Mal Keenan is Editor and Publisher of the Best Rated Home Based Business Ezine.
For More Info on Making A Full-Time Income with Blogs Check Out: Rob Benwells Baby Blogging Bonanza
Blogging Dollars in 7 Hours or Less
November 14, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
Need to make money fast, but you don’t want to spend a single cent to establish an online business? Fret not, dear friend. You could actually start earning from the web with zero capital, zero obligations and zero risks! All these can be accomplished within 24 hours! Read on and I’ll show you how.
Hour 1
Try to find a profitable niche. Niches are highly specialized segments of a market where the demand is high and the supplies are low. There are few competitions in a niche, allowing you more opportunity to establish your online presence.
Think of a market that you could cater to. Then narrow it down by enumerating its subcategories. The more you are able to reduce the subject, the higher the profitability will be. For example, the general market you thought of is about dogs. A subcategory of this would be about Chihuahuas. A further subcategory would be about Chihuahua grooming.
Hour 2
Once you have found your niche, run a search at Overture keyword suggestion tool. The results will show how many searches were made for that subject. The more searches there are, the higher the demand is for that topic.
Run a similar search of the same subject in any of the search engines on the net. The results would reveal your competition. Naturally, you would want a subject that has less competition. This would mean that you’re looking for one that would produce few results in your searches.
Hour 3
Once you’ve found a lucrative niche, it’s time to look for its relevant keywords. Run a search of the topic at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox to get a list of related keywords and keyphrases. Keep a copy of this list.
Hour 4
Open an account with a free blogging site. Or, if you already have your own website, download the Wordpress software at www.wordpress.com . It’s free. And Wordpress can be easily integrated with any website.
Set up your account. Fiddle with the controls. You’ll discover that using a blog is as easy as writing down your thoughts and clicking on a button to publish them for all the online world to see.
Hour 5
Enroll in any affiliate program of your choice. You could choose more than one, of course. Just make sure that such program is offering some products that cater to the niche you have chosen. Try to find a program that offers highly sellable products and generous commissions. Don’t settle for a commission rate of less than 20%. Look for something that would give you at least 40% for every successful sale you would be able to refer. A good place to start is www.clickbank.com , but eventually you would want to “graduate” to something grander. But for your initial foray, ClickBank would suffice.
After enrollment, you would be able to immediately choose the products you want to pre-sell. Get the affiliate links for them. Do not lose these affiliate links.
Hour 6
It’s time to put that blog to good use! The premise heart of this budget-friendly strategy is your blog. Blogs are excellent and cost-effective alternatives to websites. Search engines love them, and they have their own linking network as well. Also, they are easily updatable, and search engine spiders love consistently updated content.
Write an interesting piece about the niche you have chosen. It may be a personal review of one of your affiliate products, or your views on the niche in general.
The trick here lies in being able to strategically insert your affiliate links in your blog entries. It must be subtle. You won’t want your blog to look like a blatant sales page. Your entries should be highly informative, first and foremost. Content is still king, and it is what will drive visitors to your site.
Hour 7
Go to www.pingomatic.com . Ping the blog directories and the search engines that can be found there. This would inform their spiders that your content has been updated, and they will check it out come the next relevant query. What does this mean? Fast indexing for your blog site!
So there you go. A zero dollar, seven hour marketing plan that would rake in some earnings. It doesn’t stop there, however. Try to post a new entry everyday, and ping the search engines afterwards. Soon enough, you’ll have a high traffic blog site where you could expose your affiliate links to a whole lot of people!
Good luck!
