Simple question.  If you have a business or hobby that you have not yet taken online the quick and simple answer is YES!  Learn how to create a Blogger account and then learn how to use Blogger.  It is far too simple to get started!

Check out this great 20 min MP3.  It is well worth the listen and can help you and your business (and your website) grow 100 fold.

 Did you know that the people in your industry who are recognized as the experts in their field earn an income of between 10 and 100 times as much as their counterparts? Being the expert and being recognized as the expert in your field are two very different things.

Bob Sommers, the host of the Recognized Expert Marketing Show, applied these skills to his business and built the largest customer service training company in the country. After only two years, Bob consistently earned over a million dollars a year without having to sell, cold call or advertise his business.

Listen to Part One of this incredible multi-part marketing journey presented by Bob Sommers and learn how you can become the recognized expert in your field … and completely eliminate your competition at the same time.

AUDIO: Become The Recognized Expert 

Don’t go at this “Internet marketing” stuff blindly! 

Would you crack open your offices main electrical box and just start poking around?  No way!  So why would you want to start messing with your websites content without knowing at least the basics!  Everyone has got to start somewhere when it comes to search engine marketing and website marketing. 

Your best bet is to understand the basics before you start modifying your website or blog or worse, pay someone thousands of dollars to talk over your head! (That’s the difficult part about working with marketers… you wonder if they are just REALLY good at marketing themselves or are they in fact good at marketing both themselves and you?) 

Well if you know the basics you wont be in the dark.  So here is more than two hours worth of interviews with some of the biggest and well known Internet marketers.  The Recognized Expert marketing show is hosted by my dad and the site is one of our biggest projects at the moment.  I know you will find these shows (and the site) helpful! 

There are many different avenues you can take when it comes to Internet marketing, PayPerClick advertising, link building, on site optimization, link baiting and the list goes on and on.  Lets start with some of the most popular Internet marketing topics (please note that most of these shows require a free, single, 45 second registration.  It is WELL worth it.):

1) Pay-Per-Click Advertising - AdWords - Get traffic right now without touching your website.
Sunny Hills - Three Components Of A Successful Google Adwords Campaign

2) Basic On Site Optimization - SEO - Make sure your site is doing everything internally that it can to ensure your off site marketing efforts are as powerful as possible.
8 Ways To Get Number One Ranking On Google - Michael Fleischner
Search Engine Optimization - Jill Whalen
5 Tactics for SEO Success - Jill Whalen
The Secret of Search Engine Success - Susan Sweeney
Aaron Wall - The SEO Book

3) Affiliate Marketing - Earn money selling other peoples stuff, earn money having other people sell your stuff!
How To Create Your Own Affiliate Marketing Business - Rosaland Gardner

4) Using Video - Why stick to text when nearly everyone online is watching video?
Mike Koenigs - How to Drive Traffic to your Website with Video

5) Email Marketing - How do big lists generate income and how can you build your list more quickly?
AWeber - Build Your Mailing List Quickly
(Sign-up for AWeber here!)

So is that it?

Here are another 100 marketing interviews.  These are less Internet specific, but are just as powerful.  A customer is a customer no matter how you get them.

The (Obvious) Problem Is That You Need A Website!

So you need a website for your Maui business but you aren’t ready to fork out ten grand and you don’t want to use one of those “cookie cutter” website development tools that always look cheep.  (Almost sounds like a sales pitch huh? Well I would probably turn it into one if I built websites.  I only market them! And besides, what I’m about to share with you doesn’t actually involve spending any (yep $0) money.)

You need a site that you can control, that isn’t going to drive you crazy, and that you can use to generate business!  Well, maybe you don’t need a website at all!  Have you considered a blog?  Blogs are unbelievably easy to start and can have your company on the Internet in literally under 60 seconds (Yea, it took 3 tries, but I went though the entire process in 58 seconds once. )

You will be able to:

• Direct your customers to a web page you have complete control over
• Sell products online (Via PayPal)
• Accept Credit Cards
• Answer common questions about your product or service online
• Publish images, photos, diagrams, videos and animations of your product or service
• Publish your contact information
• Generate new business online that you wouldn’t have found otherwise
• Spend absolutely no money in the process
• Make changes and add content yourself without help, instantly and at no cost
• Monitor what terms your customers use to find your site to help you improve any and all literature
• Ton’s of other stuff, but I think I nailed the important stuff.

