With several billion web pages being put out onto the web daily and 1 trillion pages searched by just Google each day, you wonder at times if your efforts will ever pay off. Here is a word of encouragement - Don’t be discouraged. There are a few golden rules that will ensure your success.

Every successful entrepreneur in Cyber Space wants to see their site as No 1 on the Search Engines. It requires several things to achieve this; good content and hard work being the cornerstones of Internet success, plus learning to think outside the box. While the Internet is based on logic, it is more often the illogical that makes or breaks you.  It only takes one whacky idea to work to push your website over the top.

Patience, Perseverance, Passion and Discipline are your four golden rules to success. Without these you will join thousands of other would-be entrepreneurs who overestimate the short term results of their website and underestimate the long term results. Many good sites are abandoned, just at the point when the tide is turning. The authors allow themselves to become disillusioned and quit, just at the time when they would begin to reap the harvest of all their efforts. They walk away and abandon their dream.

Much is written about long keyword long tails etc. The key is always to find high traffic, low competition words. However, even when you find a prospective goldmine in keywords, you still have to do the long hard mile to make a site succeed.

In designing Win a Resort with its once in a lifetime Blue Moon Opportunity, we were on our own. No one had done anything like raffling a whole resort on the Internet, let alone a luxury boutique resort on a tropical island in the South Pacific. We had no competition, but we had buyer resistance. It was too good to be true. It had to be another Internet scam.

Full of enthusiasm we built the Win A Resort (version number one). It was a simple blog format, but it worked quite well. We managed to get it rise to a page ranking No. 3 on Google. We were so proud of what we had achieved we decided it was time to start to rebuild a new stand-alone site in Dreamweaver. This was quite a challenge.

Of course, as with most sites, our page ranking devastatingly fell away. At the same time our Merchant Bank, which processes credit cards online, got caught in the USA financial fallout. For three and a half agonizing months we waited, never really sure the bank would return. There could be no sales of tickets.

The tragedy was enhanced by the fact that we were selling Blue Moon raffle tickets on the Internet, which is classed as being High Risk. Very few companies will process credit cards, for what they wrongly class as a lottery.

At a point when everyone was saying our project Win a Resort had failed, three things happened. The merchant bank came back online. We regained our page 3 rank on Google and we did a test run for our sites with some really interesting results.

The main key to all of this is dare to dream and dare to dream big. Fight for that dream with everything in you and don’t let it go. Put in the long hard work and you too will take your rightful place among the successful entrepreneurs of the Internet. The key is, Don’t Give Up.

Love to hear from others who are facing big challenges. We need to encourage each other.

If you would like to know more about the author go to http://winaresort.com

WE ARE ALIVE AND WELL!Back with a vengeance and racing for the top. For three and a half months ‘Win a Resort’ has been forced to languish in the shadows, but now its back online, bigger and brighter than before.

When we designed Win a Resort with its once in a lifetime Blue Moon Opportunity, we were on our own. Nothing like this had done before. No one was raffling a whole resort on the Internet, let alone a luxury boutique resort, Seachange Lodge, on a tropical island in Vanuatu, in the South Pacific. A resort that could be run an ongoing business or used as a private holiday home, plus 6 luxury holiday apartments for friends and family.

While we had no competition, we had buyer resistance. If the prize is too good to be true then it probably is. Win a Resort had to be just another Internet scam, that would fade like so many others, into the deep blue yonder of Cyber Space.

Full of enthusiasm and passion we built version number one. It was merely a blog format, but it seemed to work quite well. Over three months, after launch, it rose to a page ranking No. 3 on Google, without buying our way there. We were very proud of what we had achieved, so we decided it was time to remodel Win a Resort in a new stand-alone site in Dreamweaver. No templates for us. Ha! This would be quite a challenge.

The first bad news was when you rebuild a site your page ranking falls away with a resounding clang. The ranking was there one day and gone the next. Sadly we only discovered this after the fact. At the same time the Merchant Bank, which processes credit cards online, was caught in the USA financial fallout and appeared to go belly up. For three and a half agonizing months we were forced to wait. No kindly carrots were put out to lead us on, only start up dates that never materialized. We were never really sure the bank would return online.

The tragedy was enhanced by the fact that we were selling Blue Moon Opportunity raffle tickets on the Internet. This is classed as being High Risk. There are barely any online merchant banks who will process credit cards, for what they wrongly class as a lottery. Friends tried to help by telling us to go to Pay Pal or Click Bank etc. etc. Did you know that pay pal has a list of fifty businesses they won’t process, including airline tickets, accommodation and rental cars?

