Archive for 'September, 2008'

I don’t care if you’re a blogger, affiliate marketer, or niche marketer – there are opportunities right in your own backyard to make money and you’re missing the boat big time!!

This post is part of the How to Build Income Online Series!

I’ve written a lot about writing about what you know, and blogging about your experiences for profit. What I didn’t tell you was there are things you know about that you haven’t even considered putting to use online quite yet – because you didn’t know it could make you money. That’s right – there are things right in your own backyard that could be passively making you money, right now! This is no BS or hype, I’m not trying to sell you the next ‘big thing’ – I just don’t want you to miss out on glaring opportunities (like I did for so long). Let me elaborate…

Wherever you live in the world, searches hit google each and every day based on keyword that relate to your region. Searches about travel, about tickets, about schools, about bars and restaraunts, about shopping, about festivals and fairs, about jobs and trades, and more each and every day. A lot of these searches come back with little or no quality results, and with just basic SEO you could literally DOMINATE search results each and every time in many of these areas. All you have to do is fill a need that isn’t already being met (well).

People now use google (and all search engines) like a phone book. The yellow pages are outdated, and nearly everyone I know just searches online for just about everything.

Here are some scenarios in which people search for something “local”:

• Who has the best pizza in abc town?
• Where can I find an poodle dog breeder in abc town?
• Who boards animals locally?
• Where can I rent a car in abc town?
• What are the best bed and breakfasts in anytown USA?
• Where can I watch a live band abc town?
• Where can I sing karaoke in abc town?
• Where can I get concert tickets for abc arena?
• Where can I find school closing info for abc school?
• Where can I rent a hall for a wedding in abc town?
• Where can I rent a tuxedo in abcville?
• Where can I get honest car repair in abc town?
• Who repairs appliances in abc town?
• Local classifieds or rummage sales for abc town?
• Churches in abc town?
• Phone number for abc dentist in abc town?
• Tent rental for graduation open house in abc town?
• Catering in abc town?
• Photography in abc town?
• Licensed contractors in abc town?
• Apartment inspection in abc town?
• Recycling in abc town?
• Firewood in abc town?
• Camping in abc town?
• Private tutors in abc town?
• Apartment or house rentals in abc town?
• Mortgages in abc town?
• Lawyer in abc town?
• Doctor, Dentist, or specialist in abc town?

I could literally go on for days and days and days with this list. I don’t care where you live – people are searching daily for things online in your local area, town, city, state, and region, and if you are reading my blog you probably already have your own web sites. Odds are most (if not all) of them are based on topics or niches that a targeted at people across the world. Instead of “thinking big”, decidedly narrow your focus for once, and create a few very small, very focused, very local web sites.

The top 5 reasons for doing this are:

1. Diversification of Income: Have as many income streams coming in as you can to build monthly income consistently across the board. Would you rather have 2 web sites with 20,000 visitors per month or 20 web sites with 1,000 visitors per month? Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

2. Increased profit based on relevancy: If you very small web site listing “weight loss surgeons” in your local area – odds are that the adsense ads will be much more targeted, and they will pay more per click. Also – it would be fairly easy to send out flyers (probably under $20) contacting all the doctors and offer them a detailed “bio” page with picture and their ad copy for $50 per year. If only 10 signup that’s $500 for a year – which is $41 per month for bio pages alone, not counting adsense revenue or any other kind of monetization at all.

3. Low Maintenance: Unlike a traditional blog, BANS site, or niche store – these little “mini sites” require little to no maintenance once initially setup. Small sites like this can be successful at just a few or up to a dozen pages. The content doesn’t change very often, so maintenance is very low.

4. Low amount of promotion and marketing required: Once your site is initially indexed in google, it can be very easy to rank high for search terms that nearly no one else is competing for. In most cases no one is competing for phrases like “math tutor boise idaho”, or “chair and tent rental paris texas”. Trust me, it’s much easier to rank for these than it is “blue ipod nano”! Most of these sites you can build a half dozen banklinks for and walk away.

5. Little to No Competition: As I’ve pointed out the concept of building a local web site is that instead of competing against the whole Internet you are narrowing it down to a small pond. You are the expert about the things in your local area, things that “yellowbook” or zip code spam sites online could ever know.

Findlaw.com may list every lawyer in the United States, but you are the only one that can list family lawyers in your town, interview each one and provide insight as to why you might need to choose one over another. You could add local flavor or history to items and events that no national web site or blog could ever do. If you lived in say, the Carolina’s – you could start a travelogue web site about your local area and add in history and stories about the places you’ve been that beats the living crap out of anything you could ever find on hotels.com or Expedia.

