It Takes a Village to Fight Mesothelioma

Editorial note:  A very special lady recently contacted me regarding her recent fight with Mesothelioma.  I am happy to publish her story here on my site, to help inspire other women who may be experiencing these kinds of tough times in their lives.

Her story is below:

To do just about anything difficult, “it takes a village”. You might’ve heard this phrase before, and frankly, it really does get thrown around a lot. However, as commonplace as the phrase may be, my ordeals have truly made me realize the importance of having a “village” when times are tough.

On August 4th, 2005, I gave birth to my daughter Lily. Except for an emergency C-section during delivery, the entire pregnancy was perfectly normal. However, despite its normalcy, being pregnant isn’t the easiest – or most enjoyable – thing in the world: it can be pretty tough. Thankfully many hardships often associated with pregnancy were alleviated slightly, since my husband and I were surrounded by our “village.” Our friends, my parents, and his family were all there to help support us and welcome Lily into the world. While the aura in the delivery room was one of celebration, happiness and relief, there was a storm looming on the horizon—one which none of us could’ve ever predicted.

A month after I returned to work, I began to feel increasingly tired, breathless and devoid of energy. Although these were symptoms typical of any new mother, there was something about them that didn’t bode well. Worried, I scheduled an appointment with my doctor to try and see what was wrong. After numerous tests, I was given a shocking diagnosis on November 5th, 2005: the symptoms I had been experiencing weren’t that of motherhood, but instead, of malignant pleural mesothelioma cancer, caused by unknowing exposure to asbestos as a child.

Given only 15 months to live if I didn’t do anything, my husband and I made the drastic decision to fly to Boston to undergo treatment for mesothelioma. My daughter, then only three and a half months old, was left in South Dakota to be cared for by her grandparents. The treatment I underwent in Boston required the removal of my left lung, which necessitated an 18-day recovery period in the hospital. However, this was only the first part of my treatment. I also needed to undergo chemotherapy and radiation, which could only be performed after an additional two months of recovery.

Undergoing hardships similar to the ones I did really help you realize who your friends are, and how important it is to have a village. People from many different parts of my life came out of the woodwork during my time of need, whether it was to take care of my daughter or simply assist me in any way they could. My grandparents continued to raise my daughter and I had the opportunity to see her grow through grainy black and white photos printed on a community printer in the hospital. Seeing these photos nearly brought me to tears: it was painful to see my daughter reach milestones without me there. However, she was the reason I was fighting: if it wasn’t for her or my village, I might’ve lost my fight to cancer.

But I didn’t.

The deadly cancer that once threatened my life has now been replaced with a new outlook on life, which is to embrace everything that comes at you, good or bad. If there is one thing I’ve learned from having mesothelioma, it’s that from the bad comes a great deal of good, which in this case, was my wonderful village.

Milestones in Internet Marketing

About the Milestones in Internet Marketing:

Internet Marketing is a tough business - I'll say that again - a tough business. But it's also more fun and rewarding than anything else I've ever done in terms of business and/or a career.

I have been having some thoughts today about what the specific milestones in internet marketing are - the different levels of achievement that someone can reach - and I would like to share those here (a couple of days ago I realized that I had reached another one, which was a very cool experience).

1. Making the first dollar - This I think is officially the first milestone (another "sub" milestone could be realizing your first internet traffic). This is when one is very likely to become addicted to IM (internet marketing). I remember this milestone - it was a bit on the thrilling side. =) To the best of my recollection, this happened for me a couple of months after I actually started learning internet marketing the right way.

2. Making the "second dollar" - by this I mean the second sale. Now at this point you know that you're on your way.

3. Making a regular income - gosh, I hate to base this all around money, there are actually more significant steps ahead but this is still a very nice one. It was at this point that I knew for a fact that I could cause the income to grow. As a note, I'm not talking about "big money" here - but a regular inflow of money - some coming in pretty consistently.

4. Getting good at it - I think that the "getting good at internet marketing" step actually comes before someone realizes it, because it always comes prior to making a lot of money. It is at this point that the income starts to steadily increase, but usually someone isn't getting wealthy at this point - unless they're very very lucky. =)

5. Being able to make internet marketing your own - This is a very cool step. It is at this point that you know IM so well that you can "bend the rules" - in other words you know how to treat individual campaigns differently based on their needs - and you can do this because you know how - no need to ask someone for advice or the sequence of various steps that need to be taken. For example: A marketer knows that their campaign on "fuzzy bears" would not do well with a pay per click campaign, but that it would do well with specific types of web pages (let's say Squidoo lenses) because of the particular audience and how the pages could be laid out. The marketer also knew that it would be easy to write articles about "fuzzy bears" because there was a wide number of topics on it, so the campaign would be organic, based around article marketing. As a note, this milestone happened for me only about 6 months ago.

