Monthly Archives: June 2011

After working for the State of Texas for 30 years, I retired on Thursday, May 25, 2006, at 2:00 pm. Little did I know that this day would become very significant in my future. For the past six months, I had been counting the number of days until “the big day” when I could go home and rest. I started working when I was 18, and I retired when I was 50! So yes, it was time for a break. I felt that it was time for me to start enjoying life — because you never know what the future holds. At 2:30 pm (just 30 minutes after retiring) my doctor told me that he suspected that I had breast cancer; he wasn’t sure 100%; but it appeared more likely than not. A few days later, it was confirmed. I just sank into this black hole. In June, I had two surgeries, followed by six weeks of radiation. After five years, I finally began to emerge from that hole. In August, 2010, I worked for a temporary agency, on a job that lasted 30 days. This challenge was enough to boost my confidence, and let me know that ” I still had it’.

I started applying for jobs online, but never received a response. The recession was becoming worse, daily. Then I turned my attention to searching for a work-at-home-job. In invested hundreds of dollars, trying to find my perfect job I would receive at least 20 different emails daily, from companies who wanted me to choose their programs. Then one day in April, 2011, I saw a job in which I was interested: affiliate marketing.

Of all the online jobs, affiliate marketing seems to be the least complicated, and most promising. In affiliate marketing you will serve as a human “billboard” for other companies. The foundation for this business is that you will make money by driving traffic (visitors) to other websites. You make a commission whenever a visitor goes to this particular site and takes action. If the visitor buys something, or signs up for something, or clicks on an affiliate’s ad, then you are paid a commission for generating a “lead” (prospective customer) to that company.

There are two approaches to affiliate marketing. One approach is as a retailer who sells tangible products. Tangible products are items that you buy online, and the product is shipped to a designated location. (An example is like buying a book on Amazon.com.) The second approach is, as a retailer who sells electronic products. Electronic products are downloadable; you make a purchase, and you are instantly emailed download instructions. (An example is like buying an eBook on ClickBank.) You simply click on the provided space in the email, and you can download and read the material on your computer screen, or you can print a hardcopy, and read it later.

I chose to start with the electronic products, because it is much simpler that the tangible products: there is no order-processing; no shipping and handling products; no collecting money; no processing returns, etc. Because of these responsibilities, the tangible products have a narrower profit margin. This is another reason why I chose electronic, over tangible — less hassle, more money.

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There are a lot of different ways when it comes to earning money online, but I’m here to suggest that affiliate marketing is the best way to make money online. Consider these three reasons for why affiliate marketing is the best way to make money online.

First off, with affiliate marketing, you can promote virtually anything you can think of and make money from it. This is much of why it’s the best way of how to make money online because you’re literally taking what you love and turning it into your paycheck. This is because there are affiliate programs and offers tied to most niches so there is always something always out there which you can promote. This makes making money fun and much easier to stay motivated while you are doing it. Additionally, it’s much easier when you’re writing about something which you already know about.

Secondly, the harder you work in affiliate marketing, the more money which you will make. There is no limit to how much money you can make, and it’s very simple to replicate your success once you find something which works for you. You can move from one niche into another and apply the same tactics which you used to generate traffic and make money in that first niche to the second niche, so this is an infinitely scalable business and way to make money online.

I don’t know of a lot of other careers where literally the harder you work it translates into more money. Most careers I have had before this one I could work my fingers to the bone and never see any kind of incentive coming my way.

Finally, with affiliate marketing you are your own boss. You set your own hours, decide what it is that you want to promote and how you want to promote it, and you don’t have any specific deadlines or anyone breathing down your neck.

With affiliate marketing you’re not just making money for yourself but you’re earning time, as well. This means you have the time and money to do what you want to do when you want to do it and that’s a very important distinction to make because I would rather make a decent amount of money and have time to enjoy it as opposed to making a lot of money and not being able to enjoy because I’m so busy making it. Much of affiliate marketing can even be automated once you reach a certain point, as well.

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Google offers so many different products and services that one wonders how even the engineers at the Googleplex keep track of them. The search company just launched a new one that taps into everything, though. Dubbed “What Do You Love,” users can search for anything and see what pops up specifically from Google’s many different resources.

You’ll find the new service at http://www.wdyl.com/. If you’ve ever used a search engine, you’ll have no problem with the interface. Just put your answer to the question “What do you love?” in the search box and click on the blue button with the white heart. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Land popped in “email” and was surprised that “Gmail is the second to last option on the right column.” He figured it would return Gmail as a top listing.

Intrigued, I tried putting in “video,” figuring that YouTube would come back near the top. I did better than Schwartz, but not quite as well as I expected. I got a three-column return, just like Schwartz, with Trend, Sketchup, and Product Search as the top three results. Product Search didn’t even find anything, which apparently made it feel a bit inadequate; it gave the message “What if we told you we didn’t find anything? Still friends? Try simpler terms.” YouTube showed up as the third result in the right-hand column, with the statement “Watch videos of video on YouTube.”

