Posted: 09 Mar 2010 05:54 AM PST

While I get many questions from bloggers asking for advice on ‘how to blog‘ perhaps one of the biggest questions a new blogger needs to ask themselves before they move on to the HOW to blog question is ‘WHAT will I blog about?’

There is no real right or wrong answer to this question as blogs come in all shapes and sizes and focus upon all manner of topics. However thinking through the question before you start a blog will help you make some of the other decisions that you’ll want to make later on in this guide (for example the domain name and the name of your blog will probably come out of this decision).

Reasons to Focus Upon a Niche with Your Blog

Choosing a niche to blog about is important for a number of reasons. These include:

1. Niche Blogs Appeal to Readers

My first blog was a personal blog with no real niche focus. It did start with a main focus upon Spirituality, but over time began to cover a large range of topics including blogging, photography, culture, politics, personal stuff that I was doing etc. The more topics I covered the less I appealed to everyone.

Sure a certain group of people were interested in Spirituality and Blogging, but less of them were into photography, even less also liked my stuff about Australian Pop Culture….. each topic narrowed the chances of me writing something that would appeal to all of my readers. I started to get complaints from them – ’stop writing about XXXX’.

When I began to break topics out onto their own blogs my audience responded well – those who were into photography gathered around that topic, those that were into blogging gathered on that blog.

In the end this is about relevance – people seem to be drawn to niche focused blogs because they know that they’ll see content on them that focuses upon the things they are specifically interested in.

2. Niche Blogs Monetize Better

I tried to make money from my personal blog for a while but found the going really tough. At the time I mainly tried to make money from advertising and found that sponsors were simply not interested in promoting their product (which had a specific focus) to an audience who were there to read about a whole range of things.

What camera manufacturer wants to promote their latest camera on a blog about photography that also touches on spirituality, politics and what movie I saw on the weekend?

Niche blogs also tend to work better with contextual ad networks like AdSense. AdSense is getting better are providing ads that related strongly to what is on a specific page of content but I have seen instances where blogs covering lots of different topics attract ads that don’t always relate to content on a particular page.

The other thing about AdSense is that it is a system that gives advertisers the ability to target specific sites. These types of targeted campaigns can be quite profitable but they are less likely to happen if a blog covers a large range of topics, many of which don’t relate to that advertiser.

When I went niche I found monetizing with advertising a lot easier. In fact monetizing with a variety of methods seems to be easier on niche blogs. Affiliate promotions and selling your own products work better because your audience is there to get information on certain topics – so when you promote products on those topics…. they’re much more likely to buy.

3. Niche Blogs Do Better in Search Engines

It is possible to rank well for all kinds of topics on a generic/multi topic blog. It’s possible – but I find it is easier when you have a blog with a focus upon a niche topic. If your whole site is about the one topic Google treats it as more of an authority on that topic the more content you add, the more you interlink the posts, the more other sites in your niche link to it etc.

There are certainly exceptions (mega sites like Wikipedia are obvious ones) but unless you have the pulling power of a massive site like that a niche focused site could be the way to go.

4. Niche Blogs Build Credibility and Profile

One of the consequences of moving to more of a niche focus with my blogging was that I noticed I was starting to become known for that topic.

The first time this happened was after I started my first photography blog and 2 months later had a phone call from a city-wide newspaper asking for a quote on a photography related story. This had not happened to me before as a result of my personal/multi topic blog but having a site purely focused upon a single topic gave a perception that that topic was ‘my thing’.

For me having niche focuses has helped me to become known on different topics – which has led to all kinds of opportunities in those niches – including writing books, speaking opportunities around the world, main stream media appearances and all manner of partnership opportunities with wonderful people in my industries.

Not everyone wants to build their profile and become known in an industry – but if that’s part of your goal then a niche blog on those topics can be powerful.

Note: Niches Need Not Just be Topic Related

Before I conclude this post on niches I thought it might also be worth noting that a blogs niche need not only ever be focused upon a topic. I explored this more fully in a post titled – Does Your Blog Focus Upon a Niche Topic or a Niche Demographic? As the title of that post suggests – there are some successful blogs around that cover a variety of topics – that appeal to a similar type of person or demographic.

So instead of just writing about video games – a blog might choose to blog about topics that appeal to teenage boys – video games being one of the topics that they might have an interest in.

Worth noting though is that if you do decide to target a niche demographic rather than a niche topic – you could be opening yourself up for a lot of work. Covering a diverse range of topics can certainly work – but to cover them all comprehensively can take a lot of time and energy.

How to Choose a Niche for Your Blog

Now that we’ve looked at some of the reasons WHY a niche can be a powerful thing to think about before you start looking at HOW to blog – later this week I’m going to continue this post with a followup post exploring a number of factors that those looking to start a blog might consider when choosing a niche.

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 06:10 AM PST

A Guest Post by www.lewishowes.com on driving traffic to your blog with LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is the most powerful, yet under-utilised social networking platform on the web.

Whether you just created your first blog, or you are considered one of the top bloggers in the world like Darren Rowse, Chris Brogan, or Tim Ferriss, you are always looking for ways to generate more traffic to your site.  Even more so, you are looking for qualified traffic to your site, (i.e people who are interested in the content you produce).

LinkedIn is a great way to generate free, organic, traffic to your blog.

“But Lewis, isn’t LinkedIn just a site to post my resume when I am looking for a job?”

No, wake up people!  Although LinkedIn has been great for job seekers during the most recent economic cycle, it is much much more than that.  Individuals and companies are achieving more professional goals than imaginable on LinkedIn.  For example, LinkedIn can help you:

• Sell products
• Find new clients or employees
• Generate leads
• Receive funding for your company
• Obtain sponsorships
• Sell hundreds of tickets to your professional event
• Get national and local press coverage
• And last but not least, drive massive traffic to your blog

Achieving these goals on LinkedIn don’t come naturally.  You’ve gotta work the system on LinkedIn and experiment with different methods.  I’ve come up with the best ways to achieve those goals.  Here are my top 10 ways to drive traffic to your blog using LinkedIn:

1.  Complete Your Profile:

Numerous individuals have told me LinkedIn doesn’t work for them. I always ask them how much time they have put into using LinkedIn, their response – very little.  If your profile is weak people will lose interest quickly and may never click on your website links.

If you want people to read your profile and click on your websites then make your profile concise, compelling and value driven throughout.  Complete your profile 100%, add a great picture of yourself, and take the entire process very seriously.  The more complete and compelling your profile is, the more people will read and visit links you have posted.

This advice goes beyond driving traffic to your blog.  If someone were to Google your name (which most people do when they are researching you) your LinkedIn profile is one of the first things that pop up.  Personally, my LinkedIn profile is the third result, and for Darren Rowse it comes up seventh (before Facebook or Twitter).  Google your own name and check out what position your LinkedIn profile shows up.  You must make your profile compelling.

2.  Increase Your Connections:

The more connections you have, the more people will have access to your profile.  Every time you take an action on LinkedIn (i.e. update your profile, join a group, recommend someone, RSVP to an event, etc… this shows up on the home page of your 1st degree connections).  If you only have 100 connections, this limits the amount of potential clicks on your profile and website links per day. Constantly be updating and adding new connections.

