I have been using the AWeber autoresponder for many years. The reason I first decided to give it a try, was because I needed an email autoresponder and list builder. If you don’t know much about autoresponders, it’s an automated method to communicate with your customers and prospective customers.

It doesn’t need to be automated though. You can send email messages manually, on a specific time and date, or a pre-written series of messages. I believe that every Internet marketer, amateur or professional, needs an autoresponder. The people that don’t use one, will need one, sooner or later.

There are several professional autoresponders. A few of them are really good, like GetResponse, iContact and Constant Contact. I have tested many, and I have stayed with AWeber for a reason.

I heard a lot of good things about AWeber before I decided to test it. It seemed that many of the top marketers were using it, like Yaro Starak, Yanik Silver, Rosalind Gardner, Michael Rasmussen and Jonathan Mizel. I checked a few discussion forums to see what other people thought of it, and the testimonials were all really positive, it seemed to be the obvious choice.

Now, since I have been using it for several years, I have found three reasons why I think it’s the best email autoresponder service:

Customer service
I almost never use it, but during the past three years or so, I have had a few questions. The customer service is very professional, and all my questions were answered in a matter of a few hours, sometimes even minutes. This is awesome, if you consider the fact that I live in Norway, and AWeber is located in the USA. They were fast, professional and have solved any problem I have ever had.

Functions
I haven’t used all the power of AWeber yet, there are many functions that I probably will never use. But that’s ok. I really enjoy the fact that it’s a powerful service with more options than I really need. One of the options that I have never tried, is split testing. It’s a method to find out which one of your messages that actually gets read and which ones that makes your sales. It’s powerful and I might use it someday.

One option that I really enjoy is the one where I get feedback whenever people on my lists unsubscribes. It’s important to get feedback regarding why they decided to unsubscribe. From this feedback, I have created new more interesting emails for my list.

Email deliverability
I have read this at discussion forums, I have talked to many people about it, I have read it in testimonials; AWeber have the highest percentage of email deliverability of all the autoresponders.

This is important. It doesn’t matter how good you are at copywriting if your emails won’t be delivered to the people on your list. I am not saying that all the other email autoresponders are having problems related to email deliverability, all I am saying is that AWeber is the best one. 

How I use AWeber
I use AWeber to send out several pre-written messages and reports to people that subscribes at one of my websites. This is all 100% automated. I also use AWeber to send out one Internet marketing newsletter. I do this manually. I have tested their RSS service, a service where all the people on my list can get updates from my blog whenever I publish a new post, but I am currently not doing this. 

How much does AWeber cost?
The price to be a member of AWeber starts at $19 a month. I find this fairly cheap, at least when I consider all the features and the superb service. But there are way cheaper alternatives to AWeber.

The problem with the pricing of AWeber is what happens when your list grows. The more subscribers you have, the more you will have to pay. At the moment, you’ll have to pay $29 a month if you have between 501 to 2,500 subscribers, and $49 a month if you have between 2501 and 5000 subscribers. Some people find this expensive, and this is actually the only reason why I haven’t given five stars to AWeber for the monthly cost of their service.

I am using DreamHost to host my blogs, and I have been using them for a long time. I have also tested a few other web hosts, but DreamHost is by far the company I am most satisfied with.

At the time, when I was going to sign up for a new web host, I was looking all over for reviews and I talked to many people. Most people had strong opinions when it came to which web host I should go with. I decided to go with one of the top alternatives and that was DreamHost, I haven’t regretted this decision even once.

My guess is that the perfect web host depends on what kind of web host you are looking for.

With DreamHost I get four of the most important things I am looking for in a web host:

1. As close to 100% up time as possible

2. 24-hour technical support

3. Wordpress (and many other of the top softwares) included with just a few clicks

4. Low in price (there are cheaper alternatives though)

Their technical support is awesome. I have had only a few questions during the years, and the response was really quick, and they helped me with everything without hardly any delay.

You can follow DreamHost on twitter to get emergency messages, you’ll receive a monthly newsletter for the latest updates and you can subscribe to their blog.

I highly recommend DreamHost.

