The first way that many people get to play these games online and then get paid for doing so is by being a video game tester. Oh come off it. You know you have always wanted to do this. You know you want to get paid for doing what you love. This takes time as they want you to reach all the levels and there are so many different things you are grading these games on, but we know that there are some pretty hard gamers out there who would be perfect at this sort of job. It does take some skill believe it or not, but come off it, you are getting paid to play!
Another way that people are making money to play games is by joining a role playing game. These are otherwise known as RPG's. Some people who play this avidly are paid to create the characters for others who might not really know how to do so. The same goes for the clothes and weapons and everything else that your character might need when doing a role playing game. They put their stuff that they have created on the market and get paid for doing so. You have the talent, and then you should go for it after all. If you think that these things go for your every day price, then you might be shocked when you see the price tags on some of them. But hey, if you got what it takes and people like what they see they will pay for it and many gamers have found this to be true.
While many people like to believe that they can just do these games and get paid and live off this, this might not be true. It takes much time and dedication to make this to be like your full time career. Some people have proved us wrong and have made this to be the only source of income that they need, yet, we don't advise it. It is however nice when you just need some spare cash. On average you might only make a hundred dollars a week which is nice pocket change to have. So, if you like gaming then this might be something that you might think about looking into to pass some of that boring time that you might have by. We know that others have tried these few suggestions and have found them to be fun and rewarding as well. So, there you have it, something new to try, another great way of making money on line that you might not have thought about.
jueves, 29 de enero de 2009
BLOGGING FOR QUICK AND EASY PROFIT
Blogging serves lots of useful purposes, some social, some charitable, some designed to grow traffic and generate profits for your business. But getting visitors to visit your blog and buy your product just once is a waste of your blogging skills; you need to turn your visitors into regular visitors and send your profits soaring. It's called making your blog ''Sticky' and you do it like this:
* Update your blog daily and end each posting by mentioning what you'll be blogging about next time. And make that 'something' appealing, a little mysterious, and generate curiosity that forces your visitors to call daily to read your blog.
* Offer regular free gifts and get visitors to sign up to your mailing list for these free gifts. Give clues to what future gifts are about, but don't give too much information, give just enough to make readers curious and keen to know more and eager to visit your blog daily.
* Be friendly and approachable to visitors, get them to trust you, get them to email you for help and advice. Once you get their trust you can use blogging to pre-sell your own or affiliate products. You should only recommend products you like, not products you find lacking, otherwise all that trust you gained will be lost forever.
* If you promise regular postings make sure to keep your promise or visitors will become disillusioned, they'll accuse you of wasting their time, they'll lose faith in you, and they'll eventually stop visiting your blog.
* Include postings that require visitors to call back for updates, such as competitions for which you'll reveal the winners later, let readers ask questions which you again answer later at the blog, treat them to a few jokes and anecdotes, and let visitors see there's more to your blog than just making money.
All in all, give lots of reasons for people to visit your blog and one day, maybe soon, they'll buy one or more of your products.
* Update your blog daily and end each posting by mentioning what you'll be blogging about next time. And make that 'something' appealing, a little mysterious, and generate curiosity that forces your visitors to call daily to read your blog.
* Offer regular free gifts and get visitors to sign up to your mailing list for these free gifts. Give clues to what future gifts are about, but don't give too much information, give just enough to make readers curious and keen to know more and eager to visit your blog daily.
* Be friendly and approachable to visitors, get them to trust you, get them to email you for help and advice. Once you get their trust you can use blogging to pre-sell your own or affiliate products. You should only recommend products you like, not products you find lacking, otherwise all that trust you gained will be lost forever.
* If you promise regular postings make sure to keep your promise or visitors will become disillusioned, they'll accuse you of wasting their time, they'll lose faith in you, and they'll eventually stop visiting your blog.
* Include postings that require visitors to call back for updates, such as competitions for which you'll reveal the winners later, let readers ask questions which you again answer later at the blog, treat them to a few jokes and anecdotes, and let visitors see there's more to your blog than just making money.
All in all, give lots of reasons for people to visit your blog and one day, maybe soon, they'll buy one or more of your products.
miércoles, 28 de enero de 2009
HOW TO MAKE MONEY USING FORUMS
"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude." - Thomas Jefferson
What are Online Forums?
An Internet forum, or message board, is a place where people leave messages and discuss things with each other. These people have signed up to be a member of that particular forum or website.
It is the most brilliant experience imaginable for someone wanting to make money online...have more traffic for your site without spending a single cent. It is like, making money online free.
Definitely, it is a sure thing that many sites have articles that offer tips and guidelines in how to generate traffic using only free methods.
And mark my words, this is 100% true. It has tremendous potential for you to earn money online and the best part is... you don't need to speed a single cent.
I will not beat around the bush with you here, I will be very honest, and in fact I will border on being blunt with you. This method of making money on the internet may take time.
Your chances to make money on the internet are greatly improved by paying for your advertisements, but at least you get a fighting chance with some of these free methods I'm about to tell you.
And one of the best ways to making money on internet is to take full advantage of online forums and online communities.
The big advantage about forums and online communities is that you can target a certain group that fits the certain demographic that you are looking for.
You can chat about about lots of things about the niche money making websites that you represent or offer.
Yet another great advantage is that you are well equipped for what you are getting into and you will be prepared in your venture to earn money on internet.
With online communities and forums you can build a reputation for your make money on line company. Show them what you are made of and wow them with your range of expertise about the subject,
When you do that, in time you will discover that you can build a reputation and build trust with the people in your expertise and knowledge.
So start joining as many forums and form online communities as possible in your attempts ton how to make money on the internet,
You need of course to Capture a market and show your expertise and credibility. When you found a good foundation for your earn money from internet site, people will trust you and your how to earn money site and will pass on to many people their trust.
You will discover that traffic will positively increase to your make money on the internet online site because they know that you can provide what they need.
That's all for now.
What are Online Forums?
An Internet forum, or message board, is a place where people leave messages and discuss things with each other. These people have signed up to be a member of that particular forum or website.
It is the most brilliant experience imaginable for someone wanting to make money online...have more traffic for your site without spending a single cent. It is like, making money online free.
Definitely, it is a sure thing that many sites have articles that offer tips and guidelines in how to generate traffic using only free methods.
And mark my words, this is 100% true. It has tremendous potential for you to earn money online and the best part is... you don't need to speed a single cent.
I will not beat around the bush with you here, I will be very honest, and in fact I will border on being blunt with you. This method of making money on the internet may take time.
Your chances to make money on the internet are greatly improved by paying for your advertisements, but at least you get a fighting chance with some of these free methods I'm about to tell you.
And one of the best ways to making money on internet is to take full advantage of online forums and online communities.
The big advantage about forums and online communities is that you can target a certain group that fits the certain demographic that you are looking for.
You can chat about about lots of things about the niche money making websites that you represent or offer.
Yet another great advantage is that you are well equipped for what you are getting into and you will be prepared in your venture to earn money on internet.
With online communities and forums you can build a reputation for your make money on line company. Show them what you are made of and wow them with your range of expertise about the subject,
When you do that, in time you will discover that you can build a reputation and build trust with the people in your expertise and knowledge.
So start joining as many forums and form online communities as possible in your attempts ton how to make money on the internet,
You need of course to Capture a market and show your expertise and credibility. When you found a good foundation for your earn money from internet site, people will trust you and your how to earn money site and will pass on to many people their trust.
You will discover that traffic will positively increase to your make money on the internet online site because they know that you can provide what they need.
That's all for now.
3 FORUM ADVERTISING TIPS
Forum advertising is a very convenient and effective way to augment your online profits. In simple terms forums are websites devoted to your niche. The following easy steps will help you gain maximum mileage from this medium.
1. Identifying the right forum
The first step in forum advertising is identifying the right forum suitable to the product or service you are promoting. Importantly, the forum you choose should relate itself to your niche. By simply running a Google search with your niche followed by 'forum', you will find an enormous number of forums within your niche. You can also use the information from these forums to start your own forum if you wish to pursue it aggressively.
2. Creating a profile
The second step in forum advertising is creating your profile once you sign up with the forum. Your profile will contain all of your contact information and a slot for the home page. You can use the home page slot to add your affiliate link too. It is the affiliate link you incorporate in the resource box that will work as your advertisement.
3. Pay attention to quality posts
The final step in forum advertising is paying attention to quality posts. Ideally, you should have posted about 30 posts before even creating your profile and adding your affiliate link therein. This way you would have already built up a reputation before people look at your link. Creating a friendly attitude is important to succeed through forum advertising. Follow these simple steps and watch your profits grow.
1. Identifying the right forum
The first step in forum advertising is identifying the right forum suitable to the product or service you are promoting. Importantly, the forum you choose should relate itself to your niche. By simply running a Google search with your niche followed by 'forum', you will find an enormous number of forums within your niche. You can also use the information from these forums to start your own forum if you wish to pursue it aggressively.
2. Creating a profile
The second step in forum advertising is creating your profile once you sign up with the forum. Your profile will contain all of your contact information and a slot for the home page. You can use the home page slot to add your affiliate link too. It is the affiliate link you incorporate in the resource box that will work as your advertisement.
3. Pay attention to quality posts
The final step in forum advertising is paying attention to quality posts. Ideally, you should have posted about 30 posts before even creating your profile and adding your affiliate link therein. This way you would have already built up a reputation before people look at your link. Creating a friendly attitude is important to succeed through forum advertising. Follow these simple steps and watch your profits grow.
GET TRAFFIC USING FORUM MARKETING
An excellent way to get targeted traffic to your website is by marketing your internet based business through the use of forums. We all know that this form of marketing is good for us to use, but the majority of internet marketers are not too sure of the correct way to go about doing this.
Here are some ways to use forum marketing that are possibly better than the methods you may be using at the moment.
1. Begin by researching some forums to join that are aligned with the niche that your internet based business is involved in. Initially you may feel uncomfortable, but start with a short list of forums that you enjoy and that you feel you can contribute intelligently to and then join in the discussions.
It is far better to approach the forums where you have a common interest, rather than trying to join a whole lot of forums and not being able to participate on a regular basis.
2. Do not spam. Making comments without actually adding anything of value to the discussion will get you banned rapidly and you will lose any credibility that you may have. It is considered spamming if your answer is written as a sales pitch as against being a helpful solution.
Many people think that the number of posts made is what is most important but it is far more important to be helpful and provide quality information rather than just posting for the sake of it.
Your credibility will come from the quality of the help and information that you give. By following this rule you will be adding value to the discussion.
3. You need to create a signature file that is different from everyone else and don't include products. The best thing that you can do is direct people to your website and do your sales pitch there.
Also keep your signature file clean and simple don't overcrowd it. You will get much better results if you merely guide people towards a couple of your favorite products or websites.
There are many people making a full time living by using forums marketing to get traffic to their internet based businesses. It is a great way to become known as an expert in your field. So long as you are giving advice and help that has value you will build credibility and your business will prosper as you will be trusted and people purchase from those that they can trust.
Here are some ways to use forum marketing that are possibly better than the methods you may be using at the moment.
1. Begin by researching some forums to join that are aligned with the niche that your internet based business is involved in. Initially you may feel uncomfortable, but start with a short list of forums that you enjoy and that you feel you can contribute intelligently to and then join in the discussions.
It is far better to approach the forums where you have a common interest, rather than trying to join a whole lot of forums and not being able to participate on a regular basis.
2. Do not spam. Making comments without actually adding anything of value to the discussion will get you banned rapidly and you will lose any credibility that you may have. It is considered spamming if your answer is written as a sales pitch as against being a helpful solution.
Many people think that the number of posts made is what is most important but it is far more important to be helpful and provide quality information rather than just posting for the sake of it.
Your credibility will come from the quality of the help and information that you give. By following this rule you will be adding value to the discussion.
3. You need to create a signature file that is different from everyone else and don't include products. The best thing that you can do is direct people to your website and do your sales pitch there.
Also keep your signature file clean and simple don't overcrowd it. You will get much better results if you merely guide people towards a couple of your favorite products or websites.
