Do you REALLY  believe that by focusing your thoughts on positive expectations … meaning your hopes, dreams, desires, wishes and the resulting outcomes … that you will REALLY  receive and experience positive results? Hmmm?? Do you practice positive thinking in your life?

Well, I do!  I didn’t used to a few years ago. Honestly. Oh sure, I would say I wanted this or that good thing to happen to me, or that I wished my finances would improve, or that I hoped that new opportunities of one sort or another would come knocking at my door, but I just didn’t have a true spirit of positiveness and positive thinking instilled into the deepest core of my thought patterns.

Because I am now such a believer of the power of our thoughts, and how our thoughts really color and affect our entire life’s circumstances, I feel it is very important for me to begin to add posts containing words of positive thoughts and encouragement to my blog. And so, today marks that day! 

Here’s what I’d like to share with you today:

~~ “Your life will go in the direction of your MOST PROMINENT thoughts! ~~

I ran a broken link check yesterday after receiving an email from a woman who had visited one of my websites, and wanted me to know she loved the content I shared so freely, but thought I ought to know I had many broken links and also that my contact form just wasn’t working!

” … but I do want to mention that on your website I was unsure if you got my e-mail. I kept hitting ’submit’ but it didn’t do anything. Maybe it was my computer. Hopefully you didn’t receive a bunch of those duplicates. Sorry if you did. Plus, on your website, sometimes the links didn’t work. Like I said, maybe it was my computer or the server. Just thought you would like to know.”

This is NOT what any website owner wants to hear, let alone someone like me who promotes high quality website design services as part of her repertoire!

Even though I knew darned well I didn’t have any broken links, and also that my ‘Contact Me’ form was in 100% working order, I did two things to double-check the situation.

How To Check For Broken Links On Your Site - For Free

There is a great free piece of software called “Link Sleuth” - download it here. It’s been around for quite awhile and I can tell you it is great! It’s safe (no spyware or anything like that associated with it), easy to install on your computer and it works.

It checks all the the links on your site: the ones that link all your web pages internally, and any links you have on your site pointing out to other websites. You can set parameters of what it will/won’t check. It’s very efficient.

So, after running it, just like I was sure of … NO broken links on my website.

Then, I tested out my contact form and again, just as I was sure of … no problems with it submitting my name and email address. It also took me right to the customized ‘Thank You’ page I always put in place for all my contact forms.

And yes, I certainly emailed the individual back, letting her know I appreciated the heads-up, but that unfortunately the problems she encountered were on her end and with her computer (or ISP), and not with my websites!

It’s a good practice to periodically run a full site broken link check on all your sites. How often to run the check is up to you, but is also dependant upon how often you make changes to your website, and how many links you have pointing out to other sites. Remember that these other pages you have links pointing to may become non-existent - the website may no longer be available/active, or sometimes the web page you are linking to gets deleted.

Checking for broken links is just one of the many ways to maintain a search engine friendly AND visitor friendly website.

Maybe you are saying “Mercury retrograde? Where the heck are you going with this post, Claudia?” I’ll tell you …

Oh boy is communication starting to get affected, both mine and with other business people around me. Stick with me here and you might learn some interesting information. 

First though, I must tell you I am not someone who is very knowledgeable about astrology. But I have had my astrological chart cast for me professionally. And I do believe the planets have an affect upon me. I am not one to bother to read a generic “daily horoscope” as I do realize that our birth charts may be such that we really are nothing like the Sun sign we were born under. This holds true for me, thusly I learned long ago to not pay too much attention to generic horoscopes.

I do not mean to offend anyone who enjoys their daily horoscope in the newspaper or via the internet! I’m just honestly stating my personal opinion and telling you I am very far removed from the typical traits associated with my Sun sign. That’s all.

Anyway without trying to give you an education about what happens when Mercury goes retrograde, let alone what a retrograde is, I suggest you search “retrograde Mercury” and you’ll find many fine sites with good information.