I just have to start by saying that I didn’t know what to expect from Commission Blueprint. I had never heard of any of the creators, both Steven Clayton & Tim Godfrey was totally unknown to me. And the product was also fairly unknown to me, although I’d heard a few raves about it at some discussion forums.

When I decided to buy it, I was thinking that I’d be using the 60 days money back guarantee, if the product was not worth the money.

Now, let me tell you why I think that Commission Blueprint might be one of the best products I have ever bought. I’m not kidding, this product is very powerful, although you need to understand what it’s all about first, before you understand the real power of the product.

It’s really all about Pay Per Click (ppc) advertising. Commission Blueprint is an extensive Internet marketing course, and I believe that it will tell you everything you need to know about ppc advertising. They have included “all” the hidden features, “all” the loopholes and every secret you can imagine when it comes to ppc marketing.

I was really impressed by this course, and especially since everything was documented using high quality videos. And, not only did they teach me a lot about pay per click advertising, but they provided some excellent resources, such as ready made opt-in page (just re-write the text, add your own image, and add your autoresponder code) and a pre-sale page.

There are a lot of information, both through all the videos, but also provided via several pdf-reports, like optin-page secrets and pre-sale page secrets.

I have heard several people talk about Commission Blueprint as an affiliate course, and that it’s really about how to make money by combining products from clickbank with Google AdWords (ppc advertising).

Well, I guess you can say that it’s a lot about ClickBank and AdWords. And that’s because the 14 videos that I watched was narrated by Steven Clayton, and he described in details how he has become a super affiliate at ClickBank, and how he did it by using AdWords. I am not sure if it’s possible to do a better job of describing how he became successful, he goes into specific details about how to be setting up your marketing campaign, and provides really valuable information on how to be selling “anything” online through pay per click campaigns.

When I bought Commission Blueprint, I had to pay a one time fee of $77, and I received access to the 14 videos (you’ll also get the slides for each of the 14 videos), three pdf ebooks (optin page secrets, presale page secrets, and review page secrets), and several other resources (like the templates of optin pages and presale pages). Now, Commission Blueprint has turned into a membership coursem, and I think that’s a really smart move.

You’ll get access to everything I received, but you’ll also get updates each month. The price for the membership is $4.95 for the first seven days, think of it as a seven day trial. If you don’t find the information valuable, then just quit (you have 60 days money back guarantee as well). After the seven days, the membership price is $67 a month.

I really don’t have anything negative to say about the course, other than there might be too much information, and some of it might be a waste of your time. But, on the other hand, they have covered everything I could think of when it comes to pay per click marketing, and especially when you combine it with earning money from selling products from ClickBank.

I was inspired by reading Getting Things Done by David Allen, and since then, I’ve been looking for a task management software for Mac. My life has been fairly chaotic, especially at work. I think that I have had (and still have) too many tasks, and I don’t have any system regarding how to manage them or how I should be prioritizing them. The book by David Allen opened my eyes and my mind to this challenge, and I realized that I had to buy a task management software to help me get things done.

I tested a few first, and Things from Cultured Code, was the one that really got my attention. It was due to some of the reviews I read, the video I watched on their sales page, but also due to the fact that Things was also available for iPhone.

Features

Things got everything I was looking for in a task management software, and then some. I especially like the quick entry, where I can add tasks very quickly, even though I am using a completely different software. Once I get something on my mind, I like to get it off my mind as quickly as possible, and that’s when I add them to Things.

Things makes it easy to add tasks, and it makes it easy to manage them. I think it’s because of how easy it is to view all the tasks, either by viewing the inbox (unsorted tasks), viewing the tasks sorted on a time frame (today, next, someday or scheduled), or by viewing them based on projects or areas of responsibility.

To me, the features of Things when it comes to task management is perfect.

Syncing

With Things on my Mac and on my iPhone, I am able to sync and always stay updated. I use my iPhone to add most of my tasks, because I don’t spend that much time using a computer anymore. It seems like I am always on the run, at least when I compare my schedule now to my schedule about a year ago.

