Internet Marketing Review

Get Google AdWords Pay-Per-Clicks FREE

2009-07-18T10:58:00.000-07:00

A new breakthrough secret is all you now need in order to get your Google AdWords pay-per-clicks FREE!

A gentleman from New York discovered what he calls an "oversight" on the part of 99.9% of all marketers that allows him to get otherwise paid-for advertising at Google as well as all other search engines that allow sponsored ads.

And no, nothing about his "secret" is illegal - nor does it require that you know someone on the "inside" at Google, Yahoo, MSN, Overture and others.

Instead, the New Yorker boasts proudly "...this is something that I caught onto just before 2000 when there was so much search engine craze running around, and started doing small just to test things at first ... but which I later expanded on after getting the hang of it."

This same fellow went on to start and operate sixteen separate online companies selling everything from pet food, DVDs, children's toys & games, books, software, and sold not only his own manufactured products but became an affiliate for other web businesses - all the while applying his mastermind secret.

Over the course of nearly eight years the New Englander confesses "I've actually gotten over $87 million in advertising that using my secret I never had to pay for ... and the largest share of which was more recently in Google pay-per-clicks as well as other forms of pad advertising at search engines ... all of which I got for free ..."

So powerful is his secret that he's able to monopolize any niche online, and can always secure the top premium spots just above the usual organic results featured at most search engines.

He still has to set up an account with the search engines - but after applying his secret he is removed from having to pay for all the costs otherwise involved.
Again, nothing about his secret is either illegal or robs from the search engines.
One spokesperson from one of the most popular search engines said chuckling after being made privy to this amazing secret "Wow! Ha! This is really unique ... and in my expert opinion it would only serve to enhance and bring more business to us at [name of search engine withheld for legal & confidentiality reasons] and not cause us to lose business in the slightest. Amazing!"

The northerner revealed that in this nearly eight years' period of time since applying his secret he's done well over $300 million in sales revenue with a most diverse line of products, and most recently in the last two years netted nearly $166 million after really "buckling down and pressing my secret to its fullest potential."

Now to everyone else's fortune, the city slicker is releasing his secret for getting an unlimited amount of pay-per-click ads to the general public. But he's not promising any of us for how long.

A bit of an eccentric, the gentleman says "We'll see just how long I can make it available before it saturates things."

One famous public web guru pointed out that although this man may gain economically more so as a result of the publication of his secret "he's already so amazingly rich that whether he continues or discontinues its sale will neither make nor break the man, but not grabbing it for yourself while it's still available could prove disastrous for you as you may only have one chance, and a very limited one at that, to get this."

It is currently available at:

http://tinyurl.com/4s6xbf

...so you may want to head on over there now and get it.

It's in a very easily readable format and is quickly and readily understood and mastered by anyone with even a 4th grade reading level.

While you're there, why not scroll down and review for yourself the huge successes others are now having with this incredible breakthrough in targeted advertising now made freely available to the rest of us?

Here's to your success,

Nick Fountain.
(nfds)

Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

SEO: On page Optimisation

2009-07-18T10:51:00.000-07:00

In the economic downturn, marketing budgets are being slashed and jobs are being cut. Companies are cutting costs any way possible to stay afloat. However, companies still need to keep a presence in the market place, otherwise their brand awareness will diminish. Many companies have been looking to towards internet marketing and search engine optimisation (SEO). In this article we will shine some light on one of the most fundamental SEO techniques: on page SEO.

In SEO there are two factors that will help you rank highly in the major search engines. The first one is on page factors. These are like dotting the I's and crossing the T's. These on page factors help tell the search engine spiders that your website is relevant for the keywords that you would like to appear for. The second is off page factors. These dealing with creating inbound links to your website. This is where the majority of your rankings will be derived from. However, you first need to get your on page work done, as linking campaigns can take many months to implement.

On Page Factors
To understand how Google sees your site go to Google and type in a search query. When the results show go to anyone of the results and choose the small link at the bottom right of the result that says cached. The cached version is a snapshot of the page that Google took the last time that they updated their indexing. At the top of the page choose the option "text only version". This is what Google actually see's when they crawl your site. Google does not actually see the graphics on page, only the text. The enlarged bolded headings on the page are your H1 and H2 tags. Knowing how the search engines see your page make help you realise the importance of creating correct on page optimisation. We will go on to explain these main tags as we go through this article.

Title Tags
Title tags are the most important elements in on page SEO. This is the first tag that search engine spiders read. Your title tag tells the search engines what the most important phases are for the page. There is an art to creating title tags that are keyword rich for search engine spiders, and still accurately and succinctly conveying the content of the page to the reader.

With your title tag, always place your most important keyword first. For instance, let's take an example of a site that was trying to optimise for Accounting. If from your keyword research that you would like to optimise for accounting and also the long tails of accounting such as accounting in the state you live and accountants, then your title tag should read as follows:
Accounting, Accounting Melbourne, Accounts

In this example you will accurately convey to the search engine spiders that the relevant terms on page are accounting, accounting Melbourne and accountants. Now the rest of your tagging and copy needs to show the spiders content relevant to your title tags.

One note to remember when you are creating any major on page tags is not to key word stuff your tags. An example of keyword stuffing in the same example would be Accountants, Accountants, Accountants. This may seem odd, however in the early days of SEO spammers use to trick the search engine spiders with such techniques. This second example would now be detected by the search engine spam filters instantly.

Meta descriptions
Meta descriptions are used to give search engines and users a 160 character description of what the content on page is about. Keep this consistent with your title tags. The content of this tag is important as a well worded meta will increase your click through rate when it appears in the search results.

The second use for meta descriptions is to give a snapshot of the page content to users on the search engine ranking placements (SERPS).

H1 Tag
In HTML tags go from H1-H6. The H1 tag is the most important of these. There are a few ways that you can position H1 tags. The aim should to have the H1 at the top of the page so this is the first thing that they crawlers read after they have read you title and meta's. An effective way is to put these in the header file at the top right of the page. The other way is to make your main headline your H1.

One word of warning with H1 tags. Be careful about hiding them in the style sheet. Some designers will do this, as at times it is difficult to find a place to position the H1 tag. While Google can't read your style sheet, you run the risk of a competitor reporting you to Google for spamming.

H2 Tag
The easiest way to position the H2 tag is in a heading. Try adding a keyword at the beginning of the heading.

Other on page techniques

Keyword density
Keyword density and keyword saturation are important to let search engines know that your page is relevant for the keywords that you are optimising for. However, keyword density is becoming less important as search engines become more sophisticated. Still try and keep keyword density to 2-3%.

Strong Tagging
tagging is when a word on the page appears bold. Don't overuse this. Once or twice on page is fine.

These on page SEO tips will help your SEO campaign and help you rise to the top of the search engines!

Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

Finding Quality Cheap Content For Your Blogs And Sites

2009-07-17T08:15:00.000-07:00

One of the bigest problems all internet marketers face is where to find content for our sites. Well assuming you have more than one site that is, i mean anyone can create enough content for one site but one site is never enough.Anyway I think I may have a solution for you. A young lady called Sara Cooke who has been ghostwriting several of my blogs for the past 6 months has just started a new service.

It is called keyword article packs and provides top notch quality articles on a specific topic with 10 articles in each pack. These articles are between 400 and 700 words long and are not the crappy keyword stuffed articles you find in plr articles membership sites but are well written and contain enough keywords to keep the search engines happy, while at the same time not overdoing it and getting them annoyed!

All the blogs she writes for me have a really good retention rate and although they are only adsense based sites they have made me a large return on the investment I made in her and as she is writing them specifically for me the charge is much higher than you will have to pay for the article packs.

All the article packs are completely unique when going on sale and are all verified with copyscsape.

Sara is making the final push to work from home full time so she can spend more time with here two young kids so you will be helping here achieve that aim and gettimg some really great content at a ridiculously low rate.

5 Quick Online Money Making Tips to Use Now

2009-03-09T06:46:00.000-07:00

1. Think about the market that you want to be in. Making money on the Internet always comes down to providing a service or product that somebody needs. The real key is that you're in a market where people are spending money so you have a chance to get some of it!

2. Consider the product that you are going to sell. Some people sell themselves and provide a service there is a need for it.
For example building websites is something you can earn money doing for other people. There will always be a demand for websites on the Internet.
Solving people's problems will always give you the upper hand when it comes to the product you sell. People go online researching information for questions they have.
If you can provide a product that answers questions you have a much better chance of turning your online money making dreams into an Internet income of your own.

3. Create an online presence including a blog. As a matter of fact the term website and blog are now being used interchangeably because so many people are bypassing the traditional website in favor of a blog.
Social media has become a big part of our Internet culture and a blog gives you an excellent chance to participate in it in multiple ways. For example things you can include in your blog include articles, graphics, audio, video, and so on.

4. Spend the majority of your time marketing your business once you have set up. Many people make the mistake of constantly fiddling with the design of their website or blog.
They also make the mistake of surfing the Internet and having a good time when they really should be working. You will never make any money unless you get visitors coming to your site and purchasing something. The only way to do that is to create a strong advertising and marketing campaign.

5. Focus like you have never focused before. It's very easy to get distracted on the Internet and constantly jump around from product to product. The real key to making money online is to focus on selling one product and make it profitable before taking on another one.

Friday, January 16, 2009 30+ Blogger Widgets And Plugins

2009-02-15T18:27:00.000-08:00

1. Top Commentators Widget by BloggerPlugins - This excellent plugin has two versions. One for blogs having small number of comments and the second variant for blogs receiving lots of comments.

2. Translation Widget by BloggerPlugins - This one click install widget add multiple language translation support to your blogger blog.

3. Recent Post Widget by BloggerPlugins - This is highly customizable widget. You can set number of posts to display, post summary and it's length.

4. Recent Comments Widget by BloggerPlugins - A highly customizable widget. You can set the number of comments to display, author name, date and size of comment. You can also use CSS to gel it with your theme.

5. U Comment I Follow Widget by Blogger Plugins - If you want to spread some link love then install this widget to make your comments 'do-follow'.

6. Label Cloud Plugin by phydeaux3 - This is one of the most popular label cloud generation plugin for blogger. You can customize various options after installing this plugin.

7. Archive Calendar Widget by PurpleMoggy - Very impressive archive calendar widget with customizable options.

8. Archive Calendar Widget by phydeaux3 - Another very popular archive calendar widget. Highly customizable for better browsing experience for the readers.

9. Recent Posts Widget by Feed2JS - This excellent plugin makes plugin installation and customization very easy. Just fill in the form and click the button to generate widget code.

10. Recent Comments Widgets by Blogger-Templates - Just fill in the options in the form and one click widget code generation. Excellent plugin which is highly customizable.

11. Picasa Web Albums Slideshow Widget by Blogger Templates Designs - A unique plugin to show photo slideshow from any picasa account. Ideal for personal blogs, photo blogs and web design blogs.

12. Search Form Widget by Blogger Templates Designs - If you want to add site search box in your blog's sidebar, install this plugin.

13. Google Talk Widget by Blogger Templates Designs - This plugin adds the Google Talk client to your blog so that your readers can directly converse with you.

14. Recent Comments Widget by Blogger Templates Designs - Yet another recent comments widget with customizable options and one-click install.

15. Sudoku Game Widget by Blogger Templates Designs - Want to add some interesting puzzle games for your visitors? Then install this plugin to integrate sudoku puzzle game in your blogger blog.

16. Google Translate Mini-Flags Widget by MadToMatoe - Very useful translation plugin powered by 'Google Translate'. One click install with multiple language translation facility.

17. Recent Comments Widgets by MadToMatoe - One more recent comments widget for blogger blogs. Again you can customize the number of recent comments to be displayed.

18. Reactions Mini-Poll Widget by ThemeLib - Want to host a poll on your blogger blog? Install this plugin and get customizable polls for your readers.

19. Alexa Traffic Widget by TechKnowl - Display your Alexa stats with this customizable widget.

20. Snow Flakes Widget by TechKnowl - Add a stunning snowfall effect in your blogger template in the festive season.

21. Popular Posts Widget by TechKnowl - A very simple popular posts plugin using Yahoo pipes to filter out popular posts on your blog.

22. Flash MP3 Player Widget by TechKnowl - This cool plugin allows you to embed flash mp3 player in your blogger blog. The player is very light with custom options.

23. Rating Widget by Outbrain - If you want to integrate rating system with your blogger posts, then this excellent plugin is the best choice. It has rating system plus related posts integration in same widget.

24. Multi-tab TOC Widget by Beautiful Beta - If you want to display multi-tab table of contents section in your blogger blog, then install this widget. Very popular among blogger users.

25. Tab View Widget by Hoctro - The coolest plugin showing tabbed posts with animated post excerpts. A must for your blog's sidebar.

26. Random/Rotating Banner Widget by FreeYaSoul - Very useful widget for displaying rotating banners in your blog's header. You can customize and can choose any number of headers.

27. Social Bookmarking Widget by Lasvak - This is perhaps the most easily installable bookmarking widget for blogger. Just copy and paste a single line of code in your blogger template and your bookmarking icons are ready.

28. Paypal Donation Widgets by Etienne - Integrate different types of paypal donation widget in your blogger blog with ease.

29. Podcating Plugin by Talkr - If you want to integrate podcasts to your blog, register for this service and get free podcasting plugin for your blogger blog.

30. What's Next? Section Widget by eblogtemplates - Integrate a Wordpress style 'What's Next' section below blogger posts with this excellent widget.

31. Twitter Profile Widget by BloggerBuster - Add your twitter profile and twitter updates with this useful plugin developed by Amanda Fazani.

32. Bookmarking Widget by SocioFluid - One of the best social bookmarking plugin for blogger. Big animated icons with one click installation.

How to Make Money From Your Blog

2009-02-15T18:22:00.000-08:00

Making a profitable blog is no mean task. If I say, less than ten percent of aspiring professional bloggers manage to earn enough to quit their day job, then some of my friends may not read this further. But you can be among those ten percent successful bloggers who are getting inflated payouts consistently. What it takes to milk your blog effectively and how to do it? Well, it is not a secret recipe but it is not a cakewalk either. Let's face it, earning good income from your blog takes hard work and time. I am talking about the case in which you are starting from scratch with no prior experience of professional blogging. Let's knit a chain of thought. How can you earn money from your blog? When loads of traffic comes to it and you build decent core audience of your blog. How can it happen? When you give something useful to your readers. So in a nutshell, it is the content of your blog that matters in the long run.

nce you have realized that no matter what monetization option you try, unless you don't provide the real content, you are a dead duck. Now let us explore the various monetization options available to a professional blogger.

Options for Blog Monetization

Advertising
Affiliate System
Sponsored Ads
Selling your own products
Donations

Advertising

The most common method that first comes in mind to monetize the blog is advertising. There are plenty of good advertising networks with different types of implementations and commission structure. Adsense and YPN are the two most widely used advertising programs used by bloggers. Both programs serve contextual ads on pay per click (CPC) and pay per thousand impressions (CPM) basis. These programs are very popular as they serve highly targeted ads, which are relevant to the site content, and visitors find these ads useful for them. Other CPC advertising programs like Chitika eMiniMalls are also available to experiment on your blog. Several text ads programs are also good options for medium to high traffic blogs. These ads are sold for fixed amount on per month basis and are good option to try. Popular Text Ads programs are Text Link Ads, BidVertiser and AdBrite.

Affiliate System

If your chosen niche is narrow and concentrates hard on specialized domain, there are good chances to earn decent money from affiliate system. Amazon, Commission Junction and LinkShare are the three most trusted and highly rated affiliate programs. They have huge inventory of products and services to choose from, which you can promote or sell on your blog.

Sponsored Ads

Getting sponsors for your blog is another option, but to attract companies for sponsorship, your blog must be popular enough to convince the sponsoring company. Once your blog popularity

Selling Your Own Products

I have seen all top bloggers using this technique very effectively to grab direct advertisements. You can create customized blog themes and can sell them aggressively on your blog. A classic example is Blogging Experiment, which generates decent income by selling blog theme. You can also offer your other services like content creation to create one more stream of income.

Donations

Do not hesitate to put a donation link on your blog. But keep one thing in mind. Your blog must provide real meaty content and other useful resources before you ask for donation from your visitors. A visitor will only donate if he thinks that you are contributing to society in some way. Make your blog a place where your visitors get their answers.

Conclusion

Once you decide to monetize your blog, do it aggressively. Make sure you do not flood your posts with Ads. It's going to make your visitors run away to never return back. Provide high quality content consistently and use all the available options at your disposal. reaches certain level, you will automatically get offers from relevant companies for sponsorship.

Affiliate Programs is Greatest Method to Make Money

2009-02-10T20:48:00.000-08:00

Ask questions first before you join an affiliate program. Do a little research about the choices of program that you intend to join into. Get some answers because they will be the deciding point of what you will be achieving later on.

Will it cost you anything to join? Most affiliate programs being offered today are absolutely free of charge. So why settle for those that charge you some dollars before joining.

When do they issue the commission checks? Every program is different. Some issue their checks once a month, every quarter, etc. Select the one that is suited to your payment time choice. For more details go to: www.affiliate-sale-booster.com many affiliate programs are setting a minimum earned commission amount that an affiliate must meet or exceed in order for their checks to be issued.

Know conversation ration per hit. With this you will be able to know how much traffic needed to make sale for your affiliate program. This is based on average number of hits to a banner or text likes it takes to generate a sale based on all affiliate statistics.

How are referrals from an affiliate's site tracked and for how long do they remain in the system? You need to be confident on the program enough to track those people you refer from your site. This is the only way that you can credit for a sale. The period of time that those people stay in the system is also important. This is because some visitors do not buy initially but may want to return later to make the purchase. Know if you will still get credit for the sale if it is done some months from a certain day.

What are the kinds of affiliate stats available? Your choice of affiliate program should be capable of offering detailed stats. They should be available online anytime you decide to check them out. Constantly checking your individual stats is important to know how many impressions, hits and sales are already generated from your site. Impressions are the number of times the banner or text link was viewed by a visitor of your site. A hit is the one clicking on the banner or text links.

Does the affiliate program also pay for the hits and impressions besides the commissions on sales? It is important that impressions and hits are also paid, as this will add to the earnings you get from the sales commission. This is especially important if the program you are in offers low sales to be able to hit ratio.

Know complete detail about retailer and with whom you are doing business with to know if it is really a solid company. Get full information about the products they are selling and average amount they are making. So, it will help you make decision about getting affiliate program.

Also know about affiliate program that is it one tier or two tier program? A single tier program pays you only for the business you yourself have generated. A two tier program pays you for the business, plus it also pays you commission on the sales generated by any affiliate you sponsor in your program. Some two tier programs are even paying small fees on each new affiliate you sponsor. More like a recruitment fee.

5% or 30% or more, is the commission paid by most programs. .01% -.05% is the amount paid for each hit. For help visit: www.ppc-profit-marketer.com If you find a program that also pays for impressions, the amount paid is not much at all. As you can see from the figures, you will now understand why the average sales amount and hit to sale ratio is important. so, know completely about commission paid.

So, here is some questions that needs answers first before you enter into an affiliate program. You should be familiar with the many important aspects that your chosen program should have before incorporating them into your website. Try to ask your affiliate program choices these questions. These can help you select the right program for your site from among the many available.

Article Marketing is Profitable for Business

2009-02-10T20:47:00.000-08:00

This article is specifically written for marketers who are looking for ways on how they can improve the numbers that they are getting from article marketing so they can grow their business exponentially. Do you want to speed up the process of getting the benefits that article marketing can offer? For more details go to: www.lazyman-article-guide.com would you prefer to work as hard as you can rather than sit on your couch and wait for your numbers to go up in the next couple of months? Then, you will need to accelerate your marketing strategies so you can easily pull up your numbers in no time. Here's how you can exactly do that: Quality of your articles.

This is one element that you should never take for granted as this your success in this marketing tool largely depends on it. Always make sure that the articles you submit online are well-written, informative, content-rich, useful, scan able, short, direct to the point, and highly relevant to the needs and demands of your potential clients in short, When you are able to incorporate all these elements on all of your copies, you can be assured that your articles will generate the right kind of attention online and they will surely be widely republished by other loggers, ozone publishers, marketers, and online entrepreneurs Quantity of your articles. One of the best things that you can do to accelerate your article marketing is to multiply the number of your articles so you can get more inbound links for your website and so you can further strengthen your expert status online. If you have money to spare, I strongly suggest that you hire reliable and competent article writers to do the legwork for you. Just make sure that they are also experts or at least familiar with your chosen niche. If you'd rather do all the hard work,

So many information available in the internet, emphasizing the importance of resource box in article marketing for help visit: www.press-release-profits.com I am surprised that there are still article marketers who choose to simply ignore this element. Instead of making their resource box compelling, they just leave their website's URL there. If you want to easily increase your conversion rate, you need to make this element compelling and enticing as much as possible.

Aside from the link of your website, you must also include your name, problems that your solve, your expertise, an enticing call to action and powerful elevator pitch. Drive your traffic to your squeeze page. People online will not surely make a purchase the first time that they visit your website. So, don't let them leave without getting their email addresses that you can use in sending these people with follow up emails. Drive them to your squeeze page where they will have to leave their contact information before they will be granted access to your site.

Internet Marketing: Innovative Ways to Market Your Business

2009-02-10T20:46:00.001-08:00

Are you currently looking for new and exciting ways to get your business out into the eye of the general public? If so, there is an excellent chance that you are looking for new and for more detail go to: www.blueprint-to-internet-marketing-success.com. innovative ways to market your business. If so, do you know where you can find those ideas? If you are unsure where you should start looking, you may be pleased to know that you have a number of different options.

When it comes to finding innovative Internet marketing ideas, one of the first places that you should look is online. Online, you will find a number of resources; resources that can provide you with updated information on innovative Internet marketing. You can often find these resources, which tend to be online websites or online business journals, by performing a standard Internet search. What is nice about the Internet is that it is quick and easy to use. This means that you could, literally, search through hundreds of Internet marketing ideas, all in a few hours!

In addition to using the Internet, you may also want to search for innovative Internet marketing ideas in print. For more detail go to: www.podcasting-made-easy.com. One of the best ways to do this is to examine printed business journals or printed business magazines. These are similar to the above mentioned online business journals, just they are in printed form. If you are interested in receiving the latest information on Internet marketing, it may be a good idea to buy a subscription to a number of business magazines or business journals. Most of these magazines and journals come out on a monthly basis, although some will come out on a weekly basis. For a reasonable fee, you can have innovative Internet marketing ideas and strategies delivered directly to your door!

You are also urged to check out your local book stores. Book stores are home to millions of different books, many of which are business books that have a focus on marketing. The only downside to using your local book store, to search for innovative Internet marketing ideas, is that that some of the books that you may find may be considered old or outdated. That is why, when buying an Internet marketing book, you should pay close attention to the publishing date. In fact, it may even be a good idea to keep an eye out for newly released books. These books are the best way to find up-to-date Internet marketing ideas for you and your business. It is also important to note that you may also be able to find printed business journals and magazines for sale at your local book store.

It may also be a good idea to examine the selection of books that can be found in your local library. As with your local book store, it is important that you keep an eye on book publishing dates, especially if you are only looking for new, innovative Internet marketing ideas. In most cases, you will find that the books found inside your library are a little bit outdated, but, depending on your library, it may also be possible to find newly released books. Since most libraries are free to use, it wouldn't hurt to give your local library a try. If you do not find what you are looking for, you can also try the Internet or one of your local book stores

Making or Breaking Your Internet Marketing

2009-02-10T20:46:00.000-08:00

Internet Marketing: Seo Know the function of the search engines in actual estate marketing online. A massive majority of online searches are done through search engines. Using search engines is actually a superb way to reach your target audience because your target market is the one coming to you instead of you going to them. For instance if they put buying a second home directory as their search parameter, they are very definite about finding a directory that specializes in the second home market. You may already be aware that it is possible to create dozens of interesting articles that will virally mutate to hundreds and even thousands of articles posted all over the net. It will also save you much frustration endless amounts of cash and total disillusionment about marketing on the Internet.

Awards Make Money with Adsense Secrets, the internet makes it probable for you to track your individual online communication with a customer and to know what happens over time. For more details go to: www.social-marketing-secret.com other services like Overture owned by Yahoo! provide similar services that deliver targeted online marketing. These logs can help you determine where the traffic on your website came from. Google Adsense Adwords Marketing Information There is many internet marketing strategies which you can make use of to make internet advertising a success. The proper marketing strategy goes a long way in making or breaking your internet marketing. Vigorous marketing strategy is what you will need to make a mark in this field. Just making a website will not help your reason you have to make sure that people come to your site. You will have to make your existence felt in the crowd through every possible means. Customers will have to be lured by you from every possible place. It is one of the easiest strategies to understand and it is just as easy to get into place. Of course there will be some disappointments in the early stages of your online business but with a little patience and effort; you can be on your way on making money. For help visit: www.the-30-minute-marketing-miracle.com See Affiliate Elite Affiliate Company Internet Marketing If you would like to reach the audience for the second home market advertise online on a second home Internet directory or second home Internet magazine.

Next search for a robust prospect manager to properly manage your hot-response leads. As well to keyword rich document publishing though a second critical component of an online marketing plan must include the distribution of a given website's URL. Advertising reaches out to a cold market. See Win clear Review Brand Marketing Online because the word has also been over-used by hype peddlers many times people associate the word viral with spamming and other online activities bordering on the illegal. Increased computer usage has permitted direct marketing to evolve and to rise dramatically. Using either approach requires a skilled execution of marketing content or your conversion ratio will be low meaning you'll be wasting wealth.

Promote Your Home Business

2009-02-10T20:43:00.000-08:00

There are a small number of retailers who truly understand that when you create a blog to promote your home business, it can be an extremely effective way to increase traffic to your business. Proven time and again is the fact that traffic to your site results in more sales for your business.

As a website owner who has their own home business, you will discover that when you create a blog as one of your marketing tools, it is a great way to increase traffic to your website. You can also use blogging to make money as another form of revenue for your business, through adding affiliate links and displaying adsense ads on your blog.

Have you ever noticed the affiliate links and adsense ads that are displaying on blogs? This is a great way to gain another revenue stream for your business, not to mention the increase traffic you get back to your site which is another bonus.

Through creating a blog, it gives you the opportunity that will improve the level of customer service you give, by allowing your customers an access to useful information. When your customers can get a better perspective of how you operate your business, they are more likely to buy from you.

Let me put it this way, when I am out looking for a product that I need and a salesperson cannot give me the information that I am looking for on that particular product, I just politely walk away. On the other hand, when I do find a salesperson who can give me all the information that I am looking for on that particular product, I end up purchasing it even if it costs a few dollars more.

Internet marketing works the same way. When you create a blog it will give your customers a better understanding of your service and will strengthen your relationship with your customer (and that should be your goal). Remember, a strong relationship will lead to a successful business.

If your home business is a product sales site, you do not have to blog about your product itself. You need to Blog about the things that are related to your product. For instance, my site is a Christian site on how to get Gods word out to the public, taking different roads and using the internet as a tool. When I start a blog, it is a subject related to getting Gods word out and giving them valuable understanding information according to Gods word.

(Example) If you sell golf clubs, you want to talk about the experience you may have had on the golf course. You can make your customers feel empowered if you inform them to make their own decisions, as opposed to saying, “This is a great product! You should buy it!” The goal here is to smoothly introduce them to your product.

Blogging is a great way to promote your home business, not only does it give you the opportunity to increase traffic, it is also one of the benefits that give you the opportunity to educate your viewers. In turn, you will gain more sales because you are now recognized as an expert who knows what you are doing. Here are four tips to keep in mind when you create a blog.

1. By sharing important information with your viewers, you are gaining customers and giving them a reason to stay on your site longer. It is a proven fact that the more time your customer and potential customer stay on your site, your chances are a lot better they will make a purchase from you. The more your customers return for your valuable knowledge, the possibility is great to make a lot more sales.

2. Your familiar tone of blogging will create a window of opportunity for your customers to see that there is a real person behind your business. The internet is the means of mass communication for conveying ideas or information , by creating a blog you will be adding your own personal nature by what you put into it. This will create that open window of customer trust and loyalty.

3. Get feedback on your site, or your service. Allow your customers to leave comments and find out what changes your customers would like to see on your site and what they would like you to carry. Blogging is a valuable tool, not only do you increase traffic but it lets you communicate with your customers in a friendly way.

4. Why would you create a blog to promote your home business and make it one of your marketing tools? One reason…the links back to your site. These are high-quality targeted hits from the links in your blog. Blogs link to each other as the topics of interest make their way from one blog to the next. Each topic will then point back to the starting place, related topics make comments on each other. As a result, they gain more groups of people that all have something in common and shared interests.

Growing Your Affiliate Marketing Business With Ease!

2009-02-09T03:23:00.000-08:00

Growing Your Affiliate Marketing Business With Ease!

April 24th, 2008 Derek

I was talking with a friend of mine today whom has just gotten himself started in affiliate marketing about 3 months ago. He asked me a question that got me thinking. He has hit his first goal of 5,000 dollars a month from his affiliate marketing business, however, he now feels stuck and is having a difficult time growing his business.

This post will hopefully provide him as well as all my readers some tips on growing your affiliate marketing business with ease and simplicity.

Offers Come and Go!

One of the first mistakes I saw him making was focusing on niches that come and go. He was doing a lot of seasonal offers like taxes for example. Now, these are really great niches to get into and seasonal niches can really bring in a big buck in a short period of time, because a lot of people don’t worry about seasonal offers at all, including myself! ::embarrassed::

However, he was mostly only focusing on these seasonal niches, so he would get a campaign doing well, and then it would fade in a month and he would have to basically start from scratch.

Also, even regular campaigns you setup, you need to realize that any day the network could pull the offer that your running, or the company could end the affiliate program. So you should always be prepared. I’m a very big believer in scaling a campaign as much as you can, but I’m also experienced enough to know that you shouldn’t only be concentrating on one or two niches!

So my advice to you if your in this category is to work on setting up some other niches, some niches that are pretty safe in terms of they’ll be here for a while. Just some examples, ringtones, dating, insurance, etc. Continue to do your seasonal offers as they are a great way to make a good income, but don’t rely totally on those niches.

Don’t Spread Yourself Too Thin!

Another problem I see a lot of young affiliates do is spread themselves too thin.Â They start making money and instead of focusing on scaling their campaigns or starting new campaigns, they instead decide to start a blog on affiliate marketing, etc.

Now, I have no problem with an affiliate starting a blog about affiliate marketing, in fact, I encourage it eventually because it’s great for several reasons which I’ll talk about at a later time.Â The thing you need to remember is in the beginning your working on growing your affiliate business.Â Blogs and other side projects take a lot of time, and they don’t normally supply the money like your current affiliate marketing business would if you scaled it some more.

Another point of affiliate marketing is too not try to start up too many offers at the same time, or have too many campaigns that require your daily attention running at the same time, etc.Â If you start campaign after campaign without actually finishing and scaling a previous campaign your going to neglect campaigns you’ve already done and before you realize it they are going to start losing money as others compete against you in your niche and win!

Become Friends With Your Affiliate Managers

One of the quickest and most effective ways to make more in any given niche is to get a higher payout on an offer that your running.Â The best way to do this isn’t bringing in tons of volume, okay maybe it is for a really big payout, it’s simply becoming friends with your affiliate managers.Â Talk to them, chat them up a bit.Â That doesn’t mean IM them and ask them a ton of questions, they get enough of those everyday, instead maybe ask them if there are any offers you should be running and then strike up some small talk.Â It works wonders!

Make Sure Your Tracking at The Keyword Level!

I get the question of how do I scale/grow my affiliate business all the time, yet when I ask them which keywords are converting for them currently, they can’t tell me!Â Â They aren’t tracking at the keyword level.Â Yeah you can make money in this crazy game we call affiliate marketing, but if your not tracking your keywords its near impossible to scale without just throwing in a bunch more keywords and hoping for the best.Â Tracking is key in this business!!!

I wrote a post about Keyword Tracking via Google’s Adwords Pixel, and I’m soon going to write one about using Yahoo’s Pixel to track keywords.Â If your not sure how to track keywords at the keyword level you may want to check the post out as it gives you one good option.Â There are several ways to do it.

Make Sure Your Split Testing Everything!

Another quick and easy way to increase your income is by split testing.Â You should be split testing your Ads, Your Landing Pages, whether broad, phrase, or exact match works best, etc.Â SPLIT TEST EVERYTHING!!!

Split testing allows you spend less yet make the same amount of money by increasing conversions, increasing your quality score which allows you to bid less for the same position, etc.Â Make sure you doing this!

I wrote an article recently about split testing ads and how to do it!Â You may want to check it out if your not sure how it works.

Conclusion:

I hope these tips well help you grow your affiliate business and give you a starting point when your not sure what to do.

If anyone has any other suggestions for affiliate marketers who are already making a little each month from affiliate marketing but want to grow their business please let us know in the comments.Â I would love to hear your suggestions.

What’s going on?

2009-02-09T03:22:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, first of all, let me again apologize for the lack of posting and updating going on here at Click Consultants. It started happening around the first of the year and I made a comment here about it before and how things were going to start picking back up. Unfortunately, this has yet to happen. I’ve been posting but it’s been more sporadic and the posts haven’t been as informant as I normally like them to be!

