1to1million

What to blog about to make money

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:07:00 +0000

There are 3 common question asked by those that come to me get started in internet marketing: What to blog about? What to write about in a blog? What to write a blog about?

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At the heart of these questions is a little desperation to make money and/or be popular. These are the first things that you need to let go of to move forward.

Answering the question, What to blog about to make money should in fact be the same answer that will give writers motivation to blog regardless of the financial gain.

The greatest success of any blog and certainly the money earning blogs that I have in Niche Markets comes from 2 things;

Providing quality content worth remarking about and bookmarking.
Being consistent and sticking to a regular schedule of creating new content.

Both of these require a valuable resource... TIME!

So pick a subject that is EASY for you, and develop a style that is FAST and efficient.

If you are still hooked on... What to blog about TO MAKE MONEY!
Then just start out by attraction visitors that are in a Buying Frame of mind, they will find you because your articles are full of phrases that have a High Commercial Intent. To be specific I am talking about blogging around a micro-niche associated with a specific product type and adding on know buying words (qualifiers) to the Product Name and Type (Stem).

Then as you get a handle on what to blog about you will find yourself expanding your conversation into other areas.

What To Blog About » 5 Motivations

There are five great motivations that you should try to invoke when you are deciding what today's blog post should be about:

Provide Good Advice
Give great well researched advice to your readers and point them in a good direction when they leave your blog.
Answer Common Questions
If your blog is new just go over to Yahoo Answers and search around your niche/market.
If you have an existing blog access your visitor tracking (Google Analytics or Wordpress Stats Plugin) and have a look at the longtail keyword phrases that visitors are typing into the search engines to find you, you find that a lot of these are actually questions.
Provide The Best Information
Provide good quality information but get to the point early, make sure you give away the key points in the first few paragraphs and then get into the detail.
Write Real Reviews
Review products, websites and resources. Do the research for your visitors and combine it all into one clear concise review of the product. Stamp your personality on the review so that visitors develop trust and familiarity. They will then have no problems buying through your affiliate links.
Expanding on any of the above
Every article or product review you write has at least another three articles inside it, this allows you to get even more niche and dominate higher search engine rankings for more achievable keyphrases.

So lets get back to the initial question that motivated this blog post...

What to blog about to make money?

Any subject that is part of the journey towards spending money.

Technorati Tags: Blogs-money-blog-make-money

Keys to Abundance

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 13:14:00 +0000

...continuing on from the Abundance Mentality letter. We come to the second half » The Keys to Abundance.

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Here are a few key things you can do every day to unlock the abundance mentality:

Make a commitment to continuous growth. Set up a reading, listening, watching and learning schedule.
Identify your shortcomings and lack of skill/s, outsource anything that would be in-efficient to do yourself.
Teach the people around you what you know. As well as re-enforcing what you have absorbed this week, this will help to clarify what you know, what you need to study and what you need to re-enforce.
Consistently write and review your 'To Do List' and the steps ahead of you... But restrict your to-do-list to 3-6 items at one time, move forward step by step.
Collect a personalized group of affirmations and every day before you start working, pick one, read it and place it above your monitor (there are also heap of Affirmation videos on YouTube).

Abundance starts in your mind. The more you think abundantly, the more abundance you can enjoy. The more abundance you enjoy, the more success you will enjoy.

"Everything you need this week will be available to you, everything you need later this year will be available! Everything will be OK!"

Believe that you already have everything you want for your family before it happens... It takes both time and a spiritual understanding of timelessness to really get this, so be patient and just continue to be aware of it!

This story may help:

Imaging you are looking at yourself from godlike place beyond time, when you look at someone from that place you see all their incarnations. Imagine if you were looking at murderer, do you just see that one point in time when the murder was committed? What if you could see that person as a baby, as a child. What if you could see that proud moment, that successful moment, that moment of great love and understanding. You see all those aspects in one moment.

Now Imagine that YOU are in that timeless place right now, with your current wish for the future.

In 6 months to a year you want your online business to be earning enough money to support your entire family.

You are in a place beyond time so focus on that moment, that moment of success. Fast forward and focus on that day in great detail... This is the success you are having before it happens.

What are doing?
What did you do the day before?
What did you do to get there.

If you cant see what your business will be and what your activities will be then you need to spend some time discovering and writing those down. You will be working :) but what work will you be doing and how much did you earn during that 'future week' and where did that money come from, how many hours and days will you be working. I know one thing that you will be doing... You will be looking back at how simple it all is, how clear the real secret to YOUR success online is, you would have forgotten today and today's struggles.

So this is where the 'Abundance Mentality' kicks in, From that point beyond time You already have everything you need to know, even if you can't see it at this moment in time!

Write down your diary entry for that future day, write it down today! Then flick back through the pages until you reach this moment, this day. Let the key days, the key moments jump out at you! The day you sold the first copy of your own product, The day you launched your own 'regime/ebook', the day you made your first affiliate sale.

What did you do to make that first Affiliate Sale:

You picked a profitable, achievable niche with traffic
You loaded the website with key-phrases and ranking potential
You restricted the conversation and traffic potential to high buying frame keywords
You outsourced tasks and added good articles and product reviews worth reading
You added your site to website directories and started an ongoing backlink campaign
You filled the site with affiliate offers and money making links
Every day you did something to increase your websites profile and weekly traffic
You monitored and tracked your visitors and started funneling the whole site towards the best converting product
You created your own, even better product or monthly continuity product
Your visitors found it easy to go from search engine to your site to a product they wanted and liked.
Now the bulk of the work is done... you spend a lot of quality and relaxed time with your family and friends.

This is a letter from the future, you have already done all this. You made your first sale months ago! Your success already exists...

These are the keys to abundance!

