Generate Money at Home

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

You wouldn’t think with just four lines of text that there would be any real strategy to using pay per click advertising as an affiliate. You would probably think you just need to make it catchy and eye catching and that’s pretty much all there is to it. This could not be further from the truth. There is a place where you want your ad to be eye catching, but where you put your eye catching ad is the secret. First you must know the two different places or networks you can put your ad and how to market it in that network. One of these networks people hardly use and are actually told by a lot of other affiliate marketers not to use one of these. By not using this one network your losing up to 60% of sales. So, I’ll start with that one first since I have mentioned it. This is called:

• Content Network: A lot of people in the affiliate marketing world will tell you to not even worry about this and to just turn it off. This is a major mistake being made. Your losing out on huge profits by ignoring this means of marketing. This is where you want to let your creative juices flow and make your ads as eye catching as possible. Why? Because this is when your ad is going to show up on blogs and websites that match your keyword. So, people that see your ad aren’t necessarily looking for something to by, but are interested in the same subject. This is where your ad doesn’t have to make sense and needs to stand out. Your ad is like the candy in the check out isle of a grocery store. It has to jump out and grab the customers attention. You can do this by adding special characters and catchy phrases which is something most people are doing in the search network and is  a huge mistake. But in content it is exactly what you want to do. This is where you want to be shocking and off the wall, to pull the prospects eyeballs off of the blog post they are reading and to your ad. So if your not using content in your pay per click campaigns you really should start. One thing you need to do when using either search or  content is turn the other one off, because they are two different animals. If you have a campaign set up for content turn off search.

• Search Network: This is where the majority of people are getting it wrong. This is where they are putting there crazy, off the wall ads and in exchange are getting a poor rating. This is because in the search network you want your ad to be 100% relevant to what it is your promoting. It’s really simple, you want to use the keyword that is used for what your promoting in every line and be straight to the point. No crazy characters or any of that, you just want to be strictly relevant. When you set up a campaign for search, remember to turn off content, because they are so different your ads for one will NOT work for the other.

This is just one example of how you can improve your ratings and CTR with pay per click. You have to remember content ads should be eye catching and off the wall, while search should be nothing but relevant. If you live by these simple rules you will see a huge difference in your pay per click results.

Click Here and get the: Get Money From Google System with even more information on pay per click, plus some very special bonus offers. You will not believe the things you will learn from this program.

When Should You Build a List?

You should build a list as soon as you possibly can. Everyone is different. Some things are going to work one way for someone and the totally opposite for someone else. One thing is for sure, the sooner you start, the faster you will make MORE money.

I would venture to say that if your an absolute beginner at marketing products online then you may want to start a blog first. This way you can learn a little about getting traffic, uploading files and registering a domain, which are all things  you’ll need to know when building your list. Plus you’ll be able to start making a little money ASAP and actually use your blog to build your list too. Building a list takes a little more patients and if done right will take a little longer to get to a sale.

If you are familiar with uploading files and some of the technical stuff then building a list first might work better for you, but I think more times than not, that people new to Internet Marketing aren’t privy to these things.

So basically to sum up when to “Build A List?” ” The Sooner the Better.”

What are You Going to Need?

The first thing you’ll need is an auto responder. The two more popular auto responders are AWeber and Get Response. Then your going to need traffic just like you would a blog. Just use the same methods that you use to get traffic to your blog, the only other thing that you can do that you may not do with a blog is start a small pay per click  campaign.

You’ll need a product or a really BIG SECRET. You can find plenty of resale rights products out there for free. You may want to look at the product very closely if it’s free, because it’s quality might be really poor and need some brushing up. It might be so bad that you couldn’t pay people to take it, so you really need to take a good look at it first. You could also make a small investment for one, which isn’t too much, yet more likely to be better quality. Consider upgrading when you find a good resource for resale rights products to save time in the long run.

