The Mason Jar Experiment

Starting your own business has never been easier. Thrive Learning is one resource that can help you improve what you’re already doing, but before that I think it’s time we address one simple fundamental that keeps many people from their dreams. The Flee.

When thinking of everything we have access to these days the easiest thing you can do, if you really want it, is make money online. It’s really not that hard. However; a lot of people are trapped into thinking it’s impossible and because of this they leave it to others to go out and start businesses that they’ll just simply seek to work for. This can be summed up in this illustration: Flees are one of the smallest insects in the world but their ability to jump is up to 3 meters. If you catch a flee and put it in a regular mason jar and place a lid over the top with a hole or two for it to breath but small enough so it can’t jump out the flee will jump for a period of time smashing its head into the lid. After a short period of time the flee will adjust and jump just shy of hitting its head, pretty smart right? Once this happens you can take the lid off. The flee will continue to jump, but it will never jump hirer then when it had the lid on. It’s been conditioned and given the mindset that it cannot achieve anymore then what we limited it to. And yet, we know it can jump up to 3 meters with ease.

Owning your own business and making money online is easy. It only takes a bit of effort on your part to get it done. If you’re unsure about how it would work exactly and want to wait until you know everything there is to know about it, remember this: you can imagine all day long what a pizza smells like, what it looks like, and what it feels like, but until you’ve actually had a slice you’ll never know what it tastes like. Go out and start your business today. It doesn’t have to be perfect when you set it up, that’s the beauty of the whole thing, you get to improve it over time as you learn. And, if it turns out you don’t like it, fine, scrap it and start over, or better yet, sell it.

In closing, are you still stuck in the mason jar even though the lids off?

How Double Chocolate Changed PR

Today I had the fortunate experience to relive what it truly means to be in PR and the power that it can have in online marketing. When you want to really thrive learning from what others have done is key in making great improvements. Here’s the story:

Its not secret that many large, hotshot companies want their products in the faces of customers around the globe and that a lot of that happens through social media and popular bloggers. In this particular case it was a combined effort. Scott Stratten is one of the many online social bloggers I follow. I always find that his posts show facts and his personality. So instead of just reading words blindly I’ve come to understand and know Scott more. That said in his most recent post he talks about the caliber of the PR/Agency People that are “Awesome”. You’re welcome to go and read his post but what I really wanted to emphasize was the matter in which things happened not only for him but the company in general.

When we approach customers with our products and ideas it’s important to always remember they have the freedom of choice. They can choose to accept or reject our offer. Our main goal in marketing is to provide the customer with the information and the ability to get what they want. When Scott was approached Duri and Magnum he tells us that they just wanted him to be him. To be honest about what he thought, to blog and tweet only if he wanted to. And it paid off big time, but only After a follow-up. We’ll come back to that. After shipping a crate of ice cream to Scott and trying several flavors Scott got on and made a quick little video talking about how dumb the title was of one of the ice creams. It was labeled something like double chocolate. In the video he expresses, that’s impossible, it should be called quad chocolate because there’s four layers of chocolate. Scott mentions how his regular readers, family and friends enjoyed the video. He also mentions that he really wasn’t trying to sell the product. In fact, the title of the video was “Magnum’s False Advertising”. Now lets skip ahead to the follow-up.

The main reason this became a big story and that Scott wrote the post was based off of the follow up. The PR group from Duri and Magnum watched the video and then shipped Scott a special package. Four cartons of “Magnum Quadruple Chocolate”. It also had his name across the top.

This type of follow up is key in our efforts to not only get on the good side of our customers but to get a better idea of how we can improve ourselves as a company.

Small Niche Web Sites: Lots of Patience and Hard Work

With hundreds of home business opportunities, how is a person supposed to be able to choose one that's going to be good for them. Perhaps things are going well for you financially, but you could still use a little extra spending money or some money to replace your savings spent on holiday gifts. So, what is a person to do? You want to make some cash without putting too much of a monetary investment into the endeavor so you decide to start a small niche website.

Hundreds of get rich quick schemes tell you that you can make thousands of dollars a month or even a week, immediately. I'll be honest with you, unless these people are going to give you a gold or diamond mine for free, there's very little chance that you're going to make that much money in a week right away.

What if I told you there's a way to make money and you only have to spend about ten dollars a month plus any fee your supplier may charge. I'm not saying you'll make thousands of dollars a week, you may not even make that in a month, but I can tell you that if you choose a good niche and work hard, you will see great results a few months after starting up a small niche website with Thrive Learning Institute.

Have you ever needed something very specific and you couldn't find it in any brick and mortar stores but you did find it on a small website? Well, that website was probably a niche site. Good news, it's not that hard to set one up, if you give it the time and the effort that is needed to begin.

To begin, you will need a tax ID number, a business license, a website, and a supplier. You may hire someone to build you a web page or you can build your own. There are sites on the Internet such as Weebly.com and Yola.com that will allow you to easily and quickly set up your own website. You can also use blog sites such as Blogspot and Wordpress. These sites are free to use but may require a small fee to forfeit advertising on your page.

Once the site is up, you have a business license and a tax ID number (when applicable), and a supplier, you can get going on your business. However, I would suggest getting started on optimizing your business in search engines shortly after purchasing a domain name. You can put a placeholder on the site and begin building links to it which will help your site rank higher in search engines such as Google.

So you see, it's not terribly difficult, all you really need is a lot of patience, hard work, and someone to show you the way.

Please visit our site for more information about Thrive Learning Institute.

The Importance of Tracking Traffic to Your Website

There are so many people out there who believe that as long as they're getting traffic to their website, and they know they're getting traffic to their site, that it doesn't matter where the traffic is coming from. Those people are wrong. To be honest, if you're not tracking your traffic effectively, you could be losing thousands of dollars a month. How? Well, are you paying for Internet advertising of any kind? If so, do you know how much traffic is coming in from each ad? Perhaps there isn't any traffic coming in from any of your paid advertising which means no conversions, if so, why are you paying to advertise if you get nothing in return?

