Year: 2009

Categories
Search Engines

Teaching Sells – Authority Sites and Google Rankings

OK guys – this has been an interesting experiment regarding keyword authority and SEO – which was what I was playing with with my review Teaching Sells Does It Work?

I noticed recently that this site had become an “authority” site – to be honest I’d heard Grizz and others talk of authority sites before but I didn’t really understand the implications.  First off to discover if a site is  an authority site just google the site’s name or their main keywords – google “make money for beginners” and you will find this dubious site in #1 position:

authoritygrizzSo I have one of these pretty little listings too for my name and when I rank for something related vaguely to passive income online – I get the old double indexing with the second listing indented:

teaching-sells-20090827Once I post this update I suspect the 2nd indent will become this post – as it is sometimes its the tag page (that’s why you should NOT noindex your tag pages) but more often its a slight typo on the url which I noticed the instant I published and corrected – its not a 404 – the page redirects – to the correct url – I don’t understand it – but I don’t mind LOL.

The most clearest clue that you have authority though is quite easy – you go straight position #1 if you write a post on a relatively longtail long competition term  something like “teaching sells does it work” for example: I got the listing immediately and it stayed there, that’s with no link building on my part. Now would it have stayed there if Grizz – the ultimate “make money” authority blogger hadn’t linked to me? I don’t know – that’s the trouble with SEO experiments – you really can’t control all the variables as you would in the lab – and you certainly can’t control who links to you – but now I know I will almost certainly stay at #1 because of all those kind people who linked to me – thanks guys!

Now it gets more interesting – as you can see on that above screen shot, from yesterday BTW, I was also ranking third and sixth for an infobarrel and hubpage. What I was actually trying to experiment with was the often quoted concern that hubpages was losing its authority was true. Well AFAIK neither of the those articles have any backlinks (I didn’t link to them from this blog either) – so by themselves they ranked on the first page and stayed there. The infobarrel out ranked the hubpage consistently – but that was probably just because I had the long-tail exact match in the url of the infobarrel: teaching-sells-does-it-work while the hubpage I’d just called teaching-sells.

It got more interesting today though – I noticed that the hubpage had got up to third place – but the infobarrel was gone – in fact its deindexed (check by googling the exact url) – odd to say the least – as I say I certainly have done no link building on it. I suspect a glitch or possibly Google didn’t like the odd characters at the end of the url – which are probably computer speak  for “?” (you don’t have great control on infobarrel urls) – I do know in the past if I inadvertantly left a trailing “-” or “_” Google may refuse to index the page for a month or so.

So how do you make a blog an authority in your niche? Fairly simple really – google your keyword – and try to get links from any authority blogs that you  find on the first page.

  • Once you are an authority site you can outrank established sites by just having your keyword long-tail in the url.
  • Once you are an authority site you can outrank sites which have at least part of the long-tail keyword in their domain name e.g. teachingsells.com
  • Once you are an authority site you can outrank much, much larger sties which are also authority sites such as hubpages and infobarrel which have the keywords in the url.

Now while this  site definitly has authority is neither ranking well for my primary keyword (hint its not either Teaching Sells or Site Build It!) not does it have great PR – PR2 at the moment – it was PR3 until the Site Build It fiasco saw me got a ton of  relevant links.

I’m off to build me some more authority sites – in  a nice that might actually pay!

Categories
Paid Tools Rants Tools

Teaching Sells: Does it Work?

Lets get this out of the way right here – if you want a balanced, politically correct, weighed, grammatically perfect and well spelt review of CopyBlogger’s, Brian Clark’s Teaching Sells – you won’t find it here.  I am a blogger, not a lawyer,  I have no obligation to provide unbiased, balanced information all the time – and trust me I am pissed about this! Anyway there will be heaps of sycophantic reviews from those who are flogging the new version of Teaching Sells – about to be released for Fall semester – to counter my unbalanced and cyncial take on why teaching sells will not make you money – but will probably do quite well for Brian Clarke and his mates.

report-coverFor some reason I used to occasionally read Chris Brogan’s blog – and his post titled “Why I Will Promote Teaching Sells” – Google it I am fussy about what I link to from this blog – caught my eye. Why? “Teaching Sells” was what made me give up Internet Marketing back in 2007. It may not have been Brian Clark’s Teaching Sells programs -it might have been someone else’s knock off – I don’t really care because at the end of the day the concept is the same I think that  this is one of the MOST dishonest ways to make money online income from the dreams of other people.

Now lets be upfront – I haven’t bought the course – in fact its not open at the moment -they are in the building the hype stage – Google off to “teaching sells” if you want to get on the presell list so far I only have the 25 page free report plus several other transcripts of examples from the earlier course (at least they aren’t pretending this is new).  I have submitted myself to endless spam updates which at the time of writing promise:

  • A bonus report about building quick and easy membership sites with licensed content.
  • A 20-Step Process Map to building an online training business.
  • An instructional video that reveals the solution to the “traffic dilemma” every online entrepreneur faces.
  • And a complete course listing of the entire Teaching Sells program.

