However Apple stands out, and makes some really, really awesome products by following some very important but, simple principles. Here’s how you can apply these principles to your products.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Simplicity

Ok, Simplicity. Albert Einstein said make things as simple as possible but no simpler. It can be a tricky line but here’s the thing with Apple products, there always so easy to use. You can just figure it out. Now, if you’re a Windows user and you’re use to all the complex stuff, then you switch over to Apple and it can be a little confusing, but once you start thinking about, hmmmm, how would I actually do this there very simple and intuitive to use. The user ability of your product or service, whatever it is, is critical. Critical!

Delight

Now delight people should be delighted by your thing. They should look at it and go, “oh my god that’s really awesome. That’s way cool!” Like most people are when they look at an ipad or an Iphone and most of these Apple devices, if you actually use it and not just own it. “All I use is Windows -Apples suck.” That’s not really an informed perspective. When you use it and you actually try and give it a shot; you’re going to be like whoa that’s kind of amazing. This is pretty cool. Even the packaging is cool. When you buy stuff from Apple, like the iphone, it comes in like this Neiman Marcus quality box.

But what really contributes to that, you want to pay attention to all those details because that’s what Apple does. Pay attention to every single little detail and anticipate what the customer actually wants. Not just; I want this feature in there. What does the customer want – and pursue that excellence look follow all those details; all to be the best because everything matters. People notice. Don’t release a product that’s mostly finished because you know what there going to be mostly, “Aaaaa that’s kind of buggy dude.” That’s not the perception that you want people to have on your product.

Elimination

The next one is elimination. We’re talking about getting rid of the fluff. Get rid of the crap. Look at your product or service very closely and say, ok what don’t I really need? What am I doing that’s just fluff, that’s just filler? And get rid of all of it, ok? You got to be brutally honest with yourself. That’s crucial. Just get rid of anything that doesn’t work.

Suspense

Suspense. It’s one thing that Apple does fantastically well that other brands seem to fail at. Does anyone know or even care about what HP is bringing out next? Didn’t think so. But everyone is always speculating how this year’s iPhone is going to differ from the last model, or what changes may come with the new iPad.

Apple has a great way of keeping any information about their products a complete secret. Keeping the specs of their new products a secret helps build up the anticipation and excitement for its release. People these days are just dying to have the newest and greatest thing, and not knowing what’s coming up next drives them crazy.

The brand is also quite good at building up suspense by creating a sense of scarcity. There’s not enough new iPhones for everyone all at once, meaning that only a select few will be able to have the brand new phone the very same day it’s released. Everyone else will have to wait a week, a month, or maybe even longer for their own – at which point Apple is already creating suspense over another new product that’s coming out.

This suspense is also what draws a crowd to those electronic stores and has people camping overnight, just so that they can have a chance of being one of the first coveted few to have the newest “it” product. Crowds and line ups imply that what ever is being sold must be good; otherwise why would so many people be waiting for it?

Clever

Apple has some of the most memorable and clever marketing campaigns out there. Where they really excel is creating advertisements where they compare themselves to the competition. For example, Apple has created a whole line of ads in which it points out the difference between a MAC computer and a PC. The ads are incredibly simple in appearance and in their message, but because they are so simple, a viewer is able to immediately understand what’s going on. Thanks to such advertisements, almost anyone can tell you just why a PC is very different from a MAC computer.

MAC isn’t afraid to use actors in their campaigns either, but they have never used big, flashy actors. Justin Long is currently the “pro MAC” guy in a lot of the ads where they compare MAC computes to a PC. The “pro PC” actor is John Hodgman, an even less notable actor. Using actors that aren’t easily recognized or very established in the acting world can arguably present less of a bias towards the actor, and therefore the product. So let’s say Charlie Sheen was the “pro MAC” guy. Given recent events, a lot of people have a whole lot of different opinions on the guy, so a bias has already been formed there when it comes to him. Justin Long, however, isn’t a huge actor (though is still recognizable) and hasn’t been in any scandals or anything else. Also, he looks like a normal, average guy. It adds to the appeal.

There are a lot of things that you can take from Apple when it comes to thinking about and creating your information products. From the product itself to the marketing campaign to how they even design the layout of their Apple stores, they keep their customers engaged and wanting more. They do a great job of making everything seem incredibly easy: from the simplistic product designs to the spacious store layouts, the brand seems to keep its promise of delivering exactly what we want, and in just enough time so that we don’t forget the brand, and yet we don’t get tired of it either.

CPC – Cost Per Click

Arguably the most popular way of advertising online, CPC (also known as cost per click) advertising is virtually every where. Chances are that you have performed a “cost per click” action and not even realized it.

CPC-based advertising is a method which allows businesses to pay only for the targeted leads that they receive. With this method, your advertisement would be displayed in the same way as a CPM (or cost per 1000 impressions), but there is a difference. With CPC, you are protected by only paying for each click that your advertised link receives. You will not have to pay for thousands of impressions that are uselessly displayed, as with CPM.

You can use banner advertising with CPM. With banner advertisements, your advertisement will display, and every time your banner is clicked by an end user, you will pay the specified cost for that banner ad. That advertisement will then run until you have reached your predetermined amount of clicks. This means that you may receive a lot more exposure than you would using other advertising methods, because the length of time your ad is visible on the internet is based solely on how many clicks it has received.

TIP: If you are interested in CPC, a great program to use is Google AdWords. AdWords will allow you to pick the keywords that you want to use and you will only have to pay for as many clicks as you can afford. Unlike a lot of other sites, you will not have to pay for a campaign since you can set an actual limit on the amount of money you have in your budget to spend on this type of advertising.

CPM – Cost Per Thousand Impressions

CPM, also known as “cost per thousand impressions” is a very effective way of improving your conversions by reaching potential customers on the web. Rather than paying “per click” with CPM you can purchase a set amount of impressions that your blog will have.

NOTE: An impression is a single instance of an advertisement appearing on your website or blog.

CPM tends to be a more cost effective way to advertise when compared to CPC, or “cost per click”. For example, if you chose CPC advertising, you would pay for each click that your advertisement receives. So let’s say that you are spending $1 for each click, meaning that ten clicks will cost you $10. In a CPM-based advertising campaign, you may pay only $3 for 1000 impressions. So if your advertisement receives a click through ratio of just 1% you would then be paying $3 for the same 10 clicks.

One thing to bear in mind when it comes to CPM is that text-based ads tend to receive a lot more attention than banner ads, which most internet users tend to completely ignore at this point. CPM-based advertising is also a great idea for any company that has popular and/or very expensive keywords.

CPL – Cost Per Lead

Cost per lead is one of the less common ways of making money through blogging and advertising, but it is still one that is used by a lot of bloggers. CPL is the calculation of the actual cost that is incurred in successfully acquiring a valid lead. Leads are typically generated in several different ways, which include the gathering of information.

Let’s say that a website visitor submits their email address after doing a survey or they register for an offer and provide their contact information and possibly their demographic information. This will then be counted as a “lead”.

NOTE: PPL, or pay per lead, is different from CPL. PPL refers to the actual model in acquiring a valid lead, while CPL is the actual cost that one will incur for successfully acquiring a valid lead.

CPL is a great option for the budget conscious blogger, especially during these trying economic times. With CPL advertising, you are able to generate guaranteed returns on your online advertising dollars.

TIP: CPL is also often referred to as “online lead generation”.

CPS – Cost Per Sale

What really draws other bloggers to cost per sale marketing is that this strategy is low-risk and high profit. It’s also a great way of reaching an unlimited amount of prospects over the web.

Cost per sale is a great new way of marketing which doesn’t involve risky and expensive methods of marketing such as print ads, television ads and direct mail campaigns. With cost per sale marketing, the company that is selling the product or the service will pay the publisher or the marketer only when a product or a service has been sold (the CPL model is also often referred to as “revenue share” or as an “affiliate relationship”). These models work best for customers that are not willing to take a risk or who have a very, very small marketing or advertising budget.

The one downside to this method of marketing is that, when compared to either CPC or CPL models, the cost that the vendor incurs can be quite a bit higher per conversion, and the contract terms that one must agree to are longer. Most CPS marketing models are best for e-commerce websites

Which Way is Best for Me to Make Money?

The type of advertising for you to use for your blog to generate revenue truly depends on two things: your budget, and how much you need to sell. Methods such a CPS are great for those with a low budget, but if you want a lot of exposure than CPC is probably your best bet.

Pay per click, what is it? For those who don’t know, ok, you know when you go to Google or your favorite search engine, you search for something and then you see these little boxes at the top and another one down the right hand side? Those are paid ads, ok? Those aren’t the best results, but those are paid ads ok? That is what pay per click is, people pay money, then when you click on that they get billed. It pays the bills the search engine so the search engine can keep finding stuff for you.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ok, so who are the major players of pay per click? Well, you have the big 800lb gorilla; Google Adwords. That’s Google’s big cash cow, pay per click. Ah, you can also promote additional, in addition to search results you can also promote videos on YouTube, in a way through adwords as well; which is kind of cool. Now, there is also Microsoft AdCenter which now manages Yahoo and Bing together. And, also Facebook ads. It’s more for targeting by demographics, but that’s also an option. So, there’s alot of options out there, but here’s the key; you got to manage your pay per click campaign. If you’re not careful you can literally loose your shirt. Everybody thinks, I got to be number 1! Ok you got to be number one well you may be paying $5 a click to be number one.

When we first started in business we have this memory, or nightmare if you want to call it, of our $6,000 pay per click, ok. You don’t have to be number one, you do want to be in the first few results, but you’d be amazed at the cost difference between position one and position five. And you also, when you have a pay per click campaign going you always want to be split testing you ads to see which one gets the best click through. You can call it A-B Split Testing, or whatever, but you always want to meet the control. If you have at least two ads running and you’re always trying to get a better click through every time. Absolutely! Set the daily budget! Set the daily budget definitely!

Definitely set the daily budget and track your visitors. See what they’re doing. Are those visitors converting like you hope they will? Absolutely! Because it’s driving traffic but that’s a cost. You want to drive traffic that you know converts. Well, you can have an ad that gets a really great click through but people don’t buy or you can have an ad that gets a little bit less click through but everybody converts, so you just go to…Testing! Test! Test! Test!

So where do you send that paid traffic? Do you just send them to your homepage? No! You want to send them to a targeting landing page. And, basically you want to see which ad you’ve written and you want people to click on that ad, but the landing page to get to has to jive with the ad they clicked on because, if you make a proposition in their ad that their interested in and they click on it they are not going to buy if you send them to your homepage. It’s just a wasted click and a waste of money. So, always send them to a targeting landing page. And get them to make an action; like join your email list, buy and item, whatever. Test all the way to the end.

For Publishers: Google Adsense

Never heard of Google Adsense? Then this is where your money making venture begins. Google has their “Adsense” program which really allows other website owners and bloggers a chance to make some extra cash after they sign up for the program. How it works is that Google allows for a third party to place Google adverts on “their” Google websites (which would include your blog), and Google is then paid by that advertiser. Google’s Adsense program allows you the ability to also make a portion of the cash that they earn from those advertisements, since the ads that they are being paid for are being placed on your blog or website.

With the “per click pay” or “pay per click” program, you’ll make a pre-defined amount of cash when someone clicks on those ads. This form of advertising works like this:

1) Person finds your blog
2) Person sees advertisement on your blog
3) Person clicks on the advertisement
4) You and Google make money, and client is happy that you directed a new potential customer to their site.

Before you can benefit from any of this, you will need to create a Google Adsense account. It’s free and easy to do. All you need to do is go to the Google Adsense site and then provide your personal details, such as your name and address. From there, you can then start defining what types of advertisements you want on your site.

Different Types of Advertisements

Google Adsense offers some different options when it comes to the types of ads that you want on your site. You can choose from:

- Text only ads
- Image only ads
- Text and image ads

You can also change the size and color of the advertisements so that you can make the advertisement look as if it belongs and is a part of your blog. If an advertisement looks like it’s out of place on your blog, it will be glaringly obvious and it will hardly get any clicks, which means you’ll be getting hardly any cash. The more the advertisement blends into your blog, the more likely people will click on it.

Still difficult to choose? Generally text ads go over well with blogs that are related to business, careers, politics, science, self help and more educational topics. Image ads are better for “sexier” and more glamorous niches, like music, movie and TV, fashion, celebrity news, sports, fitness and gaming. If you want a blend of both text and image ads, consider these if your blog niche is in cars, pets, technology, or the food and drink industry.

Our advice to making money in this new year: diversify your portfolio. It’s a good idea to get your hands on as many things as you can, though work on one thing at a time. Once you become a pro at one thing, keep doing it, but then try out another online venture. Below are some of our favorite ways to make great cash online:

1. Start a Blog

Don’t think people want to hear what you’ve got to say? You’ll be surprised by just how many people want to know what you know and share in your life experiences. Blogs are a great way to make some extra cash, but they will take a bit of time to get started. This is why we say you should start up a blog first and get it rolling before you move on to any other ventures.

Blogs aren’t just about having people stop by and read your stuff. You can turn a blog into a profit by selling ad space, creating AdSense ads, doing affiliate marketing promotions, and more. You should learn about SEO (search engine optimization), themes, templates, and where you can get some great royalty free images too so you can create the best blog ever.

TIP: Your first blog may be a total bust, but don’t give up. It often takes people 2-3 times before they create a blog that they love and that will start making them some serious cash.

2. Become a Micro-Jobber

Never heard of microjobs? Microjobs are little tasks that people need to have done, so they go onto the internet, post an advertisement for a small job to be done, and those interested can then respond by submitting a proposal, a resume, and/or a sample of their work. Microjobs are quickly becoming a way for people to earn a great supplementary or even full time income!

There are a number of micro job sites out there, like oDesk and Elance, and Craigslist even often has microjobs posted too. Most of these sites list jobs by category, and there’s a category for everyone, from web design to freelance writing to sales and marketing. Most of these sites require you to register first and it can be a bit hard to get going, but once you do you’ll soon be easily making an extra $500 a month.