6. Knowing that you know internet marketing - (This is the internet marketing milestone that I just accomplished by the way.) It might not sound too different than #5 above, but it is. The other day I was doing a bit of reading on the subject of "how to put a campaign together with Wordpress sites" from a couple of marketers that I consider to be extremely skilled and knowledgeable. I realized as I was reading that there were actually some errors in a couple of ideas that they put forth as advice - then I realized that I realized it! (lol) At that point I knew that the best person to give me advice was me and that I could completely "trust myself" with any type of campaign and do it right. (This could also be called the "be able to control" milestone - you can completely control the success of your own campaigns.)

7. Unstoppable - This is my next step. At this point in time some of my campaigns are still not up to where they should or could be - but it takes time, and it's coming. When you work the "internet marketing game" right, toward the beginning the income increase is constant and gradual, but if you're optimizing your web pages correctly, handling the campaigns correctly, they do eventually gain a momentum to the point that they sort of "take off" on their own and fly out of the nest.

OK - my thoughts for the day.

If you are reading this and want to achieve these milestones yourself - my best advice to you basically consists of two things:

• Please please please please learn internet marketing the right way. Really learn it as a subject, just like you would study in college or courses and take that knowledge and apply it as you go. And - don't learn it from someone who says that they can get you rich fast selling their product per their instructions - you won't get rich and they won't teach you how to do it for yourself - it will be for them, not you. The best place to learn it online is from Wealthy Affiliate University. That's very important - don't expect success first before knowing the subject.
  

• Persist - don't give up because you don't see "tons of money rolling into your bank account overnight while you sleep" after the first week - or the first months for that matter. Internet marketing simply does not work that way. You'd better be pretty tenacious (as well as willing to work your butt off) - and if you feel yourself starting to get weak-kneed about it, take a look around the forums for people who are doing well. Stay inspired, keep your goals in mind.

Internet marketing is not for everyone. But - if you have the will to have your own affiliate business and if you badly want to achieve those milestones in internet marketing that I list above - and if you're willing to learn it the right way and stick with it - you'll make it.

Double pinky promise. =)

Later.

Tonya B.

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Related Posts:

What is Affiliate Marketing?
Online Marketing - Volume Counts

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Internet Affiliate Marketing: What is a "Niche"?

Internet Affiliate Marketing - What is a "Niche"?

OK - I'll start with a basic definition here, then expand on it. Here is a definition from MSN Encarta:

• "specialized market: an area of the market specializing in one type of product or service"

Yes - that's a very good definition. But - this is something that trips up a number of internet marketers time and time again. And - I believe that a more specific definition to affiliate marketing might be in order. Here's why...

"One type of product or service" might be "shoes". But in affiliate marketing if you try to center any campaign on the word "shoes" you're in big trouble. Why? It's waaaaaaaaaaay too broad. You will get completely swallowed up by competition and will likely eventually give up.

Let's narrow "shoes" down a bit. How about "biking shoes" Now - there's a niche. But even then, when you are working a campaign around the subject of "biking shoes" you're going to have to tear down that term a little more because when someone types that term into Google there are 12,900,000 returns - that's a little much competition - unless you feel up to a good challenge. =)

So let's say for example that you work a campaign around that subject. That's a great subject for an entire campaign - it can be broken down into "mountain bike shoes", "cycling bike shoes", "winter bike shoes" and more (some of those terms that I just threw out I checked - they would even need to be broken down a bit more).

That's where to subject of good keyword research comes in - keyword research with internet marketing is done to find out not only what people are typing in to Google but what those terms break down into, and knowing how to find out what the competition level is like on any terms to see if you can show up in the search engines with less effort than - well let's say "shoes". (ha!)

But - here's the bottom line. It's not just the terms that we're talking about. We're talking about how specific someone can get when they want to look for something. The more specific you get with your marketing the better - I guarantee that if you created a campaign around "biking shoes", and that if you created a web page around the term "lightweight biking shoes in blue" that at least some people would find it - and since that was exactly what they were looking for - how likely would they be to become your "customers"?

Something to think about eh? =)

Later.

Tonya B.

What is "One Week Marketing" and Who is PotPieGirl?

What is "One Week Marketing" - and who is PotPieGirl?

I don't promote Internet Marketing Products lightly. In fact, you might notice from the date of my last blog post that I don't promote the internet marketing industry much - I concentrate on other niches (specific parts of a market) and don't even really think about trying to make money on the subject of "internet marketing" myself - way too much competition in this arena - I don't like having to push too hard to make something seen.

OK, so I'll answer the questions...

