Passive Income Blog: Create Passive Income Online

Most of us are in a rat race - myself included.

You go to work to earn income, then you spend it on food, gas, rent/mortgage and other living expenses, and save whatever is left of that income, if any.

Each day you repeat this cash inflow and outflow.  It's like a never ending cycle.

On some days you can save more, on some days you find yourself tapping into your savings for emergency expenses.  And you haven't even begun to think about splurge spending such as entertainment and traveling.

The rat race continues.  Until you have saved up enough for retirement, you can not call it quits.

The secret to getting you out of this vicious earn/spend cycle sooner than what the government has planned for most people - social security retirement at the age of 65 (or older if you are born older), provided that the government is not bankrupt by then - is ...

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). ...

I'm just about to finish "reading" Stephen R. Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" audio book (Unabridged Audio Program).

You see, I love self improvement, self growth, business books - but I am not a good reader.  Not at all.

I often pick up a book, read the first 20 or so pages, and doesn't finish - do you have this problem, too? 

That's why I decided to give audio books a try.  Now I am addicted to them, or this format of learning.

What I do is leave this audio book in my car and in my hour commute daily I would just listen to the program.

I've always wanted to capitalize the time behind wheels, and I've always thought it's a waste of time to be stuck behind wheel.

I am actually amazed at how much I was able to "read" in just 3 short weeks.

Also, being a dad of 2 kids really makes you think about better time management, and how to squeeze more hours out of the 24 given you each day - and using my time wisely behind wheel is one of the ways.

So, in the last CD of the audio program, Stephen said something that was both powerful and profound:

"It's not about having wealth, ...

Have you ever wonder how professional website sellers are able to capture a long webpage and use that image in the sale ad or auction listing?  And by long, I mean the webpage extends below the "fold."

After doing a bit of research, I came across a free Firefox add-on called Picnik.  It allows you to right-click on any webpage and capture the full web page as an image, no matter how long the webpage may be.

Check out what I am able to capture with this utility tool for one of my long sales-letter page (from http://arbitragesecrets.com/craigslistsecrets/) with a couple clicks of my mouse:

Pretty cool, huh?  Normally I would capture one "fold" at a time, and then use an image editing software like Adobe Photoshop to piece the different folds together - what a pain in the neck!

Ok, so here is how to do it, ...

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 ...

You probably don't even realize it until you stop yourself from whatever it is that you are doing and ask yourself - What am I doing, and is this something that is productive and will make me more money?

I thought I'll start a list of activities that most internet entrepreneurs do daily, and categorize them as productive or unproductive in my business.

Funny thing is I am able to come up with the unproductive activities easier than productive ones

Feel free to add to the list.

Productive:

• Write content for site/blog
• Write articles
• Improve/split test sales copy
• Write my next product
• Blog commenting
• Writing software requirements
• Keyword research
• Rewrite PLR article/content
• Seek out link exchange partners
• Sell!

Unproductive:

• Checking email (what a time waster!)
• Excessively checking Adsense stats
• Excessively checking my CPA affiliate accts
• Excessively checking my Google Analytics (only to find out my traffic hasn't changed a bit since the last time I checked)
• Browsing the WSO (no offense to anyone )
• Check out what people are saying in the Main Discussion
• Going on Facebook
• Going on Youtube

Feel free to chime in!

So August 2008 SmartFTP decided to charge for their FTP client software.  I purchased the 1-yr license thinking it will be a one-time payment - I can careless if I don't get upgrades to their software after one-year because their software is already solid.

But, just yesterday when I tried to open SmartFTP, I got hit with this message:

I guess I was mistaken!  SmartFTP is going to make me pay for their "maintenance plan" - sorry, but that just annoys me.  What if I don't want to be on your maintenance plan???!!!

It's like saying, "Hey, you have been driving your car for 3 months now, and you have past your warranty - you are going to have to pay an extended warranty plan in order to drive your car again."

@#$@#(*(@_#%**  Okay, I'm over it, now going over to their renewal page to get a 3-yr plan for $35.95.   For that amount of money it sure saves me a lot of trouble of having to establish my "favorites" again on another free FTP program.

Speaking of free FTP client software that's out there, I have evaluated FileZilla, FireFTP, and CoreFTP - none of them can be compared to SmartFTP for its native Windows-Explorer like interface, the easy of drag and drop uploading, and simply a smart FTP program.

Just want to write up a quick post on the latest WordPress MySQL Injection that has seemed to attack many of the WordPress blogs - including several of my own.

I found out about this problem last night when an email came to me from GetResponse notifying that my blog announcement feeds are no longer working.

I quickly went over to my blogs and noticed my permalink structure has been changed.

Diagnosis:

Put your mouse cursor over a permalink (or over a post title) and see if it has the following string appearing in the URL:

%&({${eval(base64_decode($_SERVER[HTTP_REFERER]))}}|.+)&%/

/%&(%7B$%7Beval(base64_decode($_SERVER%5BHTTP_EXECCODE%5D))%7D%7D|.+)&%

If so, you have been hacked!

How to Fix:

Login to your WordPress dashboard and go to Settings -> Permalinks

Change your permalink structure to what you had before.

Now from a SEO stand point of view I had to absolutely make sure that my permalink structure was the same as before, and if you don't remember what your permalink structure was for your site, simple got to Google and type in:

site:yoursite.com

Then look at one of your blog posts and see how the permalink URL is structured.

Then you want to remove a hidden admin user to your blog.  You will most likely not be able to see who this is if you go to Users tab:

As you can see there are 2 Administrators, but I only see myself in the list.

To remove the uninvited guest you are going to have to login to your MySQL (cPanel -> MySQL -> phpMyAdmin) and go to your wp_users table, and sort the ID column to see the latest registered user:

You will notice a user without an email address.  To further verify that this user has Administrator privilege, go to wp_usermeta table and verify that this user_id has wp_user_level of 10:

Prevention:

I'm still keeping an eye out for future attacks.  The same attacked happend to one of my WordPress blogs that has the latest 2.8.4 version on it so I don't think upgrading to latest version will help prevent this attack from happening to you (but highly recommended to run latest WordPress version anyway).

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.