3.  Customize Your Website Links:

When you first create your profile your website links will look like this:

However this is not a “call to action” and you are missing potential traffic because of it.  No one actually cares what your blog is unless it is relevant to them or solves a problem.  Instead, customize your website links to attract more clicks and drive more traffic to your blog.  If I were Darren, I would insert this:

The second image is more compelling and explains exactly what the viewer will see on the next page when they click on each link.  In order to change your websites with a custom headline, click on the “edit” button next to one of the websites. View the image below for further details:

4.  Answer Questions:

This is a great way to drive traffic to your blog.  The more questions you answer, the better the chances are of that person asking the question to click on your blog to learn more about you. Not only will that one person be more interested in learning more about you, but also others answering that question.  Additionally, when someone rates your answer as “The Best” of the mix, it will improve your thought  leadership status. It moves you up the rankings as a “featured expert” in the category you answered in.  When you are a featured expert people become more aware of your profile, and the chance they will click on your link to learn more about what you have to offer improves.

5.  Update Status:

For you Twitter lovers out there, this should be an easy step to take.  LinkedIn also has a status update feature that is a lot like Twitter, only it gives you 148 characters to work with instead of 140. Why is it so important to constantly update your status?  Because it is the first thing that pops up the home profile for all of your connections.  Check out your home page on LinkedIn and you will see a few status updates of those your are connected to.  If they are smart, they will include some compelling copy with a call to action and a link back to their blog (something I do that drives traffic to mine).

6.  Join Niche Groups:

Whatever your blog is about, there is an audience of people on LinkedIn that share interest with.  To make it easy to find these people click on the “Group Search” tab and type in some key words that relate to your blog.  I have a sports industry blog that focuses mostly on social media with an audience of professionals who work in the sports.  I joined all of the professional sports groups I could find:

Some of these niche groups have thousands of members who are actively involved in connect with other members.  If you are not in the groups where your audience for your blog is hanging out, then you are missing out on the opportunity for new readers, and organic traffic to your site.  Join as many groups as you can after doing a key word search that relates to your blog.

For starters – check out the Professional Bloggers Group.

7.  Post Comments In Groups:

Some larger groups are receiving hundreds of new discussion topics every few days (think of it as a forum).  People are sharing points of discussion, commenting and giving further feedback and suggestions on those comments.  Every time someone creates a new discussion topic, it shows up on the home profile of everyone in that group.  If there are 100,000 people in the group, then you are potentially getting the attention of 100,000 other individuals for your comment.

8.  Add RSS Feed to Groups:

Each group has a section that allows you to add a link to a website with the latest news you think is relevant to that group.  It also allows you to add your own RSS feed or website link so it will automatically update the group every time you post a new article on your blog.  This creates an automated flow of organic traffic that will show up on the home profile of everyone connected in the group.  Again, this gives you more opportunities for people to view your blog.

9.  Create a Group:

This may be one of the most powerful things you can do on LinkedIn.  I won’t go into all of the amazing details on how this has helped me, but I will tell you that owning a group drives a lot of traffic to your site. I own several niche related groups on LinkedIn.  For example, I created the Sports Industry Network group on LinkedIn and there are currently over 19,500 members.  When a new person joins the group, they see a brief description of the group, my name as the owner of the group, plus my website url www.sportsnetworker.com.  Since my group gets over 100 new members each week, that’s additional traffic from new members alone. That’s not even including the close to 20,000 members who are actively engaging in the group, and clicking on my blog links.

10.  Add the Blog Application to Your Profile:

This might be the most obvious suggestion, but I still see some of the top pro bloggers leaving this feature out.  This application posts the title and first paragraph for your most recent articles you have published on your LinkedIn profile.  It is a way to give viewers of your profile a sneak peak of what they will read on your blog.

Go to “applications” and download either the WordPress or Blog Link application and add your URL for your blog.

LinkedIn continues to be one of the top sites that drives traffic to my blog, thanks to these 10 examples, but the power of LinkedIn doesn’t stop here. What other tips have you found through using LinkedIn to increase traffic to your blog?

=====================================================

Lewis Howes is the co-author of the LinkedIn book, LinkedWorking: Generating Success on the World’s Largest Professional Networking Website. He founded the Sports Executives Association and SportsNetworker.com, which provides daily social media and marketing tips for sports professionals.  You can connect with him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/lewishowes or on his site at www.lewishowes.com.

Posted: 11 Feb 2010 06:45 AM PST

Over the last few weeks I’ve had three conversations with readers regarding different sources of traffic.

In each case I had a number of email exchanges with each blogger (all on the same day) and ended up laughing to myself at the common theme but extremely different opinions being expressed by each of the bloggers.

In each case the bloggers had strong opinions (and experiences to back those opinions up) on what type of traffic was ‘best’ and how to get it.

1. In one case the conversation started with a blogger telling me that I focus too much upon social media traffic and not enough on traffic from search engines. Their niche didn’t work with social traffic but with search traffic they did best.
2. In another case the blogger told me that they’d been told to forget about search traffic in their niche and work more on building traffic from other sites and to convert it into ongoing traffic with newsletters.
3. In the last case a blogger told me that in their opinion the best type of traffic was social media traffic and they didn’t see the point in newsletters.

I was reminded through these conversations just how many different valid approaches there are to blogging. I also came away with a few thoughts that I thought I’d jot down here on the topic of driving traffic to blogs.

1. There are Many Valid Sources of Traffic

The above chart shows just 8 of many sources of traffic to a blog. As I write this others are already springing to mind (for example some bloggers run paid advertising to drive traffic to their blog – others get it from banner exchange programs). The reality is that there are many potential sources of traffic.

2. The ‘Best’ Source of Traffic Varies from Niche to Niche

As I thought about the 3 bloggers I was chatting to above it struck me that each had found great sources of traffic but that they were each operating in very different niches.

The first blogger who had written off social media was in a niche that people were simply not using social media for (I won’t reveal the niche as I don’t have their permission but it was a very very niche focused blog). Perhaps they could have driven a tiny bit of traffic with social media but for them Search was a much better place for them to invest their time.

3. Different Sources of Traffic Will monetize differently

Another important factor to consider is that some sources of traffic will monetize ALOT better than others. I’ve found that search traffic can work very well with AdSense for example (it depends upon the niche and intent of the reader). People arrive on your site searching for specific information, read your content, see an ad that relates to their search term and click on it.

RSS readers on the other hand don’t tend to convert for AdSense as they tend to be loyal readers and many don’t even click through to your site to read your content. RSS readers (and social media traffic) however can convert really well for affiliate promotions or selling your own products to.

4. Traffic Patterns Change over the life cycle of a blog

As a blog matures its sources of traffic often quite naturally change.

There’s no typical one size fits all pattern to this but at first the traffic might mainly come from other blogs or forums where you comment – or blogs where you guest post – or articles that you write. In time you might start to see more traffic from RSS or newsletters as a few people subscribe. Perhaps then some traffic will come from other sites who link to you (people who subscribe via RSS might have their own blogs) and from social media. After a while your search engine ranking might kick in as a result of the links from other sites and your guest posting and article writing and you might start seeing Google traffic. Once your blog is more established you might start seeing social bookmarking viral events that spike your traffic.

Again – this is not going to be the pattern for all blogs but in time traffic will naturally start to come from different places – the key is to try to leverage it for ongoing good (trying to get your blog to be sticky rather than just having one time visitors) and to work out how to convert that traffic for the goals you have.

5. Bloggers should be open to different approaches

While each of the three bloggers had discovered great lessons and good sources of traffic for their niches and the life cycles of their blogs – I was left wondering in each case whether the bloggers were being a little too closed off to different sources of traffic that perhaps could have added to the overall mix of traffic.

I see a lot of SEO type bloggers write about the worthlessness of social traffic for instance. One common comment that I get from some SEOs (definitely not all) is that social media traffic can’t be monetized. The reality could not be further from the truth. It won’t always convert but it certainly can. For example I know in each of the E-book launches that I’ve done in two niches that I’ve seen significant conversions from Twitter traffic.

