Posts tagged money making
How to Become An Internet Marketing Smart Ass In 3 Simple Lessons
Jan 13th
[CASE STUDY] $2000 a month from the Warrior Forum with WSO's
How to Become An Internet Marketing Smart Ass In 3 Simple Lessons
Keith Everett
Internet Marketing is NOT rocket science, you just need to break it down into a series of simple components. new people to IM tend to over complicate it so much, they just plain old give up before they get a chance to ever really get going:
Simplified:
1) You produce content, either your own, or you use PLR – Private Label Rights
2) You monetize the content – Google Adsense, Clickbank Affiliate Products etc, or you turn it into a product and SELL it.
3) You drive traffic to where the content is at: SIMPLE, why make it hard?
Now here are 3 steps to make you an IM Smart ASS!
Step 1) EXPAND the content you produce into several items of content. i.e one simple Blog post on my Blog can become
a) An article to be distributed through multiple article sharing sites
b) A video that I share through many video sharing sites
c) A post on your facebook fan page leading back to your blog
d) An audio recorded through Audio Boo, distributed to my facebook wall & distributed later to my blog
e) A post on my squidoo lens
f) A post on my hub page
g) A post distributed to up to 42 social network sites through Only Wire
h) A post distributed to up to 80 sharing content sharing sites thorugh Pixelpipe
Step 2) Create FREE Reports, use some as incentives to get people to opt into your list and use others to simply give away with your affiliate
links embedded. Create the free reports from the content you have already written. Always include a link to your website/squeezepage.
Step 3) Develop content in a related niche. My main Niche is IM, however I do also write in the relationship niche.
My head sometimes becomes a content free zone and sometimes, I can’t always think of new content. This is where I always have a back up niche to start writing about. Once I have spent time producing content for my back up niche, my mind tends to allow me to start thinking clearly in my original niche again, and I’m away, producing content in the original niche again
I hope some of these ideas help
Your comments are always welcome – Click Here
Keith
Are Your Habits Killing You? – 9 Ways To Get Motivated & Take Back Control
Jan 7th
[CASE STUDY] $2000 a month from the Warrior Forum with WSO's
Are your habits killing you – do you suffer from lack of motivation?
By Keith Everett
There is a lot of advice going around on various ways to get motivated for 2011, some good, some bad. I’m no expert on personal development and I don’t possess any certificates to say that I am, however – I have been around the block a few times and have made all the classic mistakes.
If you are entering the Internet Marketing business and you have problems getting started online through lack of motivation, then this could be for you. Or even if you aren’t a newbie, you could still be suffering from NEVER START disease.
What is this disease?, it’s the disease of doing lots of STUFF but never getting anywhere, motion, movement – whatever you want to call it only creates results if focused properly, otherwise you are just creating NOISE…
Apart from burning your bed or chaining yourself to your computer, here are some sensible ways to get out of the starting blocks and get motivated in 2011. As the doomy gloomy weather continues in many places around the world, it’s not only people’s noses and throats that are getting bunged up with cold (me included)
People’s brains are starting to wither and their motivation can start to WILT.. Here is a list of 9 tips I hope will help to get you some mental VIAGRA to your brain..
Step 1) Fix firmly in your mind, what exactly is your overall goal for 2011, commit this to paper and list the Monthly, Weekly & Daily steps you intend
to take to achieve this goal.
Step 2) Each night before you go to bed, make a list of everything you intend to achieve the next day and write it down on a pad
Allot a specific time limit to each task,finish the task in the time allotted and you must complete the task in one sitting, .ie no breaks or other distractions. This will start to create HABIT…with positive habits, you will begin to get more done everyday!
Always ask yourself, is what I’m doing REALLY moving me forward toward my ultimate 2011 goal, if not – don’t do it. Too many people spend a large part of the day “FUMBLING”.. i.e moving sheets of paper around, answering email and facebooking for fun…
OK, I admit I love facebooking for FUN but I do a little, then move on, and so on.
Step 3) Each day, keep a log of your progress that day and comment on how this day has influenced your progress in achieving your main 2011 Goal, commit this information into a diary with days and hours listed, review this diary daily..