If you just want to give away a “Secret” just offer a video to let your customer in on it. You should make sure that this is something real good though, so your not telling someone something they already know.

How to Keep Customers on Your List

In order to build a list you have to make sure you lose as few people as possible. If  people unsubscribe from your list  more than people are subscribing the building process is going to take a very long time right. So since your trying to build a list as fast as possible there is a couple of things you need to do to manage your list the right way.

1. Start by sending out valuable content right off the bat. Something that is going to help them out. You want to send anywhere from 20 to 30 e-mails before you consider asking your customer to purchase from you. This is something you can test out and see what works better for you, but make sure you build a relationship with them first.
2. Stay in contact with your list on a regular basis. You don’t want to overwhelm your customer either, a good rule of thumb is to send out one e-mail a day, maybe two if there is enough value there. This way you’ll also leave some openings for product launch’s you may be promoting in the future.
3. Keep the content as fresh as possible, so your not just echoing what someone else is saying, always be on the search for the hot content.

Why is a List So Important?

There are several reasons why a “List” is so important. The most popular reason is no surprise. MORE MONEY. When your selling products from your blog one person is going to be worth say $30. When someone is signed up for your mailing list, you now have the potential of  making 2 - 10 more sales from them. So instead of one customer being worth $30 they are now possibly worth $60 - $300 or more.

You are now also developing a relationship with them and promoting products is easier when someone has a bond with you. This trust will translate into more sales without a doubt.

“Social Media” is another way to build your list, although it can be a little tricky. The best Marketers on the Internet are still running tests to see what method works best with “Social Media.”

If your interested in using “Social Media” I would not go it alone. You really should look to one of the experts that have already gone through the trial and error process. Ryan Deiss is one of these people and has figured out a way to build a big list fast with Twitter. The method he has come up with works with just Twitter and nothing else, but it works amazing. Some people don’t agree with Ryan’s  method including his good friend Perry Belcher, but it works and it works really good. I highly recommend you check out what Ryan has to offer because he always puts out amazing products and Twitter is so easy to use you’ll be building a big list in no time.

“Twitter List-Building” by Ryan Deiss

Feel free to leave a comment whether you like the post or didn’t like it let me know. If you have any unanswered questions please ask I will do what I can to help.

If you have a blog you are probably looking for ways to market that blog. The first things that probably come to mind are how can you do this online. There are also a lot of ebooks and other blogs out there telling you exactly how to market your blog online. There is everything from article marketing to posting in forums. What a lot of people don’t think of is there is another way to market that not many people are even considering doing that you can take full advantage of right now. You can market your blog offline too. There are some very simple yet, not talked about ways ( from what I’ve seen anyway) too market and advertise your blog offline and be very effective.  So, what are some of these methods you may ask, well here they are:

1. Conventions or Conferences: If you see any of these two things taking place in your area it would be a very smart thing for you to attend. When you get there you may find that your one of the few with promotion of your blog or product in mind. You could even have a shirt printed with your blog URL on it.
2. Business Cards: This may seem like a no brainer, but how many people do you see doing this or talking about it for that matter? The great thing about business cards is you can virtually hand them out anywhere and to almost anybody. One thing you should keep in mind if your going to have some printed up is make sure they stand out and catch the eye. I have even seen business’s that have a board or a place specifically for people to post their business cards. Hell, throw them up in the air and let the wind catch them. ( Just kidding, don’t do this please.)
3. Postcards: You could have some eye catching post cards printed up and either pay to have them mailed out or mail them out yourself. The good thing about post cards is they don’t have to be opened and people will more than likely just throw them over by their computer were it can grab their attention.
4. Blogger Meet Ups: If there are any of these in your area I would take full advantage of showing up. Meeting up with other bloggers is a great way to make new connections and potential promoters for your blog.
5. Stickers: This is another great way to advertise your website or blog. You can put one on your car or I just recently read about a guy who brought some stickers to a gathering he attended and the ended up everywhere, on people and in pictures.
6. Offline Newsletters
7. Flyer’s
8. Newspaper Ads
9. Yellow Pages
10. Radio Advertising
11. Brochures
12. Classified Ads

Now I realize that these may cost anywhere from a little bit of money to a lot of money, but it may be something for you to think about in the future.