On the flip side of things I hear some social media focused bloggers write off SEO and say that it works itself out and you don’t need to optimise your blog for search if you just produce good content. While there is some truth in that (good content does tend to generate natural incoming links to some extent) with a basic understanding of principles of SEO and a few minor tweaks a blog can rank much better in search engines without compromising the integrity of the content.

I guess what I’m getting at is that if you get exclusive about the type of traffic you are after you could actually be limiting the potential of your blog’s incoming traffic.

6. Too many Eggs in One Basket Can Be Dangerous

I used to be very focused upon search traffic in my early days of blogging. I worked hard to optimise my first blogs for search and got to a point where I was making a full time living from the ad revenue I was getting almost exclusively from Google. As a result I got a little lazy in some of the other areas – I didn’t work to convert readers to be loyal with newsletters or with prominent calls to subscribe to RSS, I didn’t build too many relationships with other bloggers to generate referral traffic and I was very inactive in social media (although it was much more limited back then).

As a result when Google decided to adjust their algorithm one day and my rankings dropped (and almost completely disappeared) in their results I lost almost all of my traffic – and as a result almost all of my income.

I was lucky in that Google readjusted their algorithm a couple of months later and I regained a lot of (but not all) of that traffic but in the mean time I looked for and found a ‘real job’ – and more importantly learned an important lesson about the power of having more than one source of traffic.

That experience was the beginning of me doing a few things that included working harder on capturing readers as subscribers (email and RSS), networking more with other bloggers in my niche and getting more involved in promoting my blog in other places (mainstream media, social media etc). My hope in doing all of this was to build up other sources of traffic so that if Google ever switched off my traffic again (temporarily or permanently) I’d at least have enough traffic to survive.

Google still does send me around 40-50% of my traffic (it varies a little from blog to blog) but I’m in a position now where I could survive for an extended period if it all disappeared (not that I’d like for that to happen).

7. The Importance of Personality and Being Yourself

I’m sure there are other factors that are at play that might be worth considering when looking at traffic. One of these (that I’m yet to fully think through) is personality type.

For example a lot of my my technically thinking friends seem to enjoy the challenge of SEO a little more. They love experimenting with and testing what happens when they make small tweaks to different aspects of their blogs. They’re constantly testing different setups and do quite well from it. I am not technically minded and find their attention to detail very very unusual (and so far from where that I’m at that I feel like I’m from another planet).

Other friends are perhaps a little more social by nature and as a result seem to do well on Twitter.

Others seem to do better by applying their freakish ability to write blog posts that get tonnes of links from other sites and which do brilliantly on social bookmarking sites..

Others are networkers and spend a lot of time interacting with other bloggers and site owners and tend to get links and traffic that way.

Others just seem to be brilliant at building community on their blog and as a result retain almost everyone who ever comments and build new readers from those people telling their friends.

I guess the lesson here is to be yourself and work with your strengths. Of course you don’t want to let your strengths dominate so much that you ignore or become lazy in areas that you’re not as strong in – but do follow your natural abilities and leverage them as much as you can.

Remember that there is no wrong or right way to generate traffic for a blog. If you were analyze the sources of traffic on many top blogs you’d find quite different factors at play!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Did you know you can sell things on your Facebook Facebook profile? Well, you can with the help of a couple handy applications. Whether it be your own music if you’re a musician, a shirt you designed, or old junk you have laying around, there’s probably an application out there that can help you earn some extra dough.

CafePress – Pretty much everyone has heard of CafePress, and with this Facebook app you can start selling whatever you have on your store via your profile.

e3buy Auction – Works with the e3buy auction site so you can add auctions to your profile as well as open a store.

eBayeBay – From the best known of the online auction houses, highlight anything you’re selling on eBay to your friends on Facebook.

FlameTunes – Are you a musician? Want to sell your own music on your profile? This is the application for you.

Garage Sale – In association with Buy.com, Garage Sale allows you to sell your items to your friends, like that box of old books, your bike, etc.

Lemonade – Works just like it’s parent site, Lemonade.com. Pick items you like from a selection of sites, add the widget to your profile, make a commission on anything that sells.

Music Blaster – An application that works with BlastMyMusic. Promote small musical acts and earn a 5% commission on sales of their music.

My Merch Store – Create your products with Zazzle and then you can sell them on their website as well as via your Facebook profile.

Shopit – Got some spare CDs you need to dump? Regretting that HD DVD player you bought? Create a simple store and sell off your items to your friends via this store application.

Posted: 14 Oct 2009 06:02 AM PDT

Have you ever had a moment in your life where everything changed?

You might not have known it at the time - but the moment was defining, it changed the course of some area of your life in a way that turned things upside down.

I had one of those course changing moments early in my blogging. It was a moment that resulted in my blogging moving from being a hobby that generated a nice bit of secondary income into a full time business.

It was a moment that at the time didn’t feel life changing - but it was.

The funny thing about this moment is that it wasn’t a discovery of some secret way to make money blogging, it wasn’t the day I stated one of my blogs… in fact it was a moment that didn’t immediately lead to any particular change on my blogs - because it was largely something that happened in my mind - a paradigm shifting moment.

It all started with 9 words from my wife (V)

‘You’ve got 6 months to make blogging full time.’

She then told me that if I didn’t get it to this kind of level I’d have to get a ‘real job’.

Up until this point I’d been talking about how blogging could one day provide us with a full time income. I’d been showing her the growth of the earnings from the blogs so far and projecting forward to what they might be in the future if things kept going.

I’d been on about it for months and things were going OK - the earnings graphs I kept showing her were trending up - I could see the possibility of one day being a full time blogger.

But I’d been talking a lot…. dreaming a lot…. creating a lot of pretty graphs…. and not really DOING a lot.

I didn’t really see it (I was too close and too caught up in my dreams) but V knew it and so she set me an ultimatum - a deadline that changed my thinking and more importantly led to me changing the way I went about my blogging.

In the moments after V’s ultimatum I had a realization that while I dreamed that one day my blogging would become a business that I’d been treating my blogging like a hobby.

I knew that if I were to succeed in going full time in the next six months that that had to change. I needed to start looking at my blogging as a business now - even though it was only earning a day or two a week’s income.

That moment changed everything.

That was the day I….

• started putting serious time aside for blogging
• became more focused upon my core tasks of creating content
• wasted less time on distractions
• became more strategic in my thinking and set myself goals to work towards
• began to look for new income streams - beyond AdSense
• started hustling for advertisers - ringing up businesses in my niche and pitching my blog to them
• began to seek out guest writing opportunities on other blogs and even in main stream media
• started setting myself deadlines for posting a certain number of posts a day and developed an editorial calendar
• I started networking more with other bloggers
• began to invest more time and even money into my learning of different aspects of blogging
• started to look for a business coach who could teach me how to look at what I do as a business instead of a hobby

That day began the process for me of looking at what I do as a business.

While not a lot changed on my blogs that day - the impact over the last 4-5 years has been significant. I’ve not looked back and many of the things I changed back then have become patterns and a natural part of my blogging work flow.

The #1 reason my blogging grew into a business was that I began to treat it as one.

Tomorrow I want to share a free opportunity with you that I think will help many of us as bloggers to make this mind shift. You see many of us are stuck in the mindset of looking at what we do as a ‘hobby’ and need to make a shift into looking at things more as a business person.

Update: due to unforeseen circumstances I’ve pulled tomorrow’s post. I was going to promote something that I thought fit the bill but on further investigation - it doesn’t. My sincere apologies but I don’t want to promote something that doesn’t fit with my ethos.

However I do recommend people take this idea of learning how to build a successful business seriously. I did this through finding a business coach, reading books and networking with business owners (offline and online).

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Posted: 08 Oct 2009 08:26 AM PDT

A Guest post by Jade Craven.

