My favorite time to get things accomplished in my internet businesses is late at night. I am pretty much a night owl anyway. My creative juices really get flowing in the wee hours of the morning. Once the clock hits about 10 or 11 at night, my internet business mind kicks into gear. Even though I usually get up around 7 AM to help get the kids ready for school and have busy days all day long up until the kids are in bed around 8:30 PM, I’m just getting going.

I really like working my internet business at this time of night when everything is quiet and I can really focus on my work. I can quietly browse around the internet researching ways to get more qualified web traffic as I monitor web server logs, analytics, and new subscriptions. I start blogging and writing articles. I also work on coding up the next software product or website idea. It is nice and peaceful and I can really focus on good content, software, and products. Take a look at the time stamp on this post. Right now (as I write this paragraph) it is 2:08 AM. I’ve been working since 10 PM. I haven’t had any interruptions - no telephones ringing and no TV distracting me. It is just nice and quiet.

When is your favorite time to work on your internet business? Do you work at night so you can spend time with your family during the day? Do you work while your kids are at school and spend time with them at night? Everyone has different schedules and different motivations for working at different times. That is one of the big advantages of running your own internet business. You can work it when YOU want to. The internet is there 24/7. It is ready whenever you are.

I can get so much more done during these times of peace and quiet when I can stay focused than when I keep getting interrupted by sweet little voices asking, “Can you play with me, Daddy?” Plus, when my children ask me to play with them, I would rather play with them while they are still little and want to play. I can always work the business while they are sleeping. I know in 20 years from now when they are grown and out of the house, I’ll be glad I did. They are only little boys and girls for a little while. Cherish every moment with your kids.

Do I lose some sleep? Yep. Am I tired all of the time? Pretty much. Is it worth it? Absolutely!

Is it worth it to you? Can you lose a little sleep to build your internet business late at night so you don’t interfere with important family time? You can find the time if it is really important to you. It doesn’t matter when your best time of the day is. Just find the best time for you and take action. Stay focused and be persistent. If you can, work your internet business in peace and quiet. You will get more done when you are not getting distracted.

- Hill Robertson

One way to get traffic to your blog or website is by having visitors “stumble” your blog entries by submitting them to stumbleupon.com. You will probably get quite a few visitors from StumbleUpon if someone submits one of your posts. While the traffic isn’t ideal, you will at least get visitors that have an interest in the topic of your blog. This should at least give you a little better chance of the visitor staying on your site instead of bouncing away.

If you don’t have an account already, you should set up account at StumbleUpon. It is simple to do and you can specify the types of sites you like. You install a toolbar on your browser so you can easily give a review of any site you find interesting and want others to know about. You’ll want to be careful about stumbling your own site. It is frowned upon in the StumbleUpon community. Self promotion in this case is not necessarily a good thing. It might even get you banned if it is abused in this way. However, you can encourage others to stumble your posts.

I just added a StumbleUpon link at the bottom of my blog postings to encourage visitors to click on it and write a short review. You can do the same for your blog or website to hopefully increase your traffic.

You will also have a Stumble button on the toolbar. If you click on it, you will be taken to a randomly selected site that has already been submitted to StumbleUpon that meets the criteria of your selected topics as listed in your profile. You may find some really interesting web sites that you never would have found otherwise. Then, you can give them a thumbs up or thumbs down depending if you liked the site or not.

Stumbling around the internet can be very interesting. However, be careful when doing it because it can be a major form of distraction. Before you know it, you will have stumbled away to some really cool and entertaining site and wasted hours of time instead of focusing on building your internet business.

- Hill Robertson

Are you reading one money making blog after another looking for the one that tells you the quick and easy way to make money online? Are you curiously meandering through all kinds of money making forums looking for the next new thing so you can get in on the action early to make the big bucks? Do you think all these other successful entrepreneurs just happened to get in at the right time in the right market?

Most people that want to make money online just play the internet business game. They are not serious about it. They may even set up a blog where they write posts every now and then. They may even put an affiliate link or two on the site. But they never really stick with it or put enough into it to be successful. It is not a game. You can’t just dilly dally with it and one day just magically generate enough income to quit your job. It is a business. You must treat it like one. You must work diligently. You will not make a million dollars over night. It may even be a little frustrating sometimes when you write post after post and spend a lot of time working on getting traffic to your site only to see that no one signs up for your blog.