The interesting thing is that you may be getting the majority of your conversions through various sites that are ranking on the first page of search engines for your specified keywords. If this is the case, you are receiving thousands of dollars of free advertising; something any business should be ecstatic to get. I mean, really, what business doesn't like receiving free advertising, free traffic, and free conversions.

Adwords

It's about time you stop paying for unnecessary adwords that aren't even bringing in any conversions. Keeping any kind of ad that you're not actually making any money off of is like pouring money down the drain. If an ad isn't converting, it's time to change it. Constant corrections and changes are a necessity when advertising online. So you're getting clicks, good for you, but if you're not getting conversions what's the point of paying for people to simply view your website?

Social Media and Articles

How much of your traffic is coming from social media sites and articles you have posted on the web? This is something to consider as you try to link it to ranking organically. What exactly are you doing to help your site rank? It's very important to track the percentage of conversions that are actually coming from social media and article marketing. If it's working for you and it's getting you ranked in search engines, keep at it.

Ranking in Search Engines

If your site is ranking high in search engines for your designated keywords, you may not even need paid advertising. In fact, you might be funneling thousands of dollars into pay per click ads that aren't actually converting. If this is the case, perhaps it's time to reassign your marketing budget and decide if search engine optimization should carry greater weight than pay per click advertising.

All in all, it's up to each individual company to decide what is going to work best for them. Assess the marketing goals of your company in order to discern if your current marketing strategy is helping you reach them. If it is, keep up the good work but continue to search for anything else you could do in order to make even more improvements. If it's not working at all for you, it's probably a good time to do a marketing overhaul.

For more information, please visit Thrive Learning Institute.

Search Engine Optimization vs. Pay Per Click

There are a lot of people out there who are dumping more and more money into what some would call a lost cause. They are literally throwing money away, apparently with the idea that money is made to be lost. There is, however, an easier way, a way to multiply money instead of giving it up. In this article, I will be discussing the difference between search engine optimization and pay per click.

Okay, so the biggest difference should be inherently obvious to everyone, yep, you guessed it. Search engine optimization is free, whereas, pay per click uses that one little word that sends shivers up and down the spines of new business owners and seasoned veterans alike, “pay”. I suppose it's all well and good until you begin adding up all the costs of pay per click, it's then that your tongue swells and it all of a sudden becomes hard to speak, hard to breath. This is the point where you finally realize that you have actually lost $20 on the sale you just made on your small niche website; it's the point where you realize that your pay per click campaigns are eating giant holes in your profit. In fact, they're not just eating giant holes in it; they're devouring it, eliminating it all together.

You find yourself scrambling for a solution, a way to kill that ugly beast that continually eats without lamentation. You find the solution, could this really be? A way to get more traffic by paying nothing at all? After pinching your arm to wake yourself, you find that this is not a dream. The answer, search engine optimization. A way to give your site notice in search engines without spending a single red cent on it.

You know, there is a much easier way, get rid of the profit eating beast. Within months, you can actually be ranking on the first page of Search Engines. This happens if you're smart about things and build good quality links. Of course, you may have to lean on pay per click for long enough to get ranking on your own so that you don't lose traffic all together. Once you're ranking high in search engines, you may decide to get rid of pay per click, I would. You'll find that when this happens, your traffic will rise and so will your profit.

Give it a shot, it can't hurt, right? Get out there and do some research on Search Engine Optimization and Marketing. You may be surprised at some of the simple things one may do to help their site rank higher in search engines such as Google. You can start with working on the obvious things (ie. Your title and content) then you can move into some of the more intricate details of search engine optimization. For more information about search engine optimization, please read the Thrive Learning Institute Blog. And, trust me, it will be worth your effort to get very familiar with search engine optimization and how it can help you save expenses.

A Day In The Life Of An Affiliate Marketer

Being in the affiliate marketing business is not that hard now with the internet at your disposable. It is much easier now compared to the days when people have to make use of the telephones and other mediums of information just to get the latest updates on the way their program is coming along.

So with technology at hand, and assuming that the affiliate is working from home, a day in his or her life would sound something like this…

Upon waking up and after having breakfast, the computer is turned on to check out new developments in the network. As far as the marketer is concerned there might be new things to update and statistics to keep track on.

The site design has to be revised. The marketer knows that a well-designed site can increase sign ups from visitors. It can also help in the affiliate’s conversion rates.

That done, it is time to submit the affiliate program to directories that lists affiliate programs. These directories are means to attract people in joining your affiliate program. A sure way of promoting the affiliate program.

Time to track down the sales you are getting from your affiliates fairly and accurately. There are phone orders and mails to track down. See if they are new clients checking the products out. Noting down the contact information that might be a viable source in the future.

There are lots of resources to sort out. Ads, banners, button ads and sample recommendations to give out because the marketer knows that this is one way of ensuring more sales. Best to stay visible and accessible too.

The affiliate marketer remembered that there are questions to answer from the visitors. This has to be done quickly. Nothing can turn off a customer than an unanswered email.

To prove that the affiliate is working effectively and efficiently, inquiries would have to be paid more attention on. Nobody wants to be ignored and customers are not always the most patient of all people. Quick answer that should appear professional yet friendly too.

In the process of doing all the necessities, the marketer is logged on to a chat room where he or she interacts with other affiliates and those under that same program. This is where they can discuss things on how to best promote their products.

There are things to be learned and it is a continuous process. Sharing tips and advices is a good way of showing support. There may be others out there wanting to join and may be enticed by the discussion that is going on. There is no harm in assuming what opportunities ahead.

The newsletters and ezines were updated days ago, so it is time for the affiliate marketer to see if there are some new things happening in the market. This will be written about in the marketer’s publication to be distributed to the old and new customers.

These same publications are also an important tool in keeping up to date with the newly introduced products. The marketer has put up a sale and promotion that customers may want to know about. Besides, they have to keep up with the deadline of these sales written in the publications.

It is that time to show some appreciation to those who have helped the marketer in the promotions and sale increase. Nothing like mentioning the persons, their sites and the process they have done that made everything worked.