Have you heard of Johnny B Truant? He started writing at ‘The Economy Isn’t Happening’ but recently, he revealed he’s made $10?000 in 3 months. In his Ittybiz column, he told how he made nearly $3?000 in one month. He’s also written a couple of guest posts here on ProBlogger here and here.

What really attracted me to him was that he didn’t earn this money by taking advantage of people or using questionable tactics. He did it by finding out what people wanted and providing them with a solution that benefited them both.

In this post, I’ll talk about how Johnny did it. I’ll provide strategies and case studies so you can apply these tips to your on blog. I’ll even talk about the tactics he used to promote his killer new ecourse, for those who are looking at selling information products from their blog.

Finally, I’ll give you an exclusive discount for that e-course Zero to Business - just skip to the bottom if you want 10% off.

4 Ways To Earn Money By Helping People

Give Free Stuff strategically

Image by Anil Jadhav

How Johnny did this:

• He released a free instructional ebook about setting up a blog.
• He did free website setups in return for testimonials

How You Can Do this

• Barter your services with other skilled bloggers
• Release an introductory report
• Do free work in return for references or exposure
• Do case studies highlighting your skills.

Case studies.

• Leo Babauta, Skellie and Chris Garret got a lot of exposure because of their guest posting.
• Neil Creek takes headshots of attendees at twitter meetups for use on their social media sites. He has received a lot of praise over this, both from the local twitter community and international photographers. He has gone on to get many more clients and enquiries.
• Darren used to do case studies on his blog as an advertisement for his consulting. He no longer offers this service.

Provide calls to action regularly

Image by kozumel

How Johnny did this:

• He would frequently have P.S at the end of his post - including a few humorous ones
• He would simply state “Call to Action”

How you can provide calls to action:

• In the conclusion of the post, tell the reader what you want them to do
• Give them an incentive to click through

Case Studies:

• Ali Hales guest post on Problogger. She talked about the topic of staff blogging before encouraging people to check out her ecourse. As an extra incentive, she gave the readers a discount code.
• Dave Navarros post on Freelance Folder, where he encouraged the readers to give an example in the comments.

Find your people.

Image by Elvire.R.

How Johnny did this:

• He got a guest posting slot of Ittybiz, offering himself as a case study
• He is on the faculty of Project Mojave
• He has guest posted on the places where his target readership hangs out

How to do this:

• Find blogs that attract the kind of people you want to target. See if you can guest post on that blog.
• Seek  work and joint venture opportunities
• Look for regular writing opportunities

Case studies.

I don’t need to offer any case studies. Look around at your favourite blogs. Do you see the same people being featured? Are the same people interacting? They are the loyal fans.

Are you a loyal fan of anyone? You’ll usually find you tend to hang out in that persons group. You may buy from more than one person. These are the people you want to connect with.

Selling something? Focus on selling solutions.

Image by Doug88888

How Johnny did this

• He offered wordpress installs at a discounted price. To compensate, he asked that people buy through his affiliate link
• He sold group coaching to those that couldn’t afford the price of individual coaching..
• When realizing that people were still needing information, he created a course that was cheaper than getting Johnny to help them through the process.

How you can do this:

• See if you can offer a service at a discounted rate in exchange for purchasing something through their affiliate link
• Find creative ways of making your products more affordable without underpricing yourself.
• Listen to your audiences needs and create products to help them.

Case Studies:

• Sarah Prout does this in her Twitter Success Blueprint. She realized that businesses needed an affordable way to learn about twitter, so she created an ebook with information catered to professionals, as well as other twitter users.
• Men with Pens do this with their blog critiques. They offer a discount for ones offered on the blog.

I know many people hate being sold too. Rather than promote his course Zero to Business, I’ll talk about what you can learn from it.

What you can learn from the course

There are three main things I loved about the promotion strategy:

• He created humorous videos with viral potential.
• He purposely  avoided hype in his sales page
• He provided real and useful bonuses

Lets discuss how you can learn from each strategy.

The Humorous videos.

• He mocked a number of the key sales tactics in the internet marketing niche
• In his letter to his affiliates, he recommended that people promote the videos rather than the product

So - how can you adopt this to your launch?

• Offering a quality resource that your affiliates can promote
• Mock some of the common techniques used in product launches in your niche

Avoiding Hype

• Johnny repeated several times that this product would provide technical solutions. It not make them rich.
• He then explained the costs of learning this if you paid his normal consulting fees.

So - how can you adopt this to your launch?

• Talk about the practical reasons about how your product can help someone
• Explain to them how your solution is better value than the alternative

Cool Bonuses

• He provided individual coaching to the first five people that signed up
• He offered group coaching to those who signed up by a certain date.

So - how can you adopt this to your launch?

• Offer bonuses that are exclusive and are not freely available to other marketers
• Offer bonuses that will provide real value to the majority of your buyers

My call to action:

• If you want 10% off Johnnys e-course, Zero to Business, just use the word ‘problogger‘ as the discount code. Its that easy.
• If you want to check out Johnnys blog, go on over to his fancy new site.
• If you want rants about zombies, check out his twitter feed.

Posted: 30 Jan 2010 06:16 AM PST

The last poll here on ProBlogger examined a growing trend among bloggers trying to monetize their sites – to sell their own products from their blogs rather than just relying upon advertising and affiliate revenue.

Whether it be by selling an E-Book, training program or some other kind of learning program or whether it is selling one self as a consultant or promoting a product from a business that the blogger owns – more and more bloggers do seem to be exploring this as a way to make money.

The poll results were as follows:

I’ve not run this poll previously so have nothing to compare it to – however my gut feeling on this one is that if conducted even just a year ago the percentages would have been further apart. I suspect in the year ahead we’ll see them grow even closer.

Out of interest I thought I’d compile a list of the types of products and services that people said that they sell in the comments of the poll post. You can see that there’s a lot of variation (it’s actually a really inspiring list to me that illustrates a little of what can be done with a blog!

• Design work
• Web/Plugin Development
• Membership Site
• Coaching/Mentoring
• E-Books
• Reports
• Legal Services
• Book (hard cover)
• Software
• Speaking/Training Services
• Music Lessons
• Copy Writing Services
• SEO services
• Tutoring
• Screencast/Video Content
• Scrapbook Supplies
• Sewing Patterns
• Photographic Prints
• Excel Templates
• Music/CD
• Craft
• Flowers/Florist
• Bag Patterns
• Marketing Services
• Skincare products
• Handmade Soap
• Makeup Artist Services
• Craft Kits
• Calendars
• Vintage Clothing
• Gourmet Food Items
• Toys
• Website Templates
• Paintings/Art
• Diet Products
• Real Estate Brokerage
• Fitness Program
• Scuba Diving Education Business
• Personalised Spoof Newspaper Front Pages
• T-Shirts
• Jewellery

There are sure to be many many other examples of what can be sold off the back of a blog – feel free to add more of your experience in this in comments below.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

You’re already in an advantageous position because you do have access to the internet
and the ability for FREEDOM OF CHOICE. Choice to make your own life better.

Not many people are able to have that choice. If you’ve that freedom of choice, make full
use of it because it’s in your hands. Your life is up to you not someone else. What’s a little
hard work, effort and commitment compared to living the life of your dreams? I dare not be the
one to answer it for you - you’ve to answer it yourself.

You see, many new marketers COMPLAIN when they discover a product, no matter how good it is,
actually requires them to actually work on their business…Come on, it’s YOUR business and
if YOU don’t work on it, who else will?

I’ve received so many emails just like the above. Many also throw their arms up in the air and proclaim:

“I don’t know how to do this! The videos are not enough! I need to be spoon fed!”

