Information overload.

I’ve been wrapped up in that blanket for I don’t know how long and I’ve let it keep me in place the whole time. I recently discovered something about myself and I wonder if you might be able to relate.

I enjoy surfing the Web in search of things of interest or bits of wisdom that will make me a better person, a better Web publisher and marketer. To exclude myself from such knowledge would make my journey a lot harder. I’d sign up for this feed or that one, subscribe to so-and-so’s newsletter, etc.

Then one day I woke up and realized I was overwhelmed with all that information. It was too much to process and left me spending more time trying to figure it all out rather than putting the things it taught me into practice.

Don’t get me wrong: those are worthy endeavors, and things I still do, but now I do it in moderation. In fact, I’ve even pruned my list of information sources. Now, instead of having my feed reader constantly showing me I have 1,000+ unread feeds, I’ve been able keep them under control by unsubscribing to a great many of them.

Instead of being bombarded with all the newsletters I’d get in my inbox that sold the same thing as everyone else, I unsubscribed to many of them as well. All this adds up to more time for me to do things that I can profit from.

Have I reached the pinnacle of all Internet marketing knowledge? Heck no! Class never ends. But I have reached a fork in the road. One path leads to success. The other path leads to the false expectation that something will be different if I just keep doing the same thing just a little longer. Friends, it doesn’t work that way. If we don’t like what we’re getting out of life, then we need to change what we’re doing to get something different. Period.

While quenching my thirst for knowledge, I had been waiting for a red flare to go up. It didn’t and it wasn’t going to either. I have to be that red flare. And if you’ve allowed yourself to float aimlessly on a sea of information, waiting for the wind to blow you to shore, then you need to be your own red flare, too.

You’ve heard the saying, “Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.” Well, sure he does, but only if he decides to fish!

We learn by doing. We learn by seeing and listening to other people do things. But if it is our goal to do what they’re doing, we must not be content to just sit on the sidelines. We need to get off our butts and do something with what we’ve learned and stop thinking we’re doing something just by submersing ourselves in data. That’s why I decided to stop the noise and started doing things myself.

Have you experienced this? What are some of the ways you’ve handled it?

Photo by Asif Akbar.

Well, January has come and gone, and for some people that means so have their New Year’s resolutions. But maybe you fall into the category of people who have kept them. Perhaps you’ve received a glimmer of hope that says, “Hey, maybe I CAN do this” whatever “this” is.

I don’t recall that there’s ever been a month where I haven’t posted to MeAndMyDrum, but this past January will win the prize on that. It’s not that I decided not to post. Instead, it’s that I’ve been consumed with my other goals. I was tired of saying, “If only I…” or “Just one more article and I’ll have the knowledge I need to…” So, as much as it pained me to withdraw from MAMD temporarily, I felt it was the right thing to do so I could have something to reflect on and motivate me to achieve the other goals that I have as well as share what I’ve learned with you.

Now, I’ve only scratched the surface, but at least this year I actually wrote down some goals. I even made a quick and dirty mindmap of them. They’re probably no different than some of your’s like building a stronger income from my online activities. And on the personal side, there’s the ever common “lose weight declaration”.

As for the new online goals I’ve set, it’s too soon to tell if what I have done so far will be successful. They’ll need some time to incubate. But at least I started them. And you know what? Even if they fail, I will have at least learned from them to make a better go of it the next time. It’s easy to fall into a pit of despair when we fail, and it often leaves us feeling paralyzed thinking we can’t do something and damages our motivation to continue. If you feel that way, then it’s time to change that. There’s too much talent in you to have it waste away on believing your doubts.

Attitude is very important. That’s a no-brainer and it’s always been something I have known, but this is the first time I’ve actually DONE something about it. Okay, so what if I failed at something I tried last week, last month, or even years ago? Am I going to let my history define my future? Up until this year, I have, but not any more!

What are some things that you do to stay on track?

Photo by David Ritter

Time for some link love!

It has been quite a while since I’ve contributed to my series of link love posts. “Drummin’ Up Some Link Love” is when I collect posts I like for whatever reason. Could be that they’re informative, entertaining, make you money…the list goes on.

PotPieGirl: I just found out about this site yesterday evening on Garry Conn’s blog. Jennifer, the woman behind PotPieGirl, is very good at making Squidoo lenses — something I’ve been meaning to get into myself as I keep hearing about how successful they can be at generating income. I highly recommend you listen to her free videos on how to create a Squidoo lense. They were quite informative and I like her style.

Blog About Your Blog: Matthew has got a deal setup with Kontera where they’ll throw in $25 into your account after you earn $75. What’s Kontera? For publishers it’s a way to earn money with in-text advertising. Advertisers benefit from the laser-like target marketing service Kontera offers. You have to signup before January 15 to be eligible for this bonus. You can check out their post here.

Problogger: Leo Babauta guest posted The Essential Guide to Growing Your Blog on Minimal Time that’s well worth the read. You may know Leo from his blog, Zen Habits. He has a solid and clear writing style that always hits its mark.

