I enrolled in Gary Conn's COWpetition today and Garry Conn’s Make Money
Online Classroom. I am anxious to see how a Blog is started and takes on
a life of it's own. In this stage of my Blog I have an idea of how to generate
some income but no set path or plan.

As I explained in an earlier article, I enjoy blogging, visiting and interacting
with other bloggers. It can be fun and serious at times but my original
intention was to just let the members of my programs and companies
know how I am progressing with my Home Business and the tools I am
using to promote it. As you can see, it is evolved into more than that.

As part of Gary's Classroom assignment, he would like for students to submit
an article about Credit Cards and have it submitted before May 19th. Not
to disappoint the teacher...  




The Love and Hate of Credit Cards


My wife loves credit cards and I hate em'.

This is a typical scenario I hear about at work from my buddies and read in
magazine articles, newspapers and online blogs. Recently my friend at work
in the Jazz Air Hangar was on the cellphone with his wife and I could tell the
conversation was getting a bit "heated". After he flipped his phone closed
he began walking around in circles muttering to himself.

"What's the problem, Pat" I asked him. "She goes out this morning and buys
all these clothes and charges $420 on the card and I'm trying to get it paid off,
Jeez!" He yells.

Does this sound familiar to you? Similar instances are happening around the
world probably a million times a day.

My first run-in with Credit Cards was when I left the Commercial Fishery when
the Government of Canada closed the "Cod" fishery. The backbone and livelihood
of Newfoundland Fisherman since the province of Canada was first discovered.
This was the start of a declining industry especially for the owners and operators
of fishing vessels. It would and is becoming a "big" company operation and the
small business man (me) would be pushed out.

In 93' I retrained as an Aircraft Maintenance Engineer and being at the top of my
class landed a job with Jazz Air LP which was Air Nova at that time. This meant
moving to Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada. This was the first move away from
Newfoundland and her parents. After working a couple months we bought a
house and were given a "$5000.00 limit" Visa credit card.

My wife's eyes light up when she saw the shiny new card and couldn't wait to
use it. I had reservations and thought we should cancel it but she won the debate.
To make a long story short, within a year and half we were up to our limit with buying
furniture and making up for my initial small salary working as an Aircraft Mechanic
apprentice. 

As my salary increased I managed to get the "card" paid off but since then it has
been an up and down battle keeping the credit card bills to a minimum. A credit
card can easily take over your life and push you into bankruptcy if you can't
control it. On the other hand my wife's sister and husband use it everyday and
pay off the balance every month. They don't pay any interest and build up points
for travel and hotels.

I can see a big change in the last few years where staying in a Hotel , booking
a flight, renting a car, joining an online business and endless products and services,
require a credit card. The struggle for most, like my me and my wife, is to keep it
under control.

 

The battle lines are drawn and the strategy is being planned in the
offices of John Cow and Garry Conn. It's a competition that is spreading
across the Blogger world. Cow versus Conn in a race to see who can
come up with the blog that earns the most money beginning on May 19th
and ending on June 19th.

I know I can learn from this competition as they are posting most of
their "steps" from building the Blog to turning into a money maker.
I am a frequent visitor of John Cow's Blog and visited Garry Conn's
for the first time when I heard about the contest. I left a comment on
Garry's Blog and he quickly answered with a friendly welcome message
and was honored that he paid a visit to my Blog and gave me a
complement on it. Good for the ego and strengthen my confidence
level.

Both Bloggers are offering prizes and rewards for spreading the word
about the contest so I decided to throw my "cap" in the ring. I instantly
gained respect for Garry where he discussed his credit card debt when
he was younger. This kindled memories of my similar struggle with
credit cards. Hundreds and thousands of people were and are in the same
boat. Like rowing into a strong wind...you are making headways as long
as you keep paddling but take a break and you quickly loss "ground".

So...my next article will be the love and hate relationship between me and
the "plastic".

Readers of my last article probable noticed that I posted the question
"When was the last time that airplane was in the garage?" Recently I
was standing in the waiting area of the Halifax International Airport,
in Nova Scotia, Canada. I was leaning against the huge terminal windows
watching a maintenance crew towing a A320 Airbus to the "gate". As
the morning sun reflected off the sleek fuselage, I always think about
the enormous power in those turbo-fan engines.



