Why I am using 1and1

One of the programmes that I signed up with at the World Internet Summit was the Partner With Millionaires programme with Brian Koz. The programme creates a sales funnel which takes a visitor's e-mail address in return for free software to help them set up websites quickly and then continues to engage them via e-mail followups through an auto-responder. Check it out here.

Not only did the PWM program basically set up the website and the autoresponder for a year, they also paid me back the amount that I spent on signing up for these services for a year, provided I chose their providers and followed their instructions. Through following their instructions, I chose GetResponse as my autoresponder and I used Hostgator for my hosting. Based on how much the PWM stated that they would reimburse, it was obvious that they expected me to take the baby plan from Hostgator and I signed up without thinking about it too much. 

The baby plan allowed me to host a single website and nothing more. Since this was my first foray into the world of Internet Marketing, I didn't have any problem with that. If I had stopped for a minute and thought more strategically, I would have realised that having the option to host multiple domains at no extra cost would actually be very beneficial. It was only later when I thought about an idea for an information product that I thought might be viable, did this occur to me.

One thing that I had noticed from registering my domain was that I was getting a bunch of spam from people who were telling me that they could assist me setting up my website. Little did they know that they were barking up the wrong tree. This irritated me though and so the next time I registered a domain, I looked about getting private registration. It turned out that Hostgator would charge me for this service and so I hit up Google to find out what my options where. 

I found this post on Lifehacker and it mentioned that 1and1 offered free private registration. Not only that, but 1and1 were cheaper than HostGator ($8.99 vs $12.95 for a one year registration). I couldn't find a single reason not to go with 1and1. The entire process went smoothly and I was happy with 1and1 for all my registration needs.

When I finally realised that I would be best off starting this blog to keep track of how my internet journey went, I decided that I would take the plunge and figure out everything that I would need to do on my own. An integral part of this would be hosting and using Google again, I found Crazy Domains which are an Australian hosting company with ridiculously good rates for hosting. I went back to register Destination-Rich.com and saw that 1and1 had an offer for $0.99/.com registration. 

I was really thrilled by this and I went through the process. When I got to the checkout, I noticed that they had an offer where they would do a year of hosting with a free domain name for $0.99! Not only that, it was unlimited hosting meaning I can use as many domain names as I want to with this single plan! I didn't even bother seeing if I could find anyone to beat it because this offer was such good value. I would recommend it for anyone who is in the same position as me but you need to hurry and get it before the offer expires.

Who do you use for hosting and domain registration and why? Let me know in the comments.

How to Insert An Amazon Affiliate Link

When I made my previous post "Money Money Money" I talked about Rich Dad, Poor Dad briefly. It dawned on me that as an internet marketer who had an affiliate account with Amazon, this was a perfect opportunity for me to start being a good affiliate.

I knew what my affiliate ID was but I didn't know how add that to the link I had for Rich Dad, Poor Dad so I went to one of my other blogs that I am using to test out the DFYWriter program and from looking at the link there, I realised that the way the link was set up it was basically:

Amazon page link/?tag=<AFFILIATEID>

and so what I did was I went to Amazon.com, found the page for the paperback version of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, copied that link and then pasted it in as a hyperlink on my blog with my own affiliate ID appended as shown above. Now just to be sure that I wasn't making some sort of mistake, I thought that it would be smart to search and make sure that I had the right format for my link. I ended up on the ProBlogger site by Darren Rowse.

I had heard of the name Darren Rowse in relation to being one of the top bloggers in the world but I had never been to the site. I thought that it would make sense for me just to have a look and see what sort of information he had on there. I realised quickly that it wasn't the sort of site that had step by step instructions for beginners. Not only that but his links were different because rather than /?tag they seemed to have /&tag and a bunch of other stuff that I couldn't identify.

Now I was really confused. He's a professional blogger so he must know what he's doing but his links were different. Was I really making a mistake?

I continued searching on Google and I came across a tutorial which laid out what needed to be done in a simple step by step manner. It turned out that I was right the first time and that the correct way to do it is

Amazon page link/?tag=<AFFILIATEID>

I think that the reason that the links on Problogger were different was because they were set up to track which ones were clicked rather than being generic ones like the one above which just take people to Amazon without tracking which one they clicked.

