Monetize You Blog

Blogging is big business these days, with some bloggers reporting six-figure or even million-dollar incomes. There are a number of ways that these bloggers earn such large paychecks, and the best know how to do it in a way that won't scare off readers. Check out 101 ways that you can earn money from your blog and learn strategies for using these tools and methods in a way that's reader-friendly.

Merchandising

If you're a well-loved blogger, there's a good chance that your readers would like to show their support. Give them what they want and make money by taking advantage of merchandising opportunities.

1. CafePress.com: This perennial favorite makes it easy for you to put your blog's logo on shirts, bags, coasters and other items.
2. Self-Published Books: If your readers like your content, they may want to have something they can own offline or even share with friends. Create a book with self-publishing services like Lulu, and you'll earn profits even without a huge book deal.
3. Printfection.com: Design and sell custom products with Printfection.com.
4. Hard-Copy Content: Create a CD-ROM "book" with cleanly organized content that can be accessed offline. You can take things a step further and sell subscriptions for future updates to the system.
5. GoodStorm: Like CafePress.com and Printfection.com, GoodStorm is a nice way to create and sell your own merchandising products.

Paid Content

Paid content is a good monetization method for bloggers that regularly offer useful information — especially if this information helps others make money. As with all monetization methods, it's all in the approach. Don't create misleading previews of content that requires a membership to read in full. Rather, devote special sections of premium content to readers who are willing to pay for the information.

1. E-Books: Whether it's a compilation of your best tips or a new idea altogether, an e-book is a good, reader-friendly way to package content.
2. White Papers: Like e-books, white papers are a smaller, more technical version of your content.
3. Phone Calls: Sell one-on-one phone calls for advice and other consulting through Ether.
4. Miniguides: If you've just run a particularly helpful series, package it up into a miniguide.
5. Tutorials: Gather your knowledge and compile it into a tutorial that relies upon your expert advice.
6. Members-Only Sections: Whether you're providing access to published items or just ad-free content, make sure you're delivering a product that your readers are willing to pay for.
7. TextMarks Inc.: Charge readers to get text-message alerts about your content through TextMarks.
8. X-Events: Project physical events online and create revenue by charging admission, attracting sponsors and selling subscriptions to future events.
9. Podcasts: Podcasts may be a novelty to your readers, and many of them are probably willing to pay to be able to hear your entries on the go.
10. Videos: Like podcasts, videos are value-added extras that readers may be willing to pay for.

Begging

It never hurts to be straightforward about earning money from your blog. Ask your readers for donations — in a polite way, of course — and the ones that truly value your work will likely be more than willing to help support your ongoing success.

1. PayPal: PayPal's system allows you to place a donation button on your blog.
2. Amazon Honor System: Like PayPal, the Amazon Honor System allows you to accept online donations.
3. Mailed Checks: Of course, good old U.S. mail works just as well. Provide readers with a P.O. box that they can mail donations to.
4. Buy me a beer/coffee: Asking for donations in the form of a beer, coffee or other special item allows readers to reward you with something tangible.
5. Amazon Wish List: Although it's not cash, asking readers to buy you items from your Amazon Wish List will save you from having to buy things yourself. Again, they'll feel more rewarded knowing they've given you something tangible.

Opportunities

Becoming a successful blogger means becoming an expert in your field. You can use this status to earn money through opportunities, while increasing the value you provide to your readers.

1. Writing Gigs: By showcasing your writing talents on your blog, you've provided a living resume to any blog network or news site that might be interested in hiring you.
2. Seminars and Workshops: As an expert, you can invite readers to visit with you in person for seminars and workshops.
3. Bloggers for Hire: Get yourself hired to blog for a corporate Web site.
4. Blogger Jobs: Like Bloggers for Hire, Blogger Jobs can connect you with sites in need of a blogger.
5. Go Offline: Take your blogging skills offline as a columnist in a newspaper or magazine.
6. Guest Blogging: Fill in for fellow bloggers as a guest writer for a nominal fee or just future reciprocation.
7. Job Board: If you're an industry leader, set up a job board that your readers can use to hire or be hired for positions in your field.
8. Create a Radio Station: With a radio station, you can feature podcasts, sell showcase spots to budding artists and even sell audio advertising.
9. Consulting: If you've found success as a blogger, you probably have a lot of knowledge to share about mastering both the Internet and your field. Freelance as a consultant and get paid for sharing what you know.
10. Speaking: Your blog can get your noticed by industry leaders and can land you speaking engagements at conferences and meetings.
11. Book: A number of popular bloggers have landed lucrative book deals.
12. Interviews: Share your knowledge on a new medium and go on radio or TV interviews.

Offline

The benefits, monetary and otherwise, of writing a blog extend well beyond the Internet, particularly if you operate an offline business. Take advantage of these benefits using the following methods.

1. Market Your Services: Your blog is a great forum for marketing your business. Post about current promotions, new interests and other business-building information.
2. Create a Voice Behind Your Business: A blog is a great way to grow your business through personal dialogue. By presenting yourself as a friendly authority, your business becomes more approachable.
3. Deepen Customer Relationships: Beyond providing a friendly voice, a blog can help you connect with customers. Link to their blogs, write about their interests and give them special attention in your writing.

Ads

Ads are generally the bread and butter of bloggers. However, they're also the most likely to irritate readers. To keep a happy balance, focus on relevance and make sure that you're not overloading your blog with too many ads. It should go without saying that you should absolutely not use every single one of these ad programs, either. Rather, pick a handful and rotate them until you find what that works the best for your blog.