There is one last reason to create a “backyard” local web site, and that’s – GOOGLE LOVES ORIGINAL CONTENT. I see so many people trying to ‘beat the system’ by spinning content, rewriting articles, scraping, auto-blogging and what-not. All these methods provide very inconsistent income and daily run the risk of being banned, blacklisted, or even removed from google and other search engines altogether. People wonder why Adsense and eBay Parter Network cancel accounts – it’s because there are so many low quality thin (on content) spammy web sites out there it’s not funny.

If you make a good local web site that provides information not already out there, or present already available information in a better format – google will LOVE you and reward you by sending quality laser targeted traffic.

Contrary to what you may think – you don’t have to be a web designer, know how to code or write HTML, know how to blog, or even make graphics to quickly make quality local mini-web-sites. Next time I’ll show you how to create them easily, and quickly – using a free script that requires no database at all. Yes, WordPress is great, but sometimes you just don’t need a tractor to mow your tiny front yard!

This unique WordPress hack will allow you to index tag pages you create without having to create template files for each and every one.

This post is part of 30 WordPress hacks in 30 days.

Back in WordPress Hack #15: Hacking WordPress Tags I described how to add “tag support” to your WordPress theme files, and how to add a “tag cloud” like the one I use on this blog in the bottom of the left sidebar. When you “tag” pages you are actually creating additional pages in your blog – that can get indexed by search engines.

For example, let’s say that I create a new post about an iPod. I put the post in the “gadget” category, and tag it “iPod” and “mp3 player”. Within the WordPress paradigm many things happen…

1. A new post page is created based on your single.php theme file using the post title as permalink
2. The post is added to the top of your blog home (usually your index.php home, unless you changed it – like I did)
3. The post is added to the appropriate archive pages for day, month, year, etc.
4. The post is added to all “category” pages you assigned it to
5. The post is added to all “tag” pages you added it to

If you read WordPress Hack #18: WordPress Template Files, you already know that you can create custom “tag” and “category” pages, so when the old google crawler comes a-knockin’ it will find original content and not penalize your blog in search rankings. The problem normally is – if you’re a prolific blogger, you (like many of us) may have a few dozen categories, and hundreds (if not thousands) of tag pages.

When you categorize a post, you can find it within your blog at:
www.site.com/category/cat-name

When you tag a post you can find it within your blog at:
www.site.com/tag/tag-name

To create a custom page for any category or tag page, all you have to do is use your index.php or single.php to create a new WordPress theme file. Open either index.php or single.php in a text editor and “save as” either:

category-id.php (for category pages)
or
tag-slug.php (for tag pages)

This means if my “gadget” category was “17″ then my theme file for it would be “category-18.php”. If my tag was “mp3 player”, then my theme file for it would be “tag-mp3-player.php”. View my WordPress Template Files hack page for pics and a better description.

So – What “I” did was create category theme files for every category I had. THEN, I created a single “tag.php” file that would display for every tag page I have. What I didn’t mention up until now was that if you create a “category.php” and “tag.php” file and put them in your theme directory that these will be used for ANY category or tag pages that don’t already have one for that slug or ID.

Every blog is of course a different topic (or niche), but this is what I did for tag pages on one blog I own. I used the tag title to create a different description lead-in sentence to get each tag page listed in the search engines. Right before “the loop” I placed this bit of code to do that:

<p><?php single_tag_title('This page is about '); ?>!
My blog is about geeky tech stuff, technology, Linux,
gadgets, web tools, and more!
<?php single_tag_title('If you like '); ?>,
the posts below should be right up your alley!!

That code gets the “tag_title” and uses it like this (for the example “mp3 player”):

“This page is about MP3 Players! My blog is about geeky tech stuff, technology, Linux, gadgets, web tools, and more! If you like MP3 Players, the posts below should be right up your alley!!”

I did this a month ago on one of my blogs, and all the tag pages are indexing nicely! I’m sure you could hack this up even further – but this simple little solution fixed my tag page indexing problem quickly.

Blogs with different types of content and visitors required different monetization strategies.

I read a lot of blogs that talk about “I made money with this or that…”, but they don’t talk a lot about the type of site usually. I also read posts stating “I can’t make anything with “X” affiliate” as well. I often see the wrong type of monetization of certain blogs and I felt it was time to point out what IMHO works better.

First Monetizaton Rule:
Sign up for EVERY affiliate program you come accross. Just because you don’t have a use for it today – doesn’t mean you won’t tomorrow. I EVENTUALLY use every affiliate account I ever sign up for.