3. Sell Things Online

A great way to make cash is to sell things online. People are buying online more and more these days, but the market isn’t so saturated yet that there’s no room for you. Sites like eBay, Craigslist, Amazon and Kijiji are full of people whose full time occupation is just selling stuff over the internet! Each website has its own pros and cons and may work better with some items than others, but test it out and see how it works.
You can sell:

- Stuff around the house you don’t need any more
- Stuff that you find a great deal on, and then flip it and sell it online for market value
- Wholesale items (there are a ton of websites online that sell wholesale, so you buy brand new things for under market value and can then sell them at market value)
-
Check into any shipping deals that you can offer too if you plan on selling online. People love to hear the words “free shipping”!

TIP: If you’re crafty and good at making things, definitely start selling your stuff on Etsy. Etsy is one of the biggest sites for selling any homemade items, so you will have a large audience checking out your stuff on a daily basis.

4. Do Surveys

Okay, so this is one of the less fun ways to make money online. No one wants to sit at their computer, slaving away and completing surveys. Not only that, but there are survey sites out there that promise to pay, but they never, ever do.

Surveys do take a bit of time and sure, it can take a while to make more than just a few bucks. But once you find reputable sites and start filling them in, you’ll be surprised by how quickly the money ads up. That extra $5-$10 a day you make filling out mindless surveys quickly turns into hundreds and thousands of dollars a year. Check out Opinion Outpost and Cash Crate if you’re interested.

5. Earn Swag Bucks

Swag Bucks are quickly becoming THE currency of the internet. Swag Bucks is an online portal that helps you earn “digital dollars”, which are referred to as Swag Bucks. These Swag Bucks can then be redeemed for a number of different things that you can find in the Swag Store, like Amazon and Starbucks gift cards, downloads, and a number of different products.

There are a number of different ways that you can earn Swag Bucks. One of the easiest ways is using the Swag Bucks homepage as your search portal. Whenever you enter in a search query, you then have the chance to make some Swag Bucks. Another way is to just simply watch videos that you’re interested in. Your “Swag Bucks” meter increases by the number of videos you watch. Once your meter is full, you then have the chance to earn “Swag Bucks”.

But that’s not all. You can also earn Swag Bucks by:

- Taking surveys
- Playing games
- Filling out time sensitive offers
- Checking out special offers
- Recycle stuff like your old cell phone and game systems
- Make referrals
- Answer polls
Check out their website for more details on how you can make some easy extra cash.

But before you read on, you really need to think about whether or not monetizing your blog is the right thing to do. Some topics don’t lend themselves well to monetization. If you are not sure, then you could always ask your readers, especially if you have a mailing list.

If Your Blog Isn’t Right for Monetization

Some people will find that their blog isn’t right for monetization. In these instances there is still a way that you can make some cash from your hard efforts. Putting a donation button on the blog will help you in this way.

Not all of the buttons are directly related to donations. Some of them have cute little names like “buy me a coffee” or “buy me a beer” and they allow readers to donate set amounts of money through Pay Pal or other similar sites. These buttons can work on blogs that are suited for monetization, too, though.

Affiliate Products

This process lends itself best to sites that have an active mailing list community. Making sure that you keep in touch with your community on a regular basis will make it easier for you to sell them the affiliate products that seem most suited for them. This is a great way to make a lot of money without a lot of work.

One of the hottest sites for affiliate products is ClickBank.com. This site will provide you a lot of details and statistics on the product you are getting ready to sell. Make sure that you find the ones with the best reputation and the highest payout.

Some products pay as much as 80% commission. That means if you sell it for a hundred bucks, you get eighty in your pocket. Make sure you consider this when choosing products to sell, but don’t over look quality.

Adsense (or other contextual advertising)

The big contextual advertising product is Google AdSense. This is a means through which you can designate sections of your blog for ads. Making sure that you get the most from this involves making sure your blog is geared towards keywords that have a high online commercial intent.

OCI is a term that came and went in the world of Internet marketing, but it is still relevant. You can do some research on it and see how to apply it manually. Most of the automated methods are long gone.

There are a few alternatives including AdBrite, if you don’t like the Google Adsense terms of service.

Amazon Reviews

This is a popular one. Many people include reviews to amazon.com products scattered throughout their blog. The good thing about Amazon.com is that a person doesn’t have to buy your product for you to get credit.

Let’s say that on your flower blog link to a vase on Amazon.com. A reader clicks through but decides not to buy. She comes back a few hours later and buys a dress that she had forgotten to order.

Guess who gets credit for that sale? That’s right, you! The thing is, if she buys anything within 24 hours of clicking your link, then you get a commission (so long as you were the last person whose affiliate link she clicked).

So what are some of the best ways to monetize your blog with this method? Well make sure that you are constantly publishing links through your referral account. Don’t be shy with them and include two or three in every blog post.

One of the best ways to do this is by including a footer at the bottom of every single one of your posts. You can include two or three links right there. For instance, if you publish a blog in which there is any discussion about your personal life you can include links to what you are currently reading.

If people find you interesting, then you can easily incorporate other things from your daily life into your blog that link to your Amazon.com affiliate account. There are a lot of ways if you get creative.

Sell Your Own Products

Don’t forget about selling your own products through your website. If you have a lot of viewers that love your content, you might be able to create a special report or a product that will help them in some way. It doesn’t take much more than some common sense to figure out if your blog lends itself to this.

The trick is, most blogs can be turned into some sort of product. For instance, if you regularly write a blog about fish, you might want to write a small guide on how to care for fish. This will give you something to sell that gives you all of the profit.

The best thing is that you don’t have to share the profit with anyone. Well, you may have to share it with eBay, but that’s because they take a cut out of any money you receive no matter what.  Figuring out how to write a special report or e-book can take a lot of time and effort.

The thing is, you have already created thousands of dollars worth of content on your blog, so just look through there for the best ideas on how to make your e-book. If you have a lot of comments, then you are definitely at an advantage, as this will provide you with the most ideas possible.

You can also check websites like Yahoo! answers to find good suggestions for special reports and e-books.

You just need to put a little time and effort into it. A Pay Pal button on your site will enable you to sell the product without setting up a major storefront on your site.

When it comes to websites, there are literally millions of different websites throughout the World Wide Web. If you wish to compete against this massive amount of competition, then you need to understand how search engines work. Search engines rely on keywords to rank websites and web pages.

If your website doesn’t achieve the first or second page of search results, then it might as well be invisible. Internet surfers rarely go to the third page of search engine results. This means that your keywords and keyword phrases that you use should be very specific and targeted.

What Are Keywords?

If you have ever used a search engine, the word or words that you entered into it were called keywords. When you enter in a phrase, that phrase is searched in order of the words entered first. If the search engine doesn’t find an exact match with what was entered, it then relies on the main words within that phrase.

It may sound a bit confusing, but it’s really not. As an example, let’s say you wanted to find a website that sells art frames. You want wooden, hand-crafted frames for canvas.

You would type into the search box: hand crafted wood art frames for canvas. The results may hit on exactly what you’re looking for, but it might not. The results may come back with hand crafted wood frames, leaving out art and canvas.

Many users don’t get overly specific with their searches, so you need to target the main ideas. The more specific you can get with your keywords, the better. But you also don’t want to target a phrase that is rarely searched and that’s where the Google AdWords keyword tool comes in.

What The Google Keyword Tool Offers

By taking advantage of this incredible, and free, tool that is provided by Google, you can learn a great deal about the content that users are looking for with regard to your website. If you sell those art frames, type in art frames into the search box in the keyword tool.

The results will show a great deal of possible matches along with the number of searches done in a month both locally and globally. This will also give you an idea of the level of competition that you will face based on those particular keywords. As you would see with this example, ‘art frames’ has 33,100 global searches a month and the competition is around 60%.

That level of competition means that you might not get a first or second page ranking, but that would all depend on the content of your website based on that keyword phrase, as well as the other marketing efforts that you have employed. The second result is ‘art framing’ which shows 22,200 global monthly searches and much less competition. If you work with actual framing, then this would be a keyword you would want to pursue.

Developing A Balance With Keywords

As you scroll down, you will see a number of different keyword combinations based on the words that you entered. There will be some keyword phrases that have a limited number of searches combined with very little competition. Others will have several hundred thousand or even millions of global searches every month with incredible competition.

While it may be tempting to go after those keywords that have millions of global searches monthly, the odds are strong that you won’t stand a chance of being ranked within the first couple of page results. This keyword tool is powerful when you use it to its full strength. Balancing the number of monthly searches both globally and locally is important.

You may find that a keyword phrase returns 50,000 global searches every month, but only 2,000 locally. If your business relies on local customers, then this isn’t a keyword you want to focus on, even if it’s right in line with your business. Instead, look for high numbers of local searches combined with a lower competition level.

What You Can Learn From These Results

SEO tools such as this one can offer you an incredible amount of useful information. When you are building your website or marketing it, you will likely already have keywords in mind. Yet, you may realize that what you’re targeting will simply be too much in the way of competition to try to overcome.

You’ll have a certain amount of pride when it comes to building your web presence - whether that’s instructions on how to start a blog, web hosting, or a million other possible topics – and you want to focus on the high return search phrases, if you plan on being successful with your business venture, you need to take a step back and find the right balance for your particular business. Some websites have been building their presence for years and have cornered the market, so to speak, on certain keywords.

The Google Adwords keyword tool can also show you what website domain addresses might be ideal to acquire if you can. In the previous example, if you customize frames for clients, you may not have realize that art framing would have as many searches done every month and that the competition level is relatively low. Maybe artframing.com is available as a domain and when you have that domain, you are going to get those first page results that you want.

Be Willing To Adjust

When it comes to keywords and search engine results, you need to be willing to make adjustments. If you target certain keywords but you’re not getting the results you want, then consider trying a different combination of words. If you stick to your guns and aren’t willing to make the necessary changes (which includes altering content and marketing strategies), then you will likely be losing valuable time and money in the long run.

Use the Google AdWords keyword tool whenever you can. It has helped many websites attract visitors and build customer bases.

Whether you’re learning how to start a blog or you’re a seasoned blogging veteran, having all the possible information about your blog, its traffic, visitors, and search engine results, is very important. Google Webmaster Tools for bloggers is the perfect complement to decide whether you have a design and content that is attracting the kind of attention you want, not only from the search engines, but also from your visitors. These free tools offer a wealth of information that any blogger can use.

The Power Of Search Engine Optimization

More than 90% of websites are found through the use of search engines. At the moment, Google accounts for more than 65% of all web searches, with Yahoo and Bing following at a distant second and third, respectively. Other less traditional search engines are cropping up every day, such as Facebook and even YouTube, which means more people will likely use the power of these search engines to indirectly find your blog.

When you are competing with other blogs for traffic, it’s important to be able to get on the first or second page of these search engine listings. If you don’t know how Google views your website or how often it is crawled (viewed by Google), then you could be missing out on valuable insight and the potential to move up in the search results. If you’re not sure about how important getting a first or second page ranking is, then just think about the last time you went beyond the second page to find what you were looking for.

Most people will tend to give up after two pages and move onto a different search if they don’t find what they want. With Google Webmaster Tools, you’ll be able to get the most out of your potential visitors’ searches by understanding what search terms people are using to find your website and the search terms that Google thinks are relevant for your site.

Performance Counts

Google will not send traffic to blogs that are slow, unresponsive, or that have broken links. But how can you possibly know if you’re site is slow or if certain posts are not displaying correctly? Again, this is where Google Webmaster Tools can help. You can see how fast Google thinks your blog is as well as get a detailed listing of any broken pages or links.

Understanding Flash And Videos

Google ‘spiders’ constantly ‘crawl’ websites, reading all the content, logging information about the content, and analyzing the data. Google then uses this data to determine the importance of your website. Here’s the thing… These spiders only look for text. They can’t see images, Flash (all that fancy animated stuff), or videos.

If you plan on using images, Flash, or videos on your home page, then you may earn a lower search ranking if you don’t compensate and enter a specific description of the content of those videos, images, or Flash compositions. These are topics that many bloggers don’t fully understand and their beautifully designed websites end up ranking much lower in the search engines than those totally ugly all-text websites.

Google Webmaster Tools can help you identify where you’re design falls short so that you can avoid this pitfall.

Set Up Your Google Webmaster Account

In order to use Google Webmaster Tools , you need to have a Google account. It’s free and so is the tool. Once you have an account, you’re ready to find out what your site is lacking and how you can improve it.

Verify Your Site

The first thing that you’ll be asked to do is enter your website’s URL. You will want to be sure that you also add the ‘www’ to the address. To verify your site, simply follow the instructions on the page and you will be able to have access to all the aspects of this powerful tool.

Information

Once you’re in, you will be able to see a host of information about your website, including whether it is included in Google’s indexing pages and when the last time a spider crawled it. It’s important to know when the last crawl took place because if you update your content every day or every few days and the spider last visited two months ago, that generally means that at the time there weren’t any significant changes to the content and the search engine deemed to site a low priority. If you’re not getting crawled, it will mean that all of those new blog posts you’ve added, along with those important keywords, are not being indexed when you need it to be.

Next, you’ll find a diagnostics page that will entail all the problems that Google’s spider encountered while accessing your page. If there are certain pages on your site that are not available to the public, then they will show up in this report. The goal of any website is to not have anything show up in this report, but most often it does.

Using The Statistics

The statistics part of this webmaster tool is great because you can see what searches return your website the most, what words are being used when linking back to your site, and how many subscribers you have. For bloggers, this information is like gold. The statistics are not crucial, but they are always a benefit to have and use.

Links

Links are important to boosting search engine ranking, but there’s a difference between quality links and just a large number of links. The goal should always be high quality links pointing to your website, as well as those links that your website points to. This information provided by the webmaster tool will give you important aspects to focus on.

When you get these results, go through the pages that are linking to yours and see which ones have any real value. While you certainly don’t need to have them removed, you can focus on more important sites that might be willing to link back to your blog. The more quality links that lead back to your site, the higher you will rank on the search engines.

Professionalism To The Core

The Google Webmaster tools for blogging is about creating a professional presence on the web. When you have access to important information about your website and how search engine spiders ‘view’ it, then you will gain insight into how to improve not only your search engine ranking, but also your visitors’ experience. By using this free tool, you will increase your chances for success on the World Wide Web.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is essentially when you as a blogger sell other people’s products on your blog and receive a commission for each sale made. The commission rates vary depending on the product and are based on wherever the product owner chooses to set them.

