Davinian

What do you do to stay focused?

I have come to the conclusion that I am much better at brain-storming an idea than actually turning it into reality!

For instance, I am currently trying to complete a website for a idea I had two weeks ago, I’m getting there, but find I’m getting distracted with newer ideas - I lack concentration and find it hard focusing when a new idea pops into my head - I need to be strict with myself and stop, write the idea down, then continue with the work in hand… but it’s bloody difficult!

I’ve read plenty of books and websites on time-management, better productivity, staying focused etc., everything makes sense and I know what I should be doing, but after a few days I seem to slip back into my old ways and lose interest… I need to focus and require your help…

What do you do to stay focused and ultimately be productive?

100 Deadliest Karate Moves

No 83 - Punch to Groin Damage: cracked or broken pelvis, bruised testicles. Result: attacker will be unable to stand for many minutes; may be crippled.

While running some key-word/niche searches I accidentally ran a search for .pdf - no name, just [dot] PDF as in an Adobe PDF document.

The list that came back was interesting as it appears to show an all to sorry story of what the internet is most commonly used for…

Out of the list of 100 or so results I looked at - that’s the search results I looked at, not the actual PDFs the following subjects and titles appeared the most:

• Sex as in Playboy Magazines, Massage Secrets, How to get beautiful women and the Karma Sutra.
• Conspiracy this, that and the other, 50 things you’re not supposed to know, Secret Societies, Free energy and who killed Elvis, Kennedy etc…
• Health and Fitness, Body building Secrets, Lose weight fast, be Big and Strong, 101 workouts and my favourite, 100 Deadliest Karate Moves (looks like a great book!!!)

Some of the more sensible topics were: Learning a language, to cook or play a musical interment - i.e. speak Japanese, play the Piano and Cooking with Jamie Oliver for some weird reason?

Then followed the usual Windows this, that and the other for Dummies, How to crack this, that and the other application, network or firewall, and even more dummy guides for dummies!

There were some interesting results, but apart from the cooking and learning a new skill, most of them were for topics that generally give the internet a bad name. Why?

Still each to their own I guess - we do live in a free world after all… don’t we?

Jumping on the Entrecard Bandwagon

I’ve decided to give the latest self-promoting buzz a go - Entrecard is a weird little business card/advert sharing network that’s designed to allow like minded individuals to contact each other by leaving their 125 x 125 sized business cards on each others website.

You can also rent space (currently one day at a time) on sites displaying the Entrecard widget. You do this by using credits that you accumulate from either displaying cards on your own site, by clicks on your cards, or by dropping (leaving) your card at other sites. It sounds complicated, but it isn’t - trust me!

Credits can also be exchanged for real world goodies, but I haven’t earned enough credits yet, and the current list of goodies is very short.

Why all the fuss? Entrecard seems to be the next big thing in traffic generating ideas, and plays on the relatively new and fast becoming popular 125 x 125 sized adverts you see on such sites as ProBlogger.

The only problem I can see is that the card is actually 127 x 148 when Entrecard tags on the little “Drop yours” button and border. So it wouldn’t fit very well if you had a couple of rows of 125 x 125 adverts.

Anyway, some stats. I only signed up late last night, but my card seems to have brought in just over 50 new unique users in less than 24 hours. Whether they will return again or not remains to be seen, but the cards do seem to be working, and I guess it will boost my visits, readership and hopefully profits for a while.

Do you have an Entrecard? If so, drop it off and I’ll pay you a visit.

Ugly Squeeze Pages and Design

The Landing Page or Squeeze Page as it is more commonly know, is seen by some as the most important part of any opt-in email or affiliate driven website.

Are Squeeze Pages ugly?

A typically Squeeze Page tries to entice its “target” audience with marketing and copywriting techniques such as headlines, bullet points, teaser copy, deadlines and testimonials. All of which are generally so well researched that they can take the author days and several attempts to perfect.

But something that I just can’t fathom out, is why such a well written bit of marketing tends to have to look so aesthetically unpleasing to the eye. I have found myself on several occasion just giving up trying to read such a page as the design is so appalling.

The classic example generally has a blue or grey background with either a white of light yellow text area. The text for some god-awful reason seem to usually be Courier - can anybody tell me Why? And with alleged meaningful words and phrases picked out in a collection of insipid Red, Yellow or Blue bold text makes the whole thing unbearable.

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