Since I last created a post to this site, I’ve been busy developing strategies on how to make more money from the ‘net.  I’ve tried a few different approaches with varying degrees of success and have come to the realization that only 2 things really matter when it comes to making money.  One of the variables is easier to manipulate (and should be!) and the other has more to do with how much money you want to spend to see things through.  Sure, it is possible for the 2nd variable to occur naturally but it will take time.  If you’re like me, you like to see results quickly.  So, here are the two variables:

1- A captive audience – This is your target audience.  You design your website and fill it with content so that these people find your site and make a decision to spend money through it.  I say “through” it because you’re most likely building an affiliate site so you’re not selling anything.  Your website visitors see your content, and decide you are trustworthy enough to click on a link and go spend money at the target site.

The ‘captive’ part of having an audience is the bit that’s really interesting.  You are able to almost completely manipulate your audience so that they are captive.  If you are anything like me, this part stinks.  I have no artistic ability and really struggle to make a website design look good.  I spent a lot of time going through design iterations and end up settling for something that I know is less than optimal…but then I spend a lot of other time creating good content on my website so I think that things balance out.

2- Traffic.  This has been my mantra: “Traffic is the new gold”.  I believe that if you have enough visitors to ANY site, you’ll end up making money.  If you’re selling something desirable (like a Nintendo Wii) and get average traffic, you’ll make money.  If you’re selling crap and get a bazillion visitors, you’ll make money.  It all comes down to traffic.  If you have a budget of $100-$500, you can create a lot of traffic rather quickly (Google adwords, paid ads on relative websites, etc…) and hopefully build from there.  However, if you are a cheapskate and don’t want to spend any money, you have to earn your stripes and do hard-core work that will take months to give you any results.

Right now I’m still working on factor #1.  I am getting organic traffic to my websites and need to create a more captivating environment for these folks to decide to spend money.  In the future, I plan to grow the number of websites that I have and will also have a budget for marketing.  This is all still trial and error for me but I believe that I’m on the right track.

One of my mantras is that it’s better to give than to receive, so without further ado here is a list of some helpful links that I found this week:

Are You Writing with Clarity?

 The Pros and Cons of Niche Blogging

Bloglines Launches Top 1000

How I gain 6,691 RSS Readers in 1 Month

Grip Your Readers With These 7 Knock Out Opening Sentences

The Adsense Check For $132,994,97

8 Ways to Make Money Online

So there you have it, folks!  These links should provide you with enough information to last you the weekend!  Go study and share what you learned!

As I talked about in a previous article, there are many affiliate programs that can be joined in order to make money online.  Affiliate programs are the 3rd party that handle clicks from your site to the product site and are the ones responsible for give you credit whenever you make a sale.  With so many different affiliate programs available, it can be confusing and difficult to find a reliable and helpful affiliate program.

Whenever you consider joining an affiliate program, you should really think about what they have to offer you.  After all, you will be working for these people.  It is only right that they offer you something other than links in exchange.  MoreNiche is a great example of a solid affiliate program.  In addition to offering solid products to promote, MoreNiche provides great customer support with a staff that seems to always be available to help.  MoreNiche really realizes that you are their most important asset and that without you as an affiliate, they won’t make any money.

These are the things in which MoreNiche excel:

Product Variety 

MoreNiche is not like Commission Junction.  While CJ is a very good program offering a wide variety of vendors and products, MoreNiche is specific in that they offer products in the health niche and money niche.  The products that are offered by MoreNiche are industry leaders and are able to generate their affiliates a lot of money.  Last month, for example, their top affiliate earned over $28,000 in commissions, proving that their products work.
Customer Support 

As I mentioned above, customer service is crucial to help you make money.  MoreNiche has a discussion board and they encourage all of their users to communicate to them via the boards.  If that weren’t enough, the affiliate managers are also available by email and instant messenger.  They want to help you to make money are are willing to spend time to help you do that.  In addition to customer support, they will even help you design a website and get started in affiliate marketing.

Prompt Payments 

The goal of your efforts is to make money, isn’t it?  Then getting paid for your work should be a priority.  MoreNiche sends out payments twice a month, ensuring that you are compensated for your hard work.

Affiliate Programs are everywhere.  It’s extremely important that you find a reliable one who will help make money and support you along the way.  Join MoreNiche and start making money online!