I’ve seen enough know to, in my biased and personal opinion, warn you in VERY large letters – to stay the fuck away from Teaching Sells.  Oh unless you happen to already be a real-world acknowledged expert, preferably a published author – then you may be able to use it – so long as your niche has lots of willing buyers that is.

I must say reading the 25 page pre-sales pitch free report was informative.  I may not be able to sell teaching but I can recognise bullshite from 10 paces.  When  I first saw the version of this report they were using 2-years ago – I just felt uneasy and a bit “off” about the idea. Now I know exactly why it stinks to high heaven, guess I learnt something about bullshite detection in the last 2 years!

Now the first thing you will notice is the production quality of the 25-page free report – there are no typos and its got nice graphics. Try actually reading it though – that’s where it all goes downhill.  Apparently I work for Google (so does Vic, Grizz and Court – we are all Google slaves) -apparently its not a real business model to rely on Google for traffic, Google’s Adsense for income and well – Grizz takes in one step further and has the audacity to hardly make any money online at all using a FREE blogger (i.e. Google) blog – outrageous!

Apparently Teaching Sells will teach me a better way to get traffic – I can hardly wait for that bit – but I notice it wasn’t free traffic so PPC springs to mind… Or maybe I will get real lucky and Brian Clark will recognise my intelligence and make me a business partner (I am not making this up – its in the pitch as well!).  Yes it could be the joint-venture – you sell me your list and I’ll see your’s mine approach. Apparently you can’t make money by giving stuff away from money – hey Court – I hope you realise that you shouldn’t be giving away your content for $1 the first month! I hope you realise you aren’t making any money!

Apparently I don’t need a long-tail niche audience either (hell that might make me some money) – no instead I need a create my own tribe! Well much that love the 12.5 of you who regularly read this blog and occasionally make me money from my free content – we are doing no tribal meetings around here! We are not doing no sit-down kum-bay-yahs around the camp fire anytime soon around here people!

The thing that gets me most about the Teaching Sells hype this time is the blatant hypocrisy – after several pages of describing how most of the free content on the web is just not worth anything – and leaves people begging to pay money to join your membership site Teaching Sells cites how Steve Pavlina claims to have made $40,000 in one month from his free blog – by pushing his reader to a paid personal-development program which he didn’t even develop himself – yeah really ethical that, totally different from affiliate marketing! But its not advertising you know – its adding value LOL.
So with Teaching Sells you will learn that:

The big opportunity for you though, is in repurposing the vast amount of specialized text-based information into interactive, multimedia learning environments that result in recurring income and long-term customer relationships.

Lets just be crystal here – this is not about your customers making money – its about YOU making money from them… Otherwise known as hooking them up with the old membership model with the recurring charge on the credit card and making sure they don’t become self-sufficient ever too soon.

The  only question I have for Teaching Sells – and the only reason I signed up for the spam list priority notification list was I am curious as to how much they think they can package this old course for. Old – yes that’s right – in fact there is an interesting review of the 2007 version of the course from Friar’s Review of Brian Clark’s Teaching Sells that time around it was $97 for the special price for the first 3 months – and then recurring after that – ( a little point not made that obvious in the 6 point print at the bottom of the page in lightest gray font apparently) – this time I’m figuring they will adding at least a one to the front – or maybe they will go for the currently fashionable $1997 price …

Bottom line if you really think you are already an expert on something that people are really dying to spend money on and you want to take the time to set up an interactive learning experience forum and can’t be bothered finding out how to do it yourself (or paying someone to) – then this course may be for you.

If you are like the other 99.9% of us who don’t have a useful skill to teach online, can’t, for example, teach us how to make paella online then you will probably figure out real fast that you either learn how to fake it until you make, build your wealth on other people’s shattered dreams, or just possibly, learn how to make money online without ripping anyone off.

Bugger I have a nice little set of non-controversial posts half written for this week, and some affiliate crap to push on my unsuspecting readers as well – oh well blog has reverted to its original purpose – me telling the world what I think! Seriously do your self a huge favour run a mile from Teaching Sells regardless of which of the A-listers is promoting it – you do realise that is how you make your money right – being in bed with the right people commenting on the right blogs and getting in well with the right people – you are seriously stuffed if you are hanging around here!

Categories
Online Business Passive Income

Online Income and Work Life Balance

I took the weekend off – I drove 300km and checked out the golf course at Augusta, went whale watching, ate too much, drank too much local red wine.

Golf Course Augusta
Golf Course, Augusta

Did I login? Did I check my email? Did I approve comments? Did I check in with clients that it was OK to take the weekend off – no to all of those above. You see I used to have a J.O.B (Just Over Broke) – I used to have to apply for leave or arrange not to be on-call to go away for the weekend. I don’t do that anymore. Instead, I put an “out of office reply” on my main email account and disconnected.