Technorati Tags: Keys-to-abundance-mentality-affirmations

Abundance Mentality

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 09:16:00 +0000

The keys to abundance lie in maintaining an abundance mentality, this can often be a confusing concept and one a recent client was struggling with... I am posting the letter I sent back to her (Mary) .

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A letter on Abundance Marketing...

Hi Mary,

If your feeling down, it's so that you can experience the fullness of being up tomorrow. So enjoy feeling down today and don't beat yourself up about it!

An "abundance mentality" is more than just having a positive mental attitude you need to delve further and unlock the Keys to Abundance.

There is a difference between 'a positive mental attitude' and an 'abundance mentality'.

With a positive mental attitude, you look at how things can be done rather than why they can't be done. You focus on possibilities and opportunities rather than obstacles and problems.
With an abundance mentality you will journey beyond a positive mental attitude. You will learn to eliminate small thinking and it will even offset your own negative energy.

They key to abundance lies in conditioning and changing your beliefs at a fundamental level.

People with an abundance mentality believe and understand abundance affirmations:

"The more I know, the more there is to know."
"The more I give, the more there is to give."
"The more I sell, the more there is to sell."

"Obstacles will teach me something that will help me reach my goals."

"If I need money, I'll find the money."
"If I need people, I'll find the people."
"If I need ideas, the ideas will come."

So with your internet marketing endeavours start walking the path of Abundance Marketing... Believe that you are entering into markets with enough for everyone. Every missing skill, secret, trick, ebook, course or resource will be available to you... When you need it! (so don't feel pressured to buy anything on the impulse that its your only chance or that you have to buy it now or loose the knowledge for ever).

Believe that your ultimate success in any market - your health niche site for example - does not mean failure for others be they competitors or customers. When you have an abundance mentality you will understand that your success will mean more success for everybody, clients and competitors included. Know that MY success will benefit every one I know, including YOU! Your success will benefit those around you! So enter your 'Niche Site' endeavor with a "win/win" attitude. You win, product providers win, product buyers win and all the people around you win. The success of your website will pass on to everyone that is connected to it.

"Heard me say before that there is No Magic Genie?"

well actually there is a magic genie, her name is Mary. Sp spread your wings and ALLOW yourself to fly, without fear of loss or failure.

As you become someone with an abundance mentality you will soon realize that there are three kinds of people in your niche; those who are already somebody's customer or client, those who are waiting to become a customer or client, and those that have no idea that they are about to become your client. There is no shortage of successes available out there for you.

What you do today is not going to bring about failure.

It's what you DON'T do that will.

» continued in Keys to Abundance

Technorati Tags: abundance-mentality-keys-to-abundance

Auto Blog Software Vs Outsourcing

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 08:10:00 +0000

Tommy via Twitter asked me a costing question in regards to freelancers and outsourcing article writing. So I threw in some stuff about Auto Blog Software as a comparison and decided to copy the reply to me blog as I ended up writing a half decent article.

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Hi Tommy,

GetaFreelancer.com » http://budurl.com/ncj9

Is a bit chaotic, as in Not So Sexy. But once you work out how it all works I have had great success getting work done well and cheaply.

I found that:

A - I was just trying to do everything associated with building and running websites.
B - The content writing was taking me the longest.

Sure you can write an article in 15 mins, but mine always lingered on to 2+ hrs

Finally I realized that it doesn't have to be perfect it just has to do the job, and just getting the first 30 pages of a website published, is the priority. You can tweak it later!

So whats it cost?

The first tasks I got outsourced were actually Data Entry stuff working in databases on one of my Travel Websites.. Entering locations into the taxonomy of a Drupal site. That work was done extremely cheaply.. like $3 per hour. And the guy was so good that he is now permanently given work to do each week.

Articles...

I have a Niche Blog in the Health Market and actually its just a feeder site that points to my main money site for that niche.

I tried using the Auto Blog Software for it but found that I still had to Manually adjust, add to and schedule each of those automatic blog posts. Still consuming too much of my time, better spent working ON my business and not IN it!

So the best auto blog software is actually a freelancer... Especially when you find a good one!

The idea was to get 100 short articles of around 250 words, each one targeting a specific keyword that I generated and tested for low competition via The Google Keyword Tool

When typing up the project at GAF there are a few things you will want to include in the project description:

All articles must pass copyscape!
Please provide meaningful articles that provide real information.
Write in an engaging journalistic (non-academic) and down-to-earth style.
I shall retain sole ownership of all the articles you submit.
Copyright shall transfer to me upon delivery and the articles shall not be used, shared or resold by the writer.
Please include sample of your work and writing style.
English and grammar must be 100%
Plenty of additional work if you can match quality work to a reasonable bid.

Now the bids I got back for this project ranged from $100 to $250 dollars and also ranged from (English as their second language) garbage to highly qualified and experienced people with experience in writing in my niche.

I was tempted by an Indian Team who seemed to get excellent reviews and had good examples and prices, but settled on a guy from Canada, his bid was $180 or $1.80 per article as he will probably be kept continuously busy.

Now another project was for a clients website which targets a real low competition localized keyphrase, so I only really needed about 10 themed articles - at the standard 450 word mark - to get this site ranked above the fold on page one. Then some backlink and external SEO-ing to get #1.

Now because the lowest bid range on GAF is $30-$250 I thought I may as well bump up the required number to 25 and see just how low the bids go.

And yep lowest bid was $40 highest was $200. I decided to take a gamble and go with a girl that was offering her time cheap because she needs a good review to compete against the other 30 other bidders with 300+ reviews and established reputations. So again I got this done for about $2 per article (longer articles this time).