Blogging income in 7 hours or less
November 14, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
Need to make money fast, but you don’t want to spend a single cent to establish an online business? Fret not, dear friend. You could actually start earning from the web with zero capital, zero obligations and zero risks! All these can be accomplished within 24 hours! Read on and I’ll show you how.Hour 1Try to find a profitable niche. Niches are highly specialized segments of a market where the demand is high and the supplies are low. There are few competitions in a niche, allowing you more opportunity to establish your online presence.Think of a market that you could cater to. Then narrow it down by enumerating its subcategories. The more you are able to reduce the subject, the higher the profitability will be. For example, the general market you thought of is about dogs. A subcategory of this would be about Chihuahuas. A further subcategory would be about Chihuahua grooming.Hour 2Once you have found your niche, run a search in any of the search engines on the net. The results will reveal your competition. Naturally, you would want a subject that has less competition. This would mean that you’re looking for one that would produce few results in your searches.Hour 3Once you’ve found a lucrative niche, it’s time to look for its relevant keywords. Run a search of the topic at Google Keyword Sandbox to get a list of related keywords and keyphrases. Keep a copy of this list.Hour 4Open an account with a free blogging site. Or, if you already have your own website, download the Wordpress software at Wordpress . It’s free. And Wordpress can be easily integrated with any website.Set up your account. Fiddle with the controls. You’ll discover that using a blog is as easy as writing down your thoughts and clicking on a button to publish them for all the online world to see.Hour 5Enroll in any affiliate program of your choice. You could choose more than one, of course. Just make sure that such program is offering some products that cater to the niche you have chosen. Try to find a program that offers highly sellable products and generous commissions. Don’t settle for a commission rate of less than 20%. Look for something that would give you at least 40% for every successful sale you would be able to refer. A good place to start is Clickbank , but eventually you would want to “graduate” to something grander. But for your initial foray, ClickBank would suffice.After enrollment, you would be able to immediately choose the products you want to pre-sell. Get the affiliate links for them. Do not lose these affiliate links.Hour 6It’s time to put that blog to good use! The premise heart of this budget-friendly strategy is your blog. Blogs are excellent and cost-effective alternatives to websites. Search engines love them, and they have their own linking network as well. Also, they are easily updatable, and search engine spiders love consistently updated content.Write an interesting piece about the niche you have chosen. It may be a personal review of one of your affiliate products, or your views on the niche in general.The trick here lies in being able to strategically insert your affiliate links in your blog entries. It must be subtle. You won’t want your blog to look like a blatant sales page. Your entries should be highly informative, first and foremost. Content is still king, and it is what will drive visitors to your site.Hour 7Go to Ping-O-Matic . Ping the blog directories and the search engines that can be found there. This would inform their spiders that your content has been updated, and they will check it out come the next relevant query. What does this mean? Fast indexing for your blog site!So there you go. A zero dollar, seven hour marketing plan that would rake in some earnings. It doesn’t stop there, however. Try to post a new entry everyday, and ping the search engines afterwards. Soon enough, you’ll have a high traffic blog site where you could expose your affiliate links to a whole lot of people!
For FREE SEO tools, tech news and more visit us at Techno Blog today
Web publisher and author for the past 15+ years.
Website Traffic-Building: Quick and Easy Monitoring
November 13, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
Every good traffic-building campaign needs to be monitored at every stage. This is something easily done with Google Analytics. Just sign up, paste the code into your web pages as instructed, and you’re ready to go. Beware—if you’re one of those personalities that monitors the daily fluctuations of the stock market, you may find Analytics just a bit addictive. If you’re a new website owner, get the Analytics program installed immediately. Down the road, you’ll realize the importance of traffic building activities and will be glad you took this initial step.
There’s no need to hire a programmer–some of my favorite reports are quick and easy to create using Google Analytics.
Create a Market Segment
If you’re a company that caters to local or regional clients, you may want to create an Advanced Segment first. This will allow you to view any reports—including custom designed ones—as they really apply to your target market.
Under Advanced Segments, create a new custom segment. For this example, we’re going to create a segment for the territory of Harrisburg, Lancaster, and York, Pennsylvania.
Select Visitors, then slide the “City” dimension over to the report form. For “Condition” select “Matches Exactly”, then type “Harrisburg”. Continue this process for Lancaster and York, ensuring that you Add “or” Statement between each.
Then, because some of these cities exist in other states, I will Add “and” Statement and slide over the Region dimension and “Match Exactly” to “Pennsylvania”.
The last step is to name your segment. In this case, I’m calling it “York-Harrisburg-Lancaster-PA”. Then click on “Test Segment” to view the results. You now have the capability of viewing that market segment in any report—custom or canned. Now let’s monitor your traffic building progress.
Monthly Organic Progress Report
Organic search results are unpaid traffic that is sent to your website from the search results. To easily view your monthly organic search results, click on “Custom Reporting”, then “Create New Custom Report”. You’ll notice the same format you used when you created your market segment.
Start with the metrics—slide over the metrics for Visits, Time on Site, Pages per Visit, Bounces and Bounce Rate. Most of these metrics are self-explanatory except for the Bounce Rate. The Bounce Rate is important—it’s the percentage of visits that immediately click off your site. It’s a great indication that either the wrong traffic is being sent to your site, wrong keyword usage, or the site needs some work.
Now, under the Dimensions section, select “Medium” and slide it over to your report. Medium is the breakdown of organic, referrals, or direct visits to your website. As a Sub-Dimension, slide over “Month”, then “Keyword” below that.