I sync using my WiFi network at home, it took me about two minutes to figure out how. And it works great, all I have to do now, is open up Things on both my iPhone and on my iMac at the same time, and the software syncs right away.

The sync feature is not perfect though. I tried the same at work, but nothing happened. I have been trying to figure out the problem for several days, but so far, I have no clue why it doesn’t sync with my Mac at work. I think it has to do with the WiFi network at work, I’ve had some other minor problems with this network earlier (so, I guess I shouldn’t blame Things for this).

Mobile Me

I really think that Things is an amazing piece of software. I am using it several times a day, and so far it seems to be flawless (except for the part about syncing at work). The only thing I can think of, that needs to be added, is support for mobile me. Because to me, syncing within my local WiFi is not enough.

iDisk

Even though I couldn’t get Things to sync at work using our WiFi, I managed to sync it using iDisk. What I did was copy the library of Things to the local version of iDisk. The iDisk folder syncs automatic with Mobile Me, and when I share the Things library at work and at my computer at home it turns out exactly the way I was hoping for.

Price

I first thought that it was fairly expensive, with $49.95 for Mac and $9.99 for the iPhone . But after downloading and using the free trial for several days, I decided that it was worth every dollar.

Alternatives to Things

I have tested several other task management softwares, but I have only found one very interesting alternative to Things when it comes to task management software for Mac. This alternative is OmniFocus. I am not going to say that Things is better, because I believe that both seems to be excellent. I decided to buy Things, but I know other people that decided to buy OmniFocus… and they are just as satisfied with their software as I am with mine.

I have been using Tweet Adder for about a week. I bought it on May 29, but I didn’t really start using it before the day after. So far, I have an incredible story to tell you.

I never spam

I’m not one of those guys that will try to spam Twitter, or try to get thousands of new followers in just a few days. I enjoy quality, and I try my best to keep my Twitter experience a good one. I’m not testing Twitter, in order to see how I can exploit the system before I get suspended.

I’m only using one account, even though I know that I probably should use several (one for personal stuff, one for business, maybe even one for each of my blogs). So, that being said, I was a little sceptical when I bought Tweet Adder, and I was unsure how I was going to use it, in order not to become yet another spammer.

So, let me tell you how my experience with Tweet Adder have been.

For Windows and Mac

The reason I bought Tweet Adder in the first place, and not one of the other similar Twitter software (like Hummingbird) was due to the fact that I can use Tweet Adder on both a PC and a Mac. This is the first Twitter software I have found that I can use on my MacBook.

Testimonials

Before buying it, I searched google for testimonials. I even asked people on discussion forums what they thought of Tweet Adder. All the information I gathered were great feedback, not one negative response.

How I am using Tweet Adder

The reason I am using Tweet Adder, and the reason I am so incredibly satisfied with this software, is because it’s really easy to find targeted followers. I do it, by first finding targeted people to follow, and when I find the right people to follow, usually, they follow me back.

For instance, I am following people who are interested in Internet Marketing. I have specified that I want to follow people who are using “Internet Marketing” as a keyword in their tweets, and/or as part of their profile (bio) on Twitter. I am also using several other keywords related to my interests.

This is a really powerful feature. I’m only looking for targeted followers.

What I am not using (but could be using)

I am only using Tweet Adder to get targeted followers, but I could also be using the software to send direct messages to all my followers, or send tweets at specific times. Since I live in Norway, I could send tweets while I’m sleeping, and most of my followers are online (they live in the US). It’s a powerful feature, but I haven’t used it yet.

I can also specify Tweet Adder to do some automated tasks every time I log in, or at a specific time every single day. For instance, I could unfollow (as many people as I want) at a specific time, automatic follow users, or automatic send a message to all my followers.

Results

As I wrote earlier, I’ve been using Tweet Adder for about a week. And I am not a spammer, so I’ve just been adding a few followers every single day (instead of hundreds). During a week, I have close to 300 new targeted followers at Twitter. And, I’ve spent no more than 20 minutes during the week to get all the followers. Most of the stuff is done by the pust of a single button.

