Money Spinners

2009-05-14T09:12:00.002-07:00

Improve traffic using Forums

Craigslist:The key to any successful Internet marketing campaign is reaching a target audience. Craigslist reaches a large audience but the size of this audience may not exactly translate to the advertiser being able to reach members of their target audience. There are, however, ways to help advertisers reach their target audience through Craigslist. This article will discuss how the discussion forums and the search feature can both be utilized to find the target audience.

Find the Target Audience in Discussion Forums
The discussion forums featured on Craigslist provide an excellent opportunity for users to find their target audience. This is important because misdirected advertising that does not reach the target audience is useless. Advertising on Craigslist is free but this does not mean business owners have nothing to lose by advertising on Craigslist without doing market research first. Time, energy and other resources can all be wasted when care is not taken to reach the target audience.

Visiting the discussion forums allows an Internet marketer to reach the target audience by providing insight into the members of the community and what they are looking for in products and services. Through visiting these forums, advertisers can simply lurk and take careful note of the ensuing conversations. This can provide a great deal of insight into the thoughts of the target audience including information on how to win over this audience. Advertisers who actively participate in these forums can further capitalize by engaging members of the community in conversation and soliciting feedback from them. All of this information can be used to target advertising specifically to the members of the target audience.

Use the Search Feature to Find the Target Audience
The search feature on Craigslist can also provide valuable insight which can help advertisers to locate their target audience. Advertisers can start this process by entering keywords related to their products or services to search in various sections of Craigslist. During this time, take note of competitors’ advertisements which are returned during these searches and the sections in which these advertisements are placed. If competitors’ advertisements appear in sections which appear logical, it might be worthwhile to consider placing your own advertisements in these sections to ensure target audience members find your advertisement when searching these sections.

Next carefully examine all advertisements by competitors. Pay particular attention to the keywords used in the advertisements. This is important because savvy Internet marketers recognize the need to optimize their advertisements for the same keywords being used by competitors. Failure to do so may result in potential customers only viewing the competitors’ advertisements when searching for these particular keywords.

2009-05-14T09:12:00.001-07:00

Professional? Make some Money

Virtually assist other web workers

Freelancers and small businesses desperately need help running their businesses, but they’re not about to hire a secretary to come sit in the family room and answer phone calls. As a virtual assistant, you might do anything from making travel reservations to handling expense reimbursements to paying bills to arranging for a dog sitter. And you do it all from your own home office, interacting with your clients online and by phone. You can make $20 and up an hour doing this sort of work, depending on your expertise.

Offer your professional expertise in an online marketplace

These days, you can do more than just sell your old books via Amazon and your old Coach handbags via eBay—now you can sell your professional capabilities in a marketplace. No longer are you limited to looking for a permanent or contract job on Web 1.0 style job sites like Monster or Career Builder. The new breed of freelancing and project-oriented sites let companies needing help describe their projects. Then freelancers and small businesses offer bids or ideas or proposals from which those buyers can choose.

Elance covers everything from programming and writing to consulting and design, while RentACoder focuses on software, natch. If you’re a graphic designer, check out options like Design Outpost or LogoWorks–you don’t have to find the customers, they’ll come to you. Wannabe industry analysts might sign up for TechDirt’s Insight Community, a marketplace for ideas about technology marketing.

Write reviews for pay or perks

If you blog for any length of time on a particular topic–parenting, mobile phones, or PCs, for example–you will likely be approached to do book or product reviews. You can get free stuff this way, but are you selling your soul? Is there any such thing as a free laptop? These are decisions you’ll have to make for yourself, because no one agrees upon what ethical rules apply to bloggers. Even less do people agree on services like PayPerPost that pay you to write reviews on your blog. Check out disclosure rules closely and see whether such a gig would meet your own personal standards or not.

Online life coaching

Who has time to go meet a personal coach at an office? And don’t the new generation of web workers need to be met by their coaches in the same way that they work: via email, IM, and VoIP? You could, of course, go through some life coaching certification program, but on the web, reputation is more important than credentials. I bet Tony Robbins isn’t certified as a life coach–and no one can argue with his success. For an example of someone building up their profile and business online as a coach, check out Pamela Slim of Ganas Consulting and the Escape from Cubicle Nation blog.