On a final note... The longer you leave a project open the more bids you will get, and the more chance you will find a Great ongoing freelancer for your niche. Although in one case I need some real quick script adjustments done and I needed it urgently... I Posted the project and 2 hours later the work was done :)

Thanks for the question mate as it focused my to write one of this weeks blog posts

Regards

JD

Ps. Auto Blog Software is worth the free trial, just use it white hat wisely.

Technorati Tags: Auto-Blog-Software-outsourcing-freelancers

Unlimited Space Web Hosting

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:41:00 +0000

Here's a quick review of the best unlimited space web hosting. Unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited domains, unlimited sub-domains... Unlimited Everything!

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This was already my favorite web hosting provider, excellent service, cheap and they have always had unlimited domains, which is handy for me because I get 12 website ideas a week! :P

http://budurl.com/wwm5

Just recently, they have added a few extras to all their packages:

Unlimited Space Web Hosting
Host Unlimited Bandwidth
Unlimited Email Hosting
Hosting Unlimited Subdomains
Unlimited FTP Hosting

This is unlimited cpanel hosting at its best, oh and the Cpanel Themes are the sexiest ever!

You want cheap unlimited hosting, right?

You will get unlimited php hosting and unlimited MySQL databases as well... It's unlimited everything!!!

Now I actually have hosting accounts all over the place because I spread my niche websites out across different c-block hosting accounts. So I do have a good finger on what else is out there... And I highly recommend that if you need...

» web hosting with unlimited space « Go No Further!

Technorati Tags: unlimited-space-web-hosting-webhosting

Google Profiles = Free Backlinks From PR 10

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 06:13:00 +0000

My mate Andrei stumbled across this and has followed it through. Yes... YOU can now get a legit and easy backlink from a Page Rank 10/10 website and its NOT a no-follow.

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Andrei read it here » David Naylor » and passed it along. Its definitely something worth doing, just for the sake including it as part of your social footprint.

The Page Rank 10/10 site is of course Google.com

Sign in to your Google Account
Go To » http://www.google.com/s2/profiles/me
Flesh out your Google profile
Add a few links and anchor texts at the bottom

For the links (you just created) to work, you will have to get that profile page indexed... Which means creating some links to it, like so... My Google Profile Page » JD 1to1million

The links themselves are currently NOT no-follow which means that the Page Rank will pass through... But you can certainly expect people to abuse the service (aka spam) and for Google to amend the Google Profile Pages with a No-Follow.

The real problem is that it is a little to easy to get a collection of Google Identities and I seriously wonder with follow/no-follow will soon make any difference when a larger percentage of all websites starts using the tags to combat their sites being used by spammy SEO tacticians.

If your about to go update your Google Profiles, just remember your messing with Google so keep it real!

Here are YOUR Google Profiles

Technorati Tags: Google-Profiles-Backlinks-PR-PageRank
-/span-

Essential Wordpress Plugins for SEO

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:17:00 +0000

These wordpress plugins essential if you want to take some of the hard work out of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), traffic generation and making money online.

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Where possible I have included the direct download link!

AddThis Social Bookmarking Widget

Adds all the important Social Bookmarking and Sharing Links
http://s3.addthis.com/plugins/wordpress/v12/addthis_social_widget_drop.zip

Adsense Manager

An easy way to place adsense on your site and also handles Commission Junction and few money spinners.
http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/adsense-manager.zip

AdServe

Banner and advertising management.
http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/adserve.zip

All In One SEO Pack

Control over the meta tags; Title, Keywords and Description from the blog post edit page.
http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/all-in-one-seo-pack.zip

cforms

Form building and features that make it easy for visitors to contact you without needing to know your email address.
http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/cforms.9.1.zip

Google XML Sitemaps

Probably the most important thing you can do to any site.
http://www.arnebrachhold.de/projects/wordpress-plugins/google-xml-sitemaps-generator/#P18DL

Ultimate Google Analytics

Tracking and Stats
http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/ultimate-google-analytics.zip

Wordpress Duplicate Content Cure

Prevents search engines from indexing duplicate content pages like Categories and Archives.
http://www.seologs.com/downloads/duplicate-content-cure.zip

Wordpress Video Plugin

Easy way to display videos from Youtube and all the other video sharing sites.
http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/wordpress-video-plugin.0.68.zip

WP – Spam Free

Gets rid of Comment Spam
http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/wp-spamfree.zip

WP Tags to Technorati

Turns wordpress tags into Technorati tags
http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/wp-tags-to-technorati.zip

FeedBurner FeedSmith

Redirects your RSS feeds through FeedBurner
http://www.feedburner.com/fb/products/feedburner_feedsmith_plugin_2.3.zip

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The only other one I use is 'More Fields' but that takes some willingness to dive into the page templates to make it work wonders for you!

Technorati Tags: Wordpress-Plugins-SEO-Money-Monetization

Finding Niche Market

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 02:35:00 +0000

Finding Niche Markets for some people seems to be the biggest struggle when trying to Make Money Online. Here's a tip, step-by-step guide and all the tools that will blow everything else you have read... Out of the water!

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Ok. Forget the fluff, lets get straight into this!

Don't Find A Niche/Market » Find A Product

Seriously... Do you want to get started in Internet Marketing and just start making some money?

Stop wasting your time finding niche markets!
Stop wasting your time discovering your passion!
Stop procrastinating because you are overwhelmed with the content you need to create.

Finding Niche Market

You don't want 10,000 visitors a day if they are not buying anything. What you want is people that are already in a buying frame of mind. You want visitors that have found your site on Google using queries like:

Buy Sony DSLR-A900
This guy is already keen to buy one of this Sony Camera

So it looks like I have already found a niche market.

