Author: Zafer Barnes

  • Some Tools I use to Build An Email List

    Some Tools I use to Build An Email List

    Well, the engineer for the cooker came yesterday Yippee, (if you haven’t a clue what I’m on about then take a look at this post by clicking here) I can now have a decent cooked meal, oh cooker how I’ve missed YOU.

    It turned out that the element had gone in the cooker, hence the problem I was having with the cooker, an interesting I found out is that the engineer practically had no idea why it was doing what it did, the only thing he could think of was that the oven has some sort of safety cut off.

    You see you don’t need to know everything about your job or business just the basics of what you doing that earns you the money…

    The same goes to building an email list, all you need to know is the basics to get you started.

    If you have an online business of any kind then you need to be building an email list, with an email list you can keep your subscribers up to date on any new products, offers or discounts. Also not forgetting the most important part of emailing, building a relationship with your subscribers through the content you are giving them.

    The basics you need for building your email list

    1. Domain name
    2. Website
    3. Free Signup Incentive
    4. Squeeze Page
    5. Auto Responder

    To keep this post from getting too long I’ll assume 1 and 2 you’ve got already covered.

    Now for our free incentive for your potential subscriber in exchange for their email address. Now this can be several things from:

    • A Free Report – PDF
    • Cheat Sheet
    • Video
    • Survey
    • A free course
    • An infographic

    Example: Free Report

    For one of my sites, I used a free report to build my email list that is a 16-page pdf.

    Free report

    Next you need an opt-in page or commonly known as a squeeze page, this page serves one specific purpose to get subscribers onto your email list. This a squeeze page I used for the pdf offer for the Law of Attraction niche.

    Squeeze Pages

    Squeeze page example 1

    This squeeze page I built using thrive architect, a WordPress plugin that can be used to create various pages for your site, such as squeeze pages, sales pages and more than I used thrive leads to link in with an autoresponder, ( more on this in a  bit) when clicking on the button “Free Instant Access” the lightbox pops to collect thee email addresses.

    Squeeze page example 2

    For your interest you can see the squeeze page by clicking the below link:

    www.bestthoughtsforsuccess.com

    You can find another example of a squeeze page below:

    www.fiftyplusmarkter.com/kls

    There are free alternatives to Thrive Architecture, such as Elementor Page Builder they have a free basic version and a paid version.

    Auto Responder

    The final tool you’ll need is an autoresponder to send and store your email contacts, I use GetResponse this you have to set up in conjunction with you squeeze page so that anyone who signs up on your squeeze page will be automatically added to your email list.

    Other popular autoresponders are Aweber and mailchimp.

    Once you have your autoresponder linked to your squeeze page, you’ll then need to set up an autoresponder sequence, the first email being sent out could contain a link to your free resource and is usually sent straight after signup.

    Please bear in mind that this is an overview of the basic tools of what’s needed to build an email list.

    I hope you find this useful, let me know your thoughts below or shoot me an email at zaf@fiftyplusmarketer.com 😊

  • A great little free tool I use

    A great little free tool I use

    I’m sure you’ve heard this saying countless times “Give the customer what they want”.

    Here is a great guide to help you in your business.

    This is a great little trick I learned from another marketer Rob Cornish over at https://www.gainhigherground.com/blog that will help you in finding content to help build various products from creating a lead magnet to help build your email list, small product

    This process involves you going to YouTube and then searching on your niche plus the words “how-to”, so for this example say our niche is Golf.

    YouTube search golf

    Going to YouTube and searching for “Golf how” and scroll through and select popular channels.

    then click on the channel name, not the video, then from there select the video tab and click sort by most popular.

    YouTube golf channel

    Doing this then gives us an overview of what people in this market are the most interested in. From the first video, you can see the most popular is “How I got my golf swing” then “How to hit your irons pure”, and “How I shape my irons”.

    From this you can see what topics people are interested in, this takes the need out of going to keyword tools as you can see by the views what people are interested in.

    Here’s another market we can try

    Searching on “Law of Attraction how to” we find the below channels.

    Law of Attraction how to

    So, again we select the video tab and select sort by the most popular.