You look at the “gurus” of the online money making and dream of doing the same thing. You see how well they are doing with their subscriber lists of 3000 or more while you sit there with 2 subscribers (which happen to be you and your spouse) after 2 months of blogging and submitting articles. You start looking at the 3000 compared to your 2 and you get discouraged. You start to think it is not worth it. This is where most people quit (if they even made it that far).

You have to keep doing the right things over and over to get results. It is not quick or easy. It will take some work and time. Remember, you are building a business. It is not a game. Just hang in there. You will start to see the benefits. Maybe tomorrow is the day you will get that third subscriber (and a real one that is not one of your family or friends). Maybe a few days after that you get 2 or 3 more. It takes time but it is an exciting journey.

The bottom line is you need to take action, be persistent, and never give up. Keep testing different things to improve your results. You will get better and better every day if you don’t give up. The better you get, the better your results will be and you will start to build up a snowball effect that will grow bigger and go faster until you can’t stop it if you wanted to.

So, are you just playing the internet business game or are you serious about it? Only you can make the choices that result in a game or a successful business.

- Hill Robertson

To run a successful internet business, you need to value your time and understand what it is worth to you. If you really take time to think about it, you are probably spending a lot of time on “business activities” that you can better outsource or otherwise take the load off your own plate. It can be easy to get in this trap because you feel like you are working on your business and taking the next step. You may very well be doing that. However, can you spend that time on something more productive that you can’t outsource? Let’s look at this in more detail.

When I started my internet businesses, there were many services I could have outsourced easily. There was also software I should have bought to be able to do certain tasks of my business. Instead, I looked at the cost involved in outsourcing the services and purchasing software. So, in order to “save” money, I would write my own software that would accomplish the same goal as the services and software. But did I really save?

I would find a software product that would help me do a certain business task that I needed to do. It would cost $200. I knew I could write my own software to do the same thing. I would code it up myself so I wouldn’t have to spend the $200. However, it would take me 40 hours to complete the software. Let’s see, that is $200/40 hours. That works out to $5/hour. That is less than minimum wage! I haven’t worked for minimum wage since I was 16 years old. I certainly wouldn’t want to work for that today. Yet, that is exactly what I was doing. In addition, I lost that 40 hours that I could have spent with my family. That 40 hours is gone forever. All for a measly $200.

Of course, if you are starting out and don’t have any money, you may have to go this route to some degree. But really think about the value of your time compared to what it would cost to accomplish the same task through outsourcing in some way or another. There is a cost to everything whether it costs money, time, or both. You can always make more money but the time is gone forever. Think about how you are spending both and then spend your money and time wisely.

- Hill Robertson

Have you subscribed to this blog yet? If you haven’t yet subscribed to this blog, now is the time to do it. The best way is to fill out your name and email address in the subscribe area at the top right of this blog to get email notifications. You get several benefits by signing up for email notifications as follows:

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- Hill Robertson

I am a Mac and Linux geek. I primarily use Macs or Linux servers to connect to my linux web servers that I have scattered all over the internet. I love using the almighty command line (we’re not talking old DOS here, we are talking real linux command line). It is very powerful if you know how. It is actually faster in many cases than using a GUI (graphical user interface). For instance, when I modify the underlying code of this blog or I update MySQL tables, I open up a terminal session on my Mac and ssh (secure shell) into my linux servers.

Am I confusing you yet with all of this geek talk? Well, this blog is suppose to be a bit geeky. I like to give some geeky blog posts occasionally. So keep reading and enjoy it. You just might learn something….

When I connect to my linux servers, I edit the PHP files directly on the server using a text based editor called vi (actually it is vim which is the improved version). This allows me to quickly update files without having to update a local copy and the FTP it to my server.

A little about FTP…..
FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It is probably the most commonly used way to send files from one computer to another. It is usually the method to upload files from your PC to your web server. One thing to keep in mind about FTP is the fact that it is clear text. This means that the data is NOT encrypted when you send it from your PC to your web server. So, if someone was sniffing (or monitoring) the network traffic somewhere between you and your web server, they can see your FTP login and password. If this concerns you, you may want to use SFTP (secure file transfer protocol) which encrypts the data as it is sent so it can’t be easily seen by someone sniffing the network.