WordPress Hacks: My friend, Kyle, continues to pump out great content authored by himself and other contributors. One of my recent favorites is where he collected over 140 free and premium WordPress themes, complete with screenshots and links to demos and downloads. If you’ve been thinking about changing your blog’s theme to start the year off entirely new, don’t do it yet until you’ve checked out this post.

Last year I wrote a Christmas post called “Twas My Blog Before Christmas.” It received a lot of great response. I thought I’d try my hand at another one, but this time write it to the tune of “The Little Drummer Boy”, the song that inspired the name of my blog. (It’s one of my favorite Christmas songs.)

If you’ve subscribed to as many emails as I have from people selling you tools and services meant to make you money online, then you’ll likely recognize some things in this story.

Feel free to post it on your blog if you care to share a little Christmas humor.

The Little Internet Marketing Boy

I got an email, to sell me something.
It had a bunch of hype, yet was very boring.
It said to “click right here”, so I clicked right along.
And when I saw the page it was a mile long,
It had a theme song, the grammar was wrong.

I tried to finish it and not go brain dead.
Here’s what it said:

“Buy this product, it’s quite amazing.
You can get rich,” it said, “by doing nothing.
Just pay me money and you’ll be like me.
Driving expensive cars and live by the sea,
Living debt free, counting money.”

The promises it made were simply profound.
The jackpot I’d found!

Then I read reports from 12 of his friends.
They had great things to say. That’s 12 recommends!
Then I read 20 more. This guy had it all.
How could I pass this up? I want to be rich,
What a sales pitch. Give me my niche!

I had to order now, the countdown clock said.
But onward I read.

There was a bonus plus 17 more!
I felt just like a kid in a candy store.
The price had been reduced at least seven times.
I had to buy right now. This offer won’t last.
I had to act fast. Potential so vast!

But I clicked “No thanks” and the page that I got
Was an error I thought.

“So you don’t like my deal? How ’bout this one now?
It’s short two bonuses, and priced to sell now.”
“No thanks,” to that one, too. The response was the same.
This game went on twice more, “Please throw me a bone,”
Leave me alone. I want to go home.

By then my inbox had seven times the “ping”.
They sold the same thing…the very same thing.

I love the thrill of finding my next domain name. Sure, it can be frustrating at times when you think you have the perfect one, but then you find someone already beat you to it and put up a parked domain page with ads. Aaargh! But there’s still something about hunting for that one combination of words that makes it worth your while, you know?

There are several resources that I’ve learned a lot about domaining. One trusted source of mine is my friend, John Motson, the guy behind DNXpert.

If you’ve been a reader of MeAndMyDrum for a while, you may recall me mentioning his book Domaining Manifesto, an ebook that’s packed with all sorts of tips and wisdom about the domaining industry. It’s especially good for beginners, but even the experienced can glean some benefits from it, too. It teaches you how to go about finding a domain, buying or selling one, what you want to avoid, and lots more.

John emailed me recently to inform me that he’s giving away Domaining Manifesto. Yes, you can get this book which used to sell for upwards of $47 for FREE by using this link. But it’s only for a limited time.

He’s got something cooking in the weeks ahead. And if I know John as well as I think I do, it’s not going to be anything less than impressive. Afterall, not only does he crank out domaining news at a break-neck pace, but he’s also one of the ones who first held those mega prize contests you’ve seen over the past year. This guy knows how to get people’s attention and delivers the goods.

Go grab your free copy of Domaining Manifesto now before he takes down the link!

Okay gang, I’m ready to announce the winners of the Blogger’s Jackpot. But first I’d like to thank the prize sponsors: HostGator, Solostream, MechCAD, StoreStacker, Market Samurai, Shawal, Garry Conn, and Busby SEO Test. These are some really great prizes that were donated, and I really appreciate everyone’s generosity.

And now for the long awaited list of winners to my contest.

Grand Prize winner is: Big Blogger
First place winner is: WiehanneContest
Second place winner is: Blogging from Scratch

I’ll email the winners and prize sponsors so that they can coordinate the details on the prize deliveries.

Congratulations to you and thanks to everyone who participated!

No matter what industry you’re in, no matter what you’re doing in that industry, communication is so important to getting things done. The message could be verbal or visual, doesn’t make any difference. Without the exchange of information, we’d be bumps on a log.

Sometimes, though, that communication can be something as simple as a “thank you”, but have a major positive impact on someone. Think of all the times you’ve held the door open for a stranger and they just walked right on through without acknowledging your act of kindness. Call me old fashioned, but I sometimes say “You’re welcome” to see if that snaps them out of their world for a few seconds.

Now let’s place that in an online setting, a place where it’s so easy to ignore someone and drop our usual standard of common courtesy. Ah, but you’ve no doubt seen those autoresponders for when you leave a comment on someone’s post and getting an automated email thank you for doing so. Or opted in to someone’s mailing list and received and automated response thanking you, too.

