Welcome to Smart Wealthy Rich!

Hey, seems you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I’ve been thinking about that for a while now, i already did a review of John Chow dot com, and it seriously paid off, it helped get more exposure to this blog, so i guess it’s a good thing! (and i really really like John Chows’ blog) Now i’ve been looking for other blogs/sites to review, or services that could help monetize one’s blog. And i’d like to get the input of my readers on this.

Here’s the list of services/websites:

So that’s about it for now, i’m still waiting for approval with some of those programs, si i’ll let you know when i see results. (By the way, most of them pay using paypal).
Now i have a question for you all, i’d like to have your opinions on something…

Some of those sites offers text link spots (buying and selling), you get paid when someone purchases a link from you through them.. that is real fine with me, the “text-link-ads” model… but i’m wondering about those review sites, like reviewme or payperpost and others i have listed on here… would you actually and go and review sites, blogs or products? I mean… your blog surely has specific topics, you probably don’t want to annoy your readers with reviews of other sites/blogs… unless those reviews would actually benefit your readers (which i plan on doing really soon and see how it goes! No worries there, i will not sacrifice the content and post stuff that are not relevant!), so of course a lot of sites that needs/wants you to review them may not fit your blogs’ topic… would you do it anyway? Or would you prefer building your audience, and throw in a review from time to time (something that will appeal to your audience, not some random stuff).

What do you think?

Tags: Blogging, Business, Finances, Links, Marketing, Online Business, Reviews by Jon - SmartWealthyRich
5 Comments »

Ok, that’s not exactly the case right now with this blog (for link exchanges contact me through my contact form if your blog is, in some ways related to the same niche as mine. I’d be glad to exchange links with you!) :)

But i just thought i would ask anyway: What would you do with 1.2 millions page views per day? You’d probably switch from your virtual shared hosting service to a dedicated server! OK, but what else? :)

How would you monetize that much traffic? Same if you own a traditional brick and mortar type of business, what would you do if suddenly, your store was crowded with 500%/1000% more potential customers? You would like to benefit (profits!) from that traffic, wouldn’t you?

Of course if you get 1.2 million page views, you obviously worked pretty hard (or smart) for that to happen, and you surely know how to monetize your traffic (i hope you do!). But you have to plan in advance, and make adjustement along the way. Do you have a plan for your blog/business, you have goals?

What if suddenly your project works like crazy and you are overwhelmed with new prospects… are you prepared for that? it would be interesting to know what other people think about that? If anyone has a business plan, it would be nice if you’d like to share it, or share your thoughts on how you would deal with that type of situation.

Tags: Blogging, Business, Finances, Marketing, Online Business, Optimization by Jon - SmartWealthyRich
3 Comments »

… run your business, write articles, to post on your blog or to comment on other blogs, to write about that particular subject?

For me, writing articles and posting on my blog (and commenting on others) helps me improve my writing skills and get things “on paper” and “out of my head”, it’s a way to release and share my thoughts, a way of expression, and i also really enjoy the interaction with fellow bloggers and business owners. Of course i learn a lot of things in the process!

But what is the real motivation behind that?
Is it passion? love? fear? feeling of importance? money? Is it positive or negative?

Sure we like to write or do the things we do for a lot of different reasons, if there was no reason to back it up, we just wouldn’t do it!

When you write your next post, or your next article, or choose to do this instead of that with your business or website, stop and try to think or the reasons why you made that choice. It is important to know the real reason why you chose this way instead of the other way. If you have no idea, and you end up making a bad decision.. you kinda want to know why you did that, and correct or improve it next time!

Please share your thoughts and views regarding that! I’d like to know what drives people to do what they do, in their blogging and in their business! That could be interesting! and we can all learn from your replies! :)

Tags: Articles, Blogging, Business, Online Business, Self-Improvement, Wealth by Jon - SmartWealthyRich
7 Comments »

What is “wealth”? Is being more wealthy means having more money? What do you think?

Wealth isn’t “money”! Money is a fairly recent invention if you look at the big picture of human history… It is a way to “move” wealth! Because wealth if more like “the things we want”, like the new car, those clothes, the food… So being more “wealthy” doesn’t necessarly mean having more money…But living in a specialized and technological world, how would you get a pencil? You can’t really make one yourself, but you want/need a pencil, so you have to get it from someone else, a company that specializes in making pencils!

And you give that company/store money in order to get the goods you want! You trade money for a pencil! But this company is not exactly “making money” they are “making wealth”, by providing people with things they want/need, in exchange for money!