Of course, this will be published in the newsletters. Among the more important information that have been written already.

The marketer still has time to write out recommendations to those who want credible sources for the products being promoted. There is also time to post some comments on how to be a successful affiliate marketer on a site where there are lots of wannabees.

Two objectives done at the same time. The marketer gets to promote the product as well as the program they are in. Who knows, someone may be inclined to join.

Time flies. Missed lunch but is quite contented with the tasks done. Bed time….

Ok, so this may not be all done in a day. But then, this gives you an idea of how an affiliate marketer, a dedicated one that is, spends the marketing day.

Is that success looming in the distance or what?

Integrity...Pass it On, Thrive Learning Institute

What is Business Integrity?

When I was a little child I was taught that integrity is doing the right thing, even when nobody else is looking. It's something that is not open for debate, either you have it or you don't, there's no gray area. Henry Kravis once said “If you don't have integrity, you have nothing. You can't buy it. You can have all the money in the world, but if you are not a moral and ethical person, you really have nothing”. So, in a sense, integrity is everything because, without it, you have nothing.

Is Integrity a Lost Cause?

So, do you think integrity is a lost cause? Sadly enough, there are people out there who believe it is. They think that the world is going downhill so fast that there is no stopping the decrease of ethics and integrity in business or otherwise. The thing that they don't realize is that it only takes one person to make a difference when it comes to business integrity and ethics.

When I was in College, the professor of my capstone class gave us each a quarter in a plastic case with a quote illustrating the integrity we had been taught all our lives and while we were attending the University. The quarter is to help us always remember a story he told us about a man who, when at an airport, saw an associate of his drop a quarter in a paper box and then proceed to remove one paper for each of his associates, including himself, without paying for them. The man who witnessed this returned to the paper box and proceeded to drop in a quarter for the paper his friend had intended to give him. The second man, witnessing this, returned to the paper box, thinking nobody was watching, and inserted a quarter for each paper he had taken out of the box for each of his associates.

Both men learned something that day. One learned the importance of integrity and the other learned that integrity is in deed not a lost cause.

How Do We Uphold Integrity In the Workplace?

Charles Caleb Colton once said, “Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of tricks and duplicity than straight forward and simple integrity in another”. Put simply, if you want to maintain integrity in business, you better have integrity yourself. Employees of Thrive Learning Institute value integrity and ethics in the work place. They know that upholding the integrity of the business world begins with one person and it grows from there. That one person is you.

Getting Out of The Rut

The vast majority of people are in the comfortable yet unfulfilled middle of society. They haven't accomplished their dreams and goals. They have failed to become wealthy, or live in their dream home or have fantastic relationships.

However as unfulfilled as they are they haven't hit rock bottom. They have jobs and they have pretty normal families. They go on vacation once or twice a year. They might even have a good amount in savings but they're still a slave to employment, addictions (sugar, alcohol, hard drugs, fast food, you name it) they are chained down.

We need to make the distinction that they aren't impoverished by any means. They aren't struggling for survival. They are stuck in a rut of mediocrity.

In many ways getting from mediocre to successful is harder than getting from complete failure to success. In many ways going from unfulfilled middle class to the fulfilled successful class is more difficult than going from impoverished to successful.

It is incredibly difficult to break out of the rut of satisfactory comfort.

So how do you do it? Our initial reaction is to go put in some massive about of work or expend tons of effort. This is wrong. All your work will go to naught if you don't have the right mind set. You need to get your head straight first before you put forth the effort.

The main reason those in the middle don't get out their rut is because of fear. The have accomplished a degree of success in life and so they have something to lose. If they fail they reason that they stand to lose something. So they're paralyzed and frozen in inaction.

those who are in poverty, those who have already experienced rock bottom understand what the worst is. they have lived it and therefor know that there is very little to fear. These people have less fear and are more willing to act.

so how do you destroy the fear festering in your soul without having to go rock-bottom?

You have to train your mind.

habits make a man. So to change a man you need to change his habits. To change yourself you need to change your habits. Whether its adding new ones stopping old or both (ideally) you must change your habits if you are to change yourself and your circumstances.

There are several basic things you can do to get motivated and build momentum.

Write down you goals in perfect detail. describe as much as you can about yourself as a success. what personality traits are different? what do you look like? Where do you live? What do you drive? what kind of people do you surround yourself with?

After you've written this down set aside some time every day to visualize it and add to it according to your desires. As you envision your perfect life the actions needed to realize it will be made much easier and you'll have energy and drive.

The next step is creating momentum. You need to pick one or several of your goals to focus on and commit to yourself that you'll accomplish a little bit every day toward that goal. After a week you'll have gained momentum and it will get easier and easier until before you know it you'll have accomplished your goal.

Thrive Learning Institute is here to help you change your mindset so that you too can enjoy the abundant life of your choosing. The coaches will help in every aspect of your progression and will see you through to the end. which of course will only be the beginning of your new life.

Thrive Learning Institute - "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell

Persistence is, by far, the most important factor in determining your success. How badly do you want it. How long are you willing to stick with it?

Malcolm Gladwell poses a provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? Challenging our cherished belief of the "self-made man," he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don't arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: "they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot."

Examining the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, he builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, "some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky."

In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell seeks to disabuse us of the notion that genius and greatness are predominantly a function of innate ability and IQ. He rightly notes that while IQ is certainly a contributor, it reaches a "point of diminishing returns" after a while: once people score about 130, IQ becomes less important and "intangibles" (my term) become more important.

"Outliers" has consistently been a New York Times bestseller ever since it was released in late 2008.

Thrive Learning Institute - How to Use Blogs to Promote Your Website

At Thrive Learning Institute we are all about finding new innovative ways to market your online business and blogs are an awesome, free way to do that. In this article we'll take you through 4 basic steps to get you up and blogging in no time.

Step 1: Learning About Blogging
A "blog" is an online journal, a place where people can share their ideas, interests, and advice by writing postings every two or three days. The word "blog" comes from two words, combined: "Web log".