The best thing for you to do, especially if your new to making money online, is to just experiment with the least expensive of the ideas and put just a little money in to it to see if it’s going to stick. If it does then you can run with it and invest more money into it.

The main idea of this post is to get you to think outside of the box and not get stuck thinking that all your efforts have to be online. There is a whole market out there waiting for you to grab their attention in the offline world.

Looking for Something to Sell or Some Great Tools to Get You Started for Free? Click Here!

Like Clickbank? Then You’ll Love What a Free CB Mall has to Offer! Get Access to a Large Selection of Tools to Help Your Business! Click Here!

In this post Dan Kaufman from Bar Zine shares some tips on writing Sharp Snappy Blog Posts.

When you write a story you’re lucky if you can get a reader beyond the first paragraph. This is true in print and it’s even worse online (a recent study by Jacob Neilson at http://tinyurl.com/mubtmr makes for interesting reading). After all, your post is just one out of millions online – and the difference can lie in how well written your copy is.

Writing is a craft that involves a continual learning process.

Having been a journalist and editor for the past 15 years (and I’m now a blogger as well) I still find myself learning – but there are some hard and fast techniques to make your copy snappier and more engaging. Here are some of the basics:

1) Write Short Sentences

Next time you pick up a book and can’t put it down, stop and have a look at the sentence length – you’ll often find the sentences are short and punchy. 32 words is the maximum for an article’s first sentence and while there are exceptions they ought to be rare. Aim to only have one point per sentence.

2) Use the Active Voice

Have a look at the following two sentences:

The cat chases the mouse

and

The mouse is being chased by the cat

Which one is punchier?

It’s the former because the subject (the cat) is doing something to the object (the mouse). As such, it makes sense to have the subject appear in the sentence before the object. In other words, the sentence is written using the active voice (whereas “The mouse is being chased by the cat” is passive).

Using the active voice is more direct and requires less words – and the less words, the snappier the sentence becomes.

3) Write in the Present Tense

Which of the following headlines seems punchier?

PM halts peace talks

Or

PM halted peace talks

Unless your blog post takes the form of a hard news story you should use the present tense. Even hard news headlines are written in the present tense to make them seem more immediate.

4) Use Positive Language

This means avoiding negative words such as no, not and didn’t when appropriate. You’ll see why when you look at the following example:

Troops have not pulled out of war zone

Vs

Troops stay in war zone

The bottom example reads better since, as with using active voice, making sentences positive often makes them snappier. We also changed the tense from past to present.

5) Write in a conversational tone

A lot of people don’t realise that good writing means using a conversational tone – albeit with better grammar than you would use when talking to a friend in a bar.

Avoid hype, pretentious words, jargon and acronyms – instead of impressing readers it’s a turn off. You should never talk down to your reader by using language they may not understand and you should never assume they know something they may not. Unless you’re trying to spin something or confuse, use simple, clear and direct language. As the old saying goes, if you confuse your readers you lose your readers.

George Orwell put it another way in The Politics of the English Language.

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity,” he wrote. “When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.”

Dan Kaufman publishes Bar Zine (barzine.com.au), where he reviews Sydney bars. He also writes for The Sydney Morning Herald and teaches online journalism at UTS.