It wasn’t that hard for me – I must admit taking breaks and travelling is what’s important to me. Yes sure I’d like to make a zillion dollars a week – but only if I can still take off every month or so for a holiday! Although I now have a lot of American friends online, I still don’t understand the need to work 24/7 – if you are desperate to pay the bills sure – but for those who aren’t? To be honest if a client doesn’t want you to go away for a couple of days – do you need the client?

Why is that so hard for some people to just take off and let their online life go on without them?  I think there are two issues: one is cultural and one is about self-confidence. I come from a culture which consider a four-week holiday a bare minimum and two-months a reasonable break. I know many Americans have never taken more than 10 days annual leave.  To me that is a completely incomprehensible concept. It takes me 2 weeks just to forget about the job I hated and then I settled down to being on holiday! I certainly trained several workplaces to get by without me for 6 to 8 week periods – and no I don’t mean call me if you have a problem – I never holiday within cellphone or email range!  I presume its harder if employers are used to having employees around 50 weeks a year.

So when I decided to start making an online living I certainly had no intention of building an income which needed me to  baby-sit it 24/7 like some idiot boss!

The second reason I believe that people have trouble going on holiday and off line is around self confidence. I know people who live the location independent lifestyle – they are sometimes out of contact – does it hurt their business ? Maybe – the clients who want them available 24/7 may not like it that you chose to hop on a 24 flight. Who cares? Do you really need that client? I have lost jobs over the years because I was female, because I was a foreigner, in time I realised I was better off without them. Its the same with an online client who wants you available at their beck and call – its not how it works around here – and because this is my business I make up the rules – and I suggest you do to.

So before you become a slave to your online business I suggest you look at the big picture. Is this a business that is going to need you online 24/7 – how easy will it be for your to delegate and grow the business? Can you develop something that you work on, not in? Make sure you are building a lifestyle that’s better than the one you’ve got!

Oh you don’t recognise Augusta’s golf course? Course details about 5km out of town – at the top of the hill, a great 360 view of the Indian and Southern Oceans. Green fees: $15 on an honour system, golf carts recommended, blacks not greens around the holes, kangaroos a hazard, beware snakes in the bush. And as far as I know Tiger Woods has never played their though its possible that other soon-to-be famous golfer Grizz Brears may want to take a second look at it – you see Augusta is in Western Australia, not just Georgia!

Categories
Rants

Online Income and Dancesport

OK that title got you to click through because a) you don’t know what dancesport is and/or b) you are not sure what the connection with online income and Dancesport is.

So just to clarify – dancesport is competitive ballroom dance and no there is absolutely no way you can earn online income with it – its what I spend my online income on!

It does however fit well with earning an income online because it gets me up off my backside which would be a lot bigger than it is if I didn’t dance about 5 nights a week!

Just to clarify I’m the blond in blue and my partner Paul is the one who bankrolls my lifestyle as well as being my dance partner and this is my very first attempt at a youtube video!

Comments are welcome and YES we know the rhumba is out of time!

BTW if  you double click the video below it will open up on youtube and then you can make it a bit bigger!

Categories
Online Business Passive Income

Making Money with An Online Gold Rush

I had to explain my business to my accountant recently having finally made some online income to declare! Its been a while since I tried to explain my business to someone who, although they had their own website and is very computer literate, really had no idea what I was talking about.  The thing is that people think because the Internet has only be around for 40 years and Google for less than 10 years, maybe making money online is all different and there has never been a moment like this in history before – well I beg to differ  – there is nothing new under the sun and understanding history is certainly useful in avoiding the mistakes others have made.

Sovereign Hill, Ballarat, Victoria
Sovereign Hill, Ballarat, Victoria

The Internet Marketing is like a gold rush people – Klondike, Otago, Victoria, doesn’t matter which country: gold is found, some people make money, many don’t, some companies are made others die, and society changes forever.

For those of you are not familiar with history: gold rushes brought incredible wealth it a few and incredible hard work and death to many more – and I am a firm believer that understanding history can sometimes stop you repeating it.  Your average or typical gold rush goes something like this:

  1. Gold is found – the early prospectors try to keep it quiet but news comes out and the rush is on. Men abandon their families and start walking to the gold fields. Well at least you only have to walk to your nearest broadband connection these days! But try explaining to your spouse that your “playing online” is a serious business – they will think you mad or worse. My partner asked me the other day how many people make a living full-time online – I really have no answer but I suspect very, very few do, doing what I do.
  2. Many start digging the fields – backbreaking work, they go broke, the get sick, they die. Many of those diggers on the fields had been professionals they had never panned for gold in their lives – its hard and dangerous work. There is more skill than is apparent at first glance but basically its hard work, the tough survive. 95% of Internet Marketers give up before they make a $100 – I just made that statistic up, but its probably accurate. There is more skill required than is apparent at first glance but basically its hard work, sluicing a few pans of gold won’t make you a fortune, nor will your first website. Fortunately you don’t generally die working online though many  people do seem to have issues with weight gain and loneliness.
  3. Some of the people who nearly made a strike or made a small strike but didn’t make enough to retire they move sideways and  start to make a comfortable living by selling booze, picks and pans to the miners. A lot of booze was watered-down and some of the picks were of poor quality… The entire “A-list” blogger phenomenon are the the publicans and the suppliers of the gold fields – they sound like they have useful stuff to sell but there’s is not the business model you want to follow if you want to be the one to strike it rich.  How many pubs can one town support (well quite a few from the Australian gold rush towns I may be pushing the analogy a bit here!)
  4. A very, very few of the miners found wealth beyond belief, they built a fine house (a long way from the gold fields), had a family and lived happily ever after.  Most of them did not publish a book on how to make money on the goldfields.  The people who make serious money online you never heard of  -they don’t run blogs for sure!

