As a lot of you know, Monday is the start of the cowpetition, where we go head to head against Garry (with two r’s) Conn. During the 30 days of the contest you are going to see first hand and in detail, exactly how we build and profit from niche blogs. Some of you, if not most of you, might not realize that the “Born Again” (hint hint) JohnCow has been doing this very thing for a while now and is making a good living at it… enough to have a good size staff working fulltime in our office for us. We are not saying this to brag but on the contrary, to make sure you do not miss this opportunity to get first hand knowledge of how to step through the process of planning, researching, building and marketing a profitable blog, the exact way we do it for ourselves.

So some of you might be able to say… We know that Cow… we know that!!!!

BIG UPDATE –> Well here is what you do not know… We are also going to be doing weekly live webinars (that we are calling “CowCasts”) with occasional guest speakers, where we are going to be talking about all that was done through out that week of the contest, review each lesson we posted and will open it up to Q&A

But there is a catch –> Do not worry, we are not putting you to work or anything but each one of these CowCasts are going to be limited seating and the details of the calls are going to be sent out via our email to our list of RSS subscribers who subscribed via email only. Also these “CowCasts” are going to be recorded and only made available to people who are subscribed to our RSS feed via email. Now we need to make clear that these recordings will not be made available right away, there will be about a 72 hour turn around time on them.

So bottom line… you better subscribe to our SPAM FREE RSS Feed via email now to get in on the action.

The webinars will be hosted on GotoWebinar and so I am sad to say you will need to call in on a phone to participate and listen but with solutions like Skype being so cheap it should not be a problem.

You see we thought about this and yes there are a lot of things we can do to help our readers, there are more prizes (oh and we do have more prizes too) and things like that but we are pretty sure most of you either already have things like computer’s or MP3 player’s and the reality is they do not really offer you what you came to this blog for in the first place.

This is a “Learn to Make Money Online” blog and as such it makes more sense for us to offer you rewards that actually help you achieve that. The value of what we are going to be delivering here is in our opinion only limited by how much money you end up making as a result of the training, which is a heck of a lot more then a free laptop of software.

BUT… and this is a BIG Cow Size “BUTT”

We also understand that contests help make it fun and we like giving free valuable resources away PLUS we have been approached by a few others to be able to offer even more prizes now

Can you moo… COOL!!!!

New Added Prizes…

• A FREE one year subscription to TrafficKahuna ($997 Value)
• A FREE copy of the Full Blogging Mastermind Audio Series from Yaro Starak with over 10 hours of up to date blog training ($397 Value)
• A FREE copy of Web 2.0 Marketing Tips from Miguel Alvarez, author of Marketing Factor ($135 Value)

This is in addition to the already awesome prizes of…

• A FREE Copy of Affiliate Elite Enterprise Edition ($550+ value)
• A FREE Copy of TrafficTravis ($97 Value)
• A FREE 1 Year Membership at PLR Pro ($1164 Value)
• A FREE Copy of Easy Member Pro Unlimited ($297 Value)
• A FREE Copy of Video Post Robot ($197 Value)

Begin of Cow Rant –>

Sorry but we have to throw this in here. We need to come clean on something here, we read a comment the other day about the cowpetition, saying that “anyone can give away ebooks”. FIrst of all these are not “ebooks”, these are software, training and tools that are of solid value and will help you to make money online (emphasis on help… you still have to do the work).

Now, we want to ask, why is it some people love to complain about things, always find the negative… even when they are free. Why are so many of us so miserable in life that we always look at the glass half empty? I think of all the time and energy we waste being angry and negative for the stupidest…. and i mean STUPIDEST reasons. If we could just take that energy and focus it on helping others instead of knocking others down… what a better place this would be.

<– End of Cow Rant

Your Specific Instructions for getting on on this stampede!

PLEASE READ THESE CAREFULLY

1. You must opt in as a subscriber via email to our RSS Feed. You can do that in the side bar…
   
2. By registering, everyone automatically gets one ticket to be put into the draw for the prizes. You also get access to the live “CowCasts” and the recordings.
3. To get more tickets for the Cowpetition… All you have to do is the following…

• 4 Tickets: Twitter a post about us and link to http://www.johncow.com/cowpetition, then post a comment with a link to your twitter post on the Cowpetiton page.
  