By the time everyone was saying we were down and out for the count, our hair was a lot greyer (according to our hairdresser) and our nails had been bitten down to the quick, we had a brand spanking new website up and running, with pictures you just have to go and check out.

And best news of all, is that the worst of the fallout from America is apparently over (we all hope). The merchant bank is back up online and they too have a brand spanking new website as well. Their name is Intabill and is owned by a 24 year old entrepreneur, who is one of the people who made it to the ‘Rich List’ in Queensland, Australia. He has been working the Internet ever since he was 13 years old.

Love to hear other people’s experiences in building a site and how to succeed on the Internet.

If you want more information go to http://winaresort.com

Cyber space is a truly wild frontier with battles being fought daily on many different levels as old and young, professional and amateurs, jostle for domination on the Search Engines. However, one battle has spilled over into the courtrooms of the physical world. A battle involves the privacy of ordinary American citizens.

Take a close look at this delightful logo drawn for Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://eff.org/cases/jewel). Note the eagle is listening in to Cyber Space. All the cables held by the claws, are connected through a secret room.

Congress passed legislation earlier this year giving telecommunication firms immunity from spying lawsuits, causing a case against AT&T to stall in the federal court. To get around this, EFF opened a second line of attack, in Jewel v NSA. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is taking on the giants of the United States, on behalf of AT&T customers.  EFF is personally holding responsible those who authorized, or participated for years, in a fishing expedition of an ongoing, warrantless, surveillance dragnet of millions of ordinary Americans’ emails. Copies of communications and communication records of Internet Traffic are sent to a secret room in San Francisco controlled by NASA.

President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Chief of Staff David Addington, former Attorney General and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and others, as well as NASA are all in the line of fire.

The question is how does a government protect itself from a repeat performance of terrorist attacks such as September 11, without being seen to be just plain old nosey parkers? Apart from that, can you think of a more boring job, than reading everyone’s emails? Probably this is where the search for ‘keywords’ was birthed.

Electronic Frontier Foundation was founded in 1990 and has a Google page ranking of 7. It’s well worth keeping an eye on. However, after reading all this, it is easy to understand why more and more people are opting to get out of the Rat Race and are looking to live in places like the tropical islands of Vanuatu, in the South Pacific.

If you would like to know more about living on a tropical island go to http://winaresort.com

It is now two weeks since the voters went to the poles in the general election in Vanuatu, in the South Pacific. Behind closed doors and in the Nakamals the controversy still rages, as the political parties jostle each other to form a coalition government. The coveted position of Prime Minister is being hotly contested between three candidates. However, feelings are also  boiling over in the lesser areas of the political scene, causing ancient taboos and traditions to be used.

September 16 is a celebration day for the people of the Penama province, a small group of tropical islands in Vanuatu. This was the day chosen for a peace ceremonyto be performed. When all the votes were counted Chief Molbarab was not reelected. He had been counting on the votes from the Vanuatu Agricultural and Technical Centre to put him back in office. The votes did not materialize as expected and tension quickly built up between Chief’s Molbarab’s family and the VAT Centre. It was alleged that the Chief would place namele leaves at the door of the Centre, which would in effect close the operation of the Centre down.

Leaves from the namele palm, which is known as the Chief’s Palm,  are a very real deterrent in the culture of the people of Vanuatu. When two namele leaves are crossed over each other and placed on the door of any business, the staff would absolutely refuse to enter the property, no matter what was said. The leaves say loud and clear, something really bad is wrong. Business would be forced to grind to a halt and remain that way until the dispute was cleared up.

The Namele leaves on the Vanuatu flag are a sign of peace, along with pig tusks, which are a symbol of wealth. However Namele leaves are also used as a very strong emblem of taboo. If a senior person feels they, or their family have a right to the fruit of a particular tree, all they need to do is tie a namele leaf on the trunk. Anyone breaking the taboo is liable to a fine, which the chief of the village will impose on the offender.

Several weeks ago two namele leaves were placed across the entrance to a dental clinic, over a dispute. Patients were booked in for appointments, but even when they turned up, the clinic was forced to keep its doors closed until the dispute was settled.

A dispute rose over some people using a particular piece of land as a village garden. The chief who owned the property, placed several sets of crossed namele leaves around the perimiter, then killed a pig over the top of the leaves, so as to make the taboo of the leaves even stronger. The offenders were then ordered by the chief, to stop using the land and each person to pay one pig, for illegal use of the land.

Not only did the six offenders refuse to obey custom law and honour the chief, they continued to use the land. Other villagers observed such blatant disregard for the chief’s authority in horror.