In the same manner as SFTP, SSH also encrypts the data as it is sent. I use SSH all the time from my Mac and Linux boxes. If you are a PC person and you want to use SSH, there is a free client call Putty available. If you want to use SFTP or SSH to connect to your web server, your server will have to support it. Many web hosting accounts only support FTP.

Get a little geeky if you haven’t already. You just might like it. One of the goals of this blog is to help geeks and want-to-be geeks learn how to run a successful internet business. I had to learn the hard way before there were good resources like this blog to learn from. As I geek, I wasn’t too comfortable with the marketing side of things and especially the “dealing with people” aspect of it. Now, I understand internet business a lot better and understand how important it is to have a great relationship with your customers.

If you want to keep learning more about how to build a successful internet business, subscribe to this blog by sending your name and email in the subscribe form at the top right of this page.

Geeks can make money online too…..

- Hill Robertson

So, you are spending a lot of your time writing blog posts, submitting articles, posting in forums, optimizing your site, and everything else under the sun as you attempt to get more people visiting your blog. You feverishly watch your analytics and other stats. You watch your web server access log as visitors hit your site. You pray that the next visitor will sign subscribe to your blog. You keep tweaking your opt in form. You make it pop up from every possible direction and you throw in every type of buzz word you can as you watch and wait for the next subscriber.

Dreams of 100,000 subscribers spin in your head. Maybe 10,000 is enough for you. You think to yourself that if you could sell something for $100 and just 2% buy it, you would make a cool $20,000 and could pay off your credit cards or buy a car. Or, you just want 1,000 subscribers or would be happy with 100. Whatever your subscriber goals are, you just want subscribers, right? Not so fast…….

While you do want subscribers, you want quality subscribers that are specifically interested in your products. It wouldn’t do any good to have 1000 subscribers that just signed up to get your free report on the top 5 ways to chew bubble gum if your products are all about shoes. You would make more sales to a subscriber list of 30 that were interested in shoes than 1000 that were interested in bubble gum.

The next time you start to get upset or depressed when someone cancels their subscription, you should be thankful. It is simply their way of telling you that they really aren’t interested in your information. It actually improves the quality of your remaining list. The longer the rest of your subscribers stay subscribed, the more likely they are to purchase your products somewhere down the road.

When the next subscriber cancels their subscription to your blog, it is not a bad thing. Your list just got better. Be thankful when they leave.

- Hill Robertson

It’s really not as difficult as it seems. Too many want-to-be millionaire entrepreneurs shoot for the big bucks too soon. They all think they can make a million bucks in a month if they just find the right “secret”. They jump from one make-it-rich product to another - spending more money than they ever make. Every time they see another money making opportunity, they jump on the bandwagon.

You are not going to set up some sales letter on a website with an affiliate link and get a million dollars over night. You’re not going to get $100,000 or probably even $1000. In fact, if you make anything, it will probably be just a few dollars at most. However, that is all you have to do.

“What!” you say. That doesn’t make any sense. Well, that is exactly what most millionaires do. They find something that works and makes a profit. Then, they tweak it a little by testing. Then, they test some more. They test again. And again. Test, test, test….. Do you get the picture. In fact, they never really stop testing. It is one of the most important ingredients of a successful internet business (or any business for that matter) to be as profitable as possible. After tweaking and testing and maximizing the profit. The next thing to do is to repeat the process. Let’s take an example…..

Suppose you find an affiliate product to sell or you create your own. Then, you write and publish your sales page. You drive some traffic to your sales page. You make a sale or two and end up with $5 profit. OK. Let’s say you manage to make the $5 per day for a total of $150 per month. Not a big deal is it? You are not very close to the million dollars you envisioned in your head when you were reading all of the money making “secrets”. It would be easy to give up and quit at this point, right? Well, that is probably the worst time to quit because you have already proven that you can do it. You are making a profit. That’s all you need to do to prove to yourself that it can be done. The only difference between you and the millionaires is repetition.

Take that same path that you took to make the $150 per month and just repeat it. Let’s say it took you a week to set everything up to generate the $150 per month. If you did the same thing every week, by the end of the month (4 weeks) you would be earning $150×4=$600. Now that’s not too shabby, that might pay for your car payment. So, do it again. The second month you would be up to $1200 per month. That would maybe pay for your mortgage payment. Keep it up for a year and you could be at $7200 per month or $86,400 per year! That is after just one year. Most people would love to make that kind of money.