Yesterday I talked about how we can all play a part in reviving this economy by teaching others how to do something that they can use to bring home a paycheck. Not everyone is going to get in on the work from home wave. So you can be the one to cash in by helping them. We will always need people to do the everyday jobs to keep things going. So, how do you find your niche and find out whether or not it’s too competitive or not. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a profession, but I think that’s were the big money is due to our current economical situation. If  you don’t want to go with your profession you can look into things that you are passionate about or something that you may be interested in such as a hobby, profession or skill that you have always wanted to pursue or that you are already good at. If you go with something you haven’t done before it’s going to be a little bit harder, because you’ll have to learn as well as do the things that it takes to make money which is work. Contrary to popular belief it does take a bit of work to be successful, but it’s much better than doing roofs. Hey, there’s a niche for you show someone how to do roofs and other things to do with construction if that’s what your good at.

First what you need to do is get a pen and a notepad. Now after you have found these things sit down and write a list of the things you are passionate about and or do for a living. Here is an example of a list one might come up with. These are some of my hobbies and interests.

• Playing Darts
• Surfing
• Fishing
• Racing

Now that you have your items listed you’ll now want to go to the Google Keyword Tool. In the search box, put your niche word and click search keyword. Here what you are looking for are the different keywords people are searching for and the competitiveness of this keyword. After you have done your search you’ll see a few columns of results. The first one you’ll want to look at is the advertiser competition column.

In this column you’ll see a rectangle filled with green. Some will be all green and some will be half filled with green. The more green you see means the harder it is going to be to compete in this niche. If you see a lot of keywords with a high per month search volume (which is in the next column) but not filled up totally with green, then you have found yourself a good niche to be in. If you do see a lot of the keywords filled with green, don’t give up yet. Sometimes you have to break your niche down to a micro niche.

For instance, say I wanted to go with the surfing niche, ( which I just checked out and it looks really good by the way) and it was way to competitive. Then I could refine my search to surfing accessories or maybe surfing music. That’s the other good thing about the Google keyword tool is your sub and micro niches will be right there in the search results usually. If not just refine your search.  It just takes a little bit of research to find whats going on in the niche. You by all means do not want to skip this step and find out later after doing a ton of work that you went with the wrong thing.

One other thing you can do to see how much competition is out there is just do a normal Google search and see how many results you get for a search. Like, if you do a search for “Make Money” you’ll find that there is around
198,000,000 results for that keyword. That is a extremely large number and a niche your going to want to stay away from for the time being.

Another thing you can do when your brainstorming niches is just take a trip to your local grocery and look in the magazine section or go to Amazon.coms magazine resources and look around. Don’t just look at the main topic of the magazine, but look inside to see what’s being sold. This will give you a great idea of what people are buying in that niche.

Ezinearticles.com is also a great resource for seeing if your niche is going to be profitable. All you need to do is go to ezinearticles.com and in the search box type in the niche topic your interested in to see how many articles have been written in that area. If there are a good amount of articles written your in good shape. Some people might say that isn’t so because you want to have a niche were there is no competition. This just isn’t so, you want competition in a niche because it’s a sign that people are buying products in that niche.

Next you’ll want to pick a few of these articles and see if they are being viewed by people. To do this just click the article title and scroll down to the bottom. There you will see how many people have viewed the article. If there aren’t many views then you probably don’t want to select that niche. If there are a lot of views and quite a few articles written then it’s probably something that will be profitable.

You also want to make sure that there aren’t too many articles written about a subject. This will tell you that the niche is probably too competitive and it will be a hard nut to crack. Unless you are an absolute expert at the particular niche then you may have a chance or if your desire is there and you know you won’t get burnt out before you see results.

Like I said previously though if you are in a profession that people can learn and then go get a job doing, you have something really valuable. Especially if it’s something that they have schools for like bar tending or hair stylist. Even an trade or skill would be great, say mechanics or lawn mower maintenance. People can also use this kind of knowledge to save money at home by cutting there children’s hair or working on there car when there is a problem. Just let your creative juices flow and you’ll be on your way to being your own boss.

If you would like to submit some ideas you may have just put them in the comment area. If you would like a particular topic discussed here just let me know and I will post about it. If you have any questions about any of my posts or if I left something out just let me know and I will try my best to answer any and all questions.