Well most of them don’t write blogs – but one or two do… So if you really want to know how to make money blogging follow this link on how not to be a better blogger.

The gold rushes were a huge social disruption – they turned society upside down, they substantially changed the way society was forever. They created new towns, the Victorian gold rush stopped deportation to Australia forever. The wealth of Melbourne gave it some of the first municipal  public transport and electric light in the world.

They were a huge chance for people to make money – people who had never had a chance before.  Most people didn’t take the chance – they sat on the side-lines and worried about whether the gold fields were really a way to make money. Once the gold field became established they figured that they had missed the opportunity and stayed home. There are gold mines in Bendigo to this day – 140 years after the initial rush.

A lot of companies disappeared – they failed to realize the opportunity that the gold rush offered – some banks went broke because they didn’t open a branch in the new towns springing up to support the gold fields.  I think that many of today’s newspapers are the equivalent of those short-sighted banks – will newspapers survive? How will they compete with new citizen journalism websites?

Some people dug for a day or two but they didn’t strike it rich and so they packed up and left – or got a job at the pub – selling the watered-down beer. They told everyone who would listen that you couldn’t really make money with this new fangled gold thingy!

Some people got burned – they bought the poor-quality shovels, they noticed they couldn’t move as much dirt as their competitors down the road – the smart ones reinvested in their business and bought better shovels.

Some people dug for gold in the wrong place – they dug and dug and found nothing – until one day! Some people made money on day one, some took 6 months or 6 years, the ones that stuck at it generally did make at least a living at it.

I’m a geologist – I’ve worked in exploration – I can tell you there is nothing quite like the thrill of finding gold or whatever mineral you are looking for. Even today where its all automated, GPSed and computerised there is still a thrill of the chase.

I used to find looking for keywords boring and frustrating – but then I started making money from those same keywords – now I find them absolutely fascinating – mostly the topics I write about are really boring – but I never get bored with watching  the money come in…Gold panning is still back-breaking work I prefer the online alternative…

Categories
Making Money Online Online Business Passive Income

How To Make Over $2000 Online

I have been on and off doing full-time Internet Marketing as a way to make a full time living since Oct 2007. As recently as March I made a total of $144 from Adsense and affiliates, April was the first month I made the $100 Adsense payout within a month. In July 2009 I made $1500 from Adsense and Affiliates (what I can passive income) – with my freelance work my income came in at $2800 for the month. Where I’m from, New Zealand, that is about the same sort of money that a junior teacher would be earning – not bad if I do say so myself.

I dunno what full-time income is your part of the world but my definition has always been about US$1000/week – what I could make if I could get a job as a Business Analyst, Test Manager again.  I am not there yet – but in March I was ready to quit – now I feel like I’m close to success -my partner finally thinks there is something to this online lark – and I know that once you have the momentum its so much easier to build on it.

The Secret to Making $2000 / Month Online?

Simple self-belief – up until March I wasn’t prepared to believe that I personally could make serious cash online. I wanted it to happen first – then I’d believe it. It doesn’t work like that –  I’m not sure why – but I guess if part of your brain still thinks you really should go and get a real job then your actions really not reflect your potential.

My problem was that I have never been a business owner, I couldn’t sell or market and I thought entrepreneurs were losers who couldn’t compromise long enough to get a job (well I was right about that :lol: ). I’ve never known anyone in the real world that has the mind-set of going out and taking serious risks and building your own business.

I really didn’t believe that I could make money – so I didn’t – now this is not ‘The Secret” bullshite – believing in money flowing to you doesn’t work – you need a plan and to take action. For me until I really, if not believed that it would happen, couldn’t think of anything better to do, I didn’t take enough action – and that’s the real secret to making money online – massive action.

Step Two Take Massive Action to Earn Income Online

Carnavon Gorge, Queensland, Australia
Carnavon Gorge, Queensland, Australia

Or at least do something! I talked about taking massive action to make money online recently but the whole Niche Devil controversy kinda sums it up quite nicely. There are those arguing on the sidelines as to whether or not it will work, and then there are those for whom its working.