Finding Affiliate Offers

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of different sites out there that allow product owners to set up their information products and promote them to affiliates who can, in turn, pick which ones they want. These types of sites are a good place to start when looking for products.

A few of the largest sites out there that offer these types of affiliate products include ClickBank, Commission Junction, the Google Affiliate Network, and Amazon Associates.

ClickBank

ClickBank is made up mostly of information products – ebooks, online courses, video series, and the like. It has been around for a long time and has several great metrics and resources that you can use to decide what is the best selling product and what is the most likely to do well on your site. You can also track how many times your link has been posted and how many sales were made.

Of course, as mentioned above, ClickBank does have its limitations. There are no physical products sold there, so you can only promote online products. If you want to join ClickBank, just head over to their site and follow their approval process. It usually takes a few days to get in.

Commission Junction

Commission Junction is a huge marketplace that many of the larger retailers use to get affiliates for their products. Most of what is on Commission Junction is physical products, so you have a bit more choice in what you can make a commission on.

Signing up to Commission Junction requires a website plus a fairly rigorous application process, but once you are in, you have all kinds of retailers to choose from. The only downside is that you must get approval from each retailer to be able to promote their products for a percentage. However, many of the retailers in the system auto-approve everyone who applies, so it is not that hard to find something that you would like on your blog.

Google Affiliate Network

The Google Affiliate Network is very similar to Commission Junction. In fact, the entire setup and process is almost exactly the same as above.

Amazon Associates

This is one of oldest on the Internet. The Amazon Associates program allows you use basically anything that is sold on Amazon plus items sold on the other sites that they manage.

Think about all the products out there on Amazon.com! There is bound to be something related to your niche that you could blog about and sell! Amazon, also has a fairly rigorous approval process, so you will want a site with some good content on it, and maybe even some decent traffic, before you apply.

Once you are in, this program does not need you to get approval for every company or product that you want, so you can get right to it!

What Items You Should Choose

When you are trying to decide what type of affiliate marketing products you should promote on your blog, you need to consider very carefully your readers. Do not ever choose anything that is not a high-value, high-trust product. You do not necessarily need to own the product yourself, but you should certainly do your homework and make sure that the product is legitimate.

Also, think about what will really be pertinent to your readers. If your site is about bunk beds, find some bunk beds or something related to bunk beds. Do not choose to use say, an ebook about making money online. You probably will not get any sales on a product that is not relevant to your blog.

How You Can Do It

Once you have found a few products, now you obviously need to promote them! The first thing you will need to do is make sure you get the correct links so that any sales that are made are registered to your account. Each affiliate network has a different way of doing this, but in general, they will give you a link with some data in the URL, so that when someone clicks on the product from your blog, that visitor is registered as someone you sent, giving you the credit if that click turns into a sale. Most of these systems also register the click, and even if the person leaves and comes back, if they buy within a certain time period, you can still get the sale.

Most of these product owners and retailers also have marketing materials that you can use, especially ad banners that you can put on your site. These can make the process of selling a product much easier on you.

Once you have your unique links, there are several ways to promote the products. You could just put a link or a banner in your advertising space or in the sidebar of your site. This might get you a few clicks and sales, but you are going to want to do more than that to get even better sales numbers.

One of the best ways to promote these products is to write a review of them on your site. Write an honest review in a blog post specifically for a product that you are promoting and put it on your site. This way, people feel more comfortable about buying product having gotten their information from a third-party source.

If you will follow the steps outlined above and get signed up to one or all of the networks mentioned, you are bound to find something that you can promote!

However, how do you go about putting something like this together, especially if you have never done so before? Here are a few tips on how to do just that.

Consider What You Needed To Know

Of course, the first thing you are going to need when putting together an information product is a topic, and not just any topic, but something that people are interested in and would want to read or watch. A great way to know what this might be is to think about what it was that you needed to know when you started out in your niche.

Think about what you wished you would have known, or what you would have done differently when you started out in your niche if you had all the knowledge that you have now. These could be great starting points for an information product for your readers.

Ask Them What They Want

Another great way to come up with an information product that is going to be a hit would be to just simply ask your readers what they need to know about your niche! You might be surprised by their answers, and they may come up with something that you never thought of before!

You can go about this in a few different ways. First, you can simply ask in a blog post and have people leave comments on what they would like to know more about in your niche or what their biggest questions are. Second, if you already have a few ideas in mind and you are just trying to pick the best one, you could have a poll on your site and let your readers vote on which one they think is the best potential product. You could also ask your readers via social media what type of products they would be most likely to buy or read.

Do Thorough Research

Once you have your topic in hand, make sure you do your thorough research before you put out a product. Even if you are an expert on the topic, brushing up on the subject certainly will not hurt, and having a few sources mixed into your information product will only serve to add to its validity in the eyes of your reader.

You do not have to put together a dissertation here. Just make sure that you read up on the latest in this particular subject before you are ready to write about it. Check and see if there are any news stories about the subject. Has anything happened recently in your niche that readers really need to know about to thoroughly understand the subject? Also, if someone else has put out a similar information product recently that you could use as a guide as you create your product.

Decide On A Presentation Method

When people think of information products, they often think of an ebook in pdf format. However, there are plenty of other mediums you can use to do a product like this today.

Many presenters will now use video for their information products. It could be in the form of a recorded video, or it could be a slide show presentation done in real time while the presenter speaks into the microphone. Some people will douse audio or a podcast and present the information in that format for listeners.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with an ebook format, and many if not most folks still use it! You could, however, attach an audio presentation or a video to it as well.

Keep It Interesting

If you are going to be presenting facts and figures as your information product, make sure you find a way to keep it interesting so that you do not lose your readers or viewers in the process. If it is an ebook, include a few pictures along the way. If it is a video, keep the slides changing or break up the monotony somehow by adding a bit of humor.

Hire A Freelancer If You Need Assistance

Maybe you have the information you need, but you do not feel as if you have the skills or the time to put it all together as an information product for your readers. This is where a freelancer can be a huge help. You can hire someone to write the ebook for you if you want to go that route. You could even hire someone to do a voice over or a video for you if you plan to go in that direction. In any case, whatever format you pick, you can probably find someone on a freelancing site to do the work of packaging it together for you.

Decide How To Sell It

Once the product is done, you need to decide what you want to do with it exactly. Do you want to sell it to your readers to monetize your site? Do you want to give it away as just a thank you? Do you want to use it to have people opt in to your email list? There are several ways to go with this, and all depend on what you hope to accomplish with your product.

Get It Out There

Finally, get it out there in front of your readers, and do not wait until it is absolutely perfect! It does not have to be perfect. It just needs to be a good, informative product.

If you will follow the above steps, you can bet that you will have a killer information product that you can be proud of in no time – something that will be a hit for your readers and will keep driving traffic to your blog for a long time.

Do A Search For Similar Blogs

Before you can build a relationship with any bloggers in your niche, you need to find them! This is usually a fairly simple project. Just head over to your preferred search engine and type in “blog” plus the name of your niche. This will usually give you plenty of results and more bloggers that you may even be able to contact.

Personally, I would start by contacting the ones that come up first in your online search, as they probably have the largest audience. Make a list of these blogs somewhere so you can refer back to it later as you are contacting bloggers. This way you do not have to redo this search over and over again.

Get Active On Social Networks

Do not just look in the search engines for good bloggers in your niche, however. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social networks are great places to find these folks. Do a search on these networks for your niche and see who comes up and who seems to be active. Try to add them as a friend or subscribe to their channels or updates on these sites. Also, try to strike up a conversation with them on these websites as well, as this is a great way and an appropriate place to start that type of conversation.

Participate In Forums

Web forums can be a great place to meet and interact with bloggers in your niche. If you do not know of any, I bet they are out there! You can find them by doing the same kind of search as I mentioned above when looking for blogs, but this time just do a search for “forums” followed by your niche.

Once you find a few, sign up for them and become an active participant. You are bound to find a few folks in your niche if you get involved, and then you will probably really get to know a few of them well as you actively participate in discussion on these forums.

Comment On Their Blogs

Once you do find a few good bloggers in your niche, start reading their posts regularly and become a regular poster on their site. Make sure that your comments are well thought out and more than just something along the lines of, “Great post.” Be imaginative with your comments and make them interesting and worthy of reading.

You might not try to go for a link back to your site in these first comments, at least not yet. You do not want the blogger to be put off by you or to feel as if you are only there to get a backlink to your website. Just leave the links out of it at first and post with your name only. Maybe later you can use a link once they know who are you and you have established a positive relationship.

Share Their Posts

When you have found a few good bloggers in your niche, share their posts on your site or on social networks or elsewhere. This should get you some good rep with the blogger with whom you are trying to establish a relationship. Make sure they know you shared somehow, maybe by leaving a comment on the post you shared about it. They will be more likely to check you out or maybe even share your content as well.

Contacting Bloggers

Once you have done some commenting on blogs, social networks, and forums, you should have a few names of bloggers in your niche that you would like to contact. In this case, just hit them up! It does not hurt to send them a private message on a forum or social network or an email to see if you can establish some kind of relationship.

Do not be too pushy, however, and always send a personalized message. Most people know when they receive a canned response, as they get them all the time. If they do not respond, move on to the next person on your list. You are bound to get some positive responses in there!

Offer To Guest Post

Once you have gotten a positive response and have started building that relationship, offer to write a guest post on their blog sometime. This is done all the time in internet marketing, and it can really drive some serious traffic to your site if you write a good post and offer a good reason for readers to check out your site.

Many bloggers will be happy to oblige your guest post request, as it can give them a break from writing. However, it does help to have a post ready for them to read, or maybe a sample of your work, so they know that the content you send their way will be high quality.

Offer A Link Back

In addition, offer to link back to their site on yours. This is just a nice gesture, and you do not necessarily need to ask them to reciprocate. Many times they will do so just because you took the time to link to them. If nothing else, you will have gotten their attention! They will at least probably take notice of you if you do so!

If you follow these simple steps, you can bet that you will build some great relationships with bloggers in your niche, and in turn will have a great group of people who can support you and who can help provide you with more exposure for your blog as well.

If you want to get in on this incredible growth within the business world, then it’s time that you learn how to self publish an ebook.

For most of the twentieth century, you basically had two options when it came to publishing books. You either had to go through a major publishing house, which meant that someone would decide whether your book was worth their time and effort, or you had to choose a vanity press. The latter choice meant that you would have to pay money to get your book published and then on top of that, you would have to try and sell it.

Thanks to technology, it has become simple to self publish an ebook. You do have options available that can make publishing this ebook either free or expensive, depending on what you’re looking to accomplish. For example, a high quality cover will cost you several hundred to several thousand dollars.

Many small businesses have decided that the quality of the cover is negligible because people are more interested in content. If that’s the case for you, then you can publish for little to no money out of pocket. It doesn’t matter the length of the ebook, either.

What is an Ebook?

An ebook is basically a book that is published through electronic media. The most common form of ebook for small businesses today is still the pdf. However, ebooks are being published in a variety of formats for different types of reading devices, such as Amazon.com’s Kindle e-Reader.

While traditional ‘books’ generally contained 50,000 words or more, ebooks can be anywhere from a few thousands words to hundreds of thousands of words (though you’re not likely to get people to read a massive book unless you already have a great reputation). To topics that are covered through ebooks can be anything from How To books to novels, biographies, discussions, and more. If you can think it up, you can make it into a digital product.

What Format to Choose to Publish

When it comes to ebooks, as mentioned already, there are many different formats to choose from. Pdf formats, which need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view, is the most common. However, the more formats that you offer when it comes to ebooks, the more you increase your exposure to potential customers who will be willing to read your material. At the end of the day, it all comes down to exposure.

If you decide to go with the pdf format or a multi-format approach, using free platforms, then you are basically taking the reins of promotion and marketing, along with sales, on your own. Many small businesses offer ebooks to their customers for free. They do this so that they can show their passion and expertise to the customer in order to build trust.

If your goal, however, is to make money with your ebook, then you will be selling it. While it is certainly possible to sell it on your own, using the services of Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and a hundred other sites can place your ebook on their servers for a fee. Some of these companies will give you the information on how to format and post your ebook.

It’s important to note, though, that with these major companies, you will be earning a commission on every sale of your ebook. That means that if you want to earn two dollars per sale and the company takes 50% of the sale price, then you will have to charge $4 for your ebook. Whether your target customers will pay that amount is something you’ll have to decide through research.

Protect Your Work

The Internet is a wide open super-highway filled with people looking to steal content from others. It’s important to understand the copyright laws of different countries and how you’re protected. While many governments have been slow to protect electronic media, they have been coming around and are helping to protect people from intellectual theft.

When you have completed your ebook, before you post it online for sale, make sure that it is protected by law. In the United States, for example, any original work that is created is automatically protected. However, it’s still a good idea to register with the Copyright Office in that country so that you have proof of its original creation.

There are always going to be risks when it comes to publishing online. You may protect your work but someone from a foreign country steals it and begins selling it for themselves. Your home country may not have any jurisdiction within that foreign country to stop this crime.

Yet web hosting companies have done well to protect original works and if you have proof that your work is being stolen, the web hosting company can step in and take down the site if the theft continues. If you are too concerned with theft, then you’re not likely to publish at all.

The Cover and the Price

Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover?’ Well, in the world of ebooks, that’s exactly what people do. The more attractive your cover is, and the more it represents the content of the book, the more success you will have with it. For example, if you wrote a book titled, ‘How to Start a Blog,’ and the cover showed a blogging platform, you’ll grab casual viewers’ attention much more readily.

When you have a cover that attracts attention, then you need to establish a marketable price. I’ve seen ebooks selling for $70 from unknown authors. If you’re going to charge a premium price for your book, you’ll need to increase your marketing efforts and make sure that you deliver on your promise.

While we have become accustomed in this modern Internet age to long-winded articles, blogs, and other content to market products and services, effective copywriting can be done (and often should be done) with as few words as possible. There are different types of writing that can have drastically different results. Content can in fact be well written, but not effectively written.

When you operate a business online, the copy that customers see about your business may be the only thing they see. They may never find your website to really get a sense of what your business is about. If they see copy content that does not do its job right, then you have lost a prospective customer.