1. Yahoo! Publisher Network: Display contextual ads on your site via the Yahoo! Publisher Network.
2. ValueClick Inc.: You'll get quality advertisers, support and advanced technology from ValueClick.
3. Tribal Fusion: Tribal Fusion's impression-based ad service focuses on targeting and optimization.
4. eXelate Targeting eXchange: This program relies on delayed ad cookies.
5. Clicksor Inc.: Clicksor focuses on contextual ads that can be presented in a number of different ways, such as text, graphics and in-line links.
6. Indeed: Post job listings from Indeed and get paid.
7. Chitika eMiniMalls: Promote products through interactive merchandise kiosks and provide both relevant content and comparative shopping to readers. You'll get paid per click.
8. AdSonar: Attract advertisers and build relationships with them individually through this platform.
9. ExpoActive: Get freedom, from specific ads to style, with ExpoActive.
10. AdVolcano LLC: Using AdVolcano's platform, you can design your ads, set your own prices and screen your advertisers.
11. eXelate Targeted Links: Pick and choose the advertisers you want on your site with this program.
12. grokAds.com: Set your price and choose which advertisers to accept with grokAds.com.
13. Adify: Get editorial control and high-value advertising on your site with Adify. You can even set your own prices.
14. AdBriteInc.: Using AdBrite, you have the option to approve and reject ads that will appear on your blog, and you can even use it to sell directly to your own users.
15. BidVertiser.com: These ads are highly customizable, and you have the option to block any ad you don't want displayed on your blog.
16. Blogads: Get invited to this exclusive network of bloggers, and you'll have high-quality, relevant advertising on your blog.
17. Casale Media Inc.: Get high-quality advertisers and control with Casale Media.
18. DoubleClick Inc.: DoubleClick offers differentiation and lots of solutions for publishers.
19. BlueLithium: Get great ad targeting, selective partnerships and better ad performance with BlueLithium.

RSS Ads

A more specialized advertising method, RSS ads give bloggers a way to monetize feeds. Most readers generally react to RSS ads the same way they do with regular ones, so if you stay relevant and limited, it should work out just fine.

1. Pheedo Inc.: This RSS advertising platform offers interactive triggers and video options.
2. Feedvertising: A part of Text Link Ads, Feedvertising embeds ads in your RSS feed.
3. CrispAds: This blog-focused ad network allows you to place ads directly into entries so they'll show up both on your site and in feeds.
4. FeedBurner Inc.: FeedBurner's ads are embedded in RSS feeds,and feature high-quality advertisers like Discover Band, Best Buy and Comcast.
5. FeedM8: FeedM8's service makes your blog ready for mobile content and embeds mobile-appropriate advertising.

Text Ads

Text ads are one of the the most reader-friendly type of ads you can serve. Their small size and text-based nature makes them less offensive and in-your-face than graphic ads. Try out these services to put this type of subtle ad on your blog.

1. Vibrant Media: Vibrant Media's ads are in-text and completely user driven.
2. Google AdSense: Ads from Google are the most popular and often the most profitable source of income for many bloggers. They're relevant to your content, and many blog readers expect it, so you're not likely to run into lots of negative feedback.
3. LinkAds: These text ads come with lots of control.
4. PaidTextLinks.com: Sell links on your site and retain editorial control over what's posted with this service.
5. One Monkey Inc.: You can host highly targeted, text-based ads and earn a great percentage of revenue with One Monkey.
6. Kontera ContentLink: ContentLink turns relevant keywords within your content into a hyperlink ad.
7. Text Link Ads: Text Link Ads' simple, nonintrusive ads are a good choice for many bloggers.
8. TAGword: Select your ads and set your prices with TAGword.
9. LinkAdage Auctions: Sell text links through private online auctions with LinkAdage.
10. LinkWords: LinkWords offers pay-per-click revenue embedded in your content, highlighting keywords that are relevant for advertisers.
11. Textlinkbrokers.com: Get unobtrusive, small link ads, as well as a steady monthly payout that doesn't depend on traffic from Textlinkbrokers.com.

Sell Your Own Ads

Self-advertising is a method that trumps all others in terms of reader friendliness. By selling your own ads, you'll get complete control and will be able to determine the method of ad serving that your readers respond to the best.

1. Individual Advertisers: Your advertisers should be ones that your readers will genuinely be interested in. Solicit ads from major, respected players in your industry for the best results.
2. Actively Sell Individual Advertising: To attract advertisers, let it be known that you're looking for them. Put links on your site, contact potential advertisers directly and post on industry message boards.
3. Create a Media Kit: Make it easy for advertisers to buy from you. Create a kit that includes your rates, ad policies, demographics, traffic, testimonials and contact information.
4. Offer Free Ads: To get things started, seek out competitive companies in your niche and give them free ads for a specific amount of time. This will get other companies interested in advertising with you.

Affiliate Programs

Most bloggers end up dropping product names at one point or another. Whether it's software, books or trinkets, you're probably linking to them for free. Affiliate programs offer a way to profit from your name-dropping, often without changing much more than the URLs you point to. Keep affiliate programs reader-friendly by sharing only products that are truly relevant to your discussion and not going overboard with the quantity.