Some stuff works some doesn’t. Nothing works for ever, the techniques that worked 6 years ago don’t work now. There are short-cuts to finding out what works thanks to services such as The KeyWord Academy – but basically at the end of the day doing the work and monitoring the results will teach you more than just thinking about it!

Now go and build some sites!

Categories
Affiliate Marketing Paid Tools Passive Income Rants Tools

Niche Devil and Making Money Attitudes

UPDATE June 2010 – the party was great – but Niche Devil is longer available – and yes I still make money from it LOL

The last few days have been rather entertaining.  Vic released a {kick arse cool money making on steroids|automated worthless con} script called Niche Devil. If you haven’t caught up with all this you could call Niche Devil – the best alternative to BANS for eBay affiliates.  Its faster to set up than BANS, has a very small footprint,  indexes very quickly and has the potential to make me a great deal of money.  It takes me under a minute to create a full blown site with this script – and yes the site is full of legal, unique content.

I must admit I had reservations on the script because I knew that some of my readers would be worried that it was in conflict with some of the other approaches to making money online.  Lets be clear – it is. There are lots of ways to make money online –  life is complex – you will just have to make your own decisions.

Quite a number of people I know and respect are basically saying no this is just the same as the BANS debacle of last year – not going there again!  Well as others have commented on Griz’s post – people are still making money from BANS …  I believe that its different – but I am be wrong. I personally think its worth of a few hundred dollars for the size of the pay off.

It sounds dodgy – how can it take Vic 35sec to set up a site?

He’s got a faster Internet connection than me! He shows it real time on his Niche Devil launch post.  That’s exactly what you do it step-by-step. In reality of course unless you have Vic’s experience you will take longer to find the right keywords and buy the domains – but that time is going to be the same regardless of whether you are building a KeyWordAcademy niche site, a HubPage or anything else. The difference is that nothing is faster for actually setting up the site than Niche Devil.

But it can’t be legal right?

I don’t believe that sending targeted buying traffic to vendors  is illegal – I think its called “effective lead generation” by marketers. The sites aren’t splogs – the content displayed on them are done so legally, there are no illegal copies of people’s copyrighted work involved.

It may not work forever?

To be honest – do I give a shit? Even if all my sites are banned and deindexed  I still have the chance to make money with this – I won’t be returning that money whatever happens LMAO!

Aren’t the websites  worthless?

To whom? If I find the site looking for hairy midget thongs and then click through to Amazon and eBay and buy the same – I think that’s pretty good value for the searcher who got what he wanted, for the vendor who made a sale, and for me the affiliate who got the commission.  Niche Devil will NOT create a flagship blog or encourage you to stay around an explore the site and start a conversation with the author – its not designed to.

So is this is a license to make money why are you selling the script?

That’s about the best question! Personally I don’t know that I would have released it  and I am not not sure the motivation – but I strongly suspect that Vic wants his core group of students to make some quick money from the affiliates sales – I know I have and thank you those who have bought via my Niche Devil affiliate link! <no longer available>

Also its not guaranteed to make you money – you still need to do the keyword research and actually set up the sites. Oh and Niche Devil is only going to be available for 14 days – so no its not going to be sold indefinitely.

Is Niche Devil Right For Your Business?

I have no idea to be honest!  I failed pretty badly with BANS because I didn’t know how to find buying keywords at the time – and I got fixated on that. Instead of just going out and buying 100 dot infos and putting up the sites – I stopped at less than 10 – I still made $10 this month from one of the those sites – wonder what that would have been if I had done 100 sites.

How I am Using Niche Devil in My Business

I using Niche Devil for two main reasons:

  • I have been using HubPages to find easy to rank for, well paying niches – well know I am going to use Niche Devil to do the same thing – and it will be quicker and cost less the same on HubPages (I outsourced the writing on Hubpages – that’s the cost).
  • Income diversification- most of my income is from Adsense and I want to diversify. I have signed up for Chitika which is an Adsense alternative which Niche Devil Supports. I am also going to use Amazon for some of my Niche Devil sites.

What’s the Risk?

Well for me zero/nada/none. Thanks to affiliate sales I am in the black on the cost of Niche Devil and I have a bunch of undeveloped sites lying around which need sites put on them.

For you the risk is higher:

  • $97 for Niche Devil
  • $79 for 100 dot infos (if you buy in bulk via godaddy)

So are you in? Are you prepared to risk less than $200 and a few days of work to develop genuine passive income ?


Categories
Blogging Making Money Online Marketing Online Business Passive Income

Online Income: One Simple Secret to Success

OK this is a bit of a follow up on my recent post on clueless bloggers.  It probably reflects that I’ve been spending too much time on the HubPages forums recently too and I have decided that online there is a single reason why most people don’t make money online, and why online income remains just a dream.

People who fail to make money online don’t fail because they can’t write, or don’t understand keywords. They don’t fail because they don’t have enough technical knowledge, they don’t have a degree, have too many kids, don’t have the support of their partner, or live outside of the developed world.

