Effort vs Results Productivity Matrix

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Check out this productivity matrix I drew up last week, harnessing all my powers of graphic design

Where are you spending most of your time? What needs to change to get achieve more and feel more happy and fulfilled with less effort?

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This Is Clever: The Credit Crisis Visualised

This is a very cool explanation of the origins of the current credit crisis. It’s not only a very clear explanation of a complex issue, but I love the visual design and presentation. Bravo to the creator, Johnathan Jarvis.

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New Audio Program, Search Engine Strategies For Lead Generation Websites, Released Today

I’ve just released the new-and-improved version of my audio program, Search Engine Strategies For Lead Generation Websites.

This program is designed especially for time-poor, results-focused business owners and managers who want to learn how to deploy practical and proven Search Engine Optimisation strategies to drive top search engine results.

This 4-part, 97-minute audio program shows details how to:

• Generate immediate “windfall” income by generating more sales leads and sales at lower cost.
• Save thousands of dollars on paid traffic generation such as Google Adwords
• Leverage your existing website content while incurring minimal additional expense.
• Reduce or totally eliminate pay-per-click expenditure.
• Bypass the steep SEO learning curve (is it worth your time to spend dozens of hours studying what you could easily digest in less than 2 hours?)
• Become your own “SEO guru” and master the tools and tactics the big players use
• Gain an instant credibility boost: studies show that consumers believe that the websites at the top of the search engines are more credible and pre-eminent than paid advertisers.

The price is just $47 (that’s Aussie dollars), putting this program well within reach of any business owner, and it comes with a no-questions asked, 60 day money back guarantee.

Update: 4 May 2009: A number of commenters have asked me to elaborate on what makes this program different – here’s a brief update:

How is this SEO program different?

There are a lot of SEO experts and “gurus” on the Internet – many with impressive experience and qualifications – so what makes this program different and why should you buy it? Here’s a brief analysis as to what makes this program different:

• An SEO program for business owners – many SEO programs delve into excessively technical details.  My program provides a “business owner”-level overview of the core techniques of SEO, plus implementation steps for the 20% of SEO techniques that deliver 80% of the results.  Business owners can either use this program to quickly get up to speed on SEO in order to tell good SEO firms from bad, or delegate the implementation to an in-house person to implement the action steps laid out in the program.
• Focused on lead generation applications – most SEO programs take a generalist approach — this program focuses specifically on SEO for lead generation websites (i.e. websites where the principle focus is generating qualified enquiries for a product or service).  In the program I provide specific advice on the kinds of SEO strategies that work best in lead generation applications.
• Based on what works - the program is 100% practical and is focused around the exact same strategies that have produced first page rankings for dozens of our clients in real lead generation scenarios.
• Concise and to the point - the entire audio program is only 97-minutes long – long enough to cover all the key points, but not so long that you need 20 audio CDs to listen to the entire thing (and business owners typically don’t have time for that anyway).
• Very affordable - other programs are priced at up to $1,000 (or more).  This program is only $47.   I deliberately priced it so low to ensure that price is not an option.  Any business owner can acquire these skills for a fraction of the cost of engaging most SEO firms.
• All future updates included FREE – because the SEO world is changing so fast, I intend to occasionally update the program.  When I do, all purchasers of the program will receive the updates free.  A one-time investment ensures unlimited updates, for the time being at least…

Click here for the full story and to purchase the program

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Beware Of Fraud When Buying and Selling Websites On SitePoint

Over the last 18 months I’ve established a “side business” with Nick Schoonens where we buy, “renovate” and sell established websites (or hang on to them for cashflow).   It’s an interesting business model (very lucrative too, if you buy wisely and know how to optimise traffic and conversion).

One of the best places to find established websites for sale is the SitePoint forum.  Sure, there’s a lot of junk there, but once in a while there’s a fantastic deal that’s worth snapping up.  The SitePoint guys have done a great job with their site and they are continuing to take steps to ensure that auctions are legal and above board.

But a few auctions still slip through the cracks – here’s one real example of a fraudster attempting to bilk an unsuspecting site purchaser out of his cash.

The Back Story

Around mid-2008 a business contact sent me an email to say he was excited about the possibility of buying his first site on SitePoint from a certain “Tony Normand” of www.stop-smoking-guru.com.  Before he “pulled the trigger” and shelled out the asking price of $18,000, he asked me to check it out to see if I could spot anything amiss.

When I checked it out, I discovered that the whole thing was a giant scam.

The basic format of these scams is that the fraudster provides info and supporting evidence to corroborate the site’s income and justify the asking price, but when you finally gain access to the site (if you ever do), the actual results fall well short of claimed results.  But by then, you’ve handed over the cash and the seller has skipped town.

The Trail Of Evidence

Below is a partial screenshot of the seller’s ad on SitePoint showing the purported site stats [or click here to open the full ad in a new window]

Sounds great, right?  Who wouldn’t want to buy a $6,000 per month income stream for only $18,000.  That is silly money…a little too silly.  The unusually high return made us very suspicious.

So let’s review the supporting evidence

The seller very kindly supplied a variety of screenshots, corroborating the traffic, income, affiliate activity and mailing list size.  It certainly looks the part:

Claimed traffic volume:

Claimed sales volume:

Claimed mailing list numbers (edited for clarity):

Due diligence reveals tampering with the evidence

Having bought a number of different websites and considered many more, we’ve developed a comprehensive website purchase due diligence checklist to help assess sites.  When I started running the checklist, this public page on www.rentacoder.com turned up:

Hmmm, that certainly looks suspicious.  A person by the name of Anton Cheranev has engaged a contractor to, ahem, “change three marketing images”.   I followed the links (now taken down of course), and found this:

Real mailing list numbers (edited for clarity):

Real sales volume (a similar, yet unrelated image?):

Real traffic volume:

I was not able to follow one of the links to grab the real traffic volume image. But by that point, the game was up… it’s amazing what a little PhotoShop can do.

My friend contacted SitePoint and they shut down the auction, but there’s not a lot more they can do, other than trying to prevent future occurrences.

Be careful when you buy websites – “renovating” existing websites is a great business model if you can make it work, but the biggest “unknown” is corroborating the seller’s claims.  If that problem could be overcome, the Buy-Sell website game would get a lot easier.

Will Swayne

Website Doer-Upper

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