Copywriting Sells Through Words

Maybe you have looked to hire a copywriter in the past but were shocked by how much they charge. After all, if you look around the Internet, you’ll likely see plenty of ‘writers’ with experience creating content for the web that charge far less than some of the better copywriters. The reason that these copywriters charge more for their work is that it is the most important content you will create for your website.

Article marketing and even blogging is certainly an important ingredient in the world of website promotion, but for the most part the content written for these is designed to generate an increase in search engine ranking. You will certainly generate traffic through these efforts when you have high quality content, which is addressed in another article.

However, ‘copy’ is what you will see in advertisements and even on the home page of certain websites. Imagine having to sell yourself to someone in twenty-five words or less. It’s not that easy.

Now, imagine you need to do the same thing with ten words or less. When it comes to content on the Internet, the more you can say with fewer words, the more effective you will be in attracting customers to your website. That’s why effective copywriting costs more than your average article.

Copy needs to strike a chord with the people who will read it. It must tell the reader, in as few words as possible what the product or service offers them and address a specific need. You may have a business that sells car parts, but there are probably a thousand different sites out there that do the same.

What sets your business apart? Is it price, knowledge, expertise? Or does your website specialize in a particular brand?

This is the basic foundation of copywriting that is effective. Determining what aspect of your business is different than your competition and exploiting that difference. Customers want to do business with the best company and they want to know what makes a specific company better than the rest within seconds.

Want to know how to start a blog? That’s good copy. So is: Confused about web hosting? Don’t be. Let us show you the way.

Copy Needs to Inform and Educate

Have you ever read product descriptions that were long-winded? If you’ve ever surfed the Internet then you likely have come across this situation. You read the product descriptions, or even an ad for a website, and couldn’t fully understand what the benefit would be to you.

That’s copy that didn’t do its job. On average, an Internet user will give a website or an ad five seconds to convince them to read more or learn more. Simply saying that a website business or product is the best isn’t going to be enough. Why is it the best?

There has to be a reason why you built your website. Wanting to make money is certainly a reason, but that’s for your own personal gain. Do you have a passion for the products that you offer?

If so, then your advertisement needs to relay that to your customers. When people feel a connection to a business, they tend to be more willing to spend money with that business. If you have a passion for the products that you offer, then that should come across in the copy you create for it.

Copy Needs to Inspire an Action

What is the goal of your web business at the moment? If you are trying to generate sales, then you want to inspire people to buy the products. This is one of the most common reasons for copy.

Scour the Internet and you will find endless copy that informs visitors about products but it does nothing to inspire them to action. Is there a free trial? A money back guarantee?

Is the offer only available for a limited time? If they act now will they get something else for free with it, such as free shipping or a complementary gift? These are some of the cornerstones of copy that inspires action.

Effective Copy Doesn’t Require the Usual Sales Tactics

This isn’t to say that in order for copy to be effective that you need to have these special offers. Hitting the right nerve will do the trick. If your car parts business produced copy such as: Want more gas mileage out of your car? –then wouldn’t that inspire action from people struggling at the gas pump these days?

This example offered no sales pitch, right? All it did was target a need and offer the hint of a solution. This kind of copy would offer enough of an incentive for people to click on a link and follow it to a special web page on your site that deals with fuel efficiency solutions. From there, the message you create on that page could close the deal.

Copywriting is Part Art and Part Science

Understanding the psychology of the average consumer is important to effective copywriting. Once you know how consumers think when they are shopping, then you can use your creative angle to target them in the best way possible. If you don’t have the skills to pull this off, though, spend the money to hire a professional; it’s that important.

Proper SEO

A solid SEO, or search engine optimization, strategy can significantly increase the traffic to your site. Search engine optimization is essentially the process of setting up your site in such a way that the search engines can understand exactly what your site is about and display your site in the rankings accordingly.

There are many simple things you can do when blogging to make sure you have your site properly search engine optimized. First, do a little research to see what keywords people search that are related to your niche. You can do this by using several free keyword tools out there on the Internet. Just do a quick search and you will find them. The keyword tool designed by Google AdWords is a great one to use.

After you find a few terms that are relevant, then you can make some changes to your site to incorporate those terms. Try to add it to the title of your site, and then include it in the text a few times as well. Do not overdo it, though, as too many mentions of a keyword can lead to the search engines to penalize you for that particular term.

Also, make sure that you have a sitemap built into your site that the search engines can find and take a look to ensure you do not have the search engines blocked from coming to your site.

You can also write articles, guest posts on other sites, and build other links that point back to your site to help grow its presence in the search engines. As a general rule, the more links you have back to your site, the more important your site seems to the search engines and the more likely you are to rank for the terms that they see as relevant to your site.

Clean Up The Design

Is your site pleasing to the eye? If not, users are less likely to stick around as a customer long term. You may want to have a web designer take a look at your site to see what could be cleaned up and updated for proper website performance. Ask a few folks to give their opinion of your site, as you may have spent too much time looking at it to see it through the eyes of a customer.

Often, it does not take much to take a site from hard to look at to pleasing to the eye. For the most part, users want a simple navigation on your site so they can get where they want to go, and they want a clean, simple design that flows for them and has clear divisions between sections. When blogging, your site should also look updated. If your site looks like it has not been redone since 1995, you may have a problem! In addition, try to avoid music or videos that load on their own without the user clicking a play button. People would rather have the option to play these types of media.

Write Solid Copy For Your Site

The best blogging tips include writing solid copy for your blog. Poor copy can seriously kill your website performance. You can bet that people probably will move on without making a purchase or contacting your business. First, make sure it is free from grammatical, spelling, and capitalization errors. Second, make sure that the information is easy to read and that the message is clear.

Give enough information for users to make a decision, but do not overdo it, either. If users come to your page and see an article of 5000 words, you can bet they will not read it. Keep it under 1000 words max on any particular page or article. Do not go to short, though. Anything above 250 words is probably good as a general rule.

In addition, good copywriting should explain the benefits to the potential customer. What does your site or business offer that others do not? This is known as a unique selling proposition, and including it can seriously improve your website performance.

You should also include a solid call to action for the user. What is it that you want them to do? Should they buy something right on your site? Should they call you or e-mail you? Make that as clear and concise as possible.

Use Media Properly

Blogging with video, pictures and audio content can really enhance the user’s experience on your site and keep them on your site longer. In fact, these days, having good media on your site can be absolutely crucial to your website performance. Proper use of pictures and video can keep your reader’s interest much longer than simple text alone.

If you can have a video created about your site or business, this can be a great selling point for users. Pictures can break up the monotony of text and can further illustrate the point you are trying to get across to your readers. As mentioned above, however, make sure that you do not have any videos or audio set to play automatically for users, as many users want to start these when they are ready.

Stay Connected With Visitors

Make sure that you have a way to stay connected with visitors and invite them to come back. There are several ways to make this connection and keep your site or business in front of them.

First, you can include a link back to your Twitter or Facebook page, so that users can “follow” or “like” you. This way, you can have your message in front of them and get them more likely to come back. You can also include an email opt-in form so that users and potential customers could get updates from you or an email newsletter.

If you follow these simple blogging tips, you will likely see a boost in your website performance, no matter what your site is about!

Click here to view the embedded video.

As of the writing of this article, Facebook has surpassed 500 million registered users and that number continues to climb steadily. With that much power and potential, it is a wonder that more blog owners haven’t caught on to this form of marketing. Yet they will and if you wait, you will be fighting an uphill climb.

Perhaps one of the best assets going for Facebook is that you can post updates, links, and directly insert videos from YouTube onto your page. This makes getting your message out as simple as possible. As a result, when you build your network of ‘friends,’ they see your updates in real time.

How to Build a Network of Facebook  ‘Friends’

Different social networking sites have different names for the people within your social network. With Facebook, these are called ‘friends.’ Of course, this changes when you set up a  page, in which case you don’t have friends, but rather ‘fans,’ which means that your potential customers will need to ‘like’ your page. How each of these work is similar, but Facebook does not allow direct selling through your personal pages.

So, if you are building your Facebook presence for your business, then you want to build the business page. It’s as simple as that. The key to success with any network is building it with as many people as possible.

While it can be difficult to get people to ‘like’ your Facebook page if they don’t know who you are, you can make the process a bit smoother when you provide quality content that they would find interesting. There’s a balance between being too forward and not posting enough.

Provide the Right Type and Amount of Content

No one wants spam; spam is that awful junk mail that you receive in the inbox of your email account. When it comes to Facebook, spam is basically when someone posts thirty different updates about the same topic. For example, if you wanted to share information about how to start a blog or web hosting, as it pertains to your blog, don’t publish the same post a dozen times a day.

Young businessmen and those desperate for sales or traffic to their sites tend to do this. What happens is that when you follow this practice, the people who ‘like’ your page will see all of those posts from you, cluttering up their main page, and won’t be able to sift through all the junk just to see what their friends have posted. When that happens, they tend to remove or block you.

If you get blocked, then nothing you post will be seen by that user and you’ve basically removed them from your network. Also, when a blog owner takes three months to post their next update, the people who are fans or like the business on Facebook will forget about it. There is a balance that needs to be established when posting updates for your website pages.

The content also needs to be relevant. If you sell shoes, you don’t need to be posting about the latest political scandal in Washington. In fact, if you value your blog, don’t engage in political discussions at all, unless of course your business is in politics.

While personal networks of true friends on Facebook may have no problem sharing the latest stomach bug that they’ve contracted, your personal stuff doesn’t belong on your business page. It’s important to remember that you are a professional when it comes to this environment. If you don’t act professional, it will show and you will lose interest from your potential customers.

Interaction Is The Key

When you want to use Facebook to get more traffic and sales, interaction is the key word. You need to interact with the people who have taken the time to ‘like’ your business on Facebook. Whenever one of your followers posts something about your business, whether it’s a question or a comment, engage them. Answer the question or comment on their concern.

Do not dismiss these people. Customers today have more choices than ever before when it comes to where they will spend their money. They want to feel some connection to the other blog owners with whom they interact.

This doesn’t mean that you will have to write long tomes in response to every inquiry or comment. A quick line to acknowledge what they’ve written will do the trick. Just that one line will mean a world of difference to your potential customers.

Of course, you may find people posting inappropriate comments on your page. These don’t need to be acknowledged and should be removed as quickly as possible. If you feel that others might have seen the post, you can make a quick comment about the rudeness of others and leave it at that.

Don’t Oversell

As mentioned, it can be tempting to oversell your products and your business. Resist the temptation. As a blog owner, you want as many people to know about your blog, and even if you have a hundred products, it doesn’t mean you should post a hundred comments about them every day.

Limit yourself to five posts per day, at the most. One to two is ideal and will give the people who are following you just enough information to keep your blog in the front of their mind. Sharing information is also key.

Analyze Comments

Look at the comments that you receive. Do they tend to be positive or negative? When you begin to focus on these comments, you’ll be able to fine-tune your message about your blog, making it even stronger.

Also be on the lookout for people trying to poach customers away from you. Users will add links to their business and your customers might not realize that they’re being redirected away from you. Maintain control of your page every day.

Be Selfless

When it comes to success through Facebook, selflessness goes a long way. If you have some friends or fans on Facebook who are trying to spread the word about a good cause, share it for them. This will pay dividends.

Using Facebook to get more traffic and sales is simple when you follow these basic tenets and use common sense.

In our modern economy, finding more ways to make money is important. In fact, being able to increase your earnings on your own is one of the most important aspects to surviving such treacherous economic times. Knowing how to generate Google AdSense revenue is one way that you can boost your bottom line every month.

While Google AdSense was initially designed with website and blog publishers in mind, anyone who creates and maintains their own blog or website can take advantage of the incredible opportunity. Whether you have a full-time job and are building a web presence for yourself in your free time or run a web design business, for example, you can generate a great deal of revenue using this tool, if you know how to use it to your advantage.

By allowing advertisements on your blogs, you create a static revenue stream. It’s basically that simple, yet there are important considerations to be made.

The Advertising Effect

Traffic coming to your blog, regardless of how they found it, is going to judge you and your business based on many factors. The design, layout, and navigation of the blog is one factor. Another factor has to deal with any advertisements that you post on the site.

If you visit some of the larger media outlets in the world, such as CNN, you have probably seen plenty of advertisements throughout their sites. When an ad is front and center, though, it takes away from the purpose of the blog itself and can drive visitors away.

You’re not CNN, so any new visitor to your site will be important. Some blog owners don’t understand the basic concept that consumers can and often are turned off by too many ads on a site or ads that overtake the blog itself. Ads need to be secondary to the content of the blog.

It serves no purpose to you or your business to have ads that grab more attention than your blog design or content. You haven’t worked hard on internet marketing and done all the legwork to bring visitors to your site only to have them click on an ad and leave your site, never to return again. You want them to focus first and foremost on your site, and then take a look at the ads you post.

Building A Quality Blog

You may not consider the design factor of your blog to be all that important, at least not when it pertains to ads, but it is crucial to success. The design of your blog should always be directed toward keeping visitors on your site. There are three main areas to which you should focus your design efforts.

The first is where a visitor looks as soon as the page loads on their web browser. Most people look to the upper left corner of the screen. This is where your business name and/or logo should be. Placing an ad here is tantamount to saying, ‘Thanks for stopping by, but why don’t you check this other business’s website out instead.’

Next, the eyes will travel toward the upper center of the screen. You’ll find that most websites tend to place their mission statement or slogan here. This is where you tell your visitor why this website is exactly what they’re looking for.

This is also where navigation tends to originate, and for good reason. You want your visitors to be able to find their way around relatively easily; you don’t want them to struggle to find the other pages of your site. Having an ad within this zone may work, but if it gets in the way of your message, or the navigation, then it’s being counterproductive.

Then a visitor’s eyes tend to drift down the page. Many visitors won’t scroll down unless they really like the content. Placing ads below the bottom of the viewable area will often mean that your visitors never even see it.

The best placement for ads will be to the right and bottom of the screen. That way your website and your message still remain the focus of attention. Then, if an ad captures attention, then when someone clicks on the link, you earn money.

Keywords And Google AdSense

When it comes to Google AdSense, you will be building your campaign around your website. While you don’t want to have ads for your direct competition on your site, you want to keep within the same genre. In other words, if you sell auto parts, advertising for used car dealers would be a good fit.

