Issue# 2693

• WEALTHY: What you have in common with every billionaire in the world (Michael Masterson)
• HEALTHY: Confessions of a recovering soda addict (Shane Ellison)
• WISE: Horace on being a host

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

• 5 characteristics of a top website hosting company (Edwin Huertas)

• Do copywriters… copy? (John Forde)

• It’s Good to Know… about your credit card “profile”

• Add “vituperate” to your vocabulary

* Highly Recommended *

This Is the Kind of Technical Know-How You Need to Succeed

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The Most Valuable Thing That Money Can Buy

By Michael Masterson

Take a sheet of paper and draw a vertical line down the middle of it. On the left side of the page, under a column marked “Things I Enjoy,” make a list – maybe something like this:

• Time with family and friends
• Reading
• My hobbies (List them.)
• My house
• My car
• My stereo
• My clothes
• and so on…

On the right side of the page, write down a number from 1 to 5 that indicates how much ongoing enjoyment you get from each of those things. What you’ll probably find out is that most of the best things in your life, as the saying goes, are, indeed, free.

That’s the way it is for you. That’s the way it is for me. And that’s the way it is for everyone else, including billionaires.

The most valuable thing that money can buy you is the freedom to spend your time as you see fit. And when you reach the point where you can spend most of your time paying attention to those things that bring you the greatest pleasure, chances are you won’t spend a great deal of money (unless you are unfathomably shallow). You’ll probably choose to spend your time conversing with friends, reading good books, enjoying art and travel – living the kind of life you imagine wealthy English or French aristocrats did in centuries past.

To some extent, at least, you can do that right now.

[Ed. Note: The above article was adapted from Automatic Wealth: The Six Steps to Financial Independence, published with permission from John Wiley & Sons. Get your copy today.]

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“A host is like a general: Calamities often reveal his genius.”

- Horace

You May Take It for Granted, but It Could Be Killing Your Traffic and Your Sales

By Edwin Huertas

Early to Rise is always giving subscribers helpful advice on Web marketing and how to generate business online. But one thing we haven’t said much about is Web hosting and how it can affect your sales.

A Web host is a company that provides server (computer) space for your website – for a “modest” monthly fee. Think of it as the landlord of the building where your website lives.

And you don’t want to take this service for granted. One of the things you need to consider when you are developing your marketing initiatives is the Web hosting provider for your company’s portal. Choosing the wrong one can give you a major headache.

I’ll give you an example of what I mean…

A company (let’s call them Widgets-R-Us) had recently laid off its Vice President of Marketing. Along with her went a few of the company’s Web marketing team members, including its main search engine specialist. Internet sales had been extremely slow, and it was a bad year for Widgets-R-Us. The downsizing move had been made to give the company a chance to regroup.

At the time, I was the Web Consultant for my local Chamber of Commerce – and at one of their networking events, I bumped into the CEO of Widgets-R-Us. After about an hour of listening to him carry on about his diminishing online sales, I agreed to see what I could do for him.

I quickly got to work, analyzing every Web promotion tactic they had been using and breaking it down to the point in time where sales began to drop. Usually, I can narrow a sales decrease down to a specific set of issues that can be dealt with. But in this case, I couldn’t find anything concrete that would indicate exactly where they went wrong.

In fact, their Web marketing team had done an excellent job. Their ideas were great and the design team was incredibly talented.

I was baffled. Their overall efforts were “on the money.” Their designs were flawless, and the marketing team had worked with the copy team to develop creative e-mail campaigns that had produced generous sales for a long time. But though they were using the same techniques that had always been effective for them, their online sales were slipping.

What was even stranger was that none of their other marketing channels were doing badly. On the contrary, those channels were benefiting from the extra work the teams were putting in on them because of the slowdown in online sales.

What could have caused the company’s online sales to drop? It wasn’t until I started asking about their Web hosting provider that I discovered the reason.

Turns out that, several months prior, they had brought in a new “tech” company to manage their networks and computers. The new tech company convinced them to switch their Web hosting to a “better” company (no doubt friends) – and, based on that recommendation, Widgets-R-Us made the change.

The new hosting company seemed to be fine. But when I took a second look, I noticed that the Widgets-R-Us open rates had started dropping at about the same time (give or take a week) as they switched companies. When I researched it further, I saw that their domain had been placed on some of the major spam blacklists – which, as you probably know, is really bad news for any online business.

The company’s search engine traffic, on the other hand, had deteriorated more gradually. It takes time for search engines to revisit and re-index a Website, so it can be a month or two before you would notice any big drops in search engine traffic. But after a few months of constantly declining traffic, the Widgets-R-Us domain was almost completely wiped out of Google’s index! A little bit longer and they may have been blacklisted altogether.

Needless to say… my client was in a panic.

After speaking with his (so-called) techs, I started to research the server’s IP (The IP is somewhat like your computer’s own personal Web “telephone number.”) And I was surprised to find that the same IP was being used by more than 300 other domains. This is common practice among many Web hosting providers, but for Widgets-R-Us, it was disastrous.