Yesterday I wrote that I liked a lot of things Google has to offer its users. As a user, I am fond of Google and its offerings. However, as a marketer and budding webtrepreneur, I must say that there are several things that drive me crazy about Google. Google represents more than just a search engine when you’re a web developer. As a content creator, Google represents your challenge. Some may even say that Google is their nemesis. What I mean is that Google can make or break your business and dreams. One day the engine may rank you favorably, and the next day you may be gone from the first hundred pages of results, rendering your site invisible.

Organic search is, in my opinion, the best way to get traffic. Not only is it free, but it drives in people that are looking for your content. In contrast to advertisements, social media sites, or forum communities where people click through and stay on your site for less than 30 seconds, organic search results drive curious people who are looking for what you have to say and these people are the ones who are most likely to buy what you are selling. Your search ranking on Google or any other engine (but really, do they matter that much?) can equate to a lot of money or it can make you cry at night because you are not even bringing in enough money to bay for your hosting bill.

It is from this perspective, the perspective of a website builder and content provider, that I write this list. This represents what I find most frustrating and difficult about Google and feel that I can’t possibly be the only one on the entire Internet who feels this way.

SERP Fluctuation

SERP (Search Engine Results Page or Search Engine Ranking Position) is how high or low your website ranks when someone does a search for a given term. For example, a search for “Nicaraguan coffee” yields over 1.3 million results. If you are serious about internet marketing and are actively trying to make money from a site that sells Nicaraguan coffee, then the ‘rank’ that you receive from the search is very important. If you don’t come up in the first 10 spots, your profitability drops very rapidly. That is why SERP is so important. If you place well, you can stand to get a lot of visitors and make a lot of money.

This is my #1 frustration with Google. It is impossible to know exactly how Google ranks certain pages. From experience, I have been nearly driven mad. One day I had a term ranking #2. It brought me a lot of traffic for a certain niche and I was making about $60 a day. Too bad that this only lasted for 3 days. The 4th day after ranking at #2 consistently, my site started showing up at #146. I’m not making this up. I did not change the site other than add quality content to it but the site stayed at #146 or lower for about 2 months. Sometimes the site wouldn’t show up at all even after I searched over 400 results. It is finally making its way back up the list but it caused me to nearly quit that site.

Backlinks

Simply put, backlinks are links from other sites to your site. It is assumed that the number of backlinks coming into your site affect your search engine rankings. My opinion is that more backlinks help to place a site better on a results page. Google even offers a way for you to check for backlinks to your site. The problem is, I’ve never had a site show up in those results. I don’t know what Google considers a backlink but their backlink check only ever returns 1 results in all of the sites that I own. It’s rather frustrating, especially if building backlinks is the foundation of results placement.

SPAM Sites Do Well

Along the lines of SERPs comes the topic of SPAM. In certain niches in which I have sites, there are a handful of sites that are completely crap but they rank higher than me. These sites include sites with only 1 page, sites with irrelevant domain names, and sites that are written very poorly. How is that fair? I spend a lot of time making sure my sites are accurate, well written, standards compliant, more accessible, etc…and somehow they end up at the bottom of the pile.

My lesson so far has been to not give up. Eventually, I hope, Google will have its algorithm squared away in a way that it will eliminate the SPAM and eat up the ham. I just hope that day arrives soon.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a big fan of John Chow and his blog.  I’ve been a regular visitor to his site and an RSS reader for quite some time and like his reviews, his attitude, and his outlook on the Internet.  Life is pretty good for John these days…he rakes in a lot of money from his blog in addition to what he makes with his other projects (TTZ Media and who knows what else).  One of the things that I like most about John Chow’s blog are his commentaries on his daily life and his restaurant reviews.  Aside from lifestyle opinions and his sense of humor, I’m not entirely sure why his website is so popular though.

While John offers the newbie blogger a few helpful tips once in a while, it seems that a lot of posts are paid review ads, general off-topic commentary (like what he had to eat or what you’re not allowed to do on new airplanes),  or some kind of self promotion.  I don’t think any of those things are bad, really, but I do have to question the quality of the blog when it relates to his mantra, which is “I make money online by telling people how I make money online”.

Once a month he tells everyone about how much money he made with his blog, and how much money came from what strategy.  I think that this once a month post is the most worthwhile thing he writes, and now for some reason I, like thousands of others, can’t seem to tear myself away from his blog even though there’s only one loaded blog post every 30 days.

As a new blogger, I’ve realized that it’s really quite difficult to write content that all of your readers will find useful on a daily basis and I do give John a lot of credit for that.  Additionally, I know that there’s only so much one person can say on a certain topic without sounding like a broken record. His posts, although fluffy, are well written and I enjoy them to some extent but if his blog were a stock, I would sell while it’s hot.