A lady and her son were standing next to me and the boy asked where
they were bringing that airplane from. His Mother said they were
probably bring it back from the "garage". "Mom!" her son shot back
quickly.."It's a Hangar...duhhh!" She grinned and sipped her coffee.

Man..if I talked to my Mother like that, in public or not, I would be in
for a world of hurt especially when Dad found out about my disrespect.
This would probably shock a lot of parents today but when I grew
up, you didn't talk-back or disrespect parents, teachers, clergy, or
adults in general. The"strap" still hung on the principals wall when
I went to school.

Anyway, back to Airport...The crew unhooking the aircraft and doing
their final checks before heading back to the hangar, probably punched
a 12 hour night shift performing maintenance on that aircraft.

In Canada, Transport Canada has strict guidelines concerning maintenance
of Commercial Aircraft and if you have a look at the website you can get
an insight as to the "scheduled" maintenance our company Aircraft, as
well as, Airline companies across Canada adhere to.

"Time" is what decides what and when an Airplane is brought into the
hangar for maintenance. The aircraft as a whole is controlled by "cycles"
and "landings". This is basically every time an Aircraft leaves the Terminal
gate and docks at it's destination's gate. Every aspect of the plane is
controlled by time and when a part needs to be changed because the
"time" is up, the plane either comes to the hangar or a crew is dispatched
to change it at the airport the aircraft is at.

When a aircraft is brought in the hangar, my crew and I get to work and
we are under time restraint. The airplane has to be on the gate for the
scheduled departure time and all work has to be completed and double
checked by me before I "sign-out" the release to confirm the airplane
is "airworthy".



This is where my license and reputation is on the line. I am responsible
for the airplane once I sign the maintenance release form for all the work
that is done and that all systems are operational.

What kind of work do we do on an aircraft in 12 hours? I'll give you some
insight on the life of an Aircraft Mechanic in my next article.


What's going on here...you're probably thinking that this blog was supposed
to be about Home Business and Blogging. I thought I would let you know
a bit about who I am and what makes me tick. I like to alternate between
subjects but I am debating whether to start a blog devoted solely to Aircraft
Maintenance.

Besides my online Home Business and family life, I fix Aircraft for a
living. Today, with this fast-paced world and more people flying than
ever before, airlines are meeting these needs with faster and larger
aircraft. After all, the customer is always right.

Take my airline Jazz Air LP, which has destinations throughout Canada
and the United States, the majority of the fleet consisted of Turbo-
Prop Aircraft. That was 5 years ago. This workhorse called the
DeHavilland Dash-8 is a turbine powered twin engine airplane that
seats 37 people. A flight from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Gander, Newfoundland
in Canada would take about 2 hours.

Today the Dash-8 is being replaced by the sleek RJ or Regional Jet
which sits 50 people and can cover the same distance in 1 hour. Jazz
is a regional airline and owned by Canada's largest airline Air Canada.
Air Canada flies to destinations all over the world and is also replacing
it's older aircraft with fuel-efficient longer-range aircraft.

With the airlines, everything revolves around scheduling and they have
super computers and large staffs making sure it all runs smoothly.
Delays cost hundreds and thousands of dollars as the minutes tick
by. I guess we have all been there, where the aircraft is not moving
off the gate when it is supposed to and everybody is looking around
and some are starting to get a bit annoyed. Behind the scenes there
is a flurry of activity to correct what is causing the delay and every
second counts while the airline's money-crunchers are adding up
the lost revenue.

Why would a few minutes delay cost the airlines money? An aircraft
turbine engines suck up an enormous amount of fuel just sitting on
the ground. More fuel burnt while increasing speed after the plane
takes off in making up for lost time. Perhaps it is a maintenance delay
and there is money spent on parts, overtime, fuel for the maintenance
vehicles. The list goes on and on.

All day long, aircraft fill the skis shuttling people to one place or another.
In Chicago, one of the United States' busiest airports an aircraft is landing
or departing every 30 seconds. I came across that statistic 10 years ago,
just imagine the traffic today.

With all this fast-paced, racing to catch a flight, environment do you ever
think... when was the last time that aircraft was in the garage?



Being an Aircraft Engineer, I can answer that question and will let you know
the answer in my next post. Have a safe flight! 

Recently, I was looking for a user-friendly software that can copy
webpages, pictures and reports on the net. Free would be good
but as long as it is easy to use and hassle-free. I performed a
search on Google and came across SnagIt.