There are many people making a full time living by using forums marketing to get traffic to their internet based businesses. It is a great way to become known as an expert in your field. So long as you are giving advice and help that has value you will build credibility and your business will prosper as you will be trusted and people purchase from those that they can trust.
TIPS TO BUILD YOUR FIRST WEBSITE TO ENJOY BENEFITS
You may think building a website is a complicated process, but it really is not. There are many guides to help you design and get your website up and running. Once you have it all set up and get a look at your new website, you will be surprised at how much you have learned. Just follow a few basic steps outlined here and you will be the proud owner of a website shortly.
The First Steps
The first thing you should do is decide how you want your website to look. Naturally you will want to pick a theme that is relevant to the service or product you are selling. The features it contains will be another thing you will need to think about and it will help to write this down. Use the following to help you figure out the features.
1) The way your website is laid out is very important. It needs to be easy to navigate which will encourage traffic rather than cause them to click out of your site as fast as they can. If you need help with this there are very good programs online that will show you what the options are for setting up your site. They will explain how to insert text and clipart as well as putting in your information via a text editor or visual editor.
2) What keywords will you use? Think about what you would use if you were searching for your product. There are all types of variations of keywords that may be relevant to your site. Even a misspelled word can be a keyword. People often misspell words and if it will lead them to your site, well that is great.
3) What will the text contain? This is important to explain to prospective customers what you are selling and what they are to expect. If you have memberships available this needs to be explained. Everything pertaining to your site needs to be discussed here so people will know what to expect.
Once you have decided on these aspects, you will be ready to start setting up the website. A web hosting company will have to be chosen to host your site once it is set up. There are many that have good rates. The free ones are not as popular as some of the others because they often have advertisements which consistently promote their web hosting.
Make sure you choose the right size space for your website when it comes to web hosting. The disk space available to you from the web hosting site has to be enough to accommodate your site. Do they have a monthly traffic requirement?
You will have to choose a domain name if you have not already chosen one. Checking on it and making sure it does not belong to someone else is very important. There are online resources for doing this. The domain names are renewable every year for a small fee. You can also get a domain name through most web hosting companies.
Setting up your pages will be easy. Most hosting companies have a tutorial to guide you through the process. The rest is easy. All you have to do is publish your website for it to go live. Many hosting sites have a traffic generator for a very small fee which will get your site out to all the major search engines. Now just wait for the traffic to start flowing to your website.
The First Steps
The first thing you should do is decide how you want your website to look. Naturally you will want to pick a theme that is relevant to the service or product you are selling. The features it contains will be another thing you will need to think about and it will help to write this down. Use the following to help you figure out the features.
1) The way your website is laid out is very important. It needs to be easy to navigate which will encourage traffic rather than cause them to click out of your site as fast as they can. If you need help with this there are very good programs online that will show you what the options are for setting up your site. They will explain how to insert text and clipart as well as putting in your information via a text editor or visual editor.
2) What keywords will you use? Think about what you would use if you were searching for your product. There are all types of variations of keywords that may be relevant to your site. Even a misspelled word can be a keyword. People often misspell words and if it will lead them to your site, well that is great.
3) What will the text contain? This is important to explain to prospective customers what you are selling and what they are to expect. If you have memberships available this needs to be explained. Everything pertaining to your site needs to be discussed here so people will know what to expect.
Once you have decided on these aspects, you will be ready to start setting up the website. A web hosting company will have to be chosen to host your site once it is set up. There are many that have good rates. The free ones are not as popular as some of the others because they often have advertisements which consistently promote their web hosting.
Make sure you choose the right size space for your website when it comes to web hosting. The disk space available to you from the web hosting site has to be enough to accommodate your site. Do they have a monthly traffic requirement?
You will have to choose a domain name if you have not already chosen one. Checking on it and making sure it does not belong to someone else is very important. There are online resources for doing this. The domain names are renewable every year for a small fee. You can also get a domain name through most web hosting companies.
Setting up your pages will be easy. Most hosting companies have a tutorial to guide you through the process. The rest is easy. All you have to do is publish your website for it to go live. Many hosting sites have a traffic generator for a very small fee which will get your site out to all the major search engines. Now just wait for the traffic to start flowing to your website.
BEST WAYS TO GENERATE TRAFFIC ON YOUR SITE
am going to talk about creating traffic, hunting for traffic, schmoozing for traffic, funneling traffic, and begging for traffic. Things near and dear to my heart. I've never wanted traffic more in my life!
Mea culpa! Internet marketing has become an obsession for me. It's so much fun, don't you agree? I don't think I could ever stop doing this.
Stop pimping ourselves. And as far as internet marketers go, we're a bunch of enthusiastic experimenters, but do concentrate and focus on the plan we set up.
In a nutshell, including creating traffic, do the following
- focus on creating good content for the blog to attract the fish
- keep on positioning ourselves as an authority figure
- stop chasing the money
- stop pimping ourselves on the social media networks like Twitter; and to
- stick to the plan we set for ourselves
The plan is the most crucial part of this system. Now, I might slip now and then, but if I didn't have a good plan, I wouldn't know how bad it was!
Traffic Generation Methods
There were several methods we could use to create traffic. Each have their own strengths but if used in conjunction with the other methods, they help increase visibility to any lowly blog.
To name a few methods:
- Blogging - Your essential oil rig platform. The repository of all knowledge of your theme. When you blog, you create unique content of which some people may be interested in leaving comments, linking you back to their blogs, referring you to friends, etc.
- Forum Marketing - A place where you meet people of the same interest. You target forums after you have identified the important keywords your fish congregate. Forums are not places where you leave inane remarks that make you sound like a robot so don't do it!
- Article Submissions - Spread the net far and wide, the article submission methods is known to be slow, but it lasts forever. Once done, you can submit your articles to the myriad article directories online, such as EzineArticles.
- Press Releases - write your own feature article and send it to a press release site such as PRWeb. It's bound to create a lot of traffic if you do it right.
- Giveaways - Join giveaway events and watch your sign ups spike.
Through in a free product of your own to an ever-growing pot of free products in a joint venture with other internet marketers to attract a wider audience of targeted consumers. It works because the accumulative nature of all the lists of participating internet marketers combined with a common voice.
- eBay - If you are not aware of it, eBay has a section for marketing "Information Products" under its ubiquitous "Everything Else" category. You can use this to sell your ebooks and other info products you are planning to practically give away so you can generate some traffic.
- Social Media - Social media is about relationships. The point behind social media is mainly to drive relationships first and to drive massive traffic once people decide you're cool and human.
Unless you lived under a rock for the past 10 years, you've heard of these online portals for social media: Facebook, Friendster, Twitter, MySpace, Flickr, Squidoo, Hubpages, and more.
Social media is more about community and sharing information. Be careful about where to pimp, if you intend to pimp.
Depending on the social media site, you could sell, but you have to know which site to do that. Blatantly selling your product on the wrong site will get you flamed, unfollowed, ignored, and blocked by its denizens. So do your homework.
- Video Traffic - Video is positively one of the best ways to get you traffic! Just ask Her Royal Highness, the Video Marketing Queen: Mario Andros about it, and she will, in no uncertain terms tell you why now is the perfect time to get into video marketing!
Google absolutely loves YouTube and puts videos on the top ten results all the time in its search results.
- Twitter - Now, I've known Twitter since forever, but it's only recently that I discovered the TRUE POWER of Twitter! Where else can you send a message to up thousands of your followers online, REAL TIME and for FREE!
Here is where pimping is most prevalent. And the experts all agree that Twitter isn't for MEGA pimping, it's for building better relationships! You can find most of the experts on Twitter tweeting away with no hangups.
Mea culpa! Internet marketing has become an obsession for me. It's so much fun, don't you agree? I don't think I could ever stop doing this.
Stop pimping ourselves. And as far as internet marketers go, we're a bunch of enthusiastic experimenters, but do concentrate and focus on the plan we set up.
In a nutshell, including creating traffic, do the following
- focus on creating good content for the blog to attract the fish
- keep on positioning ourselves as an authority figure
- stop chasing the money
- stop pimping ourselves on the social media networks like Twitter; and to
- stick to the plan we set for ourselves
The plan is the most crucial part of this system. Now, I might slip now and then, but if I didn't have a good plan, I wouldn't know how bad it was!
Traffic Generation Methods
There were several methods we could use to create traffic. Each have their own strengths but if used in conjunction with the other methods, they help increase visibility to any lowly blog.
To name a few methods:
- Blogging - Your essential oil rig platform. The repository of all knowledge of your theme. When you blog, you create unique content of which some people may be interested in leaving comments, linking you back to their blogs, referring you to friends, etc.
- Forum Marketing - A place where you meet people of the same interest. You target forums after you have identified the important keywords your fish congregate. Forums are not places where you leave inane remarks that make you sound like a robot so don't do it!
- Article Submissions - Spread the net far and wide, the article submission methods is known to be slow, but it lasts forever. Once done, you can submit your articles to the myriad article directories online, such as EzineArticles.
- Press Releases - write your own feature article and send it to a press release site such as PRWeb. It's bound to create a lot of traffic if you do it right.
- Giveaways - Join giveaway events and watch your sign ups spike.
Through in a free product of your own to an ever-growing pot of free products in a joint venture with other internet marketers to attract a wider audience of targeted consumers. It works because the accumulative nature of all the lists of participating internet marketers combined with a common voice.
- eBay - If you are not aware of it, eBay has a section for marketing "Information Products" under its ubiquitous "Everything Else" category. You can use this to sell your ebooks and other info products you are planning to practically give away so you can generate some traffic.
- Social Media - Social media is about relationships. The point behind social media is mainly to drive relationships first and to drive massive traffic once people decide you're cool and human.
Unless you lived under a rock for the past 10 years, you've heard of these online portals for social media: Facebook, Friendster, Twitter, MySpace, Flickr, Squidoo, Hubpages, and more.
Social media is more about community and sharing information. Be careful about where to pimp, if you intend to pimp.
Depending on the social media site, you could sell, but you have to know which site to do that. Blatantly selling your product on the wrong site will get you flamed, unfollowed, ignored, and blocked by its denizens. So do your homework.
- Video Traffic - Video is positively one of the best ways to get you traffic! Just ask Her Royal Highness, the Video Marketing Queen: Mario Andros about it, and she will, in no uncertain terms tell you why now is the perfect time to get into video marketing!
Google absolutely loves YouTube and puts videos on the top ten results all the time in its search results.
- Twitter - Now, I've known Twitter since forever, but it's only recently that I discovered the TRUE POWER of Twitter! Where else can you send a message to up thousands of your followers online, REAL TIME and for FREE!
Here is where pimping is most prevalent. And the experts all agree that Twitter isn't for MEGA pimping, it's for building better relationships! You can find most of the experts on Twitter tweeting away with no hangups.
TOP TIPS FOR CHOOSING THE RIGHT DOMAIN
Ask any online marketer what their domain name means to them, and they will automatically tell you that their domain name is their company's identity. It tells surfer everything they need to know: who they are? What they do? What their product/service can do for them.
It essentially acts as a summation of your company's web identity, so making sure you pick one that accurately describes you is vital.
For this reason we recommend that you pick something that is memorable, distinct and original. One that stands out from the rest in your product niche, but also at the same time efficiently reflects your company's products/service.
So how do you decide which is the right domain for you?
Well the first thing we recommend, especially if you are interested in incorporating SEO into your web design, is to pick a domain name that is SEO friendly.
But as with all things, this in itself can lead to more problems when it comes to choosing your domain. You see, you are just one of many companies online, who have undertaken the task of finding a URL that is SEO friendly.
So trying to find one that is distinct to your product niche and that has also been left untouched can be difficult. The competition is fierce.
But you can overcome this. You can offer your domain a uniqueness presence. Take the following details for example. Each can help make your decision easier.
Brand: as we said before your domain name is your websites identity. It represents who you are to the entire marketing sector and what you are trying to achieve as a company.
Saying this, your brand essence can also play an important factor in what domain you decide to choose.
All your brand is, is an extension of your company's identity. It is another means of allowing your surfers to recognise who you are and what you do.
So if for example you are a property investment teaching company, within your domain name it needs to mention the phrases 'property courses' or 'property investment.'
