Broadband makes a huge difference!

January 16, 2010 by John Dilbeck · 22 Comments
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Broadband, CafePress, Opinions, Sitesell and Site Build It, Squidoo Marketing 

If you’ve been reading my blogs or sites for any length of time, you know I live in an area where only dial-up Internet access is currently available, and it’s also an area with old, copper phone lines so that means I’ve been connecting at much slower speeds than my equipment is capable of.

This wasn’t much of a problem a few years ago.

Now, however, it has become a much bigger problem, especially for someone who earns his living from online marketing.

For the last week or so, I’ve had access to high-speed broadband and it has made all the difference in how I perceive what I and some of my friends are doing online.

For example, I’m a huge fan of Mitch Mitchell’s I’m Just Sharing blog and Aussie Sire’s Wassup blog.

As much as I enjoy both of their blogs, sometimes it has been frustrating trying to get them to load. Many times, I would have to load a blog post two or three times before the entire page would load.

This week, however, they load the first time, every time and do it quickly. That has made it much easier and more enjoyable to read what they have to say. The same holds true for quite a few other blogs I read on a regular basis.

The benefit to me is that I’m less frustrated and can read more in much less time. That increases my motivation to participate and also decreases the amount of time I spend waiting — and playing solitaire while the pages load. (In fact, I’ve only played two games of solitaire in the last week, and there were many times in the past few years when I would play several games while waiting on one page to load, so that’s a huge difference.)

Broadband makes it much easier to edit my sites

Truthfully, it hasn’t made much of a difference in editing my own blogs and sites, because I tend to do a lot of low-bandwidth things on them and intend to continue with that approach. Still, high-speed broadband opens the door to working with video in the future, especially when promoting local small businesses on Murphy Gold. This is something I’ve been wanting to do for quite some time and I’m looking forward to it.

I can view and edit my Squidoo lenses, now

Where it has made a huge difference is being able to once-again edit my Squidoo lenses reliably and easily.

I was having a problem even seeing my own Squidoo lenses the last year or two. Editing them was even more problematic, especially some of the larger lenses such as my Site Build It lens.

The result of my problem with loading the lenses with slow dial-up was that I became more frustrated and less prone to update the lenses when people added sites to the voting Plexo modules.

The benefit of high-speed broadband is that I find it easy to view the lenses and edit them. Now, instead of being frustrated when I receive an email telling me that someone has added something to a Plexo module, I look forward to seeing what it is.

Usually, unfortunately, it’s some lame-brained spammer trying to spam their totally off-topic link on my site, but there are some nuggets in all the mud where people are suggesting excellent sites and lenses that I’m happy to add.

Publishing the lenses is much faster and much more reliable with a fast Internet connection, too.

The result is, over the last week, I’ve updated more lenses than I did in the last several months combined.

I can see my CafePress store much better now

Over the last couple of years, it seems that it has become harder and harder (and much slower) to edit my CafePress store and do all the things that are necessary to keep it up-to-date and to add new designs. As a result, I just stopped updating it.

We all know that makes a great recipe for stagnation, fewer sales, and loss of income. It’s exactly what happened.

Now, however, I can load the store in seconds, as opposed to sometimes taking ten minutes or more for pages with lots of products.

I’ve only tested editing a couple of pages, but I was able to make changes in five minutes or less that would have taken over an hour with my dial-up connection — if it were possible to successfully complete them at all.

A lot of people don’t care for my designs, and that’s okay. The good news is that I’ve sold a lot of products through my CafePress store and look forward to selling lots more. I have over 100 designs that I’ve never added to my store because it just wasn’t worth the time and effort.

I’ll be adding quite a few of them in the coming days and I’ll be promoting my CafePress store much more actively in the future.

In fact, I’ll probably be opening more stores that are focused entirely on a single niche and I’ll be promoting them heavily on several sites.

Will that increase sales? I’m sure it will. I’ll know for sure a year from now.

One of the things I’m sure will increase sales is lowering the prices.

In the past, I’ve used a premium pricing strategy for my CafePress shop. I expected few sales, so I raised the markup I’d receive on each sale.

Now that I have reliable, fast access to editing my shop, again, I’m changing the strategy.

I just lowered the prices on all the products in my store to reflect a moderate pricing strategy. I’ll earn quite a bit less per sale, but I expect that to increase the number of sales.

So, just a few minutes ago, while writing this post, I lowered the prices of every product in my shop, some of them substantially.

A fast broadband connection even makes Site Build It better

I intentionally design both of my sites that are powered by Site Build It to be low-bandwidth friendly.

I want people with slow connections to be able to read what I write and I want those pages to snap on the screen for people with faster connections.

I’m not going to make many changes in that regard, with the exception of adding a few videos.

I’ve known for some time that the popularity of video on the web has been exploding, but it was a waste of time and effort to even try to view them with my slow connection. This week, however, I’ve found how easy it is to watch video in real time with a fast connection and I know that video is more interesting to lots of people than pure text.