Basically, Mercury is the planet that rules communication. And in business, well … communication is a large part of what makes business take place! After all, we depend upon our telephones, our emails, contracts, invoices, faxes … you name it, if communication of any sort is involved, I have come to learn since 1986 that a Mercury retrograde can affect my business dealings.

The astrological effects can manifest from a very slight, yet noticeable slow down in communications from customers, vendors, etc. all the way to big goof-ups such as major mistakes in contract wording (“but I proof read that darn thing three times before I sent it???), to things like what happened this morning to me. I was waiting for a live webinar to take place. I called in about 5 minutes before it was scheduled, to make sure I’d have no problems with the connection. (Remember, I keep vigilant during a retro-Mercury!).

Well, when I got into the webinar, I could hear the two moderators bemoaning the fact the featured guest speaker was not there yet, was not reachable via his email, nor could they reach him by any of his phone numbers. On top of this, they thought no one else could hear them bantering back and forth about what to do, where could he be, how could he have forgotten he was supposed to teach the webinar class, etc.

It was kind of amusing to me, and I thought “Ah ha … you don’t have to explain anything to me … Mercury is retrograde!! 

Evidently they could not hear those of us that were waiting on the lines, so someone used the “email a question” feature and told these people that we could hear everything they were saying! Then they started profusely apologizing saying “oh dear … we’ve just been informed everyone can hear what we are saying!”

And yes … they also told us the webinar would definitely be cancelled due to the no-show of the guest speaker!

That’s a pretty good example of just one of the types of snafus a retro-Mercury effect can do to us! The best laid plans can just go haywire and leave everybody scratching their heads as to how things got so goofed up.

As of today’s date, I am beginning to personally experience a light effect on anything having to do with communication in my own business dealings. As example, even though I swear I found no typos in an autoresponder email that I helped a client send out yesterday … there were three dumb typos in it! For the life of me, I read that email over carefully before I loaded it up for her.

That’s not at all like me. I am very careful of things like that, so yup … I really believe it is the Mercury retrograde phenomenon taking place.

Be aware that depending upon many different factors, a retrograde will affect some of us more strongly, or adversely, than it will other people. Right now I am keeping my fingers crossed I only have “light” snafus.

Take this for what you wish. I’m just sharing with you that we’re into the middle of this retrograde; that I am personally experiencing what it is doing all around me; and that I, for one, am going to just make sure to be very aware of anything as it pertains to communication. And I am especially going to slow down and re-read everything I write, whether a simple email to a friend … or a new SEO contract to a client. Oh yes, gonna double-dot my i’s and double-cross my t’s!!

I have seen some retrogrades really wreck havoc and be quite problematic. I’ve seen some be almost problem-free. Also, I do have many other friends and acquaintances who are business owners, who agree that a retrograde Mercury affects there businesses, too. So, that causes me to pause and take notice. It’s not “just me”.

I’ve come to pay attention to the thrice a year retro-Mercury’s as this is one aspect of astrology I have found to warrant my careful attention. Hey … to be forewarned is forearmed!

Though as is said … your mileage may vary. If nothing else, read up a little about it. You might find that being aware of when Mercury goes retrograde to be somewhat useful if not downright helpful to help keep your business communications flowing smoothly.

I’ve got a number of “brand new to having their own website” clients who are starting to get the hang of making money online. They are experiencing the power of being online, and are seeing their visitor traffic rise each week. They are getting more requests for their services or products … yes, they are happy and thrilled at the potential that lies in store for them as far as online marketing is concerned.

They were smart enough to hire my company to provide them with a professionally designed and search engine optimized website. These clients knew they needed to put their best foot forward in order to properly promote themselves. My partner and I provided them with a user-friendly, W3C compliant website, and because I did my SEO job well, they are getting good visitor traffic from organic search results.