I later found out that there were lots of spammer domains on that server that were sending out daily e-mails. It looked like the Web hosting provider was oblivious to this (or maybe they just didn’t care). And when I studied the situation a little more, I started to see why the search engines were penalizing my client’s website: The Web hosting provider was home to some of the worst spammers on the Net – spammers that incorporated everything from SEO cloaking applications (used to trick search engines, but extremely frowned upon) to bulk e-mailers on their websites.

One of my first recommendations was for my client to GET RID OF THOSE IDIOT TECHS. I convinced them to move their hosting to a reputable Web hosting company and contacted Google to see about getting their website re-indexed.

I explained to Google what had occurred and how we had fixed the problem. And within a couple of months, the Widgets-R-Us website was once again getting great targeted search engine traffic.

So… now do you understand why having the right hosting provider is important to your online sales?

Here are five suggestions that will help you pick the right Web host:

1. Research the company’s background. How big are they and how long have they been around? Bigger companies that have been around longer have usually gone through all the networking issues, so chances are your site will be on a bigger, stronger network.

2. Look for a company with good Internet connectivity (lines connected to the Internet). Better Internet connectivity means your server will run faster – which means people will download your pages quicker. It’s kind of like the difference between a modem and high-speed Internet service.

You want an OC3 line or better. A business might have one T1 line connecting its entire office to the Internet with no problems, but when you’re working with Web servers the loads can be much higher and require bigger lines.

Here is a breakdown of some of the connectivity options your host might offer:

T1 – 1.544 megabits per second (24 DS0 lines) – Not bad for office Internet, but terrible for Web servers

T3 – 43.232 megabits per second (28 T1s) – Much better than a T1 and lower priced than OC3+ connections

OC3 – 155 megabits per second (84 T1s) – Very good

OC12 – 622 megabits per second (4 OC3s) – Awesome

OC48 – 2.5 gigabits per seconds (4 OC12s) – WOW!

OC192 – 9.6 gigabits per second (4 OC48s) – NASA?

3. Make sure they have generator backup. Any good Internet service provider will have HUGE generators to power the building in case of power outages. Your website needs to be running 24/7, and you don’t want to take chances with a hosting company that doesn’t supply (BIG and POWERFUL) backup generators to power your server in case of an emergency.

4. Make sure they offer you a control panel. A control panel is a user interface that allows you to manage different aspects of your hosting account – adding new e-mail accounts, viewing your traffic logs, installing additional software on your site, and more.

5. IMPORTANT!!! Make sure they offer 24/7 support in case of an emergency! Every good hosting company offers this feature.

After my experience with Widgets-R-Us, I learned to stick with the best of the best. Here are three of the top hosting companies on the Web:

www.bluehost.com

www.lunarpages.com

www.godaddy.com

But the one I prefer is Host Gator. Here’s why…

I personally use Host Gator (one of the Internet’s largest and most respected Web hosting providers) for my own domains. They have such a good reputation that ETR has chosen them as the official Web hosting company for our 5 Days in July conference. And I recommend Host Gator to all of our ETR readers, too.

They offer you an extremely secure hosting environment with an individual IP. (No one else will have it.) When you sign up for a hosting account – at $7.95 per month – you can add as many of your domains to the account as you like. In other words, you pay just $7.95 a month… even if you host 100 domains!

With Host Gator, you will never pay to host another website again. They will even give you unlimited space and bandwidth (so you can upload unlimited Web pages and graphics), as well as free 800 numbers, website software, and much more.

Click here to view Host Gator’s low-cost business hosting packages.

[Ed. Note: Don't let the technical aspects of Internet entrepreneurship - like website hosting - keep you from starting your own online business. Next month, Edwin Huertas and a team of Internet marketing and business-building experts will show an elite group of future Internet millionaires how to start their very own powerhouse businesses. You'll get step-by-step instructions on how to do everything from setting up a website to picking a hosting company to marketing your business online. The $500 Early Bird discount ends Monday at 5:00 p.m., so make sure you sign up today!]

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Imitation: The Secret to Stronger Sales Copy

By John Forde

I had an old friend – no longer with us – who used to say, “If writers write, copywriters copy. Isn’t that how it works?”

I wince to hear it put that way, given the many times I’ve sat there staring at a blinking cursor and trying to come up with something “new.” But yes, in a lot of ways, it’s true.

And really it’s nothing to be ashamed of. After all, we’re not talking about stealing other people’s copy. We’re talking about learning from other copywriters by studying what they’ve done in a way that can only be accomplished deeply through verbatim copying – over and over – of their best stuff.

It’s more or less that simple.

To do it right, you have to make sure you are starting with a winning direct-mail package and not a dud. Either something you’ve seen mailed over and over or something you know for a fact was a control.

Then, before you do anything else, read the copy.

You’re not going to do anything complicated. You’re just going to copy out the package page by page, word for word.

All of it.

If it’s too big to do in one sitting, I recommend you spread out the task over a few days, a week, whatever you need. As long as each copying session is at least 45 minutes to an hour long.