1. Amazon Associates: Amazon Associates earn up to 10 percent in referral fees for revenue made through blog links.
2. Chitika ShopCloud$: With ShopCloud$, you can list popular products in a tag cloud format.
3. WidgetBucks: These shopping widgets offer popular products, lots of relevance and plenty of customization.
4. LinkShare Corp.: LinkShare's affiliate program will hook you up with programs for companies like Apple Inc., Dell and Disney.
5. zanox: Set up a zanox online shop, choose your products and earn a percentage of every sale.
6. uSuggest LLC: Suggest relevant products to your readers and get paid for doing it.
7. Chitika RPU: If you've discussed a product in a post, make money by putting a link to the product at the end of your text.
8. Auction Ads LLC: Place relevant eBay auction ads on your site to earn money.
9. Recommendations: If you're a fan of a particular product or service, why not ask them directly to pay you for linking to their site?
10. Commission Junction Inc.: You can promote a wide variety of products through Commission Junction, so you'll be able to find something that's relevant to your readers.
11. Chitika Linx: Chitika's Linx identifies keywords in your blog's content and links them to paid product listings.
12. shareasale.com: Sign up with this network and choose which merchants you'd like to promote.
13. ClickBank: Through ClickBank's program, you choose the products you want to promote.
14. iTunes Affiliates: Keep your readers up-to-date on new releases and earn a commission on revenue with the iTunes Affilliates program.

Sponsored Posts

Sponsored posts often rub readers the wrong way, usually because they're blatant cash grabs, but it doesn't have to be that way. Use these methods and programs that allow you to carefully pick and choose what you'll write about. That way, you can stick to products and services that are relevant to your readers and that you truly support.

1. ReviewMe: Pick and choose your ReviewMe posts and earn up to $200 for each.
2. PayPerPost Inc.: Use PayPerPost to earn money from writing about the sites, products and services that you support.
3. Payu2blog.com: Sign up with this program, and you'll get above-average pay, as well as a steady stream of work.
4. Self-Sold Paid Reviews: With paid reviews, the key is to be selective. You shouldn't accept every offer that comes to you, and if you have nothing nice to say about the product or service, don't bother. Be sure to offer an opposing view as well so your readers know that you're not just blindly supporting the highest bidder.
5. SponsoredReviews.com: Review items in your own tone and as critically as you'd like with SponsoredReviews.com.
6. Blogsvertise: When you get an assignment for Blogsvertise, you'll just put three links in a blog entry. This is a great way to make advertising look natural and unobtrusive.
7. Smorty: Choose your subjects and get paid weekly with Smorty.
8. Solicit Book Reviews: Another way to get something from your blog through reviews is to take on books. You'll get them for free while providing a valuable service to your readers.

Other

These are just a few more ways you can monetize your blog in a reader-friendly way.

1. Sell Your Blog: If you've put a bunch of work into your blog and it has great stats, get a lump-sum payday from a buyer.
2. Shareapic.net: Host your photos with this service, and you'll get paid for the number of views they get. That means that you can publish them on your blog and get paid every time someone reads a post with one of your Shareapic.net photos on it.
3. Scoopt Words: Sell your content to mainstream media with Scoopt.
4. Use Your Blog to Create a Mailing List: If you sell products, you can use your blog to generate a mailing list of people who are interested in buying from you.
5. Vizu Corp. Answers: Host polls on your site. Visitors will enjoy sharing their opinion, and you'll earn some extra cash.
/

Read More

Top 10 Ways To Make Money Online

My Top 10 Ways To Make Money Online

1. Sell On Ebay

During my pre-teen and early teenage years I went from playing with Transformers, GI-Joe and LEGO, to playing Nintendo, Sega and Gameboy. Eventually I added the card game Magic: The Gathering to the mix at about 16 years of age. All of these things were passions for me at various stages of growing up, but one thing remained consistent throughout each stage; I traded and sold toys and games I no longer wanted to make extra cash.

In Brisbane where I live, before the Internet there was a newspaper called the Trading Post that was published every two weeks. It was an aftermarket for pretty much everything. Whenever I grew tired of a game or a toy I’d sell it via the Trading Post, usually in an effort to make enough money to buy the new toy or game I had in my sights.

Eventually the Internet came along and the Trading Post no longer commanded the secondhand market like it once did (though it did successfully transition online). It quickly became clear that eBay was the winner when it came to secondhand commerce online. As a result my first experience making any money from the Internet was selling old games, toys and electronics on eBay.

EBay is still I believe the best way to gain experience making money from the Internet for two reasons -
You are pretty much guaranteed to make some kind of sale and thus experience a transaction
EBay has the traffic, so you don’t have to worry about marketing your product beyond creating a good listing, the eye-balls are already there

These two reasons make eBay a great first stop because you will learn how to list something for sale online, how to take money (possibly your first experience with PayPal) and about the importance of things like titles and copywriting, if you spend the time to study how to make your eBay listings convert better.

The best thing about eBay – the abundant traffic – is also the worst thing. Barriers to entry are low on eBay, meaning competition is fierce. When competition is fierce, profit margin is slim. Unless you can find some form of competitive advantage through your supply chain, how you create listings, or you have a means to increase volume, you’re not going retire rich thanks to eBay.

I spent quite a bit of time studying eBay, both as a business model and as a means to capture new customers because of how much buying traffic is there. There is no doubt that eBay is a fantastic website that represents a huge potential to make money, but in my case I wasn’t keen to build my business there, it didn’t match enough of my criteria.

However eBay is a fantastic way to make quick money, even just as a way to turn your old items into cash to start a new online venture. If you’re brand new to Internet marketing and you don’t know your PayPal’s from your Clickbanks, or your PPC from your SEO, eBay is definitely a great place to learn some basics.

2. Sell products in forums, bulletin boards, classifieds and other community type sites

The card game Magic: The Gathering was a big part of my life from the end of highschool to the beginning of university. Although initially I was just a casual player and then tournament player, I quickly became a card trader and really enjoyed the wheeling and dealing. Although my interest in playing the game wained, most of my early projects online were connected with the game.