In addtion, these clients have listened carefully to the marketing suggestions that Damian and I have given them, and these clients do truly understand the need to market their services and products in other ways. They understand they cannot solely depend upon their website to do all the work for them.

So, in my continual efforts to nurture and coach all my clients on ways to make additional money online, I often suggest they bundle up some of their expertise and write an eBook. Most clients really haven’t a clue as to the potential profitability of providing information in an electronic book format.

Many of us, especially those of us who are a bit “older” than a 20 or 30-year old, are still not familiar at all with the eBook concept, and more importantly, just how darn popular the eBook format really is!

I Speak From Personal Experience As A Successful eBook Author

I launched my first eBook, The Hypertufa How-To Manual over one-and-a-half years ago. At that time, I will admit … I was not very familiar with the advantages of publishing one’s transcript in an eBook format versus the traditional hard cover format. I had downloaded a few free ones, and as a matter of fact, decided to purchase an eBook in order to learn how to produce and successfully market one. (I had no clue about how to go about selling an eBook nor if it would be something profitable for me to do.)

You’re probably saying “Claudia … what the heck is hypertufa and why’d you write about it?” Well, my eBook came about because of the popularity and success of my very first website. And like many of my clients … I too was very interested in not too long of a time in making some more money online! (I firmly believe in having many money making, “financial eggs” in my basket!)

If you’re so inclined, you can visit The-Artistic-Garden.com and learn about a whole ‘nother side of me.

I must say that though I have not become a millionaire via the sale of my eBook, due to the fact it is in a rather obscure niche of interest … I will tell you it produces, week in and week out, a VERY nice stream of passive income. I sure like seeing those checks deposited in my checking account every two weeks!

OK … let me get right down to what you came here to learn, and that is “how to sell your eBook”.  I’m going to share a number of basic ideas. I believe these will help you put on your thinking cap and get you pointed in the right direction(s). One, or a combination of these marketing venues can prove successful for you. Here goes:

• Sell your eBook via your own website. That’s right … what better way to place it in front of a targeted audience! I will assume your eBook’s topic is related to the niche of your website, thusly it would make total sense to let your visitors know you’ve compiled information NOT FOUND on your site into a downloadable electronic book.

  You can easily set yourself up with a payment processing company such as PayPal.com. There is no cost to have an account with PayPal – but they do charge/deduct a very small percentage of each sale to cover their service. For the small business person, it is a darn good deal. I have had no problems using them.

• Want to have other people promoting your eBook, too? Then sign-up with a trusted online affiliate marketing company such as ClickBank.com. I decided to try out ClickBank in order to promote my eBook because of their strong affiliate marketing program and I’m pleased with the results. I am still using them today.

  There is a nominal fee as part of the acceptance process in order to be able to sell via ClickBank, but it is not very much and for most of us, the sale of one, two or three products will cover the “publisher fee”.

  ClickBank is a third party that handles online payments. They also bring affiliates and vendors together so that affiliates can make money promoting the vendors’ digital products and e-goods.

  I do not have to worry about paying the affiliates who promote and sell my eBook, and I don’t have any messy bookkeeping to keep track of at the end of the year (all I’ve got to report to the IRS are my earnings – I don’t have to do any reporting on the affiliate sales).

  Please go to their website to read about all the ins and outs of getting your eBook or other digital product handled by them, but I will mention now that you ought to buy a unique domain name and build out a mini-site in order to properly promote your eBook. (That’s another blog post for another day!)

• You could buddy-up with another online marketer who has a good sized mailing list of names that are targeted to your eBook’s topic. In other words … if your topic is about building blue bird houses, I don’t think you’d be very successful sending out an email broadcast announcing your eBook to a mailing list that is comprised of antique sword collectors!

  Many successful people have done just this – buddying up or properly referred to as a “joint venture” or “JV”. You offer a very nice commission rate to the person who is allowing you to promote your eBook via their mailing list of prospects.

