Dealing with "Neg-Heads" Creating a Positive Workplace

Promoting Positivity, Why I would rather be surrounded by Positivity...

I remember one workplace I was specifically made manager of for 1 reason only.... I went into to clear out the "dead" wood staff...I had a hit list of who head office wanted rid of, and I went in with  the most sickening positive attitude, drove the ones out who did not buy into it further away, (they gave me the basics, I gave them back just that) ....and I slowly but surely built a "new" group of positive people around me, I did not allow much working with  the "negative people", so I split them apart.
 By creating groups for training I knew the "Neg heads" would hate but they were always politely asked to attend and it was left up to them to participate and join in, (guess  what they didn't but I heard PLENTY of feedback about the groups from the staffroom, which surprised me how much they had to say since they did not participate)
anyway It just got the point I really did NOT care, they were welcome to join in at any time and I always left a door open
(sure sometimes I wanted to tell them where to go, but obviously they were not the smartest in the bunch, although they maintained THEY were, ...lol ;)
It was a SLOG but eventually I outweighed them with new staff so they were completely out of their comfort zone.....I made sure the good (positive) workers got all the great shifts/rewards  ...WHY would I not listen to the negative griping ones......those people were single handily bringing down my business I ultimately was responsible for....
 I worked overtime, 14-16 hour days.... making either the negative lot even MORE distanced, more annoyed, some left, some I never even noticed leaving, But I had MY goals and MY vision for MY buisness ....But I was  SLOWLY shifting the balance (It became like a game for me.
I was also the youngest area manager in the company, and earned my respect through this particular shop...I mean you know the ones that always complained....sent me reports of others misgivings, whilst they brought nothing new to the table either.
Get real if I was interested in what YOU had to say I would ASK you.
Just moan moan moan, never once giving one single bit of constructive feedback. I could work with and listen IF and only IF they were bringing new stuff to the table.
Reports of he said this she said that, I ended up not even reading those reports, I even set up a filter for those types of report!
I wanted to  read reports that were from staff who were going to take my bottom line back up!
My new staff went through a bit of a hard time too, some couldn't take the negativity showed towards them for being eager it and left too they were called out  for "brown nosing" sucking up to the boss....getting special  treatment .....no, they were being rewarded for working, making my business, better, taking that extra mile to ensure they carried out their duties to make my customers have a great experience.  (and yes it was all under VERY tough circumstances at the time.

This is not about "brown nosing" this is about surrounding yourself with people who have the same agenda as you and your business.

My Assistant manager would listen to all I had to say, go and do, THEN come back and tell me if
A. What Was successful
B. What we HAD to improve on

Never once, was I questioned over MY instructions.  Questioned over why I was doing this,

If you find yourself in a negative cycle then consider these 2 points

1. If you don't like it then maybe your IN the wrong Business

2.If it was YOUR business would you like to be working with YOU.

I met one of my worst ever "Neg-head" offenders I ever had the pleasure of meeting, in my whole entire working life.
They were very nice to me surprising since I did sack them, but they asked what I had been doing these last 10 years or so, and I was pleased to tell them a range of things and life was good.

Funnily enough I was not in the least bit surprised when I reciprocated the question.
And they just hung their head with  stooped shoulders and replied "same old s**t"?  WOW. It struck me as this person was just stuck, appearing unhappy at their lot in life.
Then they went onto complain how unfair their manager was, changing everything and how was he to do all this just to keep him happy?

Life is not always rosy, it has ups and downs, believe me I have been  through enough in my life, to make your hair go white prematurely.
But carrying a negative attitude around with you and "sharing" it with others is not pleasant, or indeed wanted.  Unless you stumble on a group of "neg-heads" together then go for it.

 But don't push YOUR negativity  onto others who ARE trying to get on.  That is not Fair.

Great book to READ for Having a Positive Attitude is Chicken Soup for the Soul: Think Positive: 101 Inspirational Stories about Counting Your Blessings and Having a Positive Attitude

until next time

Lisa




 

Can we still write and Earn money working online. As Panda and Penguin really take their toll on the Affiliate Marketer.

As Google updates and releases penguin 2.0 lets take a look at how we are changing how we are working online. Can we still make an income writing online and being an affiliate?

Yes you can still make money working online.
But the rules have changed, ignore them and the changes and on your head be it.

Now after Panda, they let out the Penguins and to be honest I don't normally take much head of them, I just write the pages I want to write, and publish. I think if I need to be thinking about changes I must be doing something that is wrong? (does that make sense)

IF I keep to the search engines guidelines of building good, quality content, then I need not take interest in what these changes are, these changes are to benefit the searcher, and give people what they want.

The changes at the Platform Squidoo has changed with big consequences for many, leaving a tornado of near destruction to  many who have built their business model around Squidoo.
HUGE mistake, never build an income around 1 place. There is no point moaning shouting , screaming, the changes have been made they locked your work.  You had success, you built more, and more and more and more pages (so many that we then had a site that looked nothing better than a million cookie cutter lenses.
I mean how many pages can you have with a list of the same amazon products.....after some time they all start to look like one before it.