Let me offer a quick word about what you see after you click for results. As I mentioned, there’s a three-column layout, with each Google service in its own little box. The box offers an image of the service, links to it at both the top and the bottom of the box, and a headline. Sometimes you even get a little more than that.

For example, for Sketchup, in addition to the “Explore video in 3D with SketchUp” headline, the image (in this case, of little green men in front of a spaceship) is clickable, as if it’s a video all by itself. By the way, if you search for the same thing more than once, the order changes. For Picasa and some of the other services, at the bottom right within the box, I saw a pair of clickable arrows in buttons. Clicking on the arrows changed the image.

All the way over on the left, you’ll see a small set of gray boxes with the outline of a blue rectangle around six of them. This is how WDYL lets you know where you are in your list of results. Scroll up or down, and the rectangle moves with it. Under this part of the interface, you may see the word “Share.” I did, followed by an You may also see an “m” icon in red. This is the icon for Gmail, and clicking it opened a new tab which loaded Gmail and gave me a full-browser Gmail message with the subject line “Hey this is awesomely awesome.”

The body of the message, after I’d typed in a search for “food” (hey, it was mid-afternoon, time for a snack), read “So you type in something you love like ‘food’ and it automatically gives you a map of nearby food, lists of books about food, blogs about food, 3D models of food, recent food videos, discussions about food…everything. It’s like a ‘wonderful things dashboard’ http://goo.gl/p105P.” The link given, which is NOT live in the email, just takes you to the home page of WDYL, but you can be that Google tracks it in some way.

Below the Gmail icon I also saw an icon for Google Buzz; clicking that took me to a page where I had the option to try Google Buzz by posting about WDYL, or clicking the “no thanks” link.

I love that the images that come up when you do a search on WDYL are often very relevant. When I searched for “crochet,” Picasa showed an adorable amigurumi, and all of the thumbnails in the Image Search box were clearly of crocheted items. The YouTube box encouraged me to “Watch Videos of Crochet” with a clickable video that was clearly on topic. All of the books that came up under Google’s Book service included “crochet” in the title. The latest news about crochet included a small but understandable mistake: it included a headline for a Marine Corps officer being commissioned. The officer’s name was Grant Crochet.

I hate to sound like I’m gushing here, but I think that this new service is ridiculously cool – and frankly, it’s about time that Google created something like this. It gives users the opportunity to take whatever they’re passionate about and see how Google’s other services and features let them pursue it in a dozen different ways. I found plenty of Google services I didn’t even know about, and I’m sure my experience was not unique.

I wonder if Google is hoping that visitors will give WDYL a try and then not check out the competing sites in each category. For instance, after a WDYL search on their favorite topic, would they start a blog about their passion with Blogger rather than WordPress? Might they look for books about it through Google Books rather than Amazon? We’ll have to wait and see. Right now, it’s just a neat-looking service with the kinds of minor bugs you might expect from a beta release. I think it’s also an educational PR move – a clever way to let users know about the full range of Google’s offerings. What users do with that knowledge is up to them. 

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Article source: http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Google-Optimization-Help/WDYL-Searches-All-Google-Services/

Affiliate marketing is one of the major ways that bloggers and website owners use to make money online. It’s not like pay per click advertising where you only need a visitor to click on ads to make money. For affiliate marketing the only way you can earn money is by selling the product to your readers. Therefore no sales means no commissions and money for you and if you make a sale of the affiliate product you will get your fair share. It’s a win win situation for both the product owner and the affiliate who is promoting if a sale occurs but if a purchase does not occur both of you will lose.

The question that is on everyone’s mind now is how to really make more affiliate sales and probably make more money. Getting the right answer to this question may most likely be a step in the right direction for you financially because understanding the secret formula of making as many people as possible to purchase the affiliate products means more affiliate income for you.

In this article I will share with you all the tips and tricks that I use and has worked for me to make more money from selling affiliate products. I don’t make millions of dollars from affiliate marketing and selling other people’s stuff on my blog but I do make money enough to allow me work full time from home. What I’m going to share with you here is the experience I have heard with the subject and I can’t guarantee it will work excellently for you but all in all experiment with them and see if they will also work for you. Here below are my observations