Step 4) Remind yourself daily (every hour) what it is you will have achieved by December the 31st 2011, keep reminding yourself by placing pictures of your ultimate 2011 Goal in places people tend to spend rest time, i.e Bathroom, Bedroom & Lounge.. and always keep a reminder above your desk…
Step 5) Form an alliance of 3/4 people who have similar goals to you, either on Skype or facebook with the intentions that each member should daily be checking up on each others progress within the group, even if it is just a text message as a “prompt”
Step 6) If you are more productive in the morning, why not get up an hour earlier each day before you go to work and spend an hour working on your goal. If you must, go to bed an hour later the night before to compensate.
Step 7) Take everything out of your daily routine that is NOT helping you toward your ultimate goal. i.e overeating, excessive TV watching, excessive spending… SEX… LOL! who put that in there?
Step 8) Form NEW Habits… if your daily routine is NOT making you RICHER, HAPPIER, HEALTHIER etc… change your existing habits and REPLACE them with NEW habits.. I can honestly say, my daily food routine was PIZZA, Pies, Sausages and other Crap, I have since replaced with new fresh fruits, nuts & grains. Not only do I enjoy my meals more but I feel more ALIVE, and I have more energy & motivation… are your habits KILLING you? Are you going to get to the end of 2011 to achieve your Goal.
Step 9) OK, here is my last tip to get motivated in 2011 and it for me is the biggest.. UNCLUTTER your life, one
of the reasons people get confused, de-motivated and almost give up is because they feel they
have to learn everything at once… especially in Internet Marketing
This can result in becoming overwhelmed & disillusioned. Believe me I have been there. Focus on one thing at a time. You don’t have to learn everything at once, if you try you will be treading the path to FAILURE..
Learn one thing at a time, declutter your life, your desktop, your computer, your brain, start to see the wood form the trees, focus on one thing at a time, once you have mastered that, start something else that’s relative.
Just one final thought – do things that make your palms sweat and give you stomach cramps now and again, being “safe” and secure is nice and “warm” but rarely gets you to where you want to go or to what you want to achieve… If things aren’t working for you, change them – even if they seem scary now, the chances are they will not be scary at all once you have done them..
There you go, That is my little list of things to hopefully get you off the uncluttered road, onto a clear pathway, with every step adding a notch on your bedpost toward your ultimate 2011 Goal I have a lot of MIND Boggling lol! information to come both here on Keith’s Money Making Tips and my new project (opening soon) Ask The Tipster
Have an ASTOUNDING 2011.. I’m up for it, whose with me?
Keith
P.S I would love to hear your comments – please leave a comment here
Take Back Control Of Your traffic In 2011 - No traffic = No Sales
The Traffic – Content Conundrum by Jason Fladlien
Dec 28th
**How to Earn $99 An Hour Making People CRY ** (In a nice way!)
Today’s Guest Blogger is Jason Fladlien, creator of numerous products, such as : Double Your Productivity For Life 7 Minute Articles & $40 An Hour Ghostwriting System
Here’s where a lot of people struggle. In order to get good, continual traffic, you need good content.
But just creating good content on its own usually doesn’t bring you any traffic. So what do you do? That’s the rub. That’s why a lot of people have trouble making money online. They face this traffic/content conundrum.
Option 1..
The first thing you can do (and almost everyone DOES) is to try to bypass the good content creation phase… And go straight for the traffic. A push button software program perhaps could do the trick? You plop down some cash on one of these gizmos… And you might even try in earnest to make it work.
It usually doesn’t. That’s because what value are you providing to the marketplace? Usually none. You can spin an article 7 ways till Sunday – but if that article sucks, you’ve added not just one piece of junk to the Internet landfill… But a whole heap of it.
Nice try.
Option 2…
Go the affiliate route. Makes sense – you can tap into someone else’s high value content… And still just focus on traffic to get eyeballs to that person’s high value content.
For your reward you earn commissions on sales. Sounds swell. Maybe you can use some of the content they give you. Problem – every other affiliate is using that same content. Again, no value is being created in the marketplace. Just more noise. And if you’re going to use your own content… Then you need to be good at creating content anyway. Sigh.