If I wanted to, I could probably have added an extra thousand followers in a week. To me, 300 new targeted followers a week, is more than enough.

Screenshots

I have added a few screenshots from when I first started using Tweet Adder. At that time, I had 1765 followers, now as I am writing this, I have more than 2000.

Who to follow:

How to add followers:

How to unfollow:

Software updates

It’s been an interesting week. During the week I’ve received five updates of Tweet Adder. The company behind the software are working to keep it at the top, as the number one software for Twitter promotion and marketing. I think they are doing an awesome job.

Summary

To me, Tweet Adder is the perfect Twitter companion. It’s easy to use, yet extremely powerful. Follow my progress on Twitter and you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

If you are looking for a way to publish reviews on your blog, then, you should definitely take a closer look at WPReviewEngine. It’s a powerful plugin for wordpress, it makes everything related to writing reviews a lot easier and the results are beautiful.

I am using WPReviewEngine for this blog, so, if you like what you see, it’s all because of this plugin.

Installation

It took me about 10 minutes to install it. I could have installed it in five minutes, but I decided to read the instructions and I ended up with an error. I had to install ioncube loader on my server. I had never heard of the ioncube loader, and I still don’t know what the functions of this file is. I contacted support, and I received an email just a few hours later. I didn’t have time to wait for support, so I decided to google it. It took me about five minutes to find a tutorial and install it. It was no problem at all, even for me, a complete newbie when it comes to installing stuff like this on my server.

It was easy to install WPReviewEngine, it was like any other plugin. And included was two themes as well. The one I am using, and another one.

Support

Support was awesome. I received the email just a few hours later, and I can’t really expect anything else, because I live in Norway. And the time difference makes it hard to expect that I should receive help in just a matter of minutes.

Setting up the blog

It took me about 5 minutes to set up my blog. It was just a few options that I had to take a closer look at, and I had to add the rating categories. It was super easy.

The price

It’s a one time fee of $79.95. I thought about it for a few minutes, and I thought it was fairly expensive for a plugin and a couple of themes. But on the other hand, when I looked at the demo, I saw the power and the beauty of WPReviewEngine. 

At the time I am writing this, you can get an extra 15% off, but the offer will expire sometime soon.

Guarantee

You’ll receive a full 30 day money back guarantee. So, you should be able to use WPReviewEngine for 30 days and, if you are not 100% satisfied, you will get all of your money back.

You’ll receive lifetime support and lifetime updates.

My recommendations

I really like this plugin, it was exactly what I was hoping it to be. It’s easy to use, and the results are awesome. I even enjoy the theme. If you have another theme for your blog, you can still use WPReviewEngine.

The only thing that I don’t like, is that the name of the post is added to the list of the top reviews. For instance, I should have named this post WPReviewEngine Review, but if I do, this will also show up in the list of the top reviews. And I think that this list should only include the name of  the product. 

If you are thinking about writing reviews, I urge you to buy this plugin. So far, I am really satisfied, and it was exactly what I was hoping it to be. The price is a little high though.

What I really enjoy about this plugin, is that all visitors can leave a comment and a rating. All the ratings from visitors, will be added to the overall ratings for each review. So, it’s not  entirely up to me to give the ratings.

I have been reading ProBlogger, the well-known blog of Darren Rowse for a long time. I believe it’s one of the first blogs I ever subscribed to. The reason I subscribed to ProBlogger was because it was, and probably still is, the most important blog when it comes to “how to blog”.

You can argue that it’s really a blog about how to make money blogging. But that’s not the reason why I subscribed, and the reason why I am still reading Darren’s posts on a daily basis. They are detailed, easy to read, and up to date when it comes to how you should be blogging and how you should be promoting your blog.

Since I have stayed with Darren Rowse for so long, I was eager to buy his ProBlogger book. I expected it to be just as amazing as his blog. He is a professional blogger, earning a six-figure income from blogging, therefore, I expected him to deliver fairly everything I needed to know about blogging in this book.