Google Keyword Tool
Google now gives out some data on ~how many searches occur for each keyphrase each month!
I do a search for:
- Sony DSLR-A900 = N/A (so ok that's not the best keyphrase to target for this product)
- DSLR a700 digital camera = 390 a month (its a pretty new camera)
- nikon d50 = 135,000 a month (bingo)

Finding Niche Markets is that easy and there are millions of products out there from physical products, digital products (down loadable) and Online Services and programs. You just need to find a group of products that all have affiliate programs attached to them.

Google Search
- Nikon d50 Affiliate Program
  You will find all sorts of websites that will pay you a commission for sending them sales or just go and join up at cj.com and do a product search in there for Digital Cameras

Finding Niche Market » Refine It

Right so in the example above I DONT want a website about "Digital Cameras"
WHY? - Because I don't want to try and get traffic from people interested in Digital Cameras (that's a pretty competitive market), I want the smaller niche visitors that are about to buy a digital camera.

Back to the Google Tool - I generate a list based on "Digital Camera Reviews" (adding reviews to your product genre is a good place to start)

Digital Camera Reviews = 165,000
These guys and gals are looking for a good camera and haven't decided which yet.
Digital SLR Camera Reviews = 5,400
Nice and specific, a real niche.
Nikon Digital Camera Reviews = 2,400
You'll find lots of these sub-niches that get brand specific.
Digital Camera Comparisons = 5,400
These peeps want to compare digital cameras up next to each other so that they can choose one that suits them best.
Digital Camera Rating = 8,100
They want to trust a site that has all the cameras up next to each other and star rated each one.
Digital Camera Consumer Review = 880
These visitors want to see actual reviews from other people that have bought a camera recently (cite other websites or create a free membership site for consumers)

That's the estimated traffic, but what are my chances for getting on the 1st page on Google for these terms.

Low Competition = Low search engine results when you enter the query (keyphrase) into Google using Quotes (exact phrase match).

>10,000,000 is a Broad Market
>150,000 is a Market
<150,000>
<5,000>
<600 style="font-style: italic;">= "What are doing still reading this!" lol

To be honest the one I pick is not based on high traffic and low competition as everyone else will tell you!

WHY? - Because, while low competition is a good indicator of a keyphrase you can easily get free Google traffic for. I have easily ranked well for SOME high competition keyphrases, so don't cross those off just yet.

Finding Niche Market » The Research

As I am finding a niche/market I start looking to see if If those 3 word domain names are available and make up a spreadsheet:

Column One
KEYPHRASE - The possible niche/market key-phrases that I select from the Google Tool based on the product genre.
Column Two
TRAFFIC - The 'Approx Avg Search Volume' stats from the Google Tool
(you can actually download their CSV and copy those 2 columns across from that spreadsheet)
Yellow Highlight anything over 1000 (still in the race)
Column Three
DOT COM - Is the Dot Com Available for that Keyphrase available?
(eg. nikondigitalcamerareviews.com - I only go for Dot Coms)
Check it here » Domain Checker
Yellow Highlight anything available (still in the race)
Column Four
HYPHEN COM - Is the Dot Com (with Hyphens) available?
(eg. nikon-digital-camera-reviews.com - If neither are available I don't pick that niche)
Yellow Highlight anything available (still in the race)
Column Five
BUYING FRAME - Mark the 'commercial intention' of each keyphrase that is still is the race (forget the ones that have no domains available)
I judge my keywords based on my own gut feeling and then mark the Low, Med or High.
If you are having trouble try using the Commercial Intent Tool
Yellow Highlight anything the High's (still in the race)
Column Six
COMPETITION - Do a phrase match search (put the keyphrase in quotes) and note the optimized search results, don't be put off by high competition just be attracted to low competition. You only have to do this for the ones left in the race
(eg, Results 1 - 10 of about 7,180 for "Nikon Digital Camera Reviews"
- >1,000,000 competing pages (optimized) is OK
- >150,000 is good
- >10,000 is great

Download My Spreadsheet » Finding Niche Market Template (right click and Save As)
If you don't have Microsoft Word it will open with free tools like OpenOffice.org or Google Docs

Finding a niche market just got a whole lot easier if you follow the work flow on my spreadsheet because the phrase still in the race (after you work towards the last column) will have traffic, attract buyers and compete well if you use an optimized domain name and then restrict your content to Individual Product reviews that stay very micro-niche within the niche. You don't have to buy the products, what you actually put up is a short product report based on some research of other reviews and details online. Essentially this is what you get paid for because you spend a few hours compiling all the research that a buyer would otherwise have to do. You save the buyer the time it would take him/her to research their purchase, so trust and honesty is extremely important and using your face and voice is an easy way to gain trust. The reward for your quality reviews and research comes when the reader clicks on your affiliate link to go and buy the product. The product providers then pays you a commission as a freelancing independent sales rep.

To get accepted by those affiliate programs you will need a website, so lets get that up today and do it really fast!!!

Finding Niche Market (DONE) » What Now?

Download my template » Finding Niche Market Template (right click and Save As)
This is a 3 sheet workbook that will take you right through; picking your niche and setting up your first profitable website.
Fill out the keyword research
Pick your Main Keyphrase / Site Theme
Register the Domain » here is best because you can get a discount by using the coupon in the checkout » cjcnot695
(register both the keyphrase.com and key-phrase.com if they are available)
Get a Hosting Account » here is best because you can get started for 1 cent if you use this coupon » WEBHOSTING
(The $7.95/month package gives you unlimited domains)
Inside Godaddy(my domains) change the nameservers of your domain to point to the ones hostgator will send you in an email.
Access your hosting /cpanel (again in the Hostgator email)
Click on Addon Domains and add the new domain and folder for it
Click on HOME (cpanel) and then click on Fantastico
Under Blogs » click on Wordpress » New Installation
Then Install the list of SEO Plugins » Sheet #2 of my » Finding Niche Market Template
Lastly install, create, buy or contract someone to pimp your blog with a theme that suits product reviews and takes full advantage of the 'More fields' plugin to make the job of posting your reviews as easy a filling out a form (no code or SEO formatting required).