    Law of Attraction Channel

    Here we see the most popular video here is “Sleep technique for attracting”, “Affirmations Meditation to attract love instantly”, and “Powerful morning routine for the law of attraction” are just a few here.

    Another market we can look at is Yoga.

    Yoga how to

    Picking one of the most popular Yoga channels.

    Yoga channel

    From this, we can see the most popular video for this channel is Yoga for complete beginners: 20-minute Home Yoga.

    Looking at this we can see that it’s got 25 Million views, from this we can see it’s for people who have an interest in learning Yoga but haven’t got a lot of time spare. From this, we could create a free report base around this, use as a blog post or even on a sales or opt-in page.

    Finding out what people want

    From this you’re becoming more precise on what people want, not having to guess.

    And here’s more for you “martial arts how to”

    Martial arts channel

    Most popular on this channel is Punch Defence Tips – How to defend punches more effectively, how to hit a heavy bag for beginners, how to take a punch in a fight and even how to defend against a knife attack.

    All you must do is check 2-3 hot channels in your market and you can get some really good content for your lead magnet.

    Looking at a big niche Copywriting you can really narrow down what people are looking for.

    Copy writing chanel

    The most popular video here is “How to become a copywriter (with no experience)” as you can see some of these videos can give some great headline ideas.

    Now I hope you can see it doesn’t need to take days to find the info theirs is any perfect way of doing this but with more knowledge and little tools like this it can really make things easier for you.

    Hope this has helped you…

    What’s your favourite tool for doing research?

    Please feel free to leave your comments below

  • The Baffling Unsolved Case of the disappearance of Boris Weisfeiler

    The Baffling Unsolved Case of the disappearance of Boris Weisfeiler

    The year was 1984 and Boris Weisfeiler decided to book a trip to Chile to escape the cold wintery weather he booked his trip to hiking several trails in the Andes mountains. It’s thought that Boris tried to cross during his hiking trip.

    And that was the last seen of him, the only sign he’d been nearby the river was his backpack that was found on the riverbank along with his footprints going northward toward a bridge near Colonia. Boris never returned home or was ever seen again.

    Chile

    The local authorities in chile assumed that he had drowned while trying to cross over the river, his body was never recovered. The strangest thing is that 16 years later after his disappearance declassified US documents revealed that Boris who was in fact a State University professor may have been murdered in Chile.

    These documents allege that a witness saw Boris being interrogated at an agricultural commune before being shot.

    On August the 21 2012, a Chile Judge ordered the arrest of eight retired police and military officers in connection with the alleged kidnapping and disappearance of Boris Weisfeiler. According to the court findings the suspects were to have been prosecuted for “aggravated kidnapping” and “complicity” in the disappearance of a US citizen.

    The case was close in 2016 after the judge ruled to be a common crime…

    Finding Ideas for Your Reports

    At times marketing can feel a bizarre and an overwhelming mystery. Such has trying to write a free report or eBook and knowing what the hell to put into your report.

    If you’re looking for an idea on what to include your free report on or just for some ideas on content for your blog post, then I’ve got some great tips for you on how you can find ideas for your content that is free and easy to do.

    Finding content for your report

    Start by asking the question, “What do people actually want?”

    If the answer to this question leaves you a bit stumped or you really don’t have a clear idea what the people in your niche want. Then start first with a simple search on google for the name of your niche plus the word “forum”. By going through the most popular threads you can great little gems of info for your eBook or free report.

    Learn from your competitors by spying on them, searching on google for the name of your niche plus “free report” or “eBook”, and even sign up to their mailing list to get their free report and study it.

    Remember your aim is to find inspiration not to copy them, see what the common theme is in your niche.

    Please feel free to leave your comments below 😊

  • A new ink discovered by scientists

    A new ink discovered by scientists

    A new ink discovered by scientists at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and National Physical Laboratory (What a mouthful ay), has been created to combat the major problem of printing of fake currency notes and passports.

    This new ink is apparently based on fluorescence and phosphorescence phenomena. Basically, this ink changes colour once the notes are printed (developed) the ink shows white colour in ambient light but when exposed to UV light it turns into a red colour, appearing green when the UV source is turned off.