Length: which do you choose? A short domain name that is easy to remember and type into your browser or a long domain name that will enable you to incorporate SEO and explain your product?
Both of these have got their benefits. It is just a matter of deciding which one would best benefit your website.
One way you can have the best of both these worlds is to set a word restriction of up to 67 characters. By doing this, you can give your domain name just enough description length so that it is not obscured, but a clear cut off point.
Saying this, if you can keep your domain name to under 67 characters that will prevent surfers from making any errors when come to type in your domain name.
Hyphens: similar to the length of your domain names, hyphens can bring both its advantages and its disadvantages.
On the one hand, using hyphens can help you to get the domain you want whilst making your keywords more accessible to SEO e.g. propertyinvestment to property-investment.
But then on the opposite end of the scale, if surfers forget to include them, they could either be taken to another company's website, or they won't be able to find your website at all.
Domain name type: when picking your domain name you need to decide what you want your top level domain to be.
All a top level domain is, is your domain names extension for example .com, .net, .org, .us or .biz.
Now most companies choose to go for .com but there is nothing necessarily wrong with using any of the others we have mentioned above. In fact, with .com being such a popular domain source, it can be quite competitive to get your domain name with them so choosing one of the others could ensure you get the domain you want.
So take the time to decide what domain name best suites your website, and make sure you consider all the above pointers. Do that and you can offer your website the best in domain representation.
It essentially acts as a summation of your company's web identity, so making sure you pick one that accurately describes you is vital.
For this reason we recommend that you pick something that is memorable, distinct and original. One that stands out from the rest in your product niche, but also at the same time efficiently reflects your company's products/service.
So how do you decide which is the right domain for you?
Well the first thing we recommend, especially if you are interested in incorporating SEO into your web design, is to pick a domain name that is SEO friendly.
But as with all things, this in itself can lead to more problems when it comes to choosing your domain. You see, you are just one of many companies online, who have undertaken the task of finding a URL that is SEO friendly.
So trying to find one that is distinct to your product niche and that has also been left untouched can be difficult. The competition is fierce.
But you can overcome this. You can offer your domain a uniqueness presence. Take the following details for example. Each can help make your decision easier.
Brand: as we said before your domain name is your websites identity. It represents who you are to the entire marketing sector and what you are trying to achieve as a company.
Saying this, your brand essence can also play an important factor in what domain you decide to choose.
All your brand is, is an extension of your company's identity. It is another means of allowing your surfers to recognise who you are and what you do.
So if for example you are a property investment teaching company, within your domain name it needs to mention the phrases 'property courses' or 'property investment.'
Length: which do you choose? A short domain name that is easy to remember and type into your browser or a long domain name that will enable you to incorporate SEO and explain your product?
Both of these have got their benefits. It is just a matter of deciding which one would best benefit your website.
One way you can have the best of both these worlds is to set a word restriction of up to 67 characters. By doing this, you can give your domain name just enough description length so that it is not obscured, but a clear cut off point.
Saying this, if you can keep your domain name to under 67 characters that will prevent surfers from making any errors when come to type in your domain name.
Hyphens: similar to the length of your domain names, hyphens can bring both its advantages and its disadvantages.
On the one hand, using hyphens can help you to get the domain you want whilst making your keywords more accessible to SEO e.g. propertyinvestment to property-investment.
But then on the opposite end of the scale, if surfers forget to include them, they could either be taken to another company's website, or they won't be able to find your website at all.
Domain name type: when picking your domain name you need to decide what you want your top level domain to be.
All a top level domain is, is your domain names extension for example .com, .net, .org, .us or .biz.
Now most companies choose to go for .com but there is nothing necessarily wrong with using any of the others we have mentioned above. In fact, with .com being such a popular domain source, it can be quite competitive to get your domain name with them so choosing one of the others could ensure you get the domain you want.
So take the time to decide what domain name best suites your website, and make sure you consider all the above pointers. Do that and you can offer your website the best in domain representation.
BUYING DOMAINS (HELP GUIDE)
There is a dizzying array of domain name extensions (and more will be added this year and every year for the foreseeable future). When you are purchasing your domain names, it's hard to know which ones to buy - all of them? Just .com? This article shares some ideas for you to consider when you are investing in the domain names related to your business.
While the .com extension is certainly the most well recognized and the one that is the "best" to have for most businesses, it's not the only one. However, always try to get that one when it is available - whether for your business name, your individual name, a product name, or other intellectual property you want to have represented by a domain name.
The next most popular extension for businesses (and the one that was supposed to take the load off the .com extension) is .biz. If you own ONLY this extension (or any of the others besides .com) you have to take special care to ensure that others KNOW your website ends with .biz because by default, essentially everyone assumes when you tell them your website that .com is the extension.
The third one to consider is .info - and in some cases, fits quite well with particular domain names and certain products or features of your business. Again, remember to stress the extension if you are telling someone your URL.
The .name extension is one that you can get if you are using your own name but it's not very recognizable to most people as an extension.
An extension that is gaining in popularity for some businesses is .tv. Generally, it is limited to people who are broadcasting in some way. Look into this if you plan to use extensive video and other visual media.
.org is limited to groups who can demonstrate that they are an organization and not a business, so for most people reading this article, you have no need to even consider this extension.
The last two I'll mention here are .gov & .lib, which are limited to government agencies and libraries, respectively. Again, no need to worry about those extensions.
So, given all of this information, here are some suggestions for you when you are purchasing domain names (especially if some seems to have the one you REALLY wanted):
Find out if the person who owns it will sell it (and they might if they aren't using it). Many people buy domain names 'just in case,' and may be willing to sell it to you. All you can do is ask. If you don't ask, you'll never know.
Play with the domain name you want and try it in different formats; see if one of the others is available. It's one thing I love about 1and1.com (and most other companies that sell domains; they give you other suggestions if the name you want isn't available.
Try the domain name with hyphens (and when you get a really good one, consider getting it with hyphens, too anyway. Know that if you ONLY have a domain name with hyphens you will always be telling people where the hyphens go, so try some other alternatives instead unless you are prepared to repeat OVER AND OVER "There's a hyphen between every word."
When you find a domain name you truly love - and have a sense that it is "the one," then buy it in as many iterations as possible. Domains are cheap. You can always keep them for a year and let them go...but once they are gone, it's much more expensive and maybe impossible to secure the one(s) you want. Better safe than sorry!
While the .com extension is certainly the most well recognized and the one that is the "best" to have for most businesses, it's not the only one. However, always try to get that one when it is available - whether for your business name, your individual name, a product name, or other intellectual property you want to have represented by a domain name.
The next most popular extension for businesses (and the one that was supposed to take the load off the .com extension) is .biz. If you own ONLY this extension (or any of the others besides .com) you have to take special care to ensure that others KNOW your website ends with .biz because by default, essentially everyone assumes when you tell them your website that .com is the extension.
The third one to consider is .info - and in some cases, fits quite well with particular domain names and certain products or features of your business. Again, remember to stress the extension if you are telling someone your URL.
The .name extension is one that you can get if you are using your own name but it's not very recognizable to most people as an extension.
An extension that is gaining in popularity for some businesses is .tv. Generally, it is limited to people who are broadcasting in some way. Look into this if you plan to use extensive video and other visual media.
.org is limited to groups who can demonstrate that they are an organization and not a business, so for most people reading this article, you have no need to even consider this extension.
The last two I'll mention here are .gov & .lib, which are limited to government agencies and libraries, respectively. Again, no need to worry about those extensions.
So, given all of this information, here are some suggestions for you when you are purchasing domain names (especially if some seems to have the one you REALLY wanted):
Find out if the person who owns it will sell it (and they might if they aren't using it). Many people buy domain names 'just in case,' and may be willing to sell it to you. All you can do is ask. If you don't ask, you'll never know.
Play with the domain name you want and try it in different formats; see if one of the others is available. It's one thing I love about 1and1.com (and most other companies that sell domains; they give you other suggestions if the name you want isn't available.
Try the domain name with hyphens (and when you get a really good one, consider getting it with hyphens, too anyway. Know that if you ONLY have a domain name with hyphens you will always be telling people where the hyphens go, so try some other alternatives instead unless you are prepared to repeat OVER AND OVER "There's a hyphen between every word."
When you find a domain name you truly love - and have a sense that it is "the one," then buy it in as many iterations as possible. Domains are cheap. You can always keep them for a year and let them go...but once they are gone, it's much more expensive and maybe impossible to secure the one(s) you want. Better safe than sorry!
JOBS FOR TEENS UNDER 18
There aren't too many jobs for teens under 18 to begin with, but it's even more frustrating when nobody's hiring. That's when do many turn to the internet to make money online. Where do you go, though? I will show you exactly what I did, to make hundreds of extra dollars every single month and what I continue to do. They are the absolute best jobs for teens under 18 and I'll show you why.
Let's start things off by talking about what it is. The way I have made the easiest, fastest money online happens to be from doing surveys. Now, I know that many people give up on them, because they just don't seem to be making any sort of decent cash. Well, they aren't making decent cash because they are joining the wrong places. They are the best jobs for teens under 18 "if" you know how to pull up the highest paying survey sites.
Most people go about finding them the wrong way and instead wind up in a world of lower paying survey sites. By this, I am talking about people who continually use search engines to look for paid surveys online. Long story short, you don't want to do it this way. It's not going to work and will only lead you to copy cat type survey sites that pay very low. You need a way to get a hold of the "real", big boy survey sites that pay you top dollar. That's when surveys are the best jobs for teens under 18.
I'm going to show you how to accomplish that right now and it's easy to do. The only thing you need are forums. Big forums to be precise. You see, big forums are always going to be filled with all the information you need and it's all in their archive section. The archive section is always packed wit hpast topics on various survey subjects, which hare loaded with people sharing their stores and info on where hey are making the most money doing paid surveys. It's the easiest path to the wonderful survey sites that make the best jobs for teens under 18.
Also, big forums will provide you with honest information, because the people that hang out in these well established forums know and respect that forum. Big forums also moderate and keep track of postings, which keeps people on track. It can be hard to find honest information on surveys, but big forums are the one place that is loaded with it. That's what make surveys the best jobs for teens under 18. You get a huge amount of insider information on paid surveys and which ones are putting the most cash in other people's pockets.
There are jobs for teens under 18 at your local mall, or at the grocery store, but none of them are easier than taking surveys.
Here is a free Top 5 List of Paid Survey Sites: http://www.free-survey-list.com/
Let's start things off by talking about what it is. The way I have made the easiest, fastest money online happens to be from doing surveys. Now, I know that many people give up on them, because they just don't seem to be making any sort of decent cash. Well, they aren't making decent cash because they are joining the wrong places. They are the best jobs for teens under 18 "if" you know how to pull up the highest paying survey sites.
Most people go about finding them the wrong way and instead wind up in a world of lower paying survey sites. By this, I am talking about people who continually use search engines to look for paid surveys online. Long story short, you don't want to do it this way. It's not going to work and will only lead you to copy cat type survey sites that pay very low. You need a way to get a hold of the "real", big boy survey sites that pay you top dollar. That's when surveys are the best jobs for teens under 18.
I'm going to show you how to accomplish that right now and it's easy to do. The only thing you need are forums. Big forums to be precise. You see, big forums are always going to be filled with all the information you need and it's all in their archive section. The archive section is always packed wit hpast topics on various survey subjects, which hare loaded with people sharing their stores and info on where hey are making the most money doing paid surveys. It's the easiest path to the wonderful survey sites that make the best jobs for teens under 18.
Also, big forums will provide you with honest information, because the people that hang out in these well established forums know and respect that forum. Big forums also moderate and keep track of postings, which keeps people on track. It can be hard to find honest information on surveys, but big forums are the one place that is loaded with it. That's what make surveys the best jobs for teens under 18. You get a huge amount of insider information on paid surveys and which ones are putting the most cash in other people's pockets.
There are jobs for teens under 18 at your local mall, or at the grocery store, but none of them are easier than taking surveys.
Here is a free Top 5 List of Paid Survey Sites: http://www.free-survey-list.com/
HOW YOU CAN GET PAID DOING SURVEYS
There are several companies out there now that offer consumers the ability to take surveys and get paid for them. These are often referred to as a Market Research Paid Survey. Basically you just have to sort through and determine the legitimate companies from the scam companies.