If you choose the represent keywords or keyword phrases that have nothing to do with your website, then visitors to your site are not likely to follow those ad links and you’ll be wasting valuable space. It’s a balancing act to choose the right keywords to represent. But when you get it right, you will be earning revenue every single month.

The More Traffic You Get, The More Money You Will Earn

Google AdSense revenue will not happen by simply being static with your website. Just because you build a website, have a web hosting company maintain it, or take care of some of the other aspects of launching it does not mean that anyone will come to your website. If they don’t come to your website, then they will not see the ads that you have posted on it and therefore you won’t be earning any extra money.

It’s important to keep in mind that you can have up to 3 ads on your site at any given time. Some people would want more in order to maximize the potential earnings, but more than 3 and visitors will begin to navigate away from your site before they even have a chance to see what you offer. You don’t need to post 3, either; you can post 1 or 2 ads if that’s your preference.

You still need to employ all of the same marketing strategies for your website that you would normally do. Google AdSense revenue is all about earning money from visitors who might be interested in other topics than what they searched for. If you bring in visitors who realize they should have entered something else into your search, they can certainly go back to the search engine or they can follow an ad from your site to something more in line with their needs.

Evaluate Your Strategy Monthly

When you are looking to generate Google AdSense revenue, there will be a balance between targeting the right keywords to supplement your website and avoiding giving your business away to your competitors. Determine whether you’re targeting the right keywords every month and make changes accordingly. It’s much better to make changes quickly rather than wait and lose out on all that potential revenue.

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The Internet has become the place where consumers prefer to purchase things. If you want a piece of that multi-billion-dollar-a-year business, then you need to have an online product that people will want to buy. You can certainly market and sell products manufactured by other companies and individuals (affiliate marketing), but when you produce your own information products, you earn the largest profit margin.

Once you understand the basic fundamentals, you will be able to determine what information product will be ideal for you to focus on. Creating your own product is fairly straightforward and don’t cost a tremendous amount on money to produce – it’s just information in product form…

Make Sure You’re Information Products Offer Both Quality And Value

If you want your product to make an impact, you will want to focus on quality. Just as in the world of brick and mortar stores, merchandise that is made with cheaper materials tend to detract from the quality. The manufacturer will be able to charge less for it, which attracts consumers looking to save money, but it will not earn a positive reputation.

When it comes to information products created for the Internet, quality is measured differently. They can include e-books, videos, music, applications, games, and other downloadable items. Generally, when a consumer makes a purchase, they can have them downloaded to their computer within minutes. That the huge advantage of this type of product – it’s available immediately.

As a result, quality will be determined by the content and composition of the information. If you take time to produce a quality product with polished content, an attractive cover or image, and something people will find useful, then you will tend to find more success with it than with something that is just thrown together.

Deciding On What Information Product To Create

You may have some great ideas to market online, but you’re biased. Each of us thinks that we have the best ideas and that all it will take is investing in it with time, effort, and money, and people will be flocking to buy it. The problem with this mentality is that innate bias.

We tend to become too excited about certain ideas we have that we believe are winners. It’s important to get some opinions from people who won’t have a vested interest in the idea. Friends and family can sometimes be ideal to ask, but it will be important for you to make sure they know you will want their honest opinion.

If your idea is considered unique or ideal, then begin to research anything that may be similar already on the Web. You may think that it’s unique, but other people may already have something similar out there. That doesn’t mean you have to abandon your idea though; instead, determine how your idea is different and better than the others.

The Power Of Online Information Products

Products that are specifically designed for sale online are unique in that they can be downloaded by the consumer as soon as their transaction is complete. That means that marketing will be as important as the product itself. When you market your product, you will want to speak directly to a need your target audience has and how what you are offering fills that need.

Blogging is a great way to promote your information product. Knowing how to start a blog or becoming involved with web hosting is essential to online marketing. Keep these thoughts in mind as you move forward with your idea.

Know The Market

It is critical that you know the market you will be targeting. What age range will be most interested in it? Will it be men, women, or both?

It you create something that would be perfect for middle-aged professional women, but you focus on young, college-aged men, then your merchandise will not sell. Even if you realize that you targeted the wrong audience, make adjustments to the product and your marketing campaign; don’t simply abandon it. The great thing about most things created for Internet sale is that they can be altered without a tremendous amount of expense or effort.

As mentioned, marketing is as important to the success of your product as quality. Before you put together this incredible information product that is going to sell like crazy, you should think about marketing. If you promise something of value to the reader, the marketing will become much easier.

Develop a balance in which the marketing complements the product. Testimonials are a great way to show prospective buyers that what you’re offering is worth the investment. If you don’t have customers yet, then consider giving some copies away in exchange for those valued testimonials.

Solve A Problem

As noted earlier, anything marketed for consumers needs to solve a problem. A novel solves the problem of quiet entertainment. An e-book on how to become a successful affiliate marketer solves the problem that inexperienced professionals may have.

You should conduct market research to determine precisely how to solve that problem for the consumer. See if there are other products similar to yours that were successful as well as any that weren’t successful. There are often great lessons to be learned from both.

Creating a product that you intend to sell online demands a great deal of research on the market before it is actually created. An adage by Benjamin Franklin states that, ‘Success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.’ That idea you have may be incredible, but you still need to do a serious amount of work before you will achieve success with it.

You can get rich solving other people’s problems!

Audio and video have become popular among a number of Internet marketers because they are easy and inexpensive to make. Yet article marketing is still the force that drives search engines. That’s because articles contain content that the search engines can actively find, log, and rank.

Whatever kind of products or services you are marketing, using articles is one of the most effective ways to generate interest and build one of the most important foundations of any relationship: trust. When a consumer trusts a business, they are much more inclined to purchase from them. A well-written article, full of valuable content, will build trust, and it will generate leads.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Step 1: Writing The Article

Writing an article requires a specific purpose. For those that will be published on the web, there are two kinds. The first is keyword-stuffed and the second is content driven articles.

Keyword-stuffed articles were once the driving force of all content on the web. These articles, more commonly referred to as ‘fluff,’ were created with the sole purpose of a achieving the highest ranking within search engines. Content wasn’t very important; it was all about ranking and driving traffic to a specific website or page.

Content rich articles are the driving force of Internet marketing today because search engines have changed the way they rank web pages. Also, as more people are using the Internet to find products and services, they are demanding more information. Content driven articles are, for the most part, well-written, have useful and action-able information within them, and answer a specific question.

When you set out to write an article to promote a product or service, focus on one or two main ideas that relate to the product or service. It could be about the uses for the item or how it can help people. Stay on topic and don’t inject too many opinions.

Step 2: Watch Your Article Length!

The length of the article is important. In fact, gauging how long an article should be is a balancing act. On one end of the spectrum, short articles or overly long ones will be penalized or ignored by the search engines, and you have to contend with the attention span of your readers.

If the article takes too long to get to the point, then the reader is likely to stop move on. Getting your article into the hands (or in front of) readers is a challenge and you don’t want to waste those opportunities because of length. The best articles have a word count between 400 and 1,000 words.

Step 3: Creating Links And Backlinks

Every effective article for marketing purposes will have back links that lead the reader to the main page or sales page. Inserting these links is a delicate balancing act if you use article submission sites such as Squidoo.com or EzineArticles.com, for instance. These submission sites do not permit direct selling and only allow links to informative pages, not to sales pages.

In most of these article submission sites, you will have a resource box that is used for giving information about you, the author. It is here where you can give a brief overview of you and your blog. If you’ve written a quality article, your readers will want to know more about you.

Step 4: Make Sure You Offer Useful, Actionable Advice

The best articles use strong opening lines. In the first sentence of any article, a question that the reader has must be addressed. This narrows the focus of the article and lets the reader know that they have found the right content to read.

Once you have set the tone of the article, the main body is where you offer instruction, advice, opinions, or other pertinent information. If the writing moves off on a tangent or becomes cluttered, then there is an opportunity for the reader to stop reading. Common sense information may be useful only if it is designed to set the stage for something greater, or as an example.

Many writers fail with their blog posts because they use them as a long sales pitch, making promises that are never delivered. The writer must conduct enough research in order to compose a targeted and specific article rich with useful, actionable information and advice. Anything short of that and it becomes nothing more than fluff.

Step 5: Publishing On The Web

Articles that are never found by the search engines are about as useful as one sitting on your home computer. Marketing is about getting content in front of the public. Article submission sites, such as those mentioned, are one of the most powerful tools that businesses can use.

Most of these article submission sites offer free services, but you have to wait longer for approval. Paid services offer faster turnaround times as well as some other benefits, such as increased exposure to the search engines, advanced keyword strategies, and assistance creating better content. If you are serious about marketing and prefer top quality results, paying for memberships to article submission sites will offer a greater return on your investment of time and other resources.

You can also publish on blogs and if you know how to start a blog, then you are already in great shape. The main focus here is to get as much exposure as you can to the search engines. That will, in turn, give you the most exposure to potential clients.

Step 6: Using The Right Keywords

Not only does the author need to concentrate on content, but he also needs to incorporate keywords or keyword phrases appropriately so that the major search engines can rank it appropriately. Keywords are the driving force of search engines and the way they rank websites. Keyword phrases refine any search and when you have content rich articles and a keyword density between 2-3%, then your article marketing campaign will be a powerful tool for your business.

When you’re ready to break into the world of article marketing, knowing the ins and outs is the first step. The entire process takes time to master, from web hosting to blogging, writing the articles, and fine-tuning them to target your ideal consumer. The more you market with articles, the more exposure you will receive.

• How do you find advertisers?
• Should you go with individuals or ad networks?
• What’s the best way to get started?

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Traffic Matters

If you want to make money online by getting someone to advertise on your site, the first thing they’re going to want to see are your traffic numbers. If you get only 10 visitors per day, you’re probably not going to get many advertisers. They want to see that you have a considerable amount of traffic (visitors) to make it worth their while. If you have that, you can start soliciting advertisers. If not, focus on building traffic first. We like at least 10,000 page views per month, but if you want to get into ad network, you will need even more (20,000 for basic ads and at least 100,000 for traditional advertisers).

It also helps if your blog is focused on a particular niche. This makes it easier for advertisers to reach their desired audience.

In many ways it’s like a popularity game. People will respect you more, or in this case willing to advertise on your site if they see that you have a huge following. Politicians and corporations do it all day long when they seek to influence others through opinion leaders. Learn from them and be the central hub, then leverage your expertise into money.

Make It Easy For Advertisers To Contact You

Going back to answering the original question of how to find advertiser, one of the simplest things to do is make “advertise with us” a tab on your website. Advertisers will actually compose a percentage of your website’s visitors. Why not make it easy for them to contact you?

You can also publish a blog post letting your readers know that you are looking for advertisers and the spots and location available. If you have an email list (which you should), you can email your subscribers and mention you are looking for advertisers.

Go to the popular blogs in your niche (there are usually 4 to 5 major players in any industry), find out what companies advertise with them as well as which ad networks they use and contact them. Come up with a proposal of what they’re going to get and why. Basically you want to find and sell to receptive potential customers.

Also based on our experience the more you grow your audience the more likely advertisers will come to you, which is a lot easier and more awesome!

Join An Ad Network

Google AdWords is by far the biggest and most popular ad network for advertisers. On the flip side, the Google AdSense program is designed for publishers like you. It’s fairly easy to sign up. You’ll need a legitimate telephone and mailing address. Google will confirm on both.

Once approved for AdSense, you will then determine the size of your ad units which comes in different shapes. You can even add tags that will allow advertisers to target a particular ad – for example, a Leaderboard (728 x 90 pixels) in top center of your home page.

You’d most likely get paid by each click (CPC) instead of impressions (CPM) or the result of a sale (CPA). This is fine at the beginning. But eventually you want to reach the point where you will get paid simply by showing your ad to your customers. The advertisers would determine that based on the perceived desirability of your blog.

How You’re Going To Get Paid

Let’s review really quickly the three payment models in online advertising. Cost Per Click or CPC is payment by each click. The price can range from a few pennies to tens of dollars. With proper planning and research by logging on and using the AdWords Keyword tool, you could start a blog whose niche overlap with a high paying keyword. The downside is that high paying keywords often have low traffic, so again proper research to balance two is highly recommended.

CPM is the cost per 1000 ad units. In other words it’s how much the advertiser would pay you every 1000 times the ad is displayed on your website. For example anywhere between $0.50 CPM and $8 CPM. If you have a high traffic website, this is an excellent earning model for you as the publisher because it doesn’t require action from your visitor for you to earn money!

CPA also known as Cost Per Action pays a lot more for each instance than CPC & CPM, but is also harder for you to get paid because it requires your visitors to take a particular action such as buying a particular product.

There are plenty of other networks out there, but nobody beats Google AdSense for simplicity and ease of use. Plus there’s no minimum traffic requirement – many ad networks require that 100,000 page view minimum. It’s probably the best way to get started especially if you don’t have much of an audience yet.

Should You Go With An Individual Advertiser?

Ad networks are easy – individuals affiliate programs are a LOT more profitable. This is a middle person fee, and you will only get a percentage what the advertiser is willing to pay – especially if you combine advertising with an affiliate arrangement. This is something that we do a lot on AskDanAndJennifer.com.

You can have both passive advertising and active promotions so that you get the best of both worlds. It’s a win-win for both you and the advertisers. You’re building a true long term partnership that will grow and become ever more lucrative. Essentially you move from an unknown affiliate to their preferred superstar. They might even design custom commissions for you that pay much more than their standard.

In conclusion remember to focus on growing your site and providing great content. Don’t focus on monetizing from day one because you’ll be disappointed with the results. Once you’ve demonstrated authenticity, and build a sizable following, advertisers will find you! They’re PART OF your audience already – be awesome and they’ll want their brand behind you.

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Pay Per Click (PPC)

Pay Per Click (CPC) is what an advertiser pay to search engines and Internet publishers for a single click on their advertisement, which directs one visitor to the advertiser’s website.

Google’s Adsense program is the biggest player here. It’s pretty simple to get running as a publisher/blogger. You sign up for an account, use their tool to build an ad code, and then paste it onto your site. People click on those ads and Google pays you x amount per click. Hence the name “pay per click.” This is a great way to make passive income.