Money is not wealth, it’s is the stuff that money can buy that can be considered wealth!
Wealth is relative, for someone it may mean having a hundred dollars more, while it can mean a million dollars for someone else!

I really like the wikipedia definition (i’m a big fan of wikipedia!) :)
Here it is:

Wealth relates more to the flow of resources while richness relates more to the static absolute value.

Wealth simply means “well-being”… with or without money, you can be happy and well! But in our society (depending on where in the world you live, wealth means something different!) money is there to acquire wealth!

My thoughts! (with the help of wikipedia hehe)

Tags: Business, Money, Self-Improvement, Wealth by Jon - SmartWealthyRich
5 Comments »

Have you tried hiring people to work for you before? Outsourcing your work has it’s benefits of course, but what about the small businesses, or individuals working from home? A lot of people don’t have the financial resources to actually go and hire someone to design their site(s), or work on marketing their business..etc..

But say you do have the financial resources to outsource your work.. resulting in probably more free time, and allowing you to concentrate on other aspects of your business. How do you go about that? Personally i don’t feel like paying someone to work on things i know i can do myself, i’m really “web savvy“! But i can consider hiring a company or someone to help me out with my business, always be open-minded and know your limitations (there’s only 24 hours in a day, so you probably want to automate things).

If you want to concentrate on more specific aspects of your site/blog/business, you probably will have to hire someone (or maybe more than one person) at some point to do the work you don’t want to or can’t do yourself (especially if this particular thing is not in your field of expertise).

What about your website or blog? Many bloggers feel that hiring someone else to work on their site/blog, is a big “no-no”… have you ever hired a ghost writer to write posts on your blog? I haven’t! And wouldn’t really like that, i’d prefer having guests writers and contributors (and giving them some exposure thru my site) than hiring someone to write. Outsourcing is a good thing i think, but make sure it doesn’t get out of hands, or you might end up not liking the results, i’ve seen that many times (at the telecom company i used to work for).. hiring someone to do this or that, and then not getting the expected results! I prefer having control over my business (but still automate things!), but when your business grows like mad, you kinda need help from other people at some point!

What about you?

Tags: Blogging, Business, Marketing, Online Business, Optimization by Jon - SmartWealthyRich
2 Comments »

Do you sell or have affiliates promoting your own products on the web? Or are you an affiliate marketer promoting someone else’s products? I personally don’t have any product to sell (maybe in the future…), but i promote ebooks/books/services/products as an affiliate.

I’m kinda wondering about payment options, i’ve seen some (many) affiliate programs that rely only on paypal as method of payment, while others have their own secure server and credit card processors, or use clickbank, cj, or others, or offers the buyer to send a check… i’m really wondering why one would rely only on a single payment method (like “paypal only”.. sure it’s fast and easy to setup an account.. but still, many countries are not listed), there must be a reason for that! Why not offer multiple payment options (which would make it easier for the “potential buyer” to actually buy your product!)??

I wrote a post about “automating your business” a couple days ago, and i think i should have added something like: make sure your customers can buy your products any tiime of the day and offer many (not just one) reliable methods of payment.

If you are an affiliate marketer, and/or you do business online, do you sometimes worry that your customers/leads may not be able to purchase that particular product when they are ready to?

If that happens it would result in you still having to pay for your marketing and advertisement (pay-per-click, banner placements, time, efforts…) and potentially not getting that sale/commission. When choosing an affiliate program to promote, do you check to see if that program offers multiple methods of payments, and if they don’t, do you still promote that service/product?

One thing is for sure, if you want to make more money, you gotta automate your business… but what about the things that you don’t have control over, like methods of payment, and reliability/uptime of the website your send your visitors to?

Tags: Books/Ebooks, Business, Internet, Marketing, Online Business, Products by Jon - SmartWealthyRich
3 Comments »

I just read a post about “setting priorities” and stuff that can “drag you away from your work” (visit web-money-advices here to read the full post)… resulting in actually doing less than you were supposed to do on a specific day… it surely happened to you before (well it certainly happened to me!).

If you work (or have worked before) in an office you probably know what i’m talking about.. you are working and then a collegue stops at your desk, and the two of you start chatting about stuff.. then break is over (but you were working remember?) then you go back to your work and go: “mmm… ok, what was i working on?

Same thing can happen when working from home (can even happen more often), you are your own boss, so you can go for a break anytime, lunch, cigarette, drink, bathroom, answer the phone (maybe not related to your work)… then at the end of the day you look at your “to do” list and realize you did half of what you wanted to do… gotta stay focused and prioritize!