The whole goal of legitimate companies paying consumers is to receive market research at a reduced cost. Technically paying someone sitting at home to complete surveys fits into their budget nicely. Very large companies like Hollister, Abercrombie, WalMart, JcPenny, etc pay consumers to fill out these surveys all the time.
The way you can get paid to complete these surveys is signing up with the right marketing research company. These Paid for Taking Survey programs are very common place. But there are only a handful of real companies that do them.
I have actually spent some time weeding through all the different ones to find a legit one that pays between $10 and $40 to complete the surveys or consumer opinion polls as some are referred to. The sign up process is pretty straight forward and you can start earning money right away.
Just by doing 4 surveys a day you could easily pay your car payment and insurance premium per month. Or even make the payment on a 150,000 mortgage. So it is definitely worth checking out. Especially for those trying to supplement their income with other revenue streams. Like older people on a fixed income or college kids trying to make extra cash. If you have about 1 hour a day you can make a very nice income.
The whole goal of legitimate companies paying consumers is to receive market research at a reduced cost. Technically paying someone sitting at home to complete surveys fits into their budget nicely. Very large companies like Hollister, Abercrombie, WalMart, JcPenny, etc pay consumers to fill out these surveys all the time.
The way you can get paid to complete these surveys is signing up with the right marketing research company. These Paid for Taking Survey programs are very common place. But there are only a handful of real companies that do them.
I have actually spent some time weeding through all the different ones to find a legit one that pays between $10 and $40 to complete the surveys or consumer opinion polls as some are referred to. The sign up process is pretty straight forward and you can start earning money right away.
Just by doing 4 surveys a day you could easily pay your car payment and insurance premium per month. Or even make the payment on a 150,000 mortgage. So it is definitely worth checking out. Especially for those trying to supplement their income with other revenue streams. Like older people on a fixed income or college kids trying to make extra cash. If you have about 1 hour a day you can make a very nice income.
HOW TO START YOUR OWN NEWSLETTER
If you want to make money online, there are a million reasons why you should start your own email marketing newsletter.
After you know how to start your own mailing list or Ezine, the potential for your businesses growth will increase dramatically.
Some of the benefits of email lists include:
1.) The ability to expand product and brand awareness.
2.) Increased trust and communication with your target audience.
3.) Opportunity to interact with your subscribers.
4.) Potential for turning active subscribers into loyal customers.
There are several ways to start your own email newsletter or mailing list. In regard to the logistics of setting up your list, you may want to consider several options.
If you want to use a free service while your starting off, you could implement a form on your website that obtains the subscriber's name and email and when the submit button is clicked, it will send the information to an email designated for your mailing list.
Generally this option is free but it will be very time consuming to manage all the emails and keep updating an excel spreadsheet whenever you receive a new subscriber.
Most bloggers and internet marketers prefer to use an automated email newsletter or mailing list solution because it will require less maintenance and it gives you more control over the analytics and statistics of your subscriber base.
The majority of bloggers, website owners and internet marketers use a service called Aweber.
Keep in mind, your mailing list may become your company's greatest asset. Making the right decision regarding your email newsletter is very important.
You should ask yourself the following question:
What do I want to accomplish with my mailing list?
If you can develop an email newsletter strategy and implement it with a certain goal in mind, you will most likely be a lot more successful in your efforts.
Another question you may want to ask yourself is:
How am I going to convince people to subscribe to my email newsletter?
Many people offer something as a reward for subscribing like a free ebook, video or access to a tool that may be of use to their subscribers. It's always good to have a catch and offer incentive for people who take the initiative to sign up.
In regard to the actual content of your newsletters it's important to determine what type of audience you should be catering to. In regard to this website, the primary focus is people who want to know how to make money online, get paid for their opinions and work from home.
Try to focus the content of your email mailing list and deliver information to your subscriber that is useful and interesting. This will make sure that people continue to follow your emails and not decide to unsubscribe.
After you have decided what type of information to deliver, you will want to consider how often you want to send out information. This can be a very important decision, if you don't send out information on a regular basis, people may forget about your site and the valuable content that you provide. However, if you send information all the time, they may decide that the emails are more of an annoyance than anything else.
The point is that you will be building a community of individuals that are interested in the information you present. There are many positive benefits that will come out of creating a mailing list so you should definitely consider it as an option for your business.
Create a loyal community and the networking possibilities are limitless, also the potential to make money online using these methods is limitless as well.
I hope this article gave you a few ideas and got you thinking about how to start your own email newsletter. In the future I will plan to add a series on this topic because of its importance in an effective internet marketing campaign.
After you know how to start your own mailing list or Ezine, the potential for your businesses growth will increase dramatically.
Some of the benefits of email lists include:
1.) The ability to expand product and brand awareness.
2.) Increased trust and communication with your target audience.
3.) Opportunity to interact with your subscribers.
4.) Potential for turning active subscribers into loyal customers.
There are several ways to start your own email newsletter or mailing list. In regard to the logistics of setting up your list, you may want to consider several options.
If you want to use a free service while your starting off, you could implement a form on your website that obtains the subscriber's name and email and when the submit button is clicked, it will send the information to an email designated for your mailing list.
Generally this option is free but it will be very time consuming to manage all the emails and keep updating an excel spreadsheet whenever you receive a new subscriber.
Most bloggers and internet marketers prefer to use an automated email newsletter or mailing list solution because it will require less maintenance and it gives you more control over the analytics and statistics of your subscriber base.
The majority of bloggers, website owners and internet marketers use a service called Aweber.
Keep in mind, your mailing list may become your company's greatest asset. Making the right decision regarding your email newsletter is very important.
You should ask yourself the following question:
What do I want to accomplish with my mailing list?
If you can develop an email newsletter strategy and implement it with a certain goal in mind, you will most likely be a lot more successful in your efforts.
Another question you may want to ask yourself is:
How am I going to convince people to subscribe to my email newsletter?
Many people offer something as a reward for subscribing like a free ebook, video or access to a tool that may be of use to their subscribers. It's always good to have a catch and offer incentive for people who take the initiative to sign up.
In regard to the actual content of your newsletters it's important to determine what type of audience you should be catering to. In regard to this website, the primary focus is people who want to know how to make money online, get paid for their opinions and work from home.
Try to focus the content of your email mailing list and deliver information to your subscriber that is useful and interesting. This will make sure that people continue to follow your emails and not decide to unsubscribe.
After you have decided what type of information to deliver, you will want to consider how often you want to send out information. This can be a very important decision, if you don't send out information on a regular basis, people may forget about your site and the valuable content that you provide. However, if you send information all the time, they may decide that the emails are more of an annoyance than anything else.
The point is that you will be building a community of individuals that are interested in the information you present. There are many positive benefits that will come out of creating a mailing list so you should definitely consider it as an option for your business.
Create a loyal community and the networking possibilities are limitless, also the potential to make money online using these methods is limitless as well.
I hope this article gave you a few ideas and got you thinking about how to start your own email newsletter. In the future I will plan to add a series on this topic because of its importance in an effective internet marketing campaign.
WHAT GOOD CAN COME OF A NEWSLETTER?
What good can come of a newsletter? (Long drum roll begins here.) Much-if it's done right. (Enter crash of cymbals stage left.)
A newsletter is a great way to get information out, in any organization, and virtually every large organization uses them. The problem is that not everyone reads them. That is fine if you just want the prestige of sending newsletters out and you don't care if anyone soaks up whatever information is inside. But what do you do if you want people to read what you have to say?
If you want to actually have your newsletter read, first it has to be interesting-something people want to read. How do you do that? Easy. What is more interesting, a dull, dry business meeting, or sitting around the coffee pot having a lively, chatty conversation. Yeah, the chatty stuff is more interesting, definitely. You absolutely have to engage the audience if you are ever going to have one.
Use a newsletter like the coffee pot conversation. Get everyone involved. Don't spend eight or ten pages spouting off a steady stream of statistics and facts. Your newsletter needs personality. What provides personality? Humor probably smacks a person's interest gene more than any other thing you can do. As one newsletter reader put it, "If it ain't funny, they ain't no one gonna read it."
The editor of one monthly newsletter kept his readership's interest by including a funny account of a screw up by a member of the organization each month. This, to be sure, is not something you'll want to do if the newsletter is distributed to the general public. This was done in an in-house newsletter only. The editor never included anything distasteful, slanderous, libelous, or anything that might bring a civil suit to the organization. Nevertheless, the members of the organization looked forward to the newsletter because of that one monthly inclusion.
Of course, things change. Eventually the newsletter editor received a new supervisor, who for unknown reasons didn't like the monthly jape. The new supervisor ordered the monthly anecdote to cease. What happened? Mass protests from the readers. Most threatened to quit reading the newsletter altogether if the anecdotes weren't restored. The supervisor, being one of those with the classic dominant personality, one who considered most ideas poor ones unless he came up with them himself, still refused to allow the anecdotes.
"So what happened," you ask indignantly. The answer is that the editor resigned from the newsletter. The paper was turned over to a secretary-the standard data doling type. She continued to pump out monthly newsletters, but hardly anybody ever read them. They were just too danged boring. Eventually the newsletter died a slow agonizing death.
What happened to the original newsletter editor? He began writing newspaper articles and eventually got his own newspaper column in which he wrote humorous anecdotes about real life situations-mostly situations that happened to him personally. They were self-deprecating stories for the most part. No, he never got rich at it, but he did have a loyal following who were disappointed when the newspaper went belly up. Nevertheless, he had a lot of fun while it lasted, and he still has people comment to him about how much they loved his column even though the paper went out of business over two years ago.
Of course, humor is not the only way to build readership in a newsletter. But whatever you do, keep it lively and keep it as informal as possible. If you don't, you'll lose your readers long before the bottom of page one.
A newsletter is a great way to get information out, in any organization, and virtually every large organization uses them. The problem is that not everyone reads them. That is fine if you just want the prestige of sending newsletters out and you don't care if anyone soaks up whatever information is inside. But what do you do if you want people to read what you have to say?
If you want to actually have your newsletter read, first it has to be interesting-something people want to read. How do you do that? Easy. What is more interesting, a dull, dry business meeting, or sitting around the coffee pot having a lively, chatty conversation. Yeah, the chatty stuff is more interesting, definitely. You absolutely have to engage the audience if you are ever going to have one.
Use a newsletter like the coffee pot conversation. Get everyone involved. Don't spend eight or ten pages spouting off a steady stream of statistics and facts. Your newsletter needs personality. What provides personality? Humor probably smacks a person's interest gene more than any other thing you can do. As one newsletter reader put it, "If it ain't funny, they ain't no one gonna read it."
The editor of one monthly newsletter kept his readership's interest by including a funny account of a screw up by a member of the organization each month. This, to be sure, is not something you'll want to do if the newsletter is distributed to the general public. This was done in an in-house newsletter only. The editor never included anything distasteful, slanderous, libelous, or anything that might bring a civil suit to the organization. Nevertheless, the members of the organization looked forward to the newsletter because of that one monthly inclusion.
Of course, things change. Eventually the newsletter editor received a new supervisor, who for unknown reasons didn't like the monthly jape. The new supervisor ordered the monthly anecdote to cease. What happened? Mass protests from the readers. Most threatened to quit reading the newsletter altogether if the anecdotes weren't restored. The supervisor, being one of those with the classic dominant personality, one who considered most ideas poor ones unless he came up with them himself, still refused to allow the anecdotes.
"So what happened," you ask indignantly. The answer is that the editor resigned from the newsletter. The paper was turned over to a secretary-the standard data doling type. She continued to pump out monthly newsletters, but hardly anybody ever read them. They were just too danged boring. Eventually the newsletter died a slow agonizing death.
What happened to the original newsletter editor? He began writing newspaper articles and eventually got his own newspaper column in which he wrote humorous anecdotes about real life situations-mostly situations that happened to him personally. They were self-deprecating stories for the most part. No, he never got rich at it, but he did have a loyal following who were disappointed when the newspaper went belly up. Nevertheless, he had a lot of fun while it lasted, and he still has people comment to him about how much they loved his column even though the paper went out of business over two years ago.