    Sounds pretty clever…

    Everything that’s currently around us today has started off in someone’s mind as an idea transferred from someone’s mind to paper before it was built or constructed. But if those people didn’t believe that this was possible then our world would have been totally different than from what it is today.

    human mind

    The same goes for any business before you can succeed you have to have the right mindset, it’s the thing that controls our success. And a huge part of mindset is self-esteem, what you really think or feel about yourself deep down.

    Mindset

    Much of your self-esteem is created during your early childhood when your mind was easily influenced when your parents or teachers scolded you.

    When you were made fun of by your friends which could of either resulted in you becoming shy and withdrawn or maybe the opposite happened and you got good grades you were praised and rewarded.

    Self-esteem then is formed during our early and very impressionable childhood. And the most important part about this that it can be changed it can become better. Another part of the mindset is confidence in yourself.

    Do you believe you can complete a task that you can accomplish a goal both long and short, or do you get really frustrated and quit when the going gets a bit rocky or you fail on your first attempt.

    Before starting any sort of business, we first need to make sure that we work on ourselves first. We need to make sure we have the appropriate mindset. Which is essential if you want to be successful in your business.

    The first step is to develop a success mindset by becoming aware of our thinking.  Negative thinking stops people from achieving their goals and success.

    Most people put themselves down when they make a mistake. They say to themselves mentally “you, stupid idiot”, “l could never do that”, and so on.

    Instead, think I will give it a shot.

    Your thoughts

    Becoming aware of your thoughts

    What we need to do is become more aware of our thoughts and when we catch ourselves thinking like this to change it to a positive statement as our subconscious is very impressionable and whatever you think repeatedly becomes so.

    Instead of thinking “I can’t do that” or “I’ll give it a try”, try instead of thinking if he/she can do that, I can do that.

    Another good quote to remember is “Failure is your friend.”

    Think of Thomas Edison and his 1000s of failed attempts to create an incandescent light bulb.

    The writer Robert collier said you can have anything you want if you want it badly enough you can be anything you want to behave anything you desire, accomplish anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of desire.

    Affirmations

    I know that doing affirmations sounds like a load of tripe but using affirmations in your daily life will help you stay focused on your goals and keep you on track, a quick search on google can get loads on this.

    Decide on what you want to achieve and create an affirmation in the present tense with a date for a deadline of when this will be achieved. And repeat this affirmation first thing in the morning upon awakening and last thing at night. But it’s just as important to act on the goals you set.

    Feel free to leave your comments below…

  • The Bizarre Case of the Vanishing Village

    The Bizarre Case of the Vanishing Village

    In the late 1930s a very bizarre case occurred concerning a village near lake Angikuni, a fur trapper named Joe Labella was looking for shelter for the night, and he made his way to a nearby village he knew of and when he got there all the villagers had disappeared.

    The strange thing about this has everything including food and weapons had been left at the village.

    Lake Angikuni

    Labelle contacted the Royal Mounted Canadian police and an investigation began, in the nearby village burial ground a grave was found to be empty, not the result of any animals.

    Not from the village, several bodies of sledge dogs were found, they appeared to have starved to death. The strange part about this was nearby to these dogs were open stores of food. Also, there appeared strange lights above the lake at about the same time has the disappearance of the local villagers.

    What really happened?

    No one really knows but this story appeared in Frank Edwards book Stranger than Science; other versions in Whitley Strieber’s science fiction novel Majestic and Dean Koontz’s horror novel in the Sky, empty graveyards and over a thousand people missing.

    Speaking of bizarre and crazy things…

    Do you know what’s really crazy?

    Not making sure your website has any sort of protection, especially if you think that your site hasn’t anything worth stealing or being hacked for, but the truth of the matter is websites are hacked all the time.

    And do you know what?  in most instances, it’s not to actually to get hold of your data or screw up your website.

    It’s even sneakier than that. The server that your website is on could be used to send spam emails, be used as a temporary webserver to serve files of an illegal nature or be part of a botnet and more.