Begin learning about blogging by looking over your products and seeing if there are any particular themes or topics. For example, if you're selling some fishing poles and reels, then "Fishing" would be the topic of those two sites. Next, go to Google.com and search for the theme and the word "blog". In our example here, you'd search for "Fishing Blog".

Google will return with a list of a lot of blogs that deal with that particular topic. You'll simply click into each one, one at a time, and begin reading what those bloggers have written on that topic. This will help you to understand better what blogging and "the bloggosphere" (the network of blogs) is all about. Reading other people's blogs will be an ongoing part of your promotional efforts for your website.

Once you've seen what blogging is all about, it's also helpful to understand that internet marketing is all about what are called "inbound links". That means that you want to get links TO your site from as many other relevant sites on the internet as possible. Not only does that bring you traffic, but it also means you'll be found by the search engines quicker and you'll rank higher. Blogging provides the opportunity for you to do that in two ways: Using other people's blogs, and creating your own blog.

Step 2: Posting Comments

In the process of reading other people's blogs, you'll find an occasional blog entry that catches your attention, inspires you, or makes you think something. When you do, click to post a comment. Leave your own opinion (politely and respectfully, if you disagree) and experiences that relate to what the blogger is writing about. Don't just say, "Nice blog!" or "Me, too!" Add to the conversation. When you post these comments, there is often a place where you can leave your website address, creating a linkback to one of your relevant product sites. This is a great way to start to create traffic and attention to your websites.
Step 3: Creating Your Own Blog

Creating your own blog will allow you to establish inbound links to your website, and and help you to draw traffic to it. Begin, again, by looking over your products and seeing if there are any particular themes or topics. If your website is well-centered around a good niche, this should be pretty obvious. Choose the topic of your blogs. Remember that you'll want to write in this blog every two to three days, so you'll want to have a theme that you can write about often.

Go to Blogger.com, create an account, and create a blog in that account. Make a note of the address(es) of the blog(s) you create, so you can send them to your coach, and use them in your promotion.

Step 4: Blogging

Begin by writing a blog entry in each blog. A blog entry should have:

1. Anywhere from 250 to 500 words. That's just a guideline. Nobody's counting!
2. Good, usable information that relates to the theme of the website's products. It's important to not just write sales copy about the product. That's called blogspam, and Blogger might actually pull the offending blog off the web. If you're not sure what to write about, you can read what other bloggers are writing about that same topic and get ideas and information to re-write into your own blog.
3. Lots of good keywords that your audience is searching for. See Dropship Benchmark #3 for good information on how to discover good keywords.
4. Links to your website. If you're writing about the theme of the products, you could mention a particular product in the blog entry, and create a link to it. Make sure that the text that becomes the link includes some of your good keywords!
5. Links to other people's blogs that gave you ideas. It's not only OK to link to other people's websites and blogs, it's a good idea. Then go back to their sites, and leave a message that you mentioned them. They'll probably link back to you, so their readers can see what you said about them!
6. Links to any of your other blogs or websites!

Continue by writing more blog entries, creating more links, posting more comments in other people's blogs and being active in the bloggosphere!

For more tips and advice From Thrive Learning Institute browse our archives.

Thrive Learning Institute - Find Products on Clickbank

Thrive Learning Institute recommends Clickbank as one of the most complete providers of information products through affiliate programs available on the internet today. The first thing to do is to go and set up an account.

1. Go to Clickbank.com.

2. There will be lots of options there on the main page to explore. There are two large areas, one labeled "Affiliate" and one labeled "Vendor". A vendor is someone who has an information product to sell, like an eBook they've written. An affiliate is someone looking to make money promoting other people's products. That's you! In the "Affiliates" box, click "Learn More"

3. You can scroll through the tutorial overview that appears on the left. On the right, click "Sign Up".

4. Fill out the forms and complete the signup and verification process.


Once you have an account setup, the next step is to go into the Clickbank market place and begin looking for products that relate to your topics. There are two basic approaches to this, and they're both valuable.

1. Literal Thinking - In this approach, you'll be looking for products that directly relate to the topics and the keywords/keyphrases that you researched in the previous benchmark. If your topic is "Organic Vegetable Gardening", then you're going to be looking for products that teach all about organic vegetable gardening. You'll probably get more visitors converting into buyers this way, because by the time they search out your site, you know they're interested. However, it can sometimes be tricky to match the products to a niche exactly.

2. Lateral Thinking - In this approach, you step back from your niche a little bit, and look for products that relate to a slightly broader topic, to a wider audience. In our example, you might search for products in "Organic Gardening", or "Vegetable Gardening". Be careful not to get too broad, or you will find yourself swimming in a sea of competition, and all that wonderful keyword research you did will be wasted.


Whether you do one or the other, or a combination of both, the process is the same. Go to the Clickbank main page, and click on the "Marketplace" link at the top. You'll be presented with a search page, where you'll input your keywords and begin searching for good products.

An important part of analyzing the Clickbank products is understanding the metrics listed underneath each listing. Here's a key to help you interpret what each of those numbers mean:

1. $/Sale -The actual amount you will earn per sale. Every time a visitor to your site clicks through and buys this product, you'll make this much money. Ideally you will want around $20-$25 a sale, or more.

2. Future $ - Some products have recurring fees that the customer pays, like a membership. When there are recurring costs, there are also recurring commissions. This is really good for you, because each sale you make can become a residual income as that customer continues to maintain their membership.

3. Total $/Sale - The percentage of the sale that is your commission. Look for at least 50%.

4. %Redf - The amount of sales coming from ClickBank affiliates.

5. Grav - "Gravity" A weighted scale representing how many people were paid by this program in the last 8 weeks. Basically, this ClickBank metric represents the popularity. The higher, the better. If you can find products related to your niche that are above 70, that's excellent. There are many products that are newer, that are good, that haven't had time to build up their gravity yet. Try to get the highest gravity you can in your niche topic.

For more tips and how-to's from Thrive Learning Institute read more posts.