Available to Buy

And many ask "why has this happened" why was this allowed to happen? my goodness take some responsibility.  

The original goals of Squidoo is not The path Squidoo eventually took by letting and may I add with Quests encouraging us to create pages "SOLELY to send people to amazon, may have been a money maker in the beginning, and lots of people adopted the same or similar strategies after seeing others huge success.
I always had a reservation that if hundreds of these pages which were similar and started to  appear, then something had to give. People got greedy and made even more, then more came along and enjoyed the fringe benefits, and so the web was spun. growing even more and more.

After several week of research, and NOT finding much information to "cite" I have come to a very brave conclusion, Squidoo as you knew it is over. So please suck it up and lets move on.
I want to make another thing clear Squidoo and its future is however not OVER.  With the changes they have made the hard stance against the gamers, cheaters and spammers.
Just check out the forum and the cry of Help my lenses got locked. And many innocents are caught up in this too.
They followed what they saw or thought was popular.  I am amazed at the amount of "niche" accounts many have popped up with WOW, I did not know they and so many of them existed!

Seth Godin himself said if you are not willing to let it be known its you  and put your name to it, then that tells you something.

I have been gobsmacked at the scale of the secret niche accounts, from many.  I was going to set up niche accounts but gave up as I saw no point in them.
No wonder HQ are mad, and no wonder they have taken the steps they have.

I say well done and thank you.

With Penguin 2.0 with even more rollouts guaranteed to shake up the searches, certain types of pages are not welcome on line and at Squidoo and ARE coming under the umbrella of "doorway pages" - (doorway pages are solely created to entice/create as link bait visitors and searcher to their pages, to get YOUR visitor to click on the site where they can buy -   

you know the pages We pick a keyword - of something we want to sell we create that page to do it, they CANNOT buy on our pages, they need to  go to amazon. )

Even Squidoo is clearly saying
"If you have came to solely to promote an affiliate product" (that includes adding lots of amazon products via the Squidoo modules with no real rhyme or reason but to SELL SELL SELL) then we no longer want your content, or words to that effect.
They give us the tools, does not mean we need to use them all and stuff everything  in and the kitchen sink use the platform wisely, abuse it and your locked out.

There were a few "systems" put around where you could buy the how to of Squidoos. I never followed, something always held me back I just didn't agree in the system, that encouraged people to quickly put up pages to solely manipulate the system in place,  multiplied by 10,000+s, was always going to end badly for everyone.

I would also be looking at the extra "niche" accounts of many, and how they used those niche accounts to jump on the apparent successful bandwagon and manipulate the system. Churning out lower quality pages than they would have had on their "main account"?

It is OVER, get over it. Google and quite rightly Squidoo are putting their foot down. Many are saying "oh well I will just take my content else's where? WHAT....are you not listening to why these very strong measures are being put in place? 

I have spent most of the last few weeks, studying changes, studying what Google is saying.

If we create these doorway (affiliate pages) we will be penalized - the affiliate marketer as we knew it is dead!

Remember how we Chose a hot topic, keyword and create a page around it solely to get attention from a search engine to send you traffic to then send them to the product (via YOUR affiliate link, or the companies affiliate link)  - l Google got way smart and wont send to the middle man They want their searcher to go straight to the solution to  their problem in the FIRST click, not bounce around a few pages, that just p***es me off as a searcher, so I wonder what it does to my intended audience.

 My feeling is penguin has only just started.

Now if I go back  a few years of Squidoo where a sale was a "by-product" of people visiting your page, that's fine. me saying I have a sore back, I use this and this to help me! perfect.

or if you want to be able to do this, then you need this.

 I feel as though all in this group can go forward and move along with h this, the ones who solely are setting up pages  (AND I have seen MANY still being published.)  with collecting their favourite items on Squidoo adding a little bit of fluff, ARE in real trouble, not jus ton Squidoo but anywhere....

TO move forward, I am NOT and will not be creating any more "niche" style sales lenses. NO matter how I dress it up, It is still a "doorway" page, It does not matter WHERE you publish it - It is a Doorway page.
 

Unless you are offering real solutions where people are spending time on YOUR page (bounce rate is going to factor way high in this new way forward. ( remember we used to try to get them to our pages and off to amazon?)  Well guess what we are doing ourselves zero favours.....(In fact Squidoo newest brain power IS to have the amazon module below the intro! - What is Google against and going after "doorway pages.....all they are giving a visitor is the option to quickly LEAVE their site, signalling to Google they never actually found what they were looking for BUT could get there even quicker to cut out the middle man which is you/Squidoo......

Working on the internet I have seen 3 major shifts in how we work, yet the fundamentals are all the same. Unique Useful information.

IF I create a page my reader finds the answer to their search query on my page then  I lead them onto the product to buy. That's fine. In fact its more than fine its wonderful.

In fact take a look a this page How Do I get Files and Pictures off my old PC? (this link will open in a new window)

Can you guess what I sell?  Why does Google STILL send me lots of lovely traffic?

I have taken a common problem, and given a step by step solution, and the solution entails buying a simple gadget.  THESE types of pages are what you should be making. IF you want to survive working online.