Of course, humor is not the only way to build readership in a newsletter. But whatever you do, keep it lively and keep it as informal as possible. If you don't, you'll lose your readers long before the bottom of page one.
HOW TO CREATE AN ONLINE BUSINESS WITH THE RIGHT START
But how to make all that beautiful thinking to work in praxis? How to create an online business and from where? It is wise to build motivation but it is also wise to learn, how to start your new online business opportunity correctly and realistically.
1. Follow Those Who Have Done It Already.
The market is full of people, who have done a successful career with the same affiliate program, which you have joined. A low risk start is to find those names and to follow them and their ideas. When you succeed to do that, you have found out two cornerstones for your business ideas, a proven affiliate program and a successful mentor or mentors to follow.
2. Why The Role Of An Affiliate Program Is Important?
The answer is clear. You will be more or less dependent on the affiliate program, because thy will produce all the material, which you will market. If you choose the wrong one, nothing can correct it later on.
An other way round, a proven affiliate program can help you with the best possible way. Starting an online business needs a very strong expertise and experience, and these two are the major benefits, which a new affiliate gets. Why to try to invent the wheel again?
3. Look At The Style Of An Affiliate Program.
Most new affiliate marketers do not have a background of a marketer. They are ordinary people and understand an ordinary language. This is the simple reason, why a program must talk the same language, not the insiders marketing jargon.
The first impression is important, when you land for the first time on the home page of the candidate program. It must give you an immediate answer to your question of how to create an online business and to make you excited.
4. Start To Study Immediately.
This is the greatest decision, you can make. When you know, what you do, why you do and how the results form, you know the core of online business. This level you can reach only by studying. Actually studying is an ongoing process and you can grow your know how and to reach huge success!
5. You Have To Participate.
Social sites are very trendy at the moment. Actually, what I mean is to participate the discussions with your fellow marketers. This conducts you to the discussion forum of your home based business merchant.
The forum is the place, where marketers share their experiences, tips, errors and news. It is a great place to collect very useful information, which you can use for your own online business systems. And there you can try one good tactics, try to build up joint ventures.
I still underline the meaning of those two fundamental things when you are starting an online business. Use enough time for the affiliate program selection process and when you have done that, use enough time to find out a successful, proven and helpful mentor.
1. Follow Those Who Have Done It Already.
The market is full of people, who have done a successful career with the same affiliate program, which you have joined. A low risk start is to find those names and to follow them and their ideas. When you succeed to do that, you have found out two cornerstones for your business ideas, a proven affiliate program and a successful mentor or mentors to follow.
2. Why The Role Of An Affiliate Program Is Important?
The answer is clear. You will be more or less dependent on the affiliate program, because thy will produce all the material, which you will market. If you choose the wrong one, nothing can correct it later on.
An other way round, a proven affiliate program can help you with the best possible way. Starting an online business needs a very strong expertise and experience, and these two are the major benefits, which a new affiliate gets. Why to try to invent the wheel again?
3. Look At The Style Of An Affiliate Program.
Most new affiliate marketers do not have a background of a marketer. They are ordinary people and understand an ordinary language. This is the simple reason, why a program must talk the same language, not the insiders marketing jargon.
The first impression is important, when you land for the first time on the home page of the candidate program. It must give you an immediate answer to your question of how to create an online business and to make you excited.
4. Start To Study Immediately.
This is the greatest decision, you can make. When you know, what you do, why you do and how the results form, you know the core of online business. This level you can reach only by studying. Actually studying is an ongoing process and you can grow your know how and to reach huge success!
5. You Have To Participate.
Social sites are very trendy at the moment. Actually, what I mean is to participate the discussions with your fellow marketers. This conducts you to the discussion forum of your home based business merchant.
The forum is the place, where marketers share their experiences, tips, errors and news. It is a great place to collect very useful information, which you can use for your own online business systems. And there you can try one good tactics, try to build up joint ventures.
I still underline the meaning of those two fundamental things when you are starting an online business. Use enough time for the affiliate program selection process and when you have done that, use enough time to find out a successful, proven and helpful mentor.
CREATING A MONEY MAKING ARTICLE (steps)
1. First you have to write a title that catches attention and has the right keywords in it. This has the keyword phrase "money making article," and apparently caught your attention. Make the title relevant to the article content, of course, or the reader will feel tricked, and may stop reading.
2. Have a short description that pulls the reader in. You might use the first couple sentences of the article for this. Tell the readers what they will find in the article, and leave them curious. You read this far, so that seems to be working.
3. Have useful information or good stories. It is even better if you have both.
4. Put the keywords in the body of the article, and in sub-headings, so search engines can find your article. Note that I used "money making article" in the sub-heading above, and I just used it again.
5. Create an "authors resource box" that makes the reader want to visit your site. Talk very little about yourself and more about why the reader should go to your web site. I'll be watching to see how well mine works in this case. Be sure the link to your website works.
6. Make money from visitors to your site. You could be selling your own products, or getting a commission for selling other people's products, or just be getting paid for the advertising there.
7. Submit your article to the best article directories on the web. This is where you "give away" your articles. Directory visitors read them there, and other web site owners take them and use them. Generally, they can't change a word in your article, and they have to make that link to your site (in the author's resource box) active. This is how you get traffic to your website.
8. Let the readers learn something, but let them know there is more. This gets them to your site, to learn more. For example, I outlined the basic process above, but I'm leaving out the list of the best article directories to submit to. Of course, in the resource box I will mention that it is on my website. This is how you create a money making article.
2. Have a short description that pulls the reader in. You might use the first couple sentences of the article for this. Tell the readers what they will find in the article, and leave them curious. You read this far, so that seems to be working.
3. Have useful information or good stories. It is even better if you have both.
4. Put the keywords in the body of the article, and in sub-headings, so search engines can find your article. Note that I used "money making article" in the sub-heading above, and I just used it again.
5. Create an "authors resource box" that makes the reader want to visit your site. Talk very little about yourself and more about why the reader should go to your web site. I'll be watching to see how well mine works in this case. Be sure the link to your website works.
6. Make money from visitors to your site. You could be selling your own products, or getting a commission for selling other people's products, or just be getting paid for the advertising there.
7. Submit your article to the best article directories on the web. This is where you "give away" your articles. Directory visitors read them there, and other web site owners take them and use them. Generally, they can't change a word in your article, and they have to make that link to your site (in the author's resource box) active. This is how you get traffic to your website.
8. Let the readers learn something, but let them know there is more. This gets them to your site, to learn more. For example, I outlined the basic process above, but I'm leaving out the list of the best article directories to submit to. Of course, in the resource box I will mention that it is on my website. This is how you create a money making article.
jueves, 22 de enero de 2009
KEEP YOUR EARNINGS UP (ADSENSE TIPS)
Users of Adsense know that although some people can make remarkable amounts of money – one person claimed to bring in $18,000 per month! – most people struggle to get started because they do not really know what they are doing. The Adsense tips below will help you move closer to the former group by gaining some important knowledge.
Affordable Marketing
One problem some people run into is they can’t afford the costs for high-volume search terms so they never get enough traffic to their site and their Adsense income remains relatively low. The good news is there is a way around this problem. First, you have to focus on building some great content around more affordable search terms, perhaps choose words that are synonymous with the more expensive terms. Now here’s an example of great Adsense tips: as you know you earn more from the Adsense ads associated with higher value terms. So add a link to the bottom of the more affordable terms’ pages that leads readers directly to the higher cost term’s page. That way you can drive traffic to your content more affordably but also boost your chances of getting the better commissions.
Add Images
If you like the above Adsense tips, here’s another good one: use graphics near your ads. You know that when you visit a site your ads are drawn towards the images and graphics. That means if you place something like this on your page near the location of your ad visitors’ attention will be drawn to the ad and that will increase the chances they will click on it. Now do be careful about adding in too many images on your page because this could reduce load times and actually drive visitors away altogether.
Always Track Ads
Even though you don’t have much control over which ads are placed on your site through the Google program, tracking is one of the best Adsense tips available. That’s because you’d be surprised at how big of a difference can be made in the results when an ad is moved from near the top to near the bottom or vice versa, for example. You could try changing the colors, removing the borders, incorporating the ad into content, and other alterations that could positively impact the performance of the ad. Tracking can also help you decide whether or not to adjust your own keywords in hopes of getting more relevant ads which will be a bigger hit with site visitors.
Operate Multiple Sites
While one tip is good, multiple Adsense tips are better. The same is true with your websites. Having one site up and running with the Google service is great but the way to really increase your profit potential is by operating multiple sites. Of course, more sites also means more work but the earnings you could be making would make the effort worth it. Plus, most of the work that needs to be done could be done easily from home or could be outsourced to freelancers.
Affordable Marketing
One problem some people run into is they can’t afford the costs for high-volume search terms so they never get enough traffic to their site and their Adsense income remains relatively low. The good news is there is a way around this problem. First, you have to focus on building some great content around more affordable search terms, perhaps choose words that are synonymous with the more expensive terms. Now here’s an example of great Adsense tips: as you know you earn more from the Adsense ads associated with higher value terms. So add a link to the bottom of the more affordable terms’ pages that leads readers directly to the higher cost term’s page. That way you can drive traffic to your content more affordably but also boost your chances of getting the better commissions.
Add Images
If you like the above Adsense tips, here’s another good one: use graphics near your ads. You know that when you visit a site your ads are drawn towards the images and graphics. That means if you place something like this on your page near the location of your ad visitors’ attention will be drawn to the ad and that will increase the chances they will click on it. Now do be careful about adding in too many images on your page because this could reduce load times and actually drive visitors away altogether.
Always Track Ads
Even though you don’t have much control over which ads are placed on your site through the Google program, tracking is one of the best Adsense tips available. That’s because you’d be surprised at how big of a difference can be made in the results when an ad is moved from near the top to near the bottom or vice versa, for example. You could try changing the colors, removing the borders, incorporating the ad into content, and other alterations that could positively impact the performance of the ad. Tracking can also help you decide whether or not to adjust your own keywords in hopes of getting more relevant ads which will be a bigger hit with site visitors.
Operate Multiple Sites
While one tip is good, multiple Adsense tips are better. The same is true with your websites. Having one site up and running with the Google service is great but the way to really increase your profit potential is by operating multiple sites. Of course, more sites also means more work but the earnings you could be making would make the effort worth it. Plus, most of the work that needs to be done could be done easily from home or could be outsourced to freelancers.
MAKE MONEY (WITHOUT SPENDING A DIME) GENERAL REPORT
Making money online used to pretty much require you to have your own Web site, products to sell and some marketing savvy. But a new generation of dot-coms have arisen that will pay you for what you know and who you know without you having to be a web designer or a marketing genius.
But it's hard to tell hype from the real deal. I did a search on "make money online" and "making money online", and much of the information out there is just promoting various infoproducts, mostly about Internet marketing. I see why people sometimes ask, "Is anyone making money online besides Internet marketing experts?"
So I put together a list of business opportunities with legitimate companies that:
Pay cash, not just points towards rewards or a chance to win money
Don't require you to have your own Web domain or your own products
Don't involve any hard-selling
Aren't just promoting more Internet marketing
Give a good return on your time investment
In the interest of objectivity, none of the links below are affiliate links, and none of them have paid or provided any other consideration for their presence here. These are legitimate companies with business models that allow you to get paid for a wide range of activities.
Help friends find better jobs.
Sites like ReferEarns, Zyoin, Who Do You Know For Dough?, Bohire and WiseStepp connect employers with prospective employees, many of whom are already employed and not actively job-hunting, via networking - the people who know these qualified candidates. Rewards for referring a candidate who gets hired range from $50 on up to several thousand dollars - not chump change. If you know a lot of job-seekers (and who doesn't these days?), this is a great way to break into the recruiting business with no overhead.
Connect suppliers with buyers.
Referral fees are a common practice in business, but they haven't been used much in online networking sites because there was no way to track them. Sites like Salesconx, InnerSell and uRefer now provide that. Vendors set the referral fees they're willing to pay (and for what), and when the transaction happens, you get paid. uRefer also allows merchants to set up referral programs for introductions and meetings, as well as transactions.