I should probably mention, before I continue, that Darren Rowse is not the only author behind this book. Chris Garrett, a well-known Internet marketer and professional blogger, is the co-author. I didn’t know much about Chris before reading this book, other than that I have read a few of his guest posts at CopyBlogger and at ProBlogger.

The interesting aspect of this book is that it presents a great overview of how you should start your blogging career, how you should be setting up your blog, how you should be writing, earning strategies, blog promotion and a lot more.

I like the fact that the book can be read by complete newbies, as well as fairly professional bloggers. I think that the introduction was just perfect. It started with Darren’s story of blogging, about how he worked three jobs simultaneously, studied part-time and blogged on the side. It makes you think, and it makes it a good story.

I don’t think that the book is very creative or innovative. It’s more like a 220 page tutorial, including detailed examples, of well-known “secrets” about what works for professional bloggers, and what you should be doing in order to become one.

The books is very inspirational. It’s easy to relate to Darren’s story, and a life as a professional blogger. It feels like it’s fairly easy to follow every single lesson given, and therefore, it seems rather easy to earn money from blogging. The inspirational and authoritative part is excellent.

The chapter I enjoyed the most, was the chapter dedicated to the secrets of successful blogs. I enjoyed the lessons why blogs like CopyBlogger, ProBlogger, TechCrunch, Scobleizer, and the Four-Hour Work Week are successful.

From reading ProBlogger, I think a successful blog, is about being remarkable and writing stories that people find useful.

The contents

1. Blogging for money
2. Niche blogging
3. Setting up your blog
4. Blog writing
5. Blog income and earning strategies
6. Buying and selling blogs
7. Blog networks
8. Blog promotion and marketing
9. Secrets of successful blogs
10. Creating something worthwhile

Yaro Starak is a six-figure blogger, and he is becoming one of the most well-known bloggers around. When I first heard of him, a few years ago, not many people knew what to expect from his endeavours. Today, he is famous all around the globe.

I joined his Blog Mastermind course the day it launched, and my only goal was to learn how to become a better blogger. Before this course, I had read a few books on the topic, and I had been reading the posts from Problogger (Darren Rowse’s blog) and Entrepreneurs Journey (Yaro Starak’s blog). I wouldn’t call myself a beginner, but I had a lot to learn.

The best thing about Blog Mastermind is that it is a very informative course; easy to learn, even for beginners, but with lots of advanced and original ideas.

I believe that the Blog Mastermind course consists of three core elements.

How to blog. Everything from setting up your first blog, how to chose the right domain, the right blogging software, which topic you should be writing about, how to write and how often you should be writing.

How to drive traffic to your blog. Even if you feel that you know everything there is to know about blogging, most of us are looking for methods to drive more traffic and get more visitors to our blogs. Yaro Starak is an expert at this, and during this course, he shares all of his traffic secrets with his members.

How to earn money blogging. A lot of people are looking for ways to earn money working from home. Blogging might be one of the easiest methods. There are several methods of earning money blogging, the Blog Mastermind course have details about them all. The course helps you get started, and it helps you continue your growth when it comes to traffic and when it comes to income.

As a member, you’ll also get access to the discussion forums, where you can ask Yaro and all the members any question you’d like. You can take part of the discussions, and this proved to be really valuable for me.

The only negative part of the course is the fairly high price. The course is a 6 month course, and the price is $97 a month. You will graduate in 6 months. You might want to consider the one time payment option of $497 though, if you do, you’ll get access to all the course material right away. I did the monthly payments, but if I was going to join today, I would have paid for the premium option ($497).

I believe that this course is the most interesting and complete course when it comes to blogging. And if you are serious about blogging, I highly recommend that you join Blog Mastermind.

I have been a member of Ready Made Review Sites since the day Anthony Hull and Jason Gazaway launched it in February. The reason I joined was that I had been looking for something similar for quite some time. I spend my time blogging, I haven’t created my own products (yet) and I haven’t done much advertising (like Pay Per Click). The money I have been earning so far has been from ads on my blogs and reviews that I have been writing and publishing on my blog.

I have come to realize that writing reviews for products is one of the easiest ways to earn money online.