I still remain a text-oriented person, but I recognize an opportunity when I see it.

Another very interesting thing occurred to me this week. For all the years that I’ve been a Site Build It subscriber, I’ve always read the Action Guide and never even tried to view the video version of it.

That changed this week. For the first time ever, I watched the entire video version of the Action Guide and I have to admit that hearing someone speak while watching animation that was used to illustrate some of the processes really did make some of it more understandable. In fact, I’m going to watch the Days 2 and 3 videos again this evening.

Even though I have a good understanding of the three-tier structure of a successful website, the new tier-structure video made it much more understandable and I’ll be implementing some changes to both of my SBI sites over the coming days, as a result.

A fast connection doesn’t lessen the work, but it does make my efforts more efficient

I don’t know of anything that is reliable and honest that reduces the amount of work that it takes to be a successful online marketer, but I do know that a fast broadband connection makes a world of difference in improving efficiency.

Of course, that makes sense, but it has been a real eye-opener for me.

Back when I was a Systems Administrator for a local ISP I had direct access to a fast broadband pipe and it was nice, but that was before so many sites relied upon javascript, java, audio, video, and other things that benefit from high-speed pipes.

So, I was able to do just about anything I needed to do from home on dial-up almost as efficiently as I could do from the office using broadband.

But, that was a decade ago and things have changed drastically.

Now, there is a world of difference between slow dial-up access and high-speed broadband. That difference is much bigger and more important than I realized, and it is a very important difference for anyone aspiring to make money online from affiliate marketing or just about any other form of marketing.

Now, I’m wondering what other things I’m going to discover that will make my online marketing more effective.

What about you?

Do you have any thoughts or opinions about the differences between slow and fast Internet connections and the effectiveness of your online affiliate marketing efforts?

I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts.

Act on your dream!

JD

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High-speed internet, TV, and digital phone bundle – find the best rates in your area

May 5, 2008 by John Dilbeck · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Broadband, Cognigen Networks, Internet, River Offers, TV, Telephone 

High-speed internet, TV, and digital phone bundle, or the famous “Triple-play” is now offered by River Offers.

You can get the latest and the best rates available in your area from major service providers, right here, right now by using our state of the art real-time online lookup form!

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Do you need fast ethernet or gigabit ethernet broadband?

October 3, 2007 by John Dilbeck · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Broadband, Cognigen Networks, Internet 

If your business is located in one of the major metropolitan areas of the United States, you may want to try the new Shop For Ethernet service offered by Telarus and Cognigen.

Why is Ethernet the future?

Ethernet is a matter of plugging your network directly into a telecom provider’s network and bypassing your local phone company. Having direct access to customers allows the broadband Internet provider to control the user’s experience from end to end and reduce the cost.

These savings are passed on to you.

How does Shop For Ethernet work?

1. You enter your building address in the form at Shop For Ethernet.

2. You will see a map with your location along with markers of surrounding buildings who have been “lit” by the major telecom service providers.

3. If you would like to learn more, you can enter you contact information to receive a phone call from our staff of Ethernet service experts.

How is Shop For Ethernet valuable?

The GeoQuote Ethernet locator is valuable for people or business who are looking to:

* move into a building with existing carrier facilities.

* substantially upgrade their current broadband connections.

* establish a direct relationship with a provider without the local Bell in the equation.

* find a carrier who provides QoS (Quality of Service) guarantees. Since the carrier you select is in complete control of your connection, it is much easier for them to provide QoS.

* gather information that will be helpful in the planning stages of broadband deployment for a new real-estate development.

Is Shop For Ethernet free?

Yes. We do not require that you pay a fee to access this information – however, we do require that you purchase service through us if you decide to buy. We are compensated from the participating carriers when you order through us, which pays for the development and maintenance of this web site.

Can I order Ethernet service online?

Not yet. Even if our Ethernet lookup tool shows you are in an On-Net building, we must still go through a manual check on both pricing and service availability. However, know that our Ethernet Experts are here to assist you with every step of the process.

Shop For Ethernet is not for all businesses

Shop For Ethernet is for the largest businesses that need lots of bandwidth (100 to 1000 mbps) and are located in areas with buildings that are served by fast ethernet and gigabit ethernet providers.

It is not for all businesses and certainly not for residential broadband provisioning.

Other alternatives: Business T1, DS3, and faster

If fast ethernet isn’t available in your location, or if you just don’t need that much bandwidth, you can find what is available in your area. Shop For T1 offers real-time lookup of broadband providers offering T1, DS3, and other Internet connections. Our broadband experts have helped hundreds of companies provision better service connections and most of them have saved money in the process.

Small business and residential DSL, Cable Modem, and Satellite broadband

If you are looking for affordable broadband for your small business or home use, Shop For DSL offers real-time lookup of DSL, Cable Modem, and Satellite broadband providers in your location.

We can’t find a broadband connection for everyone – I live in an area without DSL access, for instance – but the first-class providers we help you find are extending their networks every day.

Act on your dream!

JD

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