Then just start posting up the Product Reviews into a 3-5 categories making sure that each Product Review includes some of the Main Buying Frame Qualifiers » Sheet #3 of my » Finding Niche Market Template

If you have trouble writing, just head over to a Freelancer Site and pay someone $30 bucks to write some articles for you, then paste them in as blog posts and then tweak, edit and add your affiliate links when you get time.

If steps 6 - 12 scare you in anyway I have refined the process from my computer and can do that for you for $100

If you have trouble understanding steps 1 - 5 (best let me guide you). I can guide you through that process over Skype and then go on to install everything for you for $300

Yes JD, I Could Use Some Help

Both of those options will be strictly limited as I only have time to help a few of you each month, so When I max out each month the links will be removed and then reset at the start of each month with a $10 price increase!

Failure comes when you give up and claim that it doesn't work. The truth is "You have stopped working!"

So here's to YOU sticking at this long enough to reap the reward of a new income stream that comes to you automatically once all the set-up is done.

Here's The Free » Finding Niche Market Workbook « Again

Technorati Tags: Finding-Niche-Market-Finding Niche Market-Marketinng

Rich Schefren wins 1st IMTweet Award

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:55:00 +0000

Rich Schefren awarded the very 1st IMTweet Award, click to learn more about the IMTweet Awards and the value Rich Schefren has to offer Internet Marketers.

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1to1million is proud to present Rich Schefren as the very first winner of an IMTweet Award.

IMTweet Awards are rarely handed out (1-2 a month) and the recipient must first meet some pretty tough requirements.

Rich Schefren » ACTIVE on Twitter
- 7th March 2007 - Rich's first Twitter post
- Tweets - 173 at the time of this award.
Rich Schefren » EXPERT in his field
- Rich was successful in business well before he came to internet marketing. Today he is a guru and business coach to many of the big-name internet marketing gurus. Many people plunder into Internet Marketing thinking its a quick trick to make some money. Whether you are an Internet Marketing newbie or the owner of a successful business, Rich will take you out of your simple project-sized, do-it-all-yourself mindset and set you on the right track to establishing a stable 6 figure business and still leave you with the time to enjoy your money and life!
Rich Schefren » POPULAR with the people
- Twitter Followers - 2,107 at the time of this award.
Rich Schefren » VALUABLE to Internet Marketers
- While Rich's doesn't really use Twitter to give away value to internet marketers, he gets this award because he gives away some of the most valuable content via Audios, TeleSeminar Calls and Phone Interviews with the Internet Marketing Elite.
Rich Schefren's » INTEGRITY
- This is the most important of the 5 requirements to get an IMTweet Award
- The very goal of IMTweet is to collect the select few that will steer you in the right direction and are not just out to sell you there latest ebook or marketing course. Now even though the Rich Schefren Coaching Program is launching as I type... Rich has lead up to this with so much quality content, aswell as being over-generous at every step in his carreer.

For ALL 5 reasons we are proud to award the 1st IMTweet Awards to Rich Schefren

Technorati Tags: IMTweet-Awards-Rich-Schefren-Coaching

The 15 Types of Tweeters on Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:00:00 +0000

There are many types of personalities on social media sites like Twitter the most successful social marketing plan uses a combination of many conversations.

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I have been getting a common response from Internet Marketing (clients) when I start recommending Twitter... "What should I be doing or saying on Twitter (and other Social Media Sites)."

My advice is to just be yourself and observe others while you discover your Twitter persona. So what are the top ten hats you can wear when you are twittering?

For many people with a 'suitable online business' presence I highly recommend having two Twitter accounts (you will need two email addresses).

A Personal Account
This is your platform to get personal (it bears your name) so just be social and get the feel of the Twitterverse, mix it up with a few plugs for anything new in your business and on your website. But don't spam or be repetitious use it for relationship building and the occasional announcement. A personal account should be friendly and social as this is what the platform was created for in the first place... So your friends can see "What You are Doing."
A Business Account
Keep this twitter feed professional, on topic and relevant so that you can embed it on your web site. This type of account is a little one-sided and works best if you post daily tips and incentives to keep following the feed. Not something I recommend but you can use scripts for this type of account.

Social Media Marketing (SMM) thrives on the percentage of people that are using what marketers would call 'valuable time' purely being social, because they are either; at work (and the boss ain't looking), self employed, unemployed or just relaxing after work with multiple browser windows and multi-media coming at them from all angles. With out theses users, none of the marketers would be using Twitter in the first place.

H2-10 Personality Types Conversing on Twitter

Based on an analysis and grouping of 100's of individual Tweets, I have split Twitter users into 10 distinct types.