If I list the best wall art or to use an example like the infamous Shower curtain lens, (which I cannot link to as it has now been locked (all available from amazon or another online store ) guess what the search  engine is Going to skip ME and send them straight to them, and in the process I will receive a black mark against me as they WILL see me as a creator of doorway pages.

As we move into Penguin 2.0 I also believe Google is looking at writers using Google Authorship as a key to how YOU will be ranked.

It will not matter where I write, eventually it will be who I am, am I a trusted source of information, am I a known writer in my niche.

Key Notes for SEO moving forward online creating a sustainable income working online.

1.  Google Authorship - Get yourself set up and link  all your work together.
2. If you have lost work think  seriously about moving it to another platform? Whether it is your own hosted blog or someone else's platform.
3. Create pages that are informative think quality content, your first thought should not be what you want to sell. This should be a by product of your page.
4. Be mindful of keyword density (this is a biggy for me)
5. Write useful pages that ARE going to be shared, bookmarked, and talked about.

example: even if you are writing about an author and his "books" be careful how many times you use the word "book".

How are you going to move forward

That's it simple. Write good quality pages. If your aim is to solely direct your visitors to a sale then your time is over.

If you are still a little fuzzy about creating pages, and what types consider reading this page, by a relatively new Squid Nikon Mocro lens For Novices

But it gives personal content, photos, and why I should buy or why I need the product on the page.

This is the way forward.













 

The Joy of Working Online at Home & Surving the Penguin Update

I just love working at home online, I have no boss, no-one to answer to and no-one to check up on me, or ask me, what are you doing? why is this not done, why haven't you showed up for the last few days?

I show up when I want I write when I want, and I do exactly what I want when I want.

A bit like Google, they seem to go along for so long, not doing much, everybody settles down then Bang! Big G shows up every once and a while and say hey look at what we have been doing, and we all try to work out what they have been doing.And I do think this is a frustrating part to most, just when we are sailing along thinking we have "made" it or "worked" it out, it all changes, some take those changes and just charge on, others moan, and some just give up.

But change is good, it keeps us all fresh.

This is why working online at home is not for everyone?

Some people need someone to hold their hands, to tell them that what they are doing is great, and the working at home online is not suited for those types of people, I love being answerable to no-one. But google......yes you heard me google, as they are the people who decide whether you have a page worthy of visits for them to send you traffic, they are the only ones I answer to.

I have helped many people online, and some have indeed went onto have good success, and others have not, or not what they had expected. Working online is a roller coaster, there is nothing certain in Internet marketing.

Take the latest Penguin Update from Google, This to me has been the most significant roll out by Google yet, and to be honest its not the last.

BUT nothing has changed, with this roll out, all Google is doing is making sure everyone plays by the rules. You duplicate content - you lose
you try to build 100s of crappy backlinks you lose, you abuse the alt tags you lose, you keyword stuff you lose
you just think you can write a page and it will rank high, without updating and making relevant all the time - You lose.

You have too many adverts above the fold  you lose (Squidoo anyone?....hmmm theres room for thought there, just look at the above fold of the pages, of a Squidoo Page one of mine here, my content is pushed down by the advertising.

where is the fold on the page
 

 (The fold (red arrow region) of the page is where you can only see to that point without scrolling down further. Squidoo maximise their AdSense advertising on the prime locations of a page. )

Call me cynical but, I have noticed huge traffic drops recently, is this why? ( huge traffic drops to myself is not a worrying factor, I could lose 5,000 visitors  a week and not feel it, as they have reached their ceiling payouts for tiers, even with that dramatic loss, and I know my pages are still maintaining sales etc)  But to newbies I would be worried at this.

When I started working online 4 years ago these were all big no-nos anyway? So people who are shouting about being affected have only tried to win by manipulating the system! Although they will shout and scream it is everyone else fault and how dare Google do this, but I see nothing different?

So how to survive Googles Updates.....
If you are building quality pages, using a basic knowledge of SEO, and work that page, and I mean work it, I want to see sweat being poured into these pages, some just want to put a page together and leave.....I personally have had no success at this, my pages that do well are updated constantly, tweaked, evaluated, I keep good record of traffic being brought in and where traffic is leaving my pages too.

This lets me build even more content, content that Google loves and people are looking for....
So how to survive this latest update.....
Spread you work around find good publishing platforms or start your own websites. That way you are not tied and reliant on 1 specific online publisher. (Yes this is hard, I recently have spread my wings, But the effort I am putting in on my other ventures is adding and complimenting to my Squidoo earnings = Still earning more money every month)

Do not rely on anyone, if you hear information, go and study it yourself, there is a lot of misinformation out there.
Be sure that you are the one accountable for your online progress.

People are saying backlinks are worthless now, rubbish, the whole point of the Internet is linking, Good links, good quality articles linking back to your pages, nofollow, do follow, social bookmarking, people talking about your page is a good thing!...

and just keep producing high quality content, whether its your pages, or your linking articles, make sure you never scrape on your content.....hey who said it was easy!

NEW PAGE as Penguin 2.0 is released - The Way forward for Affiliate Marketers like you and Me