When I say the word “perfection”, it wakes up certain thoughts in your mind. I could illustrate this in pictures. These four photos below are some ways some people visualize perfection:

Now, how do you perceive perfection? Is it when you have written a good e-book that sells? Is it when you have written some new articles that get good reviews? What is your definition of perfection?

My best definition of perfection is:

Appreciating what you have achieved, yet always looking for ways to improve both your own understanding and the way you bring it forward to others.

You could say that by having that definition perfection is unattainable, and you would be almost right. What I consider a good e-book might not be what you like best. You might prefer a slight difference in focus because of your own niches – and that doesn’t change the quality of the e-book, but it sure changes the perception of the e-book.

Therefore we all know that giving any number of stars as a definition of value/quality is highly personal. The quality of the article is the same regardless of how many (or few) stars it gets. At least it was good enough to pass editorial guidelines when it was released. The quality of your videos may also be excellent, but if you miss certain elements of including a Powerpoint illustration or changing your voice or some third thing, people might find your video boring. If you had released the same information as a podcast (pure sound), it might have been a success.

So, as you can see, the perception of perfection is very different from person to person, and that’s why you need to adapt your message to the media you choose. For blogs, short and concise articles allow people to digest your information while following their busy schedules whereas a longer video might be exported to an iPod for later review.

Keep that in mind when you’re wondering why long videos don’t sell on your sales pages. You will want your message to come across in the best format possible. That is the key to strivinhg for perfection.

Rodger Hyatt, Philip and Charles Mutrie have announced they are launching the EZ-IM Giveaway event!It is opening its doors in just 2 days!

Charles, Philip and Rodger have called almost all of their online marketing buddies together to offer a huge assortment of free gifts to you who read this blog.

If you want to check out the EZ-IM GiveAway, click the title, and you can take a peek at all the good materials being given away.

Remember, this is coming in just 2 days. It’s the most exciting news I’ve had the opportunity to share with you this week.

I just saw a video from a guy who brags a 50% CTR and 12% conversion rate by advertising on Google for Gmail. In it, he “revealed” how he targetted the key words “he wants a divorce” to sell 100 tips on how to save your marriage, indicating it would be highly targetted for those hit by a spouse wanting a divorce…

What’s your take on that?

Personally, I find it unnecessary to target such words. If people search on Google, they can no doubt find the e-book “Preventing a Divorce” that I sell for a super low price of $9.95. If you need it, buy it. It’s worth far more when you succeed. But if you’re in a happy marriage, why should you buy it? No need to do that.

I won’t ever earn money by targetting key words, and buying my shirt off in Google Adwords. If I do my SEO properly, you should be able to find my products, and if I don’t the only one I can blame is myself.

I know some are earning tons of cash by playing both the conversion games and selling related products by upsells connected to their pages hit by low paying key words, but it’s a game I have always talked AGAINST, and I stand by my opinion.

Look at it like this: do you bring money to your jobplace? Do you PAY to go to work?

Ridiculous questions, you think?

Far from it. When you pay to get traffic, you’re being lazy. When you offer high quality traffic on your blogs, websites, sales letters, Tweets and on Facebook, you’re INTERACTING with people. By sharing, you bring value to people, and that brings its own major benefits.

So my take on all of this is you should never begin gambling to make a living online. If you can’t write well, use pod- or videocasts, but don’t ever fall for high promises that never cash in. Before I leave you with that thought, remember why they ALWAYS put in earning disclaimers…

There are several reasons why article databases aren’t half as bad as some people believe. Primarily you get exposed far more than only on your own blog. Furthermore you also get the advantage of being able to write 5 to 10 articles about a specific subject without needing to create a separate blog for your content.

There are actually two places I would recommend for you if you want to brand your name online, and they are:

1. EzineArticles
2. HubPages

I would like to describe both places for you so you can consider if this could be just right for you and your creative pen.

EzineArticles

EzineArticles can sometimes be a BIT slow in approving your articles, but on the other hand they have many categories and is a site with a lot of visitors looking for quality information.

Your name will be well exposed if you remember to put a good title to your article. When people search for specific key words that match your articles, you will find that EzineArticles scores quite well. Not every single time, but neither does your own blog — yet.

I had a very positive surprise a couple of weeks ago when I received a pen with some papers on which I could list Top 10 Ideas for New Articles from EzineArticles. For free. It is very inspiring to use when you get new article ideas.

So beyond spreading your name across the internet, getting solid backlinks, you also get little surprises from time to time. During the holiday season it was a coffee mug etc.

For content where you want to show your abilities as a writer,EzineArticles is the place to check out. You can visit the EzineArticles website by clicking the blue link.