Wake up. It’s the new world and your choice. If everyone has such an attitude,
they will be no successful entrepreneurs, marketers and self-made millionaires in this world.

As everyone knows though, there are TONS of such success stories - and often,
these people became successful because they WANTED it bad enough to work on it. Click here for an example…

Do you want it bad enough?

Ok you don’t know how to create a website and do “FTP”, it’s not an
impossible thing to learn and try it out, even I, a complete technophobe can do it!

The Keywords Here Are To “LEARN” And “TRY IT OUT”.

If you don’t take the effort to sit down for a few hours and actually
learn and get your hands dirty, then you’ll always be where you are - no where.

You see, with every action comes a reaction, it’s a universal law. Period.

The internet is made to give you information and whatever you need to find out and learn,
you can get a lot of resources (both free and paid) at breakneck speed.

For example, you can go to one of the greatest information goldmines on the internet,
Google.com and find free tutorials on almost anything! There’s really no excuse
in not learning and applying if you’re able to.

It’s what they call an Information Highway, that’s the basis of the internet and
why it was created, and it’s still the driving force behind the technology.

I’m Going To Reveal An Obvious, Simple “SECRET” Which Can Make You A Fortune If You Act On It…

If you focus on being the “Middle Person” connecting sellers and buyers together,
and become a value information provider in the process, you CAN get very rich online.

I’m not going to reveal more at this point, but you’ll discover exactly
what I’m talking about VERY SOON in hush hush resource I’m releasing to
really help new marketers called project “Newbie Cash”.

Ok so here’s what you need to do to make money quickly (in VERY simple terms):

1. Find and target a hot profitable market with money to spend (yawn, heard it before…hey - it works!)

2. Get a market-generic domain name that’s catchy and memorable.

3. Create a website to serve this market with information and content.
Strive to brand yourself in your market with your website.

4. With your information and content, add in recommended quality
resources that SOLVE the market’s problems (resources must be targeted to your market, obviously.)
Affiliate marketing works the best at this point.

5. Always strive to capture leads and build a database for future correspondence and contact with your market.

6. Focus on marketing, advertising and driving traffic to your website once it’s all set up to profit. FOCUS ON THIS!

7. Communicate regularly with your list for goodness sake. Some people don’t email their lists. I do it often

8. Test, tweak and increase conversion of your website with better copy, multimedia and graphics etc.

9. Create your own products in this market. Information products are tops.

10. Start an affiliate program and MARKET your affiliate program

Rinse, repeat and replicate.

As we progess with this site, I’ll be sharing more information on each of the above steps, for now DO SOMETHING.

Catch you later…

To Your Success!
Thank You,
Leinad Roy
Blogger - Wordpress Internet Marketing Tools Team
Taman TyTyan Indah 17133
Bekasi Barat - Indonesia
Request generated by:
http://webhostingmurah.biz
http://bloggwpress.com
—————————————–
ClickBank Internet Money Machine
ClickBank Secret Affilate Bisnis
>> http://secretclickbankweapon.com/
——————————————-

You’re already in an advantageous position because you do have access to the internet
and the ability for FREEDOM OF CHOICE. Choice to make your own life better.

Not many people are able to have that choice. If you’ve that freedom of choice, make full
use of it because it’s in your hands. Your life is up to you not someone else. What’s a little
hard work, effort and commitment compared to living the life of your dreams? I dare not be the
one to answer it for you - you’ve to answer it yourself.

You see, many new marketers COMPLAIN when they discover a product, no matter how good it is,
actually requires them to actually work on their business…Come on, it’s YOUR business and
if YOU don’t work on it, who else will?

I’ve received so many emails just like the above. Many also throw their arms up in the air and proclaim:

“I don’t know how to do this! The videos are not enough! I need to be spoon fed!”

Wake up. It’s the new world and your choice. If everyone has such an attitude,
they will be no successful entrepreneurs, marketers and self-made millionaires in this world.

As everyone knows though, there are TONS of such success stories - and often,
these people became successful because they WANTED it bad enough to work on it. Click here for an example…

Do you want it bad enough?

Ok you don’t know how to create a website and do “FTP”, it’s not an
impossible thing to learn and try it out, even I, a complete technophobe can do it!

The Keywords Here Are To “LEARN” And “TRY IT OUT”.

If you don’t take the effort to sit down for a few hours and actually
learn and get your hands dirty, then you’ll always be where you are - no where.

You see, with every action comes a reaction, it’s a universal law. Period.

The internet is made to give you information and whatever you need to find out and learn,
you can get a lot of resources (both free and paid) at breakneck speed.

For example, you can go to one of the greatest information goldmines on the internet,
Google.com and find free tutorials on almost anything! There’s really no excuse
in not learning and applying if you’re able to.

It’s what they call an Information Highway, that’s the basis of the internet and
why it was created, and it’s still the driving force behind the technology.

I’m Going To Reveal An Obvious, Simple “SECRET” Which Can Make You A Fortune If You Act On It…

If you focus on being the “Middle Person” connecting sellers and buyers together,
and become a value information provider in the process, you CAN get very rich online.

I’m not going to reveal more at this point, but you’ll discover exactly
what I’m talking about VERY SOON in hush hush resource I’m releasing to
really help new marketers called project “Newbie Cash”.

Ok so here’s what you need to do to make money quickly (in VERY simple terms):

1. Find and target a hot profitable market with money to spend (yawn, heard it before…hey - it works!)

2. Get a market-generic domain name that’s catchy and memorable.

3. Create a website to serve this market with information and content.
Strive to brand yourself in your market with your website.

4. With your information and content, add in recommended quality
resources that SOLVE the market’s problems (resources must be targeted to your market, obviously.)
Affiliate marketing works the best at this point.

5. Always strive to capture leads and build a database for future correspondence and contact with your market.

6. Focus on marketing, advertising and driving traffic to your website once it’s all set up to profit. FOCUS ON THIS!

7. Communicate regularly with your list for goodness sake. Some people don’t email their lists. I do it often

8. Test, tweak and increase conversion of your website with better copy, multimedia and graphics etc.

9. Create your own products in this market. Information products are tops.

10. Start an affiliate program and MARKET your affiliate program

Rinse, repeat and replicate.

As we progess with this site, I’ll be sharing more information on each of the above steps, for now DO SOMETHING.

Catch you later…

To Your Success!

This is an exclusive no hype content-packed blueprint I’ve personally wrote for you. If you study and apply the information within, you will become a very successful super affiliate in any market.

“Ultimate Affiliate Marketing” comes packed with solid information and tactics not revealed elsewhere within its 56 pages. Some topics:   * What affiliate marketing really is ? and why it’s one of the best business models around * What separates those who make massive profits from those who never see a single commission * What you need long-term in order to really explode your commissions * What to do right now if you’re a total newbie, working on a shoestring budget, with no website and no list * How to stay in the game and keep growing and profiting * And much more!

• Training Report #1: “One Week Affiliate Profit Plan”

• Training Report #2: “Quick-Start Affiliate Profits: How To Promote ANY Affiliate Program For A Surge Of Immediate Profits…Even If You’re Starting From Scratch!”

• Training Report #3: “Quick-Start Guide To Google AdWords”

• Training Report #4: “Thank You Page Tactics”

• Training Report #5: “Affiliate Money Machine” (also a rebrandible ebook you can use to promote Secret Affiliate Weapon with.)

• Training Report #6: “Ultimate Website Videos: How To Start And Profit From Your Own Websites!”