Thrive Learning Institute - "Show more options" tab

Recently Google has come out with a little tab that you can click on with the text "show more options" and at Thrive Learning Institute having multiple options is paramount. When you click on this link you'll see a side bar pop up to the left side of the screen that has a few different options.

One of my favorite options is the Wonder wheel. This is a great tool to use for brainstorming keywords and topics to write about for a blog, to create a niche website around and to analyze competition. When you click on the wonder wheel option a wheel will appear in the middle of the screen that contains your keyword and then on a number of spokes coming out of the main wheel there will be related more long-tail keywords connected to it. This is great because you can see variations of the keyword you may not have thought of before.

Additionally you can click on one of the related terms and that will then become the main wheel and you can see terms related to that one. So you can "drill down" as many in the internet marketing world say and find unique little niches that you can exploit and profit from.

A few other features in this side par that i really like are the forums link and the videos link. If you need to find some forums to get involved in with your niche all you need to do is type in your keyword come tot he "show more options" tab and click on "forums" and a list of all the forums talking about your niche will come up. This a great way to get involved in your community fast and easy.

The Video link is also good because generally there will be less competition for videos than for text and many times you'll be able to find keywords that don't have ANY videos indexed for it. You can then quickly whip out some videos and get ranking highly for your keyword with those videos and start driving traffic to your website. There are more options on the "show more options" tab but I'll let you explore those for yourself ;)

Read more from Thrive Learning Institute to get yourself a better understanding of our philosophy and how to make money online.

Thrive Learning Institute Spurs Entrepreneurship

For Thrive Learning Institute, promoting entrepreneurship is a sure fire way of over-coming the suffering economy and fostering self-sufficiency and personal responsibility, all things needed to ensure a prosperous and happy country.

There are many different kind of people in the world with a huge array of differing talents and skills. An inspection of the differing details found amongst humans can reveal staggering extremes and bizarre cultures which can seem worlds apart. However once we get our hands out of the contrasts and into the comparisons the insights to be had can change the course of a life just by their comprehension.

Basic to all humans is the unrelenting need to create something of worth. From simple tools to the ceiling of the Sistine chapel Humans have always found a way to create something that brings enjoyment and added productivity to life.

In today's culture creativity is being snuffed out in at alarming rates. One of the tell tale signs of a famine of creativity is declining rates of entrepreneurship. The greatness of America rode on the backs of freedom loving creative people who produced products that rewarded society who in turn rewarded their makers.

in this time of economic crisis we need now, more than ever, a new influx of innovative, visionary entrepreneurs to revitalize the deteriorating trait of creativity and in turn revitalize the suffering economy. Prosperity is driven by human creativity and the most essential entrepreneurial trait is creativity.

Thrive Learning Institute is focused on the nurturing and mentoring of aspiring entrepreneurs. We are optimistic that these are people who will carry the economy out of its fragile state and back into a robust, thriving and hopeful world. The clients who come to us have inspiring vision and a salt of the earth work ethic that is so desperately needed.

The proliferation of the internet has broken down almost all barriers of entry to getting into business and can often cost as little as $10 for a domain name and $5/month to host your website on the internet. Once you're their the entrepreneurial possibilities are endless and its up to your creativity and work ethic to provide society with a solution to a problem which they in turn will reward you for.

Thrive Learning Institute provides world class coaching on three main business models (among several others): Affiliate Marketing, Drop Shipping and selling on Ebay. These business models are extremely easy to get into and will wet the appetite of anyone looking to make money for themselves and not for someone else. The principles of success in this models are the principles of success in for every business and once mastered they will open the world to you.

Affiliate Marketing: This business model is very simple and very easy to get into. However because of its ease competition is high but certainly not insurmountable. When you're and affiliate marketer you affiliate with people and /or businesses who own products and promote their products. For every sale you generate you get a percentage of the sale price. With this model you learn to master the art and mechanics of marketing. There are infinite things to learn from affiliate marketing that will stay with you for the rest of your life. Additionally the potential profits of affiliate marketing are huge. Many people have made fortunes just by promoting other peoples products.

Some other benefits of the affiliate model are the fact you don't need a product, employees or have a boss. You don't need to worry about customer service either so its a very hands free way of making money.

Drop Shipping: This business model will introduce you to working with manufacturers and distributors. As you work with them you'll learn how to set up systems for shipping products and communicating with the providers. You'll also be introduced to the world of customer service which can make or break your business.

Drop shipping will give you much better returns than affiliate marketing obviously because you're the one going straight to the manufacturer or distributor to provide the product to your customers. This a great next step in your entrepreneurship education.

Selling on eBay: eBay is an easy, small-scale way to get into business. Although its hard to build a business you can eventually sell through eBay its awesome to use as training wheels and if you're not worried about building a business you can sell you can make tons of money on eBay too. I know a guy who was pulling in $35,000 in sales every month just from eBay. He also decided to quit because for him it just turned into another job.

With these three basic avenues to take Thrive Learning Institute will guide you as you begin learning how to unleash your creativity in a way that will benefit society and yourself in huge ways. Entrepreneurship can be learned and mastered and is not in any way something you're born with. As you learn these powerful principles your creativity will be unleashed on the world and you'll never want to go back to the drudgery of employment again.

The economy needs you. We need your ingenuity if we're going to pull out of this mess. We, at Thrive Learning Institute, are confident you can become a creative, productive entrepreneur and live the life of your dreams.

Thrive Learning Institute - How To Become A Wealthy Affiliate Marketer: Stay Focused

I don't know how long you've been in affiliate marketing, but if you're like most people in this business, you have a problem. And that is actually getting things done.

Maybe it's not just this business, maybe that's just how people are in general. But no matter what forum I've been in, I always see the same thing, and that is that most people have a very hard time putting out large quantities of work.

I'm sure you've heard the phrase "If you throw enough stuff at the wall, some of it is going to stick." Well let me tell you people, it's true. And anyone who is a seriously wealthy affiliate marketer will back me up on that claim. But most people's main problem is that they stop throwing too soon.