If you want to see the 8 articles I have written so far, you can check them by clicking the link: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Henrik_Blunck

HubPages

HubPages deals with almost the same thing, but you have a bit more control as to design of your articles. I have created 16 different hubs, which you can see right here: http://hubpages.com/profile/h_blunck.

On HubPages you work with your content using templates which you can adapt for your content. You can decide whether an image should fill the entire text area, or whether you want text to float around your graphics. You can decide where to put the Comments field and even decide how many ads you want to appear on your page.

There is also a possibility of defining whether your HubPage can be considered a commercial page. All of this to fine tune how your page will appear once it’s published. This is an excellent system if you have content that requires more than pure text.

You can check Hubpages yourself by clicking this link to the HubPages website.

Concluding Words

For articles that contain pure text, I would recommend you check EzineArticles, while it would be a good idea to take a look at HubPages if you need to integrate extra elements beyond text.

Happy writing.

Be mindful of your privacy is just a quick reminder to never write anything online which you don’t like to see again. With a search engine as powerful as Google, you’re bound to find what you least expected to be at the top of search results.

So Happy New Year everyone. Hope you’ll make tons of cash this year. Feel free to write comments during the year ahead.

Don’t delete comments from your regular readers. If you have accepted a person’s comments, you will want to consider giving a reply rather than just deleting that person’s comments.

Please don’t misunderstand. When a comment is plain noise, I fully understand you need to keep your blog clean. In Denmark a blogger is responsible for content he/she allows on any blog. But when a reader comment is somewhat critical of something you have said or done, you need to learn to listen to the kind of feedback you get.

If you don’t, you’re gonna lose your traffic. That’s guaranteed!

Therefore, you must realize that a critical blog comment is a brave comment. Another 99% may already have left your blog thinking EXACTLY the same as what was written by the one reader that made an effort to make known unto you what he/she thought about your article, videocast or podcast.

If you fail to listen to constructive criticism you’re showing arrogance towards your audience, and that is penalized in one of the worst of ways: when people no longer feel you’re credible, they simply stop visiting your blog.

So wise up during this New Year period, and learn to take constructive criticism. I can promise you that you will grow immensely when you learn to listen to your audience.

Happy New Year.

I just realized it yesterday, but today is actually a decade running out. We are ending the 200X-years when today runs out. We will be starting the second decade of the 21^st century.

The internet as we know it is very young when compared with other media. Newspapers have been around for literally centuries. Television has been around for over half a century, radio even longer. Some things never change, but the internet sure does.

Let’s take an example. You create an e-book. As a gift to buyers you offer them Resale Rights. First big mistake!

“Why?” you might think.

Simply because now an avalanche of people may buy your e-book. That COULD have been a good thing. But they’re greedy, so even though you suggest they MAINTAIN the same price, they’re going to dump prices — and some may even offer others to download your e-book for FREE to build their lists.

I am not kidding about this!

You will lose money in the process, so please be attentive for a few moments as I explain what you CAN do about all of this.

You SHOULD set up an affiliate system that offers people either a commission or a cut on every second or third sale instead of gíving people all the building blocks.

Imagine this: first, you create a brand-new e-book about a good subject you have chosen. Secondly, you create a super sales letter that sells well. But, thirdly, some minion goes out and resells at a lower price (or even for free)….

What do you think happens to your sales numbers when the product is checked out on Google (or Bing)? They will chose the product at a lower price, and you stop selling your product.

So if you’ve ever wondered what happened to your sales numbers, you should wake up to one very scary element in the way the internet has developed.

People are literally ROBBING you of what you deserve. You COULD become succesful with an excellent product, but your good will (and some would even say naïvete) is going to be the one thing that DESTROYS you.

So the internet marketing business is bound to change quite a bit when people discover this truth. I hope YOU listen, because there’s lots of money to be earned from avoiding such minions and leeches. You have worked hard to create a decent product, so why let others steal the value of your products?

So, keep your business up, and stay alert. You can enter the second decade much wiser. Happy New Year everyone.

“You may quote me” is my reply to the question: “Can I quote your article on my blog”, but there are requirements for quoting me. I expect you to give proper credit as to where you found the article. I always write all articles personally, and therefore my articles ARE unique. I can trace all my content anywhere on the internet, and subsequently quoting me without paying proper tribute in the form of a return link could become expensive.

