• Play a favorite video game
• Watch a movie
• Listen to music
• Watch a show on hulu.com
• Browse Facebook
• Watch a movie at a theater
• Go to a special restaurant
• Listen to a podcast
• Drive somewhere and take pictures
• Purchase a new piece of clothing
• Purchase a new computer part

The reason for this post is because it has been a long time since I’ve written a previous blog entry. I’ve procrastinated doing it for a while, and I’m now beating that procrastination with a stick.

So, now that I’ve posted this blog entry, I’m going to choose something from the list above to reward myself.  It really wasn’t that hard after all.

More to come.

Would you like to completely automate your WordPress special offers? With the use of this plug-in, your offers will automatically begin and expire giving you the freedom to travel, sleep, or just not have to be at your blog to update your post.

This is how it works… You simply enter your specials start time, then you enter the specials end time.  After that, you insert two messages. The first message should be your order link. The second message is displayed once your special has expired.  It could be an expired message, or, it can be the link to a sales page with the regular price.  It’s completely up to you.  The last part is adding a snippet of code to your blog entry to display the two messages, and an optional timer.

Here’s a short video demonstrating the entire process:
http://www.aaronbrandon.com/videos/WordpressSpecials/

For the next 24 hours, you can purchase WordpressSpecials 1.0 for only $35.  After that, the normal price will be $50.00.  But you’d better hurry, this offer automatically expires Thursday, Aug. 14th at Noon PDT.

Sorry, this offer has expired.

If you insert the code

This has the potential of inreasing the number of sales during your special.  If your special hasn’t started yet, it will simply display when the special will start.

You’ll be able to change the look of the clocks any way you wish by doing a simple edit in the style sheet located within the plug-in folder.

- Aaron Brandon

But before I release it, I’d like to give those who aren’t familiar with running blog specials a bit of an overview on what goes on behind running one. Then I’ll get into some of the features of the plug-in.

What is a blog special?

Do you have a product or service to offer?  If so, do you have a blog?  If you have a blog, all that’s required to have a special is to create a new blog entry advertising your products or services.

Now, here are some of the critical details of what makes a blog special a success, or a complete failure…

One important part of running a blog special is the date and time.  I’ll usually run specials on Wednesday.  Why?  Because that’s when I find the most traffic on this site.  With that said, the day is obviously important to take note of.  If you have stats for your website, see how much traffic you get on Wednesday compared to Sunday.  There’s often quite a dramatic difference.

Next, I usually run my specials for 24 hours.  Surely, I wouldn’t want to run them for 1 hour, or 3 hours.  My traffic isn’t only from within the United States.  Many visitors that come to my site are from India, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.  So I’d prefer not running a special for those who are still in bed!

Prior to starting a special, a blog entry and often a sales page need to be created.  Then once the special is over, it requires coming back to the blog to update the post to remove the link to the order page.  Previously, that required me to be at a computer with Internet to make sure the special ended at the proper time. 

So, we’ve discussed the day and length, and the link from the blog entry to the order page.  Here’s where WordpressSpecials 1.0 comes in.

After installing the plug-in, you set a time for the special to start and what time it ends.  A nifty feature is programmed into that part.  It’s not even required that you look up a date and time.  If you’d like to start the special immediately, you would type in “now”.  If you want it to start next Wednesday, you type in “next Wednesday” and it will start on that day.  Ending is the same.  Want it to end next Thursday?  Then you insert “next Thursday”.  Or, you can simply insert a date and time if you wish.

The next step is making the order message.  This can be as basic as your order link, or you may construct a customized message until you’re satisfied.

Then, you create an expired message the exact same way.  This can be as simple as an expired message, nothing at all, or a link to a web form to be notified of future specials.

All that’s required after that is to paste a small snippet of code into a new blog entry.  It’ll look something like this:

Stay tuned for a blog special for this on Wednesday.

- Aaron Brandon

It is designed to automate special offers and events.  It’s a powerful tool anyone with an Internet business blog should have.

I’ll post more about it on Monday.

Stay tuned…

- Aaron

If you received my newsletter for June, you’d probably know the answer.

I accidentally set the paper color to #24 Canary.

Shoot… I hope nobody notices!

Here’s where you can sign up for my newsletter:

http://www.aaronbrandon.com/newsletter/

But you probably won’t get the special #24 Canary edition.

- Aaron =)

So, the news is, summer arrived this week, and it’s been in the 80-90 degree range, so I’ve been in a pretty good mood these last few weeks.  Maybe I had a lack of vitamin D or something.

Here are a couple pictures I shot yesterday evening of a nearby “severe” thunderstorm.  I’m a bit of an extreme weather enthusiast.  When I’m not at the computer, I drive around to scout out the nearest thunderstorm.  Okay…not really.

- Aaron Brandon

This month, I’ve included the following articles:

*How to Drain your Advertising Budget in 30 days or Less* – Talks about the large numbers of businesses that run print advertisements, but fail to track them. I reveal two methods to track these advertisements.

*If Only That “Guru” Were My Friend* – Is about my old way of thinking prior to starting this business. You don’t need to be friends with a “guru” to succeed in internet business.  You don’t need to be waiting for an opportunity to sit down with someone and have them show you everything step-by-step.  Some people still believe this is what’s required when learning the ropes.

*Competition – “I already checked.”* – reveals the truth about the other digital product vendors, and why you should not be afraid of potential competition.  I recently sat down with someone who had apparently “checked”, and found competitors.  But, I didn’t tell him to “find a less competitive niche”.  I share the importance of adding more value than your closest competitors.

I’m sending this newsletter out on Friday, June 27th to my current subscribers.

BUT… if you subscribe to my newsletter by Monday, June 30th, I’ll send you two complimentary issues of my newsletter… (That’s a $50.00 dollar value!)

Here’s where to subscribe to my newsletter:

http://www.AaronBrandon.com/newsletter/

- Aaron Brandon

The other day I came across Richard Lee’s blog and saw a different theme than the usual.  The title “Internet Business” still appeared at the top of the page, but the rest of the content was “lipsum” text, a common content placeholder among web designers, used to imitate the look of a page filled with content.

But, lately on his blog (before this change) he was frequently posting about his #1 rank for “internet business” on Google.  Now this change?  What’s going to happen now?  His ranking will plummet from the #1 spot, and he’ll have to work his way back to the top… right?  Well, honestly,  I don’t know what will happen.  At the moment, he has been able to maintain his #1 spot, even with this new theme… or blog, with no real content.  Amazing.

What’s your take on this?

Is he doing this just to prove a point?

Has he abandoned his blog for good?

- Aaron Brandon

Just this morning, I listened to an NPR story about some of the latest high dollar domains that have been sold.  Some people are still shocked when they hear about a domain being sold for $40,000, but that’s chump change considering some are sold for multiple millions of dollars.

Here’s the link to the NPR story: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91054770

And then there’s James Brausch, who must be out of his mind…

He’s selling some great domains for just $500 a domain!  There’s no doubt in my mind that most of them are worth far more than $500.00.

Check out his full list here:

http://www.jamesbrausch.org/last-of-the-domains/

- Aaron Brandon