The Solution - How About A Free Solution?

Go right now and sign up for Blogger.  I’ll even make it easy for you, here’s 7 hours of free Blogger video training that will quite literally hold your hand and walk you through the entire process of creating, setting up and using your new free Blogger blog.  You will even learn how to add video, images, slide shows, text, links, PayPal links (yes, you will be able to accept credit cards by the time you finish the videos) a shopping cart feature and TONS of other things.

Not having a website is no longer an option.  This is the easiest and most cost effective way to start one.  You can do it at your own pace and you have absolutely nothing to loose by trying it out.  Best thing is, now where along the way will you be asked for your credit card.

Here are some example sites:

  There are tons of free tools out there that can help your computer run smoothly and without problems for the life of the equipment.  Here are a few of the “absolute musts” for any PC.  They are not the only options, but at a $0 price tag they are hard to beat!  I use every one of these on my own equipment and recommend you do the same!

Spybot Search & Destroy

Spyware, adware, popups and malware in general are some of the most time consuming, annoying and expensive problems to fix.  The easiest way to prevent these is by installing Spybot Search & Destory before your computer gets infected.  Granted it can remove many problems, it is far better at preventing them.  Download Spybot Search & Destroy right now and use it religiously!

CCleaner (Crap Cleaner)

I have been asked on more than one occasion “How do I erase my Internet usage tracks?”  There are so many other “tracks” you need to clear though to prevent others from rebuilding your online usage activity.  Anyone who wants to keep their Internet habits private and wants to remove tons of unneeded junk from their computer absolutely needs to install CCleaner.  Simply running it every so often can help free up so much space that you will notice everything from the time it takes your computer to start to the time it takes to load a web page to speed up.  If you don’t already, install and run CCleaner immediately!

AVGFree AntiVirus

If you don’t have antivirus software installed already, you need to download AVGFree.  It doesn’t cost a cent and is as powerful as the “big guys” (Norton and McAfee.)  If you already have antivirus software installed you will need to remove it before you install AVGFree.

Maui is a unique place, we all know that. (Though I think most of us take it for granted. I know I do.)  There are so many ways to leverage this amazing place to benefit your business both online and off!  But for now I want to talk about online leverage.

 Here are a few sites I have run across in the past.  They are all blogs and they are hosted on several different blogging platforms.

Maui Surfer Girls

First up is one of my favorites.  It’s a girls surfing camp that hosts surf lessons in Maui.  Granted the business relies on Maui’s location, they did a great job using Maui’s unique environment as leverage over their competition.  The Maui Surfer Girls blog is hosted on TypePad.  Note everything from page titles, graphics, logos, and content.  This blog is very well done.

VWOnMaui

 Next up is one of my favorite WordPress blogs and happens to be part of a Wailea and Makena real estate website.  Note the content, the massive theme integration and the “social bookmarking made easy.”

Exploring Maui

 Last up is a Blogger blog.  This blog is more “fun” than anything else as it is not for a business.  This exploring the urban side of Maui blog is setup using a very simple theme and leverages another side of Maui’s uniqueness.

 So if you are looking to start a blog I urge you to consider the following three platforms.

The Top Blogging Platforms

1) Blogger - Free, fast, easy to use and is hosted by Google. (7 hour Blogger video training guide)

2) TypePad - Expensive, hosted by TypePad, easy to use, great documentation.

3) WordPress - Free, you must host it yourself but there are tons of addons and plugins available.  This is by far the most powerful and customizable blog.

You may have noticed that CompMaui looks completely different! Well it is!

You can still find the old site here, and a link to all of my previous posts here.

Keep an eye out though, there are some major changes taking place. One easy way to keep yourself in the loop is to subscribe to my RSS feed.