Provide service and support for open source software

Just because the software is free doesn’t mean you can’t make money on it–just ask Red Hat, a well-known distributor of Linux that sports a market cap of more than four billion dollars. As a solo web worker, you might not want to jump in and compete with big companies offering Linux support, but how about offering support for web content management systems like WordPress or Drupal? After getting comfortable with your own installation, you can pretty easily jump into helping other people set them up and configure them.

2009-05-14T09:10:00.002-07:00

7 Strategies to Help you make Money Blogging

You can make money from blogging. It can pay for your bills. It does work for everyone. There’s no secret and you’ll just really need to know how to get started and which blogging framework to follow.

It’s not a difficult process at all and this post will provide 7 distinct methods you can use to generate substantial income from blogging. These seven methods are strategies you can adopt right from the beginning, preferably before you set up your first blog.

You can think of them as guidelines which point out the different options you have, if you’re serious about using blogging as a method of making money online.

1. The “Flagship” or Big Blog Route

This is simultaneously the most profitable and most time-consuming blog venture. The flagship method directs all your focus on a few blogs in order to make them incredibly popular in their niche. Flagship blogs should have a large audience as well as high daily visitor traffic numbers.

These type of big blogs have a wide variety of monetization options with direct advertising sales being a big part of it. Know that not everyone can successfully create a big blog so attempt this route only if you absolutely believe that you have the networking skills, niche knowledge and marketing know-how that’s needed.

* Benefits: Fame as well as more monetization options/potential for your blogs, alongside personal satisfaction. Another advantage is that big blogs usually market or promote themselves automatically once a certain level of fame has been achieved.
* Disadvantages: Very time-consuming especially if you are not outsourcing the content creation or marketing duties. Expect a lot of work and experiment with creative promotional ideas if you decide to go this route.

2. The “Pay per Post” or Get Paid to Blog Route

This is rather simple. Set up multiple niche blogs on either your own domains or free blog hosts like Blogger. Maintain them over a period of time and focus on writing content and building up their Google PageRank, link profile and Alexa Rank.

Submit all of your blogs to multiple get paid to blog websites like Blogitive, Blogsvertise, Review Me, Sponsored Reviews, PayperPost, LoudLaunch and then start writing sponsored posts. I highly recommending using PayperPost as they simply have the largest amount of paid offers available.

* Benefits: The greatest strength of this method is that you don’t even need a large audience to make money. 20 people could be visiting and reading your blogs everyday and you’ll still be able to make at least $15 a day from each blog. If skillfully done over multiple blogs, this method can allow you to easily make over $1.5 K a month.
* Disadvantages: No passive income. You’ll need to spend time writing multiple sponsored blog posts, which can be boring and time consuming. Work will also be needed to maintain your multiple blogs, although that will be minimal after they have been optimized and running for some time.

3. The Automated Blogging or Splog Route

Automated blogging involves the setting up of blogs which automatically pull content from RSS feeds, search engines and news sources to serve as content on your website.

Some bloggers set this to pull full RSS feeds which does go against some copyrights and one can choose to only include excerpts with a link back to the site in question. Monetization for automated sites is usually done through contextual ads like Google Adsense or affiliate programs.

* Benefits: Very little work needed to maintain these blogs as they do not need you to actively generate or write content. You might need to do a little SEO and regular maintenance now and then. Try if you are adventurous.
* Disadvantage: A weak potential for profit unless you understand the entire process perfectly and if you have quite a large number of blogs.I estimate that a fully automated blog will make you around $5 a month although the actual value depends on the niche and your skills. Assuming that this is so, you’ll need 1,000 blogs to make around $5000 a month. Splogs dwell in ethically gray areas as well.

4. The Text Link Selling Blog Route

The main bulk of your income through this method comes from selling text links to various webmasters and businesses who want to improve their site ranking in Google. While text link selling works for the flagship or other blog models as well, sites can be primarily built for text link sales as well.

The overwhelming emphasis here is on Google PageRank and niche relevancy so you’ll need to focus on these two factors. You can either convert a domain into a text link and sponsored post selling blog or you can purchase a domain with existing PageRank to sell text links for a quick buck. I suggest looking for link buyers directly through webmaster forums.

* Benefits: Selling text links or contextual text links is rather easy and doesn’t involve much work. Potential for profit will correspond to your Google Page Rank and niche. A site with a high PageRank and a profitable niche (mortgages, credit cards) will be very attractive to link buyers. Like paid review blogs, traffic is not a factor in these blogs as well.
* Disadvantages: Over Reliance on the Google PageRank algorithm means that your income may rise or fall depending on your actual Page Rank. There may also be a limit to the number of links you can sell which leads to an income ceiling.