Write.
A growing number of sites will pay for your articles or blog posts. Associated Content and Helium will "pay for performance" based on page views for just about anything you want to write about. Articles on specific topics they're looking for can earn direct payments up to about $200. The rates are probably low for established writers, but if you're trying to break into the field and have time on your hands, they're a great way to start. Also, a lot of companies are looking for part-time bloggers. They may pay per post or on a steady contract. Our Weblogs Guide posts blogging jobs weekly in the forum.
Start your own blog.
You don't have to have your own Web site, or install blogging software, or even figure out how to set up the advertising. At Blogger you can set up a blog for free in less than five minutes without knowing a thing about web design, and Blogger even automates setting up Google AdSense so you can make money off your blog by displaying ads and getting paid when people click on the ads. To make even more money from it, set up an affiliate program (see below) for books, music, etc., and insert your affiliate links whenever you refer to those items. You'll have to get a lot of traffic to become a six-figure blogger, but pick an interesting topic, write well, tell all your friends, and you're off to a good start.
Related: Monetizing Your Blog
Create topical resource hubs.
Are you an expert on a particular niche topic? Can you put together an overview of the topic and assemble some of the best resources on the topic from around the web? Then you can create topical hubs and get paid through sites like Squidoo, HugPages and Google Knol. Payments are based on a combination of ad revenue and affiliate fees. You'll get higher rates doing it on your own, but these sites have a built-in supply of traffic and tools to make content creation easier.
Advertise other people's products.
If you already have a Web site or a blog, look for vendors that offer related but non-competing products and see if they have an affiliate program. Stick to familiar products and brands - they're easier to sell. To promote those products:
Place simple text or graphical ads in appropriate places on your site
Include links to purchase products you review or recommend in a blog, discussion forum or mailing list you control
Create a dedicated sales page or Web site to promote a particular product
They all work - it just depends on how much time you have to spend on it and your level of expertise with Web design and marketing.
Related: How to Really Make Money on the Internet With an Amazon.com Affiliate Site
Microstock photography.
You don't have to be a professional photographer to sell your photos for money. People are constantly in need of stock photography for websites, presentations, brochures and so on, and are willing to pay for the right image. People generally search for images on stock photography sites by keywords, not by photographer, so you have the same chance as anyone else of having your image picked. Just be careful that you don't have images of trademarked brands, copyrighted art or people's faces that are readily identifiable (unless you have a model release), but just about anything else is fair game, and I promise - you'd be amazed what people need pictures of, so don't make any assumptions. If it's a decent photo, upload it. Some sites to get you started include Fotolia, ShutterStock, Dreamstime and iStockphoto. The great thing about this is that it's truly "set it and forget it".
The above list is by no means comprehensive, but it highlights some of the new and interesting ways to make money online without investing any money, without having a product of your own, and without having expert sales and marketing skills. Most of all, unlike taking surveys or getting paid to read e-mail, the potential return on your time investment is substantial.
But it's hard to tell hype from the real deal. I did a search on "make money online" and "making money online", and much of the information out there is just promoting various infoproducts, mostly about Internet marketing. I see why people sometimes ask, "Is anyone making money online besides Internet marketing experts?"
So I put together a list of business opportunities with legitimate companies that:
Pay cash, not just points towards rewards or a chance to win money
Don't require you to have your own Web domain or your own products
Don't involve any hard-selling
Aren't just promoting more Internet marketing
Give a good return on your time investment
In the interest of objectivity, none of the links below are affiliate links, and none of them have paid or provided any other consideration for their presence here. These are legitimate companies with business models that allow you to get paid for a wide range of activities.
Help friends find better jobs.
Sites like ReferEarns, Zyoin, Who Do You Know For Dough?, Bohire and WiseStepp connect employers with prospective employees, many of whom are already employed and not actively job-hunting, via networking - the people who know these qualified candidates. Rewards for referring a candidate who gets hired range from $50 on up to several thousand dollars - not chump change. If you know a lot of job-seekers (and who doesn't these days?), this is a great way to break into the recruiting business with no overhead.
Connect suppliers with buyers.
Referral fees are a common practice in business, but they haven't been used much in online networking sites because there was no way to track them. Sites like Salesconx, InnerSell and uRefer now provide that. Vendors set the referral fees they're willing to pay (and for what), and when the transaction happens, you get paid. uRefer also allows merchants to set up referral programs for introductions and meetings, as well as transactions.
Write.
A growing number of sites will pay for your articles or blog posts. Associated Content and Helium will "pay for performance" based on page views for just about anything you want to write about. Articles on specific topics they're looking for can earn direct payments up to about $200. The rates are probably low for established writers, but if you're trying to break into the field and have time on your hands, they're a great way to start. Also, a lot of companies are looking for part-time bloggers. They may pay per post or on a steady contract. Our Weblogs Guide posts blogging jobs weekly in the forum.
Start your own blog.
You don't have to have your own Web site, or install blogging software, or even figure out how to set up the advertising. At Blogger you can set up a blog for free in less than five minutes without knowing a thing about web design, and Blogger even automates setting up Google AdSense so you can make money off your blog by displaying ads and getting paid when people click on the ads. To make even more money from it, set up an affiliate program (see below) for books, music, etc., and insert your affiliate links whenever you refer to those items. You'll have to get a lot of traffic to become a six-figure blogger, but pick an interesting topic, write well, tell all your friends, and you're off to a good start.
Related: Monetizing Your Blog
Create topical resource hubs.
Are you an expert on a particular niche topic? Can you put together an overview of the topic and assemble some of the best resources on the topic from around the web? Then you can create topical hubs and get paid through sites like Squidoo, HugPages and Google Knol. Payments are based on a combination of ad revenue and affiliate fees. You'll get higher rates doing it on your own, but these sites have a built-in supply of traffic and tools to make content creation easier.
Advertise other people's products.
If you already have a Web site or a blog, look for vendors that offer related but non-competing products and see if they have an affiliate program. Stick to familiar products and brands - they're easier to sell. To promote those products:
Place simple text or graphical ads in appropriate places on your site
Include links to purchase products you review or recommend in a blog, discussion forum or mailing list you control
Create a dedicated sales page or Web site to promote a particular product
They all work - it just depends on how much time you have to spend on it and your level of expertise with Web design and marketing.
Related: How to Really Make Money on the Internet With an Amazon.com Affiliate Site
Microstock photography.
You don't have to be a professional photographer to sell your photos for money. People are constantly in need of stock photography for websites, presentations, brochures and so on, and are willing to pay for the right image. People generally search for images on stock photography sites by keywords, not by photographer, so you have the same chance as anyone else of having your image picked. Just be careful that you don't have images of trademarked brands, copyrighted art or people's faces that are readily identifiable (unless you have a model release), but just about anything else is fair game, and I promise - you'd be amazed what people need pictures of, so don't make any assumptions. If it's a decent photo, upload it. Some sites to get you started include Fotolia, ShutterStock, Dreamstime and iStockphoto. The great thing about this is that it's truly "set it and forget it".
The above list is by no means comprehensive, but it highlights some of the new and interesting ways to make money online without investing any money, without having a product of your own, and without having expert sales and marketing skills. Most of all, unlike taking surveys or getting paid to read e-mail, the potential return on your time investment is substantial.
domingo, 18 de enero de 2009
CAN YOU MAKE A LIVING BLOGGING?
“Is it a truth, based on your experience, that anyone can make a living blogging if they understand how SEO works”
OK it’s a bit of a big question, but the short answer is yes. However you will need to have a game plan, and here’s how I’d approach the problem.
The first thing you really need to consider is your subject matter. Rand did a much better job covering that than I could so check out “Blogging in an Oversaturated Market is Usually a Poor Decision“. When deciding what to write about there are two schools of thought “write about what you like” or “write about what’s profitable”. It’s something of a catch-22, it’s much easier to write about something you like, but there’s not always money in it, and let’s be honest how many of us are really interested in the intricacies of reverse mortgages. My advice try to find something that interests you and step up to a slightly wider focus where the money is. For example maybe you really enjoy raising African cichlids in your aquarium, I’d step up and cover freshwater aquariums as whole and focus (maybe 10-25% of total posts) ever so slightly on your specific topic of interest.
Once you’ve got your topic down, work on your writing. You don’t need to be a Pulitzer prize winning author, but you do have to be interesting. Don’t think you can use your mad SEO SKILLZ to compensate for lack of quality content. You used to be able work around it, but those days are drawing to a close, and at this stage it’s not a long term solution, or something I’d advise starting today. What if you can’t write, take a community college writing course, read and learn from people who can write online. Hiring someone is an option, but that can get expensive, and not really viable if you’re boot strapping, if all else fails try to take advantage of family members whenever possible.
Next up I’d say come up with a realistic posting schedule. IMHO the bare minimum you need to update your blog is at least once a week. I’d recommend 3-5 times a week if possible, and if the subject is right daily is ideal. It doesn’t matter to some people, but I’m a big advocate of publishing on a schedule as much as possible. For some readers knowing you publish something new every Wednesday is important. If the leading bloggers in your space are updating daily and you can only get the time to blog once a week you’re going to have a hard time competing. Try to take advantage of pre-blogging or remote posting whenever possible. I’m not going to recommend you post from your job … but I can tell you I did it and lots of businesses got their start on some one elses time … not that I’m recommending that … nope … not me
One of the hardest things many bloggers face is keeping on target, people get lured into thinking they can be the next dooce and blog about their lives. Remember the link to Rand’s post a few paragraphs ago, the first question he asks is are you a top writer, unless you really are that good a writer, advertisers won’t be interested in buying space on your lifestyle blog. Your friends may read it, but you’ll never attract hundreds or thousands of readers writing Aunt Millie’s Christmas letter and you won’t make a living blogging. Until you have at least 1000 subscriber stay 100% on target, after that you can deviate ever so slightly, anything more than 10% scares me professionally.
I’m a big fan of using wordpress because it’s well supposed has lots of plugin’s you can use, and it’s written in PHP and cheap and easy to do yourself or find someone to do it for you. That said out of the box it’s not search engine friendly, here are some tips to help you fix that. Next realize many of the templates are wonka-doodle. Find a good clean one and work from there, take out the crap, add in only what you need, and for heaven sakes use CSS dammit. Don’t add any more widgets or other nonsense if you can avoid it, those things usually don’t help. I like liquid layout but check out Fluid, Fixed, and 1024 Resolutions and Maximizing Profits With Website Design and Layout: Part I for more discussion. Once things are rolling if you have the skills or budget to create a distinctive web design that builds your brand.
Next come the discussion of how many blogs can/should you run. If you’ve never run a blog/website before stick with one until you are really really confident. If you have I’d say three is my recommendation and if you go beyond five you’re crazy unless you really know what you are doing or are paying high quality writers. IMHO it’s better to have one or two exceptional blogs instead of five to ten mediocre blogs. Mix things up a bit with the subject matter, you don’t want to have the ‘South American Knitting Blog’ and the ‘South American Crochet Blog’, it just looks funny.
Next you’re going to want to start promoting your blog. Do the usual stuff, like adding your blog address to your email signature, link begging from your friends, and so on. Most blog directories require you have at least 6 months posting history to get listed, so put that on hold for now. Cover whatever is hot in your industry and try to get the attention of A-Listers in your space with comments or trackbacks. Use things like Google trends and Yahoo Buzz Log to spot tie in’s and blog like there’s no tomorrow. Try to take advantage of events in real life, especially TV, don’t be afraid to shell out a $100 on some PPC for a few days, to gain some readers, lots and lots of people totally miss that as an opportunity, and don’t forget predictive SEO. Go to an industry event do some live blogging, meet up with people and build some connections, try to get interviewed on the radio or podcasts. The press release is not dead and try to put out a few year and make it as enticing and exciting as possible.
Develop a flexible social media strategy. For a new blog social is by far the quickest way to jump start the process of getting readers. Make it easy for people to bookmark/submit your website using these services. Write stories that are directly targeted to each of these services regularly/monthly. Prime the pump by submitting yourself or asking friends but don’t be a spammer/beger. Only submit the good stuff. Clueless where to start here is a guide to using Digg and Delicious. Plan social bookmark targeted stories and follow them up with good content to keep the readers/subscribers coming back. Monitor trends, adapt, react and grow.