Get 100’s of niche articles for free!

Free CB Mall with 40,000 Niche Products to Sell.

Video from Problogger.net

Got a messy sidebar on your blog? It’s time to clean it up (like I cleaned up my sock drawer today).

Getting Someones Attention

When you are writing anything whether it be a classified, a blog post an article or anything else that has to do with selling something and getting someones attention you need to very careful about how you are doing this. I see dozens of people crying out every day in desperation and can tell they aren’t selling anything. We as customers have that sixth sense ( yes we are all customers at one point or another) which is basically our subconscious notifying us when something isn’t quite right. This sense or alarm can be triggered in many ways. If you think your going to copy and paste your way to financial freedom, think again. People will be able to tell when your not being genuine and will be immediately alerted by there subconscious. Your personality is what is going to set you apart from everyone else because there is only one you and you can only be you. : ) ( phew!!) Now , don’t go throw away all those plr articles you have, you can still use them, but instead, read them, learn something, then write about it in your own words. You want to get someones attention, but you don’t want to get it in the wrong way.

Caps and Punctuation

First rule: Bigger letters does not mean bigger sales. If you are placing a classified ad and you capitalize every letter in the title you are not going to get many clicks. If you capitalize most of the letters in the body you won’t get many clicks. For one, putting a word in all CAPS  is the same a yelling, and two, it yells “I’m desperate please help.” The same goes with punctuation, you don’t want to make everything an exclamation because it’s not. You have to strategically place your caps and punctuation in order to grab your prospects attention. Over use of these and you are surely going to trigger the alarm in the head of the prospect. It’s kind of like music in a way, by leading someone into the crescendo. Let me see if I can give you one good example of this with a real program I promote.

Want some GREAT plr products?  Click Here to get 100’s for FREE!

Maybe not the best in the world but you can see how the caps and punctuation can be more effective if not over used. You want to use these at the time your going to describe the product and the best benefit the product or program offers. If you ask a question remember to put a question mark and not a exclamation point. Most ads will be longer than that but just remember to use an exclamation point once, maybe twice, but only if it is a statement that really deserves it. This also depends on what your writing, if you are writing an article of course your going to have an opportunity to place a few more here an there, yet STRATEGICALLY! I guess the main point is, “Don’t Over Do It.” Another way to use caps is to capitalize the first letter of  every word when describing your products name or a quote that you want to hit home, like I have just done. Doing little things like this will boost your click through rate because it says basically “I’m Confident” and everything I write doesn’t have to be overly punctuated or capped because I know what I am talking about. Peoples sixth sense will pick this up and you will see much better results.

The Best Way to Acquire or Learn This Skill

There is one way that I have learned to pick up on the skill of writing, proper punctuation and strategic placement of caps. It is a very easy yet hard thing to do. Actually it is easy to do, but it’s hard to motivate yourself to do it. This is what I think I’ll call O.P.S. This is simply Other Peoples Stuff and  reading it.

If you read a lot of articles and blog posts by people who have been doing this for a while you will be surprised as to how it sinks in and you will slowly start seeing it come out when you decide to write something. Two of my favorite blogs ( there are more of course) are:

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

Problogger.net

You may have different ones, but if you haven’t been following anyone yet these are two of the most successful bloggers on the Internet from what I have seen and would highly suggest checking out the quality content they put out. Just don’t forget who pointed you in the right direction. : )

So try these tactics out for yourself and let me know WHEN not IF  you see a difference in your results. Just let me know by leaving a comment below. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to put them  in the comment area.

Here is yet one more way to advertise your blog I bet you probably haven’t heard or thought of. This is a very easy and FUN way to advertise and you do it by joining a community  based website  to advertise your blog or website. People have created communities with similar interests and are visited by people who are searching for their niche or ways to make money online. Some examples of a community based website would be:

• Live Journal
• Gooruze

Just to name a couple. You can do a search on Yahoo or Google and find a community in just about any niche that you can think of and they are great places to advertise.  If you can’t find a community on your subject than this would be a great opportunity to create one.