Before having my own website, I spent time reading websites, newsgroups, bulletin boards and forums about the game, and eventually started trading online. Back before search engines were any good most of my time was spent in particular Magic newsgroups, some that talked strategy, and some that were focused specifically on trading and/or buying and selling cards.

I managed to make spare change selling my cards through these sites. The main reason I could make any money was because I would win cards in tournaments, hence I had a supply source that would result in a good profit margin. Of course this wasn’t sustainable unless I kept placing well in tournaments, nor was it really scalable unless I started buying in cards from other sources.

I stopped using this method once I started my own card game site (more on this below), however I still believe niche collectables, particularly in a market that you really love, is a fantastic starting point to gain experience making money online. Like eBay you can make money selling secondhand items in community sites if you can find a way to source product at cost or below. It’s not a model that has much margin so again the challenge is to scale if you want to make significant profit.

3. Sell products from your own website

My first successful website was about the card game Magic: The Gathering. At first the site was just a hobby with articles written by me and a few friends. Eventually as traffic grew I began making some money with the site.

Since I was already a card trader it made sense that my Magic site have a Magic card store. At first I stocked the website with my own cards, and eventually added retail “sealed” (unopened packs of cards) by buying product at wholesale from a company in Sydney.

It was a very simple card shop made up of text listings of the cards I had for sale, the quantity available and the cost per card or per pack. I maintained the inventory myself from my room, sorting and listing cards online by hand using plain text. I didn’t use any software and most of the payments I received back then was via check or money order in the mail. Some kids would even send money and even coins (!) in the mail to pay for their purchase.

My business did well enough, although the manual labor was intense. Maintaining inventory lists, packing cards into envelopes and daily trips to the post office was not always the most fun way to spend my time, though I did enjoy having my own little business while in university.

Unfortunately my store was hit by credit card fraud when I foolishly sold a significant amount of product to an unknown person in Thailand. This experience was enough for me to decide that I had had enough of running a Magic shop and it was time to move on. You can read about the credit card fraud experience here – Yaro Starak Timeline – Part 2

Selling Products Online Is A Big Opportunity

My first three experiences of making money from the Internet all involve some kind of physical product. Online commerce obviously represents a huge opportunity to make money online, and having your own product or a passion for a product that you can source can lead to big profits.

You can sell product from your own website store, via community sites and classifieds (like Craigslist) and of course eBay and collectively make good money. The challenge, like with any business, is defining what is your competitive advantage and can you come up with a model that meets your needs. For me selling physical product was a great proving ground, but I eventually learned that profiting from information was a preferable model if I wanted to meet my aforementioned business goals.

I’ll leave it in your hands to decide whether physical commerce is the way to go for your situation.

4. Sponsorship advertising on a content site

Once my card game site was successful I began researching how to make money from it. I sold cards initially because I already knew there was a market for that and I had the cards, but I was also aware that if I had an audience I could charge sponsors money to advertise to them.

Thus began my love affair with banner advertising.

Although challenging at times to find sponsors, I was quickly able to bring in several hundred dollars per month in advertising revenue by directly approaching online companies who I considered good targets for my readership. I emailed them and asked if they would like to pay a monthly fee to place a banner on my site. Most said no, but some said yes and eventually I had a couple of loyal sponsors.

Banner income would prove very reliable over time as long as I continued to do whatever I did to maintain and build a readership. This has continued today, where several sponsors pay a fee to advertise their products and services to you, the reader of this website.

Banner advertising, when set up using a system like I presently use, can be very hands off – in fact for me it’s entirely passive – assuming there is an audience that the sponsors benefit from advertising to. It’s difficult to make loads and loads of money just from banners unless you have significant traffic, but it is easy enough to make some money from it and once you do, it generally proves very reliable unless you stop updating your website.

I’d recommend this method to you if you have some kind of content based site or a community site that attracts enough traffic to make it worthwhile for sponsors. The best thing about banners is that they don’t have to replace any other income method you use, you can use this income stream in tandem with others.

5. Sell services you provide personally

At one stage early in my career when my online income wasn’t consistent, I was part of a business grant program run by the Australian government designed to assist entrepreneurs with money to pay for life’s necessities so you can focus on growing your business. The idea is that when your business is successful you will eventually hire people and pay taxes, thus the government reaps a return on the investment.

The grant ran for 12 months and I was under the assumption (incorrectly) that I had to show consistent income growth in order to maintain my qualification for the program. My income at the time always suffered a downturn around Christmas/Summer in Australia. To combat this problem I decided to teach English face-to-face with people in Brisbane to hopefully boost my reportable income.

To advertise my tutoring service I marketed using posters offline and eventually set up a website and marketed on classified sites as well. I charged $15 an hour and eventually had a few Korean clients. This idea eventually ballooned into a full on English school with a real world premises that I managed for eight months before closing down. It turned out to be an experiment that taught me I much preferred online business to bricks and mortar.

My English tutoring days were short lived, but that doesn’t mean selling some kind of service that you personally deliver isn’t still a viable option. The Internet is a fantastic place to market your services for free. Similar to what I talked about in the first three points, you can use online community sites, classified, forums and your own website to market your service.

The downside with this model is that you are still trading hours for dollars, which is a violation of my holy trinity concept. It’s not necessarily the worst option – and many people enjoy the life of a high-paid consultant very much – but it does have the inherent limitation that a service is not replicable unless you personally do it yourself or hire people to do it for you, both activities that take time and/or resources.