Eventually the offenders were hauled into white man’s court where the judge ruled that the men were banned from using the land, forced the offenders to pay the full court costs of the defendant and still pay the chief a pig each. To disobey this time, would put the men in jail.

It is hoped that no more peace ceremonies, or the threatened use of namele leaves, will be necessary before the political scene in Vanuatu returns to a more peaceful scenario.

Postcript: emotions ran high for weeks. The balance of power was too finely drawn. Only time will tell which party will dominate. Right now, it is not clear.

If you would like to know more about the author go to http://winaresort.com

Take a leisurely stroll (something I don’t do often enough) along the marina near the Waterfront Bar and Grill in Port Vila, Vanuatu, in the South Pacific and it’s like you are in any marina in the world. Large gleaming yachts lie cheek-by-cheek along the small moorings.

Step back a short way from the waterfront and it’s easy to find local people living in homes made from bamboo and palm fronds, or whatever scraps of building material they can manage to get their hands on. The floor is crushed coral, or dirt and there is little or no electricity, or running water, or flush toilets. The majority of the food comes from the local village garden and is cooked over an open wood fire.

Every season, Vanuatu, set in pristine blue green-blue water with a visibility of around 30 meters, is visited by the Big, Bold and Beautiful, bearing exotic names. Glamorous luxury yachts arrive, which have sailed from ports all over the world.

As you stroll along the marina, you could easily lean over and touch millions of dollars worth, sitting gently in the turquoise water. Because Vanuatu is a third world country, the majority of the rural population live on under $1 per day. Education is not free and many of the children will never see the inside of high school classroom, let alone the inside of a luxury yacht.Imagine not being able to tell the time, because you have never seen a clock.

Yet Vanuatu, a tax haven, was voted the Happiest Country on Earth in 2006, along with countries like Costa Rica, Columbia, Dominica and Panama.

When I spoke to one of the yachties, I asked him ‘Why Vanuatu’?

“Why not?” was the quick reply. Vanuatu offers great anchorages, friendly people, great food, friendly people and great weather and  friendly people – if you get my drift. The tropical islands of Vanuatu have been the highlight of our cruising in the South Pacific. If you’re looking for great adventure travel, you need look no further. It’s all here.” (I didn’t even pay him for that answer, with one of my homemade dinners.)

Exotic names adorn these big and beautiful boats, such as Dandelion, Linger Longer, Papillon and Sheer Delight . The yacht, Ultimate , towers high above the wharf, like a three storied building, grand and luxurious in every aspect.

The owner of ‘Sambaluka ’, Rob Cole,  from New Zealand told me that Vanuatu acts like a hub for all the other exotic destinations you can sail to, in just a couple of days, out of Port Vila. That is quite apart from the 83 tropical islands you can explore, which belong to Vanuatu.

While I thoroughly enjoy gazing at the sleek lines and beauty of these yachts, I have no desire to own one. I think like Robert Kiyoski and his book ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’, these graceful ladies (why are boats always a she?) burn deep holes in financial pockets. I will however, continue to dream of the day my husband and I down-tools and charter a yacht for a week’s cruise around Vanuatu, or some other magical travel destination.

If you want to know more about how you could live in a tax free haven like Vanuatu, or how you can help these fabuolous kids get an education, click here .

Postcript: I was sent an answer, from a male, to the question why are boats always called a ’she’. Answer: “You are only happy twice when you own a boat.The day you buy it and the day you sell it.”

Is that what guys really think about women also? Any other thoughts on this?

If you would like to know more about the author go to http://winaresort.com

The ruthless breach of Intellectual Property Rights could steal the rich and ancient heritage of the indigenous people of the South Pacific, right out from under them. Education is no longer a luxury to be partaken of or not. It has become an absolute urgent necessity.

Aroha Te Pareaka Mead, co-editor of the book, ‘Pacific Genes and Life Patents‘, speaks of  a medical anthropologist, Carol Jenkins, who allegedly stole leukemia curing genes from the Hagahai people in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. The United States, through its National Health Institute, patented the DNA cells, stamping ownership, without permission, upon something that belonged to a group of people and their unborn generations.

Mead says the indigenous people of the Pacific nations don’t own anything. What is owned is the property of everyone in the group.  For individuals, who culturally own nothing, to begin to claim Intellectual Property Rights, is to deny what is owned by everyone. “They don’t own their bodies, their mind, the words they speak, the myths and traditions they pass from generation to generation, the music they sing, or the dances they dance.”  All these, plus any gifts and creativity are simply seen as part of the next generation’s heritage.