Of course, there is a bit of work involved to get going and it takes persistence to accomplish it but it is not as difficult as you might think. The main thing is just taking action and sticking with it. Action and perseverance are what 98% of the people will NOT do. However, 2% will. Are you one of the 98% that just follow the herd in through life or are you one of the 2% that take control and make the most of your life? All you have to do is make a profit and then do it again, and again, and again………

- Hill Robertson

While my kids were out of school
I took them out one day
I took them to the local park
so they could run and play.

We swung in swings and spun on things
I’d never seen before
We climbed up ropes and slid down slides
and played a little more

My kids were just so happy
to have their daddy by their side
The love shined in their faces,
their smiles were full of pride

I couldn’t help but notice
other children that were there
did not seem quite so happy
their demeanor only fair

Then I noticed what was different
with the other children there,
Not one of them had their daddy
at the park with them to share

All the other daddies
were missing all the fun
of watching their own kids grow up
as they frolicked in the sun

Other dads were busy working
at their jobs you see
they traded time for money
instead of time with family

I’m glad that I was able
to play with them that day
A day that I will never forget
and cherish in every way

I did not have to go to work
and trade my time away
In fact I’ll have more days just like it
to run and jump and play

That’s what it’s all about
to have a business of your own
that you can do when YOU want to
instead of always being on the phone

As time ticks by it’s over
forever gone the time will be
So use it on important things
Like God and family

What can be done to get more time
to spend with family?
To do the things you need to do
and have responsibility?

Just set some goals and break them down
to ones you can achieve
Then take the action to get them done
and then you will believe

A business of your own
is not so hard you see
with some action and persistence
it soon can set you free

You’ll gain the time for important things
in life that are so dear
Even simple things you missed each day
soon all will be made clear

You owe it to your family
and your Father up above
To do what is important
and do it all with love

So don’t wait any longer
the time to start is now
decide that you will do it
and then just find out how

HillRobertson.com
is a blog about success;
In business and in family
and life and happiness

Start by signing up for this blog
and follow it day by day
you’ll learn about all kinds of things
to help along the way

Were all in this together
like a loving family
that helps each other to succeed
just do it and you’ll see

- Hill Robertson

One of the biggest issues I have to constantly deal with as a website design and hosting company (one of my internet businesses) is dealing with spam and especially the ramifications of it. The most painful part is jumping through all of the hoops that are now required by all of the big providers in their efforts to reduce spam. We ethical and moral entrepreneurs just trying to build a successful internet business have to go to great lengths just to get our customer’s normal emails flowing smoothly.

To give you an example, many of the big providers will block emails coming from a server if they receive more than a certain number of emails within a given time frame. This never use to be the case before spamming became such a problem. In the beginning, this caused problems with some of my customers. Many of my websites will have thousands of registered users. Then, when an email newsletter needs to get sent out from the website to the users, obviously a large amount of the email addresses are with these large providers. When the email would go out, the provider would block the IP address of my server and not allow any more of the messages to go through. So, to jump through this hoop, I had to write code for a special mail queue that would identify if the email needed to be delivered to one of the big providers with this type of “spam prevention”. If it did, it would go into a special queue that would only send out one email per 20 seconds to stay below the threshold of being blocked. This was not a huge issue since the newsletters did not need to be received by all users immediately (similar to the way Aweber sends emails to opt-in lists). However, I still had to spend a lot of time writing my own customized code to get around protections put in place to counteract spam.

Another issue that you may have run into if you do any email article marketing is with your internet service provider and your email. Many providers will monitor the activity on the email (or SMTP) port of your internet connection. If they see a lot of mail going out in a short amount of time, they may block it. This happens frequently using article marketing software when it tries to blast several thousand email messages out in rapid succession. This is another action internet providers have taken to try to thwart spammers.

These are just a couple examples of the many issues that have to be monitored and dealt with on a daily basis. The whole battle between spammers and internet providers trying to thwart their efforts is like a giant moving target that seems to continually morph into different beasts every time you think it may be over. The unfortunate part about it is that we have to pay a price for it. Spammers make it painful for everyone.

- Hill Robertson