This has definitely been my biggest problem. I had been in affiliate marketing for close to a year before I really started working on it. During that time I had had some successes, and even some pretty big successes, but I still wasn't accomplishing at the rate I wanted to be accomplishing at.

The first thing I realized I needed to do was to stop learning. Or at least stop trying to learn. I realized that I knew enough to be making money, and that the learning was holding me back. I was spending more time learning than working.

By extension, I realized that I needed to get out of the forums. We go to the forums for the great information there, as well as the community they provide, but I think another reason is that being active in a forum is a great way to avoid working while feeling like you actually are.

Every person that I have known on a forum before they really achieved that success has taken a vacation from the forum in the interim. If you're trying to reach a goal, then reading and responding to posts is only going to hold you back. While I'm somewhat active in several forums, including the Wealthy Affiliate forum, if I ever hit five or so posts in one sitting, I know that I'm gotten sidetracked, and I get myself out of there as fast as I possibly can.

Keep the distractions at bay, and keep pumping out articles, or PPC campaigns, or whatever you've decided to do to make that money keep coming. And that is what's going to make it or break it at the end of the day.

Learn more about Thrive Learning Institute by reading our clients testimonials.

Filling The Void. Life After Success - Thrive Learning Institute

What will you do once you've arrived? When you start making $5000 a month with little to no real work what are you going to do with your time?

For entrepreneurs, filling the void is possibility one of the hardest steps of all in the process of building an abundant life for yourself. After you've put in thousands of hours working diligently on your business its hard to adjust to not needing to do anything. Often it will cause a lot of introspection that, if not tempered, could cause Howard Hughes like behavior. While Mr. Hughes was remarkable we certainly don't want you to fall into the maniacal OCD trends that he did :)

For many the busyness of a family life will be more than enough to fill the void. Being able to spend time with the kids, going to all their games, performances and events will not only keep you going but bring copious amounts of joy into your day to day life. You'll be able to help them with homework, tech them life skills and spend quality one on one time with them. If that isn't enough to fill your time though you might be in danger. You'll need to find something that will be flexible enough to continue spending quality time with your family and keep you sane.

One great option is getting involved in a charity you feel strongly for. The story of John Wood is compelling and instructive. John was a marketing executive for Microsoft in the 90's. He was in the right place at the right time. He rose within the company quickly and made a LOT of money. However when he was on a backpacking trip in Nepal he discovered a new passion. Educating the worlds children. He went on to quit Microsoft and start a wildly successful charity, Room to Read.

John Wood's path is a great blueprint to follow for those who are wealthy and need to find a passion. He found while he was traveling and enjoying life. Be sure not to skimp on your adventures and luxuries that have been well-earned but don't rule out any new challenges, You'll just get bored with life.

At Thrive Learning Institute we strongly encourage everyone to adopt a charity or cause to give back to the community and improve the world through service as well as business.

How To "Sitemap" - Thrive Learning Institute

For a website to be seen, it must be visible. That's about as simple as we can put it. In order to make sure people get to your website, it has have a good search engine ranking. If no one has any way of knowing that your website exists, how can you expect your site to succeed?

Now there are a lot of tips, tricks, and tools that you can use to make sure your website and web pages are visible. One of these tools is the Sitemap. So, what is a Sitemap, why does it help, and when is it useful?

What is a Sitemap?
Let me speak a foreign language here for a few seconds: A Sitemap is an HTML or XML file submitted to the search engines that includes the URL links for every single page and sub-page or your website and store. This allows web crawlers to find these sub-pages more easily.

In English: A Sitemap is essentially a list of all of the pages of your website. This will include your main pages (like your home page, about us page, contact us page, or anything else you have) as well as your store pages (and the individual products inside of your store). It has to be created in a certain "web code" format -- either XML or HTML.

This means, that in addition to everything else a Sitemap is, it is also pretty difficult to make. No worries, Thats why Thrive Learning Institute is here.

Why use a Sitemap?
So, if a Sitemap is a complicated piece of website code (which you probably don't know how to make off of the top of your head), then why bother using one? What are the benefits of having a Sitemap?

Well, there are several reasons, but it all boils down to one thing: It helps Google find and read pages that it wouldn't normally find or read.

So, what are those pages? To a list a few types of pages that are hard to read:

• A page made in Flash or Javascript. Pages made in Flash or Javascript usually have some sort of "moving pictures" in them. As a result, though, the pages become "hard for Google to understand."
• A database. If you have a large database -- let's say a list of all of the professional football players that have played in the last thirty years, their statistics, and their teams -- it will make your website, and specifically your sub-pages, very difficult for Google to find and understand.
• A very large website. If you are running a multi-national corporation, your web-page may have 3000 pages. Google's crawler will "give up" before it reads all of them.
• If your site doesn't have very good "internal links" (in other words, if you have a page that you want people to find, but you don't have a link to it in your website), Google may never find that page.
• Your website is brand new and doesn't have links from any other websites. Google may not even realize your site exists, at least not for a while.
  

So, if your website falls into one of those categories, a Sitemap can be useful.

When should I use a Sitemap?

Since most of you who are reading this probably don't have a 3000 page website, a complex database, or a flash website, we'll focus on the last two "problems" that a Sitemap helps resolve.

First, if you don't have very good internal links, should you use a Sitemap? If this is a case, a Sitemap can help resolve this problem and help Google like you more. However, the far simpler solution is simply to put in good internal links.

Second, if you don't have links from other websites and are brand new, should you use a Sitemap? If this is the case, of course a Sitemap will let Google know you exist. Again, though, the simpler solution is to submit your website to the search engines, to directories, and/or to social bookmarking sites. Since this takes a lot less effort, it's usually the better solution.

With that being said, let me clarify: a Sitemap will never hurt your search engine ranking. Its benefits are relatively insignificant in the instances mentioned above, and may well not be worth your time. However, if you have the time for it, it certainly won't hurt either.

How do I make my sitemap?

So, you've decided your site deserves a Sitemap. Now we're to the complicated part. Making your Sitemap.

I won't go over the full directions in this blog, but generally speaking, you have two options.

