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I’m a big fan of SEO. Getting your website ranked in the search engines means you’ll always have a fresh supply of visitors going to your website.
I’m going to talk about ranking in Google in particular - because Google dominates the search market.
Now, no one really knows how Google ranks websites, but SEO people have been reverse engineering Google’s ranking algorithm and came down to 3 ranking factors:
1. Domain name
Believe it or not, domain name plays a large factor in how well your website will rank for a particular keyword. Everything else being equal, funnyjokes.com will outrank hilariousjokes.com for the keyword “funny jokes.”
2. On-page Content
In summary, your content on your webpage needs to be relevant to the keyword. In other words, if you want to rank for “funny jokes” you better have some pretty funny jokes or mentions of “funny jokes” text somewhere on your webpage (I don’t think Google knows of a funny joke when it actually come across one, yet).
3. Links
This is the biggie. More people link back to your webpage, more votes you get in Google’s eyes. The domain name factor is somewhat controllable by you (you can always try to get a domain with your keyword in it, pad it with a prefix or postfix), and on-page content factor is totally controllable - you can change the text, alter the keyword placement and how many times it’s mentioned and manipulate the keyword density and such.
However, links are tough to come by. Or should I say, good, quality links are hard to come by.
There are several ways to get one-way links to your webpage.
You can submit your webpage or website to link directories such as DMOZ and other mom/pop run directory sites. You can social bookmark. You can write and submit articles with a link back to your site. You can create blogs and link from them using free blogging service such as blogger.com, or wordpress.com.
You can also do blog commenting - meaning you go around other people’s blogs and leave a comment with a website URL, and when your comment is displayed your name will be hyperlinked to the website URL you entered (try making a comment below, and you’ll see what I mean).
Now, when it comes to blog commenting, one major drawback is that these links are usually tagged with a nofollow property - meaning Google won’t look at these links are having any significance to your ranking score.
However, Wordpress, one of the most popular blogging script used in the blogsphere allows developers to submit their own plugins. One of them being “Top Commentators.”
top commentators plugin
What “Top Commentators” plugin does is it places a widget in the sidebar of your blog, and it lists the commentator’s name. If you regularly contribute comments on a blog with “Top Commentators” plugin installed, sooner or later you will appear on that list.
What’s so great about getting yourself on the list is that the link back to your site is a dofollow link - meaning Google gives it credit. Not only that, the widget is also visible on the blog’s homepage and post page, in a sense gives you a site-wide link.
OK, now you may ask, where do I find blogs with “Top Commentators” plugin installed?
I began my quest by searching “top commentators” in google (in quotes) and came across several blogs with that plugin installed. You’ll know when a blog has it installed. It’s pretty obvious.
Now I was about to give up searching because my search query includes a lot of articles about the plugin itself, rather than returning search results of just blogs with the plugin installed.
Then I noticed that “used tires” commentator seems to always show up on the list of several blogs’s Top Commentators list. It’s hyperlinked to http://www.used-tire.net and indeed if you type in “used tires” in Google that site ranks in the top 10!
I then head over to Yahoo.com and made this search query:
linkdomain:used-tire.net -site:used-tire.net
What this search query does is it tells Yahoo to return all the webpages that link to used-tire.net.
Well, this little bit of reverse engineering paid off big time!
The result came out to be 54,900 webpages that link to the domain.
As I go down the results list, every single one of these websites are indeed blogs with Top Commentators plugin installed - and this “used tires” guy is on the list of almost every blog!
Jackpot!
What to do next
Now that I basically “stole” a list of blogs with Top Commentators plugin installed, the next thing I did was to subscribe to these blogs so I get notified by email whenever a new post is posted on these blogs.
The trick to getting on the list is to make a comment (and have it go past moderation) in a post that is recent. Comments on older posts don’t seem to count. However, I could be wrong, as I haven’t examine the Top Commentators plugin code (don’t you just love open source?).
The Blog List
Ok, so I’m in the process of building up a list of blogs with Top Commentators plugin enabled, and I know this should interest you if you are into SEO. When I have it ready I will go ahead and send it to my blog subscribers.
If you want to get a hold of that list, be sure to get on my announcement list.
I say, “Don’t worry about how you are going to make money from your blog!”
If you’ve been blogging for a while, you are probably wondering just how the heck do you make money from it! Or if you’ve just started or are considering blogging, you probably would want to know if money could be made from it - afterall, doing what you love and getting paid is no longer a JOB.