If you are good at something and enjoy helping/teaching/working on other people’s projects, selling what you do online is worth considering.

6. Sell services provided by other people

My next big success after my card game site was an online proofreading business. For this business I wanted to focus on selling something that did not require either my own labor or sourcing some kind of physical product.

The business began in very simple fashion. I created the website personally myself and advertised two services – English proofreading and language translation services. I knew how to find contract proofreaders and also had access to an online database of language translators. When a job came through I’d organize a quote, slap on a margin for myself and then return the quote to the client.

Over the years I heavily refined this business. I brought on an assistant, simplified the services, cemented a pricing model and learned what methods of marketing brought in the best type of client. The end result was a full time income for me and barely a few hours of work to maintain it.

This was the first time I found a business that met all my major criteria – except one – I really wasn’t that passionate about the industry. Initially I enjoyed being the entrepreneur, the thrill of making money and automating the business as much as I could, but after a few years my passion wained. I eventually sold the business, earning a nice payday in the process, making this one of my most personally gratifying projects.

Selling a service is a real option for making money online. The challenge is sourcing good people to do the work, learning what specific offer to make to the market, how to differentiate yourself so you earn good margins, how to market what you offer and how to automate the entire process so it becomes a passive income stream.

7. Paid reviews

For a brief period on my blog I invited people to submit their product, service or website for a paid review. This means they pay a fee (for my site it was $250) and I would write an article about whatever they submitted. I would not accept just anything for review, I had to see an angle that made for relevant content for my audience. Nor was a paid review a promise that I would write positively about the subject – I would highlight both good and bad points.

Initially I didn’t mind writing paid reviews as the income was pretty good in terms of how long it would take and how much I earned. I could make as much as $250 an hour, which was great at first, but as my motivation focused more on freedom and less on money, even this became a poor incentive. Plus I never did like that I was told what to write about rather than choosing subjects I enjoyed.

The challenge for you, if this method is relevant to your growth stage, is to create a website where you can command a price for paid reviews that makes it worth your time. Until your traffic is significant, charging more than $50 for a review is not realistic, so you need to build your website asset first.

8. Affiliate marketing

As my blog audience grew I began to test a method of making money I was very interested in – affiliate marketing. My first test proved positive, though initially I was disappointed that of my readership of 500 or so people (at the time), I could only sell one or two products, making $20 commission each. It wasn’t retirement money, but it was a start.

Affiliate income has gone on to become my second highest source of income in recent years, thanks in part to the increase in my audience reach. By combining my blog and email newsletter I can reach thousands of people with just one piece of content. By testing different products and recommending things I personally use myself, I’ve been able to earn as much as $50,000 in commissions selling just one product.

Affiliate marketing is possibly the single best way to make a living online because it is so hands off, can be automated easily enough and can deliver some incredible profit margins. It’s especially good when you can use affiliate marketing to recommend things in areas you are personally interested in – for example you can make money simply writing a review of a book you really wanted to read anyway and you get paid for doing what you love.

The challenge for you is figuring out what market(s) to enter, building an audience and maintaining relationships with your readers so they trust what you tell them. If you know something that other people want to know and you are prepared to share that information, you could be looking at a fairly lucrative affiliate opportunity.

9. Sell your own information products

The single most profitable income stream I have ever developed is selling my own information products. If you are a long time follower of my work you know I have created courses on how to make money with blogs and membership sites. I also have several reports, an ebook and new products on the way.

The profit margins on information products is significant, especially as you can earn money for content you created years ago. Technology makes selling information online relatively easy to automate, once you get through the learning curve. If you focus on areas you are passionate about you can build expertise and leverage that trust and credibility to make sales of your products. Best of all, all of this can happen while you sleep, once you have built the machine to do it for you.

I personally enjoy teaching, so creating my products like Blog Mastermind though hard work, was an enjoyable process. Once the course was created I continued to sell it year after year to people new to the industry who want to learn how to make money with blogs.

Like with affiliate marketing, your potential to succeed selling information products rests on your ability to identify market needs, tap into audiences looking for this information and then give them what they want. There are plenty of subtleties and things to learn about, but thankfully there is plenty of guidance out there too. Digging into the archives of this blog you are reading now and downloading my free reports – The Blog Profits Blueprint and Membership Site Masterplan are fantastic starting points if you want more help.

10. High end private coaching

I’ll end this article with something I only recently did – offer high end coaching to a select group of clients who had to apply to work with me. My program cost between $5,000 and $10,000 and I turned away more people than I accepted. This was deliberate as I knew working one-on-one with people is not something I can do with many people or I will use up all my time. However I was keen to help certain people who were in the right position so I could learn more about the challenges they face.

Private coaching, like consulting, is another situation where you trade time for dollars, but in terms of your hourly pay rate it is hard to find a higher paying “job”. Of course you don’t have to start off charging thousands of dollars. Depending on your expertise and what kind of outcome you help people achieve, will determine how much you can charge. Offering coaching for $100 per session is not out of reach for most people, and that’s not a bad starting rate if you are looking to build up your experience through helping others closely.

Again the Internet is by far the easiest and most affordable tool to attract coaching clients. In many cases you can add private coaching to many of the other methods I listed above, including selling info products you create, affiliate products, sponsorship banners and physical products.
Combine What Works For You

In my case progressing through these various methods, figuring out what I actually want from a business and then combining different methods to maximize my income and personal satisfaction has worked the best.

I recommend you follow a similar path to build your own business. Figure out what you like using the options above and other resources online, begin testing to see what works and learn more about what you enjoy, and keep at it until you find what “floats your boat” and is incredibly profitable too.