Examples of Affiliates to Sign Up for

PPC Text Ads:

Google Adsense (I use heavily)
AdBrite (I use on specific sites)

Contextual Ads:

Clicksor (I no longer use)
Kontera (I no longer use)
Infolinks (I now exclusively use)

Affiliate Links, Ads, Offers, and Banners:

Commission Junction (I use a LOT)
Amazon (I use a LOT)
Clickbank (I use for a few things)
eBay Partner Network (I use a LOT)
Pepperjam Network (I use quite a bit)
LinkShare (I use on many sites)
ShareASale (I use on specific sites)
NeverBlue Ads (just starting to use)

These are just examples of course, and I belong the hundreds and hundreds of affiliate programs enabling me to (literally) promote just about anything I want in any niche. Every time you sign up for an affiliate program – you get new options. The merchants for that affiliate may work well for some blogs or web sites you own, but not for others.

Types and Amount of Traffic determine Blog Profit

Too often I see odd monetization. The one that’s been overutilized in my opinion in year’s past were the Chitika Ads people placed on blogs. They don’t have the same types of ads any more (they’ve gotten better), but they used to have the “mini-mall” type of widget that displayed iPods, digital cameras, flat screen monitors – you remember the ones. I would see these on everything from blogs about making money online to politics and cooking. I think the odds of someone reading about wordpress plugins or how to roast a chicken seeing an ad for a Canon Sureshot, clicking on it, and buying it impulsively are pretty darn low.

Try to understand the traffic you have on a blog, the type of reader, what they’re looking for, how long they will stay, and their likeliness to click on ads. Analyzing my blog traffic, I have specific types of visitors I market to…

Types of Blog Visitors

1. Pop Traffic: These are visitors that search for things like jokes, flash games, celebrity gossip, pics and videos, music, song lyrics, freebies, ringtones, etc. They don’t stay long, the click through rates are low, but this is the type of traffic to market offers through MaxBounty. It’s also good for using Adsense and contextual links through Infolinks. Sometimes you can use a product widget, but affiliate product links don’t usually work well here. Pop traffic visitors aren’t very loyal and they are a bit less educated (usually).
2. Geek Traffic: These are visitors that use Firefox, Linux, and the web and gadgets a lot. They are pretty blind to normal ads on web pages, so it’s better to review something and then follow it up with affiliate links to that product or service. You won’t fool them with stupid offers, and contextual links aren’t worth bothering with. Using adsense can go either way. I’ve found that eBay auctions, Amazon products, and Commission Junction merchants can work well. Geeks have money, and if your content is good they will come back over and over again.
3. Male of Female traffic: This applies to specific sites like a sports blog (male), a handbag or fashion site (female), or blogs that appeal to a particula demographic. Cater to that demographic like no tomorrow and you will do well. This is pretty easy to figure out – men don’t buy cosmetics and women (typically) aren’t interested in the latest Xbox game. Women like long detailed explanations, men like quick descriptions with pictures. Both can be impulsive and be conscious of the income and education level of your traffic. This will determine whether MaxBounty offers or contextual ads will work well, and what types of affiliate merchants you can promote best.
4. Lifestyle or Research traffic: These are people looking for specific things, like health info, product reviews, tutorials, parts of some kind, research for a house or car, or even information about careers, sexuality, or education. Again – cater to the visitor paying careful attention to their demographic. If you’re good at this you can provide relevant affiliate offers, products, or ads that convert well because it looks more like you are providing a service than “selling” someone.

These of course aren’t the only types of traffic, it’s just a quick way to explain some of the types of traffic I get on some of my blogs.

Different Ways to Monetize the Same Offer

I usually use different affiliate programs for different things. Amazon, Commission Junction, and eBay are great for gadgets, computer type things, home entertainment products and such…but sometimes I can use an offer from MaxBounty (an affiliate program I normally reserve for “Pop” traffic) across multiple blogs with different content and visitors. I just have to modify the way that I present it.

I’ll give you an example. Today I logged in to MaxBounty to find a great new offer from Blockbuster.

Here’s the screenshot:

This is a pretty good offer! Blockbuster is aggresively trying to get new customers to catch up to Netflix, and they’re paying $44.00 for each signup you refer to them currently. That’s a massive payout per sale. In addition to that – people who signup get the first month for half off – only $9.99 to join! I can market this offer many different ways. On a joke site, I might just use a banner for the pop traffic. On the geek blog I’d write a review comparing it to Netflix. You could write a movie review or review of a DVD or Blu-Ray player and use the offer. I could put a text link to it in my sidebar on any blog. I could use it in a stripe ad accross the top of any blog. I could use a 125 graphic ad on any blog. This exact same offer could work 100x better on any given blog if you present it right for the demographic and type of traffic you get.