• 10 Tickets: Twitter a post (following above step criteria) and become a follower of my Twitter at http://twitter.com/johncow, then post a comment with a link to your twitter post on the Cowpetiton page. (If you are already a follower then you just need to make a twitter post to qualify)
• 25 Tickets: Make a blog post about the cowpetition and the prizes and link to http://www.johncow.com/cowpetition
• 50 Tickets: Create a short video and submit it to Youtube about the contest

So if you register for our RSS via email, Twitter and follow, create a post and video, you can be awarded 90 tickets. That means that if there are 10 000 tickets registered all together then your odds of winning a prize would be 90x’s greater then someone who just registers

To learn more about this contest, go to http://www.johncow.com/cowpetition

The contest starts Monday and each day, we will post a lesson based on what we are doing. We will reveal pretty much everything to you. Then the start of the next week we will a have a CowCast, for email subscribers only, to provide an opportunity for further learning and understanding.

This is pretty much going to be the last update about the contest, since Monday the training is going to preoccupy most of our posting time.

One last reminder… if we (John Cow) win this contest, we are donating all the proceeds to World Vision… we are not keeping one red cent!

You go to the gym and get on the treadmill, you have no real goal in mind and so you hit the “Quick Start” button and just go. You know of people that are in really good physical shape and they absolutely love the treadmill and you want so much to look like them so you are going to try it.

At first it is a breeze and actually is a little fun. You have your headphones on, rocking on to your favorite music and you play around with the buttons and settings on the treadmill thinking to yourself how this is actually not too bad. You look at the treadmill beside you and see that person is on level 9 and so you crank yours up to level 10 just to show them that you are better.

Then it starts, your legs get a little tired, and start to burn. The fun is starting to disappear and you watch for a chance that the person on the treadmill next to you is not looking so you can turn the level down a little.

Suddenly the thoughts start…

“I need to get off this thing, I hate this stupid thing!”

60 seconds later all inhibitions are gone, you don’t care who is looking, you crank down the level to the lowest it can go… your just to darn worn out.

30 seconds later… you hit the big red STOP button and justify to yourself…

“Hey, its been 7 minutes, thats long enough, I will go longer next time!”

What Failed Here and What the Heck Does This Have to do with Business Planning?

Hopefully you can see where we are going here but if not, we are sure you will get it in a moment.

For anyone starting a business, if you do not set yourself a goal right up front, chances are you are going to be just like the person on the treadmill and jump ship the moment things start to get rough. Things are always fun and exciting at first but what about when tough times hit?

You NEED to set for yourself realistic goals.

You see, with exercise the big goal is usually to lose weight but if you do not have a specific amount you want to lose… well then as soon as you lose a little and times get tough you are going to be like the guy on the treadmill and simply quit.

With your business, we can pretty much guarantee you that times are going to get rough. There are going to come moments that you look at your results and or finances and feel so over whelmed and paranoid, that you suddenly fall into analysis paralysis. You start to feel like you are failing, that it is too hard, that you can’t do it and then the inevitable happens… You Quit!

You chalk this up to the system not working (it is never our own fault), the tools are no good, the person who you learned this from scammed you… this whole business thing is a scam and does not work

I have heard this more then once. Someone fails to plan and because of that, jumps ship the moment the waters get rough and then blames the ship for them drowning when it was them that jumped off the boat into the water.

Whether you are starting a blog, creating a PPC campaign, or even starting an offline business, you need to make sure you set yourself goals that get you through to the end. You need to stay focused on the end prize.

Here are two scenarios…

1. Lets say for example you want to start building niche blogs. So your initial plan is to build a few of them (you are not sure how many) and make loads of cash. A few months into it you start getting discouraged because you are barely making any money and these sites are taking lots of time and effort. You cant see the reason “why” for what you are doing, so you abandon them and move on to something else.

2. Now a different person wants to build some niche specific blogs. This person plans that they want 6 blogs built and promoted by 6 months. They figure out the time and effort to do it and they plan that at the end of the 6 months they would take the two that are doing the best, sell the other four at sitepoint and then focus only on those two that were looking promising. Now after a couple months, this person has 4 done and none are doing that well however, this person does not quit… why?

The reason is this person knows the “why” of what they are doing. They see a goal and focus on it… they know they need 6 blogs done and then it is time to make a decision on a new goal. At the end of the 6 months they have achieved their goal and find the two sites that are the best of the batch and now focus all efforts on them.

When the doubts and distractions pop up, as long as they are not deal breakers (life altering kind of events) they are able to stay focused on the end goal and push their way through to the end.