So I’m sure you’re all wondering what’s going on? You all want your information and you want it now!!! You’re here to make money and this blog is suppose to help you with that! So again, what’s up?

Well, the first and major thing, I’m just unable to currently talk about. There have been some major personal problems going on for a while in my life and it seems like things have finally happened with the situation leaving some carnage behind. So, I’m working on getting things in my life put back together. Hopefully I can get back on a more stable routine here shortly again. Of course, I’m sure I’ll post about the situation once I feel it’s appropriate.

Secondly, and this is something that I can share and express freely, is that I’ve been finding some other revenue streams that have been producing more income that affiliate marketing stuff, although in all fairness it still kinda has to do with AM and AM still has a part in it. Anyways, I’ve been debating this for a while and I believe I’m going to go ahead and just do it…

Do what? Well, CC is going to start changing and I believe this change in the long term is going to be for the best. CC started out as a professional blog. Most that have been reading it has noticed that in the beginning there weren’t many personal posts…if any really! Recently however personal posts have been picking up more. I’ve been talking about favorite iPhone apps, death of a pet, etc. Anyways, I believe that I’m going to continue to post personal posts and also I believe I’m going to start posting about more stuff than just affiliate marketing! *Gasp* Yeah, I hear ya! I did a poll here a couple months ago in the sidebar and a lot of you said to just stick with posting about AM, but here’s the problem… I’m discovering that there are tons of other ways to make a ton of money online! Yes, AM is great and it’s still my biggest money maker at this time, however, I can see several things taking over that. I want to share these things with you guys! So….I will be…

This blog will be changing, don’t worry most of the info here will still be AM related I’m sure, but slowly you’ll see other subjects coming up as well! Not a bunch of fluff and stupid stuff, but things that actually make money!

Also, I’ve been neglecting the paid forums just like I have this blog and for those that are a part of the forums I’d just like to add that be patient with me just a little while longer and you’ll see that it will be worth it!

Keep me in your prayers about the direction my life is heading and that the Lord will guide my steps. Thank You!!! My readers and subscribers are the best! Woot!

So, You Want To Become A Professional ?

2009-01-29T18:03:00.000-08:00

	What does it take to be measured a professional? Well, creating a professional image for any business is not easy. It requires a great deal of time and effort! Not only should you have a lot of expertise and experience in your field, but also you must manage your business in a professional manner. To create a professional image for your online business, give some serious thought to these important aspects:
	Honesty Always tell it like it is. Your honesty will build long term relationships with your customers. Courtesy There is an old saying, "the buyer is the king". So, let your customers know how much you really appreciate them. Never forget to say thank you, and please. Your courtesy and hospitality will reflect upon your professionalism Web Site Your website is a direct reflection of you! It is very important to have a website well designed. Put your best friendly picture on the site. Let your customers know who they are dealing with! Include your contact information, complete product information, easy ordering process and make certain that your site is easy to navigate. Product Only sell products that you personally use and trust! Never sell any product just because someone is hyping it up to generate sales! If the hyped product is worthless, you could lose the trust of your customers and they will not buy from you! Customer Service & Technical Support Poor customer service and technical support are almost always the biggest complaint heard from unhappy customers. Make yourself fully available to give a hand to your customers. Answer their emails and give back their phone calls as quickly as possible. Work with them until you have a satisfactory answer. Having testimonials from happy customers also can build credibility and add to your professional image! Don’t be shy to ask for testimonials from your customers. When they are satisfied with your product and service, they will be glad to write a testimonial for you. Always strive to do-your-utmost and the whole thing will fall into place. Good Luck with your business! :-)

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By: Anne Ahira
Editor The BEST Affiliate Newsletter
http://www.thebestaffiliate.com

Affiliate Marketing: Make Money From Your Blog

2008-11-19T10:22:00.000-08:00

You can make money by selling products or services on the Web. But what if you have no products of your own to offer?

If you run a popular informational Web site--perhaps a blog--there are several ways to capitalize on the value of your Web visitors and develop a new source of business income. One of the most popular methods is affiliate marketing, which lets you earn money by marketing other businesses' products and services on your Web site.

A new service from PopShops.com lets you create virtual storefronts to advertise affiliate products on your Web site or blog. PopShops doesn't work easily with every type of blog, but it can make quick work of designing and setting up a storefront. The basic service is free; editions with more capabilities cost up to $30 per month.
How Affiliate Marketing Works

Some businesses let you sign up directly with them to sell their products, but many have joined affiliate networks. An affiliate network eases the administrative burden for both the business with something to sell and the information publisher who wants to earn money by marketing third-party products.

As a publisher, when you join an affiliate network, you gain access to dozens or even hundreds of potential advertisers at one fell swoop. Advertisers benefit since they don't need to cut thousands of little checks each month to pay each of the publishers selling their products. They pay the network, which makes one monthly payment to the publishers, accumulating earnings from all advertisers on the network. Generally these networks set a minimum amount that you must earn before they send you payment--for example, if you earn $40 per month and the minimum is $100, you won't get paid until the end of the third month, when you'll get a check for $120.

Typically, publisher earnings are based upon visitor purchases or some other desired action. In other words, the publisher makes money only when someone clicks an ad link on their site and makes a purchase from the advertiser. The publisher's earnings might be either a percentage of that sale or a flat fee.

Some affiliate network advertising merchants are well-known and established businesses, such as Kodak and Panasonic. Others you may have never heard of.
How PopShops Helps Publishers

There are many affiliate networks: LinkShare and Commission Junction are two established ones. Each network has its own conditions for accepting publishers and its own methods for how you must add advertiser links to your site.

The ad-linking requirements can read like so much technobabble to new publishers. That's where PopShops can help. The service integrates with several popular affiliate networks to ease the burden of designing a virtual storefront, selecting suitable products for it, and creating the ad-linking code for your online store.

Once you sign up with PopShops, you can use its Shopbuilder tool to view a list of all advertising merchants it supports. Clicking on an advertiser lets you drill down and view its products. Then you can click on a product to add its image and link to your virtual store.

The ad-linking code for the store is created by PopShops. When you're done, you publish your store by inserting the PopShops code into your Web page.

The beauty of PopShops is how easy it makes creating a store that mixes and matches products from different merchants from several affiliate networks. Currently, PopShops supports five affiliate networks (Commission Junction, LinkShare, Performics, Red Galoshes, ShareASale) with data feeds from over 1000 merchants offering more than 22 million products.
PopShops Limitations

You can set up a PopShops account in 5 minutes, but you're on your own when it comes to creating accounts with the affiliate networks that the service supports.

To join an affiliate network you'll need to do your homework and gather some information. Most networks want details on the number of your monthly site visitors, the content that your site contains, targeted visitor demographics, and so on. Count on spending at least 20 minutes to complete each affiliate network publisher application.

Once your application is approved by an affiliate network, you can enter your affiliate account name into your PopShops account.

Not all advertisers on affiliate networks offer data feeds; PopShops limits you to those which do.

PopShops has a widget that you can plug into a Blogger or TypePad blog. Support for WordPress is weaker, though a plug-in is planned. For now, WordPress bloggers will need to play with JavaScript or PHP settings to use PopShops. Frankly, if you have the technical savvy to do this, you probably don't need the training wheels that PopShops offers.
Can You Make Money With Affiliate Marketing?

You must welcome a significant number of site visitors to make money using affiliate marketing. If your site receives just five or ten unique visitors per day, don't waste your time joining an affiliate network or setting up a virtual store; your time would be better spent increasing the popularity of your site and improving its content.

I recommend holding off on affiliate network marketing until you receive at least 1000 unique visitors per month. Even at that level, your affiliate earnings will likely be skimpy. Perhaps you'll earn enough to pay your Web hosting bill with enough left over to treat yourself to lunch. However, your site won't deliver a sizable supplemental income.

Another key element to success is matching the interests of your visitors to the products that you offer in your virtual store. For example, if you publish a blog related to outdoors activities, camping gear may be a good choice.

If your site receives many visitors and you select appealing products and services, affiliate marketing can be profitable. You may earn thousands of dollars each month--I know, because I've done it.
Is PopShops Worth It?

PopShops' basic free service lets you establish up to ten virtual stores, marketing up to 100 products per store. You risk little using the freebie service--just an investment of some time to sign up and then to modify your Web site.

PopShops Pro ($5 per month) can create an unlimited number of shops and lets you add search engine-friendly code. PopShops Enterprise ($30 per month) also lets you manage multiple affiliate IDs, which could be useful if you run several different Web sites. A 15-day free trial is available for Pro and Enterprise accounts.

If you already run affiliate marketing sites and have your ad-linking procedures worked out, I recommend you test the free service to check out PopShops on one site. You can upgrade to a more-capable paid account if you believe the service is worth it.

Richard Morochove is an IT consultant and writer. Send him questions about using technology in your small to mid-sized business via e-mail. PC World may edit your query and cannot guarantee that all questions will be answered. Sign up to have the Business Solutions newsletter e-mailed to you each week.

by: Richard Morochove

How to Make Money with your Blog!

2008-11-19T10:19:00.000-08:00

There are many ways with which you can make money online easily. Making money online is not happened over night! For that you will need some patience and time! Keep that in mind!
You can make money online with:

* Advertisement Networks - Most popular way to earn money online on internet. Most popular online ad network is Google AdSense. Users by this way shows contextual (text) and graphics advertisement banners on their blogs and earns money when someone clicks on them. There are many other ad networks available on internet allowing many types of advertisement formats with which you can earn money!
* Affiliate Programs - Affiliate and Referral programs are also very popular these days on internet. Affiliate programs can easily gets you more money even from "regular" ad networks. These programs usually gives commissions from advertisers if you lead to them or make sale on ad site or product page.
* Other Ways - Many sites and services on internet allows you to earn money doing many things like reviewing products or services on your blog (for money of course), uploading/downloading videos or files, sharing, clicking on advertisements, reading ad mails and much much more. You can read my blog for more related offers or deals (links on bottom)!

Above ways to earn money online are most popular (specially Ad Networks and Affiliate Programs), and you can make money with them easily.

To make money on internet you need to attract visitors to come on your site. Without traffic you won't earn much money that's for sure. Best way is to write some quality articles on your blog and publish them regularly! Write quality and if it's possible unique articles that may attracts visitors to your site.

Everything above you can find (and much more) on my blog that's specially related to Making Money Online completely for free. You can find how to get traffic and make money with your blog - all above services and more you can find on my blog! Additionally, you can download and use free software and games, learn about SEO or even download Blogger related e-book completely for free! Want to find out more, and become professional blogger? Then visit below link!

Make Money with your blog.

Not so long ago, blogs are maintained and used by computer aficionados as a tool to publish personal experiences, pictures, videos and events that will be of interest to internet readers and surfers. Aspiring writers would use blogs as a venue to publish their writing. Computer geeks would use blogs to be in touch with peers.

Nowadays, blogging is the in thing if you want to make money online. A blog is a source of passive income available to people who can only spare 2 to 3 hours daily in front of a computer. Stay at home moms can find ways to augment the family income thru blogs. Many people make a comfortable living with blogging as the main source of income.

Making money from a blog is pretty simple and uncomplicated. The most important aspect of blogging is that it doesn’t really need large capital outlay in order to realize income. What a blogger needs is a steady and regular readership and a more than fair amount of search engine traffic. Google would ensure a steady amount of search engine traffic if you set up your blog account with Blogger or with WordPress.

One way of making money with your blog is by signing up to promote affiliate programs. A certain percent of the sale is paid to the blogger for the service rendered-that of providing a link to the affiliate companies. Reviewing and promoting affiliate programs need more than being merely advertised in your blog. To maximize conversion, you need to carefully review the programs in order to be credible and to gain the trust of the readers. Visitors would need assurance that you have tried and benefited from the programs before they buy.

A blog is an ideal advertising space to be sold to merchants, affiliates and to other bloggers who wish to promote their products. The value of the blog advertising space is dictated by the blog’s popularity. A more popular blog would naturally command higher price for the advertising space. Adsense is another blog income earner. This advertising network would provide you with ads relevant to the context of your blog and you earn money every time visitors click on the ads.

Writing reviews that promote merchants and/or sites is another way to make money with your blog. Advertising products and services in your blog is a sure income earner. A word of advice – you need to try the product or the service before you make the review. This is to ensure that the review is truthful and that you have a considerable knowledge of the subject. Gaining the trust of the readers will ensure that readers will come back to your blog every time they need points to be clarified. Increase blog traffic means increase blog income.

All the above mentioned ways of making money with blog is not possible if the content of the blog is boring and does not appeal to the readers. A fresh and attention catching content is vital to the achievement of blog traffic. Take advantage of the rush to write. This happens to all of us. Ideas seem to flow effortlessly. By writing several blog posts at one sitting, posting one blog and keeping the others to be posted later will ensure fresh blog content for the days to come.

Applying and practicing these simple tips would ensure a steady income from your blog.

Making Money from Your Web Site

2008-11-19T10:13:00.000-08:00

If you hadn't already guessed, the Web is not going to be the wellspring of wealth that a lot of people assumed it would. Some people will get very wealthy, but other people will earn nothing, and, in the nature of business fail and go out of business.

However, if your goals are a bit more modest, it is not unreasonable to expect your Web site to bring you some extra cash. Perhaps pay for the Web service it's running on and take your family out to eat once or twice a month. Perhaps more.
Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs are a simple way for you to get some extra cash coming from your Web site. An affiliate program is where you partner with another company, usually an ecommerce company, to sell their product from your Web site. For every product you sell, you get a portion of the proceeds. The best known affiliate program sells books for Amazon.com, but you can sell anything from car ads to fishing flies.
Advertisements

Many sites have advertising on them, and they are another way to add a revenue stream from your Web site. The money from advertising comes in two ways: first from the number of people who view the ad and second from the number of "click-throughs" on the ad. Basically, if your site gets a lot of hits (and so a lot of people will see the ad) it will get a better rate for advertisements. But even sites that have lower hit rates might have high numbers of clicks on the ad, and this will get you a better rate as well.

Advertising can take the form of banner ads, which usually cost a lot, or just sponsored links. You can see examples of each of those on About.com as well. The banner ads on the top, bottom and sides cost more than the sponsored links on the bottom, and they each bring in different amounts of revenue.
Other Resources

There are lots of articles and information on how to raise money from your Web site. If you're interested in advertising, look at my Advertising resources. Affiliate programs (also called Associate programs) are listed on my Making Money resources page, as well as information on how to get started with associate programs and advertising on your site. If you are ready to move on to more advanced money making, then you should read my ECommerce resource page.

10 Ways to Run Your Own Advertising Campaign

Taking on your own advertising campaign is no easy task. You can do it on your own but get ready to roll up your sleeves and get to work.

Your Marketing Plan
Nothing can help you identify your goals more than your marketing plan. You learn a lot about your company, your competitors and your long-term goals by creating and following your marketing plan. This is crucial to knowing what type of advertising is best for you.

Create a Plan of Action
Once you have your marketing plan, you must create a plan of action. This model shows you how freelancers and agencies put their own plan of action in place. Your plan of action also gives you crucial info you can use in executing your ad strategy.

Define Your Advertising Budget
How you advertise depends on your ad budget. You need to strategically use your advertising money. If you're only allowing a small portion of money to advertising, you wouldn't want to throw it all into the production of one commercial that runs at 2 a.m. Know exactly how much you will spend on your advertising first so you can make wise decisions in the creation and placement of all ad mediums.

Hunt for Affordable Opportunities
Running your own ad campaign means you have to be your own media director. You've got to find the best ad placement and the most affordable opportunities to fit into your budget. If you're limited to a very small budget, you can find many ways to bypass high advertising costs.

Know Your Target Audience
You can't advertise effectively if you don't hit your target audience. Know who they are before you start creating your ads. If your company sells scooters to seniors, you don't want to invest in cable ads to run on MTV.

10 Tips to Promoting Your Web Design Business

Know what makes your Web design business unique - and promote it.

The first thing you should think about when promoting your Web design business is what makes your business unique. Ask yourself the following questions, and be honest in your answers - after all, you only hurt yourself and your business if you lie:

* What does my company offer that no other company can offer?
* What makes my services unique or special?
* Why should someone choose my company over any other Web design company?

Create a portfolio of your best sites.

A portfolio is the best way to show off your abilities and that of your business. So you should always have a list of the sites you worked on, what made them unique or interesting, and screen shots of the site as well as a link to the live site (if it's still available). Remember that when you're creating a portfolio, you should keep screen shots or if your contract allows, copies of the site you developed on your own server. Web sites change all the time, and if you're not the design firm that the site owner chooses for the next redesign, your portfolio will quickly get out of date.

I recommend having at least 5 portfolio sites that showcase your strengths. Having a (color) print version of your portfolio is great for client meetings, but an online portfolio can demonstrate dynamic aspects of the pages like DHTML, Ajax, and Flash.
Be willing to design sites for low cost or free to get started.

Many designers recommend never doing work for free, because it sends the wrong message. But if you have no portfolio items, it can be hard to get any without doing some free jobs. Contact organizations you know, like your church, local clubs, or up-and-coming politicians, and offer to build their sites for free or reduced cost. This gets them additional exposure, and gets you portfolio pieces. And just because a group you know has a Web site doesn't mean they won't accept help. Many non-profits have a difficult time keeping Web designers around once the initial site is built. If you can provide suggestions for how they can improve their site, they will often be willing to let you do a redesign.
Include your business information on every site you build.

It helps to have a small (around 100 x 50, no larger) logo that you can use to promote your business unobtrusively. And then make sure to get that you want some acknowledgement of your work on their site in the contract. Many businesses don't want a Web designer logo on every page of their site, but if you can at least get something on their "About Us" page, along with a logo and link to your business site, that would help. If they are pleased with your work, chances are they will be more willing to link to you.
Don't be afraid to provide contact information.

Your customers will appreciate having multiple ways to contact you including postal mail, telephone, email, and Web form. Yes, there is the concern of spam, but if you're trying to get customers, hiding from spammers means you're hiding from customers too. Invest in a quality spam blocking program and make your email address available.

Free things are always appreciated.

There is a reason why freebies are so popular - they work for both the customers and the companies. If you specialize in Flash menu design, offer a free, simple Flash menu for anyone to download and use on their site. Once you've hooked them with the quality of your free product, they'll be more interested in hiring you to build a full-blown Flash site. Other free things you could offer are:

* Free simple Web templates
* Free hosting with purchase of a design package
* Free site evaluation
* Free domain maintenance with mention of some ad
* Free estimate - you should always provide this

If you have articles, information, or links on your Web site that go beyond just what you're selling, you'll attract more customers. Be careful if you decide to put up articles that they don't turn into "infomercials". Most Web surfers these days are very savvy and get bored quickly with strong armed sales pitches when all they wanted was to learn how to do something.
Promote your business wherever you can.

If there is a Web designer listing you should get your site on it. But read any submission requirements before you start spamming the world. You won't get additional customers because you submitted to more places, but you might get banned or blacklisted if you're particularly annoying.
Keep your business site up-to-date and of high quality.

It's often amazing to me how poorly written many Web designer sites are. Remember, unless you're independently wealthy or have a day job, your Web design business should always be looking for clients. And to look for clients, you need to put your best foot forward. No customer is going to come to a poorly designed Web site and think "well, their portfolio sites were nice, I guess they just don't have time for their corporate site." If they think anything it will be more like "Oh wow! That is completely not what I expected from a site who designed ____. Maybe they didn't really design ____," and hit the back button.
Remember SEO for your Web design site.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is just as important for your business site as it is for your clients' sites. Use the unique facets of your business to optimize on - so that you can get better ranking for the niche designs you want to build. Remember that there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of other Web designers out there. And they all want the same business you want. The better you optimize for a specific niche, the more likely you'll get the client that another, more generalized Web designer would have missed.
Be very careful with your spelling and grammar in all your promotional materials.

Whenever you are promoting your business, whether on your company's Web site or in a Web designer listing, remember that spelling and grammar are very important. If you make a simple typo in your promotional material, someone will see it and decide not to use you because of it. Don't give people a reason to turn away from you.

This also applies to "unique" spellings or grammatical choices. For example, a very popular chocie by many Web designers is to write everything in lower case. In English grammar, this is incorrect. And while it may have worked for e.e. cummings, in most Web design promotional material it looks silly at best, and juvenile or lazy at worst. If you're doing something with your writing to look "cool", chances are it will just look wrong to many of your potential customers.

How to Improve Your Website's Google Ranking

2008-11-19T09:56:00.000-08:00

Google's search engine, www.google.com, uses a variety of methods to determine which pages are displayed first in the results. Their exact formula is a secret, but there are a few things you can do to improve your positioning. The term for this is Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

These tips may not make your website the first one to appear in the list, but they just may help you move up a little.

Ignore spam and websites that offer to submit your website to hundreds of search engines. At best these are wastes of time or money and at worst they can actually hurt your ranking.

Keyword Phrases
Rather than focusing on a single word, try adding a few words to make a keyword phrase. You may want to read about effective Google searches to see how keyword phrases help with searches.

The software behind our search technology conducts a series of simultaneous calculations requiring only a fraction of a second. Traditional search engines rely heavily on how often a word appears on a web page. We use more than 200 signals, including our patented PageRank™ algorithm, to examine the entire link structure of the web and determine which pages are most important. We then conduct hypertext-matching analysis to determine which pages are relevant to the specific search being conducted. By combining overall importance and query-specific relevance, we're able to put the most relevant and reliable results first.

* PageRank Technology: PageRank reflects our view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results.

PageRank also considers the importance of each page that casts a vote, as votes from some pages are considered to have greater value, thus giving the linked page greater value. We have always taken a pragmatic approach to help improve search quality and create useful products, and our technology uses the collective intelligence of the web to determine a page's importance.

* Hypertext-Matching Analysis: Our search engine also analyzes page content. However, instead of simply scanning for page-based text (which can be manipulated by site publishers through meta-tags), our technology analyzes the full content of a page and factors in fonts, subdivisions and the precise location of each word. We also analyze the content of neighboring web pages to ensure the results returned are the most relevant to a user's query.

Our innovations don't stop at the desktop. To give people access to the information they need, whenever and wherever they need it, we continue to develop new mobile applications and services that are more accessible and customizable. And we're partnering with industry-leading carriers and device manufacturers to deliver these innovative services globally. We're working with many of these industry leaders through the Open Handset Alliance to develop Android, the first complete, open, and free mobile platform, which will offer people a less expensive and better mobile experience.

3. The search results are returned to the user in a fraction of a second. 1. The web server sends the query to the index servers. The content inside the index servers is similar to the index in the back of a book - it tells which pages contain the words that match the query.
2. The query travels to the doc servers, which actually retrieve the stored documents. Snippets are generated to describe each search result.

Make Your Website Rank Higher in Major Search Engines! Benefits of CSS in SEO

2008-11-19T09:52:00.000-08:00

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language that permits web designers to attach style like spacing, color, font, etc. to HTML documents. Cascading style sheets work similarly to a template; permitting web developers to label style for an HTML element and after that apply it to the number of web pages required. Thus, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are collections of formatting rules, which control the appearance of content in a web page. With CSS styles you have great flexibility and control of the exact page appearance; from precise positioning of layout to specific fonts and styles.

There are many benefits of using CSS. One of the major benefits of using CSS is the easy maintenance of the website. Maintenance of a website made with CSS is much easier compared to the ones which are table based. CSS splits the presentation style of documents from the content of documents and makes the maintenance of the site easier. Aside from being able to make site extensive changes with no trouble through one CSS file, the clean code it generates makes it easier to update. Webmasters can characterize the appearance of a site in one place, and change the whole site by changing just one file. With CSS, when you decide to craft a change, you simply alter the style, and that element is updated automatically anywhere it appears in the site. So, if you have to alter the color of all pages in your site, you only have to edit one style sheet. This saves you enormous amount of time, particularly if you have to edit each page independently. CSS generally requires less code compared to table based. This makes your code lighter and cleaner. Clean code makes a huge difference in maintaining your site.

Cascading Style Sheets Benefits and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Another major benefit of CSS is that it makes your website SEO friendly. The reason behind this is simple. The search engines spiders are actually very lethargic. They do not go through the bundles of HTML codes to get to the indexed codes. Font tags and tables make the HTML code very cumbersome; thus, reduce the accuracy of the results. If you use external CSS files to design and determine the design attributes; the HTML code will be clean and it will result to better search engine rankings. With some knowledge of CSS you will be able to change the code layout without destroying the actual visual layout. For instance, you could easily make the main content of your site to show up above the header or navigation menu in the code of your website; thus will help to show search engine crawlers the importance of your content. I personally saw a huge boost in rankings in fully CSS web sites. When I look at someone's website that was built using old school HTML code with tags such as: TABLES, TD, TR, FONT and so on, I feel awkward and immediately convert that site to a fully table-less CSS layout. There are many tools on the Internet that shows the actual code over text ratio weight of your site. Do you know why? Because modern search engines such as: Google, Yahoo and MSN love light-weighted websites. They want to see your content; the text, not the code. With CSS everything is possible. You practically externalize excessive code into external file, thus leaving the actual page clean and simple.

Website Accessibility

CSS makes your website more accessible. The number of users browsing the web through hand held devices are continuously growing tremendously. It is estimated that by 2008, one third of the world's population will be using hand held devices for accessing Internet. It is always important that your site is accessible to them also. You can make an additional CSS document particularly for handheld devices like cell phones, which will be called up in place of the regular CSS document; which is not achievable with a tabular layout. CSS benefits accessibility chiefly by separating document structure from presentation. By separating style from markup, webmasters can simplify and clean up the HTML in their documents, making the documents more accessible.

Increases Download Speed of Your Website

CSS code downloads faster than tables. Browsers read through tables twice previous to exhibiting their contents; first to work out their structure and then to determine their content. Moreover, tables are shown on the screen as a whole, no part of the table will be displayed until the entire table is downloaded and rendered. Tables support the use of spaced images to assist with positioning. CSS generally requires less code than cumbersome tables. All code to do with the layout can be placed in an external CSS document, which will be called up just once and then stored on the user's computer; while the table layout stored in each HTML document, must be loaded up each time a new page downloads. Also with CSS, you can manage the order of the items downloaded into the screen. You have the control to make the content appear previous to the slow loading images, which is liked by most of the web users.

Cross Browser Compatibility

For all webmasters out there! CSS makes your website more professional. Taking the benefits of CSS like making your websites load faster and easy to maintain, you save a lot of time and labor. This in turn makes you lots of money. CSS makes links of the website look more attractive and dynamic. Using CSS, you can slot in rollovers easily and effectively, without having to use a single character of JavaScript. Thus, CSS gives your websites a professional look. It is wise to use CSS to jive with the current trends of the industry. All major browsers like Firefox, Explorer, and Netscape presently recognize CSS and it is definitely safe for web designers to use CSS now.

by: http://www.webdesign.org

10 steps to making your website rank top

2008-11-19T09:46:00.000-08:00

Their is simple way of making your website rank top and search optimized.

Step 1. Before buying the domain name think what your business/website services. Try to get the same meaning URL. ...or if you already have a website try to make your website starting page content matches the URL.

Step 2. Define your website content in 6 to 10 words and make that as Title

Step 3. Make your heading start with short heading and match the content.

Step 4. The first heading what you place is very important, many search engines even google-bot grab the first body text as the description. You should start this heading with explaining your website or list your services on the top as menu etc.,

Step 5. a. Do not place too many keywords of one or b. do not place too many diffrent keywords. In a. case it will narrow your search optimization to only one set of keyword family In B case it will confuse the search engine while categorizing

Step 6. Place your keywords in the Meta-Tags which are used to detail your website. Write keywords 30 to 60 which are related to your website, and what user should type to see the services Write the Description related to the starting para of website, URL, couple of keywords and services but not more than 100 words.

Step 7. Place each link with a short hint what it is. This will also be your keyword indirectly

Step 8. Place comment tags inside the script in such a way you can edit in futur and this will help now.

Step 9. Make the title Attribute even though these does not influence any search optimization but helps in keywords in content

Step 10. Keywords in text links. When you are keyword is a text link then it sounds very close that the keywords is a website contect for you.

When your site is ready:

* Submit it to Google at http://www.google.com/addurl.html.

* Submit a Sitemap using Google Webmaster Tools. Google uses your Sitemap to learn about the structure of your site and to increase our coverage of your webpages.

* Make sure all the sites that should know about your pages are aware your site is online.

13 Ways to Earn Money Fast

2008-11-19T09:32:00.000-08:00

Everybody needs a quick infusion of cash from time to time. These ideas bring in money fast, and many can also be done at flexible times, so it's easier to arrange child care with a friend or family member for free.

1. Have a garage sale. By using a few easy tricks, like posting fliers at grocery stores and Laundromats, making signs that can be seen from nearby busy streets and displaying your items in a department-store style, you can increase the amount your sale brings in. Find out how to earn more with Garage Sale 101 tips.

2. Sell on eBay. Books, CDs, unused sports or exercise equipment, clothing, novelty items -- people buy all kinds of things. Even if you're selling several small items, the money can add up. Just make sure the buyer, not you, pays the cost of shipping.

3. Put clothes on consignment. This is an especially good way to get rid of clothing like fancy dresses (think old prom gowns and cocktail dresses you'll never wear again), but anything in good condition can be put on consignment. You share the money from the sale with the consignment shop, but it's an easy way to squeeze some money out of clothes that would otherwise just take up closet space.

4. Perform household services. You can earn some money informally by letting friends, family, church members and others in your community know that you're available to clean their houses or apartments, or to take in ironing. If you find you have a knack and stamina for cleaning quickly and thoroughly, you can turn this into a regular, reliable way to earn extra money every month.

5. Have a bake sale. Do you make killera chocolate chip cookies? chocolate chip cookies? Are yummy breakfast burritos your specialty? If so, why not bring in your items once a week to your job and sell them to coworkers and other businesspeople in the vicinity? If you don't have a job, what about a friend's workplace, a community center or a nursing home? Put the word out beforehand and gauge the response as you go, so you don't end up with a lot of leftover food. By talking up your home-baked goodies and arriving at the same time every day or every week, you may find that people start to anticipate your arrival. You can start a cottage industry along the lines of Mary's Monday Cookie Break when you come around to hawk your wares.

6. Sell homegrown fruits and vegetables. You don't have to have a farm to produce delicious, organic produce. By presenting your goods in an appealing way (save the plastic or cardboard produce containers from the grocery store and tie them with a distinctive ribbon or desktop-printed label), you give them niche appeal, and you can sell them much the same way as baked items, listed above.

7. Have a family car wash. Enlist your spouse, your kids and their friends on a Saturday to hold a car wash. Talk to local merchants who have parking lots and ask them to donate the space, or set up an assembly line on your street. By naming the event ("The Annual Jones Family Car Wash") and highlighting an upbeat family goal ("We use this car wash to pay for the kids' extracurricular school activities"), you give people a reason to join your cause.

8. Do gardening services. Mowing lawns is a perennial summer job for kids. If you have a mower, encourage your children to launch a business—or do it yourself. In addition, you can also weed or haul gardening rubbish to the dump (often garbage services won't remove it).

9. Provide man-with-van services. Or, in this case, woman with van (or truck). This service is great for people who need to move a single piece of furniture or for young people who don't have a lot of stuff. If you're able to do moves on your own or with a helper like a friend or spouse, you can position yourself as a mother's helper (a woman living alone might feel more comfortable having another woman moving something into or out of her home). If you don't have a lot of physical strength, your husband and a cousin, uncle or son can do the heavy lifting and you can take care of scheduling and follow-up. A small classified ad in the local paper is an economical way to advertise.

10. Get a paper route. While we often think of paper delivery as a job for a boy on a bike, all kinds of people pick up extra cash this way. Because papers are delivered in the morning, it's possible to complete a route before the regular workday starts, or before your kids are up. (Just make sure you catch up on your sleep by going to bed early at night!)

11. Dog walk and pet sit. Owners are always looking for reliable pet-care services. Plus, if you stay home with your kids during the day, a regular dog-walking gig is a great way to get everyone out of the house for some fresh air and earn extra money. Put the word out at pounds, the ASPCA, the local veterinarian's and dog runs. Be prepared to provide references from anyone you've ever sat for before. Learn how you can also turn pet sitting into a home business.

12. Babysit. To provide regular child care in your home, you'll often need to be accredited and registered with the state. But occasional babysitting in your home or someone else's is more straightforward. You might already babysit for friends for free, but by reaching out in your community you can find parents whom you would feel comfortable charging a reasonable fee -- such as those belonging to common churches, PTAs or playgroups. Depending on your schedule, you can position yourself as a last-minute resource, a Saturday sitter while Mom does errands, a date-night sitter and so on.

13. Rent out a room. This option might take longer than some of the others listed here, but it can provide steady income for a set period of time, or even indefinitely. It might require that your kids share a bedroom or that you give up a family room in the house, so everyone in the family should be prepared for the changes. And of course care should be taken to pick carefully to ensure you get a trustworthy boarder. This is an especially good option if you live near a university or technical college. Eighteen- to 22-year-olds will more likely be fine renting a room with kitchen privileges than older people, and you'll be able to rent on a semester basis.
by: Jennifer Howze in http://home.ivillage.com

How to Make Money Blogging

2008-11-19T09:14:00.000-08:00

It's possible to make money online with blog ads and paid posts. Making money with a blog is relatively easy and can be done by most bloggers, even if their blog is new.
For many people, blogs are a fun way to communicate with others. They make it easy to share interesting ideas, links and pictures. But, making money is also a worthwhile blogging goal. It's possible for any blog to make money as long as it is not plagiarized and does not contain purely adult material.