But first, let’s be clear about something - making money from blogs or any type of website is going to be difficult, if not impossible, if you don’t already have traffic, or human visitors to your blog.
I mean, think about it, one of the easiest way to make money from your blog is to get advertisers to pay you to put ads on your blog. However, no reasonable and logical advertiser or company is going to pay you if your blog doesn’t get any visitors. Plain and simple!
So, before you even consider making money from blogs - you need to first create kick-ass content, and traffic will follow. Let me explain how that happens.
When you create kick-ass content, Google and other major search engines will love you for it. Now when people look for a particular type of information and they perform a search in the search engines, your blog or blog post will show up as one of the search results if it is related to what they are looking for.
Most people over-complicate this, especially those SEO people. Just create kick-ass content if you want traffic. That’s it!
Now that you have traffic, you can then approach companies to advertise on your blog. Many times this won’t be necessary as companies will approach you instead. I get approached all the time - they understand that my blog has visibility in the search engines.
If that doesn’t pan out for you, you may try an ad network, such as Google Adsense, which is free to join, and you get pay per click of the ad that’s on your blog.
The advantage of using an ad network like Google Adsense is that Google will provide you a piece of code that you put on your blog, and it will automatically “sense” (thus the name Adsense) the content of your blog post, and display most relevant advertisers on your page.
The disadvantage is that you lose some control over what kind of ads you want on your blog. The biggest disadvantage is that you at the bottom of the food chain in terms of advertising dollar spend. Google is just the middleman - every click of the ad they split the advertiser’s money with you.
The other way to make money from your blog is to sell products, either your own or an affiliate product. If you don’t already know, most of the merchants and websites online have affiliate programs (99.99% of them are free to join) where they will pay you for referring customers to them.
Let’s say you keep a blog about aquariums. You would want to look for aquarium products in the search engines, visit individual websites, and search for “affiliate” or “partner with us” or any other links that gives you more information about becoming an affiliate.
If you prefer to sell digital products, Clickbank is a huge affiliate network that has just about any product in any niche.
Rule of thumb when choosing a way to monetize your blog traffic - always display a relevant ad or offer to the traffic that you get. This way you will be blogging and laughing for a long time.
Lastly, if all else fails, my advice to you would be: Who cares how you are going to make money, just build a kick-ass blog, and when you have a massive readership, money will come. Think about it, most great sites started out without making any money, yet they end up getting sold for millions.
So, instead of worrying about how you are going to make money from blogging at the get go - don’t worry about it! Just focus on building a great blog.
Call to Action:
Start your own blog today. You can get one set up on a domain of your choosing in under 15 minutes!
Okay, so I spent the last 2 days going back and forth with Aweber technical support regarding publishing my blog announcement on my Twitter account.
The thing is, I manage multiple blogs and I’d like for each blog announcement to be posted on their own Twitter account.
In case you haven’t noticed, this feature is available when you set up your blog announcement:
Now, the same Twitter Update option is available if you switch to another list and manage your blog announcement.
So I did exactly that - switched to another list and set up the Twitter Update, but I noticed that my previous Twitter account login is pre-filled to what I had put in when I was setting up my first list.
I didn’t think much of it and updated the Twitter login to another account that I want posted to. But when I switch back to my first list, that Twitter account login has been updated to the latest Twitter account I had put in!
It seems like whatever you put in your Twitter login, that login is used in all of your lists!
I quickly submitted a support ticket and letting them know of this “bug.” Then I got the run-arounds… first reply telling me that all I have to do is update the Twitter account for each list (no sh*t, did you even read my ticket???), then another reply asks for specific lists that I’m working with (why even bother, just test it on your end!), then last reply apologizing that this “feature” is not available.
SOoo… intuitively, one would think that you can post to one Twitter account from one list, and a different Twitter account from another list - I mean, why even bother having that Twitter Update setting on every list!
Alright, so do me a BIG favor and suggest “using multiple Twitter IDs” as a new feature. Else I’m going to be stuck with publishing all my blog announcements to my one Twitter account.
Login to your Aweber account, click on “Help” link in the top right corner, and submit a suggestion to add this feature:
If you are looking for Aweber alternative, I suggest GetResponse - Here is a comparison between Aweber & GetResponse.
Thanks for listening!
Back in the early 2000’s Google Adsense contextual advertising was a very popular way to monetize web traffic.