At the very least, I expect the following text:

This article was written by Henrik Blunck, and found on his Earning Money Online blog

If you want to copy and paste the code, you can right-click with your mouse, and find the code in the source code that appears. It’s easy to copy (CTRL+C) and paste (CTRL+V) into the article at the bottom, which is the normal place to insert this tribute for quoting. But you may also choose to quote me and insert it at the top. It could be useful to use the hr-code to insert a line before the article, but that is a question of personal taste, and you may quote me any way you like as long as proper source IS mentioned.

Could I Buy Articles From You?
You could buy individual articles for your own blog, but these are made specifically according to your needs, search words to be included etc. If you buy ten articles, you can get a special New Year offer of only US.$.395.00 for TEN articles that are custom written according to your needs.

You can use the PayPal payment button to start the process. You insert the key words needed, and I will send you TEN articles with a length of between 6-800 words fully optimized and ready to insert on your own blog within one week.

Number of articles

10 articles $395.00 20 articles $700.00 50 articles $1,395.00

But you MUST hurry if you want to get this offer, ’cause it’s only open until January 1^st 2010 at 1:00 PM CET (Central European Time).

Buying that offer needs no article source. You can put your own name to the articles, and if you want to resell them afterwards, you are free to do so. My normal price for one article is between $45 and $50 dollars, so you’re saving over 100$ when you accept the offer.

Don’t put all your eggs into one basket — even in situations when Internet Marketers want to convince you to focus solely on their products. It would be nice for internet marketers to leave you focused on their products alone, but putting all your eggs into one basket could prove VERY costly for you.

Here’s the deal.

When you get a commission you get a percentage of sales you have accomplished. When you have many products you attract many types of customers, and consequently have a larger chance of getting sales. When you have ten products with commissions ranging from 30-70% there’s a fair chance to estimate you will get somewhere around 45% of the TOTAL sales you have accomplished.

With TEN products your sales will be HIGHER than if you only offered ONE product. Furthermore, your business will fail if and when a producer draws back his support for you whereas you would still have NINE other products if one was lost.

So, as you can see, there’s a great deal that can be said in favour of expanding your market. You get less susceptible to losses as a result of what other people are doing, whereas you could end up very vulnerable if you had put all your eggs into one basket.

So my best advice to you is to get affiliate marketing of MANY GOOD products, and leave exclusive rights up to others. Let them gather all their efforts into one product, and let them make this mistake. For your business increasing conversion rates by improving sales letters and websites should be your area of focus.

Carpe diem & Merry X-mas.

The Joel Comm Show is an excellent show, and I thought I would share it with you if you didn’t know about this show. I got information about it through a friend on Twitter, and hope you feel as inspired by both episodes as I did.

From the second episode I especially found the Lego building challenge to be a valuable idea for split-testing group configurations.

Make comments about what YOU found most useful.

Have a nice weekend.

I have some good advice for everyone wanting to do online business today: Don’t ever bore your audience.

It sounds so fundamental, but many fail in providing their messages in a short and easy to understand manner. We want to explain everything, and before we realize it, we end up wasting other people’s time by writing the obvious.

You can change that tendency!

You can become the starting point of a new evolution. Be short and precise in your descriptions. If you need to make longer explanations, you can make good use of subheadings to divide your message into smaller bits that are easier to peruse for readers.

Let’s take a practical example. You want to explain internet marketing, and you want to bring in all the following elements into your article:

1. Information products
2. Google Adsense
3. Landing pages
4. WordPress themes
5. Payment systems

There is nothing wrong with wanting to explain all five elements into one article, but you need to take a careful look at your subject. A subject as big as landing pages or information products could easily require an article by themselves…

You have two options:

One would be to divide your main article into one page and linking to further information about each subject in seperate articles.
Another would be to divide your one article into five subheadings, and subsequently round it all off with a conclusion that ties it all together.

Which method you prefer can depend upon your audience, but also upon your ability to state your ideas in a straightforward way. If you CAN be short and precise one long article could be fine. But you should divide up the article to avoid being boring.

If you’re writing to a person that knows everything about both Adsense and payment systems, reading becomes boring for that person in certain passages. If your readers can jump past what they know they can focus on getting new information.

You win both ways. Nobody needs to read everything you write. But if you ever bore your audience you lose people. They won’t come back to your blog if they feel bored.

Worth remembering, I should think.

I can announce a very special offer that’s only available for Europeans. It’s FREE. You can get a free Anthony Robbins book, and I feel you’d like a copy too.

It’s a limited offer, so you’ll have to move fast before they remove it. There is no shipping involved. It’s FREE because they’re making a special effort to increase knowledge about who Anthony Robbins is in the European areas.

Here is the site: http://www.freeanthonyrobbinsbook.com/.

Watch the video, and order your copy today before you forget. Carpe diem.