Blogs that contain either of these types of content are generally not eligible for most of the sites that provide bloggers with payment opportunities. Because there are so many sites that provide bloggers with money from their blogs, blogging has become one of the most popular ways to make money online.

Pay Per Click Ads

Pay Per Click ads are ones that pay the blogger each time a reader clicks on the ads placed on the blog. The best-known PPC ads are from Google AdSense. Google ads are generally low-paying but they are incredibly easy to install and use. After signing up, choose the size, color and types of ads that will go on the website.

Google then generates a JavaScript code that is placed on the blog. Google automatically selects relevant ads that correspond to the keywords on the site. The ads change frequently to reflect changing content on the site and new advertisers. Nothing more is required from the blogger.

Kontera is a similar system in that it requires the simple installation of a code. A blog can make money by allowing Kontera to place ads in links located in specific keywords that Kontera chooses.
Banner Ads

A banner ad is an ad that is displayed across the top, bottom or sides of a webpage. Most banner ads are displayed at the very top of the page and use animation or other eye-catching images to capture attention. Many bloggers negotiate directly with advertisers for the placement of banner ads on their blogs. This can be done by advertising the space on the blog itself, or by listing the ads for sale on third-party sites. Some people even place their banner ad space up for auction on eBay.
Other Ads

Text Link Ads is a site that places small, square ads on blogs and other sites. The blogger must apply to Text Link Ads and can be turned down if the blog gets too little traffic. TLA pays a fixed rate that's based on the blog's traffic and page rank.

BlogAds places ads of varying types on blogs, but it can be tough to be accepted. Bloggers can't apply directly- they have to get a BlogAds ad seller to invite them. The upside, though, is that the ads are lucrative and BlogAds gives 70 percent of the ad revenue to the blogger.
Paid Blog Posting

Blogsvertise, PayPerPost, Smorty and many other sites pay bloggers to write blog posts about their advertisers. These are an easy way to earn money online and can be done even with relatively new blogs. PayPerPost requires blogs to be 30 days old before they are eligible. Other sites have a one to three-month blog age rule.

For those who already have a blog, a few simple monetizing steps can turn a labor of love into a way to quickly and easily earn money online. For those who don't already have a blog, there are free blogs available. Free blogs are generally easy to use and don't require any programming knowledge. Blogger is one of the simplest free blogs, providing even the newest blogger with a way to make money online.

The copyright of the article How to Make Money Blogging in Blogs is owned by L. Shepherd. Permission to republish How to Make Money Blogging in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

by: http://blogs.suite101.com

Why You Should Promote Residual Affiliate Programs

2008-11-19T09:02:00.000-08:00

Are you a webmaster or blogger in need of additional income?

Or are you planning to set up an online business but you still don’t have any product to sell?

If so, affiliate marketing may be the best solution for your problems. With affiliate marketing, you won’t need to worry about the products you have to sell. All you need to have is a website with sufficient contents that are related to the products of a certain online company offering affiliate programs. By becoming a member of the program, or by becoming an affiliate, you can start earning a certain amount of money right away!

Affiliate marketing is some sort of business relationship established between a merchant and his affiliates. In affiliate marketing, an affiliate agrees to direct some traffic to a merchant’s website. If that traffic is converted into some kind of action, like a visitor purchasing a product on the merchant’s website or a visitor becoming a lead for the company, the affiliate who directed the traffic will be compensated. Compensation may take the form of either a percentage sales commission for the sales generated or a fixed fee predetermined upon the application of the affiliate on the merchant’s affiliate program.
Promising a lot of benefits both for the merchants and the affiliates, affiliate marketing has become one of the most popular online marketing methods today. In fact, almost every merchant or retailer site today offers an affiliate program that any one can join into. Most retailers would entice people to become affiliates or members of their program by promising great benefits like large commissions, lifetime commissions, click through incomes and a lot of other benefits. But would all these affiliate programs bring off the same benefits?
Most affiliate programs would pay you, as an affiliate, a one-time commission for every sale or lead you brought to the merchant’s website. Commissions for this kind of affiliate programs are usually large, ranging from 15% to a high of about 60%. Other affiliate programs would pay you a fixed fee for every click through or traffic you send to the merchant’s site. Programs like this often pay a smaller fee for every click through, usually not getting any larger than half a dollar. The good thing about this kind of program, however, is that the visitor won’t have to purchase anything in order for the affiliate to get compensated.

Another type of affiliate program is the residual income affiliate program. Residual affiliate programs usually pay only a small percentage of sales commission for every sale directed by the affiliate to the merchant’s site. This commission often comes only in the range of 10% to 20% sales commission. Because of this, many people ignore residual affiliate program and would rather opt for the high paying one-time commission affiliate program. Are these people making a mistake, or are they making the right decision?

We can’t tell, for sure, if people are making a mistake by choosing a high paying one-time commission affiliate program. But we can definitely say that they are making a large mistake if they ignore residual affiliate programs. Residual affiliate programs would indeed pay at a lower rate, but merchants offering such kind of programs would generally pay you regular and ongoing commissions for a single affiliate initiated sale! That means, for the same effort you made in promoting a particular affiliate program, you get paid only once in a one-time commission program, and a regular and ongoing commission for a residual program!

So, are the benefits of promoting residual affiliate programs clearer to you now? Or are they still vague? If they are still vague, then let’s make them a bit clearer with this example.

Suppose there are two online merchants both offering web hosting services on their sites. The first merchant offers a one-time commission type of affiliate program that pays $80 for every single affiliate initiated sale. The second merchant also offers an affiliate program, but this time a residual affiliate program that pays only $10 for every single affiliate initiated sale. As an affiliate, we may get attracted at once at what the first merchant is offering, as $80 is definitely a lot larger than $10. But by thinking things over before actually getting into them, one may be able to see that the second merchant is offering us more opportunity to earn a larger amount of money.

Supposed you have directed traffic to the merchant and it converted into a sale, you’ll get paid once by the first merchant for the sale you have initiated. But with the second merchant, you’ll get paid monthly for as long as the customer you have referred to the merchant continues to avail of the web hosting service. That means that for the same effort of getting one customer to avail of the merchant’s service, you get paid monthly in residual affiliate programs while you only get paid once in a one-time commission type of affiliate programs.

So, are residual affiliate programs worth promoting? Definitely yes, because you virtually get more money from these types of affiliate programs in the long run! And would residual affiliate programs work best for you? Probably not, probably yes. It is not really for me to tell. But with the benefits that residual affiliate marketing can provide, it would really be unwise to ignore such programs.

by: http://www.peiprofit.com/

The Basics On How TO Start Making Money With Adsense

2008-11-19T08:54:00.000-08:00

Adsense is considered as one of the most powerful tool in a bloggers’ arsenal. It enables a person to monetize their blogs extremely easily. If used properly, it can generate a very large and healthy income for them. However if you are not using them rightly and just maximizing the income you squeeze from it, you are actually leaving a lot of money on the table. Something all people hate doing.

How you can start making money blogging with Adsense can be done easily and quickly. You will be amazed at the results you will be getting in such a short period of time.

Start by writing some quality content articles which are also keyword incorporated. There are a lot of people given the gift of being good with words. Writing comes easy for them. Why not make it work in such a way that you will be earning some extra cash in the process.

There are actually three steps to put into mind before you begin writing your ads and having an effective Adsense.
Keyword search. Find some popular subjects, keywords or phrase. Select the ones which you think has more people clicking through. This is actually a keyword selector and suggestion tool that some sites are offering to those who are just their Adsense business.

Writing articles. Start writing original content with keywords from the topics that you have achieved in your search. Take note that search engines are taking pride in the quality of their articles and what you will be writing should keep up with their demands.

Quality content site. Build a quality content site incorporated with Adsense ads that is targeting the subject and keywords of your articles and blogs. This is where all that you’ve done initially will go to and this is also where they will prove their worth to you.

The proper positioning of your ads should be done with care. Try to position your ads where readers are most likely to click on them. According to research, the one place that surfers look first when they visit a certain blog is the top left. The reason behind this is not known. Maybe it is because some of the most useful search engine results are at the top of all other rankings. So readers tend to look in that same place when browsing through other sites. View My Recommended Adsense Placement Here

Some of those who are just starting at this business may think they are doing pretty well already and thinking that their clickthrough rates and CPM figures are quite healthy. However, there are more techniques and styles to generate more clicks to double your earnings. By knowing these techniques and working them to your advantage, you will realize that you will be getting three times more than other people who have been previously doing what they are doing.

Finally, Adsense has some excellent tracking statistics that allows webmasters and publishers to track their results across a number of blog on a blog by blog, page by page, or any other basis you wanted. You should be aware oft his capability and make the most of it because it is one powerful tool that will help you find out which ads are performing best. This way, you can fine tune your Adsense ads and focus more on the ones being visited the most rather than those who are being ignored.

Another thing you should know. Banners and skyscrapers are dead. Ask the gurus. So better forget about banners and skyscrapers. Surfers universally ignore these kinds of ad formats. The reason behind this is that they are recognized as an advert and advert are rarely of any interest that’s why people ignore them.

To really start making money blogging with Adsense, you should have a definite focus on what you wanted to achieve and how you will go about achieving them. As with any other kind of business ventures, time is needed coupled with patience.

Do not just ignore your blog and your Adsense once you have finished accomplishing them. Spare some time, even an hour, making adjustments to the Adsense ads on your sites to quickly trigger your Adsense income.

Give it a try and you would not regret having gotten into Adsense in the first place. I have written a couple of articles and tips on using adsense. Feel free to browse through them under Adsense Tips.

by: http://www.peiprofit.com/

7 Ways to Make Money from a Blog

2008-11-19T08:49:00.000-08:00

Blogs aren’t just mainstream any more; they’re ubiquitous. In Why Should My Business Have a Blog? I talk about how a blog can be a valuable adjunct to your existing business. But what about the flipside? What if you have a blog and want to turn it into a business, using your blog to make a profit?

Making money from a blog is possible and isn’t even particularly difficult any more. You don’t have to be famous or even have huge traffic (although how much money you make from your blog will depend on both of these factors to some extent). The seven ideas below will get you started. To make money from your blog you can:

1. Use advertising programs.
These are more advertising program options for bloggers than ever before. Here are just five of the ever-expanding possibilities for making money from your blog by putting ads on your pages:

* Google’s Adsense
* BlogAds
* Chitika eMiniMalls
* Text Link Ads
* AdGenta

Besides placing ads on your blog pages themselves, there are also programs for RSS advertising such as Pheedo.

You might also try something such as Jim Kukral’s BlogKits BlogMatch Network, a network designed to match bloggers with advertising opportunities.
2. Use affiliate programs.

With affiliate marketing, a company agrees to pay you a commission for helping to sell their products. Visitors see the company’s ad on your Web pages and, if they click through to the company’s Web site and do a particular thing, you’ll get paid. The particular thing the visitor has to do varies; some affiliate programs pay per click while others pay per lead or even per sale. These are four of the biggest (and most established) affiliate programs on the 'Net:

* Amazon
* Linkshare
* ClickBank
* Commisison Junction

3. Get sponsored by a company.

Blog sponsorship is a growing trend as more businesses realize the popularity of blogging and the potential marketing reach of bloggers. Company sponsorship deals appear to range from obvious “advertising” blogs that are squarely focused on a company’s product(s) through adding a company’s name, logo and brand to an existing blog (“sponsored by….”).

The main problem with this way of making money from your blog is that you have to be known already (and have enough traffic) to attract sponsorship.

4. Get hired by a company.

Many businesses would love to have blogs, but just don’t have anyone currently on staff who has the time and the talent to put a blog together and keep it going. You could be the answer and make money from a blog in the process. The trick to landing such a gig is finding the businesses that want/need the services and persuading them that you’re the blogger they need; diligent research and some cold calling will probably be needed unless you already have a high profile and a track record that will bring the businesses calling.

5. Sign on to be a blogger.

Hubs or networks of blogs appear to be springing up all over the ‘Net, some of which are looking for people to write blogs and are willing to pay for it. Payment models vary. At Creative Weblogging, for instance, bloggers have the option of choosing either a fixed monthly payment in exchange for 10 posts a week, or a percentage share of the ad revenues. Two more examples of blog networks looking for bloggers at the time of writing are:

* Weblogs.Inc.
* AllBusiness.com’s Business Blogs

6. Create a blog to advertise a specific product/service.

Blogs are fast becoming the trendy alternative to the classic salesletter site. In this case, the format is the only real change; the message is the same. Typically, the pitch is woven into as many blog entries as possible – or even used a tagline to every blog entry.

Jim Kukral’s 99 Ways to Blog for Business blog is a good example of a blog designed to move a product (in this case, his strategy guide for creating blogs for businesses).

7. Sell other intellectual property, such as ebooks, telecourses or consulting services, through your blog.

This idea is closely related to the previous way to make money through your blog. The difference is that in this case the intellectual property you’re selling is just part of or incidental to the blog you’re writing; it’s not the raison d’etre for the blog. For instance, you might have a blog about beekeeping and be selling an ebook about how to build a mason bee house on your pages.

So the answer is, yes, you can make money from your blog. And with blogging becoming increasingly popular, there will be even more opportunities for making money from your blog coming – ideas that haven’t even been thought of yet. For the moment, for maximum income, you will need to focus on multiple income streams and perhaps even multiple blogs.

by: http://sbinfocanada.about.com

Make Money Blogging

2008-11-19T08:40:00.000-08:00

Do you want to make money blogging? If you do - you’re not alone. More and more bloggers are finding that blogging is a profitable medium. Whether it be to earn a few extra dollars a week to feed their coffee habit, or making enough money to stop them having to get a part time job to get through college, or whether they’ve got it to a point where they are able to make a full time living from their blogging - there are tens of thousands of bloggers making money from blogging.

In this page I want to share some information for beginners on making money from their blogs.

I will start by sharing my own top Money Making Methods (updated regularly) but below that point you to some great resources and teaching on how to increase your income from blogging. What follows is a quick summary of my main income streams from blogging. Before you read it though - keep in mind that every blog is unique in how it can make money. Some of the following income streams will work on some blogs a lot better than others - the key is to experiment with as many as possible and see what works best for you.
The following income streams (from a number of blogs) have helped me to earn a six figure income each year for the last three years from blogging. I’ve ranked them from highest to lowest.

I hope you find it useful to see the mix and variety of ways that I earn a living from blogging.

1. AdSense

AdsenseDespite not using it here at ProBlogger any more (here’s why) I continue to use AdSense with amazing effect on my other blogs. I have them all set to show image and text based ads and find that 250×300 pixel ads work best (usually with a blended design). I don’t have much luck with their ‘referrals’ program but their normal ads work a treat and continue to be the biggest earner for me.

2. Chitika

ChitikaChitka continues to be a great performer for me on my blogs. They work best on product related blogs although their recent announcement of their Premium ad unit is exciting as they now offer ads with a non product focus that I’m hearing great conversions on (I have one reader who is getting $28 CPM on this ad unit).Chitika offers a range of ad units that I experiment with. I find their eMiniMalls work best and that Related Product Units are also good. Their Shoplincs product isn’t performing as well as it once did for me - mainly because I’ve been promoting it less and have driven less traffic to it. Over the time I’ve been using Chitika they’ve now earned me over a quarter of a million dollars - I can’t recommend them enough!

3. Private Ad Sales/Sponsorships

private-ad-salesPrivate ad sales directly to advertisers have continued to grow over the last few months and as a result they’re now my third highest income stream. I expect them to overtake both Chitika and AdSense in the coming months. This includes ad sales of the 125 x 125 ads here at ProBlogger as well as a campaign or two at Digital Photography School.
4. Amazon Associates

Amazon-Logo-1
Amazon’s affiliate program has been one of my big movers in the last 12 months. I used to make a few odd dollars from it - however in recent times it has become a significant earner for me (as I’ve shared previously). This quarter it grew even more than previously as a result of continued growth of DPS where I recommend books, software and cameras.

5. Miscellaneous Affiliate Programs

miscellaneous affiliate programsI run a variety of affiliate programs on my blogs - most of which bring in smaller amounts of money that don’t really justify a category of their own. These include - - Digital Photography Secrets (a camera technique series), Pro Photo Secrets (a great photoshop product) , Yaro’s Blog Mastermind Mentoring Program (about to open the doors again), SEO Book (Aaron’s legendary resource) and the excellent Teaching Sells course (which just continues to grow in what it offers to it’s members in terms of content).

The great thing about many of these programs is that they are of such high quality that they sell themselves and I am being emailed from readers who sign up to them thanking me for the recommendation!

6. Shopzilla

shopzilla.jpgAs I wrote recently - Shopzilla has really impressed me with how it’s performed over the last few weeks. It’s actually doing well enough to debut in this list at #6. The ads are similar to Chitika but the click values have been higher for me to this point. They don’t offer quite as many options as Chitika does in terms of types of ads but for a new ad network there’s definitely promising signs. I’m looking forward to seeing how they continue to develop!

7. ProBlogger Job Boards

Jobboardheader The job boards here at ProBlogger continue to grow each month in the number of advertisements that are being bought. This enabled me to invest most of the money that they’d earned a while back into getting a new back end for the boards and to redesign them. It hit me today that the boards are now bringing in around $1000 a month in revenue which is pretty nice considering that they are so low maintenance to run. They also offer a service to readers and add value to the overall blog.

The only problem that I face with the job boards is that there are so many bloggers looking for work that the demand for jobs far exceeds the supply. On the good side of things is that advertisers are reporting getting amazing quality of applications.

8. WidgetBucks

widgetbucks.jpgAnother newcomer to this list is WidgetBucks - another ad network that ProBlogger readers will be familiar with.

WidgetBucks is similar to Chitika and Shopzilla in many respects and works well on product related sites. It does best on sites with US traffic (the reason I’ve not used it as much as I get a lot of international traffic) so if you have a product related site with a US audience it’d be a no brainer to try out WidgetBucks. I’m hoping they’ll continue to expand their offerings in terms of ad types and visitor location.

Disclaimer - WidgetBucks are an advertiser on ProBlogger

9. Miscellaneous Advertising Programs

miscellaneous ad networksI also play with a number of other ad networks. Some I run as tests to see if I should review them here - and some are just advertising that run in the background on some of my smaller blogs. These include ShoppingAds, Feedburner RSS ads, Vizu (a poll advertising system), Kontera and Bidvertiser. Together these don’t add up to major earnings for me - not because they are not good, but because I don’t use them heavily (a blog can only run so many ads on it).

I think that that covers most of it although it’s worth mentioning that last time I did this list I also included TextLinkAds which used to be every bloggers favorite way to make money blogging by selling text links. I’ve stopped using them due to Google cracking down on them (read more about this here) but it’s worth noting that many bloggers still use them successfully - I advise to proceed with caution. Disclaimer - TLA are an advertiser on ProBlogger

By: http://www.problogger.net/

Ways to Make Money Online

2008-11-19T08:35:00.000-08:00

There are many ways to make money online. I like to group them into three main categories:

1. Making money selling your stuff
2. Making money selling other people’s stuff
3. Getting paid to do something

Let’s talk a little more about each of these categories…

Way #1 – Making money selling your stuff
When most people think of starting a business they think of selling their own stuff. Here are some of the ways that people sell their own stuff online:

1. Selling products
When I started out online my intention was to create educational software and sell it online. Like myself, most people that start a business online start off with the idea of selling a product. Almost every product imaginable can be sold online. Arguably, the easiest to create are information products. 2. Selling Services/Freelancing
One of the quickest ways to start making money online is by selling your services. You call sell all kinds of services online. Some of the more common online services being sold are web design, freelance writing, coaching/teaching, virtual assistants, copywriting, traffic generation, and software development.

3. Domaining
Domaining is essentially the process of buying and selling domains. While I own quite a few domains, most of them were bought with the purpose of developing them at some point in time. Although, I would be willing to sell some of them. For example, when John Reese bought trafficjam.com I wish he had contacted me about buying one of my domains blogtrafficjam.com, since I am not sure I will develop the idea I had for it when I bought it several years ago.

4. Website Flipping
Website flipping is a very tempting business model to me. Flipping websites is a lot like flipping houses. You buy a website with the sole purpose of making it better so that you can turn around sell it. Much like house flipping, you should buy a website with good potential that is not properly monetized and/or not properly designed and marketed. After “rehabbing” the website, you can sell it at a much higher price. This process sounds like fun to me, except that I would have a hard time parting with the site after fixing it. I am more likely to buy a website, fix it up, and keep it for the residual income.

There are other ways to make money selling your own stuff, but the ones listed above are the most common.

Way #2 – Making money selling other people’s stuff

1. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make money online, and I will be discussing it in much more detail in a future series (or a free mini-course). Essentially, affiliate marketing is revenue sharing between online advertisers/merchants and online publishers/salespeople, whereby affiliates(publisher/sales people) are paid based on performance measures, typically in the form of sales, clicks, registrations, or a combination of methods. In layman’s terms, it means you get a percentage of a sale when you sell someone else’s stuff or cause someone to take an action that might sell someone else’s stuff. It is currently my primary method of making money online.

2. Advertising Income
Many websites make money by selling advertising space on their site. This is most commonly done on content sites. Advertising income can also be gained through other methods like selling ad space on website templates and selling ad space in newsletters.

3. Drop Shipping
Drop shipping is a technique where you sell products from one or more suppliers who take care of shipping the products directly to the customer. All you do is take the order and get the money from the customer, then you send the order details and and part of the money that you charge to the supplier. You make profit on the difference between the suppliers price (including shipping) and the price you charge the customer. This is essentially running a wholesale business without the inventory, although you will usually pay somewhere between true wholesale and retail prices for the goods. I have seen a lot of people run drop shipping businesses on ebay.

4. Retail commerce
Retail commerce is where you buy products at wholesale prices from wholesale distributors, carry an inventory and turn around and sell said products. Many of the ecommerce shops you see are doing this. This model is similar to drop shipping. The advantage of this method is that you can make a higher profit margin then with drop shipping, the disadvantage is that you store the inventory and you handle the details of shipping the products.

These are the most common methods for selling other people’s stuff online, although certainly not the only ones.

Way # 3 – Getting Paid To Do Something

1. Paid to sites (Paid to surf, Paid to take surveys, etc.)
With “paid to” sites you can make a little extra money online every month. You can’t really use these sites to make a living online (at least not that I’m aware of), so I won’t be devoting more space to them here. If you’re interested in a little extra cash, and this method appeals to you, there is plenty of information available on the internet. And if you ARE making a living from these sites, and you’d be interested in writing a series on the topic, contact me.

As you are considering how YOU want to make big money online, this list should prove a good starting place . In my next post in the getting started series, I will be wrapping up with a list of resources to help you continue your quest to make money online.

by: http://www.canimakebigmoneyonline.com/

How to Make Money From Your Blog - Direct Methods

2008-11-19T08:27:00.000-08:00

Having thought through whether you should blog for money it is now worth taking a look at some of the different models for doing so.
I tend to break the different models that bloggers are using to make money from blogging into two areas - Direct and Indirect methods.
Direct Income Earning Methods - these methods are where a blogger earns an income directly FROM their blog.

Indirect Income Earning Methods - these methods are where a blogger earns an income BECAUSE of their blog.

Most blogs tend to fall into one or the other of these methods - although there is nothing to stop bloggers experimenting with elements of both ( I’ve seen a few bloggers get into trouble with this (example: Scenario 1 in the previous post).

In this post I’ll look at 8 direct income earning methods and in the next post of this series I’ll explore indirect methods. Please note that on occasion in the following post there will be few affiliate links to services that I use and have had some success with. These will be marked with (aff) after them.

Direct Income Earning Methods for Bloggers

1. Advertising

There are many ways of selling advertising space on a blog (this could almost be a series of it’s own) but some of the different advertising options that I see bloggers experimenting with include:

* Contextual Advertising - Programs like AdSense and YPN (beta) are very popular with bloggers and are probably the most common income stream being used by them today (MSN are developing one too). In short - these programs scan the content of your blog to assertion what it’s topic is and attempt to put contextually relevant ads (text and image) onto your blog. They are generally simple to use and involve pasting some code into your blog’s templates. Payment is on a ‘per click’ basis (referred to as CPC or ‘cost per click’ ads). Contextual ads suit blogs that have a particular niche topic, especially if it has some sort of commercial angle (ie it has products and services associated with it). They are not so good with ‘general’ type blogs (ie many topics) and/or political/spiritual blogs which argue just one side of a case (this confuses AdSense). I write much more extensively on how to use AdSense on your blog here.
* Other CPC Advertising - There are a variety of other ad systems that pay on a per click basis which are not contextual in nature (which is important as systems like AdSense do not allow you to run contextual ads on the same page view as them). These systems include Chitika’s eMiniMalls (aff) which I reviewed here.
* Impression Based Ads - Impression based ads pay a small amount for every person who views the advertisement. The amount that they pays varies from program to program (and ad to ad) and is generally a fraction of a cent. There are a variety of ad systems around like this including Fastclick (aff) which I reviewed here and Tribal Fusion. Impression based ads won’t earn you much if you don’t have a lot of traffic but can be great if you do.
* Blog Ads - BlogAds have become something of an institution when it comes to advertising on blogs. They traditionally have had a focus upon monetizing political blogs but are expanding their focus lately. The beauty of them is that bloggers set their own rates and can accept or reject advertisers that apply to them to be featured on their blogs. These ads put the control of what ads show and how much they earn into the hands of the blogger. The downside is that if you price them too high you could never have any ads showing at all. They can also be difficult to be accepted into as a publisher as these days they only accept people into the system if they have a someone who is already in ’sponsor’ or recommend the new publisher.
* Text Ads - Another increasingly popular way to sell ads on your blog is to look into text links. The beauty of these are that they don’t take up much room and that depending upon the system you choose to run them you can have control over which advertisers you accept and reject. AdBrite (aff) is one such system that gives you control in a similar way to BlogAds in that you set your own prices and approve all ads. They also other other formats of ads. Text Link Ads (aff) is another text link seller that more and more bloggers are using. The beauty of both of these systems is that they have a pool of advertisers already so you don’t have to go looking for your own advertisers. Their systems are also both very automated and are just a matter of pasting some code onto your blog. I use them both and while they don’t earn anywhere near as much as AdSense or Chitika for me they add up over the year and have done well for me. Bidvertiser and Adzaar are other system that I know are popular with some (we’ve used them quite successfully on b5media although I have little personal experience with them).
* RSS Ads - An increasingly popular way for people to read blogs is via RSS. As a result publishers and ad providers have been keen to find ways to place ads in feeds. These attempts have been met with a variety of success levels. I’m yet to hear of too many people making big dollars with RSS ads yet but the ad systems seem to be improving. AdSense offers RSS ads to some of it’s publishers (you have to have a certain number of impressions first) as does YPN. Feedburner is a tool I’ve used to help monetise my own feeds - they give publishers three options (1. AdSense if you’ve been approved by them, 2. Amazon affiliate program and 3. if you have a lot of subscribers (over 500) they have an Ad Network). Pheedo is another system that you might like to try (although I’ve not had much experience with it).
* Other Ads Systems - In addition to the above systems (most of which I’ve used myself) are many other advertising options which I’ve not had experience with and so won’t personally recommend. I’m sure they are worth experimenting with however as I see many of them being used by bloggers every day. Here they are in no particular order:
* AdGenta, CrispAds, Clicksor, Intelli Txt, Peak Click, Double Click, Industry Brains, AdHearUs, Kanoodle, AVN, Pheedo, Adknowledge, YesAdvertising, RevenuePilotTextAds, SearchFeed, Target Point, OneMonkey, and TextAds. Feel free to add your own and tell us how you’ve gone with them in comments below.

2. Sponsorship

Another form of advertising that a smaller number of bloggers are using is to find their own advertisers. All of the above systems have the advantage of finding you advertisers (or at least assisting in the automation of ads to your blog) but as your blog grows in profile and influence you might find other options for private deals come up.

The big blog networks have people dedicated to the task of finding advertisers (often working through ad agencies) but smaller bloggers might find this worthwhile also. I’ve been selling ads on my Digital Camera Blog for two years now and as it’s grown in traffic and profile and managed to attract larger companies (who are willing to pay more) to buys space. Currently the blog features ads from Adobe who have bought a combination of banner, newsletter and text ads.

The key if you’re going to take this approach is to target advertisers in your niche that have products that closely relate to what you’re writing about. There are a variety of ads that you can offer them including banner ads, buttons, text links, mentions in newsletters and even individual post sponsorships. I would highly recommend that you always make it clear to readers that your post is a sponsored one when you’re writing a sponsored post.

3. Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs are where you take a commission for referring a reader who purchases a product or service to a company. Probably the most common of these for bloggers is Amazon which has tens of thousands of products that you can link to (I reviewed it here). Other affiliate programs that represent many different companies and products include Linkshare, Commission Junction and Clickbank.

Affiliate programs take some work if you want to get the most out of them (perhaps more work than advertising) but can be lucrative if you match the right program with the right blog/topic. If you want to explore affiliate programs more you might like to read 10 tips for using affiliate programs on you blog.

4. Selling/Flipping Blogs

The idea of selling (or flipping) your blog is one that many bloggers have in the back of their minds for ‘one day’ but in reality it is not something that is overly common… yet (I think this is changing). Probably the largest sale is that of Weblogs Inc (a network of blogs) which sold to AOL for a reported $25 million. Of course this is the stuff that most of us can only dream of - but there are examples of smaller blogs being sold, either privately or via auctions on sites like eBay and SitePoint. One such auction was that of the Blog Herald which took place here.

Starting a blog with the main goal of selling it down the track is one that I’ve heard of a number of bloggers doing but few have been successful. Rather than starting with this intention I think if you start with the intention of building a quality site that has a large readership and it’s own good income stream you are more likely to find buyers down the track.

5. Donations and Tip Jars

A very small number of blogs have a history of making good money with these (Jason Kottke being one of them). To be successful with asking for money from readers you’ll want to have a large and loyal readership (and a rich one might help too). Most bloggers just don’t have the critical mass or the cult following to make it work.
6. Merchandise

Another method that some blogs use with reasonable effect is to sell T-Shirts, Mugs, Stickers etc with the blog’s name, logo and/or taglines on it. This is another idea that will probably only work if you either have a brilliantly designed merchandise range and/or you have a cult-like status as a blogger with some fanatical readers who are a little obsessive about your blog. Some blog topics lend themselves to this more than others.

7. Selling Subscriptions

The idea of charging readers for content is one that surfaces from time to time. While there are numerous websites around the web that do this successfully (community membership sites) I’m yet to see many (any) blogs do it well. The problem that most bloggers who have tried it have run into is that most topics that you could think to start a blog about already have free sites available. To make it succeed you would need to have some sort of premium/exclusive content and/or real expertise on a topic.

8. Blog Networks

Another emerging income source for bloggers are blog networks. There are two ways to make money here. Firstly you can start a network and contract bloggers to write for you or secondly you might like to join a blog network as a writer. There are many networks out there and all have their own strengths and weaknesses. I’ll attempt to write a post on what to think about when you’re looking at whether to join a network later in this series.

Next in the series we’ll look at indirect ways of making money because of your blog.
by: http://www.problogger.net

How To Make Money off Your Blog

2008-11-19T08:17:00.000-08:00

You pound on the keyboard each day, broadcasting your unalloyed truths to the world (or at least to friends and family) via your blog. Unfortunately, earning such singular authority demands serious time and energy, and what begins as a hobby can quickly start seeming like Job No. 2 -- sans paycheck. But haven't you heard? You can turn your Web log into a digital cash cow. Simply choose among these techniques (but keep in mind that it's not all free money -- come tax season, Uncle Sam gets his fair share).

LET GOOGLE WORK FOR YOU. Selling ad space might be the oldest way to make a buck, and with Google's free AdSense service (www.google.com/adsense), it's way too easy. AdSense allows bloggers to display up to three content-specific "ad units" (boxes that can hold up to four ads each) per page. "If you're writing about sports cars, they'll be ads about sports cars," says Biz Stone, Blogger senior specialist at Google. Each time a visitor clicks these ads, you get paid. Google doesn't disclose its exact share of the revenue, but a personalized report page lets you track your own earnings. Earn at least $100 and Google sends you a check.
PLAY AD-SALES EXEC. If you want more control over the ads on your blog, hit www.blogads.com. BlogAds lets you join its database free and set your own ad prices. Companies (including media bigs such as Paramount Pictures and Random House) then search for suitable blogs and purchase ad space for a set period -- say, one month. In contrast to the way AdSense works, your earnings don't depend on whether a reader clicks the ad. All you have to do is give 20 percent of your net revenue to Mr. BlogAd, and you keep the rest. Perhaps best of all, you can indulge your megalomaniacal tendencies by approving or declining potential ads at will.

BE THE MIDDLEMAN. Many companies run "affiliate" programs: Post an ad provided by Amazon.com or Lands' End, for example, and receive a small commission every time your readers click that ad, go to the company's Web site and end up buying a book or splurging on a down parka. Referral fees -- the cash you get from these transactions -- vary (you can earn as much as 10 percent per sale from Amazon). LinkShare (www.linkshare.com) claims to run the Internet's biggest "affiliate marketing network," with more than 600 companies on its roster of advertisers. Another service, Commission Junction (www.cj.com), runs programs for eBay and Expedia.com, among others.