You simply insert a piece of code that Google gives you and it will sniff your web page, figure out what your web page is all about, and display relevant ads.
You get paid per click (I’ve personally had clicks that pay me $5) so you can do a crappy job at writing your web page and it will still make money. Rumor has it that the uglier your site is, more Adsense clicks you will get because people will want to click away (either the Back button, or a link on your web page) to get out of your ugly page (Is that why my used textbooks site do so well with Adsense? :))
However, like the Dot Com Bust, advertisers quickly realized that they are paying way too much per click to publishers, and they also got smart about tracking their advertising dollar.
So, publishers, on the other hand, will receive less “commission” per click.
While this whole Google Adsense was all the rave, CPA Networks have been around and only a handful of marketers knew about them.
CPA stands for Cost-Per-Action. Basically the advertisers will publishers for an action generated. The action could be as simple as filling out a zip code, email, or full contact information. The action could also be a sale.
Here is an example CPA offer that pays $1.50 from HydraNetwork for every lead you refer to them - and the action is very simple, you get paid for everyone who enters a zip code (can’t get simplier than that!)
Now you know about CPA networks, below are a list of reputable CPA networks. You will want to get a publisher account from as many CPA networks as you can (all of them if possible!).
Each CPA network will have their own inventory of CPA offers, some exclusive only to that network. You will also find many offers that are running in multiple networks. It is a good idea to have accounts with them all so that you can compare and shop for the best payout rate for the same offer.
Tip for applying: When you apply for a publisher account, certain information is asked on the application. Many will ask if you have a website. If you do, great, go ahead and put your website in the application. If not, you can just mention that you are a Pay-per-click advertiser (or you advertise in the search engines), and they should take you just like that. Also, look out for their phone calls as they want to verify your application over the phone with you. Don’t get intimidated by them, they just want to make sure that you are a real person.
I’ve heard this may also work - set up a blog and talk about affiliate marketing, and use that blog as part of your publisher application.
List Of CPA Networks
Incenticlick (now CX Digital Media)
Great selection of incentivizable offers -> this means that you can “bribe” your visitors in filling out offers.
Hydramedia
Huge selection of CPA offers. If you can’t find an offer in other networks, you will probably find something that works for you.
Azoogleads
Another network with great offer selections.
Clickbooth
Good selection of make-money-from-home type of offers
Maxbounty
“Join MaxBounty.com and earn the highest CPAs in the market. Our specialty is maximizing payouts to our affiliates. ”
Where to go from here?
If you are currently monetizing your traffic with Google Adsense, why not try putting a banner or text link to an offer that match your visitors and see which (Pay-Per-Click vs. Cost-Per-Action) makes you more money.
Here is another tip for you - if you have a mailing list, try setting up autoresponders and mention a different offer in each email sequence.
This blog post is a part of “How to start your own info product internet business” series.
Step 1: Choose a market & 5-minute market Litmus Test
Step 2: Identify a desire or problem
Step 5: Write up your sales message
Step 6: Drive traffic to your sales message
Now that you have your product ready and sales message written up - you’ll need to show your sales message to people in your market!
There are serveral ways to drive traffic to your sales message.
List your product on Clickbank
Clickbank.com is the marketplace for digital products - they bring product owners and affiliate marketers (people who will sell your product in exchange for commission) together.
Getting your product listed on Clickbank is easy. Although not free ($50 fee), getting your product listed with them will pretty much bring immediate traffic and promotion to your product. Not only is Clickbank a marketplace, you can also use their service to process payments (and you can set it up so that your product is automatically delivered to client once paid for).
Search engine traffic
This comes in two forms: Paid and organic. Organic search traffic can be achieved by ranking your webpage high in the search engines for certain keywords that your prospects would search for when looking for your product.
Paid traffic is also called “pay-per-click” because you pay the search engine when someone clicks on your ad to go to your webpage.
Getting traffic from the search engines is both an art and science is a study by itself. There is one course out there that will teach you how to master search engine marketing that I highly recommend:
Stompernet’s Stomp The Search Engine
Classifieds Traffic
You can get tons of “free” traffic from sites like Craigslist. Now, one thing you have to keep in mind is that Craigslist is not very marketer-friendly, and their community “flag” system may kill your ads as soon as they are posted.
You have to very creative and careful which category you are posting to.
I used to generate tons of real estate and small business loan leads using Craigslist which I have detailed in my Craigslist Slap Report.