    What are the ways you can protect your website?

    If you’re using WordPress on a hosting company such as SiteGround, then the only thing you need to really worry about is making sure first that any plugins you do have installed are all up to date. That WordPress is on the latest version and that you have some security plugins installed on your site.

    Oh, and you have an up to date back-up of your website.

    website security

    Make sure that you use a hard to guess the password, with a mix of upper- and lower-case letters, numbers and special characters such as the@ symbol. You could even go as far as setting up a 2-step authentication process for the admin login for your WordPress website.

    And make sure to use different passwords for different logins.

    Please feel free to leave your comments below 🙂

  • Site stuck in maintenance mode

    Site stuck in maintenance mode

    Last night I came home from work and was cooking my dinner (well at least I was trying to)

    I open the oven door and all the blooming electric just went off.

    What the fu*ck I thought.

    The electric tripped out, and everything went off lights and all the electric appliances plummeting the whole house into darkness. At first, I thought we’d had a power cut, after checking the electric box and flipping the trip switch back on.

    candel

    I carried on cooking my dinner, all seemed well till I opened the oven door.

    Guess what happened? Yep, the electric tripped again. I checked my food and it was barely warm. Luckily the cooker is insured and we’ve got an engineer coming Wednesday morning.

    Well, I guess tonight I’m having beans on toast!

    Happy Birthday Son

    Today’s my lad’s 11 birthday and we’re at Kangaroo in Nottinghamshire, a big indoor area where they do multiple activities for children, trampolines, ball pits and more. A fantastic place to take the kids.

    Man, it’s windy today…

    Well, we arrived at about 2:15 pm, and it’s packed solid we’ve got a 40-minute wait.

    And it’s noisy as hell it’s making my tabs hurt lol.

    On the way back home, we stopped in at McDonald’s all in all my son really enjoyed his birthday.

    After a busy day I then sat down and…

    I decided to check out one of my websites to see if there were any updates.

    I had 5 plugins that needed updating. So, as usual, I selected all the plugins that required updating.

    All seemed to be going fine until I got a message saying:

    Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance check back in a minute

    Ok, I thought, 5 minutes later it was still saying site in maintenance mode and I even refreshed

    The page. Oh, “Crap”, I thought to myself. A quick google and I found a simple fix, well simple if you have a bit of technical knowledge.

    Deleting the dot maintenance file from your hosting account

    The fix is to delete the dot maintenance file from your websites public folder. Now there are two

    Ways you can do this, either through your hosting site, using either cPanel or your hosting site’s equivalent of cPanel. Depending on your hosting company you may need to enable hidden files and folders option.

    I use SiteGround for my hosting, on SiteGround if your using their replacement for cPanel you must go to your website then click on site tools this will then bring you up this option:

    Dashboard site

    Click on the site option which will then bring up the file manager option on the left-hand pane.

    Dashboard site file manager

    Click the file manager to then bring up the file browser for your website and then click on the folder public_html folder.

    public_html folder

    This will then show all the files and folders in the right-hand pane. Click on the dot maintenance file and then click on the bin icon at the top to delete the dot maintenance file.

    Using FileZilla to delete the dot maintenance file

    The other option is to use an FTP program such as FileZilla

    If you’re using FileZilla, you need to make sure you have created an FTP account for your domain on your hosting account for your website.

    Once you’ve done this, you’ll need either your domain name (yourdomain.com), your username and password, and the port is usually default of 21. Once you’ve entered these details just click quick connect, then choose your domain from the top right-hand pane of FileZilla.

    FileZilla Domain name

    Double click the domain name in the right-hand pane, see above picture. This will then bring up the below in the same pane.

    FileZilla publ_html

    You’ll then need to click on the public_html folder (right-hand pane above picture) this will then bring up the below:

    Scroll down until you see the dot maintenance file and click on the dot maintenance file. Then right-click and choose to delete from the menu as below…

    Then try opening your site hopefully this has sorted this problem out for you.

    If you have any question, feel free to shoot me an email…

    P.S. If you’re using Cloudflare for your site then you won’t be able to FTP to your site using your domain name or your server name unless you use your server’s IP address.