PASS THE CUP. If you're toiling away to maintain a blog that people enjoy, why not ask your guests to show a little monetary appreciation? The online payment service PayPal (www.paypal.com) lets you add a donation button to your blog. You can opt to receive money in U.S. dollars, Canadian dollars, Japanese yen, pounds sterling or euros. When visitors give money, PayPal sends you an e-mail to let you know. Amazon's Honor System (www.amazon.com/honorsystem) and BitPass (www.bitpass.com) offer similar donation options.

SELL SCHWAG. Don't dig ads? Uncomfortable asking for handouts? Then create your own blog-branded gear at CafePress.com, which offers more than 50 products begging for your unique logo. Choose from standard fare such as T-shirts and coffee cups, or, if Grandma doesn't read your blog, opt for sexy thong underwear (ooh la la). You get to sell each product at whatever price your entrepreneurial heart desires. CafePress gets back the original base price ($13.99 for T-shirts, $10.99 for mugs); you keep the markup. Just add your online store's link to your blog, and all that's left to do is wait for CafePress to send you a monthly check. See? It's practically like your real job. Mike Peed

Want to know how to do something? Send your questions to howto@washpost.com.

How to make money from your blog: 5 tips

2008-11-19T08:11:00.000-08:00

Many of the people who write blogs today simply want to share their opinion on something. But then there are the business-minded folks, who have found a way to use blogs, or Web logs, to bring in a little extra cash too.

I recently wrote a column detailing how

to get a blog up and running to boost your small business.

If you're interested in taking it further — blogging for bucks, if you will — here are five strategies that could turn your blog into a moneymaker.

1. Sell advertising. This is likely the most common means of leveraging a blog to generate income. If yours happens to become a well-known blog, or one that is well-received in a particular niche, it's always possible to sell ad space on your own. For lesser-known blogs, services such as Google's AdSense or BlogAds enable bloggers to establish ad programs.AdSense's — which lets you select several ads that

are consistent with the content of your blog — pays you based on how many readers click on the ads for further information. Even better, it's free. BlogAds, on the other hand, hooks bloggers up with would-be advertisers and levies a commission in return for any ad placements that result. "The nice thing, too, is that the

ads are relatively unobtrusive," says Scott Allen, co-author of "The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online."

2. Help sell others' products. Here is another click-through opportunity. Affiliate programs enable your blog to serve as a conduit between readers and online sites offering various goods and services. One popular choice is Amazon.com. If, for instance, you offer book reviews or even just mention a book in passing in your blog, an affiliate program provides a means for your readers to click directly from your blog to Amazon to obtain further information about the book. If they break

out the checkbook or charge card, you get paid as well.

3. Solicit contributions. Not every blog-related income opportunity involves hawking goods or services. As Blanche DuBois did in "A Streetcar Named Desire," consider relying on the kindness of

strangers. Ask for contributions. If, for instance, your small-business blog supports a cause or issue in some fashion — say you repeatedly mention tax reform, health care or some other topic — you can always ask for reader support.Even if you've attracted a group of regular followers who

simply enjoy reading what you have to say, they may be willing to underwrite their loyalty with a little financial help. Programs such as PayPal make it easy to establish a simple on-site contribution collection button. "There are lots of worthy 'cause' blogs that would qualify for donations from grateful members of the blog community," says

Las Vegas communications consultant Ned Barnett.

4. Market your services in your blog. Many people associate blogs exclusively with a cyberspace-based soapbox — a place to shout your opinions and little more than that. Granted, blogs are an

ideal venue to share your thoughts with others, but don't overlook their capacity to generate new business as well. When appropriate, work in references to what you do and, in turn, what you may be able to offer any would-be client or customer who may be reading your blog. That can spread your opinion and your business moxie at the same time."Instead of short commentaries that begin a dialogue with readers, as many blogs do, I write the equivalent of journal articles that demonstrate my abilities, strategies and perspectives on specific issues," Barnett says. "When it resonates, it means money. Since starting this approach, I have generated

three new paying clients and brought in about $10,000 on revenue — directly attributable to specific blogs."

5. Use a blog to deepen your existing customer relationships. Nor does any marketing material inserted in blog content have to be limited to bringing

in completely new business. By using a blog to regularly communicate with existing clients as well as other readers, you can take advantage of the opportunity to fully inform them about everything your business does. That may expand your readers' understanding of the full scope of your products or services."My blog has helped existing clients determine the range of my skills and services," says Ted Demopoulos of Demopoulos Associates, a Durham, N.H. consulting and training concern. "One client who had only used me for training in the past was surprised at my range of expertise and is now using me for a consulting

project. Another who only used me on technical projects is now considering me for a more business-oriented project."

How to Make Money From Your Blog

2008-11-19T08:06:00.000-08:00

StevePavlina.com was launched on Oct 1st, 2004. By April 2005 it was averaging $4.12/day in income. Now it brings in over $200/day $1000/day (updated as of 10/29/06). I didn’t spend a dime on marketing or promotion. In fact, I started this site with just $9 to register the domain name, and everything was bootstrapped from there. Would you like to know how I did it?

This article is seriously long (over 7300 words), but you’re sure to get your money’s worth (hehehe). I’ll even share some specifics. If you don’t have time to read it now, feel free to bookmark it or print it out for later.

Do you actually want to monetize your blog?

Some people have strong personal feelings with respect to making money from their blogs. If you think commercializing your blog is evil, immoral, unethical, uncool, lame, greedy, obnoxious, or anything along those lines, then don’t commercialize it.
If you have mixed feelings about monetizing your blog, then sort out those feelings first. If you think monetizing your site is wonderful, fine. If you think it’s evil, fine. But make up your mind before you seriously consider starting down this path. If you want to succeed, you must be congruent. Generating income from your blog is challenging enough — you don’t want to be dealing with self-sabotage at the same time. It should feel genuinely good to earn income from your blog — you should be driven by a healthy ambition to succeed. If your blog provides genuine value, you fully deserve to earn income from it. If, however, you find yourself full of doubts over whether this is the right path for you, you might find this article helpful: How Selfish Are You? It’s about balancing your needs with the needs of others.

If you do decide to generate income from your blog, then don’t be shy about it. If you’re going to put up ads, then really put up ads. Don’t just stick a puny little ad square in a remote corner somewhere. If you’re going to request donations, then really request donations. Don’t put up a barely visible “Donate” link and pray for the best. If you’re going to sell products, then really sell them. Create or acquire the best quality products you can, and give your visitors compelling reasons to buy. If you’re going to do this, then fully commit to it. Don’t take a half-assed approach. Either be full-assed or no-assed.

You can reasonably expect that when you begin commercializing a free site, some people will complain, depending on how you do it. I launched this site in October 2004, and I began putting Google Adsense ads on the site in February 2005. There were some complaints, but I expected that — it was really no big deal. Less than 1 in 5,000 visitors actually sent me negative feedback. Most people who sent feedback were surprisingly supportive. Most of the complaints died off within a few weeks, and the site began generating income almost immediately, although it was pretty low — a whopping $53 the first month. If you’d like to see some month-by-month specifics, I posted my 2005 Adsense revenue figures earlier this year. Adsense is still my single best source of revenue for this site, although it’s certainly not my only source. More on that later…

Can you make a decent income online?

Yes, absolutely. At the very least, a high five-figure annual income is certainly an attainable goal for an individual working full-time from home. I’m making a healthy income from StevePavlina.com, and the site is only 19 months old… barely a toddler. If you have a day job, it will take longer to generate a livable income, but it can still be done part-time if you’re willing to devote a lot of your spare time to it. I’ve always done it full-time.

Can most people do it?

No, they can’t. I hope it doesn’t shock you to see a personal development web site use the dreaded C-word. But I happen to agree with those who say that 99% of people who try to generate serious income from their blogs will fail. The tagline for this site is “Personal Development for Smart People.” And unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your outlook), smart people are a minority on this planet. So while most people can’t make a living this way, I would say that most smart people can. How do you know whether or not you qualify as smart? Here’s a good rule of thumb: If you have to ask the question, you aren’t.

If that last paragraph doesn’t flood my inbox with flames, I don’t know what will. OK, actually I do.

This kind of 99-1 ratio isn’t unique to blogging though. You’ll see it in any field with relatively low barriers to entry. What percentage of wannabe actors, musicians, or athletes ever make enough money from their passions to support themselves? It doesn’t take much effort to start a blog these days — almost anyone can do it. Talent counts for something, and the talent that matters in blogging is intelligence. But that just gets you in the door. You need to specifically apply your intelligence to one particular talent. And the best words I can think of to describe that particular talent are: web savvy.

If you are very web savvy, or if you can learn to become very web savvy, then you have an excellent shot of making enough money from your blog to cover all your living expenses… and then some. But if becoming truly web savvy is more than your gray matter can handle, then I’ll offer this advice: Don’t quit your day job.

Web savvy

What do I mean by web savvy? You don’t need to be a programmer, but you need a decent functional understanding of a variety of web technologies. What technologies are “key” will depend on the nature of your blog and your means of monetization. But generally speaking I’d list these elements as significant:

* blog publishing software
* HTML/CSS
* blog comments (and comment spam)
* RSS/syndication
* feed aggregators
* pings
* trackbacks
* full vs. partial feeds
* blog carnivals (for kick-starting your blog’s traffic)
* search engines
* search engine optimization (SEO)
* page rank
* social bookmarking
* tagging
* contextual advertising
* affiliate programs
* traffic statistics
* email

Optional: podcasting, instant messaging, PHP or other web scripting languages.

I’m sure I missed a few due to familiarity blindness. If scanning such a list makes your head spin, I wouldn’t recommend trying to make a full-time living from blogging just yet. Certainly you can still blog, but you’ll be at a serious disadvantage compared to someone who’s more web savvy, so don’t expect to achieve stellar results until you expand your knowledge base.

If you want to sell downloadable products such as ebooks, then you can add e-commerce, SSL, digital delivery, fraud prevention, and online databases to the list. Again, you don’t need to be a programmer; you just need a basic understanding of these technologies. Even if you hire someone else to handle the low-level implementation, it’s important to know what you’re getting into. You need to be able to trust your strategic decisions, and you won’t be able to do that if you’re a General who doesn’t know what a gun is.

A lack of understanding is a major cause of failure in the realm of online income generation. For example, if you’re clueless about search engine optimization (SEO), you’ll probably cripple your search engine rankings compared to someone who understands SEO well. But you can’t consider each technology in isolation. You need to understand the connections and trade-offs between them. Monetizing a blog is a balancing act. You may need to balance the needs of yourself, your visitors, search engines, those who link to you, social bookmarking sites, advertisers, affiliate programs, and others. Seemingly minor decisions like what to title a web page are significant. In coming up with the title of this article, I have to take all of these potential viewers into consideration. I want a title that is attractive to human visitors, drives reasonable search engine traffic, yields relevant contextual ads, fits the theme of the site, and encourages linking and social bookmarking. And most importantly I want each article to provide genuine value to my visitors. I do my best to create titles for my articles that balance these various needs. Often that means abandoning cutesy or clever titles in favor of direct and comprehensible ones. It’s little skills like these that help drive sustainable traffic growth month after month. Missing out on just this one skill is enough to cripple your traffic. And there are dozens of these types of skills that require web savvy to understand, respect, and apply.

This sort of knowledge is what separates the 1% from the 99%. Both groups may work just as hard, but the 1% is getting much better results for their efforts. It normally doesn’t take me more than 60 seconds to title an article, but a lot of experience goes into those 60 seconds. You really just have to learn these ideas once; after that you can apply them routinely.

Whenever you come across a significant web technology you don’t understand, look it up on Google or Wikipedia, and dive into it long enough to acquire a basic understanding of it. To make money from blogging it’s important to be something of a jack of all trades. Maybe you’ve heard the expression, “A jack of all trades is a master of none.” That may be true, but you don’t need to master any of these technologies — you just have to be good enough to use them. It’s the difference between being able to drive a car vs. becoming an auto mechanic. Strive to achieve functional knowledge, and then move on to something else. Even though I’m an experienced programmer, I don’t know how many web technologies actually work. I don’t really care. I can still use them to generate results. In the time it would take me to fully understand one new technology, I can achieve sufficient functional knowledge to apply several of them.

Thriving on change

Your greatest risk isn’t that you’ll make mistakes that will cost you. Your greatest risk is that you’ll miss opportunities. You need an entrepreneurial mindset, not an employee mindset. Don’t be too concerned with the risk of loss — be more concerned with the risk of missed gains. It’s what you don’t know and what you don’t do that will hurt you the worst. Blogging is cheap. Your expenses and financial risk should be minimal. Your real concern should be missing opportunities that would have made you money very easily. You need to develop antennae that can listen out for new opportunities. I highly recommend subscribing to Darren Rowse’s Problogger blog — Darren is great at uncovering new income-generating opportunities for bloggers.

The blogosphere changes rapidly, and change creates opportunity. It takes some brains to decipher these opportunities and to take advantage of them before they disappear. If you hesitate to capitalize on something new and exciting, you may simply miss out. Many opportunities are temporary. And every day you don’t implement them, you’re losing money you could have earned. And you’re also missing opportunities to build traffic, grow your audience, and benefit more people.

I used to get annoyed by the rapid rate of change of web technologies. It’s even more rapid than what I saw when I worked in the computer gaming industry. And the rate of change is accelerating. Almost every week now I learn about some fascinating new web service or idea that could potentially lead to big changes down the road. Making sense of them is a full-time job in itself. But I learned to love this insane pace. If I’m confused then everyone else is probably confused too. And people who only do this part-time will be very confused. If they aren’t confused, then they aren’t keeping up. So if I can be just a little bit faster and understand these technologies just a little bit sooner, then I can capitalize on some serious opportunities before the barriers to entry become too high. Even though confusion is uncomfortable, it’s really a good thing for a web entrepreneur. This is what creates the space for a college student to earn $1,000,000 online in just a few months with a clever idea. Remember this isn’t a zero-sum game. Don’t let someone else’s success make you feel diminished or jealous. Let it inspire you instead.

What’s your overall income-generation strategy?

I don’t want to insult anyone, but most people are utterly clueless when it comes to generating income from their blogs. They slap things together haphazardly with no rhyme or reason and hope to generate lots of money. While I’m a strong advocate of the ready-fire-aim approach, that strategy does require that you eventually aim. Ready-fire-fire-fire-fire will just create a mess.

Take a moment to articulate a basic income-generating strategy for your site. If you aren’t good at strategy, then just come up with a general philosophy for how you’re going to generate income. You don’t need a full business plan, just a description of how you plan to get from $0 per month to whatever your income goal is. An initial target goal I used when I first started this site was $3000 per month. It’s a somewhat arbitrary figure, but I knew if I could reach $3000 per month, I could certainly push it higher, and $3000 is enough income that it’s going to make a meaningful difference in my finances. I reached that level 15 months after launching the site (in December 2005). And since then it’s continued to increase nicely. Blogging income is actually quite easy to maintain. It’s a lot more secure than a regular job. No one can fire me, and if one source of income dries up, I can always add new ones. We’ll address multiple streams of income soon…

Are you going to generate income from advertising, affiliate commissions, product sales, donations, or something else? Maybe you want a combination of these things. However you decide to generate income, put your basic strategy down in writing. I took 15 minutes to create a half-page summary of my monetization strategy. I only update it about once a year and review it once a month. This isn’t difficult, but it helps me stay focused on where I’m headed. It also allows me to say no to opportunities that are inconsistent with my plan.

Refer to your monetization strategy (or philosophy) when you need to make design decisions for your web site. Although you may have multiple streams of income, decide which type of income will be your primary source, and design your site around that. Do you need to funnel people towards an order form, or will you place ads all over the site? Different monetization strategies suggest different design approaches. Think about what specific action you want your visitors to eventually take that will generate income for you, and design your site accordingly.

When devising your income strategy, feel free to cheat. Don’t re-invent the wheel. Copy someone else’s strategy that you’re convinced would work for you too. Do NOT copy anyone’s content or site layout (that’s copyright infringement), but take note of how they’re making money. I decided to monetize this site with advertising and affiliate income after researching how various successful bloggers generated income. Later I added donations as well. This is an effective combo.

Traffic, traffic, traffic

Assuming you feel qualified to take on the challenge of generating income from blogging (and I haven’t scared you away yet), the three most important things you need to monetize your blog are traffic, traffic, and traffic.

Just to throw out some figures, last month (April 2006), this site received over 1.1 million visitors and over 2.4 million page views. That’s almost triple what it was just six months ago.

Why is traffic so important? Because for most methods of online income generation, your income is a function of traffic. If you double your traffic, you’ll probably double your income (assuming your visitor demographics remain fairly consistent). You can screw almost everything else up, but if you can generate serious traffic, it’s really hard to fail. With sufficient traffic the realistic worst case is that you’ll eventually be able to monetize your web site via trial and error (as long as you keep those visitors coming).

When I first launched this blog, I knew that traffic building was going to be my biggest challenge. All of my plans hinged on my ability to build traffic. If I couldn’t build traffic, it was going to be very difficult to succeed. So I didn’t even try to monetize my site for the first several months. I just focused on traffic building. Even after 19 months, traffic building is still the most important part of my monetization plan. For my current traffic levels, I know I’m undermonetizing my site, but that’s OK. Right now it’s more important to me to keep growing the site, and I’m optimizing the income generation as I go along.

Traffic is the primary fuel of online income generation. More visitors means more ad clicks, more product sales, more affiliate sales, more donations, more consulting leads, and more of whatever else that generates income for you. And it also means you’re helping more and more people.

With respect to traffic, you should know that in many respects, the rich do get richer. High traffic leads to even more traffic-building opportunities that just aren’t accessible for low-traffic sites. On average at least 20 bloggers add new links to my site every day, my articles can easily surge to the top of social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, and I’m getting more frequent requests for radio interviews. Earlier this year I was featured in USA Today and in Self Magazine, which collectively have millions of readers. Journalists are finding me by doing Google searches on topics I’ve written about. These opportunities were not available to me when I was first starting out. Popular sites have a serious advantage. The more traffic you have, the more you can attract.

If you’re intelligent and web savvy, you should also be able to eventually build a high-traffic web site. And you’ll be able to leverage that traffic to build even more traffic.

How to build traffic

Now if traffic is so crucial, how do you build it up to significant levels if you’re starting from rock bottom?

I’ve already written a lengthy article on this topic, so I’ll refer you there: How to Build a High Traffic Web Site (or Blog). If you don’t have time to read it now, feel free to bookmark it or print it out for later. That article covers my general philosophy of traffic-building, which centers on creating content that provides genuine value to your visitors. No games or gimmicks.

There is one other important traffic-building tip I’ll provide here though.

Blog Carnivals. Take full advantage of blog carnivals when you’re just starting out (click the previous link and read the FAQ there to learn what carnivals are if you don’t already know). Periodically submit your best blog posts to the appropriate carnivals for your niche. Carnivals are easy ways to get links and traffic, and best of all, they’re free. Submitting only takes minutes if you use a multi-carnvival submission form. Do NOT spam the carnivals with irrelevant material — only submit to the carnivals that are a match for your content.

In my early traffic-building days, I’d do carnivals submissions once a week, and it helped a great deal in going from nothing to about 50,000 visitors per month. You still have to produce great content, but carnivals give you a free shot at marketing your unknown blog. Free marketing is precisely the kind of opportunity you don’t want to miss. Carnivals are like an open-mic night at a comedy club — they give amateurs a chance to show off their stuff. I still submit to certain carnivals every once in a while, but now my traffic is so high that relatively speaking, they don’t make much difference anymore. Just to increase my traffic by 1% in a month, I need 11,000 new visitors, and even the best carnivals don’t push that much traffic. But you can pick up dozens or even hundreds of new subscribers from each round of carnival submissions, so it’s a great place to start. Plus it’s very easy.

If your traffic isn’t growing month after month, does it mean you’re doing something wrong? Most likely you aren’t doing enough things right. Again, making mistakes is not the issue. Missing opportunities is.

Will putting ads on your site hurt your traffic?

Here’s a common fear I hear from people who are considering monetizing their web sites:

Putting ads on my site will cripple my traffic. The ads will drive people away, and they’ll never come back.

Well, in my experience this is absolutely, positively, and otherwise completely and totally… FALSE. It’s just not true. Guess what happened to my traffic when I put ads on my site. Nothing. Guess what happened to my traffic when I put up more ads and donation links. Nothing. I could detect no net effect on my traffic whatsoever. Traffic continued increasing at the same rate it did before there were ads on my site. In fact, it might have even helped me a little, since some bloggers actually linked to my site just to point out that they didn’t like my ad layout. I’ll leave it up to you to form your own theories about this. It’s probably because there’s so much advertising online already that even though some people will complain when a free site puts up ads, if they value the content, they’ll still come back, regardless of what they say publicly.

Most mature people understand it’s reasonable for a blogger to earn income from his/her work. I think I’m lucky in that my audience tends to be very mature — immature people generally aren’t interested in personal development. To create an article like this takes serious effort, not to mention the hard-earned experience that’s required to write it. This article alone took me over 15 hours of writing and editing. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to earn an income from such work. If you get no value from it, you don’t pay anything. What could be more fair than that? The more income this blog generates, the more I can put into it. For example, I used some of the income to buy podcasting equipment and added a podcast to the site. I’ve recorded 13 episodes so far. The podcasts are all ad-free. I’m also planning to add some additional services to this site in the years ahead. More income = better service.

At the time of this writing, my site is very ad-heavy. Some people point this out to me as if I’m not aware of it: “You know, Steve. Your web site seems to contain an awful lot of ads.” Of course I’m aware of it. I’m the one who put the ads there. There’s a reason I have this configuration of ads. They’re effective! People keep clicking on them. If they weren’t effective, I’d remove them right away and try something else.

I do avoid putting up ads that I personally find annoying when I see them on other sites, including pop-ups and interstitials (stuff that flies across your screen). Even though they’d make me more money, in my opinion they degrade the visitor experience too much.

I also provide two ad-free outlets, so if you really don’t like ads, you can actually read my content without ads. First, I provide a full-text RSS feed, and at least for now it’s ad-free. I do, however, include a donation request in the bottom of my feeds.

If you want to see some actual traffic data, take a look at the 2005 traffic growth chart. I first put ads on the site in February 2005, and although the chart doesn’t cover pre-February traffic growth, the growth rate was very similar before then. For an independent source, you can also look at my traffic chart on Alexa. You can select different Range options to go further back in time.

Multiple streams of income

You don’t need to put all your eggs in one basket. Think multiple streams of income. On this site I actually have six different streams of income. Can you count them all? Here’s a list:

1. Google Adsense ads (pay per click and pay per impression advertising)
2. Donations (via PayPal or snail mail — yes, some people do mail a check)
3. Text Link Ads (sold for a fixed amount per month)
4. Chitika eMiniMalls ads (pay per click)
5. Affiliate programs like Amazon and LinkShare (commission on products sold, mostly books)
6. Advertising sold to individual advertisers (three-month campaigns or longer)

Note: If you’re reading this article a while after its original publication date, then this list is likely to change. I frequently experiment with different streams.

Adsense is my biggest single source of income, but some of the others do pretty well too. Every stream generates more than $100/month.

My second biggest income stream is actually donations. My average donation is about $10, and I’ve received a number of $100 donations too. It only took me about an hour to set this up via PayPal. So even if your content is free like mine, give your visitors a means to voluntarily contribute if they wish. It’s win-win. I’m very grateful for the visitor support. It’s a nice form of feedback too, since I notice that certain articles produced a surge in donations — this tells me I’m hitting the mark and giving people genuine value.

These aren’t my only streams of income though. I’ve been earning income online since 1995. With my computer games business, I have direct sales, royalty income, some advertising income, affiliate income, and donations (from the free articles). And if you throw in my wife’s streams of income, it gets really ridiculous: advertising, direct book sales, book sales through distributors, web consulting, affiliate income, more Adsense income, and probably a few sources I forgot. Suffice it to say we receive a lot of paychecks. Some of them are small, but they add up. It’s also extremely low risk — if one source of income dries up, we just expand existing sources or create new ones. I encourage you to think of your blog as a potential outlet for multiple streams of income too.

Automated income

With the exception of #6, all of these income sources are fully automated. I don’t have to do anything to maintain them except deposit checks, and in most cases I don’t even have to do that because the money is automatically deposited to my bank account.

I love automated income. With this blog I currently have no sales, no employees, no products, no inventory, no credit card processing, no fraud, and no customers. And yet I’m still able to generate a reasonable (and growing) income.

Why get a regular job and trade your time for money when you can let technology do all that work for you? Imagine how it would feel to wake up each morning, go to your computer, and check how much money you made while you were sleeping. It’s a really nice situation to be in.

Blogging software and hardware

I use WordPress for this blog, and I highly recommend it. Wordpress has lots of features and a solid interface. And you can’t beat its price — free.

The rest of this site is custom-coded HTML, CSS, PHP, and MySQL. I’m a programmer, so I coded it all myself. I could have just as easily used an existing template, but I wanted a simple straightforward design for this site, and I wanted the look of the blog to match the rest of the site. Plus I use PHP and MySQL to do some creative things outside the blog, like the Million Dollar Experiment.

I don’t recommend using a hosted service like Blogger if you want to seriously monetize your blog. You don’t get enough control. If you don’t have your own URL, you’re tying yourself to a service you don’t own and building up someone else’s asset. You want to build page rank and links for your own URL, not someone else’s. Plus you want sufficient control over the layout and design of your site, so you can jump on any opportunities that require low-level changes. If you use a hosted blog, you’re at the mercy of the hosting service, and that puts the future of any income streams you create with them at risk. It’s a bit more work up front to self-host, but it’s less risky in the long run.

Web hosting is cheap, and there are plenty of good hosts to choose from. I recommend Pair.com for a starter hosting account. They aren’t the cheapest, but they’re very reliable and have decent support. I know many online businesses that host with them, and my wife refers most of her clients there.

As your traffic grows you may need to upgrade to a dedicated server or a virtual private server (VPS). This web site is hosted by ServInt. I’ve hosted this site with them since day one, and they’ve been a truly awesome host. What I like most about them is that they have a smooth upgrade path as my traffic keeps growing. I’ve gone through several upgrades with them already, and all have been seamless. The nice thing about having your own server is that you can put as many sites on it as the server can handle. I have several sites running on my server, and it doesn’t cost me any additional hosting fees to add another site.

Comments or no comments

When I began this blog, I started out with comments enabled. As traffic grew, so did the level of commenting. Some days there were more than 100 comments. I noticed I was spending more and more time managing comments, and I began to question whether it was worth the effort. It became clear that with continued traffic growth, I was going to have to change my approach or die in comment hell. The personal development topics I write about can easily generate lots of questions and discussion. Just imagine how many follow-up questions an article like this could generate. With tens of thousands of readers, it would be insane. Also, nuking comment spam was chewing up more and more of my time as well.

But after looking through my stats, I soon realized that only a tiny fraction of visitors ever look at comments at all, and an even smaller fraction ever post a comment (well below 1% of total visitors). That made my decision a lot easier, and in October 2005, I turned blog comments off. In retrospect that was one of my best decisions. I wish I had done it sooner.

If you’d like to read the full details of how I came to this decision, I’ve written about it previously: Blog Comments and More on Blog Comments.

Do you need comments to build traffic? Obviously not. Just like when I put up ads, I saw no decline in traffic when I turned off comments. In fact, I think it actually helped me. Although I turned off comments, I kept trackbacks enabled, so I started getting more trackbacks. If people wanted to publicly comment on something I’d written, they had to do so on their own blogs and post a link. So turning off comments didn’t kill the discussion — it just took it off site. The volume of trackbacks is far more reasonable, and I can easily keep up with it. I even pop onto other people’s sites and post comments now and then, but I don’t feel obligated to participate because the discussion isn’t on my own site.

I realize people have very strong feelings about blog comments and community building. Many people hold the opinion that a blog without comments just isn’t a blog. Personally I think that’s utter nonsense — the data just doesn’t support it. The vast majority of blog readers neither read nor post comments. Only a very tiny and very vocal group even care about comments. Some bloggers say that having comments helps build traffic, but I saw no evidence of that. In fact, I think it’s just the opposite. Managing comments detracts from writing new posts, and it’s far better to get a trackback and a link from someone else’s blog vs. a comment on your own blog. As long-term readers of my blog know, when faced with ambiguity, my preference is to try both alternatives and compare real results with real results. After doing that my conclusion is this: No comment. :)

Now if you want to support comments for non-traffic-building reasons like socializing or making new contacts, I say go for it. Just don’t assume that comments are necessary or even helpful in building traffic unless you directly test this assumption yourself.

Build a complete web site, not just a blog

Don’t limit your web site to just a blog. Feel free to build it out. Although most of my traffic goes straight to this blog, there’s a whole site built around it. For example, the home page of this site presents an overview of all the sections of the site, including the blog, article section, audio content, etc. A lot of people still don’t know what a blog is, so if your whole site is your blog, those people may be a little confused.

Testing and optimization

In the beginning you won’t know which potential streams of income will work best for you. So try everything that’s reasonable for you. If you learn about a new potential income stream, test it for a month or two, and measure the results for yourself. Feel free to cut streams that just aren’t working for you, and put more effort into optimizing those streams that show real promise.

A few months ago, I signed up for an account with Text Link Ads. It took about 20 minutes. They sell small text ads on my site, split the revenue with me 50-50, and deposit my earnings directly into my PayPal account. This month I’ll make around $600 from them, possibly more if they sell some new ads during the month. And it’s totally passive. If I never tried this, I’d miss out on this easy extra income.

For many months I’ve been tweaking the Adsense ads on this site. I tried different colors, sizes, layouts, etc. I continue to experiment now and then, but I have a hard time beating the current layout. It works very well for me. Adsense doesn’t allow publishers to reveal specific CPM and CTR data, but mine are definitely above par. They started out in the gutter though. You can easily double or triple your Adsense revenue by converting a poor layout into a better one. This is the main reason why during my first year of income, my traffic grew at 20% per month, but my income grew at 50% per month. Frequent testing and optimization had a major positive impact. Many of my tests failed, and some even made my income go down, but I’m glad I did all that testing. If I didn’t then my Adsense income would only be a fraction of what it is now.

It’s cheap to experiment. Every new advertising or affiliate service I’ve tried so far has been free to sign up. Often I can add a new income stream in less than an hour and then wait a month to see how it does. If it flops then at least I learned something. If it does well, wonderful. As a blogger who wants to generate income, you should always be experimenting with new income streams. If you haven’t tried anything new in six months, you’re almost certainly missing some golden opportunities. Every blog is different, so you need to test things for yourself to see what works for you. Failure is impossible here — you either succeed, or you learn something.

Pick your niche, but make sure it isn’t too small

Pick a niche for your blog where you have some significant expertise, but make sure it’s a big enough niche that you can build significant traffic. My wife runs a popular vegan web site. She does pretty well within her niche, but it’s just not a very big niche. On the other hand, my topic of personal development has much broader appeal. Potentially anyone can be interested in improving themselves, and I have the flexibility to write about topics like productivity, self-discipline, relationships, spirituality, health, and more. It’s all relevant to personal development.

Pick a niche that you’re passionate about. I’ve written 400+ articles so far, and I still feel like I’m just getting started. I’m not feeling burnt out at all. I chose to build a personal development site because I’m very knowledgeable, experienced, and passionate about this subject. I couldn’t imagine a better topic for me to write about.

Don’t pick a niche just because you think it will make you money. I see many bloggers try to do that, and it’s almost invariably a recipe for failure. Think about what you love most, and then find a way to make your topic appealing to a massive global audience. Consider what will provide genuine value to your visitors. It’s all about what you can give.

A broad enough topic creates more potential advertising partners. If I keep writing on the same subtopic over and over, I may exhaust the supply of advertisers and hit an income ceiling. But by writing on many different topics under the same umbrella, I widen the field of potential advertisers. And I expand the appeal of my site at the same time.

Make it clear to your visitors what your blog/site is about. Often I visit a blog with a clever title and tagline that reveals nothing about the site’s contents. In that case I generally assume it’s just a personal journal and move on. I love to be clever too, but I’ve found that clarity yields better results than cleverness.

Posting frequency and length

Bloggers have different opinions about the right posting length and frequency. Some bloggers say it’s best to write short (250-750 word) entries and post 20x per week or more. I’ve seen that strategy work for some, but I decided to do pretty much the opposite. I usually aim for about 3-5 posts per week, but my posts are much longer (typically 1000-2000 words, sometimes longer than 5000 words, including the monster you’re reading right now). That’s because rather than throwing out lots of short tips, I prefer to write more exhaustive, in-depth articles. I find that deeper articles are better at generating links and referrals and building traffic. It’s true that fewer people will take the time to read them, but those that do will enjoy some serious take-away value. I don’t believe in creating disposable content just to increase page views and ad impressions. If I’m not truly helping my visitors, I’m wasting their time.

Expenses

Blogging is dirt cheap.

I don’t spend money on advertising or promotion, so my marketing expenses are nil. Essentially my content is my marketing. If you like this article, you’ll probably find many more gems in the archives.

My only real expenses for this site are the hosting (I currently pay $149/month for the web server and bandwidth) and the domain name renewal ($9/year). Nearly all of the income this site generates is profit. This trickles down to my personal income, so of course it’s subject to income tax. But the actual business expenses are minimal.