Basically they bring together advertisers and website owners and in return you split the profit with them. Google pays 68% of the money that they typically receive. They’re basically charging a third in commission, but two-thirds of something is a whole lot more than 100% of nothing.

The ads are contextual which means that they are selected based on your website’s content. They come in both text & graphic banners, and have various ad sizes.

Microsoft & Yahoo use to have their own Publisher programs, but have since exited that market. Yahoo recommended Chitika as replacement to its former publishers. Here’s a list of top 10 alternatives to AdSense.

Basically this type of cost per click blog advertising is great until you get big enough to attract direct advertisers – and that should be your goal!

Banner and Text Ads

Banner ads could be super lucrative and really help you make money online, but not always the easiest to get the off the ground. They range from simple logo to various ad unit sizes. It is what it says it is. Say you know Al of Al’s Health Foods and he wants to pay you ‘x’ amount of dollars a month to put his logo somewhere on your site. That my friends, is a banner ad…

It might seem like easy money, but there is a barrier of entry. As we said repeatedly, build your audience first, then the advertisers. There are also tons of ad networks out there, but most of them require that you have at least 100,000pageviews per month. Furthermore most of them pay pretty low ad rates, depending on your niche.

A text ad is similar to a banner ad but you are putting text (similar to a Google Ad) on your website. This is not the same as paid links which we highly discourage!

The difference can get blurry, but essentially if someone approaches to buy a link placement, you should be careful. Yes it’s easy money, but if search engines like Google ever catch on, then your website could be harshly penalized in lowered ranking. Many webmaster found their website traffic slowed to a trickle as the result.

Paid Product Reviews

Basically, when people are going to buy something, they go online first to see what people are saying about it. Companies know this and now often pay bloggers to review their products. Nothing wrong with it – just be sure to disclose that you are being paid to review it, or have a general disclaimer in your terms of use.

In late 2009, the FTC began to legally require bloggers and online publishers to have such disclaimer on their websites.  However, bloggers get make money online, so we have to play by the rules!

Amazon Affiliate Program

Amazon is the original granddaddy of affiliate programs. It’s where if someone goes to your web page and sees a little widget that says “Bob recommends this book on puppies” and that person clicks on that link and buys the book, you get some money.

Of course these days Amazon carries a lot more than books. You can find almost any retail item on their site. It’s a great way to earn money when you start. It’s easy because you can find items similar to your niche.

The downside of the convenience is that the payout is relatively poor with many items paying as low as 4%.  So you might want to pay attention to specific affiliate programs as you begin to grow.

Sell Stuff (Yours or Other People’s Stuff)

This is our personal favorite way to make money online! For example if you’ve got a dating blog, and you have a rabid, dedicated following, and you’ve got tons of great posts that people love to read, why not collect your posts and make them for sale in a book/e-book format?

Plenty of sites like Chuck Norris Facts or Texts from last night make a ton of money off of this. Or you can even build premium content available only to paying members. Viola, now you have recurring income!

The numbers can add up dramatically if you offer substantial value and keep your members satisfied. This can lead to other sales opportunities such as coaching sessions, workshops, and other products.

You can even hire ghostwriters to create the product. That way you just sat back. Let them do the hard work, pay a fixed amount, and then collect a potentially lucrative payoff down the road.

Or if you don’t want to mess with your own product – because there are things to manage like sales pages, additional web hosting, customer service, & creating the product, then sell other people’s stuff. (affiliate programs)

The key is to partner with some of the really successful people in your niche to sell their products on your site for a commission. Hopefully they have a turnkey system setup that result in a high probability of sales. You don’t want to be a guinea pig to help someone unproven to work out the bugs in their sales process.

Many eBook authors will give you as high as 75% – 100% commission for each sale. (They make their money with repeat sales and memberships). So take advantage and build your success!

Click here to view the embedded video.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

So where did affiliate marketing come from? Back in the pioneer days of the online commerce – also known as the mid 90’s – Amazon came up with a program where they paid people to refer clients to them.

For example, if you went to a blog and clicked on the Amazon link and bought something, the owners of said blog got paid a commission. Today, there are tons of affiliate programs out there for everything under the sun, no matter what your niche is. Companies will happily split the profit with you for referring customers to them.

Affiliate marketing is a win-win situation and a great way to make money online. They have the products and you have the audience that might be interested in what they offer. They’re basically giving you a cut of their profit that otherwise would have gone to advertisement. A lot of them have back end products as well, so you’re likely to get a high commission percentage of sales.

Choosing The Right Affiliate Program For You

So you’ve built up your blog, email list, and gained an audience. Now you need to decide which way you want to go in terms of monetization. There are many different types of affiliate programs that can help you make money online.

Google AdSense

Google AdSense is a popular option because it’s an easy program to apply for and it is simple to set up on your blog. All you need to do is apply for the AdSense program, then insert a snippet of code into your blog. Google will then display contextual ads, or ads that are related to your blog’s niche. They usually have decent click through rates. This is an amazing way to earn completely passive income!

However, the bar for getting paid is lower – it’s based on every click instead of a sale. Just don’t violate the program’s terms and start clicking on your own ads. That will get you banned from Google! You may think you won’t get caught, but Google has some very sophisticated programs and smart people with degrees in statistics checking for potential fraud.

Or perhaps you want to sign up some other affiliate network? They basically match merchants with affiliates. Instead of getting paid from like 100 different merchants, you get the money consistently and timely from just one source.

ClickBank

ClickBank connects digital product owners with website owners. We strongly recommend them over traditional affiliate networks Commission Junction, LinkShare, Google Affiliate Network and Share Sale which typically cater to traditional physical products that they’d then have to ship.

Digital products tend to result in faster transaction, thus resulting in more commissions and less potential headaches.  Physical products are often hinder by logistics that are beyond your control.  Web hosting companies and online software companies also enjoy the benefit of instant gratification on the part of the user.

Individual Affiliate Programs

Finally, you can also sign up to individual affiliate programs which often pays more than the networks, but the downside is that it might take longer to get paid. You’d have to be a lot more organized to track each merchant, and the corresponding logins and passwords.

Do your homework and pick the partner that’s right for you and who will help you make money online and meet your goals. Don’t just signup every affiliate program in sight. The product owners should be hooking your followers up with products or services they are actually interested in.

To avoid seeming “spammy,” make sure the products are related to your niche. Stay on topic. It has to fit in with your branding – or you’ll lose customers. You don’t want to have ads for sports cars on your dog food blog!

Promote, Promote, Promote

The more people you send to your partner products, the more you can make money online. It’s simply the law of probabilities. Use links, banners, directory listings and written article product reviews to promote your affiliate partnership.

If you don’t feel comfortable promoting your partners then you’ve picked the wrong partners. We never promote a product or service that we cannot truly recommend it to our friends and families! Basically, only promote products that you believe in. Otherwise, you’re going to feel bad and not really able to sell them well. Who needs the guilt when there are so many options out there?

Monitor Your Blog

When you start your own blog, you need to optimize it and constantly improve your numbers. We watch the whole sales funnel very closely from the impressions to clicks, and finally conversions. Make sure you’re getting good conversions from clicks to sales – you don’t want to promote a product that doesn’t convert. If your affiliate partner isn’t working out for you, find a new one! That’s why we like to have a few partners in each sub-niche of our site, then work closely with them to improve their sales funnels, because the more money they make, the more you will make. But if any of them doesn’t work out, it’s no big deal.

Your affiliate partner should provide you with accurate metrics. That’s the other thing we love about ClickBank which has all the detailed stats.

When you find something that works, try to make it work better. As an affiliate you can ask the merchant for higher commission percentages, money on back end sales, custom promotions, even white labeling their product. That’s where you re-brand it and sell it as your own.

In the age of uncertain economy and massive corporate layoffs, many people are looking for alternatives to support themselves and their families. Making money with affiliate marketing might just be that flexible option to help you make a few extra dollar, build a passive income, and perhaps even one day become financially independent! So take those steps.

Learn how to start a blog, then build an audience of dedicated readers, and join some affiliate programs. Remember to be creative and never be satisfied!

Click here to view the embedded video.

As much as we wish there’s a machine that will make money online for you automatically, and you could just order it for $19.95 from a late night infomercial, the truth is that it is much harder to make money online than it initially appears. It involves a lot of work and dedication, but it is well worth it. Once you’ve learned how to start your own online show, it’s time to think about how to use those movies to make money online.

Here are four EASY ways to monetize your videos:

Create Unique Videos With Great SEO Titles

Good content and outstanding keywords are the cornerstone of a successful post. Ideas can come from the strangest places. If you have a camera and you have a cat that likes to flush the toilet, you might have a YouTube hit on your hands! For the rest of us without talented felines, the key is to put out good quality content on a regular basis, and build a following in your niche by becoming an expert.

Don’t forget that search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing are the ones that usually find your articles and videos first. So be sure to keep Search Engine Optimization, or SEO in mind when creating the content. The title should tell what the clip is about and make people really want to see it.

There’s a fine balance between SEO and copywriting. Our opinion is that you might have the most awesome headline in the world, but if the search engine doesn’t like it, then people will have a hard time finding it. So take the extra effort and research your keywords to see how much traffic there are for different variations, and then pick the best ones that you want be ranked on the first page of a search engine.

Going back to our cat example, don’t just write “My Latest Movie” as your title – nobody is going to watch that! Instead, using an attention grabbing headline such as “Incredible Cat Flushes Toilet Video!” will help you snag a lot more traffic. Think about it – which title would YOU want to click on?

Promote Great Products Within Your Niche

Some people think that promoting products in videos to try to make money online is “selling out.” However, if you’re promoting great products that you’ve tried yourself, like and would recommend to your OWN friends and family, why not recommend it to your video viewers?

For example, this is our favorite web hosting company (read our review of them here). We promote them both in the video clip and in this article. We do this because we love the product and it’s one that we actually DO recommend to our family and friends. We are genuinely recommending a GREAT product with a lot of value. Why not promote something that you actually believe in if it’s related to your niche?

You should only share things that you like, otherwise it’s not really authentic, and people will smell the BS a mile away. Basically think of yourself as a celebrity, expert, or guru lending their reputation to endorse only awesome products, and be sure to provide good solid take-aways that are valuable to your readers!

Join The YouTube Partner Program

Once you have uploaded videos to YouTube, be sure to apply for the YouTube Partner Program. Once you’re a member, YouTube will then display ads along with your video, and pay a revenue share percentage to you! It might not be a lot, but will slowly add up. And who knows you might get lucky and have an extremely popular viral clip now and then.

Here is a tip from our “top secret” source within Google. You’re going to be blown away by the insight! YouTube essentially wants “quality content released at a regular intervals.” Is that a shocker, or what!?

So, if you already have a following and a portfolio of movies that are generating views for YouTube on a regular basis, then you’re in after you fill out an application. It’s another great way to make money online passively!

Make Sponsored Videos

Now we talked about allowing YouTube to place ads in videos, but what about doing so yourself? This is also known as product ad placement in sponsored videos, or live reads. Live Reads have a long tradition that stretches back to early days of radio. If your online video show gets popular enough, you can get money from companies to feature their products in your videos, same as any movie or TV show.

For example, when the judges on “American Idol” start drinking vitamin water with the Coke brand, it didn’t just happen by accident! The Coca-Cola company paid a boat load of money for that to happen! The same applies to ragged contestants on the show “Survivor” building sometimes dubious looking shelters with handy tools and supplies from Home Depot. In the age of Online Video, Netflix, and TiVo that seriously cuts back traditional commercials, advertising is now a lot more clever and part of the content. It’s the future, and we’re living in it!

It can be quite lucrative, provided you have content that is advertiser friendly and has an audience. People often ask “I’ve just learned how to start a blog, and now how do I find an advertiser?” Well, you don’t. What really happens is that you build your audience to the right size, and then advertisers will actually come to find you! That kind of blows the mind, doesn’t it?

So be sure to have a section on your blog for advertisers to eventually contact you! It won’t happen right away, but the bigger you get, the more advertisers will approach you. Don’t even waste your time approaching them because most likely, they’d just brush you off, or simply ignore you. Once your videos have enough followers, advertisers will contact you to offer their products for you to recommend in your videos. Yes, it can be that easy to make money online!

Not sure where to begin? Start here! How To Start a Blog and Make Money Online – in 10 Easy Steps

When you rent a home or apartment, you are paying someone else’s mortgage, but more importantly, you have no ownership over your own space.

If you plant a tree in the backyard, you don’t have ownership over it. Maybe you decide to put tile down in the bathroom, but you can’t take it with you one day when you leave. Renting means that you are living somewhere at the approval of another person.

Owning, on the other hand, means that you can do what you want because you own the space. You can paint, put down hardwood floors and fence the backyard. Sure, you might have some neighborhood covenants that govern certain things, but for the most part, you are the captain of your own ship.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Using Free Web Hosts

With web hosting, many people make critical areas when it comes to choosing how to host their blogs. There are free blog services like Blogger and WordPress.com that you can use (don’t confuse the WordPress.com free web host with the very popular WordPress blogging software – which we use AND highly recommend). In fact, many people start out using these free services because they want to “test the waters”. However, there is a big danger is using free services if you want to build a long term business as a blogger.

Just as with renting, you can be “kicked out” of your free blog in a heartbeat. Let’s say you spend 6 months building up a blog with tons of fantastic content and a following of faithful readers. Then, one day out of the blue, you realize your blog has been wiped clean.

As unbelievable as it may sound, it does happen and is not a good surprise. When you build rankings to a free blog, you are paying someone else’s mortgage payment in a way. You are building rankings for something you do not own which can be wiped out in any time for no valid reason at all.

Also some free services like WordPress.com prohibit the use of affiliate links on your free blog, meaning you can’t make money with your blog. Which really makes “free” into a pretty bad deal?

When you use a free blog service, you have to follow someone else’s rules. If you break those rules, or they even think that you did, they can click a button and kill your business in a heartbeat. It is like building a house on sand. Who needs or wants the stress of wondering if your business will still be there tomorrow?

Paid Web Hosts

So what is the answer? Get your own web hosting! You can (and should) still use WordPress as your blogging software. Web hosting is very inexpensive (less than $7 per month for basic services) and will allow you to be the ruler over your own virtual “real estate.”