Did you know you can do that with Twitter after someone follows you? Yep, it’s called TweetLater. It’s free and once you set it up, you can add your own personal message that will be sent to the person that just followed you. This could be a thank you, a link to your blog, and maybe — if appropriate — you could link them to your product or service. This last part is something you have to be very careful with as it may turn off some people on the spot.

And that’s not all TweetLater does. You can automatically follow people who follow you, schedule tweets for future delivery, and create keyword alerts. Are you interested in what a certain “sammich man” has to say? If you narrow it down to a keyword, you can be notified when that word is used in one of his tweets.

For those of you who have followed me on Twitter (thank you!). I hope you have see the autoresponder in action. Sure, it’s automated, but it’s still a nice way of letting people know you’ve taken the time to let people know they exist and have done something you appreciate.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I started a new job a couple of weeks ago, which has been somewhat of a distraction in a way. As such, I haven’t been able to spend much time on offering new ways to earn points for my contest, which was originally scheduled to end tomorrow. So I’ve decided to extend the contest deadline to give everyone a few more ways to increase their chances of winning.

• 10 points: Follow me on Twitter. Once you do or if you are already following me, then just leave me a comment on this post with your Twitter profile name.
• 10 points: Tweet about the contest on Twitter. When you do, or if you already have, then please indicate the date when you did. (Actually, it may just be easier to tweet again.)
• 10 points: Stumble any post that you like on MeAndMyDrum. Leave a comment on this post with your StumbleUpon profile name.

For those of you who have subscribed to my FREE mailing list, I have another way for you to earn points. So if you are not a subscriber already, be sure to signup fast because I’ll be emailing the bonus method this Wednesday.

Again, the contest does NOT end tomorrow. I have extended the deadline to this Saturday, November 22 at midnight Central time.

I was tweeting on Twitter with Ben from frogstr this evening which motivated me to make a post…a long overdue post.

Things have been pretty quiet around here as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Finding a regular schedule to post has been a bit challenging lately. You see, I started a new job two weeks ago. I’m a project manager during the day, so there’s a lot I have to keep my eye on to ensure a project is going forward as expected and know how to deal with surprises.

Maybe you can relate to what’s involved with beginning a new job: it’s stressful, you want to fit in, and prove your worth. Questions haunt me, “What do I do next?”, “How will I learn all this new stuff?”, “Did I miss anything?”

So needless to say, it has been a mental roller coaster for me these past two weeks. When I get home I’m exhausted. I sit down in front of my computer with the intent of writing, but wind up reading more than I plan to and then it’s time for bed.

But even though things are a bit crazy, I’m still determined to get things under control. I know they will. I’m especially motivated to do so in order to enjoy the upcoming holidays, which I often speed right through.

So thanks for hanging in there with me. I’ll be posting more — promise!

By the way, don’t forget that the deadline for my contest is coming up next week. — next Tuesday, Nov. 18. Stay tuned for more ways to earn points and increase your chances of winning.

I received an email today from Pepperjam about an affiliate who sells pillows. That got me to thinking about what that niche looked like so I decided to run it through the “drum machine” to see what I’d find. The results were pretty cool, but instead of keeping it for myself I thought I’d share it with you and let you run with it.

First, I went to Google’s Keyword Tool and searched on “pillow”. I added the CPC column and sorted on it in descending order. I usually look for keywords or keyword phrases that have a respectable search volume, are not too competitive, and have an average CPC (cost per click) that’s worth going for. Of course, the higher the CPC the better, but my threshold usually sits around above a dollar and change.

Here’s a sample of what I found:

So we have “mattress pillow” with an average search volume of 74,000 and CPC of $3.15. Now, that doesn’t mean that you are definitely going to get $3.15 each time someone clicks on a Google Adsense ad, but it’s a good indication.

I then took that keyword phrase and ran it through Market Samurai (one of the prizes I’m giving away in my contest) to see what it had to say about “mattress pillow”. The steps I take in determining a niche evolves constantly, but for now, if Market Samurai tells me that something isn’t worth going for, then I typically just let the keyword go and search for something else.

Well, this time Market Samurai told me in its own way that the phrase “mattress pillow” might actually have potential. See below:

The image above is a portion of a screenshot using the SEO Competition screen. It tells me the backlinks and PR of sites that rank for the keyword phrase I’m researching. For those of you who don’t have Market Samurai, I can tell you that green colored cells are good or “less challenging to dominate”, amber cells are slightly less than good, and red ones are indicators that you have a lot of work ahead of you if you choose to tackle that keyword. In other words, it’s probably not a good idea to spend your time on something that has a red cell.

Well, as you can see, there’s a lot of green cells for this one. So if it were me, I would decide to either write a post that’s rich with the phrase “mattress pillow” and its ilk or I might even register a domain with that as the name or something similar and build it to contain other related keywords. You know, your basic search engine magnet.