The reason I pay so much for hosting is simply due to my traffic. If my traffic were much lower, I could run this site on a cheap shared hosting account. A database-driven blog can be a real resource hog at high traffic levels. The same goes for online forums. As traffic continues to increase, my hosting bill will go up too, but it will still be a tiny fraction of total income.

Perks

Depending on the nature of your blog, you may be able to enjoy some nice perks as your traffic grows. Almost every week I get free personal development books in the mail (for potential review on this site). Sometimes the author will send it directly; other times the publisher will ship me a batch of books. I also receive CDs, DVDs, and other personal development products. It’s hard to keep up sometimes (I have a queue of about two dozen books right now), but I am a voracious consumer of such products, so I do plow through them as fast as I can. When something strikes me as worthy of mention, I do indeed write up a review to share it with my visitors. I have very high standards though, so I review less than 10% of what I receive. I’ve read over 700 books in this field and listened to dozens of audio programs, so I’m pretty good at filtering out the fluff. As I’m sure you can imagine, there’s a great deal of self-help fluff out there.

My criteria for reviewing a product on this site is that it has to be original, compelling, and profound. If it doesn’t meet these criteria, I don’t review it, even if there’s a generous affiliate program. I’m not going to risk abusing my relationship with my visitors just to make a quick buck. Making money is not my main motivation for running this site. My main motivation is to grow and to help others grow, so that always comes first.

Your blog can also gain you access to certain events. A high-traffic blog becomes a potential media outlet, so you can actually think of yourself as a member of the press, which indeed you are. In a few days, my wife and I will be attending a three-day seminar via a free press pass. The regular price for these tickets is $500 per person. I’ll be posting a full review of the seminar next week. I’ve been to this particular seminar in 2004, so I already have high expectations for it. Dr. Wayne Dyer will be the keynote speaker.

I’m also using the popularity of this blog to set up interviews with people I’ve always wanted to learn more about. This is beautifully win-win because it creates value for me, my audience, and the person being interviewed. Recently I posted an exclusive interview with multi-millionaire Marc Allen as well as a review of his latest book, and I’m lining up other interviews as well. It isn’t hard to convince someone to do an interview in exchange for so much free exposure.

Motivation

I don’t think you’ll get very far if money is your #1 motivation for blogging. You have to be driven by something much deeper. Money is just frosting. It’s the cake underneath that matters. My cake is that I absolutely love personal development – not the phony “fast and easy” junk you see on infomercials, but real growth that makes us better human beings. That’s my passion. Pouring money on top of it just adds more fuel to the fire, but the fire is still there with or without the money.

What’s your passion? What would you blog about if you were already set for life?

Blogging lifestyle

Perhaps the best part of generating income from blogging is the freedom it brings. I work from home and set my own hours. I write whenever I’m inspired to write (which for me is quite often). Plus I get to spend my time doing what I love most — working on personal growth and helping others do the same. There’s nothing I’d rather do than this.

Perhaps it’s true that 99 out of 100 people can’t make a decent living from blogging yet. But maybe you’re among the 1 in 100 who can.

On the other hand, I can offer you a good alternative to recommend if you don’t have the technical skills to build a high-traffic, income-generating blog. Check out Build Your Own Successful Online Business for details.

Google Search Engine Optimization

2008-11-19T07:14:00.000-08:00

Owning a website is a cool thing in itself, but it's even greater if you're able to welcome a lot of visitors to it. One of the most effective ways to accomplish this, is by making sure your site is easily found through search engines like Google.

In contrary to what the SPAM flooding our inbox is promising ("submit to 500 search engines!", "Guaranteed Top Rankings!", "Free beer included!"), there is no quick and dirty way to accomplish this. On the other hand, the secrecy and vague terminology used by dedicated SearchEngineOptimization bureaus are mostly a means to mask there's nothing secret or difficult about optimizing your website for search engines. Let's give it a quick start...

About search engines

The two biggest search engines worldwide are Google (used by Google / AOL) and Overture (used by MSN / Yahoo). Google fills it's database mainly by letting robots automatically crawl and index the web. The Overture database is mainly filled through affiliate programs. That will cost you, so let's focus on Google for now. Google is the cooler one anyway...

A bot visit

You can request a Google robot visit at www.google.com/addurl. The robot will browse your site and index it's contents. Expect to have to wait for a couple of weeks before this will happen. Also, always list your site at www.dmoz.org. This is Google's webdirectory and, next to the google robot, an important source of the google search API. Dutch sites can be listed at www.dmoz.nl (used by google.nl).

Get your keywords

Your website is not ranked as a whole. Keywords are used to determine the relevancy of your website for particular subjects. So, before buiding your site, make sure you have a relevant set of keywords. Check competing websites for keywords / search terms and use the good ones for yourself. You can get an indication on the frequency people search for a certain keyword (and alternatives to it) at inventory.overture.com. You can find synonyms for certain keywords at www.thesaurus.com.

Place your keywords

The most important elements to insert keywords into are the URL (domain name + path + filename) and title of your web page. Also, a low-level URL (www.mysite.com/page.htm) is considered more important than a higher level URL (www.mysite.com/subdir/anothersubdir/page.htm). Check out the Dutch website Nu.nl for a good example. Notice how every newsitem has it's own title in the titlebar and how every item's html file is named after its title. These tricks make you score!

It's also important to use your keywords in the body of your site, frequency (a lot) and proximity (close to each other) are important. The higher in a page, the more important a keyword is considered to be. Text in headline (h1 or h2), bold or caps is considered more important than regular text.

Check your keywords

Once you think you have found the right keywords and you've written your text so that these keywords appear all over the page, it's time to check out how your site is doing. At googlerankings.com you can check your position in Google for the keywords you have chosen. Top of the ranks? Great! Not even close to it? Don't worry, here are some tips to improve your rankings.

Tech and formatting tips

First, make sure your site, especially your homepage, is frequently updated. Google seems to like frequently changing websites, this might be why weblogs tend to score very well at Google.

Second, make sure to have a lot of incoming and outgoing links (especially to and from big, relevant, high-quality websites). If something can be a link, make it a link! By doing so, Google will rank you pages higher as others who are not that embedded. This link relevancy system is called Google Pagerank. You can check out your pagerank at pagerank.net. Pagerank works on a scale from 1 to 10. If you have a rank of 1 or 2, you're likely to be way down the search results. If you have a higher rank, your site will appear at the top of the search results, even if there are a lot of competitors for your specific keywords or business.

Third, make sure your site is clean and correctly formatted, preferably in web standards / xhtml. Avoid certain technologies the Google robot doesn't understand. Don't use a frameset for your website. Robots may skip frames or only index the upper one (refering will be a mess anyway). Avoid javascript or Flash menus, only a.href links are followed by a robot. Additionally, all javascript and comments are skipped by search robots.

For the same reason, full-flash websites should be avoided if search accessibility is important (actually, if ANY accessibility is important). If you do feel the strong need to use Flash, all you can do is to make sure you have a keyword descriptive URL and page title.

Some last remarks

Google simply puts a 30 days block upon sites that use trivial keyword tricks (hidden text/div or text in the same color as a background), so don't bother trying this kind of stuff. Detecting and catching a robot with javascript or IP cloacing or using linkfarms to boost your Pagerank are considered even more illegal. They could get you put out of the ranking for good.

Just remember that a robot will be optimized over and over to be able to judge webpages the way a human does. In the end, if you make sure your site is clean and accessible and your content is good and relevant, websurfers will find you and bytes will flow.

Of course this article only covers the rough basics of search engine optimization. If you feel like I have missed out on something, or you've got an excellent hint to share, please feel free to post them in the forum! The diagnostics guide from GoogleRankings.com is a great resource for more information (there's a list of issues at the left side).

Keywords

Here's a scenario. You get an occasional click from Google for a certain keyword. You go to find out why you aren’t getting more clicks, and you find out that you’re ranked in the 30's, 50's, or heaven forbid, the 300's. “Great”, you think, “I finally get ranked for a good keyword and it’s a worthless ranking”.

Not necessarily. If you got ranked for a keyword in Google that you wanted At All, the game’s not over yet. If your site’s content is geared towards that subject, you can get your ranking in Google's search engine increased, at no cost. How? The first thing you want to do is find out how well you are ranked for this keyword.

Find Your Google Keyword Ranking
For Google in particular, this used to be a difficult chore. In the old days of 2003, you’d spend your valuable time doing a search on your desired keyword, then a sub-search for your site, and crawling through pages of listings to find out exactly where you stood. Now there is hope in the form of the following website. Direct your browser to:Google Rankings.

You can use this site to find out what number you come up for in the Google listings, which can be very powerful information if used correctly. If you’re ranked in the top 1000, you have a shot at raising your listing for that page by tweaking the page to be a little more relevant.

So, secondly, you have to know how good a shot you have at getting a better listing. Go to:Search Term Difficulty Checker. This tool tells you how hard it is to rank well for certain keywords in Google. You’ll need a free Google API key to use it.
Estimate Search Traffic

Now that you know your chances, the third piece of information you need to know is how much traffic you can expect. Digital Point has a free tool that gives an approximation of how many hits per day a good ranking gets. Access it here:Keyword Suggestion Tool.

This article about how to improve your Google rankings is continued from page one.
Optimize Your Keywords for Google Search

Okay, let’s say everything checks out so far. You rank in the top 1000 in Google's search listings. The term you want to optimize for won’t be that hard to get, and will get you enough traffic per month to justify your efforts. Our fourth step is to take the term you chose and optimize your page. GoRank.com does periodic reports on the search engines, and as a free bonus, it will also tell you what Yahoo wants, as well as Google.
Calculate Keyword Density For Your Website

Now that you know what to shoot for, you need to know how the page you want will measure up in Google- you need to calculate your keyword density. You can also do the fifth step at GoRank.com - it has a free tool that will calculate it for you. Prepare your page with that in mind, re-upload, and you’re almost done.
Google Site Submission - Maybe

Great, you’re all set. Now you should submit your site to Google, right? Not necessarily. Let Google find you. HOW Google finds you can affect your page rank. I don’t mean that there is a standard penalty for submitting to Google. There’s been speculation on that for a while but I have yet to prove it matters.

What I DO know from personal experience and testing on my members' sites, is that getting the Googlebot search engine spider to happen upon your site naturally shaves up to 6 weeks off the standard time it takes for indexing. You can get spidered within 24 hours if you know where to get your link picked up, and then end up in Google's index in as little as 4 days.
Google Page Rank

Which site links to you can also affect your Google Page Rank. While this is not as important as it once was, it still carries significant weight– my site didn’t start getting spidered on a daily basis until my Google Page Rank increased to 5. So even if the Google spider comes to your site on a monthly basis, you’re better off waiting for the spider to come back by. That’s the sixth step: let your page be re-discovered by Google with its great new changes.

Here are some articles that can help you get started optimizing your site for searchers and search engines:

* Ten Steps to a Well Optimized Site: Want increased website traffic, higher search engine ranking, and increased customer satisfaction? Read these Ten Steps to a Well-Optimized Site and you'll be well on your way to accomplishing these goals.
* Top 5 Mistakes in Search Engine Optimization: Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the practice of making your site search-friendly both to search engines and searchers. There are five common mistakes that people tend to make when beginning to optimize their sites for search engines.
* Ten Search Engine Optimization Myths - Debunked!: If you're just getting started in search engine optimization for your Web site, you might (unfortunately) have been subjected to a few SEO whoppers. Before you start throwing away your time and money on search engine optimization wild goose chases, read these ten myths of search engine optimization.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

2008-11-19T06:55:00.000-08:00

SEO is an acronym for "search engine optimization" or "search engine optimizer." Deciding to hire an SEO is a big decision that can potentially improve your site and save time, but you can also risk damage to your site and reputation. Make sure to research the potential advantages as well as the damage that an irresponsible SEO can do to your site. Many SEOs and other agencies and consultants provide useful services for website owners, including:

* Review of your site content or structure
* Technical advice on website development: for example, hosting, redirects, error pages, use of JavaScript
* Content development
* Management of online business development campaigns
* Keyword research
* SEO training
* Expertise in specific markets and geographies. Keep in mind that the Google search results page often includes paid advertising and free organic search results. Keep in mind that the Google search results page includes organic search results and often paid advertisement (denoted by the heading "Sponsored Links") as well. Advertising with Google won't have any effect on your site's presence in our search results. Google never accepts money to include or rank sites in our search results, and it costs nothing to appear in our organic search results. Free resources such as Webmaster Tools, the official Webmaster Central blog, and our discussion group can provide you with a great deal of information about how to optimize your site for organic search. Many of these free sources, as well as information on paid search, can be found on Google Webmaster Central.

Before beginning your search for an SEO, it's a great idea to become an educated consumer and get familiar with how search engines work. We recommend starting here:

* Google Webmaster Guidelines
* Google 101: How Google crawls, indexes and serves the web.

If you're thinking about hiring an SEO, the earlier the better. A great time to hire is when you're considering a site redesign, or planning to launch a new site. That way, you and your SEO can ensure that your site is designed to be search engine-friendly from the bottom up. However, a good SEO can also help improve an existing site.

Some useful questions to ask an SEO include:

* Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?
* Do you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines?
* Do you offer any online marketing services or advice to complement your organic search business?
* What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success?
* What's your experience in my industry?
* What's your experience in my country/city?
* What's your experience developing international sites?
* What are your most important SEO techniques?
* How long have you been in business?
* How can I expect to communicate with you? Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site, and provide detailed information about your recommendations and the reasoning behind them?

While SEOs can provide clients with valuable services, some unethical SEOs have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to manipulate search engine results in unfair ways. Practices that violate our guidelines may result in a negative adjustment of your site's presence in Google, or even the removal of your site from our index. Here are some things to consider:

* Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue.

Amazingly, we get these spam emails too:

"Dear google.com,
I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories..."

Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for "burn fat at night" diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.
* No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.

Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.
* Be careful if a company is secretive or won't clearly explain what they intend to do.

Ask for explanations if something is unclear. If an SEO creates deceptive or misleading content on your behalf, such as doorway pages or "throwaway" domains, your site could be removed entirely from Google's index. Ultimately, you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire, so it's best to be sure you know exactly how they intend to "help" you.
* You should never have to link to an SEO.

Avoid SEOs that talk about the power of "free-for-all" links, link popularity schemes, or submitting your site to thousands of search engines. These are typically useless exercises that don't affect your ranking in the results of the major search engines -- at least, not in a way you would likely consider to be positive.
* Choose wisely.

While you consider whether to go with an SEO, you may want to do some research on the industry. Google is one way to do that, of course. You might also seek out a few of the cautionary tales that have appeared in the press, including this article on one particularly aggressive SEO: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002002970_nwbizbriefs12.html. While Google doesn't comment on specific companies, we've encountered firms calling themselves SEOs who follow practices that are clearly beyond the pale of accepted business behavior. Be careful.
* Be sure to understand where the money goes.

While Google never sells better ranking in our search results, several other search engines combine pay-per-click or pay-for-inclusion results with their regular web search results. Some SEOs will promise to rank you highly in search engines, but place you in the advertising section rather than in the search results. A few SEOs will even change their bid prices in real time to create the illusion that they "control" other search engines and can place themselves in the slot of their choice. This scam doesn't work with Google because our advertising is clearly labeled and separated from our search results, but be sure to ask any SEO you're considering which fees go toward permanent inclusion and which apply toward temporary advertising.
* What are the most common abuses a website owner is likely to encounter?

One common scam is the creation of "shadow" domains that funnel users to a site by using deceptive redirects. These shadow domains often will be owned by the SEO who claims to be working on a client's behalf. However, if the relationship sours, the SEO may point the domain to a different site, or even to a competitor's domain. If that happens, the client has paid to develop a competing site owned entirely by the SEO.

Another illicit practice is to place "doorway" pages loaded with keywords on the client's site somewhere. The SEO promises this will make the page more relevant for more queries. This is inherently false since individual pages are rarely relevant for a wide range of keywords. More insidious, however, is that these doorway pages often contain hidden links to the SEO's other clients as well. Such doorway pages drain away the link popularity of a site and route it to the SEO and its other clients, which may include sites with unsavory or illegal content.
* What are some other things to look out for?

There are a few warning signs that you may be dealing with a rogue SEO. It's far from a comprehensive list, so if you have any doubts, you should trust your instincts. By all means, feel free to walk away if the SEO:
o owns shadow domains
o puts links to their other clients on doorway pages
o offers to sell keywords in the address bar
o doesn't distinguish between actual search results and ads that appear on search results pages
o guarantees ranking, but only on obscure, long keyword phrases you would get anyway
o operates with multiple aliases or falsified WHOIS info
o gets traffic from "fake" search engines, spyware, or scumware
o has had domains removed from Google's index or is not itself listed in Google
o requests your FTP account information or root access to your server

If you feel that you were deceived by an SEO in some way, you may want to report it.

In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) handles complaints about deceptive or unfair business practices. To file a complaint, visit: http://www.ftc.gov/ and click on "File a Complaint Online," call 1-877-FTC-HELP, or write to:

Federal Trade Commission
CRC-240
Washington, D.C. 20580

If your complaint is against a company in a country other than the United States, please file it at http://www.econsumer.gov/.

Search Engine Optimization is a process of choosing the most appropriate targeted keyword phrases related to your blog and ensuring that this ranks your blog highly in search engines so that when someone searches for specific phrases it returns your site on tops. It basically involves fine tuning the content of your blog along with the HTML and Meta tags and also involves appropriate link building process. The most popular search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN Search, AOL and Ask Jeeves.

Search engines keep their methods and ranking algorithms secret, to get credit for finding the most valuable search-results and to deter spam pages from clogging those results. A search engine may use hundreds of factors while ranking the listings where the factors themselves and the weight each carries may change continually. Algorithms can differ so widely that a webpage that ranks #1 in a particular search engine could rank #200 in another search engine.

New blogs need not be “submitted” to search engines to be listed. A simple link from a well established blog will get the search engines to visit the new blog and begin to spider its contents. It can take a few days to even weeks from the referring of a link from such an established site for all the main search engine spiders to commence visiting and indexing the new blog.

If you are unable to research and choose keywords and work on your own search engine ranking, you may want to hire someone to work with you on these issues.

Search engine marketing and promotion companies, will look at the plan for your blog and make recommendations to increase your search engine ranking and blog traffic. If you wish, they will also provide ongoing consultation and reporting to monitor your blog and make recommendations for editing and improvements to keep your blog traffic flow and your search engine ranking high.

How Obama Got Elected

2008-11-17T20:17:00.000-08:00

"Promote then as an object of primary importance, Institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened."

George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796

On November 4th, 2008 millions of Americans were shocked that a man of Barack Obama's limited experience, extreme liberal positions and radical political alliances could be elected President of the United States. For many of these Americans, the explanation was rather simple... the news media, completely enamored with Obama, simply refused to do their job.

On Election day twelve Obama voters were interviewed extensively right after they voted to learn how the news media impacted their knowledge of what occurred during the campaign. These voters were chosen for their apparent intelligence/verbal abilities and willingness to express their opinions to a large audience. The rather shocking video below seeks to provide some insight into which information broke through the news media clutter and which did not. All of this was conducted for a forthcoming documentary on how the news media impacted the 2008 election. Please get on our mailing list and return to this website in the coming months for more information on the film, "Media Malpractice... How Obama Got Elected>
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Video Obama Got Elected available at here"

President-Elect Obama’s First News Confrerence

2008-11-07T13:05:00.000-08:00

Following is the transcript of Barack Obama's news conference Friday in Chicago, as provided by CQ Transcriptions, Inc.

Mr. OBAMA: Thank you. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you very much.

This morning we woke up to more sobering news about the state of our economy. The 240,000 jobs lost in October marks the 10th consecutive month that our economy has shed jobs. In total, we've lost nearly 1.2 million jobs this year, and more than 10 million Americans are now unemployed. Tens of millions of families are struggling to figure out how to pay the bills and stay in their homes. Their stories are an urgent reminder that we are facing the greatest economic challenge of our lifetime, and we're going to have to act swiftly to resolve it.

Now, the United States has only one government and one president at a time, and until January 20th of next year, that government is the current administration. I have spoken to President Bush. I appreciate his commitment to ensuring that his economic policy team keeps us fully informed as developments unfold. And I'm also thankful for his invitation to the White House.

Immediately after I become president, I'm going to confront this economic crisis head-on by taking all necessary steps to ease the credit crisis, help hardworking families, and restore growth and prosperity.

This morning I met with members of my Transition Economic Advisory Board, who are standing behind me, alongside my vice president-elect, Joe Biden. They will help to guide the work of my transition team, working with Rahm Emanuel, my chief of staff, in developing a strong set of policies to respond to this crisis. We discussed in the earlier meeting several of the most immediate challenges facing our economy and key priorities on which to focus on in the days and weeks ahead. Mr. OBAMA: Thank you. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you very much.

This morning we woke up to more sobering news about the state of our economy. The 240,000 jobs lost in October marks the 10th consecutive month that our economy has shed jobs. In total, we've lost nearly 1.2 million jobs this year, and more than 10 million Americans are now unemployed. Tens of millions of families are struggling to figure out how to pay the bills and stay in their homes. Their stories are an urgent reminder that we are facing the greatest economic challenge of our lifetime, and we're going to have to act swiftly to resolve it.

Now, the United States has only one government and one president at a time, and until January 20th of next year, that government is the current administration. I have spoken to President Bush. I appreciate his commitment to ensuring that his economic policy team keeps us fully informed as developments unfold. And I'm also thankful for his invitation to the White House.

Immediately after I become president, I'm going to confront this economic crisis head-on by taking all necessary steps to ease the credit crisis, help hardworking families, and restore growth and prosperity.

This morning I met with members of my Transition Economic Advisory Board, who are standing behind me, alongside my vice president-elect, Joe Biden. They will help to guide the work of my transition team, working with Rahm Emanuel, my chief of staff, in developing a strong set of policies to respond to this crisis. We discussed in the earlier meeting several of the most immediate challenges facing our economy and key priorities on which to focus on in the days and weeks ahead.

First of all, we need a rescue plan for the middle class that invests in immediate efforts to create jobs and provide relief to families that are watching their paychecks shrink and their life savings disappear. A particularly urgent priority is a further extension of unemployment insurance benefits for workers who cannot find work in the increasingly weak economy. A fiscal stimulus plan that will jump-start economic growth is long overdue. I've talked about it throughout this -- the last few months of the campaign. We should get it done.

Second, we have to address the spreading impact of the financial crisis on the other sectors of our economy -- small businesses that are struggling to meet their payrolls and finance their holiday inventories, and state and municipal governments facing devastating budget cuts and tax increases. We must also remember that the financial crisis is increasingly global and requires a global response.

The news coming out of the auto industry this week reminds us of the hardship it faces -- hardship that goes far beyond individual auto companies to the countless suppliers, small businesses and communities throughout our nation who depend on a vibrant American auto industry. The auto industry is the backbone of American manufacturing and a critical part of our attempt to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

I would like to see the administration do everything it can to accelerate the retooling assistance that Congress has already enacted. In addition, I have made it a high priority for my transition team to work on additional policy options to help the auto industry adjust, weather the financial crisis, and succeed in producing fuel-efficient cars here in the United States of America. And I was glad to be joined today by Governor Jennifer Granholm, who obviously has great knowledge and great interest on this issue. I've asked my team to explore what we can do under current law and whether additional legislation will be needed for this purpose.

Third, we will review the implementation of this administration's financial program to ensure that the government's efforts are achieving their central goal of stabilizing financial markets while protecting taxpayers, helping homeowners and not unduly rewarding the management of financial firms that are receiving government assistance.
It is absolutely critical that the Treasury work closely with the FDIC, HUD and other government agencies to use the substantial authority that they already have to help families avoid foreclosure and stay in their homes.
Finally, as we monitor and address these immediate economic challenges, we will be moving forward in laying out a set of policies that will grow our middle class and strengthen our economy in the long term. We cannot afford to wait on moving forward on the key priorities that I identified during the campaign, including clean energy, health care, education and tax relief for middle-class families.

My transition team will be working on each of these priorities in the weeks ahead, and I intend to reconvene this advisory board to discuss the best ideas for responding to these immediate problems.

Let me close by saying this: I do not underestimate the enormity of the task that lies ahead. We have taken some major action to date, and we will need further action during this transition and subsequent months. Some of the choices that we make are going to be difficult. And I have said before and I will repeat again: It is not going to be quick and it is not going to be easy for us to dig ourselves out of the hole that we are in, but America is a strong and resilient country. And I know we will succeed if we put aside partisanship and politics and work together as one nation. That's what I intend to do.

With that, let me open it up for some questions. And I'm going to start right here with you, Nedra.

Q Thanks, Mr. President-elect. I wonder what you think any president can accomplish during their first hundred days in office to turn the economy around. How far can you go? And what will be your priorities on day one?

Well, I think that a new president can do an enormous amount to restore confidence, to move an agenda forward that speaks to the needs of the economy and the needs of middle-class families all across the country. I've outlined during the course of the campaign some critical issues that I intend to work on.

We have a current financial crisis that is spilling out into the rest of the economy. And we have taken some action so far. More action is undoubtedly going to be needed. My transition team is going to be monitoring very closely what happens over the course of the next several months.

The one thing I can say with certainty is that we are going to need to see a stimulus package passed either before or after inauguration. We are going to have to focus on jobs, because the hemorrhaging of jobs has an impact obviously on consumer confidence and the ability of people to -- to buy goods and services and can have enormous spill-over effects.

And I think it's going to be very important for us to provide the kinds of assistance, to state and local governments, to make sure that they don't compound some of the problems that are already out there, by having to initiate major layoffs or initiate tax increases.

So there are some things that we know we're going to have to do. But I'm confident that a new president can have an enormous impact. That's why I ran for president.

All right.

Lee.

Q Sir, there's been some suggestion from House Democrats that the stimulus package may be in trouble, that it's going to be a hard time getting it out of a lame-duck session.

Are you still confident that you would be able to get something done before you actually take office?

Mr. OBAMA: I want to see a stimulus package sooner rather than later. If it does not get done in the lame-duck session, it will be the first thing I get done as president of the United States.

Jake.

Q Senator, for the first time since the Iranian Revolution, a president of Iran sent a congratulations note to a new U.S. president.

I'm wondering, first of all, if you responded to President Ahmadinejad's note of congratulations. And second of all and more importantly, how soon do you plan on sending low-level envoys to countries such as Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, to see if a presidential-level talk would be productive?

Mr. OBAMA: I am aware that the letter was sent. Let me state -- repeat what I stated during the course of the campaign.
Iran's development of a nuclear weapon, I believe, is unacceptable. And we have to mount a international effort to prevent that from happening. Iran's support of terrorist organizations, I think, is something that has to cease.
I will be reviewing the letter from President Ahmadinejad. And we will respond appropriately. It's only been three days since the election. Obviously how we approach and deal with a country like Iran is not something that we should, you know, simply do in a knee-jerk fashion.

I think we've got to think it through. But I have to reiterate once again that we only have one president at a time. And I want to be very careful that we are sending the right signals, to the world as a whole, that I am not the president and I won't be until January 20th.

Let's see.

Chip.

Q Picking up what you were just talking about, your meeting with President Bush on Monday, when he is still the decider obviously, stating the obvious, when you disagree with decisions he makes, will you defer? Will you challenge? Will you confront? And if it becomes confrontational, could that rattle the markets even more?

Mr. OBAMA: Well, President Bush graciously invited Michelle and I to meet with him and First Lady Laura Bush. We are gratified by the invitation.

I'm sure that in addition to taking a tour of the White House, there is going to be a substantive conversation between myself and the president.

I'm not going to anticipate problems. I'm going to go in there with a spirit of bipartisanship and a sense that both the president and various leaders of Congress all recognize the severity of the situation right now and want to get stuff done. And you know, undoubtedly there may end up being differences between not just members of different parties, but between people within the same party.

The -- the critical point and the -- I think the critical tone that has to be struck by all of us involved right now is the American people need help. This economy is in bad shape, and we have just completed one of the longest election cycles in recorded history. Now is a good time for us to set politics aside for a while and think practically about what will actually work to move the economy forward. And it's in that spirit that I'll have the conversation with the president.

Let's see. How about Karen.

Q Mr. President-elect, with the country facing two wars and a financial crisis, do you think it's important for you to move especially quickly to fill key Cabinet posts, such as Treasury secretary and secretary of State?

Mr. OBAMA: When we have an announcement about Cabinet appointments, we will make it. There is no doubt that I think people want to know who's going to make up our team, and I want to move with all deliberate haste, but I want to emphasize deliberate as well as haste. I'm proud of the choice I made of vice president, partly because we did it right. I'm proud of the choice of chief of staff because we thought it through. And I think it's very important in all these key positions, both in the economic team and the national security team, to -- to get it right and -- and not to be so rushed that you end up making mistakes. I'm confident that we're going to have an outstanding team, and we will be rolling that out in subsequent weeks.

Let's see. Where's John McCormick? Give -- give a local, hometown guy a little bit of -- a little bit of time.

Q Thank you, sir.

To what extent -- (comes on mike) -- to what extent are you planning to use your probably pretty great influence in determining the successor for your Senate seat? And what sort of criteria should the governor be looking at in filling that position?

Mr. OBAMA: This is the governor's decision. It is not my decision. And I think that the criteria that I would have for my successor would be the same criteria that I'd have if I were a voter: somebody who is capable, somebody who is passionate about helping working families in Illinois meet their -- meet their dreams. And I think there are going to be a lot of good choices out there. But it is the governor's decision to make, not mine.

Lynn Sweet. What happened to your arm, Lynn?

Q I cracked my shoulder running to your speech on Election Night. (Laughter.)

Mr. OBAMA: Oh, no.

Q (Off mike.)

Mr. OBAMA: I think that was the only major incident during the entire Grant Park celebration.

Q Thank you for asking.
Here's my question. I'm wondering what you're doing to get ready. Have you spoke to any living ex-presidents? What books you might be reading? Everyone wants to know what kind of dog are you going to buy for your girls. Have you decided on a private or public school for your daughters?
Mr. OBAMA: Let me list those off. In terms of speaking to former presidents, I have spoken to all of them that are living. Obviously, President Clinton. I didn't want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing any seances. (Laughter.)

I have reread some of Lincoln's writings, who's always an extraordinary inspiration.

And by the way, President Carter, President Bush Senior, as well as the current president have all been very gracious and offered to provide any help that they can in this transition process.

With respect to the dog, this is a major issue. I think it's generated more interest on our website than just about anything. We have -- we have two criteria that have to be reconciled. One is that Malia is allergic, so it has to be hypo-allergenic. There are a number of breeds that are hypo-allergenic. On the other hand, our preference would be to get a shelter dog. But obviously, a lot of shelter dogs are mutts, like me. So the -- so, whether we're going to be able to balance those two things, I think, is a pressing issue on the Obama household.

And with respect to schools, Michelle will be scouting out some schools. We'll be making a decision about that in the future.

O.K. Candy? Down here.

Q You are now privy to a lot of intelligence that you haven't had access to before; in fact, much of what the president sees, I'm sure, all of it. First of all, do you -- what do you think about the state of U.S. intelligence, whether you think it needs beefing up, whether you think there's enough interaction between the various agencies?

And second of all, has anything that you've heard given you pause about anything you've talked about on the campaign trail?

Mr. OBAMA: Well, Candy, as you know, if there was something I'd heard, I couldn't tell you. But --

Q (?) (Off mike.)

Mr. OBAMA: (Chuckles.) The -- I have received intelligence briefings. And I will make just a general statement. Our intelligence process can always improve. I think it has gotten better. And, you know, beyond that I don't think I should comment on the nature of the intelligence briefings.

That was a two-parter? Was there another aspect to that?

Q Well, just whether, you know, absent what you've heard --

Mr. OBAMA: Okay, I get it.

Q -- whether anything's given you pause.

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: I -- I'm going to -- I'm going to skip that.

Jeff.

Q Mr. President-elect, do you still intend to seek income tax increases for upper-income Americans? And if so, should these Americans expect to pay higher taxes in 2009?

Mr. OBAMA: The -- my tax plan represented a net tax cut. It provided for substantial middle-class tax cuts. Ninety-five percent of working Americans would receive them. It also provided for cuts in capital gains for small businesses, additional tax credits. All of it is designed for job growth.

My priority is going to be, how do we grow the economy? How do we create more jobs?

I think that the plan that we've put forward is the right one. But obviously over the next several weeks and months, we are going to be continuing to take a look at the data and see what's taking place in the economy as a whole. But understand the goal of my plan is to provide tax relief to families that are struggling, but also to boost the capacity of the economy to grow from the bottom up.

All right? Thank you very much, guys.

Q ("Bonjour," ?) Mr. President.

Mr. OBAMA: "Bonjour." (Laughter.)

How To Add Google Talk To Your Blog

2008-11-07T12:43:00.000-08:00

Google has made the Google Talk accessible to all who want to use it by making it available through the new Google Talk gadget which can be added to your Google Personalized hompage or even to your blogs or websites.

The Google Talk Gadget is (according to the Google TalkAbout) is a web-based module that you can add to your Google Personalized Homepage, letting you see your friends and chat with them — all on your homepage. With this gadget, we can now use the Google Talk (just like what we did in Gmail) without downloading and installing the software into our PC and it works what ever OS you are using, whether Mac, Windows, Linux … whatever.