There you have it my quick, down and dirty 10 mile up plan for making a living blogging. If you want me to go into more detail on something drop a comment or question in the comments section, and I’ll see if I can answer it or elaborate it into a full post.
OK it’s a bit of a big question, but the short answer is yes. However you will need to have a game plan, and here’s how I’d approach the problem.
The first thing you really need to consider is your subject matter. Rand did a much better job covering that than I could so check out “Blogging in an Oversaturated Market is Usually a Poor Decision“. When deciding what to write about there are two schools of thought “write about what you like” or “write about what’s profitable”. It’s something of a catch-22, it’s much easier to write about something you like, but there’s not always money in it, and let’s be honest how many of us are really interested in the intricacies of reverse mortgages. My advice try to find something that interests you and step up to a slightly wider focus where the money is. For example maybe you really enjoy raising African cichlids in your aquarium, I’d step up and cover freshwater aquariums as whole and focus (maybe 10-25% of total posts) ever so slightly on your specific topic of interest.
Once you’ve got your topic down, work on your writing. You don’t need to be a Pulitzer prize winning author, but you do have to be interesting. Don’t think you can use your mad SEO SKILLZ to compensate for lack of quality content. You used to be able work around it, but those days are drawing to a close, and at this stage it’s not a long term solution, or something I’d advise starting today. What if you can’t write, take a community college writing course, read and learn from people who can write online. Hiring someone is an option, but that can get expensive, and not really viable if you’re boot strapping, if all else fails try to take advantage of family members whenever possible.
Next up I’d say come up with a realistic posting schedule. IMHO the bare minimum you need to update your blog is at least once a week. I’d recommend 3-5 times a week if possible, and if the subject is right daily is ideal. It doesn’t matter to some people, but I’m a big advocate of publishing on a schedule as much as possible. For some readers knowing you publish something new every Wednesday is important. If the leading bloggers in your space are updating daily and you can only get the time to blog once a week you’re going to have a hard time competing. Try to take advantage of pre-blogging or remote posting whenever possible. I’m not going to recommend you post from your job … but I can tell you I did it and lots of businesses got their start on some one elses time … not that I’m recommending that … nope … not me
One of the hardest things many bloggers face is keeping on target, people get lured into thinking they can be the next dooce and blog about their lives. Remember the link to Rand’s post a few paragraphs ago, the first question he asks is are you a top writer, unless you really are that good a writer, advertisers won’t be interested in buying space on your lifestyle blog. Your friends may read it, but you’ll never attract hundreds or thousands of readers writing Aunt Millie’s Christmas letter and you won’t make a living blogging. Until you have at least 1000 subscriber stay 100% on target, after that you can deviate ever so slightly, anything more than 10% scares me professionally.
I’m a big fan of using wordpress because it’s well supposed has lots of plugin’s you can use, and it’s written in PHP and cheap and easy to do yourself or find someone to do it for you. That said out of the box it’s not search engine friendly, here are some tips to help you fix that. Next realize many of the templates are wonka-doodle. Find a good clean one and work from there, take out the crap, add in only what you need, and for heaven sakes use CSS dammit. Don’t add any more widgets or other nonsense if you can avoid it, those things usually don’t help. I like liquid layout but check out Fluid, Fixed, and 1024 Resolutions and Maximizing Profits With Website Design and Layout: Part I for more discussion. Once things are rolling if you have the skills or budget to create a distinctive web design that builds your brand.
Next come the discussion of how many blogs can/should you run. If you’ve never run a blog/website before stick with one until you are really really confident. If you have I’d say three is my recommendation and if you go beyond five you’re crazy unless you really know what you are doing or are paying high quality writers. IMHO it’s better to have one or two exceptional blogs instead of five to ten mediocre blogs. Mix things up a bit with the subject matter, you don’t want to have the ‘South American Knitting Blog’ and the ‘South American Crochet Blog’, it just looks funny.
Next you’re going to want to start promoting your blog. Do the usual stuff, like adding your blog address to your email signature, link begging from your friends, and so on. Most blog directories require you have at least 6 months posting history to get listed, so put that on hold for now. Cover whatever is hot in your industry and try to get the attention of A-Listers in your space with comments or trackbacks. Use things like Google trends and Yahoo Buzz Log to spot tie in’s and blog like there’s no tomorrow. Try to take advantage of events in real life, especially TV, don’t be afraid to shell out a $100 on some PPC for a few days, to gain some readers, lots and lots of people totally miss that as an opportunity, and don’t forget predictive SEO. Go to an industry event do some live blogging, meet up with people and build some connections, try to get interviewed on the radio or podcasts. The press release is not dead and try to put out a few year and make it as enticing and exciting as possible.
Develop a flexible social media strategy. For a new blog social is by far the quickest way to jump start the process of getting readers. Make it easy for people to bookmark/submit your website using these services. Write stories that are directly targeted to each of these services regularly/monthly. Prime the pump by submitting yourself or asking friends but don’t be a spammer/beger. Only submit the good stuff. Clueless where to start here is a guide to using Digg and Delicious. Plan social bookmark targeted stories and follow them up with good content to keep the readers/subscribers coming back. Monitor trends, adapt, react and grow.
There you have it my quick, down and dirty 10 mile up plan for making a living blogging. If you want me to go into more detail on something drop a comment or question in the comments section, and I’ll see if I can answer it or elaborate it into a full post.
BLOG VS. WEBSITE
“What is the difference between Blogging and having a Website”.
The biggest difference between the two is one is Dynamic and the other is Static. I think you can guess which is which.
Blogging is the Dynamic choice for someone who has something to say, sell or portray. Once you start a Blog it is best to try to update it every day. That way you can build a readership and potential customers since that should be your objective. You want to keep to the subject matter as much as possible. Put a link to anything you find that is pertinent to your content (just don’t over do it). If you DO have a Website, make sure to put a link to it in an accessible spot on the Blog so that people can see your main products and services.
A Website is Static. This is where you actually describe your products and/or services. You can update a website as often as you like, but this is usually only done if your products change, you have a Sale, or something of that nature. You should have a link to your Blog on this site to allow customers to get updates as often as you post them.
If you have both Blog and Website, use them in conjunction with each other. Make sure people can find both as easily as possible. If you use RSS and Blog Feeds, list each in the appropriate catagory, the more exposure the better.
Remember, BOTH could have a place in your plan for Working at Home. Optimize your use of the Internet for your Business.
The biggest difference between the two is one is Dynamic and the other is Static. I think you can guess which is which.
Blogging is the Dynamic choice for someone who has something to say, sell or portray. Once you start a Blog it is best to try to update it every day. That way you can build a readership and potential customers since that should be your objective. You want to keep to the subject matter as much as possible. Put a link to anything you find that is pertinent to your content (just don’t over do it). If you DO have a Website, make sure to put a link to it in an accessible spot on the Blog so that people can see your main products and services.
A Website is Static. This is where you actually describe your products and/or services. You can update a website as often as you like, but this is usually only done if your products change, you have a Sale, or something of that nature. You should have a link to your Blog on this site to allow customers to get updates as often as you post them.
If you have both Blog and Website, use them in conjunction with each other. Make sure people can find both as easily as possible. If you use RSS and Blog Feeds, list each in the appropriate catagory, the more exposure the better.
Remember, BOTH could have a place in your plan for Working at Home. Optimize your use of the Internet for your Business.
BEWARE OF AFFILIATE SPAMMING!
The modern variation of the practice of paying finder's-fees for the introduction of new clients to a business is a popular method of promoting Internet businesses called affiliate marketing. An affiliate marketer is paid for every visitor, subscriber, or customer provided to an Internet business because of his efforts. The affiliate marketer earns compensation based on a certain value for each visit (Pay per click), registrant (Pay per lead), or a commission for each customer or sale (Pay per Sale), or any combination.
You can see where an affiliate marketer would be sorely tempted to send out email advertising the products he makes money on for promoting. This resulted in so much SPAM being generated that anti-spam laws were enacted. Spammers are severely fined and the newest twist in the anti-spam laws are that the merchants whose affiliates spam are being held responsible for the spamming as well. So caution is well advised to merchants.
Merchants who are considering adding an affiliate strategy to their online sales channel should research the different technological solutions available to them. As affiliate marketing has matured many affiliate merchants have refined their terms and conditions to prohibit affiliates from spamming. Some types of affiliate management solutions include: standalone software, hosted services, shopping carts with affiliate features, and third party affiliate networks.
Spamdexing or search engine spamming is the practice of deliberately creating web pages which will be indexed by search engines in order to increase the chance of a website or page being placed close to the beginning of search engine results, or to influence the category to which the page is assigned.
Right now there is a lot of debate about the affiliate practice of Spamdexing and many affiliates have converted from sending email spam to creating large volumes of automatically generated web pages each devoted to different niche keywords as a way of search engine optimizing their sites. This is sometimes referred to as spamming the search engine results. Spam is the biggest threat to organic Search Engines whose goal is to provide quality search results for keywords or phrases entered by their users.
You can see where an affiliate marketer would be sorely tempted to send out email advertising the products he makes money on for promoting. This resulted in so much SPAM being generated that anti-spam laws were enacted. Spammers are severely fined and the newest twist in the anti-spam laws are that the merchants whose affiliates spam are being held responsible for the spamming as well. So caution is well advised to merchants.
Merchants who are considering adding an affiliate strategy to their online sales channel should research the different technological solutions available to them. As affiliate marketing has matured many affiliate merchants have refined their terms and conditions to prohibit affiliates from spamming. Some types of affiliate management solutions include: standalone software, hosted services, shopping carts with affiliate features, and third party affiliate networks.
Spamdexing or search engine spamming is the practice of deliberately creating web pages which will be indexed by search engines in order to increase the chance of a website or page being placed close to the beginning of search engine results, or to influence the category to which the page is assigned.
Right now there is a lot of debate about the affiliate practice of Spamdexing and many affiliates have converted from sending email spam to creating large volumes of automatically generated web pages each devoted to different niche keywords as a way of search engine optimizing their sites. This is sometimes referred to as spamming the search engine results. Spam is the biggest threat to organic Search Engines whose goal is to provide quality search results for keywords or phrases entered by their users.
sábado, 17 de enero de 2009
WRITING FOR INCOME
Did you know that the average person can make an excellent second income writing articles about some of their favorite subjects?
Virtually anyone can write reasonably well if they put their mind to it and just copy a few "tricks of the trade" from others.
It's a well-known fact that the ability to write is directly tied into the degree of a person's success in just about any kind of career endeavor. And, for the aspiring entrepreneur, the ability to write effectively can mean the difference between success and failure.
Next time you go out, take a look at the hundreds of magazines on the racks at your local magazine store. Literally, there are hundreds of them, covering just about every conceivable subject. From knitting, to auto mechanics, to baseball, to flower arranging.
And those are just the ones carried at your local store. There are hundreds more that your local store just doesn't have room to stock on its shelves. Not only that, but most of these magazines are published monthly!
Can you imagine how much written material the publishers of these magazines need on a regular basis to keep their pages filled with articles? Do you have any idea how happy they are to find sources that can supply new and fresh original informative content? Very happy.
Well, guess what? You too can help them keep those pages filled and have fun while doing it. Not only that, they'll pay you real money for doing it!
All you have to do is research and write short articles, and then sell them to these magazines. I'm talking here about researching and writing articles on subjects that you personally are interested in. Ideally, subjects that you know and love.
For example, you could write about such things as: your hobby(ies), your favorite TV show(s), the sport(s) and the sports figures you follow, your favorite film stars, your pet, your exercise program, your summer vacation, and on and on.
Believe me, there are hundreds of magazines out there that will be happy to pay you good money for writing short, informative articles about the things that you love.
And remember, they aren't expecting you to write like Hemingway or a J.D. Salinger. All these special interest magazines really want, are articles of interest to their readership, written clearly and logically, using reasonable sentence structure and grammar. (Don't forget, these magazines all have editors whose job it is to tidy these things up).