Tags: Blogging, Business, Links, Money, Online Business, Self-Improvement, Wealth by Jon - SmartWealthyRich
1 Comment »

I really enjoy writing articles! I frequently submit articles to articles directories. And i must say, so far the exposure is good, not “great” yet, but it’s getting there. Read my other posts about writing articles by clicking here or here.

I’m wondering if any one else writes articles to promote his or her business/website/blog? If you do write articles, do you sometimes write articles that are not related to your business? (say you’re into marketing, and you write an article about something else that interests you, like music, arts, relationships or others.. not really related to your primary business)
Or are you thinking of writing articles? Why haven’t you started yet?

Sure it can help you practice your writing skills (blogging helps with that too) and give more exposure to your business/site. From my experience, writing articles (and submiting them to articles directories), helped me a lot, but i’m always trying to find ways to improve.

Writing articles. What’s in for the writer?
More inbound links to your website (you are usually allowed to put from 1 to 3 links in your author’s box), getting your articles picked up by search engines, and to some extent be recognised as an “expert” in your field of expertise.

All that sounds great, but what about content theft, keeping track of where you submitted your articles (there is a ton and a half articles directories out there!), what directory should you submit to, which ones are the big ones? I usually keep all my articles in txt format on my computer, and whenever i come across a directory site i haven’t seen before, i just subscribe (usually for free) and submit my articles. I know there are companies offering submission services, are they any good? (i have no idea, i never used a submission service before).

Any of you got their articles online and then got offered to have them published elsewhere? (newspaper, other sites? with proper credits of course!)

Well, no matter what, having your articles all over the web can lead to more exposure that is certain! So far i got good results, more traffic, more exposure, more links, i’ll keep writing and post my progresses here. Can’t be bad, can only be better, the more you practice the more you learn!

But of course, not everyone that reads your article will click the links in your author’s box, but say they do, they are more likely to return and read your site and request information about your business.

Tags: Articles, Business, Marketing, Online Business by Jon - SmartWealthyRich
3 Comments »

You may have read about the “Firefox crop circle” somewhere on the net (that was done in August), I just needed to share this! (yeah i know many many other blogs talked about that before, but it’s just kick-ass marketing!)

It is an awesome marketing stunt! We all have heard about those crop circles in fields around the world, no one really know where they come from, how it happened, how it got there… but some firefox fans from Oregon, U.S. did a great great great job by drawing a crop circle showing the firefox logo, a 220 feet crop circle that is!

How many people you know would spend the week-end working on a crop circle showing the logo of your company?

I think that demonstrate that fans (or if your prefer: users, visitors, readers, collaborator) are important and may be a really great tool for your company!!

Tags: Blogging, Internet, Marketing, News by Jon - SmartWealthyRich
2 Comments »

Building a niche website or blog or starting your own company can be really profitable.
Using good marketing techniques, your niche website can attract highly targeted visitors/customers that are more likely to buy, and that website could potentially get a greater number of page views, which can be a good thing. But what do you consider when building your new website (or starting your new business)?

Do you focus on a particular niche, or do you think it’s better to target a large audience and talk/work about/on many different topics/subjects within many different categories? Or stick to one topic and work on that single one instead?

Take SmartWealthyRich.com for exemple. My goal is to share my experiences, share what i know and learn more about stuff that could help reach my goals… talk about wealth creation techniques, stuff i learned in the past, marketing, sales, advertising, network marketing (mlm), blogging, multiple streams of income and self-improvement. I guess all those topics are related in some way, reason why i try to talk/write about all those topics.

Another good exemple is network marketing. You could join 4 or 5 different mlm companies.. but you probably want to focus on just one. So you can put in more efforts on that one, instead of trying to manage all those other “businesses” all at once.

Of course you don’t want to put all your eggs in the same basket, but at the same time, do you think it’s a good idea to focus on a single specific niche?

When building your new website or starting your new business, try to focus on things that are related to each other, if you’re starting your own jewelry site or company, stick with things that are related to that! But you can also consider giving “jewelry repair” lessons, or evaluation services or other stuff related to your primary business.

Stick to things that are related to your field of expertise! But don’t focus on just that to bring you money every month.. what if that “primary” business ends up not working out? Or on the other hand, if you stick to just one topic/subject/business… do you have enough knowledge to make it grow, and make it really profitable?

Tags: Blogging, Business, Finances, Marketing, Online Business, Wealth by Jon - SmartWealthyRich
8 Comments »