~ I sure hope this makes sense to you!

Now for some serious questions to you…

• Do you have any idea what your goals are with your business right now?
• Are you just winging it and hoping for the best?
• If you had an employee that gave the same excuse you have for not having a goal… and you were paying them by the hour and they were just “winging it”… would you feel that was a good investment?

Have you signed up for my latest Cowpetition yet? You can win some pretty awesome prizes!

Check it out at http://www.johncow.com/cowpetition

Special Deal: Get a 15% monthly recurring discount on the best hosting plan on the planet at Top Hosting Center. Use coupon “JohnCow“. (Three months free hosting when you get a 12 months plan!)

Credit Card fraud is on the rise, As part of our "Internet Safety" tips series, we are suggesting certain steps that can help you avoid being a victim of Credit Card fraud.

The first step to prevent your credit card from being misused is to not let your card fall into the hands of fraudsters. There are many tutorials/how-to's on the internet on credit card fraud that suggest..



"..be on the lookout for houses where the houseowners are on a vacation and have their house locked down but left their mailbox unprotected where the banks will send them their credit card."

This seems to be the most popular method of getting hold of other's credit card. So, take the hint! NEVER leave your mailbox unprotected, take steps to ensure the privacy of your mailbox.

According to this article in BBC..

..A fraudulent card transaction takes place every eight seconds and cloning is the biggest type of credit card fraud.

Cloning (also popularly known as 'skimming') can happen in seconds. So, Whenever using your credit card on malls, resturants and hotels etc., request that the the card is swiped in front of you, Don't let your card out of your sight and pick up all receipts. To pick up more tips, you should also read this article on BBC on How credit cards get cloned

Extra care needs to be taken if you use Credit Card to buy on the Internet. Sure, It's so convenient to use the credit card to buy online, but remember that there are other ways to pay for your purchases for eg. "Cash on delivery" for instance. Use your card on well known and reputed sites, also make sure that the site is using SSL.

You are adviced not to use your card on public cafe's, computers with public access as they could be running malicious programs(called keyloggers) to steal your personal information.

The last tip is to use paypal for online purchases, PayPal is the safer, easier way to pay and get paid online, Pay without revealing your credit card or bank information. Now many people like you, use paypal instead of using credit cards.

Question of the day –> Could blogging actually be better than Dr Phil?

We are always looking and researching for new strategies, ideas and inspiration, to help us stay on top of this blogging game and today we can across something that we normally would not think to be interested in. Actually, we may get a little mushy in the next few words… but we hope you find a little inspiration in this like we did.

A few hours ago we came across a blog from a woman who lives in Boston (USA) who began blogging back in October of 2005 (her blog is http://snickollet.blogspot.com/). She began blogging about how her husband was suffering from pancreatic cancer and how the two of them we’re going through infertility treatments to get pregnant. She blogged about what she was going through with her husband but also during her pregnancy. On April 11th 2007 her husband passed away and she blogged about her day and how she crawled into bed with him and held onto him until he passed away, yet she continued blogging as a form of therapy.

We think that perhaps many people see blogging as a way of therapy, a way to get their emotions out there, a way of being heard and venting feelings. We all know what it is like to just need someone to talk too… maybe thats why we love blogging?

If you are stuck on what to say… simply say whats on your heart or mind… after all is not that what this whole blogging thing is about?

Got any thoughts on this… other than we probably sound like a women in this post?

Special Deal: Get a 15% monthly recurring discount on the best hosting plan on the planet at Top Hosting Center. Use coupon “JohnCow“. (Three months free hosting when you get a 12 months plan!)

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The other day I realized that I enter my haircut appointments into Google Calendar, so I can search for “haircut OR (the place I get my hair cut)” and see when I’ve gotten my hair cut:

Then I was reading Google Apps Hacks and Hack 25 caught my eye: “Show the difference between two dates”. A formula like “=INT(A2-A1)” will automatically compute how many days passed between the date listed in cell A1 and the date listed in cell A2.

If you copy and paste a date from Google Calendar’s search results into a cell, it will automatically format a nice string like “May 2, 2007″ to “5/2/2007″. So it was easy to copy/paste when I got haircuts into a Google Spreadsheet. Then I used the date formula to compute the number of days between haircuts. As Philipp Lenssen points out in his book, once you’ve entered the date difference formula “=INT(A2-A1)” in one cell, you can click the cell to highlight it and then use the handle in the lower right of the cell to copy the formula. Just like that, you can see how long you waited between each haircut:

Then it’s just 2-3 mouse clicks to add a graph of the time between haircuts. And if you use the “=AVERAGE(B3:B10)” formula, you can see that on average I wait 45.75 days between haircuts, or about 6-7 weeks.