If money is owed to a nephew, the uncle has full right to claim some of it. Loan a shirt to a Pacific islander, it is usually not returned. Not because they are stealing the shirt, but because of their inherent custom beliefs, wealth is defined by what they can give away, their ability to play host, to be generous and in what they can give to others.

The local people do not have the thought pattern of amassing wealth, as seen in developed countries. When the price of local grown commodities rise, due to the rise in food prices globally, the local people produce less. Once a villager has earned enough money to pay the school fees, buy clothing and a few basic supplies, there’s no need to sell any more of their crop. When they are able to earn the same amount of money for less effort, why do any more? They have no lasting dependence on a cash economy, though they enjoy the limited benefits it gives them.

The majority of the population, particularly in rural areas, are unable to recognize potential commercial opportunities within their culture and capitalize on them. If there is any commercial potential, from metaphysics to blood cells, cultural expression to mineral rich volcanic ash, unique  flora or fauna, then the Pacific islanders are unknowingly sitting on a gold mine.

Education is essential if the islanders are to use the benefits of the 21st century, in order to understand how to protect their custom rights and privileges and island way of life. The message is clear for countries like the still underdeveloped Vanuatu. The days of  poorly educated politicians leaping on the Government gravy train and blundering their way through a few years of pocket-lining public office are over. There is a rising swell of opinion, demanding better education and health facilities, for all members of the community.

If you would like to know more about living on a tropicl island go to http://winaresort.com

We are privileged to live on one of those wonderful oddities they call a Tax Haven. It is a tiny South Pacific nation of 83 tropical islands, called Vanuatu. Most people have never heard of it and haven’t a clue where it is. Suffice to say it is three hours flight out of the east coast of Australia. It has the notoriety of being voted one of the Happiest Countries on Earth, in 2006. Other countries high on the list were also tax havens –  Costa Rica, Columbia, Dominica and Panama. Perhaps the lack of tax, has something to do with being happy?

Living in a tax haven beats the living day lights out of the tax nightmare most people find themselves ensnared in. I’d rather work for myself than spend half my time working for the government.

Some facts about tax havens:

• Tax havens have been with us all the way back to Ancient Greece in the 12th century.
• Tax havens help to keep a steadying hand on the wealthier nations and keep tax percentages down.
• Tax havens have long been a safe harbor to those who are sexually, politically, religiously, racially or economically at risk. (not sure which category we fit into).

There is a worldwide move at the moment, headed by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, recently voted the most powerful woman in the world, to bring a heavy hand down on tax havens. High tax countries eager to get their hands on every form of capital income they can. The call is for all governments to enter into what amounts to a Tax Cartel. Just as we have the Oil Cartel dominating our lives, the tax buddies want the same.

Maybe we should move over, in our tropical island tax haven paradise and make room for others. Here you see Rick beating one of the largest free standing musical instruments in the world. These ancient artifacts are unique to Vanuatu. A lot of things are unique to this very mysterious and ancient culture. Let’s hope Vanuatu keeps beating to the tune of ‘Tax Haven’ here, for many years to come, in spite of what the richer big brother’s across the oceans are trying to say to the contrary. Even America doesn’t tax foreign investors.

If you would like to know more about living on a tropical island go to http://winaresort.com

I don’t know if too many could handle living on a tropical island in the South Pacific. You would have to hate having only fresh air to breathe with no smog,
You have to detest eating only organic food,
You have to miss frozen toes and fingers. No more bed socks,
You have to miss having endless days of cold wet miserable rain, biting winds, fog, frosts and snow,
You have to hate having international cuisines to chose from,
You have to loathe swimming in warm tropical waters with a visibility of up to 30 meters,
You have to despise slowing down and taking time out to smell the flowers and look at the stars,
You have to detest the feeling of regaining TIME and lazing in a hammock with a good book.

You have to loathe living in the Happiest Country on Earth, (voted in 2006) and the home of the South Pacific Tv program Survivors

You would object to living in the Must See travel adventure destination of the South Pacific
In short, you can’t stand living out of the RAT RACE. No more tax man beating the door down, because Vanuatu is a tax haven and no more mortgage.

More than that, if you won Seachange Lodge Resort, in Vanuatu, you would have to hate living on a tropical island and still being able to make money. You have the Internet

If you can you find a better way of life please let me know. We love it and we aren’t giving it up, even when Seachange Lodge Blue Moon Draw is finished. We’ll just move down the road a house or two.

In the coming weeks Wendy’s blog MAY let you into the Blue Moon secrets of living on a tropical island.

If you would like to know more about living on a tropical island go to http://winaresort.com