The thing that caught my eye instantly was the Free 30 Day Trial.
All right! Let's open up this puppy and see what it is all about.
After downloading it, the clock is ticking and you get reminders of
how much time you have left before the free trial expires. Then it
costs $39.95 and after trialling it for 16 days it is definitely worth it.

There is no Affiliate plan but they do offer a Reseller Plan though
TechSmith. I will probably explore the Reseller Plan because I can
see the potential in this product. For the experienced Webmaster,
in a few seconds you can create some awesome captures and for
the new Blogger or site builder it can save hours of research and
trial and error. The latter being...me! Not that I am a new Blogger
but new at inserting images and all that new fangled stuff.

I could type out many paragraphs explaining this product but the
easiest way is to go to TechSmith and download it for free. Have
some fun and experiment with the product. Once installed in your
browser (for simplicity and easy access) and you want to capture
an image, just click on the snagit favicon or button and let it do it's
magic.

A recent post of mine on LinkReferral describes how the program
works and stirs up traffic for your site. A bonus to this program is
ratings and reviews of your website by Linkreferral members.

On some popular Blogs, the authors want you to pay them to review
your blog. When the review comes in it can make you feel pleased and
even elated that you are on the right track but on the other side of
the coin, it can leave you feeling disappointed and frustrated. All that
hard work and it's not up to "snuff".

The question is...do you change your blog to suit this one opinion?
It's your blog and you are putting your own thoughts into it and
that already separates you from the "crowd". After all a Blog should
be original and you will notice the successful bloggers "are" different
from the norm. That contributes to part of their success.

Back to LinkReferral and reviews. I get "free" reviews everyday and
some of these are from top Marketers and Bloggers that are members
of LR. Do I take them seriously? If there is a one line blurb like
"nice site"...no, but if there is an extensive explanation...yes.
I take an average of the reviews and then work on the negative
aspects to improve on them. The positive points; I take them and
"run" and expand on what is working.

My Lens on Squidoo always had good reviews and ratings but got some
negative "vibes" concerning this Blog. No complaints about the content
but the layout got some criticism. "The initial presentation is too dull",
"you need to put some umphh in your header after all, this is the first
thing readers see", and "Hi there. Once I got to the actual content it was
great lots of good information and product listings. The site took a little while
to load though. The initial page that opens is rather bland however the content
pages following were great. Nice job I like your site. Maybe glam up the initial
page that opens? "


I guess it's back to the drawing board and do some work on the layout of this
blog and see what I can come up with. Originality is the key and a theme.
like John Cow's Blog but different. The smoke is starting to come out of my ears
from overheated brain activity but I got nothin' so far.

I'm a Lensmaster on Squidoo.com. A lens is similar to a Blog except
that you are restricted to the use of widgets. Squidoo has coded
widgets in it's "modules". Modules are like building blocks and you
construct your Lens using modules that include link lists, videos,
comment, polls, etc.

Squidoo is a community of people of various interests of which, mine
is Home Business, Blogging, Affiliate Marketing, and all the topics
that relate to them. You can find a Lens on just about anything and
they are very easy to make. There is a Forum and all kinds of tutorials
and help topics to assist you if you are not confident in what you
have created.

What is the benefit of Squidoo to me as a Home Business owner and
Affiliate Marketer?

I can "showcase" my opportunities and business on my Lens and put
a different twist on it. An explanation of otherwise not visible details
that appear on a companies' website or spashpage. I can show my
earning stats and downline growth that can spark curiosity in viewers.
I get involved in related "groups" and market to other Lensmasters,
as well as learn what strategies they use.

What is the most popular search engine in the world? You guessed it...
Google. When you create a Lens, the Google search engine "spiders"
come to crawl your site and often give your Lens a great placement
in the Google Search Engine. If you update your Lens regular and
provide fresh and relevant content you can reach #1 in your search
category and maintain it there, or at least on the first page.

As you can see below my Lens is on top and I am confident it is
because I update it every second day and sometimes daily.

The trick here is to make your URL relevant to what your Lens is about and Google
uses it as a keyword to list your Lens on its' search engine. For example, if your Lens
is about a widely recognized company GDI - Global Domains International, then the
wise thing to do is enter your title to the Squidoo URL as:
http://squidoo.com/GDI or squidoo.com/GlobalDomainsInternational
When a person searches for GDI on Google, there is a good chance your
Lens will be there waiting for them on the first page. Again, it depends on your
content and how "attractive" your Lens is.