Self Focused Tweeters
Its all about me; "this is what I think and what do you think about me", "I am making toast and jam", "I'm caught in traffic" and so on. If its exciting you will get and keep the attention of others outside your current group of friends. People like to watch in a voyeuristic way but will un-follow if its over 80% self focused, self commentary or if you have fallen prey to posting tweets just for the sake of tweeting (this works fine for a small group of close friends in real life).
Maven Tweeters
These people are worth following because they are an authority on a subject you are interested in or they simply have more experience in a shared passion or interest of yours.
Connected Twitter Users
These people are like your own personal assistant. Instead of you trawling through the forums and news sites for the latest events in your field, these people do it for you and only post a link if it has passed through their in-built quality control. They become the middle man to the source for your next blog post or article. They keep you up to date and connected.
Listening Twitter Users
They either ask questions and listen for answers or they attempt to answer the questions posed by others. This persona loves to comment (reply) to other Tweets.
Marketing Tweeters
This is where you need to be careful to avoid being too covert, spammy or deceptive. A marketing tweeter has something to plug, promote or sell. They are hoping to divert some attention towards their blog, website, service, product or brand. Generally they are promoting via a link that will take them out of the twitterverse, however there is an increasing number of promotions and competitions that purely revolve around the twitter.
Desperate Tweeters
This is the biggest mistake you can make in any social media marketing that you undertake. People will quickly turn off to people that are desperately searching for followers, attention or blatant sales. Begging online is quickly thrown into the same category as scamming. Being desperate will only lower your value to others.
Seductive Tweeters
This does not just refer to the obvious flirting and expressions of sensuality. Some marketers a very good at creating hypnotic tweets that hook, seduce and leave wanting to know more. You feel compelled to click through.
Networking Tweeters
For internet marketers relationship building should be more of a priority than getting attention, one good JV partners can turn a nobody into a somebody and most internet marketing owe their success to the leverage provided by somebody else. Twitter is also a great place to increase your education and many have had great success when seeking employment through these types of social web sites.
Creative Tweeters
It never ceases to amaze me how people continue to find new ways to use Twitter and other social media site. Creative writing projects are one of the many artistic ways that tweeters are expressing themselves.
Organizing Tweeters
Due to Twitter's ability to be accessed from various mobile devices, it has become extremely successful for organizing large crowds. Organizing conference attendees, protest groups or any large group of people by utilizing the many ways that users can receive and post Tweets.
Updating Tweeters
Many companies and online services like webmasterradio.fm keep their fans up to date via Twitter updates, you can even get local weather updates every morning.
Expert Tweeters
These are the technocrats and expert users of Twitter and all its offshoots, keeping you up to date with the twitterverse including all the applications that tap into the Twitter API. Twitter can be very powerful marketing tool if you are aware of all the latest developments but we also in a community where the next best thing can be just around the corner.
Twitter only
Social media sites like Twitter create their own insular communities where many of the conversations actually revolve around the community and platform itself. A majority of these are actually whiners and complainers that actually keep Twitter in the conversation.
Workplace Freedom
Employees with access to computers will always find a way to keep up to date with their auctions, bids, social communities, emails, forums and favorite blogs. Zappos is a great success story of a company that openly allows its employees to use social media sites. This workplace freedom becomes one of the main topics of conversation and in-turn creates positive buzz for the company.
Anti-social Media Marketing
Many users of social media sites find it far to time intensive to keep up with one, let alone a social media marketing blueprint full of sites and conversations to maintain. But they still use social media sites to create themed backlinks to their websites.

The best advice as to which personality you should adopt for your social media marketing strategy on Twitter is to just be aware of the many types and mix it up but above all be real to yourself and your integrity.

Technorati Tags: Social-Media-marketing-SMM-Twitter

The Greatest Secret To Making Money Online

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:53:00 +0000

This is the best advice I could give any wanna-be affiliate marketer starting out!

...Read MORE

The Greatest Secret To Making Money Online!

>> Is targeting the traffic that is already it a buying state of mind. <<

You can tell if they qualify just by the search phrases they use.

For Example:

buy
for sale
products
products
products
review
reviews
scam
side effects
compare
price
price
cure
remedy
fix
remove
problem
repair
good
best
problems
download
best
does actually work

You have to replace <____> with the exact product or topic that you are promoting.

These 'Converting Keywords' are made up of:

Desperate Keywords
They want to be moved from pain to pleasure now, and fast.
Product Keywords
They know the product they may buy and are investigating further.
Buying Keywords.
They want to find it, buy it and move on.
Reassurance Keywords
- does actually work
People that buy on an emotional impulse need to justify the decision using logic.
People that buy on a rational impulse want to justify the decision emotionally.

"I just spent $100 because I love these shoes and had to have them, but I saved $60 because they were on sale."

"I had to fill up my car with fuel and it cost me $200, but now I don't have to stress about running out all week" - [ next week it will cost $300 :-) ]

On the internet buyers type the words scam, fraud, rip off or review after the product name to make sure that they are not about to make a bad decision.

What happens when you DON'T use buy words?

I have a few small websites based around these types of powerful keywords,
and they are starting to really prove themselves 10-fold but it wasn't always that way!

One of my early affiliate/niche websites focussed on many vertical and horizontal conversations associated with the niche, I was getting plenty of organic traffic from Google but they just weren't buying. For example in the health markets you can get some great traffic for long tail key phrases with the word 'Natural' but these people are generally looking for home remedies, recipes and free information. I recommend bundling your best 'free' information into a digital product that can be purchased from those pages. For example - "10 Home Remedies To Get Rid Of Warts" (a 15 page eBook for $9.95).

Final Thought: The words you use to communicate will determine the audience that you attract.

Technorati Tags: making-money-marketing-online-Buy Words

20 Must Do Tasks For Web Site Success

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:35:00 +0000

I have been testing a number of tasks to support my niche sites. This is a shortlist of the 20 best tasks that can yield exponential results (if used correctly).

...Read MORE

There are hundreds of tasks webmasters can and should do to support their websites and blogs. Some of these tasks involve Social Media Sites which need to be managed as they can take up more time than they are worth.

"Consistently and constantly force yourself to focus on the ‘critically few’ proactive activities that produce exponential results. Yanik Silver"

The following is a short list of the best tasks I have identified.