If you are interested to put this gadget into your blogs or websites so that your visitors can freely chat with you, then here’s the instruction:

1. Visit this page to get the Google Talk Gadget code.
2. Customize the Google Talk looks by setting it through the options as shown below.
3. Push the “Get The Code” Button.
4. Highlight and copy the code (click the code, press ctl-a, press ctl-c).
5. Go to your blog theme and paste the code.
6. Preview your blog and examine the Google Talk if it fits your preference. If not then do some changes on the looks (step 2) or change the location of the Google Talk on your blog (step 5).

If you successfully set the code of Google Talk into your blog, then probably you will enjoy chatting your blog’s visitors for they can immediately sign in and start the chat with you.

Tip: Make sure that your Google Talk username is noticeable by your users so that they can immediately add you to their Google Talk contacts.

Make Money From Affiliate Marketing Online

2008-11-01T03:06:00.000-07:00

Affiliate business works like this: Companies and individuals pay other people to advertise their programs, products and services on websites, in ezines, on pay-per-click advertising, in forums, in directories and anywhere else they can, whether on internet or offline. Affiliate marketing online is about getting the kind of traffic that is targeted at your products.

Another part of internet business is to write articles that show the importance or benefits of your products and include them on the website as an additional page. Online Business is one of the best work at home opportunities around. It is a great way to make income that can be used or invested back into your business.

Internet marketing is an excellent way to create income, and with the right attitude, you can earn affiliate commissions on autopilot. When you have mastered the basics of affiliate b either through an internet marketing course or get tutorial under a marketing guru on the internet, you can literally earn money online on automated or almost no updating needed. If you apply yourself and learn what affiliate marketing online is really all about a whole new world will open up for you.Online business is the best way to make easy money.

The best thing about internet business is that there is so little overhead and very negligible start up cost. With affiliate marketing you don’t have to go door to door canvassing, calling prospective or potential customers and harassing people or even actually talk face to face with people. All you need is the internet connection and some online marketing tools and you are on your way to earn money online.

Online business allows for an advertiser to advertise products from another website and the publishers will get paid a commission for sales or leads. Affiliate programs have become one of the easiest ways to advertise the products in the market. With affiliate products, advertisers can get maximum exposure to their website and products at minimum cost as oppose to traditional advertising methods which could cost up to thousands of dollars.

Make a Paypal Donate Button

2008-11-01T00:44:00.000-07:00

Like other people, I had some trouble finding a simple Paypal donate button to put on my blog. After some searching around, I found an easy way to do it myself.

The easiest, safest, and best way to put a Paypal donate button on your Wordpress blog or website is through the Paypal website. Don’t download plugins or widgets with who knows what kind of code in them, when you’re dealing with yours and other’s money.

Short guide:
Go to the Paypal Donations Factory. Add the name of your website, pick the button style you want, and click “create button now.” Copy and paste the code given into your blog post or a text widget on your wordpress sidebar.

Long guide:
1. Login to your Paypal account.

2. Click on the Merchant Services tab.

3. Click on the Donate link. It’s under the Create Buttons category.

4. Enter the required information. Donation name/service can be whatever you want, but make it accurate. What they’re asking for is the name of your website or business. You can set a required dollar Amount for your donors to give if you want, but leave it blank if you want to let them set their own amount.

5. Select what you want your button to look like (you can make your image if you want later.)

6. I highly recommend you keep the encryption setting on. This will keep your Paypal information (like your email address) hidden from other people.

7. When you’re done click “Create button now.”

8. The code will be generated and given to you in the first box.

8. Copy all the code in that box and paste it into the html code of your blog or website. If you’re using Wordpress, then you have to click on the “code” tab of the post you’re writing.

9. Click the button on your site to make sure you don’t get any errors.
If you get a “We were unable to decrypt the certificate id” error, your code may have gotten a little messed up after you pasted it. The most likely case is that your blog software or page editor is putting line breaks where they’re not supposed to be. This happened to me. Go back to your button code and look at the very bottom, where it says this:

Now try it again and see if it takes you to the donation page. Wordpress has a weird way of processing html code. If you already saved your post, you might have to re-paste the code and follow step 9 again.

That’s it! If you want to put this on your Wordpress sidebar, just create a new Text widget, and copy and paste this code into the widget. And boom, there’s your donate button!

Oh and if you appreciate this little guide:

Make Money From Web Site

2008-10-31T22:59:00.000-07:00

Making Money From Advertising

If you look at many websites, you will probably notice that there are banner advertisements displayed on most pages. If you are a newcomer to the scene, you might think that you must either be a company or that your site must be famous before you can get advertisers, just as it is the case in hardcopy publications.

In reality, anyone with a website can get advertisers. While it is true that if your site is well-known, you may get companies contacting you to offer to advertise on your site, you can get advertising revenue even if you are just starting out and your site is relatively unknown.

The way to do this is to join as an "affiliate" of various sites, either directly, or through an affiliate network. An affiliate network is simply an intermediary where you can select from a variety of advertisers.

Payment Schemes

Before joining any program, you should probably be aware of the different payment schemes available.

Pay Per Impression

Here, you are paid according to the number of times the advertiser's banner is displayed on your site. The amount you earn is typically calculated based on the number of thousand impressions of the banner (impressions = number of times the banner is displayed), often abbreviated CPM (cost per thousand, with the M being the Latin numeral for thousand). That is, $5 CPM means that you get paid $5 for 1,000 displays of the banner. In general, the amount paid is usually small, but it is easy to earn since everytime a visitor loads the page, you earn. This is known as a "high conversion rate". Needless to say, this method will allow you to automatically earn more if your site attracts a lot of visitors.

Pay Per Click

When you are paid per click, you are only paid when visitors click the advertiser's banner on your site. The amount paid is usually higher than the pay per impression scheme. Whether you get a high conversion rate here depends on the banner (whether it attracts people to click it), although in general, it has a higher conversion rate than the pay per sale method. A high traffic site will probably enjoy a higher click rate than a lower traffic site, although you will probably get better results if your banners are carefully selected to suit the target audience of your site.

Pay Per Sale or Lead

While you will probably get the highest payment rates with this method, it has the lowest conversion rate of the three schemes. You will only earn if your visitors click through the banner and either purchase an item from the advertiser or take some other prescribed action (eg, sign up for a service). Like the Pay Per Click method, you get much better results if you carefully select your advertisers to suit the target audience of your site.

In general, to avoid wasting resources in issuing cheques for very small amounts, advertisers will usually accrue the amount owing to you until it reaches a certain level (such as $25) before they pay you.

Where to Find Affiliate Programs

To join an affiliate network or program, simply go to the site and complete their online application form. Some programs will give you instant approval while others require a human to check out your application before it is approved. Once it is approved, you'll be given some HTML code which you can cut and paste into your web page. Note that some affiliate networks and programs will not accept you unless you have a domain name.

How To Choose An Affiliate Program

How should you choose an affiliate program? My suggestion is not to choose a program according to the payment scheme, but rather according to the kind of people who are likely to visit your website. For example, if you are targeting parents on your site, links to affiliates with educational software, books and the like may generate more revenue than banners that link to web hosting companies. The most important rule of choosing an affiliate program is to know your target audience.

Another point to consider is whether you really want to join every single affiliate program that comes your way. Some studies suggest that sites that make the most money from affiliate programs are affiliates of only a small handful of programs. Furthermore, concentrating your advertisements from one network may allow you to be paid faster. If you advertise for hundreds of different affiliate networks on your site, you may wind up earning only (say) a few dollars per month from each network. If your advertiser's minimum payment amount is higher than what you can earn each month, it may take you a long time before you accrue enough to be paid.

On the other hand, that formula does not necessarily hold true for every site (or every page on your site, for that matter). For example, if your site has a particular theme, and an affiliate network only supports one or two suitable advertisers, you might want to sign up for a few affiliate networks so as to get a greater number of relevant advertisers. After all, advertisements that are relevant to your audience are more likely to be taken up than general advertisements. (What's the point of putting banners from only one affiliate if nobody is going to click them?)

By Paula (Marketonair Director) http://www.Marketonair.com Online Money Resource Ebook & Resources Comparison

Paula http://www.Marketonair.com Online Money Resource Ebook & Resources Comparison

About Affiliate Marketing!

2008-10-31T10:42:00.000-07:00

Affiliate marketing has many descriptions, yet all have the same meaning. Affiliate marketing is a huge business piece on the Internet. It is a cooperative effort between merchants and an affiliate’s website. For many years now, affiliate marketing has proved to be a cost-efficient, measurable method of delivering long-tern results. It has become famous for Internet sites who are trying to make some extra or additional income for their site. Every day, people get interested to affiliate marketing and want to make money out of it. But in many cases, these new affiliates do not fully understand the affiliate world and make costly mistakes. In other words, affiliate marketing has often been misunderstood.

One of the common misconceptions that are being associated about affiliate marketing is “selling”, though selling is an important activity of affiliate marketing and the central function of a business operation. Another is that affiliate marketing is commonly linked with “advertising”. While the importance of advertising in marketing a certain product is not to be underestimated, the fact of the matter is, advertising like selling, is merely a part of the many functions of marketing.

In affiliate marketing, an affiliate is compensated for every visitor, subscriber and/or customer provided through his efforts. The said compensation may be made based on a certain value for each visit. The most attractive aspect of affiliate marketing from the merchant’s viewpoint is that no payment is due to an affiliate until results are appreciated.

Affiliate marketing is typically being run by affiliate networks and this affiliate networks are composed of two functional bodies, the group affiliates and the group merchants. Each has their special function and role when it comes to affiliate marketing. The affiliate network acts as a third party between the merchant and the associated affiliates. The network provides the technology to deliver the merchant’s campaigns and offers. The affiliate network also collects commission fees from the merchant and then pays the affiliates which are part of the program.

The merchant is any web site owner that wants or desires to take advantage of performance based marketing. The benefits to the merchant are many. First, the merchant maintains and operates the affiliate program. If it would be extracted, the merchant needs to do their part by researching interested affiliate websites to ensure that they are a good fit for that particular website. Finding a fit for their merchandise would be the key to more generated income. The merchant has access to markets and customers without him spending valuable time searching out. Banner ads on affiliate sites are not distracting to the site user. It might produce interest for that product and drive the consumer to the merchants’ website. It is also the merchant who decides how much he is willing to pay for each sale that results from a visitor sent from an affiliate.

The affiliate or the affiliate marketer also sees a lot of benefits. The affiliate is a web site owner that promotes one or more merchants and their affiliate programs. Affiliate marketing can generate a full-time income for the affiliate. But this is not an easy task to accomplish. The affiliate needs to have a better understanding with the merchant what the commission will be, expected payment method and time involved in the contract. The affiliate has also the responsibility to stand for the merchandise their user based would be most interested in. For example, if the site has a user base of mainly stay-at-home mothers, then on-line job openings such as surveys would be a good match for them. This group would also appreciate direct links to children’s products and informational sites. Merchandisers often provide targeted, best-seller items and personal support to their affiliate. They often offer sales promotions that will benefit the merchandiser as well as the affiliate.

Affiliate marketing is a great situation for both the marketer and the affiliate. If they would work together, they can be an advantage to both. Plus the fact that it seems to make sense, it is easy and inexpensive way to start, and you can be up and running within a few days. But there is one thing to consider, it is how to get traffic and make your offer different than all others.

How can you earn money from Affiliate Marketing?

2008-10-31T10:39:00.000-07:00

Are you planning on engaging with affiliate marketing? Well, here are some basics you will need to know before you sign up for a program. Affiliate marketing is important for a merchant because it gives him the opportunity to advertise his products to a larger market, which in turn increases his chances of earning. The more affiliate websites he gets, the more exposure his website has on the internet, in short, affiliate marketing is not only just one way you can make money online, it is also an advertising campaign.

Now website owners no can save time, effort and money in marketing their products because the role of the affiliate marketer is to ensure that more people visits his site and in turn, there is greater chances of someone visiting the rake off site, makes a purchase and recommend the site to his friends. By getting more affiliates, website owners can now multiply their earnings.

In the same way, affiliate marketers can get a lifetime income just by running an advertisement about another website’s products. Every time a customer clicks on the advertisement located on his site and is redirected to the rake off site, the affiliate marketer can already get commission for that. If the customer purchases something, the affiliate marketer gets a commission again. If the affiliate marketer is able to refer another website which can become another affiliate marketer, the referrer can get a commission from the clicks and purchases made by the visitors of the other site.

This is the main reason why affiliate marketing has become one of the best ways to make money online – some websites are willing to pay up to the 5th level, making it one of the most profitable money making scheme online.

Many online Companies which generate massive profits by selling their product or service do so by affiliate marketing. Most of the affiliates are paid about 20 to 50 percent on each sale produced via their websites or pay-per-click ads. These sales are completed on the number of clicks, listings, leads and sales between the online company and the affiliate.
A best example of affiliate programs at work is the number of online e-books Available on the world-wide-web. You may want to become an affiliate for online companies, and generate profits from sales made by visitors, for more detail transferred to your site. Many thousands of people who generate additional income are doing so this way! Indeed many people are making 5-6 figure profits by working at home.

But how does it work, and how can you earn money from it? If you have a web site- this works by placing a link or links in the form of banners or text on your site that will direct traffic tithe online company website. If your traffic clicks on the link and purchases a product, sign up for a newsletter, for more detail or receives information requiring payment-you get paid! It’s as simple as that! The great part of this for affiliates is that it comes without a charge and is simple to do, you recommend your site to guests for something they will surely like, somebody else does all the effort of giving the product or service, you merely get the payments.
The following are the things being offered by affiliate marketing: Affiliate marketing businesspersons have their own scheme for compensation organization and they are:
* Pay per sale - affiliate takes a compensation from each sale being produced from affiliate links or ads.
* Pay per lead - affiliate takes a compensation for each direct/guide produced from affiliate links or ads.
* Pay per click - affiliate takes a compensation for each click produced from affiliate links or ads. Listed below are some of the tips given to every affiliate who wants to earn money from this program:
1. Click bank is the no.1 resource for affiliate programs-search for the top earning programs here! Go here to learn more...Click bank
2. Select affiliate programs that will ensure to compensate you 20-50 percent or above of the actual price of deal.
3. Begin on your own interest. In this manner, you are sure to work happy and willingly and treat affiliate marketing as a simple hobby.
4. Money, Commerce, Computer Software and e-books are all great ideas for you to begin in your affiliate marketing success!
Now if you are already determined to involve yourself in affiliate marketing, it may be suitable for you to find laser targeted web traffic and encourage them to visit your sites and start promoting the product and services. Comal is an online affiliate store - here you will find many quality products to make money from! Go here to learn.

How To Make Money From Blog

2008-10-31T10:38:00.000-07:00

Making money from blog or any website is not that difficult if you know the right way to do it. I will explain some of these simplest and easiest steps on how to make money from blog. To follow these 10 steps you do not need to spend a single dollar, that means they are all free to try. All you need is a blog and web traffic.

If you look at the top bloggers or probloggers earning statement you will noticed that they are all making money pretty much in the same way.

1. The most money you can make from your blog is by doing paid review of other blog, company product or service or even a about a general website. There are many many bloggers who are only doing paid review and making $500-$1,200 per month. But many probloggers are also making $2,000-$3,000 per month from this paid review. How you are going to do paid review? These top two well known companies will help you to do paid review on your blog:
ReviewME &
PayPerPost
There are few rules and regulations to get these paid review offer. Once you will visit their website and read their FAQ (Frequently Asked Question), you will understand how the whole thing works. The most common rules are, your blog has to be 90 days old & you have to post frequently on your blog.
2. Then you have to choose your affiliates. Affiliate sale is actually the top income source for bloggers. This source of income will start as soon as you are successful to built trust among your readers. Once they trust you, you will trust the product or service you will mention or show in your blog. When you choose your affiliate, choose them wisely. Because, even the payout is big for each sale if your conversion rate is not good for the particular product or service (affiliate), you are completely wasting your time and money. Try following websites to find matching affiliate for your blog.
Commission Junction or CJ
Click Bank
FastClick or ValueClick
Double Click
Tribal Fusion
eBay (Have to Join by CJ actually) &
Amazon
3. Some of you are probably getting anxious to hear about Google Adsense (). Yes, of course Google Adsense is the easiest way to make money from any website or blog. But as you can see it is not the #1 income source for professional bloggers.
4. A new era of advertisement started since text link ads or TLA (use coupon code july at the checkout to get 15% off for the month of July 2007)was introduced. This is a very easy way to make few hundred dollars/month if your blog receives good amount of traffic and have at least a Google PR 5. Do not forget about Alexa ranking either. When it comes to text link ads, Alexa ranking is very important. The higher your Alexa ranking, the more money you are likely to get for each text link ad on your blog.

5. You might recently noticed another new kind of advertisement on many websites that look like a small popup (not actually a popup) window which is actually contextual ads. This types of ads scan your website text and highlight the word or phrase to show relevant ads. Once users bring their mouse over the double highlighted keyword/s, a small box popup with relevant product or service ads in the box. Mostly used contextual ads are served by Kontera.
6. If you are still offering full RSS feed syndication for your blog this might be a good money making source for you. Use Feedvertisement program powered by “text link ads” to show ads on your rss feed since Google or other types of advertisement might not be shown in many rss readers. Here is a great feedvertising tutorial.
7. Once your blogs receives lots of backlinks, as a result lots of traffic, you can sell private advertisement on your blog either by monthly/quarterly/annually or by impression (CPM). Just search for WordPress Advertisement Plug-In in Google and you will find some good add-on to show ads on your blog.
8. Some of the smart (or i should say evil) bloggers are recently using a new plug-in to make some extra money on the side. This is called Buy Me Beer Plug-In by Blog Clout. It will install a small link icon at the end of your every posts and will encourage readers to donate small amount of money through PayPal. You can make it unique by saying buy me milk/juice/pop or buy me a chocolate/candy or buy be a pitcher of beer.
9. E-mail subscription. Once you open an account in FeedBurner, you should also activate the e-mail Email Subscriptions option under “Publicize” tab. Blog readers can become your blog subscriber through e-mail address using feedburner free email subscription service. This subscription will allow them to receive the latest blog post through their e-mail rather then RSS reader or visiting your blog. See an example of post they will receive in e-mail. This way you can bring back more readers to your blog, which mean more click and more revenue. It might be very small conversion but it will add up.
10. The last but not the least, very new Auction Ads. Don’t get confused between Auction Ads and Auction Affiliate. Both Auction Ads & Auction Affiliate offers almost similar types of ads originally server by eBay. These are the middle men who is helping you to show these ads in style and making it easier to become an eBay affiliate. The profit sharing for these ads are 50%-75% (depending on the selling amount per month.

MAKE MONEY FROM BLOG

2008-10-31T10:36:00.000-07:00

MAKE REAL MONEY WITH YOUR MONEY IN 28 WAYS
There are several lists with “ways to make money with a website” on the Internet, but none of them seem to be complete. That is why I decided to create this one. If you know a method that is not listed below, just let us know and we’ll update it.

Notice that ways to make money with a website are different from ways to make more money from it. Methods to increase your traffic or click-through rate will help you make more money, but they do not represent a method of making money per se.

For example, one could suggest that blending AdSense ads with the content is a way to make money from a website. In reality it’s not; it’s just a way to make more money by improving your ad click-through rate. The real monetization method behind it is a PPC ad network.

The list is divided into direct and indirect methods, and examples and links are provided for each point. Enjoy!

Direct Methods
1. PPC Advertising Networks

Google AdSense is the most popular option under this category, but there are also others. Basically you need to sign up with the network and paste some code snippets on your website. The network will then serve contextual ads (either text or images) relevant to your website, and you will earn a certain amount of money for every click.

The profitability of PPC advertising depends on the general traffic levels of the website and, most importantly, on the click-through rate (CTR) and cost per click (CPC). The CTR depends on the design of the website. Ads placed abode the fold or blended with content, for instance, tend to get higher CTRs. The CPC, on the other hand, depends on the nice of the website. Mortgages, financial products and college education are examples of profitable niches (clicks worth a couple of dollars are not rare), while tech-related topics tend to receive a smaller CPC (sometimes as low as a couple of cents per click).

The source of the traffic can also affect the overall CTR rate. Organic traffic (the one that comes from search engines) tends to perform well because these visitors were already looking for something, and they tend to click on ads more often. Social media traffic, on the other hand, presents terribly low CTRs because these visitors are tech-savvy and they just ignore ads.

List of popular CPC advertising networks:

Google Adsense
Yahoo! Publisher Network (YPN)
BidVertiser
Chitika
Clicksor
2. CPM Advertising Networks

CPM advertising networks behave pretty much as PPC networks, except that you get paid according to the number of impressions (i.e., page views) that the ads displayed on your site will generate. CPM stands for Cost per Mille, and it refers to the cost for 1,000 impressions.

A blog that generates 100,000 page views monthly displaying an advertising banner with a $1 CPM, therefore, will earn $100 monthly.

CPM rates vary with the network, the position of the ad and the format. The better the network, the higher the CPM rate (because they have access to more advertisers). The closer you put the ad to the top of the page, the higher the CPM. The bigger the format (in terms of pixels), the higher the CPM.

You can get as low as $0,10 and as high as $10 per 1,000 impressions (more in some special cases). CPM advertising tends to work well on websites with a high page views per visitor ratio (e.g., online forums, magazines and so on).

List of popular CPM advertising networks:

Casale Media
Burst Media
Value Click
Advertising.com
Tribal Fusion
Right Media
3. Direct Banner Advertising

Selling your own advertising space is one of the most lucrative monetization methods. First and foremost because it enables you to cut out the middleman commissions and to determine your own rates. The most popular banner formats on the web are the 728×90 leaderboard, the 120×600 skyscraper, the 300×250 rectangle and the 125×125 button.

The downside of direct banner advertising is that you need to have a big audience to get qualified advertisers, and you will need to spend time managing the sales process, the banners and the payments.

Related links:

How to Find Advertisers for Your Website
Finding Advertisers for Your Blog
Direct Advertising Sales for Beginners
Openads Ad Server
OIO Publisher Ad Platform
4. Text Link Ads

After Google declared that sites selling text links without the nofollow tag would be penalized, this monetization method became less popular.

Many website owners are still using text links to monetize their sites, though, some using the nofollow tag and some not.

The advantage of this method is that it is not intrusive. One can sell text links directly through his website or use specialized networks like Text-Link-Ads and Text-Link-Brokers to automate the process.

Text link marketplaces and networks:

DigitalPoint Link Sales Forum
Text-Link-Ads
Text-Link-Brokers
TNX
LinkWorth
5. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a very popular practice on the Internet. Under this system you have a merchant that is willing to let other people (the affiliates) sell directly or indirectly its products and services, in exchange for a commission. Sometimes this type of advertising is also called CPA (cost per action) or CPL (cost per lead) based.

Affiliates can send potential customers to the merchant using several tools, from banners to text links and product reviews.

In order to find suitable affiliate programs you can turn to individual companies and publishers like Dreamhost and SEOBook, or join affiliate marketplaces and networks.

List of popular affiliate marketplaces and networks:

Commission Junction
ClickBank
Azoogle Ads
Link Share
6. Monetization Widgets

The latest trend on the web are widgets that let you monetize your website. Examples include Widgetbucks and SmartLinks. Some of these services operate under a PPC scheme, others behave like text link ads, others yet leverage affiliate links.

Their main differentiator, however, is the fact that they work as web widgets, making it easier for the user to plug and play the service on its website.

List of companies that provide monetization widgets:

WidgetBucks
ScratchBack
SmartLinks
7. Sponsored Reviews

PayPerPost pioneered this model, with much controversy on the beginning (related to the fact that they did not require disclosure on paid posts). Soon other companies followed, most notably Sponsored Reviews and ReviewMe, refining the process and expanding the paid blogging model.

Joining one of these sponsored reviews marketplaces will give you the opportunity to write sponsored posts on a wide range of topics. Not all bloggers are willing to get paid to write about a specific product or website (because it might compromise the editorial credibility), but the ones who do are making good money out of it.

If your blog has a big audience you could also offer sponsored reviews directly, cutting off the commissions of the middleman.

List of sponsored reviews and paid blogging networks:

PayPerPost
Sponsored Reviews
ReviewMe
BlogVertise
Smorty
8. RSS Feed Ads

With the quick adoption of the RSS technology by millions of Internet users, website owners are starting to find ways to monetize this new content distribution channel.

Feedburber already has its own publisher network, and you can sign-up to start displaying CPM based advertising on your feed footer. Bidvertiser recently introduced a RSS feed ad option as well, with a PPC scheme.

Finally, some blogs are also opting to sell banners or sponsored messages on their feed directly. John Chow and Marketing Pilgrim are two examples.

Related links:

Feedburner
BidVertiser
Pheedo
9. Sponsors for Single Columns or Events

If you website has specific columns or events (e.g., a weekly podcast, an interview series, a monthly survey, a special project) you could find companies to sponsor them individually.

This method increases the monetization options for website owner, while giving advertisers the possibility to target a more specific audience and with a reduced commitment.

Mashable illustrates the case well. They have several advertising options on the site, including the possibility to sponsor specific columns and articles, including the “Daily Poll” and the “Web 2.0 Invites.”

Problogger also runs group writing projects occasionally, and before proceeding he publicly announce the project asking for sponsors.

10.Premium Content

Some websites and blogs give away part of their content for free, and charge for access to the premium content and exclusive tools.

SEOMoz is a good example. They have a very popular blog that gives advice and information on wide range of SEO related topics. On top of that visitors can decide to become premium members. It costs $48 monthly and it grants them access to guides, tools and other exclusive material.

11. Private Forums

While the Internet is populated with free forums, there is also the possibility to create a private one where members need to pay a single or recurring fee to join.

SEO Blackhat charges $100 monthly from its members, and they have thousands of them. Obviously in order to charge such a price for a forum membership you need to provide real value for the members (e.g., secret techniques, tools, and so on).

Performancing also launched a private forum recently, focused on the networking aspect. It is called The Hive, and the monthly cost is $10.

These are just two examples. There are many possibilities to create a private and profitable forum, you just need to find an appealing angle that will make it worth for the members.

List of popular forum software:

vBulletin
Simple Machines Forum
phpBB
Vanilla
12. Job Boards

All the popular blogs are trying to leverage job boards to make some extra income. Guy Kawasaki, ReadWriteWeb, Problogger… you name it.

Needless to say that in order to create an active and profitable job board you need first to have a blog focused on a specific niche, and a decent amount traffic.

The advantage of this method is that it is passive. Once you have the structure in place, the job listings will come naturally, and you can charge anywhere from $10 up to $100 for each.

List of popular job board software:

JobThread
Web Scribe Job Board
SimplyHired Job-o-matic
Jobbex
13. Marketplaces

Sitepoint is the online marketplace by excellence. Some websites and blogs, however, are trying to replicate that model on a smaller scale.

Depending on your niche, a market place that allows your visitors to buy, sell and trade products could work well. Over the time you could start charging a small fee for new product listings.

The problem with this method is that there are no standard software on the web, so you would need to hire a coder to get a marketplace integrated into your website.

You can see an example of a marketplaces being used on EasyWordpress and on Mashable.

14. Paid Surveys and Polls

There are services that will pay you money to run a small survey or poll on your website. The most popular one is called Vizu Answers.

Basically you need to sign up with them, and select the kind of polls that you want to run your site. Most of these services operate under a CPM model.

15. Selling or Renting Internal Pages

Million Dollar Wiki made this concept popular, but it was being used on the web for a long time around (check Pagerank10.co.uk for instance).

These websites sell for a single fee or rent for a recurring fee internal pages on their domain. Usually they have either high Pagerak or high traffic, so that people purchasing a page will be able to benefit in some way.

Implementing this method on a small blog would be difficult, but the concept is interesting and could be explored further.

16. Highlighted Posts from Sponsors

Techmeme probably pioneered this idea, but somehow it has not spread to other websites. The tech news aggregator displays editorial posts on the left column, and on the sidebar they have a section titled “Techmeme Sponsor Posts.”

On that section posts from the blog of the advertisers get highlighted, sending qualified traffic their way. Considering that the monthly cost for one spot is $5000 and that they have around 6 sponsors at any given time, it must be working well.

17. Donations

Placing a “Donate” link or button on a website can be an efficient way to earn money, especially if your blog is on a niche where readers learn and gain value from your content.

Personal development and productivity blogs, for instance, tend to perform well with donation based systems (one good example being Steve Pavlina).

A small variation of this method appeared sometime ago with the Buy Me a Beer plugin. This WordPress plugin enables you to insert a customized message at the bottom of each article, asking the readers to chip in for a beer or coffee.

18. In-text Adverting

In-text adverting networks like Kontera and Vibrant Media will place sponsored links inside your text. These links come with a double underline to differentiate them from normal links, and once the user rolls the mouse over the link the advertising will pop. Should the user click on it the site owner will make some money.

Some people make good money with this method, but others refrain from using it due to its intrusiveness. It is also interesting to note that very few mainstream websites have experimented with in-text advertising.

19. Pop-ups and Pop-unders

Pop-ups are a common yet annoying form of advertising on the Internet. If you are just trying to make a much money as possible from your website, you could experiment with them.

If you are trying to grow the traffic and generate loyal visitors, however, you probably should stay away from them. Just consider the hundreds of pop-up blockers out there: there is a reason why they are so popular.

Ad networks that use pop-ups:

Tribal Fusion
PayPopup
PopupAd
Adversal
20. Audio Ads

Also called PPP (Pay Per Play), this advertising method was introduce by Net Audio Ads. the concept is pretty simple: play a small audio advertising (usually 5 seconds) every time a visitor enters into your website. The user should not be able to stop it, creating a 100% conversion rate based on unique visitors.

The company is still rolling tests, but some users are reporting to get from a $4 to a $6 CPM. Regardless of the pay rate, though, this is a very intrusive form of advertising, so think twice before using it.

21. Selling the Website

Selling your website could be your last resource, but it has the potential to generate a big sum of money in a short period of time.

Market places on online forums like DigitalPoint and Sitepoint are always active with website buyers and sellers. Keep in mind that they most used parameter to determine the value of a website is the monthly revenue that it generates, multiplied by a certain number (the multiplier can be anything from 5 to 30, depending on the expectations of the seller, on the quality of the site, on the niche and other factors).

Some people also make money trading and flipping websites. They either create them from scratch or buy existing ones, and after some revamping they sell them for a profit.

Related links:

How To Buy A Website And Flip It For Profit
How To Sell A Website - How Much Is Your Website Worth?
Where to sell a website? How to go about selling it?
Indirect Methods
22. Selling an Ebook

Perhaps one of the oldest money making strategies on the web, using a website to promote a related ebook is a very efficient way to generate revenue.

You could either structure the website around the book itself, like SEOBook.com, or launch the ebook based on the success of the website, like FreelanceSwitch did we the book How to be a Rockstar Freelancer.

Related links:

Writing an ebook for your blog
How to sell ebooks
Processing payments for your ebook
How to sell digital products online
List of ebook selling software
23. Selling a Hardcover Book

Many authors and journalists leverage their blogs or websites to sell copies of hardcover books. Examples include Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell.

While most of these people were already renowned authors before they created their website, one could also follow the other way around. Lorelle VanFossen did exactly that with her Blogging Tips book. First she built her authority on the subject via her blog, and afterwards she published the book.

List of self publishing and publishing services:

Lulu
Self Publishing
iUniverse
WordClay
24. Selling Templates or WordPress Themes

As more and more people decide to get an online presence, website templates and WordPress themes become hotter and hotter.

On this segment you have mainstream websites like TemplateMonster, as well as individual designers who decide to promote and sell their work independently.

Brian Gardner and Unique Blog Designs are two examples of websites that make money with the sales of premium and custom WordPress themes.

25. Offering Consulting and Related Services

Depending on your niche, you could make money by offering consulting and related services. If you are also the author of your blog, the articles and information that you will share will build your profile and possibly certify your expertise on that niche, making it easier to gain customers.

Chris Garrett used a similar strategy. First he created a highly influential blog on the blogging and new media niche, and afterwards he started offering consulting services to clients with related problems and needs.

26. Creating an Email List or Newsletter

Email lists and newsletters represent one of the most powerful marketing and money making tools on the Internet. They offer incredible conversion rates, and the possibility to call people to action in a very efficient way.

Creating a big list is a difficult task though, so if you have a popular website you could leverage it to increase the number of subscribers on your list.

Yaro Starak is a famous Internet marketer, and if you visit his blog you will notice that right on top he has a section encouraging visitors to subscribe to his email newsletter. Yaro generates five figures in revenues each month from his email newsletters, proving that this method works.

List of software to manage email newsletters:

AWeber
SendStudio NX
PHP Autoresponder
Constant Contact
27. Mentoring programs

People are willing to pay for someone or something that will teach them and give them knowledge (as opposed to mere information). Education is one of the biggest industries in the world, and the online landscape behaves in a similar way.

Creating a mentoring program related to the niche of your website could be very profitable if you manage to structure and promote it adequately. There is a wide range of media and tools that you can use to deliver the information, from text articles to audio and video lessons.

Brian Clark leveraged the success of Copyblogger to launch a mentoring program teaching people how to build membership and how to sell content online. The program is titled Teaching Sells, and it costs $97 monthly. Sounds expensive, but they have over 1,000 members.