As you learn how to start a blog, you will be able to write what you want and build your business without constantly worrying about the possibility that someone will remove your content tomorrow.

When considering a hosting company, it helps to ask other successful bloggers and Internet marketers who they recommend. Many will have horror stories of certain hosting companies, which will help you avoid landmines in your search for a hosting company.

You also want to make sure that the host you choose has CPANEL (control panel) so that you can easily access certain features that you will need as you learn more about blogging and working online. You may also want to ask if the host has support for WordPress, our recommended blogging software. Some web hosts (like our recommended web host below) provide a simple way to install WordPress in just a few clicks.

Another factor to consider is how much space you really need for your new blog. You don’t want to overbuy and overpay each month for space you don’t yet need.

You can always upgrade your plan later as your blog grows in traffic. When starting out in blogging, it’s important to only spend money on the necessities instead of wasting a lot on things that are not needed yet.

Our Web Host Recommendation

There are many web hosting companies out there, but one of the most popular and most reputable is called HostGator (read our review here). They are well known within the industry for their competitive pricing and great customer service.

Also they’re the ones we started with and we recommend you start with them as well.

They have chat representatives available all the time in case you have questions or concerns which makes it a valuable resource for new bloggers all the way up to advanced bloggers. They offer several plans including dedicated servers, but you won’t need that until you have either a lot of sites or a ton of traffic.

HostGator offers unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth and a very easy control panel where you can set up email addresses among other things. They have a 99.9% uptime guarantee which is highly important because that means your website will very rarely “go down”.

Some hosting companies cannot guarantee uptime, and that usually means they experience a lot of technical glitches. The last thing you want to worry about is having your site go down a lot and missing out on traffic and income potential.

As one of the world’s top 10 largest web hosting companies, HostGator has more than 4 million hosted domains. They are certainly not the only hosting companies, but you will rarely hear any complaints about their services.

Another great thing about HostGator is that WordPress can be installed in just a few clicks using a feature called Fantastico. They also have simple tutorials available showing exactly how to install WordPress, and once you do it then you will be a pro at it – and you’ll get your blog started right away.

Choosing your web hosting is important because you want to be sure that your blog is protected and stable. After all, this will be your new business model so you need to take the decision seriously.

Look at all of the factors when you are comparing hosting companies so that you don’t have to move your site later as that can mean a real hassle and potential loss of data if not done correctly. You can also look for special coupons and deals on hosting to get in at a great price.

Check out the detailed review on the ONLY web host we recommend if you’re just getting started – the one we recommend to our own friends and family.  Our recommended web host even comes with 1-click installation of WordPress, our favorite easy to use blog publishing platform: the one we use for all our sites.

This is not to say that you can’t make money in a popular, broad niche, but it does take more time and work to grow that kind of blog to the level where it makes good money.

Click here to view the embedded video.

How to Pick a Niche – Passion vs. Moneymakers

So where do you start when you want to pick the right niche and learn how to start a blog? There are two schools of thought on picking a niche. Some people say that you should just choose something you are passionate about because you will want to wake up every morning and write quality content.

While that is a great thought, if your biggest hobby is underwater basket weaving, you are unlikely to make a great income blogging about it.

One often overlooked component in blogging is that you need to be able to find related products to promote to your customer base in order to make money. Of course, you could create a blog with simple AdSense or other banner ads, but it might take longer to see a profit over time.

On the other hand, some people say you should only pick topics that are known moneymakers whether you are interested in them or not. While that might work for some people, others need to have at least a passing interest in their topic in order to be successful.

In short, when you learn how to start a blog, you want to be certain that thousands (if not millions) of other people share your enthusiasm and interest in the topic and will pay money for products and/or services that you have to offer in the niche from time to time. No matter what, the key to the whole niche selection process is choosing the right keywords and getting your research together before building a blog site.

Keyword Tools

There are many free online keyword research tools to find keywords. One popular tool is the free Google Keyword tool.  After you have entered the keywords, you can check the amount of advertisers in that niche by gauging the bar in the “Competition” column.  You can even assess how lucrative the keywords are by click on the “Columns” button, and then enable the “Suggested Bid” checkbox.

This site is handy for many different tasks including your search for a blog topic. Let’s say you know that dating is a popular niche, so you want to do something in that niche. The problem is that going after such a broad niche can be the kiss of death for most new bloggers. So it’s important to find a sub-niche on dating in this case.

One way of doing that is putting in a “seed keyword”. You could start with “finding a date” and whittle the keyword options down further and further. Perhaps, in the end, you find that you would be interested in blogging about “finding a date for young professionals in their 20s & 30s.” There are many sub-topics to choose once you have a general idea of your topic.

The idea behind blogging is to develop a loyal following. To that end, it is important that you target your niche with laser-like focus so that you are one of the only people providing such specific content to a group of people. Additionally, you want to be sure that enough people are interested in your niche so that you get enough traffic.

If only 10 people per month are searching for your keyword, you need to either move on to another topic or see if there are other related keywords to create a bigger blog.

You can use tools other than the Google Keyword tool also. For instance, two other free tools are the SEObook keyword tool and Google Insights for Search. There are also other paid tools that are a lot fancier. We recommend you get a proven keyword research tool to find your keywords quickly and accurately.

The Google Insights tool gives additional information that can be very important during the niche research phase. It shows you how popular search terms are and what kind of history they have. For example, Christmas phrases would be highly searched from October through December, but most blogs would be quiet throughout the rest of the year. That can have a direct impact on your income.

Check the trends for your keywords and make sure that enough interest is there throughout the year to give you a reason to put your time and effort into the topic. This tool can also help you maximize your chances of making bursts of income at different times of the year as well.

So how do you know the proper way to research a keyword? The answer is that there is no “right” way. Everyone has their own opinion as to the number of searches that a keyword tern should have to make it worthwhile.

You can find yourself spending so much time researching that you never get around to creating quality content for your blog. Don’t over-analyze things. Often, you will find yourself with a list of keywords that, when added up, will give you plenty of potential search volume for the month.

The key is finding a way to get to the #1 slot on Google so that you can get the bulk of the daily searches for your keywords.

Once you have picked your keyword, you can also search what affiliate programs are available and check their commission.  Choosing a niche for your blog does not need to be a long, drawn out process. Use a mixture of your interests and knowledge to make your selection.

Here’s a quick tip: if you do a search on Google for a topic and people are paying money to run AdWords ads on the right side, they are making money. If you see TV commercials or magazine ads about your topic, they are making money. It’s a good bet that you will make money too!  So get started today and pick that lucrative niche that you will dominate!

Be sure to check our How to Start a Blog page to give you an overview of the process.  In our next step, we’ll be talking about our recommended web host, which comes with 1-click installation of WordPress, our favorite easy to use blog publishing platform: the one we use for all our sites.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Wait, why email? Isn’t social media the cool new thing these days?

Well, that’s true. Social media is all the rage these days, and for good reason. It’s probably the most effective form of marketing on the planet today, maybe the most effective form of all time. It does wonders for your traffic.

But consider this: 90% of the people who get to your website, however they find you (via word of mouth, social media, search engines like Bing! or Google, for example), don’t come back. They visit once and leave forever. That’s kind of a problem if you want to start a website that generates ad revenue and ultimately generates you an income. You want them to come back and come back regularly.

How do you get those visitors to come back to your site?

It’s quite simple: you get yourself an email list set up – and get your visitors to sign up to it. The trick is to get people to give you their email address willingly, so that you can contact them regularly and entice them to come back check out all the cool stuff you’ve been writing about. All that is known as email marketing.

How do you get people to give you their email address?

So now you know you need an email list. But how do you get someone to give you their email address? Simple: you don’t. No one is just going to hand you that information.

Way too many people already have their email address and they are already overwhelmed by the sheer amount of legitimate emails they receive on a daily basis (and we’re not even mentioning the spam emails they get). Just think about your own inbox… you know what we’re talking about here. So they aren’t exactly in a big hurry to hand their email addresses over to someone who is going to pile even more emails into their inbox.

No one gives that info away all willy nilly, but they WILL give it to you, if you know how to ask. How do you ask? By giving them something. Saying things like “sign up for our email list in order to get this FREE (insert e-book, free credit report, free Aardvark calendar or anything else you think they just can’t live with out)” works a lot better than saying “please sign up for our newsletter or email list (which probably contains absolutely NOTHING that they’d want to read anyway).

The term some marketers use here is an ethical bribe… you bribe people to give you a chance to contact them over email by offering them a great incentive they ACTUALLY WANT in order to get on your list.

Tip: No one cares about your “newsletter”.

This leads us to a very important point. We want you to say the following out loud with us: Nobody gives a damn about your newsletter. It’s harsh, I know, but it’s true.

No one wants to hear about all the fancy new office layout or the new site redesign or whatever. People are busy and selfish. They don’t care about YOU, they care about THEM. They have problems and they want to know how to solve them. Focus on what they need. More importantly focus on how YOU are the one to solve their problems for them.

Send your subscribers great content to establish yourself as an expert.

Now that you’ve got them subscribed to your list, it’s all up to you… and it comes down to 2 main things: quality and consistency.

Quality: Don’t email people junk, send them useful stuff. It’s that simple.

If you expect someone to read what you have to say regularly and not immediately unsubscribe, then send them somehthing that’ll actually have some value to them. Maybe the best tips of the week for whatever topic of newsletter they signed up for, be it puppy care tips or whatever. Do it right, it’ll be worth it in the end. This is not to say you can’t send them offers for quality services they can use, that’s fine. But for every offer you send, plan to send 3 to 5 useful pieces of information that makes them feel your email is worth opening.

Consistency: Send out your newsletter regularly so your readers know when to expect them.

Sending your newsletter messages out consistently is crucial.

People (and search engines) like consistency, a reliable, predictable schedule that shows them “you’re serious” and in this for the long haul, not some guy out to make a quick buck.

Over time your email list will grow, and so will your customer base.

It will take time, but it is a moral imperative that you become a trusted expert in their minds. Why? Because when they want more information on a particular topic, or more importantly, if they want to buy something on the topic who do you think they will be turning to? Some random guy who sends out an email once a month. Are they going to ask themselves “What would Yoda do?” No, no they won’t. They will turn to their trusted expert on the subject whip out their wallet and hand that trusted expert some hard earned cash. Now do you see why you want to be their own personal Yoda (aka trusted expert) on the subject? That’s what we thought. Now you have seen the light, young grasshopper. Now go out and prosper!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Patience, grasshopper. You need to learn to walk before you and run, and in this case, we are going to teach you what NOT to do first.  Here’s the wrong way of doing things.

The WRONG way

Have a company Twitter account without the name of the person(s) doing the tweeting

Using this nameless corporate account to post corporate updates or thinly veiled corporate updates masquerading as tweets from a real person. No one cares. This makes you come off as some out of touch “mega” corporation and that is just not going to get you anywhere.

Post links to your press releases

No one wants to read your press releases and they really aren’t too interested in connecting with a business either. They want to make a personal connection, and they want to know they’re dealing with the real deal.

Don’t follow others

Twitter is interactive. That’s the whole appeal of it. If you don’t follow others, they won’t follow you. You just can’t start an account and wait patiently and expect to become the next Twitter sensation. It just doesn’t work that way. Waiting for things to happen on Twitter is about as effective as waiting for the phone to ring when you’re looking for love (or anything else, for that matter).

Don’t contribute to the discussion

Twitter is a medium where people can interact, share ideas, followers and more, but who wants to do that? Why get involved and do things to grow your business when you can just sit there? You’re just setting up a Twitter account and maybe you’ve actually decided to follow people who follow you or maybe even follow people who’ve never heard of you, but get involved beyond that? That’s just crazy talk.

Inconsistency

Sure, you could be a trusted source of tweets, dispersing them at regular intervals, but why? You’d rather tweet randomly and inconsistently. Why regularly post your tweets say every four hours when you can post ever ten minutes for two days and then disappear for a month! That’ll get them interested, right?

Well… not so much actually. To be fair, this is a playbook that people actually follow, intentionally. They really believe that doing these things will work. Problem is, they don’t. It’s a one way ticket to irrelevance.  If you want to guarantee that no one will know or care about you on Twitter, by all means go ahead and use them.

The RIGHT way

So if that’s what you shouldn’t be doing, what’s the right way? Well, there is no wrong or right, there is only what you should be doing to get the results that you want. That’s what we mean, by “right.” That being said, here we go:

Being a real, authentic person

Your Twitter account should really reflect who you are. It should have your name on it, and ideally a picture of you or your brand to let people know you’re the real deal. This is the biggest thing ever to remember about Twitter. You must be real.

You can be as weird or as out there as you want, just as long as that represents who you really are. Otherwise, you’ve got yourself a one way ticket to becoming the “Vanilla Ice” of Twitter.

Making “Frienemies”

You ever hear the expression “the friend of my enemy is my friend?” That’s a bit of an extreme example, but the point is that on Twitter, you need to seek out the people who are in your niche and engage them. Find the people who are out there, doing whatever it is you do and become friends with them. Retweet their posts if you find them useful (we’ll get to that in a second). Ask them questions, start a conversation.

This will raise your profile and their followers will become aware of you, and may follow you back as well. That’s all part of becoming relevant in your niche.

Be present and consistent

If you want to lose weight or change your body, you don’t need a radical diet or exercise plan. You just need to find the right program for your goals and be consistent about it. Same goes for Twitter. Some people only post once a day. Some people post once an hour. Both are valid. Figure out what you want your schedule to be and then set it and stick to it.  This will help you become an ever present and consistent force on Twitter

Use a scheduling tool

So you’ve decided you want to post every four hours, 24/7. Are you really going to have to sit there at the keyboard at 4 am? Not if you use a scheduling tool. There are various services that offer this feature, but we’re big fans of Sendible because it just works and they’re very responsive.

Also Sendible works with most any social service out there, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc. With Sendible, we schedule out what to post and when, and then it automatically posts at 4 am (or whenever), without interrupting our beauty sleep. Just remember, Twitter and Facebook are “social media” so schedule your Tweets with caution.

Do a fun giveaway

It’s a fact. People love free stuff. Could be anything from the latest product your company is promoting to a signed picture of David Hasselhoff that you found at your neighbor’s garage sale. Just make sure it is fun and tailored to your audience, and ideally is tied into them working to promote your product or get you new followers.