5. The Made-for-Adsense or Made-for-Affiliate-Program Route

This involves setting up a blog around a specific topic with moderately high priced keywords (e.g. teeth whitening, car loans). You’ll only need to create around 25 keyword rich articles on the topic, optimize it for search, set up Adsense or affiliate programs and then leave them alone.

The main emphasis is on building links to the specific webpages, according to the long tail keywords you want to target. Search engine visitors will then find your blog and either click on the ads or convert on a product.

* Benefits: Not a lot of time involved as you can usually contract an experienced writer to develop the keyword rich articles. Not much time is needed to update the blogs as well and new material can be added on a bi-weekly or even monthly basis.
* Disadvantages: There might be a lot of competition in a profitable niche and search traffic might not lead to sufficient income, unless you go for volume and set up dozens of similar websites in other niches as well.

6. The Blog Network or Contract Blogging Route

This involves joining a blog network and getting paid to maintain and create content for blogs. You’ll get paid according to the amount of pageviews, possibly receive a token base fee in the hundreds or a share of the blog’s ad revenue.

* Benefits. Relatively stable monthly income because of the base fee. Contract work usually leads to more freelance blogging or writing assignments because of your proven ability or association with a specific organization.
* Disadvantages: Why bother? If you’re that good at creating and promoting a blog, set up your own website and keep all the profits. However, it is useful to note that a lot depends on the type of network or contract agreement you receive.

7. The Blog-as-Marketing or Branding Route

This method will only apply if you own an online business or provide a freelance service like web design, copy writing or marketing consultation. A blog can be used to help promote your personal or business brand and attract more customers.

This is an indirect method of making money. Ideally, this sort of a blog shouldn’t be plastered with ads or paid reviews because it can tarnish the image of the brand.

* Benefits. A blog can help your brand or business to develop much more search visibility because it allows you to easily create more fresh content that caters to specific demographics as well.
* Disadvantages. Your blog will only be as useful as the quality of the service or product you are pushing. The amount of money you earn doesn’t entirely depend on the quality of the blog but the value of your service/product as well. Income is therefore indirect and can be inconsistent.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are several strategies you can choose if you’re interesting in making money from blogs. To ensure maximum success, be sure to pick one that suits your personal schedule, skill level and interests.

2009-05-14T09:10:00.001-07:00

Using Affiliate Programs To Make Money

Affiliate programs are the latest in truly successful residual income strategies. They are the choice of online experts, and will be your choice too, when you find out how much money you’ll be earning.

What is an affiliate program, you ask?

An Affiliate is what would typically be known in the retail industry as a "representative," or "rep." In this case, an "E-rep" is probably a more accurate description. Best part is that you don't have to drag a briefcase of samples with you! In fact, once you’ve set up your strategy for making money through affiliate programs, you won’t even have to think about it anymore – except when it comes to depositing the money you’ve made into your bank account, and then deciding how to spend it.

What do you need to become an affiliate?

A computer with a connection to the internet. It doesn’t even need to be your own – though that does make it more comfortable. Beyond that, there are tons of techniques that you can build into your strategy for getting the very most out of your earnings. Typically, this starts with a website; A website, simple or complex, one simple page or a big deal. It’s all up to you, and you can build as you become comfortable with the concept, and understand what you’re doing.

Which Affiliate Program Do You Choose ?

There are thousands upon thousands of different affiliate programs available to you across the world wide web, so getting started with an affiliate program can sometimes seem a bit daunting. However, when you know what you’re looking for, you’ll feel much more prepared to tackle this first major step.

Though many affiliate sites will give you the impression that all that is required to enjoy affiliate program success is plugging a link or a banner onto your website, and the money will begin rolling in on its own, this is not always the case. Usually, this is only the case if your website already experiences massive amounts of daily visitors.

For that reason, you’ll want to make certain to hook up with affiliate program that offers products, services, and bargains that hold real attraction to the type of website visitor you will be experiencing.

Once you have that set, it’s up to you to get the word out, and draw as many people to your site as possible, using a number of different marketing techniques. Variety is the key, both with the products you’ll offer, and the advertising you’ll perform.

Furthermore, once your audience has reached your site, you need to encourage them to click through your affiliate links. Remember, your visitors need a very good reason to click on a link or banner on your site. Otherwise, they won’t use it.