Good luck!

Ogunbiyi Babatunde
Internet Entrepreneur

Read More

How Affiliates Make Money

Can you think of a better way to wow any prospective and current customers better than to provide them with your newly published, top-notch videos? Think of how excited they will be when they realize you are offering them full motion screen captures, demonstrating your hard work. This will definitely get them motivated to jump right in and purchase your product on the spot! It’s been proven time and again that by giving your customers something they can actually see in action can explode your sales almost instantly.

Let’s take Camtasia for example. With no need for long training and education sessions to be able to use this system, it can be a profit-pulling addition to your affiliate marketing strategy line. This allows you to create stunning video sessions, from multimedia tutorials to step-by-step presentations which you can make available online. For your customers, it will seem like they are sitting right beside you as you show them exactly what they need to see and hear, step by step.

With all of your customer’s senses engaged, stunning multimedia presentations are proven to increase sales. Skepticism is normally reduced, and complaints are minimized as a result of every fact and detail being included in the presentation. It’s easy to conclude the video with your site location for viewers to be redirected for more information.

Publish value of informational productions are far higher than those which contain only text material. The ability to minimize any miscommunications is brilliant. You are instantly showing them what it was they wanted to know in the first place, giving them understanding and clarity of the entire essence of your affiliate program.

Press Releases

If you happen to have an upcoming event, or even newsworthy information related to your site’s primary topic, you may want to consider announcements in the form of press releases. An example would be creating a survey amongst your present visitors and customers. Ask them if they have had any successes or downfalls with a particular line of products which they have purchased from you.

Write up a report on your findings, and then create a press release! If this is well written, you could easily find yourself with a dramatic rise in sales. It‘s also a great way to provide exposure for your affiliate business, at the same time as it provides exposure to the products you’re promoting.

Blogging

Blogs are wonderful business tools for so many reasons. This is the perfect way to reach out to your existing, as well as potential core audience on a regular basis. Your blog can also have a more personal touch to it, allowing your readers to feel like you are addressing them personally.

Blogs are also an easy way to set up individual spaces for each of your affiliate products. Just as you would have individual websites, the same applies for blogs and your affiliate items. You are less likely to see any rise in profit margins if your blog is promoting a different item every second post.

When it comes to search engines, they are quite attracted to blogs due to the constant change in information. Fresh content means better indexing on a search rating, thereby giving your particular blog potential for more visitors. More visitors, of course, mean the potential for more money. Can you picture yourself climbing the ranks yet?

The problem many people encounter with this aspect is they start out strong, blogging regularly and obtain a great number of followers. Then, suddenly it appears the writing well runs dry. If you stop posting your regular content on your blog, you’re probably going to lose some of your clientele. One of the keys to your successful affiliate marketing ventures is to ensure you keep the lines of communication open. At this point in time, those lines are directly connected to your blog.

RSS Feeds

RSS is a means by which blogs can broadcast their content to a number of services and individuals easily and quickly. Your blogging software will probably be able to handle the creation process for your RSS feed automatically. However, having an RSS feed won’t do much good for your traffic statistics if nobody reads it. Therefore you must share your RSS feed with others, usually in the form of pinging. Another option for this is to submit your feed to any of the numerous RSS aggregators.

One important point when using RSS feeds is to not forget to update. Make sure you remember to either ping using a mass-ping service or to manually alert RSS aggregators about your feed every time you update. Otherwise, you are losing some of the potential value of the feed.

Make your feed itself a moneymaker! Some bloggers who are particularly interested in making their blog pay may want to consider using their RSS feed as a vehicle for advertising.

Choosing Affiliate Networks

While there are many horror stories about affiliate programs and networks floating around, there are ways to choose a good program to promote. The following steps will help guide you in making your decision, while steering clear of those which may not be completely legal in their practices.

Find a program you yourself have an interest in. Chances are there are many others interested in the same program or products as well.

Programs of high quality are normally a good choice. Look for those associated with several experts in that industry.

If the program is offering real, viable products they are a better choice. The way you can determine if this is the case is by completing some initial research. When possible, try to contact some of the members and customers for testimonials on the credibility of the program.

Choose a program which is catering to a growing target market. By doing this, you are ensuring there will be continuous demands for referrals. Make as many inquiries as possible. Check out forums and discussion boards in order to receive reliable feedback.

Look for programs with residual income compensation plans. Those with a payout of 30% or more are fantastic choices. Programs offering drastically low rewards aren’t worth the time and effort you will need to put into your promotions.

Good choices also include those which provide you with plenty of tools and resources to assist you with the growth of your business in the shortest time possible. Not all affiliate programs are willing or able to provide you with the tools you need to succeed.

Any affiliate program which provides continuous help and upgrades, as well as strong incentives for its members have a tendency to keep them. These types of actions can assure the growth of your own network.

Having a strong knowledge of the affiliate network you are planning to join is your best action towards anticipating and preventing any potential issues you may encounter.

Houston…We Have a Problem

Just as with any other aspect of life, there are sometimes issues or problems you can get hit with unexpectedly. Some of these can be avoided, and some you just have to learn to deal with, and keep on going. Let’s take a look at a few potential issues you could encounter during your affiliate marketing journey.

Content theft is something which can happen to even the most experienced super affiliate. You could be surfing around the internet, and suddenly stumble upon one of your articles or ads, yet there is no link to your site or mention of your name anywhere to be found. You haven’t even heard of this person before!

Search the site for contact information for either the owner or webmaster where this has happened. You can ask them to please either include your URL or kindly remove your content from their site. Most times this will be sufficient enough to have something done.