They fail for a totally different reason. And I have finally figured it out. In fact its stunningly obvious now that I have though of it – and I should probably pad it out to an e-book and sell it for $97! Instead I’ll just make this post a bit long.

Do you want to know what the secret of making online income is? Drum roll…

962281_key

You have to treat it like a business!

No kidding right! Seriously though I wonder what some people think they are doing, whatever it is, its not being in business. Think about it. What does a business owner do:

  • they develop a business plan – they have an idea about how they are going to make a profit;
  • they work the plan -they put lots and lots of hours into their business with the hope of pay off down the line;
  • they invest in their income in terms of tools which save them money or by outsourcing tasks which can be done more efficiently elsewhere;
  • they develop relationships with others in similar businesses so that they can help each other in the future, the play it forward.
  • they monitor and adapt as the environment around them changes. They don’t complain about stuff they can’t change – they move on.

Now I think the best way to illustrate how I personally came to this not so original conclusion, is to give some examples – both people who are working a business-like way and those who aren’t so much. Now I am not calling anyone out here but I really think there are some useful lessons here ..

So here are my first every Online Income Case Studies!

Focusing on a Business Can Make You a Social Outcast

This post as in part inspired by Chloe from Ben 10 Toys, who left a comment on my Effing Clueless Bloggers post. She said she was excluded from  some of the other parenting/mommy bloggers crowd because they:

“seem to sneer at the fact that some of us are trying to make a few pounds from our sites.”

Now not being a mother I hadn’t really come across too many of the “yummy, mommy blogger crowd” until I joined today dot com in order to build my own backlinks and get paid while I did it. While there I met the crowd who like to make some “pin money” but then whinges that they are underpaid!  Now we have the mob who are above even earning an income – nice for you love but hope your husband doesn’t get fired/gets burntoff/run off with a younger model. Then maybe you will think earning some income is important!

Look  some people write beautiful sites and don’t make money from them.  That’s fine – but why does someone like Chloe who provides a useful site which gives me personally way too much information about a boys toy thats popular should feel like she’s not part of a community? They are losers Chloe move on – get yourself ranked for your main keyword and get popular with real buyers and make some real cash!

Travel Bloggers Need to Focus Their Energies

This one is a close to home – I am a travel blogger at heart. I would love to say I have a wonderful travel site which is a labour of love and which truely provides useful information.  Travel for the Over 30s is really a topic I know a lot about. I’ve just never cracked the market – yet.

Matt over at Nomadic Matt’s has. I’ve been aware of Matt for a while, because of our mutual travel interest, and because he published his e-book on How to Make Money From Your Travel Blog. (Well worth it BTW if this is your niche.) He’s just got back home to the US but has spent at least the last six  months travelling. And during that time he has got his income up into respectable four figures.  For me its a lot harder to build a business with all the distractions of a new interesting destination around you and having to deal with finding a reliable Internet connection, so hats off to Matt.

Now in contrast is Kirsty over at Nerdy Nomad I have been following her for at least three years. She was a member of the first forum I ever joined at Working Nomad and at that stage she seemed to be living the dream, my dream, of travelling and making enough money to pay for it. Don’t get me wrong, I love Kirsty’s work dearly and her blog is excellent – but her recent post on her June earnings gave me pause, because  I earned more than she did in June (including freelance income).  Why was that – well I think its really simple – I have put a whole lot more work into my business especially in the last six months.  Now what Kirsty is doing might well be right for her so this isn’t necessarily a criticism, after all she has been investigating free and cheap volunteering opportunities in Nicaragua where the Internet access is not so good.  But building business seems to involve an awful lot of hard work in the beginning, with payoff time further down the track.  Until you get the business to the level that the passive income is nicely diversified and recurring – you are vulnerable.

Work Hard and Measure Your Success – But Do it Right

Which brings me rather neatly to the one of the hardest working guys on the Internet Ben over at Make Money Online with SEO. Now I am not going to repeat how Ben makes over $100/day with HubPages (which he started with in May BTW) – because all of that information is on his blog. And he still gets people asking him why they are failing – to which the answer is always the same – they are failing because they aren’t working hard enough! So check Ben out Ben if you want to be making money online the right way.

Now what has got Ben such a high profile so quickly is that he has been reporting his income figures and they have been spectacular.  What he mentions to is the number of hubpages/infobarrels/niche sites he has published each day/week. There is one thing he doesn’t talk a lot about though – he doesn’t mention the number of hours he worked.

Which brings me to my final case study Joel over at The Keyword Academy Scam Experiment. Now Joel is new to this game as he says so himself – but I was concerned when I saw his blog’s byline

“If their system can’t make me money within 6 months, they get the boot!”.

Maybe that is the downside of mentoring sites such as the Keyword Academy – people externalise it -“their system”, “make me money”. The only person who will ever make you money in business is yourself – if you don’t believe that you will make money – you won’t – it sounds insane I know, but its true. Something in your brain has to believe in your business – if that doesn’t happen you will always be looking for the next best thing.