"One Week Marketing" is an ebook written by PotPieGirl specifically for internet affiliate marketers to help give them a specific method and direction to go when "putting all the pieces together" in the internet marketing game. Specifically, the method given is for free methods of marketing online.

The book is relatively new on the IM scene (I learned about it and bought it in October '08) and is one of the most helpful books on internet marketing I've ever read, and when I actually applied the steps given in the book my statistics went from being "okay" to "Holy moley Batman, I made HOW MUCH today?" Really. =)

Here's my take on what "One Week Marketing" does - for anyone who has become educated in internet marketing, they will very likely get as far as knowing quite a bit about it in terms of the basics and the tools involved, but perhaps lacking in some key SEO (search engine optimization) info, and also "IMers" might be floundering about on this question, "I know what to do, but what order do I do all of the actions in - AND, how much of it should I do?"

Wow - those are some important points. More important than I had realized. Much of what was in the book I already knew - but when I found out that I was doing some of my actions in a wrong sequence - and when I changed that sequence (simple) it changed my whole scene. (Search engines started giving my pages big kisses.)

OK, now for question #2 - Who is PotPieGirl? Well, you might be saying, "duh" at this point - yes, she is the author of the book. And, her name is Jennifer. And, she is an authority on SEO. But let me tell you a story to illustrate who she really is:

I purchased the One Week Marketing book back in October, read it the same day and enjoyed every word. I had a question on how it might apply some of the steps to a niche I was working on, so I sent her an email with that question and link to one of my resources. The following day she responded with an answer that exactly answered my questions, and she spent some real time with the email (it was pretty lengthy). We had email dialog back and forth for a few days, each time she took care to really understand my questions and answer them very helpfully.

When we were finished with that email dialog and I started really rocking on applying IM with the steps given, my whole business took off like a rocket.

My scene - yes, I'm a work from home mom and my time is very valuable and actually rather scarce. Every moment I spend on IM counts, and that book and the method given therein has helped to simplify my technique, add value to my actions and thus increase my sales.

How to say "thank you" for that? I'm not sure - the changes that has made in my life are astounding, and not only affect me but my little one and - well, you get the picture.

At any rate, Jennifer's work and effort (and help) deserves a huge acknowledgment and this was the best way I knew how to do it - thanks Jennifer!!! Uh, sorry - I mean PotPieGirl. =)

What is "One Week Marketing" and who is PotPieGirl? IT is a goldmine and PotPieGirl is an angel from the south.

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Additional Resources:

==> What is "One Week Marketing" on Squidoo

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Keywords in Internet Marketing

Keywords in Internet Marketing:
The Cornerstone of Success

During the time as a novice as well as an experienced internet marketer, I've come across many-a-theory about keywords in internet marketing and how important they are to getting web traffic.

Most people who are working online are actually looking for some "magic cure" or easy solution that will bring tons of traffic to their web resources (sites, blogs, etc.), and most give up simply due to the fact that they don't have a good foothold and know exactly what will work, what won't and so go off into many directions and ultimately fail.

It's too bad, really. The number of people who never move up to "success" with internet marketing is huge, and if they just had the basics...

So what's the key?

MOST basically - of course - is to know exactly how to go about the work in order for it to consistently succeed. But I'll be more specific: If you know how to gather up keywords (or "keyword phrases") to use, and if you know exactly how to use them, you can be successful as an internet marketer.

Here are the benefits I have found from knowing how to use keywords in internet marketing:

• Getting ranked highly in Google for a specific search for pretty much any web resource, including websites, blog posts, articles, etc.
  
• For Google Adwords, you pay far less per click if you know what you're doing with the keywords
  
• More relevant traffic from Adwords campaigns
• More relevant traffic, period. (Equals more visitors converting into buyers, signups, etc.)
• Less overall effort to get traffic!
  

Keyword research is the cornerstone of success - I use it with everything that I do online, with any type of marketing. I now can do it practically in my sleep (and sometimes I do!), but it has taken a good amount of dedication and willingness to learn to get to this point.

Learning how to do use keywords in internet marketing is a must. Wealthy Affiliate University teaches it's marketers how to become a real pro at keyword research, and also very specifically teaches how to use the good keywords, once found. This is how I learned, and with practice it became very easy.

As a note, you can also choose to use tools, such as Keyword Elite by Brad Callen - which is a brilliant product by the way - and use it to do the work for you. I prefer actually to do it myself, using the good ole' Google keyword tool and it works just fine.

In the case of keywords in internet marketing, "Know before you go" is most definitely the most key phrase of all, and it will put you in the "driver's seat" with internet marketing. (And how to use them once you have them is a whole other story. :-)

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Related Links:
Increasing Relevant Web Traffic With Keywords