Receiving rejection or termination letters from affiliate managers can be quite the shock. To best avoid any rejection letters, it’s best to make sure you have completely read and understood any terms and conditions set out by the affiliate program you are considering. By ensuring you comply with all of their requirements beforehand gives you a better chance at avoiding that rejection in the first place.

When it comes to termination letters however, the scenario is a bit different. It’s important to ensure you’re ready to dedicate the time and effort needed to best promote your affiliate programs. Before starting the application process for your affiliations, it’s important to be as close to “ready to roll” as possible. This will give you the added bonus of being prepared to start almost the minute you receive your acceptance information.

The idea of companies paying salespeople commissions for selling their products has been around since time untold. When the Internet came along, it was only a matter of time before someone thought to devise a way to take the practice online. There is some debate about who pioneered the concept of affiliate marketing, but webmasters of adult websites were among the first to put it into practice in the mid-1990s.

Affiliate marketing has come a long way since then. It has expanded to every field in online sales. It has evolved into a practice with all sorts of nuances and techniques. It has made a lot of people a lot of money, and a whole lot more people a little money. According to Marketing Sherpa, in 2011, affiliates worldwide earned an estimated $9.5 billion dollars in commissions.

Those who are new to affiliate marketing often have high expectations. They hear the stories of affiliates who are making six figures a year just by promoting other people’s products, and they get stars in their eyes. They eagerly sign up for lots and lots of programs, and they start counting the money in their minds. Unfortunately, many of them barely make enough to cover their website hosting, much less a profit.

Maybe you’re one of those who became disillusioned after months of barely-existent profits. Or maybe you’ve made some money, but you haven’t achieved the success that you had hoped for. Either way, it’s important to realize that you – yes, YOU – can make a steady income with affiliate marketing. You don’t have to be some kind of guru to make it work. You just have to be determined and ready to do what it takes to succeed. In this report, you’ll learn how to take your affiliate marketing business to the next level.

Read More

Outsource And Make Money Fast

Make Money Fast!

I am not a big fan of Fiverr but sometimes it can be a good decision to outsource the work for a small sniper site or an Adsense site. I did a new project to find out if some gigs work and after I spend ten dollars for two Fiverr gigs and eight dollars on a domain, I made 81 dollars after two weeks. Not much but I like to make money fast and a 63 dollar profit for a test project is pretty good. My test project is pcpowerspeed.net and I used Market Samurai to find the keyword. A good keyword tool is mandatory if you want to make money online.

Make Money Fast Outsourcing!

I choose a product in the PC speed niche to promote as an affiliate. It’s not easy to know which product to chose, so if you get no sales, try another product. I did not want to spend too much time writing articles for my test project, so I went to the product landingpage and copy and pasted a lot of the content and then I rewrote it a bit so it appears to be unique. Many sniper sites got only a frontpage and nothing more, and it can be hard to rank if a website don’t have enough content.

I decided to write a couple of articles to get more content to my website. 300 words articles is enough. I also linked my articles to my frontpage to get a small internal linking structure, on page SEO is always important for any type of website. I used Social Monkee to bookmark my posts, it is a free bookmarking service and you will get a couple of free backlinks if you use their service.

Use Fiverr And Make Money Fast!

To make money fast also includes to build a website and get backlinks fast. Many internet marketers use Fiverr to get things done for a low cost and in short time , but usually you get what you pay for and if you pay less, you get less. Anyway, I wanted to try Fiverr and to find out if there are some gigs that work.

First I ordered a manual social bookmarking gig from fvchamp at Fiverr. It took four days and I am satisfied with his service.

I waited a week before I ordered my next gig from vapsjee at Fiverr. My website is brand new so I don’t want to blast it with too many backlinks right away. It took 14 days to get my next gig finished and I am very pleased with the results from vapsjees service.

My website is now on the first page in Google and I spent only two hours in total to get everything done. To make money fast is not impossible but you have to take action and find a good keyword. A keyword research is always extremely important because if you target a keyword without any searches, you will struggle to make money online. You can outsource everything and still make a profit if you have a good keyword and you can make money fast too.

Read More

Top 10 Affiliate Networks

The Best Top 10 Affiliate Networks!

There have been a lot of talking about how to make money with a review site lately, and many WSO’s have been sold explaining the review method. It’s not a new method, it’s maybe the most used method when it comes to affiliate marketing. There are many ways to make money online with affiliate methods, and the review method still works very well. But without the right product to promote and the right targeted keyword, nothing will work. So if you are new to affiliate marketing, I will give you a list of the best top 10 affiliate networks for digital products.

Top 10 Affiliate Networks list!

1. Clickbank.
Yes I know, everyone knows about Clickbank but it is the best affiliate network for digital products in the world. Clickbank where founded in 1998, so they got many years of affiliate marketing experience and are trusted by thousands of affiliate marketers around the world. A thing that I don’t like about Clickbank is that they send out checks, and that means that we have to wait 60 days or more before we get paid. But they pay and that are what counts in the end.

2. E-junkie.
E-junkie is a shoppingcart platform for merchants selling downloadable goods. Many merchants want affiliates and E-junkies affiliate network is a great solution for them. There are thousands of products ready for affiliates to promote.

3. RevenueWire.
RevenueWire is the choice for affiliate marketers who target the PC tool niche. RevenueWire affiliate network got products like Anti-Spyware tools and PC optimizer softwares etc. The conversion rate and affiliate payout is good and if you can get targeted visitors to your site, you will make sales because their products are of a high standard.