In the future I might also need to figure out how to track my Amazon clicks but for now, I will just stick with the simple version.

I'm surprised that it was that hard for me to find out how to set up an amazon affiliate link. I would have thought it was something that either Amazon themselves told you or at least would be simple to find. Guess I was wrong. At least now you also know how to set up a simple amazon affiliate link and you also can post your affiliate links the right way.

If there is anything in the post that you'd like me to explain further, let me know in the comments.

Money Money Money

Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.

                                                                -Woody Allen

You'd be hard pressed to find a person who said that what they wanted in the future is to have less money. Heck, if you know someone like that, send them my way and I'll make sure that they don't need to worry about having too much money ever again.

Joking aside, while everyone wants to have more money, how many people do you know who have spent time thinking about why they want the money and what they want to do with it? It's easy to imagine living the high life, having a ton of money and wasting it on all sorts of stuff like fast cars and lots of bling bling.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that there is necessarily anything wrong with those things but what I mean is if you only want money for the sole purpose of showing off how much money you have, perhaps you should speak to someone about improving your self-esteem.

From about the age of thirteen, I've always wanted to be rich and to have a ton of money. At that age, both those concepts meant the same thing but as I grew older and spent more time learning about money, I realised that there is a difference between having money and being rich.

I believe that being rich is more about a mental state where you are attuned to the abundance that is there in the universe, where you live your life in a positive way, simply expecting the best. On the other hand, it is possible to have a ton of money and still feel that you don't have enough and that you are going to lose it all. Even if we don't know these people personally, we all know the anecdotes of the poor person who is so happy that they don't feel their life could get any better and the rich person who feels inadequate.

I'll get into the details of being rich in another post but I just wanted to talk about how I view what money actually is. I believe that money is nothing more than an idea, a concept if you will, that we have given a certain amount of value. It's not exactly ground-breaking stuff.

Money gives you options but it's not exactly clear why or how that is true. I remember the example given in Rich Dad, Poor Dad about how with different amounts of money you would be able to make a long distance trip in different ways. The concept that was suggested in the book was that money was a way of representing time in a physical manner. And that kind of makes sense.

You go to work and you are exchanging your time for money. With that money, you then have the option of buying things that you didn't have the time to spend making yourself. You exchange time with other people and money is how you keep track.

So when you have a lot of money, what that means is you now have a lot of time saved up that you can use for whatever purpose you want. Unless you are using the money to create a real difference in the world, all you are doing is wasting time. You might as well just be a poor daydreamer. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that if you have money and you're not changing the world for anyone other than yourself, you're nothing but a spoilt kid, more focused on being selfish and accumulating toys than anything else.

I've always wanted to have money but I've gone from wanting a big garage with a lot of fast cars to wanting to make a difference in the world, leaving behind a legacy as it were. I know that there is a certain amount of money that I will need in order to make sure that I can take care of myself and those that I love but beyond that, the money that I have will be spent making the world a better place. Spending money on things that improve the quality of life for all would be far more satisfying than owning a fancy car or taking a cool trip somewhere.

And for those of you who are old enough to remember it, here is that ABBA song.

- Life is a game and money is just one way of keeping score. 

Destination Rich!

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

                                                                   - Lao-tzu

 This blog is the first step I am taking on my way to riches.

Actually, it's not the first step that I have taken but up until now I wasn't sure of what I was doing or how I was going to do it so I was just spinning my wheels, unsure of what I was doing and being a little bit overwhelmed. I have decided that rather than worry about how things are going to work out, I am just going to take a first step in the direction that I want, hence the Lao-tzu quote.

I'm going to go over the different steps and thought processes that I had while I was doing certain things with regards to Internet Marketing. Whether it is how I managed to do what I wanted or how I managed to fail spectacularly, it's all going to be on here so that you, dear reader, will be able to emulate my success and laugh at my failures. Either you're gonna be getting rich yourself or you're gonna die laughing, either way problem solved.

I will also be adding other information on here that while they may not be directly related to me getting to where I want to be, they will definitely be full of interesting views to pass the time.

Mary Poppins taught me that a job well begun is half done, so let's see how long this thing takes to be completely done.