Training report #5 is a video tutorial package worth $427. Not only will you be able to learn from these videos, but you can also rebrand them and make autopilot commissions from Secret Affiliate Weapon with it!   These video tutorials will show you how to start and profit from your own website. There are a grand total of 17 video ebooks with hundred+ hours of step-by-step ?how to? videos in this 4-module package: Module #1: Website Design Videos Module #2: Website Tune-Up Videos Module #3: Website Conversion Videos Module #4: Website Traffic Videos

For Details Training See This Links :
http://bloggwpress.com/internetbusiness/
http://bloggwpress.com/webtoolz/

Posted: 11 Jan 2010 01:23 AM PST

If you’re looking to discover how to make money online in 2010 check out the Shoemoney System.

Jeremy Schoemaker won’t be a stranger to most of you. His story is a real rags to riches story (as you’ll see in the intro video to the system) and he’s managed to build himself an amazing business since turning his life around 5 years ago.

What I like about the videos I’ve seen so far in Jeremy’s system is that they are:

1. they are designed for real people who are at the beginning of their journey – he actually talks through many of the basics in simple language to a real person who is also at the beginning of their journey.
2. they are holistic – Jeremy doesn’t just teach one way of making money online. While he has his own approach he’s one of those people who has tried many methods and gives a great introduction to them all.
3. they are based upon his experience – as mentioned, Jeremy has tried a lot of stuff and his teaching comes out of real experience of someone who has actually made a lot of money online. He and his team have tried and tested the strategies he teaches – you’re not getting just theory here but an honest and experienced teaching based on what he’s done.
4. It’s largely video teaching – I let this kind of stuff play while I’m working in the background most days.

The other thing I like about Jeremy is that he’s compiled some really useful tools to simplify a lot of what he does.

Anyway – if you’re interested in another proven online entrepreneur’s approach to making money online check out Shoemoney System.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Keyword Niche Power(MRR + website)

If you would like to:

Quickly discover red hot, profitable keywords for your niche web pages,
Rank your websites high in Search Engines for popular search results,
Receive FREE targeted traffic from major Search Engines at full throttle, and
Get Focused and specific keywords for your PPC Campaigns
Then this letter is a MUST READ, as it will show you how YOU can accomplish all these in less than 5 minutes from now!

My name is [Your Name] , and I have discovered a solution that can enable you to achieve all this in almost instantly!

You and I know that Search Engine Optimization is one of the best ways to go, especially if you DON’T want to spend a fortune on traffic-generating. After all, Search Engines are usually the first things Internet users use when they start searching for information they need.

And if these Search Engine users come across your website in droves, you stand a high chance earning from every visitor to your website.

While this online success equation is rather simple, the problems are more complicated than that.

For starters, more than 90 of your Search Engine Optimization success depends heavily on profitable keywords. In other words, if you don’t have laser-focused keywords displayed and embedded in your web pages, you:

CANNOT rank your web pages high for popular Search Engine results. Notice I said “popular” and not just any kind of obscure search results. You want to have your web pages listed in the TOP 3 pages for keyword results that people often type into the Search Box everyday for your niche. If you cannot have that accomplished, you in effect…

CANNOT receive FREE targeted traffic. Since Search Engine users on the average do not search beyond 3 pages on specific results, you are likely not able to receive FREE Search Engine traffic, short of being ranked in the top 3 pages for your hot-searched niche keywords. You also…

CANNOT find specific enough keywords for your PPC campaigns. It is hard enough to sit around trying to find the right keywords for your PPC Campaigns. There is no shadow beyond a doubt that it has to do with your poor choice of keywords and its density in your web pages! Since the ads are irrelevant, you won’t much, if any at all, from this program, even IF you manage to drive in targeted traffic into the web page. I mean, what are the chance of a gardening enthusiasts clicking on an ad that is related to finance and mortgages?
But these problems are ready to be past, because I will be…

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Find your keyword niches with this very flexible and customizable tool!

Perform keyword analysis and extraction in seconds, even if you have a dial up connection!

Quickly find meta tag keywords and later narrow down the search to laser-focused, red hot keywords you should be using for your web pages for maximum Search Engine Optimization!

Increase your web page’s ranking for popular, related searches in major Search Engines using potential keywords!

Analyze upto specified directory depth, and find high ranking meta-keywords in specified pages in ascending order,

View results with specific keywords and Google PR page-wise with a few easy clicks of the mouse,

Save your keyword researches and results in Meta Tag files, TXT or even Excel Spreadsheet format for your own convenience!

Analyze keywords for your PPC Campaigns with ease, enabling you to research the profitability of your chosen niche market!

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And much, much more!

Watch Keyword Niche Power In Action!

Click here to see a demo of what Keyword Niche Power can do for your Search Engine Optimization Needs!

NOTE: The minimum requirement needed to run this program on your computer is a Pentium III based computer with Dial-up Internet connection. Your Operation Software must be Windows 98 or newer.

By now, I’m sure you’re convinced of the power behind Keyword Niche Power, and how it can significantly solve your SEO needs.

Or do I really need to convince you MORE with a row of neatly-lined up testimonials from happy customers and Search Engine Optimists?

What Others Have To Say About
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More than convinced now?

So, How Much Is Keyword Niche Power Worth To You?

If you think about:

The amount of time, effort and frustration you get to save in researching profitable keywords for your niche web sites for optimal Search Engine Optimization, and

Well, that’s how much in value Keyword Niche Power is worth to you.

Also, the cost of putting together this software, incidentally, amounts up to $500.00+ in “real money”. In other words, $500.00+ were actually invested in the making of this software, together with the solutions it provides. I haven’t factored in the time and effort costs in putting this software together and not to mention, the test, track, trial, and error!

But now, you can have a copy of this software at a measly price of $97.00, minus the time, effort and additional money spent on developing this unique piece!

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It’s okay even if it’s 3.00 A.M. in the morning, because the entire delivery and online payment process is automated, you will be directed to the download page as soon as you make your purchase in the Order Button below, even as I am sleeping or doing something else perhaps in another time zone!

But you know it very well that this is the kind of break you’re looking for, especially if you are DYING to have red hot potential keywords to use in gaining better Search Engine results.

Well, there’s no need to die trying. In fact, you can make a fit survival in the game of Search Engine Optimization with this powerful application. Order now!

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Warm Regards,

[Leinad Roy]

P.S. For the first time ever, researching for profitable niche keywords and Search Engine Optimization has never been this easy! Keyword Niche Power levels the playing for everyone in the game of SEO so the little guy can have an equal chance to receive the benefits of the cool from Search Engines as much as the elites do!

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User tags:
keyword niche power

Posted: 15 Dec 2009 05:50 AM PST

Last night I was chatting with a blogger who was feeling completely overwhelmed with their goal of making a living from blogging.

I asked them how much they wanted to make from blogging.

They responded that they wanted to be a full time blogger.

I pushed them for a figure – what does ‘full time’ mean for you?

They thought for a moment and said that they could live off $30,000 USD a year (note: they wouldn’t have minded earning more but would be able to quit their current job at this kind of rate).

$30,000 a year sounds like a lot to make from a blog – especially when you’re starting out and are yet to make a dollar. To this blogger it seemed so overwhelming that she had almost convinced herself that it was not possible.

Advice for Becoming a Full Time Blogger

My response was threefold:

1. Don’t Give Up Your Day Job…. Yet

It is possible to make $30,000 a year blogging, but it’s unlikely to happen over night. Keep your feet on the ground and your expectations reasonable. IF it happens (and there are no guarantees) it is almost certainly going to take some time.

2. Be Specific

Saying that you want to be full time as a blogger is a great goal – but it’s not really specific enough. This is why I wanted the blogger I was chatting with to name a figure. For her full time was $30,000 – for others it could be more or less – the amount is not the point, the point is that you need something more concrete to work towards so that you’re able to measure where you’re at.