1. Loyal and regular readers do purchase affiliate products, one thing that I have learnt over the years is that the internet is a planet of its own and not everyone will purchase from everywhere. In the offline world you can walk into a shop or restaurant and purchase whatever you wish that you can afford but the online business is totally different. People make transactions without seeing one another and as a result they are worried about the security of their credit. People are worried about being scammed and will only purchase from secure outlets. This is why it’s important to build a good relationship based on mutual interest with your readers. The more they learn and trust you the more the likelihood of them purchasing affiliate products you are promoting. That is why loyal readers who have faith and trust in you will purchase affiliate products you are promoting.
2. Search engine visitors are less likely to purchase, these are people who have just landed into your site from a search engine. Although they may have an interest in the products you are promoting they are less likely to make a purchase. They haven’t yet known you or your credibility and to them you will be like any other spammer out there. So what is the solution to this problem? Well the best way to convert them to loyal readers who would purchase your affiliate products is to prove your credibility to them. Differentiate yourself from the many spammers out there providing supporting evidence that you engage in genuine and legitimate business. Also offer them the chance to subscribe to your blog through such things as email and rss subscriptions.
3. Only recommend products that you have used and that work, be honest with your readers and only tell them nothing but the truth. They deserve to get the best products on the market and you are required to help them find those products. Be credible and only recommend genuine and performing products to your readers. The more they buy genuine and working products you are promoting the more they will have faith in you and the higher the possibility of them becoming repeat customers. Don’t just promote and recommend fake and substandard products simply because you want to make some quick cash. That is being dishonest to your loyal readers and you know what? They will keep off purchasing items that you may later recommend for them as they will feel cheated by you. Don’t lie and be sincere with your readers and its guaranteed you will make money with affiliate marketing.

So what type of products should you recommend for your readers to buy. Here are things to consider

• Promote products that give the reader the opportunity to return if they fail to work, who wants to keep defective products? No one I guess. people are more likely to buy goods that they are guaranteed they can return with money back guarantee if it becomes defective or fails to function.
• Promote products that have relevance to your blog or website topic, this can also push up your affiliate sales and income. people visit your site because they are interested in what it contains and as a result it does not make sense for you to promote products that have no relevance to your blog theme or topic. I think it does not make sense for you to promote camping products when your blog or website them is say, like “make money online”

For more on creating blogs, affiliate marketing and legitimate ways to make money online visit my blog here

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Home Income Wealth System is a work from home program that requires only basic typing skills. With the economy taking a turn for the worst, people are now searching for new ways to earn money. This program shows its users step by step instructions on how to start an online business by setting up different websites templates. Each website goes live immediately and is ready to make you money promoting different products.

The website says that anyone who buys the system, will begin to earn a substantial amount of money full-time working only 30 minutes a day. It also says that no technical skills are required which means no knowledge of Internet marketing. All who purchase, receives multiple fully functioning websites selling a variety of products. Promoting each website gives one an opportunity to earn multiple streams of income. Each website is already built for you and setting up your system is quick and easy.

The program is a trial period…all one has to pay is for shipping and handling. However, the trial period ONLY last for 3 days and your credit card is then charged a ONE-TIME rate of $139.95. To keep up access to all the features in your system, a $4.95 monthly website hosting and maintenance cost is charged. This charge is billed to your account until you cancel. Once the order is submitted, your materials will ship out in about two weeks. The problem with this is, you are not guaranteed to get your stuff during the trial period which makes it difficult to decide if you want to pursue before the $139.95 is charged. Many people do not see the fine print before they sign up and do not find out the real charges, until it is too late!

Home Income Wealth System promises people who join a lot, but their program is incomplete. It has also been reported that it is difficult to contact customer support if one wants a refund or cancels their membership. They often advertise their money kits through artificial ads or other false advertisements generating millions of dollars from unknowing customers. This program closely resemble other sites such as Home Income Profit System and BlackBelt Profit System; they just rename it and started over. Tactics like these are the reason making money online is extremely difficult.

It is in my opinion that anyone thinking about becoming a member of this program stay far away as possible. There are online scams out there, and I think this is one of them.

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It’s easy to get so caught up in posting fresh content for your blog that you forget to take care of one very important page: your blog’s home page. You might be surprised by how much authority and how many links – and visitors – this page can attract if you optimize it properly.

Scott Cowley brought this to my attention in a post for Search Engine Journal. Many blog home pages don’t have much content of their own beyond each day’s new posts, which makes optimization a challenge. So what can a blogger do?

Well, let’s start with the title of your blog. Cowley noted that most blogs just use some variation of “Company X Blog” as their title. That might be okay if you’re focused on branding, but it’s not very descriptive; in fact, it’s kind of boring, which may be the last thing you want if you’re trying to attract visitors from the search engines. Picking a highly-competitive title like “SEO Blog” isn’t necessarily the right answer, either.

So what should you put in your title? Michael Martinez uses a very simple description of what his blog is all about in his title: SEO Theory and Analysis. You can take the same approach, but you need to do some keyword research.  What topic do you want to make the focus of your blog? Do you even want to call it a “blog”? If you’re writing a blog that gives step-by-step descriptions of how to code smartphone applications, for instance, you could use words like “tips,” “hacks,” “tools,” “how-tos,” “tutorials,” and more. Cowley encourages you to “Get creative with a thesaurus” to find “less-competitive, more attainable words.”