Create and manage a To Do List or Checklist of tasks, break things down to small steps.
http://www.managethemilk.com
Submit your sitemaps to the search engines
http://searchangle.com/seo-sem/submit-site-map-google-yahoo-msn/
Outsource regular content creation
http://www.getafreelancer.com
Submit your website to website directories
http://www.yoomakemoneyonline.com/dir
Track your traffic and pay special attention to the search queries that lead visitors to your site.
http://www.google.com/analytics
http://www.enquisite.com/products/ << tracks search engine referrals better than Google
Set up an RSS feed for your site and add the buttons for visitors to subscribe (including via email).
http://www.feedburner.com
Actively Digg your own and other blog posts and news stories.
http://digg.com
Actively bookmark your own and other related web pages using social bookmaking sites
http://del.icio.us
http://stumbleupon.com

Bookmark pages to all your social media bookmarking sites in one click
http://onlywire.com

Ping your new pages and bookmarks
http://www.pingomatic.com
Manage your profile and identity on FaceBook.
http://facebook.com
Create external (theme related) web pages that link to your site.
http://squidoo.com
http://business.blinkweb.com
Create and share related photos on Flickr
(The photos used on your websites should be hosted under the root URL and not on Flickr).
http://www.flickr.com
http://picasaweb.google.com
Create and share slide shows on Slideshare
http://slideshare.com
Create and submit a podcast to a directory
http://www.odeo.com/
Create and share (theme related) videos or videocasts
http://www.youtube.com
http://www.ustream.tv/

Making videos is easier than you think with Camtasia
http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp
Submit your blog to blog sites and directories
http://blogs.botw.org
http://www.mybloglog.com
Get a Press Release distributed
http://www.prweb.co
Set up a Friend Feed account and get active on a few of the social media sites that it can interact with. Friend Feed allows you to manage a vast majority of your Social media activities and all from one page. You can also track many of your friends or gurus/mentors social media activities on one page. http://twitter.com is an easy to manage social media site to start with (avoid being spammy).
http://friendfeed.com
Create your own Social Media Site
http://www.linkedin.com
http://www.ning.com
Keep up to date, connected and educated
http://www.webmasterradio.fm/
http://www.talkshoe.com
http://www.blogtalkradio.com
Track, measure and improve your conversions
http://www.10conversionsecrets.com

Many of these are Social Media Sites that can bring in an additional stream of traffic to your organic search engine visitors. For a comprehensive list visit - Social Media Marketing Resources

Further reading...

Technorati Tags: Social-Media-Marketing-social media marketing-Web Site

Are You a Twit, Tweeter or a Twirgin

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:07:00 +0000

What Twitter can and cant do for you (3 part series).
An overview and quick guide to micro-blogging on Twitter.com that will help you decide whether its right for your business plan.

...Read MORE

Yes the Twitter Train has well and truly pulled out!!!

Twitter is definitely the easiest way to feel connected without having to wade through endless forum posts just to get 3 lines of value.

I don't know about you, but I have wasted days on forums and come away with nothing?
Imagine if every post was limited to 140 characters...
Imagine if you could decide who's post appeared...
Imagine getting those selected posts served up live via a client that taps into the API.

Twitter is versatile yet simple and above all else, it is EASY.

What Twitter can do for you.

Increase the traffic to your Blog / Website
John Reese recently sent out an email to his subscribers...
see >> http://www.inquisitr....
Allow you to search and qualify potential friends and associates
see >> http://summize.com/
Make official announcements from your business
see >> http://twitter.com/1to1million
Communicate casually with new and established friends
see >> http://twitter.com/_jd_
Network with people in your industry/niche
see >> http://www.marketingpilgrim...
Get slammed just for promoting it
see >> http://mashable...
Become a popular girl if you aren’t that interesting
see >> http://www.seo-chicks...
Distract the hell out of you when you should be getting work done
see >> Every 1oth post on Twitter
Create cool Applications that integrate with Twitter
see >> http://twhirl.org/
Allows you to tell the world that you're going to bed
see >> http://summize...

If you are a TWIRGIN (Twitter-Virgin) you should observe some basic social etiquette when entering Twitter.

Behaving like a TWIT will leave you feeling alone, unconnected and unwanted.
Learning to add content and not just self indulgent, self plugging dribble will see you quickly become a popular and valued TWEETER.

A Twirgins Guide To Twitter

Once you have signed up to Twitter, here is a quick guide to get you off on the right foot.

Make sure your profile is optimized for how you want to be found via search and your website to your profile.
Have a genuine Avatar / Profile Pic.
Set Twitter up to integrate with your phone.
Get Twhirl.org for your desktop.
Add 3-4 intriguing valuable posts that increase your perceived value.
Then use the Twitter search and Summize.com to find and follow some people in your region or state of mind.
Follow first and un-follow later if they annoy you.
Mix up your posts; what your doing, cool stuff you find, new content announcements, questions, replies, humor and help.
Qualify people for your favorites group.
Be active

Twirgins should aspire to become Tweeters and not Twits.

Twits just barge in thinking they can make some quick money, by spamming everyone with affiliate links or begging for followers. Twits die young because desperation is an ugly thing.

Tweeters communicate with integrity, build relationships, network and succeed in the long run.

Technorati Tags: Twitter-Tweeting-Twirgin-SMM-Marketing

How to Dominate an Entire Market - Part 4

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 16:03:00 +0000

Horizontal Marketing.

Expanding your conversation to include the niches around you.

How to Dominate an Entire Market - Part 4

Remember my hypothetical... 'JD's Guest House'?

I am going to show you how to increase the bookings and profits by exploring its Vertical and Horizontal Markets.

Self Marketing

The 'JD's Guest House' website currently only talks about everything within and below it:

A tour of the property
The gardens
The Rooms and Prices
Testimonials from the guest book
Some history
and a contact/booking page

First we need to identify the current location of my guest house in its current market.
The hypothetical Guest House is physically located about one hour from a major hypothetical city - Kazbar City.
The property is just 10 minutes from the town called - Kazbane.
Finally we are situated in the Kazza Valley surrounded by Wineries.