Option #1: Use a Generator.
There are a lot of free XML generators on the web (http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ for instance). However, many of these will not actually find all of your website pages. Most of them are restricted in many of the same ways Google's crawler is restricted. Also, don't give your e-mail address to any generator site. I promise, they will sell it.
This option is fast, easy, and much less effective.

Option #2: Build a Full Version
Click HERE for Google's tool. They provide step-by-step directions on how to download their software, create your Sitemap, and submit it to them. This is quite complicated and very time consuming, and to those of you who have never used website code, it will also be pretty confusing. However you'll learn a lot from the process. Thrive Learning Institute recommends this option.
This option is difficult and can be confusing but far more thorough.


In Conclusion:
Is a Sitemap a good thing? Absolutely.
Is it easy to make a Sitemap? Absolutely not.
Is it worth it to make a Sitemap? Not Always.

For our clients, the only case where we recommend a Sitemap, is when your site is an e-commerce site that has a few hundred products or more. In this case the benefit is usually worth the investment, but in many other cases it simply isn't.


For more information on ways Thrive Learning Institute can help your online business achieve its goals, simply visit www.thriveli.com. Learn how to make money offline by marketing online with Thrive Learning Institute

Link Baiting - Thrive Learning Institute

When it comes to SEO there are several factors than contribute in a major way to the webpage's strength in the search engines. Aside from on page optimization and probably more essential is the obtaining of backlinks. In this article from Thrive Learning Institute we'll discuss what backlinks are and the different strategies you can you use them to drive traffic and profits.

What are backlinks?

Back links are links from outside sources that link directly to your website or a page within your website. The more links you have from these outside sources the higher Google will rank you, the more traffic you'll and, if you're going for money, the more $ you'll make.

Because backlinks are an essential source of income for the online community, it's plain to see why so much has been written about it and why there is so much confusion about it. I'll attempt to shed some light on one section of the art and psychology of getting quality backlinks to your site.

Link Baiting

A popular way to build high quality backlinks to your website is to use a method called "Link baiting". Now we all write content for our websites and we try and make it good, useful content that people will find useful. Many times however we write a piece just for the sake of getting some text for on page SEO where you can stick your keywords for the crawler (programs that scan your site for keywords and content relevance). Link Baiting is the process of writing a piece of content with the intent of making it go viral so it spread across the net.

There are a few different kinds of content that are more apt to catch the imagination of net dwellers than others however.

Humor
Contrary
Resource
News

Writing a humorous article and combining it with a funny picture or video is a great way to stir things up in your niche. Everyone has received those emails filled with ridiculous pictures before and it gets passed through friend networks forever. That is what you're going for with a humorous piece sans email. You want this to take hold on the social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit and propeller and you want other bloggers in your niche to link to it and comment on it. So lighten things up a bit and let it fly!

Writing a post that is contrary to popular belief or principle is another awesome way to stir things up in the community. Nothing incites more buzz than a respected blogger saying something seemingly insane but then backing it up with data and evidence. This is probably one of the hardest things to do and because of that its also one of the most effective.

Take for example, Tim Ferriss. He wrote a great book, called The Four Hour Work Week, that basically attacks the corporate employee and the corporate lifestyle. Ridiculing it as a 40 year prison and then proceeded to show the way out. This book has been in bold rebellion of the societal norm and because of that reason he has been on the New York Times Bestseller list for 2 years straight. I know this is an extreme example but it illustrated my point well. Be intelligently controversial and you could have your ticket to fame and see a dramatic increase in your income.

Creating a useful resource is an effective and easy way to get lots of backlinks. Look around your niche and find a need that hasn't been filled effectively and then put together a comprehensive resource that will be a great benefit to others in your niche. If its useful you'll see tons of new backlinks to your site as people discover your post or article.

The last method I've listed is that of writing news posts. The trick to this one is to be first. It doesn't necessarily have to be a perfect post but if you can get a thorough article out there about breaking news along with some analysis of your own it can spread like wildfire and build a LOT of valuable backlinks.

At Thrive Learning Institute we urge you to start implementing some of these strategies in the articles you write or posts for your blog and test them out. You'll find that you're better at some than others. The more you test the more successful you'll be so get to it and start building backlinks!

Simple SEO Tips - Thrive Learning Institute

Here are a few tips and simple rules from Thrive Learning Institute you should follow to improve easily your rankings in the different search engines. Nothing new and nothing very complex but good tips that work straight from the knowledge base of Thrive Learning Institute.

So, I hope you enjoy reading this little "SEO Beginner Guide" and I hope it helps you grow your traffic.

Search Engine Optimization

What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It's a set of techniques and strategies to optimize websites for the search engines and get better rankings on the search results of those engines.

There are a few more abbreviations and terms you should now if you start learning SEO, among others:

SERPs: Search Engine Results Pages.

Anchor text: Text used as a link.

Backlink: Any link pointing to your web site. Also called Inbound link.

One-way link: When a site or page has a link to your site, and your doesn't have any link back to it.

Keywords density: Relation of a keyword to the other words in a web page element. For example, the web page title <>This is just an example for a web page title< / title > has a keyword density of 20% because 7 out of 35 characters in this title make the word "example".

Outbound link: Any link on your page pointing to another site.

So, let's start working on it right away!

Tip 1 - Anchor text
When you create a link to another page or another site of yours, don't just use "click here" or "go" as the anchor text. Basically, don't do this:

To join our online HTML training, < href="001.html">click here< /a>.

Instead, use the keywords related to that page:

Join now our < href="online-html-training.html">online HTML training.

Try also to use these keywords in the name of the HTML file.
Search engines algorithms are taking into consideration the text used for the link itself. (anchor text)
"click here" is meaningless. But "online HTML training" correspond exactly to your subject, and this specific page, even independantly of its content, will be considered as an interresting page for "online HTML training" by the search engines.

Tip 2 - Backlinks
Spend time to contact other webmasters who have a site about the same subject as yours and exchange text links.
Again, use the keywords that you target in the anchor text of those links. Don't always use the same keywords but sometimes, use synonims and variations.
Only consider a link exchange with sites treating the same subject. Try to get at least 40 backlinks on 40 different websites.