Option 3…
Go long tail young man (or woman)! You can create some content… Based around keywords like “Weber Q 100 Portable Propane Gas Grill” and play the SEO game. Boy that sounds like a picnic, doesn’t it? It can be made to work – but what value are you really putting out there for the marketplace?
Option 4…
Become a “high value content creator”. This is hard. Laborious. Little payoff in the short run. Requires a lot of your time – especially at first. Something with few short cuts attached to it. The toughest road to travel. That’s why it’s the best. That’s why it’s the model that will work most often. But it’s also the least attractive. Plus it requires the delicate balancing act of practicing and fine tuning your skills to create content… And also getting SOME short term payoff.
Where’s The Money?
If you’re with me so far, you’ve reached the conclusion that the most predictable… Most scalable… Most long term valuable thing to do to build online wealth… Is creating high value content. The trick is getting paid to practice.
When coaching clients come to me and are just starting their online business… They ask me if they should create a blog. Often I say no. While a blog is a great place to practice creating high value content… It requires you to BRING people to your blog. That’s challenging.
On the flip side, what about an active forum? There are people already going there… You just need to get the attention of a few of them. So you create high quality content for an active forum. The main purpose is to get good at creating high value content – while getting some short term results.
Warning – You Won’t Get Rich!
Sadly you won’t make a lot of money doing this. But you can make some in the short term… And get paid to “practice”. And you stand an okay chance of making SOME money at first.
Let’s get specific. The first thing you do is observe. You have to spend a few days going to the active forum you’re targeting… And just take in the “culture”. Each forum has its own unique identity. There are things the forum as a whole is favorable to… And things it hates. Be aware so you can do the things it likes and NOT do the things it hates.
More importantly observe this forum with your “opportunity antennae” on. You’re looking specifically for this – a problem shared by a large number of visitors to the forum who are desperate for a solution to that problem. Once you’ve figured out this problem – it’s time to get your hands dirty and do some work.
I’m talking serious research. Serious effort to create the granddaddy forum post that will become the de facto “go here” thread in the future any time someone brings up the problem.
You might have to spend 2 hours researching the solution for the post you’ll create… And another hour crafting it. It will be worth it. People will love your for it. You might even get some cash out of it.
Example…
A huge problem people have in Internet marketing is setting up an affiliate program. I know. In fact I’m creating software for it that I’ll launch in 2011 because this is such a big problem. However, in the meantime you could – hypothetically – provide your own solution on a high traffic Internet marketing forum like the Warrior Forum (http://warriorforum.com).
What do you do? Here’s what I’d do if I was in your position.
I’d start with the outline. I’d aim to cover the 3 major, most popular affiliate program solutions. And I’d also try to cover 3 “obscure, little talked about” solutions. I’d have to dig around for these and hopefully test them out if they’re free or rather inexpensive.
Then I’d write that granddaddy forum post. For each of the 3 main ones, I’d write a step by step tutorial on how to set up an affiliate program with that program, including screenshots. I’d also research my butt off to uncover all the pros and cons I could think of related to each of those.
I’d do the same thing with the 3 obscure ones. Would I throw an affiliate links in at any point? No. Not only would it probably violate the rules of that particular forum… But even if it didn’t I’d still not get greedy.
Remember the focus is on GIVING… Creating high value content… The end all, be all solution for this problem. People will reject it if they think you are trying to be sly and take advantage of them. Don’t be foolish.
So How Will You Monetize It?
One of two ways. Either with a low key “forum signature” or with people literally seeking you out and private messaging you for further help, which often they would be happy to pay for. (That’s when you know you did it right!) A low key forum signature could be something like – “I help set up affiliate programs for people. Email me at email@example.com if you’d like to discuss hiring me.”
Simple, right? Yes.
What can this mean for you? Well I’m looking at a thread right now on the Warrior Forum that has 21,260 views. Guess what it’s about? How to get the most out of an ezine article! Not rocket science. It’s not even that good content.