For me when I decided I want to go full time as a blogger I decided that I wanted to aim for $50,000 (Aussie Dollars) in a year as the bench mark (at that time $50,000 was around 36,000 USD). That’s around what I would have been earning in my current main job if I had been doing that full time (I was actually working a number of part time jobs at the time as well as studying part time).

Knowing what I was aiming for helped me in a number of ways when it came to getting to that goal.

3. Break it down into something more Achievable

$30,000 USD still sounds big when you’re a new blogger – and in some ways it is. However there are different ways of thinking about that figure. Lets break it down in the way that I used to look at my target.

• $30,000 a year = $576.92 per week
• $30,000 a year = $82.19 a day
• $30,000 a year = $3.42 an hour

We could break it down on a monthly or on a minute by minute basis if we wanted to (in fact I did do it by minute from time to time for fun) – but the exercise is really about helping you to see that perhaps your big goal is a little more achievable if you are to break it down. Making $82.19 somehow seems a little bit easier to me than making $30,000 (or is that just me?).

OK – the other way that I used to break down my goal that I found really helpful to me was to do it based upon what I need to achieve to meet that target. For me I would usually look at the daily figure – in this case $82.19.

What do I need to do to make $82.19 a day ($30,000 a year)?

Well there’s a number of ways that much. Lets look at a few:

• CPC Ads – lets say we’re running mainly AdSense on our blog and that the average click is paying 5 cents. That equates to 1643 clicks on AdSense ads (note: AdSense also runs CPM ads so it’s not quite as simple as saying you need 1643 clicks… but to keep this simple lets just go with that).
• CPM Ads – lets say that we’re running CPM ads on our blog and we’re being paid $2 CPM per ad unit and we had 3 ads on each page (which is effectively $6 CPM per page). This would mean we’d need 13,000 page impressions.
• Monthly Sponsorships – one way to sell ads directly to advertisers is to sell ads on a month by month basis as a sponsorship. To make $30k in a year you need to sell $2500 a month in ads. You might have 6 ad spots on your blog so this is 6 advertisers at $416.66 per advertiser per month.
• Low Commission Affiliate Products – Lets say we were promoting affiliate products from a site like Amazon and your commissions were on average about 40 cents per sale. To earn $82.19 you’d need to sell 205 products.
• High Commission Affiliate Products – In this case you might be promoting ebooks and earning $8 a copy (that’s what you’d earn selling my 31DBBB ebook per commission). The math is simple on this one – you’d had to sell around 10 e-books a day.
• Really Big Commission Affiliate Products – of course e-books are not the biggest product out there to promote – there are products like training courses where you can earn hundreds per sale. Lets take one that might pay out $300 for a yearly membership on a bigger product. In this case you need to sell 8 of these per month.
• Selling Your Own E-book – got your own product, perhaps an e-book, to sell from your blog? At $19.95 a sale you need to sell just over 4 of these a day. You can do the sums on cheaper or more expensive products.

Of course there are many many other ways to make money from blogs. Subscriptions, donations, paid reviews, selling yourself as a consultant….. etc. You can do the sums for yourself on your own model.

I know that some of the above figures still sound out of reach for bloggers – 1643 clicks on your AdSense ads sounds massive to a new blogger…. and it is – but do keep in mind that you can combine some of the above (in fact I’d recommend you diversify your income).

You might run 2 ad networks on your site, promote Amazon affiliates, sell your own e-book and promote someone’s membership course.

Looking back on my own figures for around the time when I hit my $50,000 AUD (around $100 USD a day) goal and for me at that time my income mix looked a like this (going from memory here):

• AdSense: $35
• Chitika: $20
• Private Ad Sales: $20
• Amazon: $15
• Other Affiliate Commissions: $10

Note: I didn’t achieve this milestone until I’d been blogging for over 2 years (I blogged for the first year without trying to make money).

This didn’t happen over night (let me emphasize this – blogging for money is neither quick nor is it easy money) but I really found that breaking things down into more bite sized pieces helped me to stay motivated but also helped me to identify what I needed to work on in order to reach my goals (and for me to quite my day job).

Again – don’t quit your day job yet (in fact you may not want to quit it even when you reach your goal – it can be good to have a back up plan) but do work hard at being specific about your blogging goals and attempt to break it down in a way that helps you move towards them.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Have you ever wanted to earn more money with Google Adsense? If you write and publish content for online marketing, I’m sure you have! The question of course is “How does one effectively optimize and organize his/her website content in order to increase his/her Adsense earnings?” The answer to this question can easily be summed up in three main steps: (1) keyword research (targeting terms and keywords with high search volume, and with as little competition as possible), (2) search engine optimization for traffic, and (3) split-testing and implementation of ad layouts that are proven to result in the most conversions (clicks).

Choosing Keywords to Target
Keyword research is an important part of online marketing. Whether you want to write articles or run Google Adwords campaigns, you should always start by doing your keyword research to figure out which keyword phrases you should target the most.
In contrast to many other Adsense publishers, I don’t target high paying Adsense keywords (well, at least not the highest paying keywords). What I usually do is target small niches and focus on getting high in the searches. Nonetheless, I must admit that optimizing your content with high paying Adsense keywords is certainly one of the best approaches to make more money with Google Adsense if of course you can overcome the competition and get a constant amount of traffic (higher Adsense paying keywords = higher Pay-per-click rates).
How to Find High Paying Adsense Keywords
Google Adwords provides a free keyword research tool to help publishers find keyword ideas and check out the highest paying Cost-Per-Click Keywords for Google Adsense, allowing them to run effective Google Adwords campaigns and write content with the highest paying keywords in mind.
If you already have a website, I would recommend that you check out your current keywords, and then optimize your content using related terms that have higher Cost-Per-Click rates.
Here is how you proceed:
1. First, go to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. It should look like this.

2. Select Website content
3. Enter your website URL
4. Click the Get keyword ideas button
5. Click the dropdown list arrow below Choose columns to display (Group keywords terms by common terms’ box should be checked)
6. Make sure that US dollars (USD $) is selected under Calculate estimates using different maximum CPC dib:
7. Type 100 in the box next to the dropdown list box and click the recalculate button
8. Click Estimated Avg. PCP title one time to sort by price and a second time to sort from highest to lowest.
10. Now you have a detailed list of high paying Adsense keywords that you can use to re-write your website content.
Finding New High Paying Adsense Keywords
You can increase your Adsense earnings even higher by adding new keywords to your current ones. Just follow the steps listed below:
1. Go to Google Adwords Keyword Tool
2. Select Descriptives words or phrases
3. Click the Use synonyms checkbox to select it if necessary
4. Type a keyword in the textbox
5. After typing in the characters in the picture, click the Get keyword ideas button
6. Click the Choose columns to display arrow and select show all in the dropdown list
7. Select US dollars (USD $) under Calculate estimates using different maximum CPC dib:
8. Type 100 in the box next to the dropdown list box and click the recalculate button
9. Click Estimated Avg. PCP title one time to sort by price and a second time to sort from highest to lowest.
10. Collect the highest paying keyword phrases, and use them when you write new content for your website.
Here are some high Cost-Per-Click keywords I’ve found using the method explained above:
school loan consolidation
school loans consolidation: $39.39
consolidate school loans: $35.02
consolidating school loan: $34.40
Domain name
available domain names: $24.60
buying a domain name: $22.25
buy domain name: $19.06
Note: Cost-Per-Click (different from Pay-Per-Click) is the amount of money an advertiser pays every time one of his/her ads is clicked. The publisher (that would be you) doesn’t get more than 60% of that amount.

Posted: 09 Dec 2009 06:01 AM PST

Today a new ‘make money blogging fast‘ product is being launched into the blogosphere that promises those who buy it that they can make big money blogging – fast.