How do you do this? Use a wide variety of the different banners and links offered to you from the affiliate program so that you have the highest chance of attracting people’s attention – no matter what draws them. Moreover, if you use simple straightforward links and banners you will experience much more success than highly colorful and picture-filled banners.

Remember, a 2% is considered doing pretty well, so you will need to do everything you can to get at least 2 out of every 100 of your visitors to use your links.

2009-05-14T09:09:00.000-07:00

Data Entry from home! Money maker or Scam?

I'm sure you've seen the ads. Data Entry for cash, Type Simple Data Entry from home, Data Entry Income and more. Can Data Entry from home be a money maker or is it a Scam?

If you are comfortable typing on a computer then Data Entry Jobs may be for you. Often there are misconceptions when data entry that you will be typing endlessly to earn nothing. The truth is though that data entry is an easy work at home job if you feel comfortable on the computer If you can type at a good speed and be accurate. Of course today with the tools available like spell check, grammar check etc, it makes it a lot easier. In fact it's possible to earn over $40 per hour doing data entry jobs online.

Another misconception is that data entry jobs are scams. This is probably the "too good to be true" adverts with promises of overnight riches working from home. Some people will join a Data Entry program and think that the money will start flowing in. If it doesn't then they call the program a failure. You won't get something for nothing. There are legitimate data entry work programs available. In fact I have a separate Data Entry web page whereby I highlight what in my opinion are the best and most popular Data Entry programs.

Data entry is one of the more popular home based business opportunities as it is very low-cost to get started. I have included a list of equipment that you will need to start below:
Computer

Access to Internet

Printer

Business cards

I would also suggest that you use a unique email address. This is merely a suggestion not a requirement.

The potential in the data entry business is great. There are many small and large companies that outsource data entry. Many people are making $1000 - $3000 a month additional income. In order to get to this level of income it is important that you understand the skills that you'll need and where to look for data entry programs.

2009-05-14T07:58:00.000-07:00

Avoiding HYIP Scams

HYIP can be a great way to experience success in investing. HYIP, also known as a high yield investment program, can be quite risky but if it’s done properly it can be quite lucrative. Because there is the chance to earn a substantial amount of money, there are also a lot of scams associated with it. You can take some great steps to protect yourself, and your investments ahead of time to avoid getting involved in the wrong HYIP programs.

Before knowing about HYIP Scams, refer to the functioning of HYIP or "High Yield Investment Programs" in detail. HYIPs bring out a substantial return on a very small investment. Getting back to HYIP Scams, the moment the yield assured is on a higher side and the return period is short, you will know that a scam is in the following. In anticipation of more earnings, individuals tend to invest more than what is required. This is precisely where they end up in trouble. They can loose everything irrespective of the fact that whether they are legitimate programs or not. Scams are so poised that they hook people on this 'get rich quick' idea.

There are certain things that you should always take into consideration. No matter what, never opt for any HYIP in response to an email invitation. It is quite evident that well thought-of firms will not advertise on theses lines. Getting intrigued by the idea of HYIP alone won't help. Make sure that if you are venturing into HYIP, you do your homework on the respective company that holds your interest. Don't get attracted by a sales pitch that their opening ends in two hours and the like.

All you need to do is acquire as much information as you can. And this may comprise of the amount of money that will be invested, the full name, address and location of the company you are concerned with, in which way you can contact them and so on. In addition to that, verify with the Better Business Bureau in that city/town. This is pivotal because complaints against them if any can be brought into light.

The biggest HYIP scam to be found on the Internet is none other than PIPS i.e. People in Profit System or Pure Investors. In fact, according to a website, HYIP Scam Search, the sum number of HYIP scams was in the order of 3500 by May 2006. On an average 5 new scams are reported each day.

Say No To Scams By Learning The Following Tips

As first things first, always make it a point to take back your principal investment and reinvest only the profits. This is how you will safeguard the principal amount. Beyond that, investing just about 75% out of your profit, keeping the rest 25% aside is not that bad an idea as well. Studying the website will certainly do a world of good to you especially in the long run. Ask for the records and all the other information that you think best.

You must know that most HYIP sites are Ponzi Scams. Thus, if a program is offering more then 10% a day, it has to be the above-said scam. This calls for checking the interest. You should settle for 2-5% daily, if a reliable program is what you are looking for. Last but not the least, always try to invest into different programs than concentrating on a particular program if you are to earn big bucks.