Be sure to edit the name to something you’ll better recognize. In this case I’m calling my report “Medium Progress by Month”. Your report layout should now look something like this:
To finish, select “Create Report”. Save Your Report to the Dashboard. Select your report, then drill down to Organics, then Month. Apply your market segment filter by selecting the “Advanced Segments” in the upper right corner. Checkmark the “York-Harrisburg-Lancaster-PA” segment to apply to your custom report. You can deselect “All Visits” to view only your new market segment. Now that you have it the way you want to view it, select “Add to Dashboard” and you’ll have an instant view of the organic results every time you log onto your Analytics account. Or, better yet, click on “Email” and schedule this report to arrive in your inbox on a daily, weekly or monthly interval. Quick and easy—nothing to it!
Let me know how you make out and please share your own favorite reports.
Artspell Web Solutions creates custom website design and web pages that are optimized from day one to get the best search engine results. Our full-service shop offers design, search engine optimization (SEO), traffic building, hosting, and database services.
Marita Hines is a web consultant with over 9 years experience creating websites that are easy to navigate and affordable to small businesses.
Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics
November 9, 2009 by IBI · 3 Comments
Product Description
Are you getting the most out of your website? Google insider and web metrics expert Brian Clifton reveals the information you need to get a true picture of your site’s impact and stay competitive using Google Analytics (GA) and the latest web metrics methodologies. Which marketing campaigns work best? How do you quantify their success? What indicators should you track? Packed with techniques and insider secrets not documented elsewhere, this book has the expert guidance you need to enhance your brand and increase your site’s ROI.
From the Back Cover
How Does Your Website Measure Up?
Are you getting the most out of your website? Google insider and web metrics expert Brian Clifton reveals the information you need to get a true picture of your site’s impact and stay competitive using Google Analytics (GA) and the latest web metrics methodologies.
Which marketing campaigns work best? How do you quantify their success? What indicators should you track? Packed with techniques and insider secrets not documented elsewhere, Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics has the expert guidance you need to enhance your brand and increase your site’s ROI. Learn how to:
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Measure your web traffic and understand its impact on ROI
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Configure your data collection parameters, then extract and analyze the collected data
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Drill down to the precise visitor segments or time periods you choose
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Discover how long it takes for your visitors to convert to customers
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Follow best practices for page tagging and tracking dynamic web pages, Flash events, banners, and more
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Optimize checkout systems, pay-per-click campaigns (including AdWords), SEO, and e-mail marketing, and use ad version testing in conjunction with multivariate testing
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Centralize your data collection and track offline campaigns
This book is a recipe for measuring your success and optimizing your online marketing.”
—Jim Sterne, Founding Director and Chairman of the Web Analytics Association
I can confidently recommend this book to anybody serious about turning web analytics into a competitive business advantage.”
—Dennis R. Mortensen, COO, IndexTools, Inc.
Brian Clifton does a fantastic job of explaining how to effectively power a web analytics strategy using Google Analytics. Both new and seasoned GA users will benefit from Brian’s book and his expertise.”
—Justin Cutroni, Director of Analytics and Testing, EpikOne
What Brian Clifton doesn’t know about Google Analytics probably hasn’t been invented yet. In this book he shares his extensive knowledge in a concise and coherent fashion.”
—Neil Mason, Managing Director, Applied Insights
What’s fantastic about this book is the practical, detailed help it gives you to get real value out of your web analytics tool.”
—Ashley Friedlein, CEO, E-consultancy.com
Niche Market: A Place To Earn Millions
November 8, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
Starting an internet business is easier than you think and can be accomplished by anyone! The power of the internet and the opportunity of earning income online is mind-blowing. Starting an internet business can be confusing, especially for those of us that don’t have ions of experience in the technical field.
Niche marketing is a common path to small business success. No large retailer can be all things to all people, and there are always going to be segments of the population whose needs for particular products and/or services are going unmet. Niche marketing can be a hard skill to master. Most people want to create a broad affiliate marketing site that doesn’t have a lot of focus so that it appeals to the most people.
The first thing you should realize about internet business that the operation of internet business is completely similar to the operation of the offline not internet business. Non internet business principles are suitable perfectly for internet business. Make a list of things that you have a passion for. Then list all the things that you would like to learn.
You must work very hard initially to setup a good internet business, as with any “real.” And why is that? We could sit here and rattle off a number of reasons. When you discover you core motivation, you are literally driven and destined for success. Most businesses and entrepreneurs that “fail” in selling and creating worldwide buzz do so because they don’t know their core motivation.
Find a profitable niche market. Choose one with search volumes, high level of competition, target sky high keywords and with high want factor. There are different methods to make the business profitable. To some, posting blogs will make it profitable. To others, setting up newsletters, e books or video series is important for their niche.
Millions of people are making money online in a million different ways. You have probably thought about making money on the Internet more than once before today.