And, since I don’t have much time to create my own products, I would prefer to get professional written reviews for some of the top Internet marketing products every single month.

I have been very satisfied with Ready Made Review Sites, and I am still very satisfied. Everything about this membership site is plain awesome. The price is fairly high, but the product you get, is close to perfect.

The current review sites I have launched from my membership at Ready Made Review Sites are:

Blogging Product Reviews
Search Engine Optimization Product Reviews
Membership Product Reviews

You get this each month when you join join Ready Made Review Sites:

1.  Plug-n-Play Affiliate Review Site

Each professional affiliate review site contains:
- Top 3 Clickbank Affiliate Products
- 3 Professionally Written Product Reviews
- Custom Unique Header
- Professionally Designed “Review” Site
- The site is constructed using HTML/PHP and can be edited if you need to.
- Optimized for Search Engines
- Privacy Policy and Contact page
- Integrated Affiliate Link Cloaker Script

2. Plug-n-Play Clickbank “Top 20″ Products Page

Each site also includes a page listing 20 top clickbank internet marketing products, your affiliate link is included on all the products.

3. 10 Professionally Written “Marketing” Articles

Professionally written articles by an experienced Internet Marketing author and each article is apx. 500 words

4. Autoresponder Series 7 emails

Just copy and paste the 7-day email series into AWeber or Getresponse. Each email is professionally written and about the topic of the month.

5. 5 PPC Ads + Keywords List

You’ll get 5 pre-written ads and lots of keywords you can use to promote your affiliate review site each month using Google Adwords, the Yahoo Publisher Network, MSN or other similar search engines.

6. List of Topic Related Blogs

One of the best free method of generating traffic is to post comments on related blogs. Included in the membership is a long list of topic related blogs.

The total monthly value of all the six components, according to the sales page, is $1177.

What impresses me the most is that it takes only a few minutes to launch the new “ready made” review site.

All I have to do each month is to complete four simple steps, my guess is that it takes me about 15 minutes:

1. Download my affiliate review site from the members area
2. Add my Clickbank affiliate ID and a few other variables such as page title/domain name etc
3. Upload the affiliate review website to my hosting account
4. Use my provided marketing materials to market my site and start earning commissions

I am very satisfied with this membership, and I think that if you are looking for an “easy” method to earn commission, you should give Ready Made Review Sites a try. They have an 8 week money-back guarantee, so, even if you don’t make a dime, you can test it for 8 weeks and get your money back.

I have just finished reading Git off the Porch! and embrace your destiny by Willie Crawford. I finished it in just a few hours, the book was very easy to read, and it was a great and inspiring story.

The book is first and foremost a book about the life of Willie Crawford, and that’s also the reason I bought it. Willie Crawford is a famous Internet marketer. He is earning a six figure income, and he has been doing that for years. The most interesting part about his success is that he and his family was very poor, once he even had to wear his grandmother’s shoes to school. He didn’t get trapped by the poverty mentality though, and the book is the story about how he ended up to be really successful.

There are especially two parts of the book that I really thought was excellent, and both parts provided me with something to think about. Willie Crawford writes in details about them.

Know when it’s good enough

I have a friend, he is a painter, he never makes any sales, even though he is the best painter I have ever witnessed. His paintings are stunning. The reasons he never makes any sales, is because he never finishes his paintings. He wants them to be perfect, therefore, he keep working on them for months and years.

Know when your work is good enough for your audience. It will never be perfect, if you are waiting for it to be perfect, you’ll end up like my friend the painter.

Leverage: a successful essential

It comes a time when you realize that you don’t have the time or energy to do all that you want or need to do. You come to realize that you have to outsource some of your work. I am doing it, and “all” successful people are doing it. They are leveraging their time by hiring others to do the things they aren’t suited to do themselves. For instance, I never do any graphical stuff, it would take a lot of my time and the results would be poor, no matter how much time I used. I am using Elance.com to find graphic artists and writers.

You should read this book

Git off the porch! is not only an inspirational book, but it’s also a book with many great tips for Internet marketers. It’s fairly cheap, easy to read, and I am sure that it will help you expand your life.