Adhering to the above tips can surely help you to keep HYIP Scams at bay.

2009-05-14T06:49:00.000-07:00

6 Easy Steps on how to Sell E-books Online

Choose A Niche Market

Many marketers make the mistake of diversifying too much in order to target all kinds of audiences. Focus in on a niche market and build your product line in that niche market. Not only do you build your credibility in your niche, but you can sell multiple products to interested customers. This allows you to create more profits by offering multiple products to less people. In addition, any complimentary products should be associated with your e-Books. Do not sell a mixture of unrelated products. Nothing discredits you more quickly than when you cross-sell products that are not related to each other.

Think Long Term

Do not expect to make riches overnight. e-Books like any other legitimate product require a persistent marketing effort. It may take days before you sell your first e-Book. A sizable number of prospects won't respond to marketing communications the first time, for various reasons. But presenting the message repeatedly - perhaps a second, third, fourth, fifth time, or more - will increase your conversion percentages.

Stay Current

There is no use selling products that have outdated content. Information has to be constantly updated. Updating can inject new life into an e-Book, and its newness can be used as a 'hook' to gain valuable free publicity. Besides, focus on subjects that are new and interesting. Age old topics would not attract many customers.

Do Not Sell On Price

You may think that pricing an e-Book low would bring in more sales. Many times the opposite is true because it can be perceived as too cheap. When a product is perceived as too cheap, then it loses it's value. Customers feel like it must not have good content. Educated buyers feel that you get what you pay for. If you price your e-Book very low compared to your competitor, a prospective customer might think that the e-Book is not of good quality. Price your book competitively. In addition, increased prices can equal increased profits.

Test your product

Testing frequently is crucial for succeeding in the e-Book business. You do not want a situation where you have invested too much time, money and effort into your product only to find out that the topic of your product is outdated. The only way of avoiding this is to start with a simple product and gather frequent feedback from your customers. This way you would find mistakes and areas for improvement until you have a proven seller.

Test your marketing campaign
Like the product itself, your marketing campaign also needs to be tested frequently. You need to be extra cautious with the way you use your limited capital. You can lose a lot of money quickly, if not careful. Testing your marketing campaign would help you to figure out which strategies work well and which do not.

2008-01-25T16:22:00.000-08:00

Five key points you need to pay attention to and implement in your business so that you can ensure the further success of your business are:

1: Research your target market. It’s important that you have a clear idea of who your target market is. Take the time to research who your competitors are for the products or services that you’re selling.

2: Build your customer database. Make sure that you use a variety of methods to build your customer database. The more leads that you have the more profits you’ll achieve.

3: Advertise and reach your customers. You need to reach your customers so that they can see what products and services you have to offer. Advertising can take place on or off the Internet using newsletters, e-mail automation techniques, or by following leads that are provided by your existing customers.

4: Have a definite business plan and goals. Make sure that you have a solid business plan so that you know exactly what path you need to take to reach your goals and how long it will take you to get there.

5: Deliver what you promise. Don’t make false promises to your customers that you can’t follow through with. Promising certain products, services, or special deals to lure in people means that you have to follow through with the delivery so that you gain the trust and respect of your customers.

By including the above five key points in your day to day business practices you’ll find that your online business continues to grow in
its success.

2008-01-25T15:12:00.000-08:00

Have you ever heard of Google Adsense? It's the hottest way to make money on the internet right now, and it's completely free to do.

If anyone clicks on those ads, you make money. The more people who click on them, the more money you make. Very many people make a good living, just off of Google ads alone. We cannot disclose how much we make, because it is against Google's policy to do so, but I CAN tell you that we are very happy with how much Google pays out for this.

Now, let's break it down some more. Let's assume you wanted to make $100,000 a year using Google adsense alone. $100,000 divided by 365 days a year = $274. That means you would need to make $274 per day. O.K., not so hard.

The only thing you need to do, is create a lot of websites. If you create 100 websites, that each earn you $2.74 per day, (we make a lot more than that per day on this one site alone), then you'd be making a 6-figure income, doing nothing. You don't have to answer E-mails, send out product, or even bother going to the bank to cash a check, since Google will deposit the money directly into your bank account on a monthly basis. You simply get paid when people click on your ads. This is the easiest job in the world, and a lot of people are doing it right now. Don't you think you should get in on the action?