This tip does have some practical value. When the haircut place asks “Do you want to make your next appointment?” you’ll know how far ahead to schedule your next haircut so that you don’t get too shaggy.

Got some questions for you…

• Want to learn first hand how to “truly” make money online?
• Want to see from start to finish how we plan, research, build and market a blog to dominate and grow viral buzz?
• Want to see a real life case study from start to finish?
• Want a chance to WIN over $2300 in prizes?
• Want it all for FREE?

>>>Click Here Now<<< to visit our “Official” Cowpetition page and learn exactly how you can enter to Win!!!

Special Deal: Get a 15% monthly recurring discount on the best hosting plan on the planet at Top Hosting Center. Use coupon “JohnCow“. (Three months free hosting when you get a 12 months plan!)

Got some questions for you…

• Want to learn first hand how to “truly” make money online?
• Want to see from start to finish how we plan, research, build and market a blog to dominate and grow viral buzz?
• Want to see a real life case study from start to finish?
• Want a chance to WIN over $2300 in prizes?
• Want it all for FREE?

Check this out… You can WIN…

• A FREE Copy of Affiliate Elite Enterprise Edition ($550+ value)
• A FREE Copy of TrafficTravis ($97 Value)
• A FREE 1 Year Membership at PLR Pro ($1164 Value)
• A FREE Copy of Easy Member Pro Unlimited ($297 Value)
• A FREE Copy of Video Post Robot ($197 Value)

All you have to do is the following…

• Mandatory –> Registration and 1 Ticket: Subscribe to out RSS feed via email
• 4 Tickets: Twitter a post about us and link to this page (Need to comment a link to your twitter so we can verify it)
• 10 Tickets: Twitter a post and become a follower of my Twitter at http://twitter.com/johncow (Need to comment a link to your twitter so we can verify it)
• 25 Tickets: Make a blog post about the cowpetition and the prizes and link to this page
• 50 Tickets: Create a video and submit it to Youtube

So if you register for our RSS via email, Twitter and follow, create a post and video, you can be awarded 90 tickets. That means that if there are 10 000 tickets registered all together then your odds of winning a prize would be 90x’s greater then someone who just registers

IMPORTANT: You must subscribe to our RSS feed via email to register and qualify and we will record the selection process for the winner so you can all see first hand that the more tickets you have, the better your chances to win are. One individual could actual win every prize, as long as the have at least 5 tickets. The winners will be selected on June 18th and be notified by a post on the this blog

This is a 100% WIN/WIN for everyone involved here… I promise to completely share everything we do, through out this entire cowpetition between Garry Conn and ourselves and you will see first hand how we make a very profitable living online.

So get your pencils sharpened, your notepads ready and sign up to learn how to Make Money Online!

Rules of the John Cow vs Garry Conn Cowpetition…

• Starts Monday May 19th
• Sites will be listed on SitePoint on Wednesday June 18th
• Winner of contest will be decided by which site generates the highest sale
• Blogs must be on a brand new domain
• Blogs must be 100% original work
• Blogs must not be a premade or bought and put on a new domain
• Blogs will be listed on SitePoint with full disclosure of who bought them and for how much
• Listing will be 100% handled by sitepoint (for fair third party listing)

We already stated in an earlier post that after we win 100% of the proceeds are going to go to World Vision and we will record the transaction so you can all see for yourselves that we are following through on that promise.

We are going to be fully disclosing all the details of this cowtest… how we decided on a market, how we planned out the blog, researched, built and promoted it. You will see first hand exactly how to do this for yourself. We are actually crazy for doing this as people pay 1000’s of dollars for this type of info… but our readers deserve the best

Disclosure –> We are making it clear right now that there are paid tools that we use that you will need to get if you want to do what we are going to share, so please don’t complain about that. We are not going to use this to pimp tools we do not use… but we are going to show you the tools we do use and most important the why and how we use them

Also, we are not making any guarantees to anyone about the success you will achieve following what we are going to show you… we are just showing you what we are doing. The good thing to know is we DESPISE theory in our teachings and stick to only proven facts… so you are going to learn what we “KNOW” is proven to work.. not what we think “should” work.