As this thing is launching and I’m already getting emails about it from readers asking if they should buy it – let me give you a few quick reactions to it and other products I’ve seen like it.

Do keep in mind, I’ve not bought the product so I’m making these calls based solely upon what I’ve seen in the sales material and what I’ve heard from charter members. Much of what I have written below applies to most of these kinds of products (and there are many).

Note: I’m not naming the product here (and I’m certainly not going to try to make a quick buck with an affiliate promotion), I just don’t feel good about promoting it in any way – for reasons that I guess will become clear below.

Make Fast Money Blogging?

Here’s the main thing – making money from blogging instantly… immediately… quickly… fast isn’t something I’ve seen too many people achieve (I’m actually yet to meet any). I have seen bloggers make A LOT of money blogging – millions of dollars in fact. It’s certainly possible to do – however in every case that I’ve seen the blogger has worked their butts off blogging for a long time, building their authority, credibility and by writing content that is original and useful – well before their blog started making money.

If you think you can flick a switch or change to a new system and instantly make a lot of money fast – you’re in for a fall. Don’t fall for that line – to make money in this game you’re going to have to work really hard and have a long term view of things.

Lots of Blogs Each Earning Little Bits of Money

OK – the methodology of this program is that you need to start a blog network – multiple blogs that each earn a relatively small amount of money, that mounts up to be a significant amount.

Sounds like a reasonable way to approach things and there is actually some truth to the methodology. I know a number of bloggers who have made some money this way, a few that even make a full time living from it.

I’m not going to knock people for taking on this model – it can work and I guess people do need to make a living. I even did it for a little while myself. However keep in mind that there is a cost of this method – something that I learned for myself the hard way.

The problem with maintaining lots of blogs is that while they each might make a little money that adds up to a reasonable amount – you end up with lots of blogs that don’t really amount to anything in and of themselves on any other level than that they earn a little money.

Perhaps that’s all your dream is (to make a little money from lots of blogs that no one has ever heard of) but what I love about blogs is the way that they open up other opportunities for a blogger. A blog can build your brand and profile to the point that it opens up doors for new jobs, partnerships, book deals, speaking engagements, friendships, business ideas…. etc. The problem is that most bloggers who have experienced these opportunities have worked hard to build a small number of blogs (usually a single one) which they’ve worked hard at – rather than spreading themselves thinly across multiple blogs.

My experience of a small network of blogs was that it while I was able to sustain 10-20 blogs (20-30 posts a day) that the quality of what I was producing was pretty low. I did get a little traffic to each from Google – but never really generated any regular readers, never had anyone comment, never had any opportunities open up as a result of those blogs.

It was only when I switched to having 1-2 blogs with quality, useful and original content that things opened up. As a result I slowly started to make real money blogging and more importantly started to see opportunities to leverage the profile of my blogs to bigger and better opportunities.

Using Other People’s Content

One of the main methods taught by many make money blogging products is to use other people’s content on your blog for the bulk of your posts. This one teaches that you should use other people’s content for the bulk of your posts and throw in some original stuff from time to time. They even give you tools to find and import other people’s content quickly (remember you need lots of blogs to make this work – so you need to do it quickly).

Again – this is something I dabbled in for a while. I did it all manually and tried to use the content in a way that added value rather than just copying and pasting in content (I also did it with the blessing of those whose content I aggregated and always acknowledge sources) – but in the end I dropped it as a method for a couple of reasons.

Firstly it was the most boring thing I had ever done (and I’ve worked on conveyor belts on production lines for 12 hour shifts – so I know boring). Blogging can be an amazingly uplifting experience – but copying and pasting in content is not fun.

Secondly it’s only marginally useful – there are ways of aggregating content from other sites that can be useful, but it always takes work and extra effort for this to happen. The method demonstrated in the product I’m referring to just mashes up a load of content from other sites in a way that doesn’t really help anyone. As a result a blog that does this as the bulk of its content isn’t really useful to anyone, except the blogger making a few dollars from it. The demonstrator describes the post as quality content – it’s not really. It’s on topic, it might do ok in Google, but it doesn’t really help anyone.

Thirdly – you end up a blog that isn’t really unique or original. This comes back to my points above about creating blogs that actually help build a brand or profile for you. If all you do with the bulk of your content is rehash and mashup other people’s content you’ll never get a name for being anything much more than someone who reads, quotes and links to other people’s content. Perhaps I’m crazy – but I’d rather be known for someone who has original, interesting and useful ideas than someone who whips up mashups of other people’s stuff all day every day. But maybe that’s just me?

Fourthly – while search engines unfortunately do rank this kind of content, I’m finding that they’re getting better and better at identifying truly useful content and junky content like this that is created purely to get search traffic. Sites like this can and do rank well but often they fall out of the rankings and in the long term don’t tend to rank well.

Note: at least the teaching offered in today’s course acknowledges sources of content with links and only uses short quotes from those sources – I don’t think it’s anywhere near as bad as some tools that scrape content, strip links and acknowledgements and automatically produce very spammy content.

Final Thoughts

In the end people will believe that they can make fast money blogging if they want to. Some people just want to believe the dream and nothing I can say will convince them. They’ll happily pay their $67 a month, create a few of these ‘blogs’ and a few months later realise that this isn’t a ‘fast’ or particularly ‘easy’ game.

If you’re tempted then please just pause for a moment and think about your objectives for blogging. If you’re looking to purely make money and you don’t want any real personal satisfaction or have any goals of building a brand or profile – then this type of model may actually work for you.

But if your dream is to build something that grows your profile as someone with authority in your niche, or to land a job or book deal, or to get invited to speak at an industry event, or to be quoted in mainstream media about your topic, or it’s just to build a blog that has loyal readers who keep coming back because you’re helping them…. then perhaps this isn’t the type of blogging model for you.

Your Thoughts?

PS: Interestingly the sales page of this new product highlights some successful blogs that make a lot of money blogging. They include Dooce and Mashable. I would argue that these blogs pretty much prove my point. They’re all about original and useful content. They are not about creating lots of blogs that each a little money – they’re about putting in a lot of work to produce useful and original content over a long period of time and don’t resemble anything I’ve seen about the actual product being promoted on the page.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger. Make Fast Money Blogging Products – My Reaction

Filed under Video Training by Ewen Chia

Hey guys,

Do you want to learn how to make money on the internet? If so, then here’s the place to be.

Making real money online is not a dream, it’s a BUSINESS.

And with any worthwhile business, it requires you to invest time, effort or money (or all 3!)

Internet marketing is not an ‘overnight riches’ model, although some people would beg to differ.

You CAN make money fast on the internet, however you need these 3 basic factors in place:

1. Knowing what you want to do (markets, model, products etc.)

2. Creating your own simple plan based upon point 1 (to guide and motivate yourself)

3. Having and applying a systematic process to execute point 2 (focus is crucial here)

I’ve decided to start a new blog here just for you, and it’s solely dedicated to helping you make real money from the internet (if you haven’t yet).

With this, I hope to achieve these objectives:

- Provide free internet business training to people who needs it

- Provide real content and information to make you make more money online

- Recommend tested and proven internet marketing solutions/strategies

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For example, you can type in a key phrase like “internet business tutorials” and get all sort of information for free!

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Enough talk, here are your videos:

“Affiliate Marketing Basics” video training:

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“Article Marketing For Newbies” video training:

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(To view these videos, you need Flash Player installed. Get it free here.)

These videos should be enough for now.

I plan to add in a lot more stuff for you regularly. These will include important information and tutorials to bank you a fortune online.

I’ll often be sharing my own personal marketing strategies here too.

So whether you’re a beginner or advanced marketer, it’ll help to come back here often.

Ok, signing off for now…

Have a great day!

Ewen