And to get the full effect, don’t let too much time go between sessions – or what you’ve learned from one day to the next will go stale before it gels together as a whole.

And, yes, you have to do this by hand. Typing it out just isn’t the same. Why? Slower is better. As you copy out words, you’re hoping to soak up lessons between the lines. You need time between syllables for discovery.

It’s tough on your elbow, but worth the pain.

And, hey, if you REALLY want to learn from this exercise, go back and do it again. As soon as you’ve finished. You won’t be sorry, once you see the results.

[Ed. Note: To get more of copywriting expert John Forde's wisdom and insights into marketing (and much more), sign up for his free e-letter, Copywriter's Roundtable, at www.copywritersroundtable.com. Or send an e-mail to signup@jackforde.com. Get a free report about 15 deadly copy mistakes and how to avoid them when you sign up today.

Good copywriting is just one aspect of running a successful business. For a full rundown on starting and running a work-at-home Internet business that could soon replace or exceed your current income, check out ETR's 5 Days in July business-building event. You'll discover how to set up a website, choose a product, write copy that sells, and much more - and you WILL walk away with your own Internet business. Learn more here.]

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How to Break the Sugar Addiction

By Shane “The People’s Chemist” Ellison

It’s been seven years since I’ve had a soda. But there was a time when I was ravenous for Mountain Dew. It was cold, it was fizzy, and it tasted damn good. Whether I was slaving away in the lab, poring over science journals in the library, or even teaching organic chemistry, nothing stopped me from drinking it. I was hooked. Little did I know, I had developed a biochemical addiction to the sugar in Mountain Dew that could have led me to an early grave.

Do you have an addiction to sugary sodas? If so, pay careful attention. I’ll reveal what you need to do to save your health.

In a study comparing the addictive properties of sweeteners, sugar proved more addictive than cocaine. When consumed, sugar increases serotonin levels within the brain. This increases the production of endorphins. Like drugs, these brain chemicals trigger opioid receptors, thereby eliciting the sensation of happiness. This artificial increase in serotonin levels causes the body to down-regulate its natural production and release of serotonin. Addiction begins to creep in.

Serotonin is responsible for controlling mood and appetite. Without serotonin, a person gets depressed and craves more sugar. This forges an emotional bond between happiness and sugar (or soda sweetened with sugar). Sugar addicts become dependent on it to increase serotonin and therefore make them feel happy. That explains why, no matter what I was doing, I would drop it to get my Mountain Dew fix! By leveraging this biochemical addiction, soda manufacturers are making a fortune.

The problem with sugar addiction is that it leads to obesity and Type II diabetes. Not only was I an honorary member of The Fat Cow Hall of Fame (I weighed 205 lbs with 30 percent body fat; off soda today, I’m 170 lbs with 10 percent body fat), I was boosting my blood sugar to dangerous levels. One soda per day increases your risk of diabetes by 85 percent, which can reduce your lifespan by 11 to 20 years.

The addiction can be totally overcome in about three weeks. To do it, you need plenty of exercise and sunshine, along with L-tryptophan from grass-fed beef and whey isolate. Natural sweeteners like stevia and agave can help you ease off the soda (use them to make a natural soda from sparkling water and lime), as can herbal teas (like Yerba Mate).

[Ed. Note: Shane Ellison's (www.thepeopleschemist.com) entire career has been dedicated to the study of molecules - how they give life and how they take from it. He was a two-time recipient of the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Grant for his research in biochemistry and physiology. He is a bestselling author, holds a master's degree in organic chemistry, and has firsthand experience in drug design. Take advantage of his knowledge and insights to look and feel your best in 90 days.]

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It’s Good to Know: Your Credit Card “Profile”

If you use your credit card to buy stuff like beer and expensive customized auto parts, watch out… your bank might think you’re a deadbeat in waiting.

It’s because of the comprehensive profile made of each and every credit card customer. The profile is based on what you’ve bought with your card, personal details you give to customer service reps (like a recent divorce or job loss), the time of day you log in to your online account (Is it late at night or when you should be at work?), how often you’ve been late or missed payments, the balance you carry each month, and more.

It all makes its way into a database that the card companies and their consultants use to determine if you are a good risk for a higher credit limit, which interest rate to charge you, and when it’s likely that you are dodging them and should be scheduled for a call from the collection agency.

(Source: The New York Times)

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Word to the Wise: Vituperate

To “vituperate” (vy-TOO-puh-rate) – from the Latin – is to censure severely; to overwhelm with wordy abuse.

Example (as used by Sir Walter Scott in Ivanhoe): “The incensed priests… continued to raise their voices, vituperating each other in bad Latin.”

[Ed. Note: Become a more persuasive writer and speaker... build your self-confidence and intellect... increase your attractiveness to others... just by spending 10 VERY enjoyable minutes a day with ETR's Words to the Wise CD Library.]

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 12th, 2009 at 9:34 am and is filed under Daily Issues .