  • If you enjoy a good cup of coffee then you won’t want to read this

    If you enjoy a good cup of coffee then you won’t want to read this

    Lots of people enjoy a morning coffee…


    In fact, millions of people throughout the world love to start their day with a good cup of coffee and just has many drink coffees to keep themselves awake during the day for that caffeine boost.

    I know where I live in Nottingham UK, that there are plenty of coffee shops throughout the city.

    But…

    Coffee

    Did you know that there’s a good chance that you’re tin of coffee contains ground-up cockroaches, yeah you read that right!

    Eew…

    …In a live interview entomologist Dr Douglas Emlen broke the story that most pre-ground coffee has ground cockroaches in it.

    Big bulk coffee you buy in tins is all processed from huge stockpiles of coffee, which get infested with cockroaches and there’s really nothing that can be done to filter them out, so it gets ground up in the coffee.

    So, what do you do if you don’t want a fresh hot, cup of cockroaches in the morning?

    Buy whole beans and grind them yourself.

    The Shiny Object Syndrome

    When you’re learning about internet marketing and in particular making money online it can be a bit like a good cuppa coffee, you can come across a hot new item that everyone raves about, and you can’t wait to taste it, you then maybe start to implement the ideas in that product but then you get sidetracked by another hot new shiny object.

    And so, it repeats…

    This is known as the shiny object syndrome

    You end up all confused and unsure of what to do in your online business efforts. I feel your pain I’ve been exactly there myself.

    Shiny Object Syndrome

    Now you’re probably asking,

    “What then is the answer?”

    Stay focused on what your doing…try to avoid jumping straight into something new till you’ve had a good think about it. Ask yourself “Will this really benefit me?”

    If you have a plan stick with it and see it through, remove the distractions that keep distracting you from your current goal. Learn to see past the hype. The trouble with the online world is there are so many new shiny objects, new products and services and when you’re on sites or emails lists that bombard you constantly with these offers and people are raving about them you feel you’re missing out on the next best thing.

    Remember though what is good for others doesn’t necessarily mean it will be good for you. Don’t jump headfirst into something, the question first how this fit in with your business, goals or priorities.



    Best

    Zaf


    P.S. Quick Reminder

    If you haven’t already, get yourself a nice freshly grounded hot cupper coffee and head over to…

    https://www.gainhigherground.com

    And go right on and dig right in.

  • Do you have perfection syndrome?

    Do you have perfection syndrome?

    Why can’t Michael J Fox draw a perfect circle freehand?


    Because no human can draw a perfect circle freehand.

    Perfect circle

    You may be wondering what the hell has this got to do with internet marketing or email marketing? 


    Actually, quite a lot…


    A lot of people suffer from perfection syndrome – they have a product they working on and it’s not quite ready to be released yet, it either needs more tweaking or there’s something not quite ready yet and what do you think happens? 


    They never end up releasing that product, because the product isn’t never quite right. Or it’s put on hold while they then start working on something else that comes along and I know I’ve been there.


    In reality, they have doubts and fear that their product isn’t going to be any good or that it’s going to fail.


    The reality is that they’re probably right, but they don’t realize that this is the normal process. We taught that we should get things right the first time around that we have to be a perfectionist then the reality is that we learn more from our failures than we do from our successes.

    Just Do it!


    Your first product being released isn’t going to be quite right and COULD fail, but it’s going through this process that we learn and improve upon the next time around.


    But what’s important is that you get your product out there and test it and see where it succeeds and fails so that you can improve upon it the next time around.


    It’s no good waiting for that perfect time, for when the planets are all inline and the clock strikes midnight – well you get my point.

    perfection syndrome

    Get that product out even if you think it isn’t perfect, nothing ever is, stop being a dumb ass and just do it then track your results and see what worked and what didn’t work, from this you’ll know where you need to make improvements the next time around.


    Lots of people who have made it BIG started out with some sort of failure more often than not more than one failure…


    So, whatever product you’ve got just get it out there and see what results this brings you and improve as you go along.