The other thing that I think Joel is doing wrong with this sits is quite simple: he’s tracking his time and adding it as a cost against his income.  Two things wrong here: he’s inexperienced in his own admission – Joel I learnt to buy domains and my hosting without any step-by-step video – the fact that you have one probably saves you hours – but I think its totally unfair to then say that the cost you X hours x $8.50 (being the minimum wage in his part of the world). You’re learning – its going to take you longer  that’s your problem not the “systems”.  So stop expecting any approach to being in business to pay you to learn.

But ultimately you can’t rely on any one system to make you money. You will learn sound principals at the KWA and if you keep on working – you will make money – but it will only really become your own when you believe in your business and your ability to succeed with it.

Being in business on the Internet has a big a learning curve, if not bigger, than setting up a florist’s shop or starting a computer repair service. Imagine if I decided that I was going to open a florist’s shop tomorrow? I don’t know anything about flowers, I don’t know how to arrange them, I don’t know where to buy them, and I don’t know how open and promote a shop. Do you think its fair to think that I will be in profit in 6 months? I’m more likely to be bankrupt because of the significant costs that venture would have entailed.

Making an online income is different – you don’t have to risk bankruptcy to do it – but there is a huge learning curve. And if you are struggling and missing something I’d like to suggest that its not a deep misunderstanding of how to find buying keywords or how to optimise a WordPress blog – its how to think like a business owner!

You need to focus on your business if you don’t know enough yet to have a business plan – focus on learning enough. Then develop a plan they work, a lot, and keep on moving forward. The rules change all the time, you need to keep up.

Sorry for the marathon post – its partly an SEO experiment because longer does seem to be better with Google at the moment- but also because I suddenly had an insight – and that doesn happen very often 🙂 So are you in business or are you just playing?

Categories
Affiliate Marketing HubPages Making Money Online

eBay Rule Change Leaves Blogger, HubPages, Squidoo Out in the Cold

eBay Bans Blogger etc

Its official – as of 1 August 2009 you cannot not use eBay (EPN) to monetize Blogger (blogspot) blogs, HubPages hubs or Squidoo lenses or InfoBarrel articles. This one is a bit a of a shocker – the time frame of less than two weeks is pretty bad too. Actually eBay will tell you that they “told you so” back in May when they mentioned that both:

Ad Networks:  Using any graphical ad network to place eBay ads (ads that go directly to an eBay domain) on websites not directly under the publishers’ control…Sub-affiliates:  Any arrangement where publishers distribute their earnings from eBay Partner Network to other publishers.

were no longer acceptable to EPN. Source EPN Official Blog.

The Ad Networks paragraph reflects the HubPages and Blogger business models, the Sub-affiliate model reflects the Squidoo model.

This is a huge change and will take some affiliates out of business and for many more will mean that they will take a huge income hit while they rebuild their business.

Is eBay evil?

Is  eBay is bad, ugly nasty company who treats their sellers like dirt and their affiliates worse? Nope, the point is that nothing has changed: he who has the gold makes the rules.  eBay would rather the buyer bought from direct from them – they don’t really want to pay affiliates – it costs them money.

No eBay isn’t evil – they are in business and they have, and will continue to make business decisions with their own best interests in heart, the interests of the shareholders, not the interests of their affiliates.

Is Building Your Business on Free Sites Bad?

Using sites such as blogger (blogspot) and HubPages meant that you could make money from eBay affiliate commissions without investing any of your own. Now don’t get me wrong – I think making money for nothing down is fantastic! But it leaves you doubly vulnerable – either the affiliate or the website you are using (or as they say these days “the Web2.0 property”) could change the rules, ban your account – and you are back to where you were with nothing.  Don’t put all your eggs in one basket : ironically when I used to invest in property for passive income I used to say the same thing:

Build a diversified business
Build a diversified business

Diversification is Everything

If you have built a successful income stream from eBay affiliate sales on blogger and hubpages is this the end? Yes for eBay – time to move on – with blogger blogs you have the option to self-host them (yes blogger does have a self-hosting option same as WordPress) which is probably the quickest option, but if that involves a change of url there is going to be some work involved. Alternatively it will the time to move to self-hosted WordPress.

The other option is to leave the blogger blog where it is and change the monetisation method. Its unlikely that Adsense will work well for an eBay niche but it does sometimes – double check- Amazon is the obvious option but there are literally dozens of others. I have just signed up with Chikita and I quite like what I am seeing with it too.

I expect that Hubpages will come up with something to ease the pain of the transition but obviously the only real option there is either Amazon or a relevant affiliate product.

Once I have my income level up to full-time – my aim is simple – I don’t want any one affiliate to be contributing more than 20% of that income -its just too risky and this is a case example of why!

Where do you stand – how does the eBay change of heart over blogger blogs and HubPages affect your business?

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Categories
Back Links Rants

Most Bloggers Are Effing Clueless!

Bloggers are absolutely bloody clueless – well except for my friends of course. But most of the bloggers out there really don’t know which way is up.