This post is 2 years and 2 months old. So don’t expect to get 21,000+ views immediately. But do the math – that averages out to about 26 views a DAY over the span of two years and two months.
Sounds good to me.
Now what if you created a post like this once a week? In a year you’d have a lot of things going for you…
- Tons of high value content out there.
- Stuff to repurpose into free (and paid!) products.
- Experience which sharpens your skills.
- Enlightenment based on results. (Can’t get that in an ebook.)
- Some money in your pocket.
Hopefully along the way you aim at getting a little (just a little!) better with each piece of high value content you create. If you do this – in a year you will laugh when you look at a blank screen – because it will be so easy for you to create high value content… Since you’ve done it so often.
Plus, you’ll be more finely tuned in to how people react to certain things that you do… Meaning you are consciously able to create FAVORABLE reactions consistently.
You will be a high value creation machine. Which you can leverage so many different ways to get traffic. Which in turn you can then pick among the many proven models to make money online. It’s not glamorous. It’s a little slow. But it works. Don’t you wish you would’ve spent the last year with a plan like this instead of being distracted by fancy, pie in the sky solutions?
Jason
I would love to hear your comments – click here to comment
How I Sold A Website For $100,000+
Dec 24th
**How to Earn $99 An Hour Making People CRY ** (In a nice way!)
How I Sold A website For $100,000+
By Chris Guthrie
I recently sold a website for more than $100,000. I can’t say the exact amount for obvious reasons, but before any haters come out and say that I’m lying here is the link to the press release from the investment banking firm I used to sell the website. They are the same guys behind the $14.9MM sale of bankaholic.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way I want to share some good advice from someone who’s done it on how you can build a six figure website and the steps to go through to sell one as well.
Let’s get started:
Step 1: Don’t make a website about internet marketing
Step 2: No really, don’t make a website about internet marketing
The reason why I’m listing this step twice is because I’m on the Warrior Forum and I know that most of this website’s focus is on internet marketing products. Yes you can make a lot of money in this sector, but frankly there’s a lot less competition and great money to be made in just plain making good websites.
Besides, most successful internet marketers are successful simply because of the money they’ve made selling internet marketing products. When that’s the case, the only thing they can teach you is how to be like them and what they don’t tell you is that becoming them is nearly impossible.
(Yes I do have my own product as someone might point out, but frankly the money I earned from selling it pales in comparison to the amount I’ve made from selling websites and actually running a real online business.)
Step 3: Find an interest you are passionate about and dominate it
This is the hardest step to be successful at because I’m sorry to tell you – yes it requires hard work. If you want to sell a website for a huge chunk of change you need to really be one of the industry leaders in your niche.
In my case I spent countless hours working on breaking news stories, contacting manufactures to get leads on potential new models of products and even flying out to industry conferences to cover them live. When my competitors were simply reposting information from CNET I had manufactures sending me out real product to test and then I’d do a video review of it too. (I sold the site in a little over an 18 month period since I started it)
It can’t be overstated enough that you really do need to shoot for industry leading status. If you weren’t a visionary and managed to register a bunch of domain names in the 90′s you won’t sell a website for six figures+ unless you build something truly authority based. You need a solid steady monthly income stream in the thousands of dollars per month range. Then you need to be prepared to give a boatload of information out while you’re trying to sell it (much more than just Google Adsense and Analytics screenshots if you’re using an investment banker) you’ll need to talk about ways to improve traffic, revenue, what you’d do with $x to invest on the site etc. etc. etc.
Step 4: If your site is making a lot of money consistently every month do not sell it through Flippa.com sell it with an investment banker
You don’t have to sell through an investment banker but based on my own experience I made a lot more money than if I would have simply sold it through Flippa.com. As I’ve said before there is a whole lot more to the picture of selling a six figure website than simply sharing Google Adsense screenshots and Analytics data. Investment bankers also have access to people with a lot of money – as in millions of dollars worth of money. The typical buyer on Flippa is not some company with millions of dollars to spend acquiring digital media assets. They’re people like you and me just looking for a decent website to buy. What I’m saying is that investment bankers bring the big guns to the table.
