style, using his fluency in fields from neurobiology to popular culture, Johnson provides the complete, exciting, and encouraging story of how we generate the ideas that push our careers, our lives, our society, and our culture forward.

Beginning with Charles Darwin’s first encounter with the teeming ecosystem of the coral reef and drawing connections to the intellectual hyperproductivity of modern megacities and to the instant success of YouTube, Johnson shows us that the question we need to ask is, What kind of environment fosters the development of good ideas? His answers are never less than revelatory, convincing, and inspiring as Johnson identifies the seven key principles to the genesis of such ideas, and traces them across time and disciplines.

Most exhilarating is Johnson’s conclusion that with today’s tools and environment, radical innovation is extraordinarily accessible to those who know how to cultivate it. Where Good Ideas Come From is essential reading for anyone who wants to know how to come up with tomorrow’s great idea.

Hope you enjoy!

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Another anmazing educational video by RSA.org. Hope you enjoy- to your online success,Dirk

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Dear reader,

whatever opinion we might have about the content I am just overwhelmed by this cool way of presentation. We know the topic Alfie Kohn “Punished by rewards “  by Alfie Kohn and have heardt Vera F. Birkenbihl write a lot about that topic, too. This, however,  is also a very interesting way to approach and  “get” that topica”.

Hope you enjoy. You might want to check out the youtube channel or the webpage, too if you enjoyed this : www.theRSAorg.com

To your online success, Dirk

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Improving Productivity with Mind Maps

Walking into the office each morning, you are already performing mental gymnastics trying to figure out how you’ll get through your task list for the day, only to be confronted by twenty equally urgent and demanding messages, and the phone ringing off the hook. Sound familiar?

The past decade has seen meteoric advances in communication, with emails, Facebook, SMS, Twitter, Skype, Ping, blogs, feeds and a myriad other indispensable forms of ‘connecting’ and absorbing information. With such resources at our disposal productivity should be soaring, shouldn’t it? However, whilst the world may well be at your fingertips, you are unfortunately equally within reach of the world too.

Managing this bombardment of information you receive everyday and juggling the resulting tasks is in itself a full time job. There just aren’t enough hours in the day – so what can you do? Well you can start by creating more time. Using Mind Maps can streamline your working day and is proven to improve productivity by 20% – that means you can gain an extra working day every week!

How can Mind Mapping improve my productivity?

One of the simplest and most effective ways to use Mind Mapping and boost your productivity is to begin each day by spending five minutes creating a Mind Map ‘to do’ list. This will allow you to view and review your tasks, prioritising according to deadlines and realistically determining what is achievable in the time you have available.

1. Begin by making your day your map’s central idea

2. Add on main branches for key tasks or projects that you need to accomplish or work on that day.

3. From these main branches, draw child branches with names, events, time deadlines or other keywords that make up the specific actions needed to complete the bigger task.

4. Look for links between different tasks. Does one task directly impact another? Draw relationship arrows to demonstrate this.

As you build your Mind Map you can get a clear picture of your workload and view each task objectively. You can determine what’s important and what’s not, see how certain projects will relate and impact on other tasks, and block your time to achieve optimum productivity.

A good way to track your progress through the tasks is to create a separate Mind Map with the main branches as different time segments of the day. Then select tasks from your day’s Mind Map to add onto these branches, creating a schedule for the day. With the iMindMap software you can copy and paste branches between maps as you schedule them to be done so that you are left with a clear picture of what is left to do. There is no need to start again or re-draft your maps so you can save even more time with iMindMap.

How can Mind Mapping help me long term?

There is no need to restrict this to a daily schedule. The same principles work for weekly, monthly, even annual planning. You can create main branches that cover broad topics, such as Finance, Personal Development, any long term projects, personal issues – any thing that requires action on your part. Then use child branches to drill down into tasks, deadlines and deliverables. A Mind Map allows you to group tasks or ideas in a limitless radiating structure, so you can have a clear, organised picture of what you need to do to achieve your goals all in one place.

Another time saving tip is to create templates for your work schedule that you can use daily or weekly. You can either pre-draw and photocopy a number of these, or add a template into the iMindMap software. Then simply add on the tasks to be completed to the relevant time periods.

How can iMindMap consolidate and share information?

With the iMindMap software you can easily share your plans with your colleagues with the click of a button. Export to other office applications such as Microsoft Word, Excel and Project, as well as OpenOffice and iWork, or simply send your maps as image files. You can also attach files or links to your map, such as spreadsheets, meeting agendas, proposals, web pages, audio files – any relevant information can be stored in one place, easily accessible. The flexibility of the software is designed to make your life as easy as possible and to facilitate high levels of productivity.

Productivity is about streamlining your work practises and making the most of your time. Mind Mapping can be easily incorporated into your working day, providing a space to keep track of your ‘To Do’ list in a concise, practical and productive way. Regain control of your workload, reach new levels of productivity and lower your stress levels with Mind Mapping!

Interested in boosting productivity in your company? You can get a FREE trial of iMindMap, the only Mind Mapping software from Tony Buzan, the inventor of Mind Maps.

2 your learning success, Dirk

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