Next, plan to optimize everything on your blog’s home page that you’d ordinarily optimize on every other page. This means paying attention to your blog’s title tag, H1 tag, body content, and internal links pointing to the page. You might have to add a few code tweaks to pull this off, because, as Cowley observes, most blogs aren’t set up to optimize the home page as you would a normal page.

The title tag and meta description should be a breeze; you can easily use keywords there. But what about the H1 tag? You’ll probably need to add one above your regular posts. You can give it something very short and descriptive that won’t detract from the rest of the page. Likewise, internal links shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Any writer worth their salt can come up with a sensible and creative way to link an article to a blog’s or site’s home page, especially when they’re covering the field of SEO.

The sticking point for blog home page optimization, however, is content. Most blog home pages don’t feature much static content. Post pages, on the other hand, give you hundreds of words with which to work SEO magic. Regular bloggers often put their static content in an About Me page. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but that’s not where your posts will get read, and hardly anybody will link to it. You need to get some static content on your blog home page, where it will do some good.

So how do you accomplish this? Cowley notes two different techniques. One way is to build a sidebar into which you incorporate static content. If you do that, however, that content will show up on every page, not just your blog’s home page. That amounts to an unacceptable dilution of your SEO effort.

So forget about the sidebar. Instead, consider adding a block of text that comes just before or just after your most recent posts on your home page. Make sure you code it so that the text shows up ONLY on your blog home page, and not on any other page of your site. Cowley observes that not many bloggers are doing this, “but it enhances the SEO in a way that an optimized title tag alone can’t.”

You can use this static content to talk about the topics you plan to cover. For example, “This blog will document my journey as I attempt to learn one new craft every week for a year and use every one of them to embellish one dress.” (Okay, I get crazy ideas sometimes). You can talk about your background, dreams, hopes, approach to your blog…anything that’s relevant.

Don’t go on for too long, however. You really hope that your visitors will want to read and keep up with your new posts, so the point of this static content on your blog (beyond the obvious SEO purpose) is to whet their appetite for your posts. Cowley linked to one example he described as “awkward.” I checked it; at almost 300 words, it seemed overly long and set off my “keyword stuffing” meter. But you can look at it as a starting point of sorts, upon which you can improve.

You might want to try various different lengths and phrasing to see what works best. Having read Cowley’s example, if I were doing this for my own blog, I’d shoot for around 200 words in two to three short paragraphs, and try to use my chosen keywords no more than twice per paragraph. (Cowley’s example used their chosen keyword a minimum of 10 times, and I’m not counting all of the phrases that were clearly derivations of the keyword). I’d keep it for at least a month or two, do some analytics, and then decide if I want to tweak things. That’s one of the truths about SEO: nothing is static forever, not even static content. Still, this is one piece of static content that should help the rest of your (dynamic) blog. Good luck!

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Article source: http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Search-Engine-Optimization-Help/Blog-SEO-Begins-on-the-Home-Page/

ClickBank is the largest supplier of digital merchandise on the Internet and their affiliate program provides home business opportunities for many aspiring Internet marketers online. If you’re looking for a work from home idea then ClickBank may be right for you. However, before you decide to join there are several things you should consider before subscribing:

1. Your first consideration should be whether or not you have your own product to sell and if it’s digital in nature? ClickBank doesn’t deal in physical goods but if you have an ebook, software or some other type of downloadable digital product to advertise then they’re the Internet distributor for you and your home business merchandise.

2. If you don’t have your own product to promote then you should ask yourself if advertising other people’s products as an affiliate by adding links to your website is something that interests you as an Internet marketer. If so then collecting commission from these product offers may be the opportunity you’re trying to find on the web.

3. Who is your target audience when you’re trying to drive traffic to your website? Are you trying to attract other online home based business owners and other Internet marketers who would be interested in purchasing ClickBank merchandise? If these are your type of website guests then this may be an idea whose time has come as your Internet enterprise.

4. Do you generate the amount of traffic you’ll need to make this a successful venture with little or no risk involved? It doesn’t make sense to take on this responsibility if the numbers just aren’t there in terms of targeted visitors to your home page because you just won’t make the sales you’ll need to make this a profitable proposition.

5. Do you own your own domain name or is your website hosted free of charge by an outside service provider? If the answer is no then you must buy your own domain name and pay to have it hosted in order to satisfy ClickBank’s requirements.

This will require learning how to choose an appropriate website moniker and knowing how to register your name as a self hosted site so you can keep your product provider happy.

ClickBank has given countless numbers of people the financial independence they’ve been searching for online via a home based business. However, before joining their program you should ask yourself all of these questions so you can make an informed decision and be confident this is the opportunity you’ve been looking for on the web.

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