Most bloggers bitch about one of two things: coming up with new ideas for their blogs or not getting paid to blog! The whole today.com fiasco had blame on both sides – there were an awful lot of bloggers who were convinced they were owed a living based on their inane, or even well-written, ramblings about their day-to-day life.

(BTW if you were thinking why not to that last sentence – try putting up your own blog along these lines and living off the resulting revenue… )

Which brings me to the point of this post.  I do some freelance work for an agency. That agency gives me articles which need to be placed on relevant blogs – that’s not so hard is it? After all most bloggers want unique content right?

Actually absolutely not correct. I have kept a bit of a list and I find if I try to contact 10 blogs that look suitable the break down goes something like this

  • 1 blog will have absolutely no way to contact the owner of the blog – this is particularly true for wordpress.com blogs but I have had it from self-hosted and blogspot blogs as well.  Its not that hard people – its called a contact page – you either put a form on it or you write your email address like lis at lissowerbutts dot com.
  • 2 blogs will promptly and politely respond that they don’t accept guest posts – cool no problem, thanks for your time.
  • 1 blogger will respond and then prove utterly clueless about how to actually cut and paste the post – we get there eventually  – and hey at least I got my Kharma quota up – I do however wonder sometimes!
  • 1 blogger will respond, request the post, and post it – win/win job done.
  • 5 bloggers will never  respond to my email.

Its those 50% of bloggers who are too lazy/arrogant/whatever to bother responding to that I am talking to.

  • No you haven’t just not been online becuase I know your blog is updated regularly otherwise I wouldn’t have contacted you.
  • No its not a trick -the concept of Guest Posts is apparently difficult for some people to grasp – I’m not sure because its talked about all over the blogosphere – but trust me Guest Posting is a legitmate opportunity for companies to get their nae out there. What do you think article marketing is all about?
  • No I will not be insulted if you don’t want a post – just tell me so – how long does hitting reply and typing no thanks take?
  • Have you no bloody manners?

Oh and if you have a PR3 on your front page or more than 200 RSS subscribers blog in any of the following niches: health, diet, exercise, healthcare careers, medical careers, patient rights, or Web 2.0, and would like a 500+ word original article which includes one link in the authro’s bio paragraph please feel free to drop me a line via the contact form or email lis (at) gmail (dot) com. No splogs or other autogenerated content please.

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Categories
Affiliate Marketing Paid Tools Tools

Online Income Tips: Managing Affiliates

How do you manage your affiliates? My management has evolved, primarily by accident I admit, but a recent post over at Passive Family Income got me thinking. PFI manages his affiliate links manually – I don’t and here’s why.

Whats the Problem with Affiliate Links?

In short an affiliate link is what pays me online income, it includes the code that says “pay Lis” to the vendor. There is a problem with affiliate links too, in fact two problems:

  • first they are ugly – would you really want to click on a link that looks like : http://47b252e70zsw9sdoja39pbvq2r.hop.clickbank.net/ Many people don’t.
  • often you don’t know if anyone is clicking – clickbank comes to mind they don’t provide any stats on home many clicks you get – just how many people buy.

Here’s the kill though: what if the affiliate changes the code? Yes it happens – and it just happened to me with one of my more successful affiliate earners. You have to change the code, everywhere you used it? Maybe you can remember every place you used an affiliate code – good on you – I can’t!

I use a product called PHP Link Cloak. What a Link Cloaker does (and no its not shady though the name is a little unfortunate IMHO) – is change the link I quoted above to something more user friendly in this case https://lissowerbutts.com/recommends/PHPLinkCloaker If the affiliate changes the code on me – I have to change it in one place – it took me longer to login than it did to actually change the code!

Its more useful than that – it tells me how many clicks I have had on that particular link.  As I can have as many links as I like for the same program I can track how many people click on links on my blog compared to my HubPages, for example.

Its simple to install – you do have to install it on a host that has the following available:

PHP 4 or PHP 5
MYSQL 4.x Database

Hostgator works just fine, apparently GoDaddy does not.

Once you have uploaded the software onto your hosting account you can use the links anywhere you like: email, blogger blogs, on Web 2.0 sites like Infobarrel and HubPages – so for many people will only need to set it up once. However as far as I can tell you can install it as many times as you want if you do want to keep websites separate – for example I wouldn’t use a lissowerbutts.com/recommends …. link on a site which is run by one of my other personas.

And I should probably point out that there are other products out there that do the same job, maybe even for free, but this one was recommended to me by a friend and it worked so I didn’t see any point on wasting any more time on what to me is an online income admin funcition.  The instructions worked just fine and there is a free demo site where you can try before you buy and the standard 60 days money back guarantee from ClickBank. And it costs less than $20.

How do you manage your affiliates? Do you ever forget which products you are promoting? Seriously if you are not using anything and are starting to make some passive income from affiliates check out PHP Link Cloaker Its much easier to put these systems in sooner rather than later!