Oh! There is one more thing I forgot to mention about Squidoo...it's free!

LinkReferral is one of my favorite of the traffic building resources that I use.

With over 150,000 members divided into relevant categories, you can pick
the category you would like to use and by following the programs criteria
you can relieve up to 40 visitors to your website or blog daily.

                      

In the Directory Traffic area you can choose Money Making Opportunities
and pick a sub-category such as work-at-home, which has 8,647 sites listed.
The goal is to be number 1 in this sub-category if your biz or blog is about work
-at-home.

As a free member to get the top ranking in that category you need to surf
30 sites, review 5 sites, favorite 1 site, and contribute to the LinkReferral
Forum. If reviewing sites is not your thing....not to worry, it is a very easy
process where there is a 1-5 ranking chart and you can leave a little blurb
of what you thought or a detailed review.  After 24 hours you can repeat
the process and gain up to another 40 viewers.

What is the benefit to you? You receive visitors of which a percentage become
interested in what you are presenting. You receive reviews of your site and
decide if you are on the right path or need to do a change-up of how you
are bringing across your message. In the Forum you can ask and get answers
to your questions on topics such as Marketing, Hosts, Traffic builders, etc.
If you are an experienced Blogger or Marketer you can enlighten members
on what works for you.

If you don't feel like going through the routine everyday or are too busy, there
is an upgrade option which keeps your page at or near the top in your category
plus other advantages.

Personally, I have not upgraded yet because I enjoy visiting other Blogs and
Lenses while learning and comparing theirs to mine. However, there is an affiliate
program which pays very well, which I will have to consider as an option for
Upgraded members.

If you want some quick free traffic to your website or blog visit LinkReferral.

Before I got interested in Blogging I was introduced to Squidoo. At Squidoo
you can create a Lens for free on any subject you want to let the world
know about. I decided to highlight my Home Business and after began
daily updates on how I am progressing with my programs. I originally started
this to keep my downline members informed on how their upline....me, was
doing.



One of the key elements to Affiliate Marketing is to stay in contact and help
your downline members. When you get your first 1 or 2 members into a program's
network you should be directing all your attention to them to help them get
started. Whether it is a matrix or powerline by assisting your downline members
you are growing your organization.

Unfortunately, members you sponsor do not respond and do not want to be
contacted and this happens to me as well. When a member does respond,
build a business relationship and if he or she has the same attitude as you,
your business will grow and you are building a team.

Back to my Lens at Squidoo, I will keep my daily updates there and have monthly
updates here on my blog. Squidoo seems to have a good relationship with
Google. When you publish a Lens and it is of interesting content and
you keep it updated the Google search engine "bots" crawl your lens and
give it a ranking. Google is the most widely used Search Engine and you can
get traffic from Google just by creating a Lens.

My Blog host offered me a Search Engine Submitter and I decided to add it to my package.
I figured it would make my life easier after I had my Blog established, just plug it in to this
submitter and push the "Easy Button". Unfortunately, this was not the case as I soon
discovered.

After I entered my information such as Blog name and URL, I hit the continue button and
ran right into a brick wall. Optimization is one category that needed to be addressed and
a "Site Analysis" report that was already starring me in the face reported two problems
which were Internal Links and Spiderability.

When I opened "Web Site Spiderability" the problem was internal links. So, I moved up and
opened "Internal Links" and was affronted with 50 bad inbound links. This broken links will
make it difficult for "bots" or "spiders" to crawl all my pages. Some search engines will not be
affected but some will be stopped in their tracks and report incomplete information such as
a half finished sentence, etc.

That's funny, because I never had any problem before...my 'Blogger" site
Financial Independence Seeker was on the first page of the Google search engine and in
the #1 spot for a day so Google's spider must be spinning it's web and bringing back my
data. 50 bad links...where do I start?

Traffic Blazer, the submitter I am referring to has over 200 sites you can submit your Blog
or Webpage to and they include Google, Yahoo, several Blog sites, regional and international
search engines. It is a great "tool" to have, so I will need to spend the next day reading up
on how to optimize my Blog and fix those links. If I never tried the site analysis I would
still be in the dark about "spiderability".

I welcome any comments about how to optimize you page and correct faulty internal links.