    Best

    Zaf

    P.S. If you require help in setting up your online internet marketing business then take a look at this free resource below:

    https://www.affilorama.com/

  • A little tip to help you through the year

    A little tip to help you through the year

    I hope you’ve had a great start to the New Year and I hope you’ve enjoyed the festive season as much I did 🙂

     The beginning of the year is a great time, people from all around the world decide that they’re going to get fitter so they join gyms, they start new diets and of course decide setting up a new business and buying a new internet marketing course.

    A new year

    …And

    Without a doubt that some of these things will bring fantastic life-changing results for a small fraction of these individuals.

    But unfortunately, most of these individuals will see little if any change in their lives.

    We’ve ALL been there at some point in our lives – isn’t it funny how our best intentions die out after only a couple of weeks for us then to start back at square one when our old habits return?

    Do you want to know what the SECRET is to this?

    DON’T try and create such a big upheaval in your life.

    If your goal is to get fitter for example, then don’t try giving yourself the task of going 5 days a week to the gym doing 60 minutes plus workout. You’ll just end up making excuses to yourself as to why you can’t go on that day and after a few weeks just give up.

    Storm coiming

    Instead start small maybe doing 1-2 sessions a week and doing a bit more walking in between every day.

    You’ll be more likely to keep it up and even enjoy it (leading to a more positive HABIT forming in your life).

    The same goes for online marketing. Don’t plan to do a 6 or 7 figure business from scratch, What you need to do is put your focus on the smaller steps first and build-up slowly.

    This can be:

    • Putting a lead magnet together
    • Creating your first product
    • Getting your squeeze page up
    • Setting up your affiliate marketing campaign

    Doesn’t matter what it is, THINK SMALL and just get the damn thing done.

    Then when this is done and only when this is done continue onto your next task.

    I know we keep being told to think BIG and this seems counter-intuitive and I agree it doesn’t sound very inspiring.

    But with a little chutzpah, it leads to a great vision of the future and it’s a GREAT way to make this more of a surer bet.

    Have a great start to the year,

    Zaf

    P.S. If you looking to make this year DIFFERENT and you decided to finally get your online business off the ground then Roy Carter has an excellent program.

    You can find it below:

    http://www.roy-carter-tutorials.com

  • How creative individuals see the world differently

    How creative individuals see the world differently

    In recent years it’s been found that the human eye can do extraordinary and, in some cases, bizarre things.

    For instance, take CREATIVE people, what makes them creative?

    Creativity

    In 2017 scientist did a test to see if they could determine what drove creativity other than an emotional or mental process. The scientists wanted to see if something more physical was also involved. What the scientist did was to get some volunteers to look at two colours, on the left was a green patch and on their right was a red patch.

    The volunteers had to look at both patches at the same time, what this showed was that those that kept switching their attention from one patch to the other or experienced a brief visual blend weren’t really creative. And those that were more open saw the blend more often and for a longer time.

    This result shows that there was a strong possibility that creative people do in fact see the world differently in a physical sense separate from the emotional and mental process. Also, in another test, it was shown that creative people see more detail in things they look at that other people ignore.

    Observational Skills

    Interestingly the great artist Leonardo Da Vinci used to practise the art of observation, he would observe in great detail places, people, animals etc around him. And included this in his daily ritual to improve and hone his observational skills, which incidentally also has been found to also improve memory and recall.

    Leonardo Da Vinci drawing

    A great part of his learning to draw comes from learning how to see properly the finer details.

    It’s recently been found that infants see reality in its entirety while adults no longer do, adults lose the ability to notice all the details in their visual field, which is actually needed in order to prevent sensory overload. This seems to be required for babies as they need to see everything as the world around them is new and their brains are still figuring what’s important and what to ignore.

    However, this ability disappears between the ages of 5-8 months old.                  

    The good news, however, is this can be learned.

    If you stuck for ideas for a new product or email, have a look at what other niches are offering, a good way to do this is look at Amazon top-selling books in a niche you’re not in to give you some ideas for headlines for a sales page, subject line in an email or for a product.

    Best

    Zaf