According to an article in PCworld, consumers spent over $100 billion online in 2006. In the last two months of 2006, online sales rose more than 26% vs the same period in 2005. It’s an encouraging number for anyone doing business online and proves that there is plenty of room for new people, products and ideas. The article also explains the growth of niche products and the “long tail” of internet commerce.

This morning I was driving my 9-year old son, Danny, to school early.  He was elected to the student council, and he had a meeting.On the way, I asked Danny what the student council had done so far this year.

He proudly told me that they had succeeeded in getting the snack cart to carry apples.

OK, that’s not exactly world peace, but these kids are eight and nine years old.  They had an idea and they made it happen. They got what they wanted, and now they have momentum. They’re empowered to tackle the next project.

I was thinking of how this applies to my business and I realized that it’s not always about “The Big Idea”.  Sure, a few of those are great.

But lots of times stringing together a bunch of little ideas can create a victory. And I’m better off actually “doing” the little things than I am just “thinking” about the big one.

Doing vs thinking about it.

A good lesson reinforced by the fourth grade student council.

It occurred to me that we all like to make fun of the weatherman on TV.

Have you ever wished you could be wrong that often and still have your job?

One could say that we are wrong far more often than the weatherman is.

If “getting it right” in internet marketeting means getting a visitor to buy something, you can be wrong 95% of the time and still be doing very well. Most marketers would be thrilled with a 5% conversion rate.

I don’t think the weatherman would last on TV too long with that kind of accuracy.

So rejoice! We can be wrong 95% of the time and still keep our jobs.

If your sales or web pages have photos you lifted from Google images, you may be asking for trouble. Typically, unless otherwise noted, you can be violating copyrights if you use a photo from someone else’s site without permission.

The good news is there is a place where you can get legal, high quality photos for very little money. I’m talking about $1 or so for a web image. Shot by a pro. And with almost a million images on file, there’s plenty to choose from.

They have a search engine that helps you find the proper image.

Check out Istockphoto.com to learn more.

After a headline like that, you would expect to read a horror story about how I lost all kinds of valuable data and spent long hours trying to recreate my system, programs, settings and data.

This story is different… Read why.

If you have a list you have people leaving the list. It happens. No matter how good your content is. No big deal.

But what happens when they click on your unsubscribe link?

If you are like most people, they go to a default unsubscribe page controlled by your autoresponder system.

But some autoresponders allow you to deliver unsubscribers to a special page, or put your own links on the page tehy display to unsubscribers.

Why not use that real estate to make an enticing offer?

You could potentially promote a related affiliate product, another product of your own or even include some related content and adsense ads.

Here are some samples of how I do this:

http://www.CBmall.com/info/rake-it-in.asp

http://www.beatmyspeedingticket.com/unsubscribed/

Try this and see if you can’t create yourself another income stream.

I learned something new today about the dangers of
advertising brand new domains.

Seems there’s an organization called Outblaze that some ISPs
use to help filter spam. One of the factors they use to
determine spam is the newness of a domain name.

Yusuf Goolamabbas of Outblaze describes the data as coming
from spam trap message body analysis: “We have an extensive
set of spamtraps. The emails to these accounts are analysed
and URIs are extracted. For any domain found in these
emails, we check for ‘new’ and if so, its blocked.” In this
case, ‘new’ is defined as the domain being registered within
the last 90 days. This newness should help prevent
legitimate domains from being listed since spammers
routinely register new domains, use them for a only a few
days or weeks, then move on to a fresh domain for their spam
advertised sites.

So what can you do about this? Register domain names early
in any project and don’t plan large email campaigns until
the domain has aged over 90 days.

I personally saw a couple of my own domains blacklisted
because of this.

More info on tripping spam filters because of domain
names here.

My friend Jeff Walker has more detail on getting blacked out.

Jeff Walker’s Blackout Report

If you need to get any type of graphics work done, check out DesignOutpost.com

It works a lot like eLance in that you post a bid for a project. The difference is, graphic artists will compete for your business by actually producing the graphics. So if you wanted a logo, you would see logos from multiple designers. You pick the one you like best, or provide feedback so they get closer to what you want.

Then you simply pay for the one you like. This is far better than picking an artist and hoping you get what you want. Check it out.

I just got back from Yanik Silver’s Underground Online Marketing Seminar held in Washington, DC. It was excellent.

Yanik puts on a first class event. I personally picked up some great tips on starting and running a membership site, improving the results of email campaigns, ideas for product line extensions and lots more.

Read More Details

When is the last time you verified that your server is actually backing up all your files like you think it is?

Ever read the fine print at your server company?

If you even have back-up service, and you likely don’t, they have no liability if it isn’t working. And in my experience, it often isn’t.

As internet marketers, we have a lot less physical stuff to worry about than retail business owners or service firms. But we do owe it to oursleves to make sure our valuable intellectual property is protected through proper backups.

Read more…