Thank Rousey It’s Monday

This week I am thanking the one and only Ronda Rousey. For non-UFC fans, Rousey fought in the first ever womens match in UFC history on Saturday night, as she headlined UFC 157 against Liz Carmouche.

And I really need to thank her.

See – I’ve been a fan of UFC since it was born. I was a big tape trading guy back in the day, and I remember trading tapes like crazy just so I could watch the likes of Gracie vs Kemo, and the circus that UFC was in the early days.Over the years I’ve really began to CARE about UFC.

Really – as lame as it sounds, I actually CARE about UFC and I’m always rolling with the ups and downs that the business has had over the years. One of my worst memories was when Gonaza KO’d Cro Cop, flushing the Cro Cop vs Couture fight and at least $10 million dollars down the toilet. Also being a marketer I generally get in arguments with lots of people because I’m able to see it as the business it is, while others spit blood at the thought of Jones vs Sonnen.

So I was particularly nervous about how this match would turn out. There were so many people criticizing it in advance, and raging that Hendo vs Machida wasn’t the main event(even though both of them were happy with that). There were so many potential issues – Rousey could lose, which would be disastrous as there is just so much invested in her.

Hendo vs Machida could put on an amazing fight and Rousey vs Carmouche would suck, proving the haters right. Hell, even Rousey winning by armbar in a minute wouldn’t be good – for a champ to be dominant they really need to work their way up through previously established fighters. Having a dominant fighter right off the bat(as most people wouldn’t have seen her before) would just get the old “tomato can” analogy going.

Thankfully what happened on Saturday night – well lets just say that Dana White could dream a million dreams, and still not come up with something as perfect as that.

Rousey came out strong, but Carmouche managed to get her in a BRUTAL neck crank where it looked like her head would snap straight off. I was about to have a heart attack at that point. Rousey managed to get out, and then locked on the move that has won her every fight so far – the armbar. But she was battling to lock it on with about 30 seconds left on the clock. So it became a huge game of watching the battle over the armbar, while also watching the clock and just screaming. And with seconds ticking down, Rousey managed to get on the armbar and make Carmouche tap.

Awesome, just awesome. Probably the best one round fight in UFC history, for so many reasons. Rousey was established as strong, but also not invincible. She managed to use her “finisher” which is just awesome on so many levels. And Carmouche managed to look like a really strong contender, which will get her a lot of attention in the future.

It made my weekend.

So thank you Ronda Rousey(and also Liz Carmouche). You made the UFC millions of dollars in 5 short minutes – and for some reason that really makes me happy.

Tackling Stuff You Hate:

I had a weird conversation with a friend last week. We were talking about pizza places in town, and where we order from. I mentioned one place which is my favourite and he said “Oh I never order from them”. I asked why, and his reason was “They don’t have online ordering – and I hate ordering over the phone”.

I understand it’s 2013 and the online world is taking over but really – you can’t make a simple phone call to order a large cheese pizza?

It reminded me of when I moved over to Canada from Scotland. I moved over here when I was 16. I had an extremely thick Scottish accent and no-one could understand me. Like it was really frustrating at times.

At 18 years old, I got a job with the Government. This was one of those temporary jobs which could possibly lead to a full-time position. It was in the typing/word processing department. I’m a really fast typer(about 135+ wpm) so it was perfect for me.

Another duty that section had was answering phones for the people in the positions above us. Only one person had to do that job. Now as you can imagine – I’ve got a thick Scottish accent, and people could barely understand a word I was saying. It caused a lot of problems, it made for repeating things over and over and it could get extremely frustrating.

So I volunteered to answer the phones.

They used to rotate the phones daily(as everyone hated doing it) but I stepped up and took over the phones every day. Why? Because I hated it, but I knew the only way to get over the whole communication barrier was to actually tackle it head on. And yeah it was frustrating – but as time went on, I was able to communicate a lot better, and find a “middle ground” where people would be able to understand me, while also commenting on the accent.

A few months later, the temp position I was in became available for the full-time position. I got the job. One of the interview questions was actually on this very topic – about something you’ve done to improve yourself. And I remember explaining this whole situation above, and I could tell by my bosses facial reaction that right then and there, I’d just got the job.

We all have stuff we hate to do. Maybe you hate writing content. Maybe you hate the whole process of building sites, designing graphics or doing keyword research. Maybe you hate answering e-mails.

But sometimes it’s good just to suck it up and tackle it. After doing it for a few weeks, you’ll realize it’s not that bad.

Non-English Sites:

One thing I am finding interesting at the moment is the lack of affiliates entering into non-English areas. You’re all reading this – surely you all know how great it would be to run a foreign language website. The English market for the majority of niche is oversaturated like crazy – I’m sure you’ve at least thought about running a foreign language site.

I’ve talked to affiliates who run existing sites and I’ve asked why they don’t build a version of their site in the non-English language. It’s not a case of not being able to find a translator or anything – it’s more a case of they don’t know where to start.

With existing sites, I can understand why this is tough. You don’t know how best to handle it. Do you do sub-domains like de.affiliatebible.com or fr.affiliatebible.com? Or do you do folders like affiliatebible.com/de/ and affiliatebible.com/fr/? Then how do you handle the English version?

Then there’s the content. If you have an existing website and you want it translated – chances are it’s going to be a big site for you to have that mindset. But then it’s a huge job because you’re going to have a lot of content to be translated.

Going with my whole “Think Big, Start Small” mantra I would recommend building a whole new site, which has the same design as your English site but on a completely different domain. Start small. Don’t get everything translated. Just get 20 key articles and all the design elements and then go from there. One per week.

I recently had this issue with CasinoAnswers.com. It’s large enough now and established more as a brand, and I want to start launching international versions of it. But you know how much bloody content is on that site? Over 2000 articles, most of them over 1000 words. To quote Deuce Bigelow, “That’s a HUGE bitch”.

So I started small. I launched https://www.CasinoFrage.net (still a work in progress). I got the design elements all translated into German, and then I picked 20 articles to get translated. Then it’s a case of slowly building it. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and nor will this site be. 1-2 articles per week are added, and it’s a slow but sure process. Affiliate marketing is a marathon, not a race. And at the end of the day, the tortoise is always going to beat the hare.

Make that your project this week. You know you’ve been thinking about it. Pick one of your successful websites, get 20 articles and the design elements translated, and just start slowly. After the initial work you can go for just 1 article per week.

Then that’ll be one off the bucket list.

Have a great week. Or according to Google Translate, haben eine tolle Woche.

Which I’m pretty sure is wrong.

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This article, as are all articles on AffiliateBible.com, was written by Graeme aka "Dealer Dan". Graeme currently resides in Kingston, Ontario and has been running his own internet marketing business since 1996.

This article was written on February 25, 2013 however all articles are looked at on a monthly basis and updated to keep them relevant.

If you need to contact Graeme, please see his Contact Page. If you are an affiliate manager wanting promoted please see this page.