4. JVZoo.
JVZoo is an instant affiliate payout platform, it means that you will get paid to your paypal account every time you make sale. Most affiliate networks that offer instant payouts rotates the affiliate link and that means that you will get paid for every other sale. That is very bad if you only make one sale, you might not get paid for that sale. JVZoo claim that affiliates always get what they deserve for their hard work.

5. DigiResults.
DigiResults is a great affiliate network for affiliate marketers in the internet marketing niche. As an affiliate you will get paid immediately into your Paypal account and DigiResults don’t rotate the commission between vendors and affiliates. If a product pays 50% affiliate commission, the affiliate get 50% immediately.

6. Paydotcom.
Paydotcom is an old but still growing affiliate network and are run by the famous internet marketer Mike Filsaime. You can choose among thousands of products and service to promote as an affiliate, and you will get paid to paypal, and I like that very much.

7. Payspree.
Payspree is an affiliate network where you can promote products that don’t cost much. If your run a blog or Squidoo lens etc, Payspree is maybe a good choice. Your commissions are always paid directly to you, and you can choose to get paid to Paypal, Alertpay or Moneybookers.

8. Rapbank.
Rapbank is also an instant commission network. They got many products but they rotate the payout between vendors and affiliates, so if you only manage to make one sale, you might not get paid. But if you know how to promote products as an affiliate, Rapbank is still a good choice.

9. Plimus.
Plimus is a big affiliate network, you can search among 100,000 products and service. You need to get approved by the vendor before you can promote a product as an affiliate, but usually that is no problem because the vendor need affiliates to make more money.

10. Nanacast.
Nanacast is a pretty small affiliate network, but they got some interesting products. They pay to paypal and if you got time, check them out.

More Top 10 Affiliate Networks!

There are other big affiliate networks, that I don’t include in my top 10 affiliate networks list, like Amazon, CJ, Linkshare, Shareasale and so on, and they are very good to use for both digital and physical products. The affiliate marketing niche is very big because many people are making money as an affiliate. So if you are looking for ways to make money online, affiliate marketing is a good way. A great course about affiliate marketing and how to make money as an affiliate is Google Sniper 2. Anyway, I hope you like my top 10 affiliate networks list and that you can make some money as an affiliate in the future.

Read More

Make Money Typing Captchas!

Do you want to make easy money? Well, you can. Megatypers pay from $0.5 to $3 for every 1000 captchas completed. Are you tired of clicking on ads for $0.01 and waste time on pay to click programs, Megatypers is a good alternative. It is very easy to make money typing captchas and if you can write and have spare time or just want to make some extra money, Megatypers program is an easy way to make extra money online.

To earn $1 with Neobux and other paid to programs will take a very long time. But with Megatypers you can make money pretty fast, they pay to Paypal, Liberty Reserve and Western Union when you reach $3, and if you can type you will reach the pay out limit pretty fast. I think that Megatypers is much better than other paid to programs, because you will always have work and it is very easy to type captchas.

The only requirements you need to start to work with Megatypers is that you can write 10 words per minute. The faster you can write the more you earn. You can also make money if you can get referrals. Megatypers pay 10% of the earnings generated by the people you invite. Some people make a lot.

You need an invitation code to join Megatypers, and if you are interested you can use on of these codes: 1KDT, 1KDV, 1KE0. Check out Megatypers.com

Read More

How to make 100 dollars a day

Have you heard it before? How to make 100 dollars a day, how to make money fast and other over hyped methods from Clickbank products and Warrior forum Wso’s. I have read formulas that claims that you can make 100 dollars a day working only one hour per day five days a week. But to be honest, who believe such BS? To make 100 dollars a day, you need to work very hard. I don’t say it is impossible because you can make even more than 100 dollars a day, but you have to work hard to get there.

So, How To Make 100 Dollars A Day?

Many internet marketing gurus talk about niche marketing and how important it is to target a small niche and build your list to make money. But the competition is hard in almost every niche, and it is also hard to know which niche to target. A thing you can do is to target a broad niche and create a large amount of keyword researched content. What I am talking about is to write articles about a lot of things in a broad niche like Tennis and create a WordPress website about it. There are Tennis Rackets, Tennis Shoes, Tennis Shirts and so on, write about everything that is associated with the Tennis niche. But before you start writing, you need to know which keywords you have to use, to get traffic.

A good tool is the free Google keyword tool, but the best keyword research tool is market samurai, it got a free trial so there is no risk involved to try it. Ok, target keywords that get 100 – 400 searches per month, you want to be able to rank for the keywords so don’t target higher search numbers. The hard part is to create content and finding keywords, it takes time. But if you can create 200 posts in 3 – 4 months you can get a real authority website. You only need 5 visitors per keyword to half your post to reach 500 visitors per day, some keywords get more some less ofcourse. If you manage to build such a big website, you will get traffic from all kind of weird search terms. Remember, to build a big site like this is like having a part time job so make sure you have the time.

SEO is important, so you need to optimize every post for the search engines. You can do it by hand or use a SEO plugin. Building backlinks is also important and that you can do by posting on blogs and forum or outsource to a backlink service or Fiverr etc. Check this video below about On Page SEO:

 

To monetize the website, use both Adsense and affiliate links. 70% of your articles should be information articles and 30% sales articles. Put your best money articles in a list on the right sidebar above everything else. Write a good title because people tend to click on these kinds of links, especially if it is top ten list or something like that. There is no guarantee that you will make 100 dollars a day but if you take the time to do a proper keyword research, you can get 300 – 600 visitors per day, and that means clicks and sales.

Read More