>>> Subscribe Now to Learn and WIN <<<

Special Deal: Get a 15% monthly recurring discount on the best hosting plan on the planet at Top Hosting Center. Use coupon “JohnCow“. (Three months free hosting when you get a 12 months plan!)

I changed it so that anyone can follow me on Twitter or FriendFeed. The links to follow me are http://twitter.com/mattcutts and http://friendfeed.com/mattcutts .

And of course you can subscribe to my RSS feed if you want. You can subscribe by clicking any of the buttons below:

If aren’t a subscriber yet, let those RSS buttons call to you.

COOL SURPRISE –> Got a surprise email this morning from Brad Callen who was pretty happy to see us mention that we like his product Affiliate Elite, and here is what he had to say…

If you cant read it… here is what he said…

“Thanks for mentioning AffiliateElite on your blog, I am anxious to see how you recommend using it. I see that you sponsor the odd contest every now and again too and if you would like to give away one free copy of the Enterprise Edition I can set you up. Let me know and if there is anything else I can do for you.”

First of all.. what a gentleman… thanks Brad, this puts you even higher in our books as one of the top IM gurus out there… we would most certainly LOVE to take you up on this offer and we are sure our readers would be more then happy too win a copy as well

Affiliate Elite is a kick ass piece of software and as you read in our last training post, we use this ourselves.. and will be showing you how in the next lesson. It is not a cheap one though and has a monthly use fee with it so, for one year alone this is a $570 + value… and that is only if you paid for 1 year. So you can see, this is not a cheap prize!

So, here is what we are going to do… On May 31st we are going to have a draw to see who wins… but too be entered to win, this is what you are going to have to do…

1. Subscribe via email to our RSS Feed (Do not worry, we will not spam you.. we promise). If you already subscribed via email, you do not have to again.
2. Link to our blog about the Cow vs Conn competition.
3. Reply to this post with a comment explaining that you did the steps.
4. We will export all the names of who commented and check everything is done and then have one name randomly picked (will record a video to show the process of the winner being selected to prove no cheating).

This is a 100% WIN/WIN for you all… you can get a chance to win this kick butt program and you will also receive all the details of how we built our blog so you can implement the exact same strategies. Can you moo the word… COOL!!!

Oh and we almost forgot… We had a good talk with Garry (no chance whatsoever of winning) Conn yesterday and it was kind of funny… we thought he was joking that he thought he stood a chance, but the little guy really believes it. He is so cute, it really warms our hearts to see the little guy all excited. Too bad we are going to have to stampede all over him… especially since we have started to grow fond of the little guy.

We also found out that SitePoint has decided to jump on board with this and is going to help out with sponsoring this contest… which we thought was pretty cool.

We are going to be making an official announcement about this a little later (we need to get on the horn again and work out some final details) but as of right now this is how it is tentatively going to work.

1. Start of Cowpetition is Monday May 19th
2. Each cowtestant will have 30 days to complete their blog
3. We each are going to pick whatever niche we want and after 30 days each site will be listed on sitepoint.
4. We will have full disclosure of all the details of the sale to ensure there is no funny business.

We already stated that after we win 100% of the proceeds are going to go to World Vision and we will record the transaction so you can all see for yourselves that we are following through on that promise. Garry is not doing that… he is keeping it all for himself (can you say boo).

We are going to be fully disclosing all the details of this contest… how we decided on a market, how we planned out the blog, researched, built and promoted it. You will see first hand exactly how to do this for yourself. We are actually crazy for doing this as people pay 1000’s of dollars for this type of info… but our readers deserve the best

Disclosure –> We are making it clear right now that there are paid tools that we use that you will need to get if you want to do what we are going to share, so please don’t complain about that. We are not going to use this to pimp tools we do not use… but we are going to show you the tools we do use and most important the why and how we use them

Also, we are not making any guarantees to anyone about the success you will achieve following what we are going to show you… we are just showing you what we are doing. The good thing to know is we DESPISE theory in our teachings and stick to only proven facts… so you are going to learn what we “KNOW” is proven to work.. not what we think “should” work.

>>> Subscribe Now to Learn and WIN <<<

Special Deal: Get a 15% monthly recurring discount on the best hosting plan on the planet at Top Hosting Center. Use coupon “JohnCow“. (Three months free hosting when you get a 12 months plan!)