Step 5: Reinvest your exit money into your business
I have several projects that I was looking to get angel investor funding for, but I really wanted to self fund my own projects until they were sustainable profitable entities. Besides, as soon as you get funding you basically have a boss again that you need to report to. I want to delay that as long as possible and if you can get a big sale it’s a smart idea to try and leverage that success into another success. So that’s exactly what I’m doing instead of buying a new car in cash.
Make sure you have something to do with the money other than pay a huge tax bill!
Questions? / Need Advice?
I hope I gave you a couple ideas for building a big site. Frankly the steps will be different for each niche but the main goal is always the same: be the best in your niche.
If you have a large website and need some advice on how to sell it feel free to contact me. I’d be happy to give you my opinion based on my own experiences and further clarify anything that might help you to decide what to do.
Why I am excited:
I’m excited about this sale for a variety of reasons and one obviously being the money. But it was just a little over a year ago that I got fired from my day job that was paying me $60k a year. This year I easily surpassed my goal to earn $150k in my first full year in business on my own. I can’t say how far I went over that goal, but it’s very exciting for the future. Getting fired from my day job was the best thing that ever happened to me that is for sure.
To your success,
Chris
Learn something from me? Visit My Blog: Make Money on the Internet (Subscribe here)
How a Few Minor Tweaks to Your Article Marketing Campaigns can Sky Rocket your Profits
Dec 17th
**URGENT Time sensitive offer from Alex Jeffries**
How a Few Minor Tweaks to Your Article Marketing Campaigns can Sky Rocket your Profits
By Paul McCarthy
This is all about making money with articles…Something that was easy back 10 years ago, but somewhat harder now that every man and his dog have cottoned onto the whole “bum marketing” method originally coined by the legendary Travis Sago.
For those of you who are new to internet marketing, “Bum Marketing” is all about writing articles for article directories such as http://www.ezinearticles.com with either a link to a landing page that presells a product, or a link straight to the product page itself through a Top Level Domain.
Of course, you are affiliated with said product and “make bank” when somebody reads your article, clicks to the sales page and makes a purchase.
The beauty of this system is its simplicity. Pretty much anyone can do it and can get started within the hour. It’s not difficult at all.
That said, many people fail horribly with this method….And, yes, I’m speaking from personal experience here. You’re reading an article from someone who managed to write his first 50 odd articles without return; something that I tend not to shout too loud about!
Yet now I can write an article and guarantee an excellent return. In fact, one well placed article can easily earn in excess of $100 per month.
So the question is, what separates those who are banking from those who are wasting their time? Or, to put it a different way, what do I do differently now that I didn’t do back when I was wet behind the ears?!
I’ve added below my war notes from being on the article marketing front line and failing many times over! If you’re new to article marketing, definitely pay attention to these points, because they’ll probably save you a lot of time and you’ll make a return where others are unfortunately failing:-
1. Commercial Intent is Everything
Snap up the low hanging fruit. Herein lies probably my biggest error.
By targeting key phrases such as “how to …….” or “ways to ……” I managed to attract a lot of traffic. But only a very small portion of those visitors had credit card in hand ready to make a purchase.
End result – A massive load of “hops” (otherwise known as sales page impressions on Clickbank) but hardly any sales with a very low EPC (Earnings per Click). They say a picture paints a thousand words:-
You can see why I was finding it hard to make any real money with article marketing at the start. Now I focus on key phrases that I know have a significant amount of commercial intent attached to them.
Sometimes you just know through intuition if a keyword has commercial intent attached to them. A typical example of this type of keywords is : “product x review” or “product x coupon”.
This is clearly a keyword that is searched by someone right at the end of the buying cycle who is looking for reassurance or the best deal for a product that they’re already thinking about buying.
The issue is that these keywords are very competitive because they are the lowest of the low hanging fruit. So, sometimes you have to move back up the buying cycle slightly to find keywords that are less competitive but still have a decent amount of Commercial Intent attached to them.
As everybody seems to love the acne niche, an example might be “Benzoyl Peroxide Products”. This is a keyword that is relatively uncompetitive and has a significant amount of commercial intent attached to it.