This gives me something to focus some keyword research on and get a look at the market - up, down and around.

Market Research and Discovery

Now I need to uncover the markets above, below, in and around my current business model, then I need to select areas of high traffic!

This can be uncovered manually in two stages:

Generate a list of relevant keywords using
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
- A. Descriptive words or phrases
  (check - 'Use synonyms')
- B. Website content
  Enter the top ranking website for your market/niche keyword
  (check - 'Include other pages on my site linked from this URL')
  
  The two methods of generating relevant keywords will be merged and can be downloaded as a csv file.
Take your list of keywords and enter them into..
https://adwords.google.com/select/TrafficEstimatorSandbox
- Select your region or 'all countries and territories'
  (via the 'Add >>' button)
- Take note of the 'Estimated Clicks / Day' column
  - This is the range of clicks per day that a top position Google Ad gets for via a search Engine Result Page (SERP) for each keyword.
  - To work out the amount of traffic the actual SERP page gets you can only guesstimate, but I multiply the low number by 5.

The people I want for JD's Guest House are the ones searching for 'Kazza Valley Accommodation'.
On the vertical market this is one step above me.

When I look at my CSV I discover:

Kazza Valley Accommodation = 50 searches per day
Kazbane Accommodation = 180 searches per day
Kazbar City Accommodation = 1500 searches per day

Kazza Valley Accommodation immediately steps forwards because it has very little real competition. So I could either increase the conversation on my website to include this or create/commission a second website targeting this niche that then includes 'JD's Guest House' in its conversation.

But lets just zoom upward vertically once more...

Kazza Valley = 450 searches per day
This is now 2 vertical steps above me...
If I zoom back down into this market I uncover the following:
- Kazza Valley Accommodation
- Kazza Valley Wine
- Kazza Valley Wineries
- Kazza Valley Wine Tours
- Kazza Valley Restaurants
- Kazza Valley Hotels
- Kazza Valley Festival
- Kazbane Tavern
- Kazbar City Day Tour
All of the people driving these search engine requests will be needing accommodation so why not dominate those conversations from my main website or a second website. After all, more traffic will equal more conversion and lead to increased profits.

Horizontal Marketing

Now lets look Horizontally by uncovering all the businesses and websites under the same vertical market but not above me.
These are the ones that are next to and around me:

Kazbane Tavern
Kazza Valley Caravan Park
Kazbane Apartments
Kazbane Art Gallery
Kazbane Botanical Gardens
Kazza Valley Scenic Drive
Kazza Valley Caves
Kazbane Indian Restaurant

Once again all the people driving these searches may also be interested in accommodation so why not dominate these conversations from my websites aswell.

I am starting to accumulate quite a list of new webpages that need to be written but I can outsource that job via websites like getafreelancer.com

To dominate these conversations and rank well in the search engines I will need to provide my copy writers with a list of 'Important Keywords' (approximately 5-10 important key phrases per 100 words per). Important keywords should have traffic attached and be derived from (relevant to) your main keyword or phrase for each article.

For example: My first new article's main targeted keyword/theme = Kazza Valley Accommodation
The list of important keywords to include in an article with this theme should consist of:

Long tails
Phrases with words added to my main phrase
Eg. 'Cheap Kazza Valley Accommodation'
Short Tails
Ok ...I made that up to describe phrases that include only some of the words in my targeted keyword or article theme.
Eg. 'Kazza Valley Hotels'
Unique Phrases
Phrases that do not contain any of the word in my main targeted keyword. These should be highly relevant phrases that won't increase the keyword density of my main words.
Targeted words should not exceed a keyword density of 5%
Targeted phrases should not exceed a keyword density of 2.6%
Eg. 'Places to stay around Kazbane'
Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPS)
These are phrases that would only be used in a conversation related to your market.
Amazon.com provides these via its 'Search Inside' feature on the detailed pages of a book related to your targeted keyword or market.
Eg #1. 'rooms with a late checkout' would only be used in a conversation about short stay accommodation.
Google Synonyms
If you enter a keyword into Google with a tilda ( ~ ) before it, the Google Synonyms will appear in bold on the Search Engine Result Page (SERP). If you then repeat the keyword with a minus before it ( - ) it will only display the Google Synonyms and will remove the main keyword so that you can identify them better. I recommend setting your preferences to show 100 results per page when looking for Google Synonyms.
Eg #1. see here > http://is.gd/Bmk
Eg #2. keep excluding each synonym you find > http://is.gd/Bmy

This tool will also help to uncover them > https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Horizontal and Vertical Marketing Combined

My vertical market now looks like this:

Kazza Valley
- Kazza Valley Accommodation
  - JD's Guest House

As my vertical and horizontal market combines it starts to look like this:

Kazza Valley
- Kazza Valley Accommodation
  - JD's Guest House
  - Kazbane Motel
  - Kazza Valley Caravan Park
  - Kazbane Apartments
- Kazza Valley Wine
  - Kazza Valley Wineries
  - Kazza Valley Wine Tours
- Kazza Valley Restaurants
  - Kazbane Tavern
  - Kazbane Indian Restaurant
- Kazza Valley Festivals
  - Kazbane Harvest Festival

A dilemma would occur if I wanted to write an article called "The Kazza Valley Wine Festival" because I would need to decide where to put it, or create two (non-duplicate) articles.

Starting to resemble a perfectly organized Site-Map for a Kazza Valley web site isn't it?
Both visitors and search engines will quickly find information on a web site structured like this and all the information stays neatly contained in in isolated groups (sometimes referred to as Silos).

...coming soon - Diagonal Marketing
How to Dominate an Entire Market - Part 5

Technorati Tags: Blogs-money-marketing-million-Tips