Creating a niche blog is simple, quick and costs very little (and can be free). First, find
a topic. Create a separate website to recieve your links on.
Customers enter keywords in search engines when they need something. Merchants optimize their sites, or pay for keywords when they want to sell something.
Study you consumer habits online, including the reasons why they buy, when they buy, and where they buy . Take hundreds of man hours and is foremost the single most area where all of the important factors that make a niche a money maker comes from. Niche marketing is an effective strategy for countering price competition in a mature industry and can use a niche market strategy. They identify key success factors, the most important factor of which was found to be a thorough understanding of the targeted consumers.
A market niche offers significant potential for sales of the product and is often free of
competitors for the particular product.
Blogging to Increase Income
November 7, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
Blogging has become a Internet phenomena. Everyone including The President of the United States is a blogger. There are blogs on every theme imaginable. There are thousands of active blogs from U.S. agencies. and state departments.
Sharing your innermost thoughts, feelings and opinions is the basis of blogging popularity. Sharing with the world though your blog is also a new way to earn income.
Online entrepreneurs have discovered that blogs present an easy interface for online visitors. Blogs can be created quickly and easily to showcase products and services. Google has its own blogging platform that is free, easy and accessible to everyone.
What you want to do is find a group of people from anywhere in the world who share your passions and interest. You name your blog using the keyword that
Describes your passion. Write about this passion. Extol the virtues or weaknesses you find within a product service or the written word. This is how you find your niche. You will find that passionate people will find you and interact with you on the Internet through your Blog.
Niche Blogs are particularly effective because they target their audience. The niche that you select is based on your interests. You can write interesting segments about your dog, your children or you travels. You can attract a following of fan like posters, who eagerly await your next post. Asan additional source of income, you can combine your post into an ebook. You might find an ebook or product that your fans will like. Sell these products tp them.
Blogs can create profits for entrepreneurs because ofBlogs are easy to set up.In fact, blogs are indexed quickly by the search engines. Putting Google ads on a blog is an important earning opportunity for blogmasters. You can use the blogging platform to create an online buzz about new products and services that you are offering. Blogs can help individuals create online incomes quickly
The internet offers so many opportunity for webmasters and bloggers. Blogging makes it easier than ever for people from all walks of life to earn an income. People actually write about their life, loves and passions. These people make money from advertisers and from selling their own products.
If you have an Internet connection, you can use your computer to start a blogging network. You can connect with a global community of bloggers who
Share your thoughts or solutions from your blogging platform. You can and will build relationships. It is not uncommon for people to find friends, neighbors and a husband or wife from the interchange that comes from blogging.
Get started by going over to Google’s blogger.com and build you a blog about your pet or your sweaty or your incorrigible child. You can earn a living as a web publisher. In fact it is one of the easiest ways to earn a living online. Anyone who is dedicated can become successful. On the internet you are what you deliver – not what someone sees in your DNA, or how big your bank account is or what you look like.
It doesn’t matter what car you drive or where you live. The Internet is a free democracy with unlimited opportunity for you. We all have the same opportunities as everyone else out there because the virtual world is blind to anything other than what we can share or give to the world. Success is based on what you do and what you give to the world.
Successful blogging is sharing information with the world. It is what you give to the world that creates the value of your blog.
Gina Sands lives in Sacramento, CA She is the mother of twin daughters. She is richnana to her 10 year old grandson named Tre’. Gina is semi-retired and adds to her monthly income by finding lucrative programs for her clients.
How to successfully manage your Twitter followers
November 5, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
Twitter is all about having followers and follow people. For Twitter users who have several thousands of followers and follow several thousand, it is critical to be able to have Twitter applications that can help them manage their Twitter stream. Obviously, it is impossible to give the same amount of attention to all followers.
A really cool desktop application that segments followers into distinct groups is TWEETDECK. TweetDeck has a simple and straightforward interface that is easy to use and understand. With TweetDeck a Twitter user can create groups of family, friends, colleagues etc. and manage instant conversations and direct messages with them. TweetDeck has the ability to tweet directly from its interface to share photos and web links, to follow topics in real-time and to manage multiple Twitter accounts. Besides, TweetDeck has multiple URL shortening services and the good news is that developers keep on updating it on a regular basis.
Similarly to TweetDeck, SEESMIC DESKTOP allows a user to create user lists (groups) and manage multiple accounts. Seesmic Desktop provides multiple URL shortening services, has unlimited ability on the number of accounts that can be managed and it fully integrates with Facebook. Besides, it provides the normal ability to manage conversations and instant messages by tweeting and re-tweeting messages. Design-wise, Seesmic Desktop has a simple interface, yet extremely elegant and intuitive, with built-in delicate designs and colors.