28. Creating a conference around the website

If your website takes off and becomes an authority on its niche, you could create a conference around it. Depending on the size of your audience, the event could attract thousands of people, and you could make money directly from conference passes and sponsors.

Search Engine Land, for instance, created a series of conferences that visit several cities on the United States and on other countries as well. The conferences are called Search Marketing Expo, and the tickets and passes cost thousands of dollars.

Posted by KPNOOR at 1:50 AM 1 comments
Thursday, June 19, 2008
usefullness of this blogspot
hi! dears,

we have got this tuterials that is very usefull for us. we have learnt about google adsense in detailed from this tuterials. thanks , mr.kazi noor.
Posted by KPNOOR at 9:15 PM 2 comments
Saturday, June 14, 2008
i face some problem
first of all i will give a lot of thanks to mr kpnoo. and also micros digital for arrange this tutorial.

i face some problem when making blog site. google ads are appeared on right site like banner so total ads are not viable . when i remove it and add there a vertical ad that does not make happen. i can not understand this matter. why it doesn't?

thanks again all of who are involves with this.
Posted by KPNOOR at 2:32 AM 3 comments
Thursday, May 22, 2008
The Best Google Money Earning/Making Book relay Worked
Get your Web site to “show you the money” by using Google to draw more eyes–and wallets–to your content. In this friendly, four-color guide from veteran author and Web developer Eric Giguere, you’ll learn all about Google’s AdSense program and how you can use it to make your Web site or blog more profitable. Written in an easy-to-read, non-technical style, this book follows three average people–Claude, Stef, and Anita–as they learn to create money-making blogs and Web sites. Through their experiences, you’ll learn: basic Web terminology; the Google Adsense nuts and bolts; how to host, build, and publish targeted ads and Google search boxes to your Web site; filter out inappropriate ads; track page performance; drive traffic to your site; and more. A four-part companion Web site features a blog, includes reader resources, and details the techniques discussed in the book.

Online marketers agree that AdSense is one of the best tools you can use to draw dollars to your site. Let Giguere show you how to make the most of Google and have fun doing it!

7 Tips To Improve Your Blog Rank

2008-10-31T10:34:00.000-07:00

Improve blog ranking and marketing is no longer kids stuff. It's beyond the sappy diary entries and angst fueled rants. It's serious business, especially if your goal is to make money blogging for your business. Blog marketing is more powerful than static site marketing mainly because of all the options Web 2.0 offers. Below are some things you can do to take advantage of what web 2.0 has to offer to increase blog traffic, links and engine ranking.

1. Tag you're it!

If you are not tagging your posts, start now. Tags make it easier for people to find your blog post, and video and photos that are related. You can write the most informative blog in your niche but if it can not be found it can not get read. Tag your posts.

2. Get exposed

Do you wonder how some large news and content sites deliver their headlines? Syndicate with RSS. While using the feed that comes with your blog may seem like an ok option, using a custom feed, that specifically separates keyword groups for content you develop frequently, is a far better option. Syndicating with RSS increases your exposure. Pheedpress, available from Content Desk is a great tool for this.

3. Forget me not

Social Bookmarking allows users to save and categorize a personal collection of bookmarks and share them with others. Users may also take bookmarks saved by others and add them to their own collection, as well as to subscribe to the lists of others.

Bookmarking is an easy way to improve blog ranking and get traffic; the more you do it the more you'll be noticed. Ideally, your site should be bookmarked somewhere in all the major bookmarking engines. But having your entire site booked in just a few can greatly increase blog traffic.

4. Get involved

Much like the tip above, adding comments is a great way to sprinkle your links around. Note however, your comment must be informative and relate to the original post. Bloggers will grant your trackbacks when your comments are on topic and useful.

5. Digging for treasure

Digg.com and Digg-like sites take stories from users and post them on the site. Users then vote on them and decide which get dugg and which are buried. If you are dugg it can result in a flood of traffic.

6. Get connected

Social networks like Myspace can be found in virtually everywhere corner of the web. They are great places to meet like minded people and above all receive valuable links from.

Article syndication is still one of the most popular ways to get links. Well-written content that serves the reader first then your business will receive rewards. This is the type of content that is read, passed on, and linked to. Writing content gives you links as well as branding you as an authority figure in your niche.

Publishing on a blog platform gives you the opportunity to reach a greater quantity of people faster than a static site. Use the above tips to take full advantage of all the rewards blogging can have on your business and to be able to make money blogging.

How To Make Money From Blog

2008-10-31T10:32:00.000-07:00

Making money online is fun if you know how to do it. For some people creating plenty blogs thats mean more money, but only if it targeted one. So how to make targeted traffic ?. This is is one million dollar question, there are many alternative, one thing is by writing good content, targeted niche, and familiar with SEO or search engine optimization. If your English writing skills not good enough, try use content writer. You can find many content writer in webmaster forum for only $2 per 200 words and $3 for more than 300 words.

Then find good stuff to promote, if you are getting no luck with adsense, try affiliate. Click2sell is one of the easiest affiliate as I know besides pepperjam, register here if you want to try click2sell. If you have money, use adwords to promote your affiliate products, or for instant sales and visitor you always can try to buy targeted traffics.

Another way to increase your sales is order seo service, or, signup as advertise in some of known pay to review broker such as sponsored review, linkworth, blogsvertise. If you already know seo, to make your seo knowledge better, joining international or local seo contest such as Busby SEO Test is good start.

Do you have a blog or site which gets a decent traffic every day? Then i think you can do more than just refreshing and checking your visitors. Blogging has become a professional and a sought after service where people look out to make a lot of money. Just sitting at home, working online could get you all the money that you ever wanted to have. It doesn't need any big investment as there are a lot of free blog hosting services like blogger and wordpress. You can also register your domain with a service provider who could provide a unique address if you are bugged up with the blogspot or the wordpress being a part of your domain name.

I was clueless when i started this blog, i dint know where i should start up with in order to make money in my blog. Slowly i realized that traffic and link building are the two major things you will need initially to start up with minimum earnings. Also for your blog to be approved by the paid services or review sites, you will need to establish yourself a little with average visitors and a bit of finding your site here and there in google search for related queries.

For a start up blogger, when you are done with all the setup and ready to go for earning, you might need to start with Google Adsense initially. For a list of other such services which could pay you for blogging and writing things that you like, you can visit this site where he has listed a lot of such sites which will pay you money. As this website suggests, you need to have a PR for doubling or tripling* your earnings from blog. Link building is a good way to increase PR and with increased PR, your site would show up on the top of Google searches and other search engine results which in turn would bring traffic automatically to your site.For more tips from this guy, visit this page

Many profitable blog owners started their blogs to as a personal diary and began doing little things to earn income. First adding ads to the blog and then doing other things to capitalize on traffic and make a profit.

Blogging for profit is a new way of making money online, as most people called it problogging. Blog has being know by people as online dairy which can also be use to generate revenue for most people to pay off their mortgage and debts.

Most people still use blog to speak out their view and opinion about a particular hobby or interest. And as popular belief, google and lots of major search engines loves blog and reasons being that you can blog and ping and it is not static like a normal website.

There are lots of way to monetise your blog, Some of the ways are listed below:

Google Adsense: Is one great way to make money for your blog is advertising ad sense on your blog. Google Adsense is a service that allow blogger and site owner to publish text based context-related ads on your blog. All you have to do is to add a code into your website or blog or download adsense pugins and google show related ads on your blog.
You make money when any of your visitors click on the ads you get paid certain amount of money. Other Adsense you can use are chitika, kanoodle, yahoo! Publisher network.

Blogads is another way of advertising space on your blog, this allow you take control of your advertisers. Blogad allows you to sell your ad space in a direct and useful way. Blogad keeps 20% of the net revenue and the rest is sent to your paypal account. Alternative service you can use are, Crispads, GrokAds, Tagword.

For many blog owners with products or services, blog posts will be used to advertise these specific products/services to clients. Blog posts of that nature can be written to highlight note worthy product features, specials, or client reviews Writing this information in an individual post increases the chance that your product/site will be listed in search engine results and exposed to more potential clients.

Another way to earn money from your blog posts is inline ads. Inline ads highlight specific keywords found within your post and earn you revenue each time a reader clicks the highlight keyword. Companies such as Adbrite. Adbrite offer Inline Ad options to advertisers and more companies, such as Google, are looking for ways to help webmasters maximize their revenue by using inline ads. Some companies are even willing to pay per impression which means you earn money regardless of whether your readers click the keywords or not.

Sponsored review programs, or paid review programs, are another extremely popular way to earn money with your blog posts. I use sponsored review programs to earn money and to get ideas for new, quality, content when writers block creeps up on me. These programs allow blog owners to sign up, register their blog, and then review a variety of websites. Each review usually consists of a neutral, or positive, overview of the website paying for the review, along with up to three links to the sponsors website.

How to Earn and Make Money Online from Blog.........

2008-10-31T10:30:00.001-07:00

1:-
Google Adsense.

The AdSense Formula for Making Money Online.

I often get asked what the secret is to making money with
Google’sAdSense program. This often comes from people who are
dreaming of setting up websites chock full of high-paying keywords for
articular niche subjects and then sitting back and watching the
money roll in. “What’s the magic formula?”
they ask me. If they’re non-technical, I point them straight to mail
me and ask personal, and I assure them that they’ll know
everything they need. They may think it’s hard, but it’s not.
But what about the technical people? By this I mean thepeoplewho’ve
already set up a blog or website, who have registered
domain names, who are comfortable with basic Internet
terminology and concepts. What is the “AdSense formula”?

The only AdSense formula that you need to know is this:

Earnings = Number of clicks * Average price per click

This is what I call the Fundamental AdSense Formula because
you can derive almost every AdSense “secret” directly or
indirectly from this formula. Do you want to earn more with
AdSense? You have two ways of doing it:
# Increase the number of clicks, and/or
#. Increase the average price per click
Your earnings will only go up if you do one or the other, and
ideally both. It’s an obvious formula, yes, but it’s amazing how
many people lose sight of it in their quest for increased
AdSense earnings.

Increasing the Number of AdSense Clicks
Increasing the number of times the ads on your site or blog are
clicked is the most obvious strategy. There are two general
strategies you can follow:
# Increase the traffic to the site, and/or
# Adjust the ads to make them more “clickable”
Getting traffic is hard and takes few time, so don’t look at it as
a quick fix. The best way to get traffic is to provide useful,
unique content and to rank highly in search engine rankings
for keywords related to that content.
In other words, use standard search engine optimization
techniques. DO NOT “buy” traffic or use “link farms” or otherdubious
techniques.

Other tips for getting traffic:
1. Publish articles, even free ones, with links back to your site.
2. Include a link to your site in the signature at the bottom of
your emails or in any forum postings you make
(if the forum allows it).
3. Participate in forums/groups related to the content of your
site or blog. The key is to participate, not lurk, and don’t just
post messages promoting your site.
4. Add comments (relevant ones only, please) to other blogs,
you can usually link back to yours. (This won’t help your search
engine rankings, but it may allow others who are
readingthosecomments to find your own site.)
5. Syndicate your content (trivial if you have a blog) and make
sure that the content is registered with syndication aggregators.
6. List your site in relevant directories.

Adjusting the ads is something you can do almost immediately:
1. Position the ads on the page in order to make them more
noticeable. Google even publishes a helpful heat map for AdSense
publishers.
2. Choose the best AdSense ad format that works for your site.
3. Change the ad colors either to make the ads blend in with your
site or to make them stand out. Again, it varies depending on the
site.

Whatever you do, DO NOT ENTICE VISITORS TO CLICK THE
ADS. Google is very strict about this, see the AdSense
programpolicies for the details.

Increasing the Average AdSense Price Per Click
Increasing the average price per click you receive from AdSense
is the other strategy for increasing your overall AdSense earnings.

You can do this by:
* Carefully targeting your content, and/or
* Filtering out and avoiding low-paying ads
Content targeting isn’t just about creating relevant, unique
content. It’s also making sure that that content is written to
target the higher-paying keywords associated with a given
topic. This means:
# Figuring out which keyword variations for that topic pay
more.Often the more specialized variations and phrases pay
more than the “generic” terms.
# Ensuring that the keyword density of the content favors the
higher-paying keyword variations.

And to reduce the occurrence of lower-paying ads, consider
these two strategies:
1. Use AdSense’s competitive filter mechanism to screen out the
ads that you don’t want.
2. Show fewer ads on a page. The fewer ads you show, the more
the higher-paying ads get displayed and clicked.

Many publishers also report that their earnings increase if they
remove ads completely from pages with few or no clicks. Again,
the “less is more” strategy favors the higher-paying ads.

There’s No Magic
As you can see, there’s no magic involved to increasingyourAdSense
earnings. The Fundamental AdSense Formula is easy to understand,
but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to apply the formula. Ittakes time and
effort to do it, just like most things.

2:-
Blogging the blogs: Perfect way to Make Money Online:
If you've decided to make money online through blogging. Do a simple
research in the Google to find out the sites that pay you
dollars for blogging about other's blog.
Once you got a job from these paid to blog sites, immediately note
the website that is to be reviewed carefully. Then, find out the
press release of that website. Just re-word the web release with
a link in your blog.
Even you will be paid to blog about other sites by singing,
posting a videotape or writing about their site/blog with a
link in your blog to the client's site.
I have researched myself for finding out the best paid to blog
services. I have placed them in the order of preference-

1. Pay per post
2. Review me
3. Loud launch
4. Bloggerwave
5. PayU2Blog
6. Smorty
7. InBlogAds
8. CREAMaid
9. Blogitive
10.Blogsvertise Tutorial

All these sites are really worth to sign up as they have
providing opportunities to the bloggers to make money online...........blogging
All of these websites are offering pay per post service, but you
need paypal account. Immediately sign up for paypal and
register in the above lists.

3:-
Make Money Online Through Google Gadget Ads:
I know very well that you are aware of Google adsense. But
Google announced a new strategy called Google Gadgets.
By using Google Gadgets, you can make easy money online.
The main difference between the Google ads and the Google
gadgets is that the ads are interactive, engaging, and will appeal to your users,
Simultaneously providing value to advertisers while getting visitors to stick
around your site. The main advantage of Google Gadget is that the advertiser
might receive more engaged users and users may experience
richer ad experience. As far as publishers are concerned, they
may experience increased competition for their ad space.
It is noticed that the Gadget ads can take number of formats,
sizes, and shapes, you can view them at GOOGLE GADGET AD CENTER.
Hope you have enjoy to hear this news for making money online easily through

How to Position AdSense Ads on a Blog

2008-10-31T10:30:00.000-07:00

Google AdSense is the main source of income for several bloggers looking to earn money through blogging. However many earn less from it due to their poorly positioned Ads.
Here are some tips to improve your AdSense earnings by positioning your Ads well on your blog:

Single Post pages

On Single pages, place a Large Rectangle (336×280) just above the content so that your readers will notice them. The large rectangle is the best performing AdSense format as they are wide.
For longer entries, try placing a blended Medium Rectangle (300 x 250) into your post using AdSense Deluxe. I would recommend you use a service like CrazyEgg to find out the most clicked spot on your blog post and place your Ad right next to it.
A Banner (468 x 60) just before your comment box is also a good place to put your Ads as your readers may notice them when they try to comment.

Homepage

In my early days with AdSense, I used to place my Ad right on top (even before the posts) after a short intro. Though this increased my CTR (click through rate), it used to be annoying for my readers.
So I would recommend you place a Large Rectangle (336 x 280) right after the first post. This page shows you how to place your AdSense Ads after the first post on your homepage.

Header

I have placed a Link unit near my Menu as Link units look like menus themselves and will help in increasing my CTR (click through rate). By adding a link unit near your menu, you will get more clicks than you thought was possible.
You could also try a Leaderboard (728 x 90) and see if it works for you.

Sidebar

Ads on sidebars usually don’t perform as well as the Ads near the content as that is where readers focus on. But it is best that you try them on your blog to see if they work for you.
You could try a Wide Skyscraper (160×600) or a vertical Link unit on your sidebar, but remember to place them at the top so that your readers notice them.

Footer

Ads on footer has not worked well for me but it is best that you try them on your blog to see if they work for you. Try using a Leaderboard (728 x 90).
From my experience, I find that Ads above the content performs the best. However, the best way to find the right Ad Position for your blog is to experiment in a trial and error method and track your Ad performance using Channels.
Remember: AdSense allows you to place only 3 Ad units and 1 Link unit on a single page, so keep that in mind when you experiment different Ad placements.

How To Make Cash In 5 Minutes:

2008-10-31T10:28:00.000-07:00

1. Sign-up at CashCrate for free.
2. Once you login to your account at CashCrate, click on the “Complete Offers” in the Member’s navigation bar. It will show you 3 different tabs right underneath the navigation bar. These tabs are Cash Offer, Point Offers & Daily Surveys.
3. Click on “Cash Offers” tab. It will show you all the current offers, corresponding condition or description of the offer and payout amount.
4. Click on the offer you like and finish the complete process. Suppose if the offer “Description” says you need to sign-up for a free membership, you need to follow the link and sign-up at that website. Note that, some of those websites need credit card information. But they will not charge you any amount as long as the “Cost” of the offers indicate $0.00. The websites need credit card information are tagged with a Master Card similar logo beside them.
5. Once you finish the corresponding condition or task, you can come back to CashCare website and click on the “Submit” button that is align with that offer. It will add the payout amount to your “Pending Earning” which you will able to view at the very top. The payment will be credited to your account as soon as CashCrate received the validity or proof of your participation.

You can also make cash through daily online survey and referrals. As a referrer, you can earn up to 20% of your referred person income. Here are 5 different levels of referrals package.

* Bronze - 0 Active Referrals - 20% First Level, 10% Second Level
* Silver - 50 Active Referrals - 25% First Level, 10% Second Level
* Gold - 150 Active Referrals - 25% First Level, 15% Second Level
* Platinum - 300 Active Referrals - 30% First Level, 15% Second Level
* Elite - 500 Active Referrals - 30% First Level, 20% Second Level

Optimization Tips for Adbrite

2008-10-31T10:05:00.000-07:00

Adbrite is not contextual like Adsense, so the click through rate is a bit low. The best option with adbrite is the full-page advertisement and the in-text advertisement. I have tested adbrite recently and got nice clicks from the in-text ads. Since my site is full of content so the in-text ads work good. The full-page ads are usually impression based, and my traffic is not that huge, so I did not make much with the full-page CPM ads.

So, to start with here are a few steps to maximize your adbrite earnings.

1.

Un-check the auto-approve of ads, and don’t approve ads below 10 cents.
2.

Give a nice description of your website, remember most of the advertisers you will catch from the adbrite market place.
3.

Get the big rectangles, as that is the best performing ads for any network.
4.

Put up as many tags as you can, in the keywords field. Use the dictionary if you run out of keywords.
5.

Make the color of the ads text and background same as rest of your website.
6.

If the ads are a banner, only approve the really high CPC ads, like 50 cents or more, and for CPM ads banner, choose max you can.

These basic steps will improve your earnings a lot. In the next post I will review bidvertiser.

Buy-Sell Text Links - TNX Review

2008-10-31T10:04:00.001-07:00

Tnx.net has brought a revolution in the field of buying and selling links. If you have a decent website, then making money from your website is not a problem any more. Have you ever though that how much money you are not making by keeping a quality website un-monitorised. Say your website is PR4, has 20 PR3 and 50 PR2 inner pages, if you sell out a site wide, think how many links you are giving away for free to that site wide link. With this ads network you can monetise all your high quality inner pages and make a hell lot of money.

For the publishers: Payment is by paypal, they also support other payment options. And the most important reason why this network looks so good to me is, they maintain secrecy, no user or website list is maintained; everything is automated, so the details don’t go out. This is surely one of the safest way to buy/sell links on the Internet. Tnx just takes 12.5% of the points from a transaction, which is a lot cheaper, hence more profitable for us.

As an advertiser, you must be knowing that buying single page links are more affective, rather than buying a site wide link which is not regarded highly by search engines. So, with tnx.net you can buy a lot of targeted inner pages, which are more effective for improving your SERPS on competitive keywords. Tnx is a smart way of advertising; it puts your link on pages with PR and traffic with the help of its complex algo that calculates the importance of a page. If a page dose not get any traffic or search crawlers don’t visit that page, then tnx dose not put ads on that page. That way an advertiser gets value for money, and it saves a lot of time too.

This site is a complete solution, for publishers and advertisers. Along with that, it also has a referral system. So if you are planning to promote such a great program then I suggest you to join the partner program of tnx and get your affiliate link. Read the rules of the affiliate program, and start making money by referring this ads network to others.

Tnx is a new system, and they keep bringing new ideas in the market. One such thing I noticed on their website was about the paid article posting. Am looking foreword to that one, am still guessing on what it can be, and the looks of it, am sure it’s going to be yet another success for this ads network and another way for making money for us.

If you require more information about this system, them please check out their website, read the faqs and the testimony pages. Am sure you will find this ads network helpful. Feel free to register on TNX and make the most out of your website.

Thanks TNX for helping search engines to find quality and related links and boost the index of popular and quality search engines. I strongly believe that these ads network will sure help these big search engines to find more quality sites and pages in the coming future.

Optimization Tips for Bidvertiser

2008-10-31T10:04:00.000-07:00

Bidvertiser is not like Adsense. It won’t read your content to display relevant ads. It is non-contextual like adbrite. So, bidvertiser will world good on niche sites, sites that are focused on a single topic.

I like some features of this ads network, which sometimes make me choose it over Adsense. Here are 3 such features am talking about:

1. You can choose which ads to appear, simply don’t approve the low paying ads, and then all you will be left with is high paying ads. This means more money per click, and yes I have got 50+ cents clicks at times.
2. It pays by Paypal. This is a huge benefit, as checks usually don’t reach me. There are other ways to receive payments also.
3. The minimum payout is pretty less, so I don’t have to wait for ages to reach the minimum payment threshold like the other ads network.

So, here are my optimization tips for bidvertiser:

1. Reject the low paying ads. No use to accept ads that pays pennies on clicks. Remember the default option is approve, so don’t forget to reject. Also reject the ads that dose not match your website’s theme.
2. Use the squares and big rectangles, and keep your ads covered by content. Use the ads text color, boarder and background the same as the rest of your website. The ads should look like a part of your website.
3. Some times bidvertiser dose not count all clicks, so if you see that happens, then email them instantly and get the problem fixed. This happened to me sometime back, but may be it is fixed already.

Keyword Research and Optimisation

2008-10-31T10:03:00.000-07:00

To build a successful website you will usually need to rely on search engine listings. To do this research is essential, there is no point targeting a word that generates little or no search results.

To aid in this there are a number of tools available to find and evaluate keywords. One such tool is Wordtracker and although you need to pay a monthly fee, with the right keywords it easily pays for itself.

Take this article for instance; I knew I wanted to write about keyword research. I used word tracker to come up with the title of this post “Keyword Research and Optimisation”, and hopefully I will now get some traffic from Google. Where Wordtracker came into its own was that it not only suggested this title, but also told me that over 40 people a day search for it and that this title is a more popular search than “Keyword Research”.

There are of course some free tools available. One example is provided by SEO Tools, this provides a number of the features from Wordtracker. However it did not come up with the title of this article. In fact it didn’t come up with anything!

Currently Wordtracker does offer a free seven day trial. You will need your credit card to sign up, but if you do not like it then it is easy to cancel, although the chances are, like me, you will not want to.

I will detail my success with Wordtracker in future posts, so if in doubt, keep reading this blog and hear about the success I have had with it.

Adsense Optimization

2008-10-31T10:02:00.001-07:00

When you first considered using Google Adsense how did you place your ads? Did you, like me, pick some ads that looked good, adjust the colour to your site and place them where they fit on your site. If so then the chances are these are not optimized. So how do we optimize our site for Adsense?

Google Adsense provides the answer to this. In their help files they provide details on where on the screen gets the highest click through, the best colours to use, which ad formats work best. They also have details on optimizing forums and blogs too.

If you really want to succeed with Google Adsense you should probably consider redesigning your site to fix the best performing Adsense blocks, rather than selecting the adsense blocks to fit the available space on your site.

Bloggers Make Money - Pay Per Post Review

2008-10-31T10:02:00.000-07:00

There are many paid posts websites, where advertisers pays money to the bloggers for making a blog post explaining their product or website. One such service is Pay Per Post. This is probably the most popular paid post review website. the site has some rules, so that means if you don’t have a good blog you won’t be accepted in the program. For getting into the program you need a decent blog with about 20+ posts in the last 90 days, so in other words your blog has to be 90 days old. Also the PR of your blog matters a bit too, so if you have a nice page rank, say PR3+ then you can easily get into the program.

Once you have a blog approved, then you can straight away go to the opportunities area, there you will find lots of open opportunities. Just select the qualified opportunity and the list will be sorted on the basis of the opportunities that are available for you. Just reserve an opportunity and make a post on it. Then submit the post. After that your post will be reviewed, and if you have made the post which follows all the rules then your post will be approved and you will be paid.

I have made some money out of pay per post so I know that this program is worth the time. Just follow the rules, make a site wide disclosure that says that your website takes paid posts. Once you post a paid post, follow it with a regular un-paid post and keep posting as much as you can. These posts also gives your site unique content, and the more you blog the more traffic you get.

If you have a new blog then first make 20 posts before applying to this program. In the coming days I will post more sites like this one that will increase your income source and you will make more money.

Tips For Starting an Online Business

2008-10-31T09:46:00.000-07:00

Quality Service

Your number one priorty when start a business online or any business for that matter, should be to provide quality products and good service to your customer. You should only market the best products and services you can find. Adhere to these principles and you will reap the benefits in the long run.

What Should I Sell?

There are three areas of selling that I recommend when starting out. Digital Products, Affiliate Sales and using a Dropship company. You want to keep it as simplified as possible in the beginning. Also not everyone has a ton of money to spend on starting a business venture. When I first began selling online I didn't have a lot of money to work with. My advise to you is to sell something that will not require a huge investment such as digital products. Specifically ebooks, electronic books are a big seller online and you don't have to worry about stocking a large inventory. There is no packing or shipping and no trips the post office. The ease of deliverability is what makes selling digital products so great! This his how I started and I highly recommend it to anyone just starting out. There are many excellent ebooks that you can purchase the resell rights to. But remember to always adhere to your principles of providing the best for your customers.

Keep Your Start up Cost To a Minimum

Keep your cost low! You don't want to start out spending a bunch of your hard earned cash. If you do decide to sell tangible products I recommend using a Drop Shipping Company. There are many companies online that will drop ship merchandise directly to your customers for you. This method also eliminates the need for stocking inventory. Basically drop shipping works like this; When a customer makes a purchase you simply forward the order to your supplier/drop shipper, usually you would be required to pay for the merchandise at this time. Your customer has already paid you for the merchadise so there is no out-of-pocket cost to you. Your dropshipper then delivers the merchandise directly to your customer for you. Your part of the deal ends when you forward the order to your dropshipper. The dropshipper takes care of everything else, including returns. Choose your dropshipper wisely. Don't get yourself caught up in a business relationship with a company where you become dependent on the company only to find out later that they do not delivery on time. Start out slow, test the company with a few orders to see how they perform before you make them your main supplier.

There Is No Need To Own Your Own Product.

Affiliate sales is the most popular method of making money on the internet. There are numerous individuals and companies that will share in the wealth if you are willing to put in a little work and market their product. This is called affiliate sales or associate sales. You can earn commissions anywhere from 1% to 75% simply by selling someone else's product or service. There are several companies that handle the sales tracking and commission earnings. They will send you a check through the mail or deposit your earnings directly into your bank account, on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis. Implement this method of selling properly and you could earn a substantial income.

Make Money Online Using Affiliate Programs

2008-10-31T09:44:00.000-07:00

Anyone can work from home and make money online thanks to affiliate programs. Most affiliate programs are free to join. All you need to get started is a website, and I can show you how to get one. Once you have your site up and running, you will be able promote other companies products and make money! Never before has making money online been so easy.

Let's Get Started!

Simply follow the 7 step quick start guide below, it will give you all the basic information you need to get your website ready for making money.

This is so important I'm going to say it again! In order to have any chance of becoming successful in affiliate sales you must have your own website(s). Even it's it only a one page website, you can always add to it later. The sooner you get started, the sooner you will be able to make some cash. Go here for Reliable, affordable business hosting from Yahoo! Web Hosting

This website is loaded with great money making ideas, helpful articles and essential webmaster resources and tools. Take a good look around, bookmark this site for later and I hope you find it to be helpful.
Earn Money
Cash Money
Home Based Job
Making Money Tips

Beginners

* What is an affiliate program?
* What is an affiliate URL?
* Affiliate marketing A to Z
* A serious warning about multi-level marketing
* How to run the business of webmastering
* Too busy to build a website? Find a certified webmaster to build your site for you.

7 Step Quick-Start Guide to Making Money Online
with Affiliate Programs
The purpose of this step-by-step guide is to help you become a successful affiliate salesperson . It will help by putting you in a position to make money online using affiliate programs.

* Step 1 - What type of website do you want?
* Step 2 - Choose your domain name
* Step 3 - Get reliable web hosting
* Step 4 - Build your web pages
* Step 5 - Joining affiliate programs
* Step 6 - Get some traffic to your site
* Step 7 - Become a top earning affiliate

Note: We can build you a website loaded with 35,000 products ready to sell! Go here.

Do you have a great idea for a website that could be the next MySpace and you need certified programmers to build it and customize it to your specifications? Go on over to ScriptLance.com you will find many programmers, designers and writers to give you exactly what you want!

Featured Affiliate Programs

* Global Domains
This free trial offer will soon have you making money not just from the people you refer, but also from all of the people they refer and so on, down through five (5) generations of affiliates and customers.
* LinkShare Corporation
Become an affiliate of the LinkShare Network for FREE and earn revenue by linking to over 500 premier online merchants.
* ClickBank
Resell digital products and keep all the profits or earn up to 75% commissions by promoting the products of other merchants.
* Survey Savvy
You earn $3.00 for every online survey you complete. $2.00 on the 2nd tier and $1.00 on the 3rd tier. It's Free to Join!

Top Clickbank Affiliate Marketing Success Secrets Tips

2008-10-31T09:29:00.001-07:00

When I first join clickbank affiliate marketing, I've not make money with clickbank at all while thousands of clickbank affiliate are making real money. I've feel bad and helpless but luckily I've not gave up, I started to do research about clickbank affiliate marketing and also brought many of eBook
online guru to learn it myself. It took me about 1 year++ to tested out every single clickbank affiliate marketing techniques that I learned, finally I've started to see some amount of money flowing to my clickbank account and now still growing.

Here is my experience to success in clickbank affiliate marketing.

Fact, there is no big secrets tips behind but you'll need a certain skill-set, along with a clicbank affiliate marketing tools to help you choosing a right clickbank affiliate products before you start any marketing work. What I am about to share is going to open up your eyes so do take some notes before you proceed.

First of all, if you still do not have clickbank affiliate account, sign up now with clickbank, its Free and It's the largest Digital affiliate marketing Product Centre where thousands of the most popular affiliate products are selling out there. after all, go to clickbank marketplace to start finding a product to promote, To start with the clickbank affiliate marketing it's very important that you choose the products thoughtfully.

Here is some important clickbank affiliate marketing basic skill.

There will be a brief description, followed by some facts of how to find profitable or easy to sell products from the clickbank marketplace.

$Sales - this is how much your commission amount will be for every affiliate sale.
%Sales - this is the percentage of the product sales price $/Sale represents ($Sale is more important).
%Refd - This is the percentage of sales of the product come from affiliate sales.
Grav - this is the "gravity" of the product, or a measure of how many affiliate are promoting it.

The main criterion in choosing a right clickbank affiliate marketing products is the conversion rate. Conversion rate means how many visitor out of 100 buy the product. For example, if 2 out of every 200 visitors to a sales page buy the product being sold there, then you have a 2% conversion rate.

But how do you find out what the conversion rate is? Let's look at a products from Clickbank marketplace:

1) Look at the product "Gravity". - Every clickbank affiliate marketing product listing in the market place is marked by a "gravity" number, which is displayed at the far right, under the product title. This number represents how well the clickbank product is converting for affiliate, as it is a measure of how many sales have been referred by other clickbank affiliates. The higher the gravity
number, the better the product is converting.

2) look to the left of the gravity number at the "%referred. - In this case, you can see that 84% of sales for this clickbank affiliate marketing product have been referred by affiliates. Its means that major of sales for this product is referred by affiliate but not the owner themselves, this is good sign.

3) Look for additional factors that favor sales. - how good is the merchants sales copy? this is important for clickbank affiliate marketing the product as the Sales pages are meant to SELL. You need to make sure it will attract your attention from a buyer prospective.

Pick a good clickbank affiliate marketing product from the marketplace which is highly likely to sell well for you, assuming its a great fit for your target market niche:

a. Make sure $/Sale is greater than $20 - It's tough to make a profit with any paid techniques such as using Google Adwords for a product of clickbank affiliate marketing if the number is lower than that.

b. Shoot for gravity roughly between 50 to 100. this is one of the important clickbank affiliate marketing tips, anything lower than 50 or so probably isn't popular enough to sell well and anything that higher than 100 is probably so popular that the market is already saturated.

Here's insider clickbank success top secret tips and many are still not taking advantage of this yet.