  Though this is really a bit more of an advanced marketing technique, I do want to mention it to you, as even brand new online marketers may have a friend or two with websites in a similar themed niche that just might be willing and happy to make some extra income by sending out one simple email to their private mailing list, promoting your eBook.

• Try out free article submission websites, such as EzineArticles.com. You can submit a short overview article of what your eBook is about, and are able to insert a hyperlink to your sales page.

• Visit a forum(s) in a niche related to your eBook’s topic. Some forums allow a short commercial plug, with a hyperlink in the sig line. That’s what you’re looking for. **Read their terms before you join – many forums will ban you for any attempt at self-advertising!

  Don’t try this eBook marketing technique unless you plan on becoming a regular and valuable contributor to that forum. It makes NO SENSE to plaster one comment in lots and lots of forums, hoping lots of people are going to pay attention to your once (and only) comment! Your self-marketing effort will most likely be ignored.

• Utilize Snail Mail!  Yup … do NOT ignore the effectiveness of marketing your eBook via the good old postal service! As example, you could make up postcards or flyers. Check out online printing companies such as VistaPrint.com or local office supply or printing people to see where you might get the best price for your snail mail blitz.

  But remember that you do need to mail to a targeted audience. Maybe you only have 50 people who might be interested in your eBook, as example. That’s OK. A mailing list of 50 targeted people is much better than some list you’ve bought that has 500 names interested in who-knows-what subject matter!

Don’t hesitate to try one or more of these avenues when trying to sell your eBook. You never know which approach might work best for you. Look at your eBook marketing efforts as a long term situation.

In addition, in many cases, once you’ve gotten all your accounts and such set-up and approved, it’s basically pretty smooth sailing from that point forward. Though you will always want to keep an eye on things, when it comes to selling your electronic book with a company like ClickBank, or having a “Buy Now” button sitting on your website, everything will pretty much run on auto pilot thereafter.

Because it is an electronic product … there’s no handling, packaging nor shipping of a physical product! Your customer pays for it, they click the “Download Here” button and voila! They’ve got your eBook sitting on their computer and you’ve just made another sale. (Great concept, eh?  )

There are many more ways to market and/or sell your eBook. I have geared this article for someone just starting out. I hope this information has helped give you a starting point and that you’ve already got some great ideas about how you want to sell your soon-to-be-written eBook.

Good luck!

Today’s post may seem a little “off the radar” for my blog, but not really. If you take a close look at the tagline in my header, there are the words “…and Life in General”. So in that spirit, I want to alert my readers to a new set of informational products that you, or someone in your family, or a neighbor, or a fellow church member, or person you work with might find of intrest and great help.

My helpful offering today is to point you towards some brand new, incredibly informative resources about autism symtoms, signs, treatments, and cutting edge medical research that I spent time previewing last night: Autism: Everything Parents And Caregivers Should Know About The Disorder.

You know, my family and I are blessed in that we have never had to deal with a close family member who suffers from any type of mental illness such as autism. But I have a dear friend who has a specialized degree to teach younger children suffering from autism and similar illnesses. Some of the stories she shares with me about trying to deal with and effectively get through to these children, let alone try to teach them, are very touching.

The little I do know is that the causes of autism are not yet known with certainty. Recent research suggests a link between genetic susceptibility and environmental agents. There is evidence that no one factor causes autism and perhaps there exists a synergy among a number of factors.

I’ve also learned that there has been an apparent rise in the occurrence of autism since about 1980, but still, the root cause for childhood autism has not been found. And that boys are affected by autism in greater numbers than girls are. There is speculation that childhhod immunizations could be a cause. However many will argue that.

Anyway … as I said I am certainly no expert but this information was brought to my attention and after I reviewed the eBooks and MP3, I felt it worthy of me passing along to you to investigate.

I truly hope this autism information will be of help to at least one family today.

For all the information, please go to: Diagnosing Autism: Symptoms & Treatments