Of course, if I’m not sure, there are a few checks that I can do…
Firstly, I’ll go to the Adwords Keyword Tool, add the column that shows estimated cost per click and have a look at the prices. “Benzoyl Peroxide Products” currently shows the average CPC to be £2.55 – which is high.
Compare that to “how to clear acne naturally” which is currently £0.04 per click.
Here’s something important: Many brands will actually pay decent prices to have their names displayed for non-buying key phrases because brand exposure increases the likelihood of a purchase further down the line. This means that CPC is not a great metric to use on its own – it’s just one piece of the jigsaw.
Certainly if a keyword is 0.04p per click there’s no chance I’d ever write an article targeting that key phrase. It simply won’t pay (unless, of course, you’ve stumbled across an obscure buying keyword that not many people have recognised, which is pretty unlikely).
If the CPC is decent (certainly over $1.50 per click) then I’ll investigate further.
And that brings me onto the Microsoft Online Commercial Intent tool. Here is a tool that has been created to give us an idea of the commercial intent of a keyword. It’s not 100% reliable, but it can help give us an idea.
Anything over 0.75 on the scale is a good sign.
A keyword that gets over $1.50 per click and more than 0.75 on the OCI tool is likely to convert nicely.
2. Understanding what the Market is Really Hungry For
If you spend any time analysing the acne industry, you’ll notice that the vast majority of people searching for ways to cure their acne are looking for physical products and not an e-book from Clickbank.
They want some magical wipes or pills that will cure their acne – not information.
If you try and sell an e-book without targeting a group of people who are predisposed to purchasing information then you’ll have little success.
Analysing Google ads is a great way to figure out what everyone else thinks your market is looking for. Type “how to clear acne” into Google and you’ll see that every ad is for a physical product. You’ll also note that there aren’t many ads (warning sign = not a buyer keyword!).
Conversely, type “Benzoyl Peroxide Products” in and you’ll be loaded with ads. This is another good sign!
3. Don’t Sell. Presell
Selling and preselling are two very different things. If you’re going to have a landing page to send people to once they’ve read your article then you need to create a presell page that warms people up to the point of purchase.
This means providing valuable information. Not hyped up headlines.
Here’s something to note about consumers – they hate to feel like they’ve been influenced. And they always want to feel like they’ve made the decision to buy based on unbiased information.
The moment they feel like they’re being sold to during a product recommendation they’ll realise your hidden agenda and drop your site like a bad habit.
It’s the vendors job to sell. Your job is to make them feel like they’ve been genuinely recommended a decent product (which should be true, anyway!)
4. Get your Articles Ranked
…And yes, this involves backlinking.
This is going to get people all up in arms because you’re building backlinks articles that sit on other people’s sites. And some internet marketers really hate doing that because it’s not your asset.
They’re right – but simplicity is the name of the game here. And you’ll get your articles ranked faster on an article directory than starting a site from scratch – so that’s why I recommend it to beginners.
Simply put, your articles will only bring you targeted traffic if they get visitors from the search engines. And to get your articles listed highly in the search engines you need to build link popularity to them.
Backlink your articles and track their ranks. If your article is not in the top five results for your key phrase then you’re pretty much wasting your time.
5. Stick With Winning Niches
You’ll find that certain campaigns will perform better than others. For goodness sake don’t make my mistake and continually delve into new niches. If you find a winning niche – stick with it and scale it up to new heights by writing more articles and building a list!
Focus on what’s proven to work than guessing what might work in the future. It makes perfect sense, but, stupidly, I still didn’t made the mistake of starting from scratch all the time!
And there you have it…
These are the five ways that I guarantee a return on each article that I write.
I imagine that a few lightbulbs are coming on for some of you who are reading this. If so, then fantastic, because it took me months of failing to figure out where I was going wrong and I want you to bypass this struggle!
I’d love to hear about your experiences with article marketing, too. Drop your comments in the box below and I’ll be sure to respond…
Paul McCarthy eats, sleeps and breathes all things internet marketing and teaches others how to make money on the internet and fire their boss!
Your comments are always welcome, please leave your comment here