Encourage people to interact

This is what social media is all about. Getting people talking. Post an article and ask your followers what their opinion is on it. Post a poll topic, get people to vote on it. Post a picture of your baby and ask people to rate it. Anything! Just get them talking and get them talking in a way that helps you achieve your goal(s) that made you join social networking in the first place.

All that comes first, before you can promote or sell anything. Once you’ve built a loyal, consistent following, in time you’re going to become the go-to source for information in your niche. And that’s when you can start running promotions and campaigns that lead to sales (read: making money), more business, etc. Just don’t stop doing what got you TO that place in the first place – participating!

Click here to view the embedded video.

You need to have a topic for your blog and you need to make sure it’s something you’re deeply, truly passionate about.

“Without passion you don’t have energy, without energy you have nothing.”
– Donald Trump, Inspirational Quotes from Today Is That Day

This is absolutely critical. There is nothing else more important than this. You may not be ready to hear this or think that it could happen, but the fact is sooner or later you’re probably going to be making a living at this. This will be come your job. This is something that is going to consume a great deal of your time. You’ll be talking about it constantly. It might as well be something that you love. Something that you eat, sleep and breathe. Because then, it’s fun. If not, well, what’s the point?

Another really simple yet profound thing to consider is this: is this just a hobby, or do you plan on making money off of it?

Would you like it to become a source of income at some point? If you’re just looking to vent about something or indulge in your inner nerd, or talk about your favorite pro wrestler than you probably don’t need to worry too much about your niche. Because it just won’t matter. If your blog is your hobby then all you have to do is indulge your passion to your heart’s content and not say anything too stupid that will get you fired from you “real” job (and yes, that has happened to people before).

But if your blog is something you’d like to make money off of, you need to consider the market place. Some niches monetize better than others. Some just don’t offer than much money. Some are already well covered (that is, there are already a great number of people blogging g on that topic), while some are completely ignored or relatively underserved. If it’s a crowded space, then you really might want to rethink it. It’s always better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond.

Once you’ve decided that, it’s time to jump right in!

Step one is doing your homework: research the blogs in your niche.

Learn the lay of the land. Find out who the players are in your space. Do all the research that you can. Google and other search engines are great for learning everything from how old the blogs are to who founded them, what kind of money are the generating, etc.

Next, make a list of the most popular blogs in your niche and study them closely.

At the end of the day, it’s all been done. There is not any reason to try to reinvent the wheel here. Just look at what other people are doing and copy what works, while placing your own personal spin on it.

Get to know the most successful authors in your space.

Read their blog, post comments, be part of the discussion. The more interactive you can become on their site(s) the better. Sooner or later, you will become known and that will lead people to becoming curious about you and what you have to say and ultimately lead people back to your blog. Increased presence means increased traffic which means increased revenue. For you.

Now go out there and do it! Get in the game people! You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

Now you may be asking yourself “Should I even bother?”

“The niche I want to blog about is already so crowded and they say not to write in a crowded niche!” True, but then again, we started Ask Dan & Jennifer and that’s a love and sex site and that niche is about as crowded as it gets! And we do, in fact make a living off of it. So, it can be done. There are no absolute rules. These are only guidelines, so definitely, by all means go with your gut and your passion, but make it easy on yourself, too!

Don’t waste your time trying out each WordPress plugin to find out which one you want. Here are the top 10 WordPress plugins that you want your blog to have, hands down.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

W3 Total Cache

For top-notch website performance, you need the W3 Total Cache WordPress plugin. Both your blog visitors and search engines care about how fast your website is. If your pages take forever to load, you’ll lose readers and search engine traffic. In fact Google just announced this week that they are not officially taking site response time into consideration for rankings. Of course they are: speed means quality of experience for their users.

W3 Total Cache can reduce your page load time by as much as 50% or even more – something you definitely want to do. AND it will help you keep your site running and available instead of crashing if you get a major rush of traffic all at once, such as getting a popular story on Digg or a “StumbleUpon attack”.  Other major caching plugins like WP Cache and WP Super Cache are OK, but in our opinion they are not as versatile or as powerful as W3 Total Cache (and we’ve used/tested them all).

Google XML Sitemaps

You want search engines to know when you post new content so you get more traffic. Google XML Sitemaps automatically generates an updated sitemap and submits it to top search engines without you lifting a finger. Don’t rely on search engines to crawl your site and find new posts – use this plugin to automatically tell them the instant you post – before someone else copies your post and pretends they wrote it – which happens. And “original content” (i.e. where Google “finds” a post first) gets much more credit than duplicate content (i.e. other places Google finds that post).

GravityForms or cForms

Your readers need an easy way to contact you, whether it’s to ask you a question or to advertise on your site. Contact form plugins like GravityForms or cForms allow you to easily create a great-looking contact form for your website. Instead of putting your email address out there for everyone (including spam bots) to email you thousands of times, use GravityForms or cForms to allow your readers users to contact you easily without cluttering your inbox with lots of spam.

Disqus Comments

Another interactive tool for your blog readers is the all-important comment box. Disqus Comments is an excellent WordPress plugin that allows visitors to comment on your articles with a great looking social interface and great spam control. Use an advanced plugin like Disqus Comments instead of WordPress’s integrated comment tool. It looks much, much better and gives you more control over comments. It’s also a hosted comment plugin that automatically syncs the comments with your WordPress database, and provides great social interaction with your readers.

Two other very popular comment oriented WordPress plugins are JS-Kit Echo and IntenseDebate. We’ve tried them both and feel Disqus is currently the better choice. The backend comment management of JS-Kit Echo leaves a lot to be desired, and we feel the Disqus comment layout just looks better than the IntenseDebate option. Frankly, this is a matter of preference, they’re all good options!

Akismet

This plugin automatically comes with WordPress and does a great job catching comment and trackback spam. If you’re using a hosted comment service like Disqus, Akismet won’t apply to you. Actually you can still use the Akismet service through Disqus, just won’t need to enable the plugin.

FeedBurner Feedsmith

Redirect your RSS feed to FeedBurner and have your RSS subscribers poll Feedburner instead of your site. This WordPress plugin makes your feed much more usable, since it provides far more optimized RSS feed than WordPress alone does. It will also offload the feed reader traffic to Google (who now owns FeedBurner) so it’s much,  much faster than your web server, improving your blog’s performance even more. This will sound a little technical to a new blogger, but do it anyway, it’ll work better that way.

YARPP

This WordPress plugin is an excellent tool to use if you want readers who are interested in your topics to stay on your website longer. YARPP automatically displays the most closely related articles from your blog to your readers at the end of the article, allowing them to easily browse through the content they’re interested in on your site instead of allowing to look for what they want elsewhere.

After The Deadline

This easy to use spell and grammar checker for WordPress is available for free and is essential to use even if you feel like you’re spelling and grammar error-free. It doesn’t cost anything and will ensure each post is error free and looks as good as it is.

Sexy Bookmarks

A bookmarking tool is essential for your blog and Sexy Bookmarks is an excellent tool to use with great eye candy. It adds a nice visual appeal to your blog, while encouraging readers to share the article they’re reading with their friends on Twitter, Facebook and more. This means more linkbacks to your blog and more readers for you!

Viper’s Video Quicktags

To embed your YouTube video on your blog, you’ll need Viper’s Video Quicktags. Newer versions of WordPress (2.9 and above) allow you to embed videos without special plugins, but Viper’s Video Quicktags allows you much better control over how the videos look in your posts. You can set the format for all of your videos in one place instead of coding it in each post – and having to edit ALL your posts to make a change.

After building very successful WordPress blog and online magazine AskDanAndJennifer.com over the last four years, these WordPress plugins are our personal favorites – and for the most part, the only ones we actually use.

So if you’re staring a blog yourself and decide to install WordPress for it (which in our opinion is the only way to go!) these WordPress plugins are a great place to start.

Do you have favorite “must have” WordPress plugins that aren’t in this list? Let us know! Leave a comment.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Camcorder

One of the obvious things you need to start a successful video show is a camcorder, or possibly more than one if you have them. You don’t have to have an expensive camcorder – you can even use your webcam if you don’t have a more traditional camcorder.

The best thing you can get is a simple HD camcorder which has the following: 1.) a microphone-in jack and 2.) ability to record to an SD card (this makes it very easy to take your recordings to a PC/Mac for video editing) and 3.) a remote control (way better than pushing a button and running to your seat). The Canon Vixia line has worked well for us.

Regardless of whatever camcorder you have, make sure you have a stable place to set the camera up for filming. If you’re using a traditional camcorder, you’ll definitely need a tripod. Don’t have someone hold your camera for you – they’ll never be able to keep it steady enough to keep your viewers from getting motion sickness.

When your video budget justifies it, have someone who knows what they’re doing come in and do the filming part for you. The quality difference will be significant.

Good Lighting

Your living room overhead or a lamp just won’t work if you want good, even lighting for your online video show. Lamps and overheads create shadows, which look unprofessional in a video. Visit a camera store or browse online for some discount lighting fixtures or lighting kits. You don’t need super expensive lightboxes or anything like that. A simple bulb with a broad umbrella will do just fine.

We use and highly recommend this Cowboy Studio video lighting kit. It’s a good price and good quality, and best of all, it is SO MUCH COOLER than our old lighting kit. This one barely puts off any heat.

Lapel Microphone

Strong, even sound is as important as good lighting. For a professional looking and sounding online video show, you want to minimize echos and static. Some computers and laptops have built-in microphones that may work, but your best bet is a lapel microphone, especially if you’re shooting your video on a set in front of a camera instead of with a webcam. Lapel microphones are very inexpensive, but they’re worth their weight in gold.

For example, for a long time we used 2 of  these $20 Audio-Techica lapel mics with 20 foot cords and a $5 cable splitter from Radio Shack to combone their signal into the camcorder microphone-in jack. Until you go wireless, these are probably still your best bet.

Video Editing Platform

Good video editing software is essential for a professional looking video show. There will be lots of things you want to edit out, without spending hours re-recording a video to be perfect because you don’t have editing software. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to have a Mac to have a great video editing platform. Adobe has some great options for Windows video editing, including Adobe Premiere Elements which is available for less than $100. However, their best program so far is Adobe Premiere Pro, which comes in at just over $700 – if that fits your budget.

Just like with filming above, when your video budget justifies it, have someone who knows what they’re doing do the video editing for you. The quality difference will be significant, again. What’s great is today you can share files with your video editor using tools like Dropbox, so no more running hard drives with HD video all over town.

Use Video Sharing Sites

Video sharing websites, like YouTube, are free and your most valuable tool for getting people to see your video show and start making money online. Create accounts with several of the most popular video sharing websites and start uploading your video show online regularly so people can start watching what you’ve created. Tubemogul is an excellent option if you want to upload one video to multiple video sharing websites without the hassle of uploading large files over and over to different sites. Tubemogul allows you to upload the video once and it will distribute your video to various video sharing websites for you.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Staying Relevant In Your Niche

Using social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook is one of the easiest ways you can stay connected to your blog readers and relevant in your niche. Regular Tweets and Facebook posts keep people reading and keep people “in the know” about your favorite topics. Also, one of the best forms of advertisement is through word of mouth. Fans of your Facebook page will inadvertently direct their friends to your page via their Wall and so on and so on. Your Twitter followers might Tweet about a topic you’ve already Tweeted about and tell their friends about it and so on. Using social media outlets is a must if you really want to be a successful blogger and build your own brand.

The Benefits Of Scheduling Your Tweets

The benefits of scheduling your Tweets is that you don’t always have to be at your computer when you want something Tweeted. While there are applications that can allow you to Tweet from your cell phone, sometimes you just want to take some time off without completely withdrawing yourself from staying on top of things and staying relevant. That’s where scheduling your Tweets (and your blog posts) comes in handy.

Tweeting Responsibly

There is definitely a fine line between using Twitter and Facebook scheduling tools and abusing them. While you can schedule many of your Tweets, it quickly becomes obvious that all you’re doing is scheduling your Tweets and you’re not really relevant in your niche anyways. Your Twitter followers and Facebook fans will ask you questions, and it’s important that you answer them. Although you do schedule some of your Tweets, you should add to it by answering questions and having real conversations with people. This is the best way to build your brand and let people know that you’re available and interested in what your blog is about. Social media outlets give you the opportunity to actually be in the action instead of simply being behind the scenes. Use your Twitter and your Facebook pages to talk about your favorite topics, ask your fans and followers questions of your own and get them involved and interested in your blog topics. Not only will this generate tons of traffic for your blog, it will also generate real interest, and that’s something that can’t be bought. Be responsible with your Twitter and Facebook. Take the time to talk to your fans and followers, and schedule your Tweets and posts when you have to.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Content Is Key

You may have the best SEO keywords on your website or blog, but without quality content, the search engines are going to start overlooking you. You may get an influx of site traffic for awhile, but it will quickly cease as the search engines realize that people aren’t staying on your website very long. If you’re not offering people anything of value on your website, you won’t be getting traffic for long, if you ever got it at all. The key to a successful blog or website is to produce quality content that people want to read on a regular basis. Search engines will pick up on regular publishing and start taking a better look at your website or blog. If there’s good stuff on there that people are interested in and searching for, the search engines will start sending them to you. It’s as simple as that.

Search Engine De-Crappers

Search engines, especially Google, spend millions of dollars every year on technology that allows them to filter through websites that publish what is known as Internet “crap.” Search engines don’t want to send traffic to websites that don’t offer people anything of value. You can only fool search engines with SEO tricks and keywords for so long, if at all these days. Search engines are continuously working on ways to weed out the bad and useless content, regardless of how many fancy keywords and SEO there is. If you don’t produce quality content on a regular basis, search engines are going to figure it out and fast. Without quality content, you’re not going to get the traffic you need for a successful blog or website.

Regular Publishing

To take this #1 tip on blog and website success a little further, you must continue publishing good content that people want to read on a regular basis. You may have a great article up on your site or blog, but if you’ve only published one or two articles, the search engines aren’t going to know to look in your direction. Search engines want to send people to websites and blogs that regularly publish good content, not a website or blog that published one or two good articles. Search engines such as Google love websites that stay relevant and stay in the game by continuously posting content.