For example, say that you love blogging about books, horseback riding, and skiing in Tahoe. All you have to do is look through the communities for ones that have those interests and join them.

Another great thing about communities is you can join as many of them as you want. Now, you don’t want to get out of control and not leave yourself time to implement other strategies, but this is something you should  seriously consider doing.

You want to get involved and post something related to the topic as well. Don’t just post one line of text and expect people to want to visit your blog. Get involved and interact, you just might strike a joint venture or learn some other valuable information.

This post is short, but I had to show everyone who might see this post what I was just sent in an e-mail. This is a metaphorical way ( if that’s even a word) to look at how you make money online. Just keeping it real. It gets easier, but you have to strive for it. If you buy the hype you’ll be highly disappointed.

See how I get 25-50 vistors to my blog for free.

You need an Ad Tracker

If you want to save a lot of time and effort you need to get a good ad tracker. Having an ad tracker is going to tell you exactly what is working and what isn’t. It will let you know what ad is working, where it came from and how many clicks it received. This is absolutely vital in your online business and will keep you from spinning your wheels with a worthless campaign. The latest version of ad trackers can even tell you what website the customer went to after visiting your site. That is what an ad tracker is in a nut shell.

Why do you need an Ad Tracker?

As you know, every business needs to advertise and the more effective your ads are, the better the content is, and the location of your ad are all major factors in having a successful business. In order to find the best combination you have to constantly tweak, test and change your ads in order to find the best combination. The problem is how do you do the proper tests to find out what is working. Ad tracking is the best way to find out the effectiveness of every banner, ad and link that you run. By doing this you can illiminate all ads that aren’t working and run more ads that are working and ultimately boosting your profits.

How does it work?

First you have to set up a campaign and eventually you’ll be viewing the campaign stats. This program can either be run on your own website or an external website (service).  Now say you want to run an ad for audio software in a classified ad say at Adlandpro. You would write the ad and in your link to the product you would put a code, for instance, audadlan or whatever fits you best. So what you would do is feed you url into the program and then your desired code and it will give you a new URL with the code to track the ad. Now the url may look a little long by doing this, but you can always shorten it if you want with a URL shortener.

Should You get an Ad Tracking Service or Software?

This will all depend on a couple of factors. Do you have your own blog or website. If you do then you might want to get the software, because with the software you have a one time fee and can install it right on your computer. Although I believe there is a one time installation charge. You also need to ensure that you have the right system requirements for the software.

If you go the route of acquiring a service instead. You’ll have a monthly maintenance fee, but the program will update on it’s own instead of you having to update it. Installation is instant, you can start using it right away. You can manage all of your sites from one location other than having to manage your websites separately with your own software. The only other thing with having a company provide this service is there servers could go down or the company could fold. Just make sure you sign up with a reputable company and you should be ok.

What are Some of the Features of an Ad Tracker?

Some of the basic features of an Ad Tracker are:

 Basic Visitor Stats:

• Users IP address
• Browser Type
• Operating System
• Date and time of click
• Referring Url

A good Ad Tracker should distinguish between the number or unique visitors and the number of total visitors.

 Action Tracking:

Other things a Ad Tracker can do is tell you what a customer did after they visited say, an affiliate website you promote. If you aren’t making any sale maybe their sales page or website is confusing or just doesn’t sell. In which case you can stop that campaign an focus your attention elsewhere.

An Ad Tracker is definately a tool that you should be using in for your business. It’s going to save you a lot of time and effort in the long run and let you focus more on the campaigns that are working. So I would highly suggest looking into getting either a service or software as soon as you can. I mentioned Adlandpro earlier, as a part of the gold membership with them you get an ad tracker that you can use, not to mention an auto responder an opt-in forms.

Read about ad tracker in more detail.