Article traffic
I love article traffic because of its passive nature! You can write articles and submit them to article directories or submit your article to ezine operator (people who publish e-newsletters and already have a subscriber base).
You may use articles as a pre-sell tool to educate your market about your product, to give out free teaser information which leads readers to the product that you are selling - you get the idea.
The great thing about articles is that once it’s written and submitted, it will go to to work for you 24/7 around the clock.
Note: Don’t limit yourself to just these types of traffic - there are other ways of getting traffic out there for your to explore.
This blog post is a part of “How to start your own info product internet business” series.
Step 1: Choose a market & 5-minute market Litmus Test
Step 2: Identify a desire or problem
Step 5: Write up a sales message
Your sales message is probably the most important piece of writing you will ever do in your life - other than your resume.
In fact, I want you to put in 10 times the effort you put in to write your resume (trust me, I’ve seen some horrible resumes in my life when these people are highly qualified and skilled - but they suck at selling themselves!).
Your sales message has a direct effect on how well you can turn your visitors to customers.
As a rule of thumb, you want to address the benefits, rather than features (unless you are selling a technical product, such as software).
In my New Aquarium Guide product, I have my benefits presented in bullet-point format. I spell out exactly what people will get when they purchase my report. I talk about what beginning fish keepers would want!
Your sales message could be long, or short - and you can do some testing to see which format works best for your market.
Here are just some of the things to you can test in your sales message:
At the end of our sales message you would want to place a “buy button” - if you are new to this game, just use Paypal.
It is also important that you have a way to capture visitors to your sales message in a mailing list (two lists: one for people who didn’t buy so you can do further followup, and one for customers so you can do further up-sell/down-sell/cross-sell).
Note: Don’t forget to ask for the sale! Don’t be afraid to ask people to buy your product, and don’t hesitate to instruct people to click on your “buy button” to proceed. People have made it this far in your sales message, it’s up to you to tell them to click on the “buy button” or they will click back or close your sales message.
Step 6: Drive traffic to your sales message
Step 1: Choose a market & 5-minute market Litmus Test
Step 2: Identify a desire or problem
Step 4: Get testimonials
This step is optional but highly recommended. Testimonials can help you sell - it establishes your product’s credibility. You will be using testimonials in your sales message (See Step 5: Write up your sales message).
Since you have not begun selling your info product, you will need to give out review copies in exchange for testimonials.
Getting reviews/testimonials from actual customers are the best kind to have, but at this point you are going to have to settle for second best - customers to be.
There are several ways to do this - easiest would be to hit up an online forum in your market (in my case an aquarium forum), and offer a number of review copies of your product to some forum members in exchange for testimonials.
Testimonials from none-customers are perfectly legit. Think about software products - typically developers will have beta testers to test out their software and provide reviews and feedback. Same with getting reviews and testimonials from your customers to be. You get testimonials while these reviewers get a free info product. It’s truly a win-win situation.
Another way is just to give a copy of your info product to people you know - your family members, friends, co-workers, etc.
Testimonial Getting Tips:
Step 5: Write up your sales message
Step 6: Drive traffic to your sales message
This blog post is a part of “How to start your own info product internet business” series.
Step 1: Choose a market & 5-minute market Litmus Test
Step 2: Identify a desire or problem
Step 3: Develop the product
In Step 2: Identify a desire or problem, you should have a list of things that you should cover (this is the information that people are paying for). Therefore, when developing your product, be sure you are solving a problem or fulfilling a need or desire, and be sure that your product actually delivers!
Some people seem to get stuck at the product development stage - well, you shouldn’t.
Don’t over-complicate this process. If you are comfortable with writing, then open up Microsoft Word and start free writing (A good technique is to just write freely, then organize and edit later).
If you are comfortable with recording an audio, then download Audacity - a free audio recording and editing software.
If you are comfortable with recording audio and video, then use Camtasia software (camtasia.com). If you want a free solution, use Jing (jingproject.com) or screentoaster.com (note: these free services will cap your screen captures to 5 minutes per clip).
A very common way to develop an audio/video info product is to first come up with a Powerpoint presentation, then use a screen capture program (Camtasia, Jing, or ScreenToaster.com) to capture the slides and you can just talk to it.
I find that it takes a few tries to get it right - but don’t dwell on little things.
Product development tips:
by Michael Masterson - I highly recommend it).Step 5: Write up your sales message
Step 6: Drive traffic to your sales message
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