The clickbank affiliate marketing information available on their marketplace as shown above is just a static snapshot of what the product current performance looks like. There is no way to tell were the product was a where is it going. Yet, you won't know if there were increasing gravity indicates for a clickbank affiliate marketing product that more and more affiliates are advertising it and its harder for you to locating of new clickbank affiliate marketing able products that underexposed where they slowly climbing or gaining momentum.

It is possible to succeed as a Clickbank affiliate marketer without using any tools but it is much easier and much less risky to become a successful marketer for Clickbank affiliate marketing if you have a proper tools. There are some great tools out there to help you.

One of the Powerful Clickbank tool I found call "Engines" and I personally use it for quite some time to monitor and track the history performance for every clickbank affiliate marketing products that available in the ClickBank Marketplace and this will make your life easier and less risky.

Keep in mind that your best way to find a good products is to:

1) Find clickbank affiliate marketing products with consistence growing gravity (gaining momentum), means you've still got a good target market.

2) Find a product that not many of affiliate has found which are so-called underexposed, Slowly Climbing. these are the clickbank affiliate marketing product or service which just come on the market.

There is one powerful Clickbank tool that I found and I personally use it for quite some time. You can use it to monitor and track the history performance for every clickbank affiliate marketing products that available in the ClickBank Marketplace and this will make your life easier and less risky. - REMEMBER, THE RECORDED OF NUMBERS NEVER LIE.

There is a FREE version of this tools that you can get to find some basic information but there are certain features are not available.

What you seen in the snapshot is only available in the Paid version that allow you to track and monitor all clickbank affiliate marketing products from any niches you are doing is highly profitable. This is pretty useful tools especially for those who are wanting to make serious money with clickbank affiliate marketing. There are also many features available from this tools, but I’m not covering all of them right here but I hope you will be experience it yourself.

Kenneth sea is the author of Clickbank Affiliate Marketing (http://www.myblogprofit.com/make-money-with-clickbank-affiliate-marketing) and being a part time internet marketer and trainer. He provide his researches and Free tips Help You to Make Money With Blogs online for Real and Maximize Your Blogging Profit!

Pay Per Click Management

2008-10-31T09:29:00.000-07:00

Our unique Pay-Per-Click Management approach ensures we are driven by your objectives, not your spend.

Paid Search (Demo) is where the advertiser pays to appear within the major search engines under targeted search terms. The payment model is Cost Per Click (CPC); you only pay when a consumer identifies your listing and clicks through to your site.
How We Operate Pay-Per-Click Management

The dgmSearchLab comprises a team of experienced Pay Per Click managers (PPC) who will work with you to understand what your objectives are. The team will undertake the following:

* Campaign Planning
Understand your business objectives, business model, market research
* Keyword Analysis
Identify main keywords and secondary keywords
* Competitor Analysis
Identify main competitors and their online strategies
* Site Analysis & URL Specification
Full review of client website regarding site usability, navigation and communication of client products/services
* Copywriting and creative for ad listings
Optimize creative to be relevant to search term, offer-specific information
* Campaign Setup
Ad group creation, deep linking specification, engine submission
* Real Time Bid Management And Reporting
Setting optimum CPC and bid rules for each keyword
* ROI Analysis And Campaign Optimization
Optimizing your ads throughout the campaign to maximize ROI

make money online as affiliate program for beginner

2008-10-31T09:25:00.000-07:00

The band article is the result of years of ongoing strong interaction with enthusiasts just like you. The article was engrossing to be adequate some of the most frequently asked questions, as well as address common issues that society encounter with odd topic. I hope that is you will noodge the information in this article helpful.

Affiliate marketing is defined as a discursive method of promotion in circumference an segment (or unite) is virtue rewarded for now and then view, sale, and/or registration played out* spend the affiliate's effort.

It's uniform to gathering a finder's-fee or the commissions typical of stock price index retail store clerks. The more one sells... the reiteratively one gets paid.

Compensation calculations fight and could be factual on any of the following:

PPC (pay-per-click) a specific amount is good for each click

PPL (pay-per-lead) where registration or sign-up count

PPS (pay-per-sale) a specific commission per supplying is paid

If your goal is to generate your total income online publishing, you can drive traffic from your subscriber lists to head links purely as easily as to your own product links.

What About Product Sales and Marketing?

You'll want to watch for great products and services with the potential to benefit your niche and your mailing lists. To build trust and income, it's best to recommend only those products to wit will be of specific interest to them. It's a win-win situation for everyone that way.

When an affiliate is marketing any product, the cost of advertising the product is absorbed by the affiliate. It's important to keep wonderful cost in mind when promoting products. The higher the percentage of affiliate income possible from any quality product, the come again that product is worth promoting.

When a product is sold through the fraction's link, depending on the service used, the total fiscal is divided up among the vendor or service, the affiliate, the taxing authority, the shipper (if any), and the payment processor.

It is common shares and expected that all chunk details be spelled out in the affiliate sign-up process. However, you needn't be afraid to contact any vendor to clarify their offshoot program if you have questions. Often you can telephone or email for a fast reply.

Is a Digital Lifestyle for Me?

Many standard retailers offer very small rewards for affiliate sales while most internet marketers offer around 50%. This is why being an affiliate of digital products can be very lucrative in a relatively short period of time.

Although the number of piece programs for tangible goods and off-line services is rising, a completely digital lifestyle can be developed solely from digital or downloadable sector products that may never take physical form.

Of course it's important to note that as an affiliate of any tangible product, you generally never do more than promote a link to the product online. So in that sense it's the same as a digital product.

One of the best places to quibble digital products to chunk with is ClickBank.com. They have an automatic affiliate 'hoplink' program built into their payment processing service so expressly affiliate payments are not left up to the product owner to process.

Just A Quick Sidenote: Isn't this information really useful? I don't know about you, but I have always been curious about offbeat type of thing! It is really hard to nitpick* top quality information about it, so I decided to share a part of what I have learned about this ... keep reading!

Three other good affiliate programs
to check into are:

Amazon.com
http://www.amzon.com

LinkShare.com
http://www.linkshare.com

CommissionJunction.com
http://www.cj.com

Staying with reputable, well-known internet vendors makes a great deal of sense because you know you favor get useful, when to expect a check or bank deposit, and you can see your account details online at any time.

How Do I Get Started?

There are many ways to approach lump marketing, but a basic starting point is to maltreat a web site with text or image affiliate links to products you want to promote. Generally you want to stay focused within a niche or interest group to increase your sales potential.

If you blast used the products, your promotional efforts could include a product review based on say nothing own experience along with images and other supporting information.

Developing an email opt-in list is helpful in affiliate marketing as it gives the promoter an opportunity to hypercriticize the products infatuated the most potential benefit for a group of like-minded individuals.

When providing a service such as off the beaten track, acme lobe marketers are able to reach enough potential customers to produce some affiliate income.

When a lot of products are promoted to several targeted niche markets, it is possible to uncover an income of substance over time. Especially when the lobe marketer is sporadically promoting quality products with a real potential to benefit customers within the niche.

In summary, dividend marketing is a great way to build an income without having a product of hush own, and without having to do much more than get interested people to view product instruction waste not another peep affiliate links. It's very easy to get started and can eventually put a lot of money in say nothing pocket.

OK, now that you lambaste finished reading this article I want you to censure more resources on this subject. Within just a short period of time you will have all of the answers that you need.

10 tip trik adsense

2008-10-31T09:13:00.000-07:00

Google AdSense is fast becoming the preferred way for people to earn an income online. Forget eBay and multiple affiliate programs. Whether you are a work-at-home mom trying to make a little extra cash or an Internet entrepreneur with hundreds of monetized websites, AdSense is truly the easiest way to earn money.
Simply sign up for a free account, grab your ad code and paste it in your site. But here's the amazing thing - no matter how much money AdSense is making for you right now, a few simple tweaks can increase that amount considerably. And I should know, after learning about these tricks, I more than doubled my AdSense commissions!

The self-proclaimed AdSense gurus and experts are sharing this insider knowledge, for a fee.
You can learn all these secrets from them, as long as you buy their e-book, sign up for their seminar or purchase their newsletter. But I'm going to share all their AdSense tricks for free.
1) Color code your ads to match your web site palette *exactly*. Don't use frames around your ads. Instead, in the AdSense code generation interface, make sure you choose the same color as your page background for the ad frame and the ad background.
When choosing the ad heading colors, match them to the *exact* color of your page headings. Use the exact same ad background shade as your page background. Use the exact same ad text font and color as the text on your pages. You can see an example of this color-matching on my Search Engine Advice Blog at - http://www.searchenginecollege.com/blog.htm - notice the 4 link ad unit at the top and the skyscraper text ad unit on the left hand side under the heading Ads by Google as you scroll down the page? The link and text colors are identical to the color palette used throughout the rest of the page.
Near enough is NOT good enough. If you can't quite get the color matching right, use Google's built in color palette together with the RGB to HEX or vice versa color converter on this page - http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/Style. That handy little tool was a life saver for me.
This is probably the one single tweak that made the most difference to my commission levels.
2) Try not to use the traditional horizontal banner style or leaderboard image ads because people are blind to them.
3) Use Google's own AdSense optimization tips at https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html and visual heat map to assist you in deciding where on your page to place your AdSense ad code.
4) Research competitive keywords using a keyword research tool such as Keyword Discovery at http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/?id=22487 or grab a list of the most popular keywords from various sources and use them in your web site pages where relevant. This article - http://searchenginewatch.com/facts/article.php/2156041 - is a good source of frequently searched keywords. Targeting popular keywords should trigger AdSense ads on your pages that utilize those keywords. The more popular the keyword or phrase, the higher AdWords advertisers are generally willing to pay per click for it so the higher your commission on those clicks.
5) Incorporate the AdSense code into your page so that the ads look like a regular part of your site. You can see an example on this Internet Dating Stories site - http://www.lovestory.com.au/ - where link ads are incorporated within the regular left hand navigation of the site under the heading "Feature Links".
6) Use Google's new 4 and 5 link ad units wherever possible. They seem to have a much higher Click Through Rate (CTR) than regular ad styles. You can view all the AdSense ad formats at https://www.google.com/adsense/adformats.
7) Place arrows or images next to your ads to draw attention to them. You can see two different versions of on this search engine article library page - http://www.searchenginecollege.com/articles/article-library.htm - at the top (where a pointing hand directs your eye to the ad) and the bottom where 3 images draw your attention to each of the three AdSense ads.
8) Use the full allowance of multiple AdSense ads on each of your pages - 3 regular AdSense ads, plus 1 link unit. Use careful placement of these ads so they blend into your site and don't distract from your content. Clever use of this allowance can be seen on this page about bad Internet dating stories - http://www.lovestory.com.au/bad-stories.htm - where you see:
- 1 horizontal 4 link ad unit towards the top of the page under the first paragraph.
- 1 vertical skyscraper text ad unit about halfway down the left hand side under "Sponsor Links".
- 1 vertical skyscraper image ad unit down the left hand side under "Sponsor Links".
- 1 horizontal text banner unit at the bottom of the page with images above each ad to draw attention to them.
You can also include 1 AdSense referral button in addition to the 3 other units.
9) Tailor your page content to a particular niche or focus. Page content that is tailored towards a specific theme is more likely to trigger AdWords ads that closely match the content and are therefore more likely to interest your visitors and inspire them to click.
Don't create pages merely for the sake of placing AdSense ads. Visitors (and search engines) can see through this ruse in an instant.

5 Advanced Affiliate Marketing Strategies You Can Use

2008-10-31T09:07:00.000-07:00

Article advertising is cool, but there are more means by which you can do well in the field of affiliate marketing. These are 5 even more-strong but easy-to-implement practices that will aid make certain your success in this field.

1. Viral advertising by means of data creations. Create an eBook which will give useful news on the topic connected to the affiliate item you will be selling. Either formulate a novel goods, or buy a PLR of an accessible eBook. Populate the sides thereof with your affiliate links. Publish the lately abridged eBook for free. If the statistics shared by the said eBook is pleasing enough, you will experience an exponential expansion of fresh leads within a small amount of time.

2. Tap into social networking websites similar to MySpace.com, FaceBook.com and the likes. If the affiliate piece you’re thinking to advertise is something that is fantasized by the demographics provided by the abovementioned pages, then you can create myriad upon numerous of leads in a matter of days. Just make an account, and include as many pals as probable. Then mass-send a non-spam notes delirious about the affiliatepiece you like to promote, with your affiliate link as the alluded URL. Best yet, organize a cluster that is in vogue - similar to a “Music Lover’s Group” for persons who prefer music, for instance - and invite associates. As the proprietor of the unit, you can leave memos on the bulletin board for all the members to notice. Utilize this to transmit your business memo. Because social networking pages are perceived as hip, any announcement you will send through its channels - though slyly - will get enthusiastic notice from their throng of customers.

3. Utilize the power of YouTube. Have a piece of writing? Convert it into a video. Just make use of CamStudio, which is without charge, and shoot a PowerPoint presentation of the compostition you want to change. Upload this over at YouTube and disclose a part of the 20 million unique users that visit the site monthly.

4. Try offline promotion. Numerous affiliates would rather dwell on the online world, which is a huge fault. Sell your main website via mugs, tees, bumper labels and daily announcements, and you will be able to tap into a group that your contenders don’t even know lives.

5. PPC promotion. Wish to get ahead of the other associates? Try pay per click (PPC) promotion by means of Google AdWords. Bid for specific keywords and prepare your ad. Win the bidding and your advertisement, and your link, will appear on the very apex of the listing in pertinent search engine results sides. Your link will have a better opportunity of being ticked. More hits, more leads!

Learn Affiliate marketing

2008-10-31T09:03:00.000-07:00

I’ve decided to throw together an affiliate marketing tutorial for you who’s just beginning to learn affiliate marketing and if you should go a head and decided to try it out, you should know that this stuff actually works and it is totally free of charge… not a single penny is required to do this so if you’re interested in learning affiliate marketing using free resources and how to make money with blogs marketing with articles than pay attention because this affiliate marketing strategy does work, its free of charge and I’m even teaching you for free…

This affiliate marketing tutorial will be a few articles, I don’t know how many articles I will need to post to make sure all the steps get covered to learn how to make money with blogs and marketing with articles but feel free to go a head right now and subscribe to learn affiliate marketing In order to make sure you get the rest of this affiliate marketing tutorial.

Okay.. Now, assuming you've never joined an affiliate program.. Lets start from here…

There are tons of affiliate programs to make money with, independent affiliate programs that manages to, or at lest decides to run there affiliate programs on there own. And there are thus who turns to big affiliate programs for exposure.

You can sign up with thus programs for free. Doesn’t cost anything to join them, you can also find thus small, independent affiliate programs by searching for a niche on google, adding affiliate programs in characters. Like this for ex.

make money with free blogs “affiliate program”
affiliate marketing “affiliate program”
Article marketing “affiliate program”

The following affiliate programs are big, they all have thousands of product to sell and you can sign up with all of them for free.

Commission Junction
ShareAsale
PayDotCom
Clickbank

But trough this affiliate marketing tutorial I’ll be using clickbank in my examples, clickbank is great to learn affiliate marketing with and understand niche markets and how this stuff works. They pay nice commissions to affiliates so clickbank is actually the only affiliate program you need to sign up with as you follow this tutorial.

I don’t know how much or how little you know about affiliate marketing at this point and how to make money with blogs.. But you might have heard others talking about how important it is know how to find a profitable niche market. You might have heard that you need to learn how to find a profitable affiliate niche before you start bloging.

This is true, you need to find a profitable niche market in order to make money online (and I’m amazed how many there are who skip this important step) If you decide to sell a marketing course and you nock up a blog entitled, germanshepard123@.com and throw in a few articles about dogs, how big is the chance that a dog owner would buy the marketing course?

Well.. The chance is certainly out there but this is not a business… this is hoping.

You must know how to find a profitable niche market.. Better yet, focus in on the niche market to find niches within it, if you want to discover how to make money with blogs rapidly. You can go for the main niche market to but that will take some time and require lots of work.

but we’re not going to go after a niche market in general. Were about to find tiny niches within niche markets, to make some easy money and learn affiliate marketing with actual experience.

Here is an example of what I’m talking about and I’m using affiliate marketing in my example.

Affiliate marketing consists of many sub niches within it so to speak, for ex.

“pay per click advertising”
“search engine optimisation”
“email marketing”
“social media marketing” etc.

So if we’re interested in making money with the affiliate marketing niche we need to focus in on a sub niche to make it possible to make money. like “pay per click advertising”

Okay.. So pay per click advertising is a great niche market, people using adwords have money and they spend them obviously (because it cost money to advertise trough adwords) So making some money there is posible but how can I get them over to my blog or marketing articles?

I would have to attract them to my blogs with information or products that they them self seek out. First you need to get an idea of what niche market you can enter where there also are eager buyers to make money from. Than you need to find out what sort of information and products they willingly pay there money for. There are many ways to learn about what your potential prospects is paying money for and eagerly is looking for.

You can look at niche forums and other places or you can write down a few hobbies of your own and consider just what you would be willing to pay for, than go a do a search on google for it, once you find a niche market with eager buyers you can search for independent affiliate programs on google, or do more product research on any of the big affiliate directories.

Now you know how to find a niche market that actually can put money down your pockets and how to use independent affiliate programs.

You’ll also understand why I’m recommending clickbank and why I’m using clickbank trough this affiliate marketing tutorial.

You see.. The publishers at clickback has already done the hard work for us and there sales statistics is all the proof we need to decide if they have a cash pumping niche market ready for us.

And if they’ve done a good job than we can even use there product as our niche market.
If there is a product that sells daily and bring in lots of money than that product is a niche market.

And most publishers who know what they’re doing to make money online find a very profitable niche and create or find there own little niche within it.

For ex. If the niche is “affiliate marketing” and the sub niche is “pay per click advertising” than a self made or spotted sub niche to “pay per click” could be “how to make money with adwords using placement targeting” now this is a specific approach to adwords having to do with paying for adsens placements on niche related sites and blogs and thus whose interested In this would like to buy a course of this topic, since there aren’t so many available they’ll buy what they find. And the publisher makes tons of money.

Most of the clickbank publishers knows this stuff and they do the hard work for us.. All there is to do for us really, using clickbank is to decide witch product to sell.

And here is how to do it.

Go a head and sign up with Clickbank if you haven’t done so already.

Now, head over to the “marketplace” and brows trough the different categories.
You can look trough what ever section you find interesting but generally, “internet marketing” “weight loss” and “gambling” are very popular niches so products having to do with thus categories tends to convert well.

Although, I’m not suggesting that you promote affiliate marketing products since most of the buyers are affiliates them self’s and they rarely buy from affiliates.

In order to discover how profitable and competitive a product is you need to look at the stats displayed below the product.

This is so important that I even bather with a picture (click the image to enlarge it)

You want to look at $/sale and grav:
I would suggest that you go for products with at lest 30 dollars in $/sale: because that’s what you receive in commission per sale you make. Although, less than 30 can be okay it’s up to you.

The product also needs to have a good grav:
Grav: is the indicator of how successful the product is and how much competition there is for you. And basically, a grav over 100 is competitive, you can sell products like that but they require a lot of article writing and efforts from your part. On the other hand, a product with to little gravity means that there are no competition and no sales, and what you should be looking for is a product to sell that has a decent demand and makes money online as well as an opportunity for you to get your piece of the profits without having to work your bum of.

As a guideline, you should be looking for products with a gravity between 20 and 90. Less than 20 can be slow and over 90 can be to competitive.

Go a head and follow this guidelines and find maybe 5 to 10 different affiliate products that you can research later on. Put them on a text file and save it on your computer for further research.

In the next post we’ll go trough how to determine witch one of them will be the best product to compete for and make money online with.

Don’t forget to subscribe to learn affiliate marketing And get posts from this blog via email.

5 Top Features Of Best Affiliate Program

2008-10-31T09:00:00.000-07:00

With the advent of affiliate marketing the demand for best affiliate programs is growing by leaps and bounds. A huge number of people all over the world are exploring home business opportunities via Internet. They are constantly looking for tips for working from home. Going by the current home business scenario, affiliate marketing is a great option. There are several best affiliate programs to choose from. However, you need to find the best one. Best affiliate programs involve selling someone else’s products or services, and in return you get paid for your service. Although there are numerous affiliate programs easily available, you need to choose an affiliate program that is the best for you. Consider the given features before opting for any program to know the one which is the best.

Here you go!

1. Good Marketing Tools

Best affiliate programs will have a plethora of marketing tools. Besides, it will provide you comprehensive information regarding how the program works.

2. Keep You Well Informed

Best affiliate programs will keep you well informed. It will regularly send out important news and updates through e-mails or other means.

3. Have High-Quality Software Products

Good-quality information and software products are an important feature of best affiliate programs. These programs are designed in keeping with the needs of the affiliates. Apart from having great products for the affiliates to endorse, it provides several learning tools to guide them. Go for an affiliate program that provides excellent and comprehensive training to their affiliates.

4. Have A Very High Conversion Rate

In general, the best affiliate programs will certainly have a really high conversion rate. You want to make money through affiliate marketing. So, it is very important that the traffic you are directing to your best affiliate program site gets converted into sales frequently. This is the only way you can make money. Therefore, there should be a way to track and access the traffic arriving at your best affiliate program site. This will help you compare conversion rates in various affiliate programs, thereby helping you find out the best marketing methods from among the ones you are using currently. This vital information will facilitate in your decision-making process regarding affiliate marketing schemes and methods.

5. Have Tracking And Measurement Tools

All the good affiliate programs by and large have advanced tracking and measurement tools. These sophisticated tools will provide you comprehensive information about where the traffic to your affiliate site is actually coming from.

Today, blogs have become an excellent platform for affiliate marketing. However, before you start blogging, make sure that you go through some of the best blogs. Check out their post strategy, article style, design, and other features. Next, create your own affiliate marketing blog using best affiliate programs. Having said all that, most of the affiliate programs don’t charge any fee, be it upgrading fee or any other charges. Also, make sure that the commission on the products you endorse is good. Be judicious while selecting the best affiliate program and see how your income grows.

33 Reviews of the Best Affiliate Marketing Forums

2008-10-31T08:54:00.001-07:00

Here is a list of the top 33 affiliate marketing forums.

1. 5 Star Affiliates
Alexa: 134,671 | Compete: 22,639 | Members: 7,000+ | PR: 4
5 Star Affiliates is one of the best all around sources for affiliate marketing information and networking. Linda Bouquet, the owner of the site, does a great job of providing free resources for anyone interested in affiliate marketing. They specialize in helping new affiliate marketers get started and pointed in the right direction. The forum is pretty active and all topics revolve around the affiliate marketing world. The moderators are also very quick to help and answer questions. There is also a thread for affiliate managers to post their affiliate program for feedback and review!

2. Affiliate Forum
Alexa: 249,190 | Compete: 452,526 | Members: 2,000+ | PR: 4
Affiliate Forum seems to sometimes be un-moderated with the amount of "spam" posts that are posted daily, but always has a few hundred active users online at any given time. Posts can at times receive a lot of views, but responses are few and far between. The fact that the domain is "AffiliateForum.com" guarantees them a certain amount of affiliate traffic, so even though there is a lot of spam, it's one not to ignore. A thread for website reviews is also available here.

3. Search Engine Watch
Alexa: 19,877 | Compete: 3,357 | Members: 15,000+ | PR: 7
Search Engine Watch Forums is a very popular forum for SEO and affiliate marketing topics. The more active in the community you are, the more boards and threads that you have access to post to. They have a small section dedicated to affiliate marketing but still gets a lot of traffic and attention.

4. Affiliates 4u
Alexa: 74,834 | Compete: 73,596 | Members: 26,000+ | PR: 4
Affiliates 4u is a great forum with a lot of activity. Based out of the UK, they focus on UK affiliate programs, but also has a section for all other countries as well. The general affiliate marketing threads are universal, but they focus on talking about affiliate programs that are most successful in the UK. This forum is very active, with 1,000 users online at any given time.

5. Affiliate Link
Alexa: 589,606 | Compete: 948,353 | Members: 500+ | PR: 1
Affiliate Link is much smaller and less active than most of the affiliate forums out there. There is enough activity to get some results from joining the community, but would not spend as much time as the rest of them. You will at most see 20 or 30 active users online. With only 575 total members, there are better places to spend time.

6. Affiliate Helper
Alexa: 123,493 | Compete: 123,863 | Members: 1,000+ | PR: 2
Affiliate Helper is a small forum with about a dozen threads pertaining to affiliate marketing, building a website, and general "making money online" ideas. This is more active than Affiliate Link, but seems to be fading fast.

7. Revenue Source
Alexa: 121,162 | Compete: 218,551 | Members: 21,000+ | PR: 5
Revenue Source covers topics ranging from affiliate marketing, reseller programs and also site design and development threads. They give affiliate managers the option to list their affiliate program for a review although it must be approved by a moderator before posting, you can get decent traffic from here.

8. DNForum
Alexa: 19,046 | Compete: 13,545 | Members: 60,000+ | PR: 5
The DNForum is one of the more popular forums for all online marketing techniques and ideas. Thread Categories range from Domains, Content Development and Affiliate Marketing. They have free forums, and also upgrades are available to be able to post in the "Platinum" or "Gold" members only threads. These threads usually allow you to advertise a product or service or help wanted types of categories. All around a good resource and a very active forum.

9. Associate Programs
Alexa: 53,810 | Compete: 17,447 | Members: 18,000+ | PR: 6
Associate Programs is another good resource with very helpful moderators. Allan Gardyne runs this website and personally answers many questions asked on the forums by new affiliates. They focus on providing information and resources for new affiliates, while providing a thread for website reviews and other general online marketing strategies. It doesn't have the most members but members are high quality.

10. Affiliates Directory
Alexa: 101,479 | Compete: 161,811 | Members: 3,000+ | PR: 5
The Affiliates Directory is a small forum that is attached to an actual directory of affiliate programs. You can create an account to list your affiliate marketing program in their directory. The forum is not very active, but good to get link exposure if you make a few posts with your affiliate link.

11. WebProWorld
Alexa: 81,225 | Compete: 23,686 | Members: 66,000+ | PR: 6
WebProWord covers a wide range of topics. The biggest topics here are in the Search Engine talk and webmaster tools and programming tricks. They do have one affiliate marketing thread which is pretty popular. A good all around source.

12. Click Consultants
Alexa: 60,286 | Compete: 146,022 | Members: 2,500+ | PR: 3
Click Consultants is a very, simply clean forum that focuses primarily on affiliate marketing topics, and affiliate publisher information. Also has a "Learning Center" with affiliate resources available.

13. Conquer Your Niche
Alexa: 59,557 | Compete: 162,351 | Members: 40,000+ |PR: 3
Conquer Your Niche topics range from marking, traffic generation, to general marketing. They don't offer specific affiliate categories, but under general marketing is where you will find a lot of affiliates actively post here.

14. Webmaster Talk
Alexa: 38,048 | Compete: 14,852 | Members: 62,500+ | PR: 3
Webmaster Talk is a great forum that covers all of the main topics for webmasters and online marketers. They dedicate a lot of threads to programming and database questions. This is a very active forum, with usually 500 people online at any time. They are strict about spam, so be careful not to spam your links right away! This is a great forum to become an active member of the community in.

15. eWealth
Alexa: 51,433 | Compete: 106,636 | Members: n/a | PR: 4
eWealth focuses on the individual affiliate networks and clickbank offers. They have some threads that offer affiliate resources and also a place available for website design reviews and feedback.

16. ExperienceAdvertising Forums
Alexa: 143,008 | Compete: 131,090 | Members: 600+ | PR: 4
ExperienceAdvertising Forums is a small, basic forum that covers some general affiliate topics, SEO, and web design. There are only 8 categories available and a lot of the text on the site is red!

17. Forum for Webmasters
Alexa: 1,000,000+ | Compete: 131,090 | Members: 9,000+ | PR: 4
Forum for Webmasters is another small, simple forum that has 9 categories that relate to web design and web development. They offer a thread for website reviews, and two threads that relate to affiliate marketing, and making money online. Not a lot of activity, but worth a post or two.

18. More Niche
Alexa: 59,792 | Compete: 43,583 | Members: 29,500+ | PR: 4
The headline for their forum is simple: A meeting place for affiliates, merchants and the MoreNiche team. Honesty, transparency and effective communication between all parties. 4 Categories that keep it simple... General talk, affiliate talk, and link exchange requests.

19. SitePoint
Alexa: 3,011 | Compete: 2,615 | Members: 277,000+ | PR: 7
SitePoint is by far one of the most popular forums for affiliates or internet marketers. They cover all major topics that relate to programming, web design, affiliate marketing and other SEO. They also offer the Sitepoint Marketplace which you can purchase premium listings and other upgraded listings for premiere placement. With 277,377 members, becoming an active member of the sitepoint community will be great exposure for you long term, and a great place to network with others.

20. Warrior Forum
Alexa: 12,648 | Compete: 10,137 | Members: 93,000+ | PR: 4
Warrior Forum is also a very active site that focuses on general online marketing and discussions on making money online. They also offer programming and design support threads and other threads to network or share your products with others. Another great forum that will benefit you to become a spirited active member.

21. DigitalPoint
Alexa: 2,075 | Compete: 1,708 | Members: 200,000+ | PR: 7
DigitalPoint has been called the best and the worst of internet marketing forums. They have one of the most active forums with on average 2000-3000 active members online at any time. The threads they offer cover all of the major online marketing topics. This forum is hit with a lot of spam naturually because of the amount of people that are active here. Even with this fact, becoming active on DigitalPoint is sure to give you good exposure.

22. iWebTool Talk
Alexa: 21,182 | Compete: 8,658 | Members: 13,000+ | PR: 3
iWebTool primarily covers general webmaster and programming threads. They also offer a "marketplace" to buy and sell domains, or if you would like to post a service you are looking to purchase. They also offer a website review thread and some general online marketing threads that you will find active affiliate posts.

23. WickedFire
Alexa: 80,498 | Compete: 22,403 | Members: 29,000+ | PR: 4
WickedFire has a lot of great topics for internet marketing and making money online. They claim to be the "bad boys" of the internet forums because they consider themselves to be R rated. You must become a true active member of the community in order to post on this site, otherwise you will very quickly be flamed and banned from the site. They do not take spam lightly here. If you do get a foothold, you will find a lot of successful affiliate marketers to network with and you will gain a lot of exposure to links you might post here.

24. Affearners
Alexa: 20,7595 | Compete: 406,248 | Members: 1,500+ | PR: 3
Affearners is a semi active forum thats covers mainly affiliate marketing and affiliate networks. They have a few web design threads here but the focus is on the affiliate world.

25. X10Hosting
Alexa: 9,451 | Compete: 38,085 | Members: 147,000+ | PR: 3
X10Hosting primary topics revolve around website hosting and website design topics. They have a couple of general online marketing topics which you will find affiliate marketing threads. They offer a point system based on earning points by posting useful information and getting positive feedback from other members. One of the more active forums available for webhosting and webdesign, but you will still find affiliates here too!

26. DevShed Forums
Alexa: 6,154 | Compete: 6,648 | Members: 230,000+ | PR: 4
DevShed is a very active forum that has dozens of topics available. One of the most universal covering the widest range of internet topics. They have the most programming, database and networking threads. Webdesign and marketing are all covered here as well. With so many members, you are garunteed to find what you are looking for here.

27. Major Geeks
Alexa: 3,444 | Compete: 3,660 | Members: 147,000+ | PR: 5
Major Geeks is primarily a gaming and tech forum, but with so many members selective posts depending upon the type of exposure you are looking for can generate a good amount of traffic to your site.

28. The Switch Boards
Alexa: 125, 611 | Compete: 262,419 | Members: 3,000+ | PR: 4
A lot of general internet threads are available here, along with a "Critique my website" thread to help generate some more traffic and feedback. Small community, only worth a few posts.

29. ABestWeb
Alexa: 56,031 | Compete: 16,223 | Members: 47,000+ | PR: 5
ABestWeb has a majority of affiliate marketing threads, with a very active userbase. With 774,000 posts and an average of 2,500 users online at any time, this is another one of the top forums to become an active member of. They are also very strict about spamming and affiliate links, so make sure to be an active community member.

30. NetAffiliateTalk
Alexa: 919,287 | Compete: 950,368 | Members: 100+ | PR: 2
NetAffiliateTalk as of now only has 101 members. The few posts and threads that exisit now do recieve a high volume of views, but not many responses. This might be worth only a few minutes for an introduction post, or a website review post.

31. The V7 Network
Alexa: 45,884 | Compete: 13,934 | Members: 47,500+ | PR: 5
V7 focuses on online marketing, web development, and web design. With over 500 online on average at any time of day, this is a good, active solid community to become part of. They also offer a webmaster marketplace to offer seo or other web services to readers.

32. SEO Chat Forums
Alexa: 23,596 | Compete: 5,206 | Members: 47,000+ | PR: 4
Seo Chat covers all of the main online marketing and search engine optimization categories you need. This is a very active forum, with 400 people online on average at any time. Another good one to become active on.

33. Wealthy Affiliate Forum
Alexa: 38,946 | Compete: 31,505 | Members: n/a | PR: 4
Wealthy Affiliate Forum is part of the membership you can purchase to gain access to a large variety of benefits and affiliate resources. They garuntee to get you more exposure by becoming a member.