SPLITWEET is a web-based application designed to manage multiple Twitter accounts and brand monitor. Splitweet can be used to view a streamline of tweets from all accounts, to post tweets to multiple accounts and to follow brand mentions. Although Splitweet is positioned as an instrument for brands, it does not really deliver on that promise. Splitweet is mostly suitable for individual users. Companies should better use EasyTweets, or HootSuite.
EASYTWEETS is a great tool for marketers as it offers support for the management of multiple accounts and allows a user to post to multiple accounts, to get SMS alerts, and to have Google Analytics data on links.
HOOTSUITE is positioned as a marketing tool with neat platform that allows a user to manage multiple accounts and to view the link stats within the dashboard view of tweets when using the URL shortening services.
Two other popular web-based applications are TWITTBOT and TWEET3.
TWITTBOT allows multiple users to publish on a single Twitter account and a single user to post to multiple Twitter accounts. In that way, the service aggregates tweets from different sources and allows for a great control over who posts on a Twitter account. The owner of the account many follow as many people as he/she likes, but has complete control over who is posting on his/her account.
TWEET3 supports grouping and management of multiple accounts, integrates with Facebook, and provides a dashboard view where the user can customize color settings, add pictures, and follow other users. Besides, Tweet3 tracks the performance of stats in the analytics tab.
The above list of applications is not final, nor comprehensive. It is almost impossible to keep track with all the Twitter applications, especially with the speed that they build up. The more people use Twitter both for personal and professional reasons, the more applications need to be developed to match their needs. Ultimately, it’s a matter of personal choice to find which applications suit a Twitter user.
I work as a financial and investment advisor but my passion is writing, music and photography. Writing mostly about finance, business and music, being an amateur photographer and a professional dj, I am inspired from life.
Being a strong advocate of simplicity in life, I love my family, my partner and all the people that have stood by me with or without knowing. And I hope that someday, human nature will cease to be greedy and demanding realizing that the more we have the more we want and the more we satisfy our needs the more needs we create. And this is so needless after all.
Small Business Guide To Twitter Marketing
November 1, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
These days one way to really get the word out about your small business is to have some kind of social media presence. Social networking platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn can help put a virtual ‘face’ to your company, its products, goals, etc. However, the micro-blogging service Twitter, which is a free service that allows you to post messages up to 140 characters, is really helping small business increase their online reach.
No matter how small your business, it is not only important to tap into all the various segments of your personal network, but to also belong to an online social network where others can find you. However, before you even sign up for a Twitter account it is essential that you have a social media strategy. Although it can be a great free way to advertise your services and be in touch with customers (existing and potential), you do have to put some effort into identifying your goals and the kind of online image you’d like to create.
Some Advantages to Twitter for Small Businesses:
Free, Simple to Use
One of the best things about Twitter is that it is free marketing. There is no cost to open the account. You can easily post updates or even links to news, upcoming events, new products, etc. as long as it does not go over the 140-character limit.
Spread the Word Quickly
Word can spread like wildfire on Twitter. If one person raves about your services/products then everyone in their social network will know about it and you can be well on your way to increasing the number of Twitter followers.
Building a Network
Twitter can also be a great place to network with those in your market or to potentially find partnerships with suppliers/manufacturers. Also, you can reach potentially reach those outside your local area, increasing the amount of customers you reach.
Detective Work
You can easily conduct a search to find out who on Twitter has been talking about your business or may be talking about products that you offer. You can then start following and post updates about your company. Further, you can also use Twitter to search for what others are saying about your competitors.
Instantaneous Updates
Unlike promotional flyers, brochures, or email newsletters, you can send Twitter updates frequently throughout the day or week. Some small businesses use it to send out promotions or alert customers to new products.
Some Twitter Tips:
Spend some time following those in a similar market or those companies that have enjoyed huge Twitter success and observe how they use Twitter. These can be great case studies that you can also apply to your business.
Do not overwhelm your followers with updates. Sending too many may be annoying, causing some not to follow you anymore. So do not send Twitter updates every hour. Aim for a couple a day or week.
If someone follows you, make sure to return the favor and follow them back. This is good Twitter etiquette.
Do not only post updates to advertise your business. You can also share things about your area, community, useful links, etc. Or use it to start conversations with others.
If you have employees, have them sign up with business Twitter accounts, as they can offer different perspectives on your business. Plus, can save you the time of always being the sole Twitterer.
Simon Brady is the director of content for Executive Gift Shoppe. They specialize in business card holders and other desk accessories.
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FOR SALE