Tip 3 - Pages title
Give a different title to each page, use keywords related to the page.

Tip 4 - Content
Search engines (through their spiders) are indexing text content from your pages. So the first thing you have to do, is make sure you have plenty of text, related to the subject of your web site. The context of the words is also very important, so don't just list hundreds of keywords. Write correct sentences, repeating several times the words you want to focus on. Try to use all the synonyms you know. Eventually, don't correct your typos or mistakes, people will do the same typos when they do a research!

Plus:
Always set the value of the alt="" tag of your images.

< src="html-training.jpg" alt="HTML Training">

Set the description and keywords metas. If possible, write different metas for each page.

< name="description" content="...">
< name="keywords" content="...">


Tip 5 - Content Actualization
You have nice content? Plenty of backlinks and optimized pages? Great, but don't start sleeping on it.
Update your content as often as possible. Add pages, articles, news... Grow your site.

Tip 6 - Web Hosting
Make sure your site loads fast and your hosting is good. A slow web site is no good.

Tip 7 - Clean HTML code
Try to have your HTML code as clean as possible. And try to reduce it a maximum. You should have a lot of text content and a bit of HTML code, not the contrary.

Tip 8 - Directories
Do not forget to post your web site to all the Internet directories related to your subject. These links are better than links exchanges as usually, directories do not require a link back to their site. These one-way links have a very good value for search engines.
Also submit it to DMOZ directory. It will probably take a few months to get your sited indexed, but the backlinks you will get there are worth gold.

Tip 9 - HTML tags H1, H2, B, U...
Use the headers tags for your titles and subtitles, search engine will give more importance to those texts.

<>HTML Training< /h1>

The look of these tags is not so nice but you can use CSS to redefine it.

h1 { color: #000000; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14px }


Tip 10 - Domain name
The keywords used in the domain name have great importance for some search engines, such as Google. If possible, register a domain name with your target keywords.

A domain name like http://www.buy-flowers.com has good chances to get ranked well on "buy flowers" with a bit of SEO and appropriate content.

You can also try subdomains for your most important sections. Subdomains will usually get indexed much faster than the sub-pages and directories.
Taking our example, you could create http://roses.buy-flowers.com, http://tulips.buy-flowers.com, ... generating a kind of "mini-site" for each.

Tip 11 - Inbound/Outbound links
Make sure you have more inbound links than outbound links on your pages. If you have too much outbound links, search engines will devaluate the importance of your page, considering it's just making a gateway to other sites, without having a good value for the surfer.

Tip 12 - Experiment!
Try new things. Play with the keywords density, your site structure, HTML tags and elements.
Some techniques work good with Google, not for Yahoo or MSN and vice-versa. And moreover, the search engine algorithms are changing all the time! Some old strategy might not work anymore but suddenly work great for one of them.

Well, that's it for today! I think that covers most of the SEO Basics you need to know to start optimizing your site. Thrive Learning Institute thanks you for for reading!

Utilizing Support Sites

Support sites are great resources to two main things: build traffic and build back-links.

What are support sites?

Support sites are categorized primarily by their function. These are websites that you build to strengthen your primary, money site. A support site could be a website you build completely yourself, A support site could be a Hubpage or a Squidoo page. They can be ehow's or epinions or they can even be a Yahoo Answers answer.

The support sites that you build on these user generated content sites are great because you can get listed in the search engines very quickly. These sites have a lot of authority and because of that authority if you link to your main money sites those links will carry a lot of strength from that website to yours.

My personal favorite is Hubpages because they give you a cut of profits generated from adsense ads and amazon and eBay sales. In reality you could just focus on building tons of “hubs” and make a full-time living within a few months if you target profitable keywords. Here's an example of one of our Hubpages that brings in a considerable amount of traffic: Thrive Learning Institute - Ebay Feedback

Imagine how much traffic and authority you'd receive if you were to hunker down and build 30 optimized Hubpages, 30 Squidoo Pages, 15 Ehow's and were active in answering questions in your niche on Yahoo Answers. People would stream to your websites because you provided them with the opportunities and inroads (links) to get there.

Don't underestimate the power of building a tight network of optimized and useful support sites to build traffic and authority for your main money making website. To learn how to build offline income using internet marketing just click this link: Thrive Learning Institute

Thrive Learning Institute Donates Time and Money in Cystic Fibrosis Walk

PROVO UT – On June 6th Thrive Learning Institute proudly sponsored a team of volunteers, made up of employees, in Provo Utah's annual Cystic Fibrosis Walk organized and run by the United Way. Charlene Cummings a marketing assistant for Thrive organized and lead the team.

“I decided to help with the walk because my friends niece has cystic Fibrosis and they're getting closer to a cure. If they don't find one she can only expect her niece to live to her 30's. I think that's really sad; I can't imagine if that were my niece.”

Cystic fibrosis is an inherited chronic disease that affects the digestive system and lungs of nearly 30,000 children and adults in the United States (70,000 worldwide).

The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation was founded in 1955 very few children with CF lived to see elementary school but now, largely because of the steady, consistent effort of the Foundation, the average age of people with cystic fibrosis is 36.8 years!

The Foundation is one of the most efficient organizations of its kind. In 2005, almost 90% of every dollar raised was available for investment in cystic fibrosis research, care and education programs. The National Institute of Health and other prestigious publications, including Forbes and USA Today, have heralded the Foundation, which fosters the discovery of progressive medications and developmental programs.

When Thrive Learning Institute learned of it's employees involvement in the walk they were more than happy to pitch in and help out. Charlene Cummings at Thrive spoke highly of her company's contribution,

“It's nice to be a part of a company that is so willing to contribute to a cause as great as this, with leadership that truly sees the need to give back to the community".”

Thrive Learning Institute follows Google's mantra to "Not Be Evil" by focusing on providing industry leading service and setting a higher bar for local communities to be more involved in the communities that support them.

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