The primary thing the magazine wants from you is, original and interesting content for their readers. That is what you can deliver if you are writing about something that you know, follow, and enjoy.
Here is a simple fast-track strategy to get you started writing for income:
1- Make a list. Itemize on paper your personal special interests, ranging from hobbies, to sports, to writers, to movie stars, to computer software, etc., etc. Every subject that you can think of that interests you, even if only slightly. It can even be work-related if you like. Say you're an insurance agent. What about a short article (750 to 1,000 words) on the basics of life insurance? If gardening is one of your things, you could write about how you decide which flowers to grow each spring.
2- Do some research. Spend some time in your local magazine stores and check out which magazines they carry that correspond to your interests. Choose two or three that interest you the most, to start with. Take these magazines home and study them. Note the general writing style and the average length of articles in each magazine. What special feature columns do they have? Think about where your material would fit best. Is there a unique angle that you could cover? (The Internet is an excellent research resource for this).
3- Write your article. Choose subjects that you know best for your first few articles. This will minimize the outside research that you will have to do. Draft an article that copies the style and approach of the particular magazine(s) that you are targeting. (Insider's Secret: Write in language as if you are explaining your subject out loud to a friend). Revise the article until it is the preferred length for that magazine, and until it reads as if it was written by one of the authors already published there.
4- Send it out. Use a short cover letter that explains your background and interest in the subject, and ask them if they would be interested in publishing the attached article. Send a copy to all of to the magazine(s) that you are targeting, You will be surprised at how many positive responses you can get for an article that is original and informative and that appeals to the readers of your targeted magazines.
The main point is this. Virtually anybody can write for income about something they know and love. Even if you don't know and love it yet, but a subject interests you, you can still research it and write about it. During the process, you will become somewhat of an expert on the subject, and you may even grow to love it too.
Yes, you too can write for income. Just make the decision and do it! It really is that simple.
Virtually anyone can write reasonably well if they put their mind to it and just copy a few "tricks of the trade" from others.
It's a well-known fact that the ability to write is directly tied into the degree of a person's success in just about any kind of career endeavor. And, for the aspiring entrepreneur, the ability to write effectively can mean the difference between success and failure.
Next time you go out, take a look at the hundreds of magazines on the racks at your local magazine store. Literally, there are hundreds of them, covering just about every conceivable subject. From knitting, to auto mechanics, to baseball, to flower arranging.
And those are just the ones carried at your local store. There are hundreds more that your local store just doesn't have room to stock on its shelves. Not only that, but most of these magazines are published monthly!
Can you imagine how much written material the publishers of these magazines need on a regular basis to keep their pages filled with articles? Do you have any idea how happy they are to find sources that can supply new and fresh original informative content? Very happy.
Well, guess what? You too can help them keep those pages filled and have fun while doing it. Not only that, they'll pay you real money for doing it!
All you have to do is research and write short articles, and then sell them to these magazines. I'm talking here about researching and writing articles on subjects that you personally are interested in. Ideally, subjects that you know and love.
For example, you could write about such things as: your hobby(ies), your favorite TV show(s), the sport(s) and the sports figures you follow, your favorite film stars, your pet, your exercise program, your summer vacation, and on and on.
Believe me, there are hundreds of magazines out there that will be happy to pay you good money for writing short, informative articles about the things that you love.
And remember, they aren't expecting you to write like Hemingway or a J.D. Salinger. All these special interest magazines really want, are articles of interest to their readership, written clearly and logically, using reasonable sentence structure and grammar. (Don't forget, these magazines all have editors whose job it is to tidy these things up).
The primary thing the magazine wants from you is, original and interesting content for their readers. That is what you can deliver if you are writing about something that you know, follow, and enjoy.
Here is a simple fast-track strategy to get you started writing for income:
1- Make a list. Itemize on paper your personal special interests, ranging from hobbies, to sports, to writers, to movie stars, to computer software, etc., etc. Every subject that you can think of that interests you, even if only slightly. It can even be work-related if you like. Say you're an insurance agent. What about a short article (750 to 1,000 words) on the basics of life insurance? If gardening is one of your things, you could write about how you decide which flowers to grow each spring.
2- Do some research. Spend some time in your local magazine stores and check out which magazines they carry that correspond to your interests. Choose two or three that interest you the most, to start with. Take these magazines home and study them. Note the general writing style and the average length of articles in each magazine. What special feature columns do they have? Think about where your material would fit best. Is there a unique angle that you could cover? (The Internet is an excellent research resource for this).
3- Write your article. Choose subjects that you know best for your first few articles. This will minimize the outside research that you will have to do. Draft an article that copies the style and approach of the particular magazine(s) that you are targeting. (Insider's Secret: Write in language as if you are explaining your subject out loud to a friend). Revise the article until it is the preferred length for that magazine, and until it reads as if it was written by one of the authors already published there.
4- Send it out. Use a short cover letter that explains your background and interest in the subject, and ask them if they would be interested in publishing the attached article. Send a copy to all of to the magazine(s) that you are targeting, You will be surprised at how many positive responses you can get for an article that is original and informative and that appeals to the readers of your targeted magazines.
The main point is this. Virtually anybody can write for income about something they know and love. Even if you don't know and love it yet, but a subject interests you, you can still research it and write about it. During the process, you will become somewhat of an expert on the subject, and you may even grow to love it too.
Yes, you too can write for income. Just make the decision and do it! It really is that simple.
viernes, 16 de enero de 2009
MONETIZE YOUR BLOG
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:
Google Adsense ads (pay per click and pay per impression advertising)
Donations (via PayPal or snail mail — yes, some people do mail a check)
Text Link Ads (sold for a fixed amount per month)
Chitika eMiniMalls ads (pay per click)
Affiliate programs like Amazon and LinkShare (commission on products sold, mostly books)
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.
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
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:
Google Adsense ads (pay per click and pay per impression advertising)
Donations (via PayPal or snail mail — yes, some people do mail a check)
Text Link Ads (sold for a fixed amount per month)
Chitika eMiniMalls ads (pay per click)
Affiliate programs like Amazon and LinkShare (commission on products sold, mostly books)
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.
GOOGLE ADSENSE
Google AdSense, Google's advertising program that lets webmasters display ads from Google's extensive list of advertisers, has taken the Internet by storm. Through this successful program, unobtrusive text-based ads are served in member sites, who then earn a commission every time someone clicks on the advertisers' links.
At this point in time, the jury is still out on whether this program will continue to enjoy its initial success. That is why, through this article, we want to give you some highlights and insights on how the Google Adsense program has worked for us, one month after we signed up for it, so that we can use it as a checkpoint for future analysis.
Why is Google AdSense so Popular?
Google AdSense uses Google's proprietary PageRank™ search technology to deliver ads that are highly relevant to the content of a page. Google's engine will scan through the content of the page to determine its topic, and will then serve ads that are relevant to the page's content.
Running Google AdSense is simple and straightforward: Google gives you a snippet of HTML code that you can paste in the desired location on your page, and the ads start appearing immediately after you upload the changes to your server.
However, Google AdSense's main claim to fame is that, by displaying text-based ads, it is able to deliver much higher click-through rates than traditional graphic banner ads. As usability studies have widely shown, users are already conditioned to ignore banner ads (or anything else that looks like them). As a result, banner ad click-through rates have dropped below a dismal 0.5% (in other words, it takes 200 page views, on average, to get someone to click on a banner ad).
By using text based ads instead of graphic banners, Google has been able to overcome banner ad blindness, delivering click-through rates that are much higher than the industry's average (some put the figure around the 1.5% mark).
How much can you expect to earn by running Google Ads on your site?
The pay-off per click varies widely depending on what each advertiser decides to offer, based on the profitability of their products and their expected conversion rate (percentage of clicks that deliver a sale). Google is not saying what the average pay-off is nor how does it share the revenue per click with their AdSense partners, but how much you will earn per click will really depends on the topic and the product being advertised. Products with profit margins of $3.00 for the advertiser will probably give you a smaller pay-off per click than a product with a $300 profit margin. Similarly, ads with high conversion rates will normally give you higher payouts than less effective ads, since they can afford to pay more dollars per click, with a portion of that money going to you.
So, just for the sake of giving an example, lets say that your site receives 1,000 page views per day. At a 1.0% click-through rate and $0.50 pay-off per click to you, in a 30-day month you can expect to make:
1,000 x 30 x 1.0% x $0.50 = $150
The more traffic your site has, the more clicks (and the larger the pay-off) you will get.
Will Google's AdSense continue to be successful?
This is the big question, and nobody has a definite answer yet.
On the downside:
The program will most likely face strong competition from other search engines in the near future.
The proliferation of text based ads could make users "text-ad blind" the same way as they have already become "banner-ad blind", causing click-through rates to drop.
There is always the potential for abuse, since some unscrupulous program members may violate the program's rules and click on their own ads, inflating the advertisers' click-through rate and forcing them to decrease their pay-off per click.
On the positive side, I believe that Google AdSense's success is not only due to the fact that they deliver text based ads instead of banners, but because those ads are served by Google. The credibility and brand equity that Google enjoys is huge, and I expect them to continue to beat other search engines and advertising networks that may eventually jump on the bandwagon.
However, it is reasonable to expect at least a slight decrease in click-through rates and pay-off as a result of the increased competition.
At this point in time, the jury is still out on whether this program will continue to enjoy its initial success. That is why, through this article, we want to give you some highlights and insights on how the Google Adsense program has worked for us, one month after we signed up for it, so that we can use it as a checkpoint for future analysis.
Why is Google AdSense so Popular?
Google AdSense uses Google's proprietary PageRank™ search technology to deliver ads that are highly relevant to the content of a page. Google's engine will scan through the content of the page to determine its topic, and will then serve ads that are relevant to the page's content.
Running Google AdSense is simple and straightforward: Google gives you a snippet of HTML code that you can paste in the desired location on your page, and the ads start appearing immediately after you upload the changes to your server.
However, Google AdSense's main claim to fame is that, by displaying text-based ads, it is able to deliver much higher click-through rates than traditional graphic banner ads. As usability studies have widely shown, users are already conditioned to ignore banner ads (or anything else that looks like them). As a result, banner ad click-through rates have dropped below a dismal 0.5% (in other words, it takes 200 page views, on average, to get someone to click on a banner ad).
By using text based ads instead of graphic banners, Google has been able to overcome banner ad blindness, delivering click-through rates that are much higher than the industry's average (some put the figure around the 1.5% mark).
How much can you expect to earn by running Google Ads on your site?
The pay-off per click varies widely depending on what each advertiser decides to offer, based on the profitability of their products and their expected conversion rate (percentage of clicks that deliver a sale). Google is not saying what the average pay-off is nor how does it share the revenue per click with their AdSense partners, but how much you will earn per click will really depends on the topic and the product being advertised. Products with profit margins of $3.00 for the advertiser will probably give you a smaller pay-off per click than a product with a $300 profit margin. Similarly, ads with high conversion rates will normally give you higher payouts than less effective ads, since they can afford to pay more dollars per click, with a portion of that money going to you.
So, just for the sake of giving an example, lets say that your site receives 1,000 page views per day. At a 1.0% click-through rate and $0.50 pay-off per click to you, in a 30-day month you can expect to make:
1,000 x 30 x 1.0% x $0.50 = $150
The more traffic your site has, the more clicks (and the larger the pay-off) you will get.
Will Google's AdSense continue to be successful?
This is the big question, and nobody has a definite answer yet.
On the downside:
The program will most likely face strong competition from other search engines in the near future.
The proliferation of text based ads could make users "text-ad blind" the same way as they have already become "banner-ad blind", causing click-through rates to drop.
There is always the potential for abuse, since some unscrupulous program members may violate the program's rules and click on their own ads, inflating the advertisers' click-through rate and forcing them to decrease their pay-off per click.
On the positive side, I believe that Google AdSense's success is not only due to the fact that they deliver text based ads instead of banners, but because those ads are served by Google. The credibility and brand equity that Google enjoys is huge, and I expect them to continue to beat other search engines and advertising networks that may eventually jump on the bandwagon.
However, it is reasonable to expect at least a slight decrease in click-through rates and pay-off as a result of the increased competition.
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