In future posts I’ll go into depth more about how about specific merchants and how to manage ads more effectively in your blog. I hope that this infomation at least points you in the right direction to better monetize your blog based on the type of traffic it gets!

Leaving your day job to be a full time pro blogger? Here’s a few things you need to know…

How many people do you know that would kill to work for themselves doing something they love? How many would love it even more if they could do the job from their own home – even from their couch?? Like most things, the grass always looks greener on the other side. The reasons that most people aren’t successful working online aren’t any different than the reasons why most people aren’t successful opening their own brick and mortar businesses. It’s hard work, long hours, sacrifice – and raw talent and a bit of money can go a long way.

Did you think I was going to tell you something different? I’m not going to tell you how you can work just a few hours per day and make thousands a month with google or eBay. I’m not selling my “personal success system”, my consulting services, ebooks, or software. I just another guy trying to make money online being completely honest about how I go about it.

I started this blog a little over a year ago. I now have 153 posts, 23 pages, 48 drafts, 25 categories, 124 tags, and 799 approved comments. This blog is now ranked 80,876 in Alexa and I have a Technorati rating of 362. A LOT has changed in the last year. I started working online about 2 1/2 years ago. I started this blog to write about all my struggles and mistakes and things I learned over time. The first post series I ever wrote was How I started Blogging Part 1.

Here’s a short list of advice I can give you as a full-time blogger:

• Most new blogs won’t get comments until you have 30-50 quality posts
• Don’t expect comments if you don’t leave them on other blogs
• Concentrate on blogging about what you have the most personal experience about
• Article Marketing and forum posts build links quickly
• Monetize from Day #1
• Anything that seems like it’s hyped too much probably is
• Nearly all eBooks contain information freely available on the web, you’re just paying to get it quickly and all at once
• Most software or scripts for web sites over $100 isn’t worth the money
• Very few services are worth paying a monthly fee for
• Learn a little SEO every day
• Never pay a web host for more than a month at a time
• Buy a dot com name every time if you can
• Don’t monetize with a service or place an affiliate link for products you yourself wouldn’t buy or use
• To make money you have to spend a little money
• If you’re not organized – you’re losing money (almost daily!)
• Don’t be stupid – diversify your monthly income as many ways as you can
• Have two months or more backup funds available at all times
• It can take 1-2 years to get established and become successful working online
• Making a few thousand dollars per month is not success – you have to pay taxes, self employment tax, health insurance, and your own retirement

Sometimes on this blog you may not hear from me or see a post for a few days, or even a week. That’s because I’m working. If I was constantly working on this blog I wouldn’t be diversifying my income would I? When I was first getting this blog off the ground I was working on it for the bulk of the week. Then after awhile I realized I was neglecting my other blogs by paying it too much attention. I also noticed that some of my favorite bloggers wouldn’t posts for 3-4 days at times and sometimes for an entire week. Then they would post about what they had been working on. I’m now trying to do the same. It’s surely not like I don’t have enough material to blog here every day, I have enough backlog drafts to go on for 60 days without a new idea.

I’d also like to share with you a bit about being organized as a full time blogger. I’ve found that the key ingredients for success are focus and tracking. You don’t know where you’re going without a plan, and you don’t know how well you’ve done if you don’t keep track. I’m not even that good at this and I’ve been more successful since I tried to develop my own work planning methods.

My suggestion to you is to use Google Docs. Signup if you haven’t already (it’s free!). Start a new spreadsheet. Enter everything you need to work on. For me, I own 37 domains, so I entered them all in one column. Then in the following columns I enter what the post frequency should be (2, 3, 4, or 5x per week), the type of site (WordPress, Drupal, BANS, static, etc), the status (parked, live, half-setup, not used, not setup, etc), what I actually did that week (blank, posted x times, setup, etc), the next column is “linkbuild” and I enter what I did that week (blog comments, forum posts, article market, etc), the next column is setup/update (upgrade wordpress, plugins, monetization, etc), and the last column is “to-do” (add privacy policy, change theme, add graphics, etc).

Here’s a screenshot…

Your online workplan doesn’t have to be the same, but make a spreadsheet outlining what you work on, what you need to do, and then log in what you actually did for the week. Then revise for the next week. Over time you’ll become more diligent about your work habits because you’re doing your own assessment and self-review. What I plan to do is start adding things in like the amount of money made per day or week so I can directly begin to tie my work to profit. It’s easy to work harder when you’ve proven to yourself that certain types of work make more money. If you’ve not been that successful, creating your beginning spreadsheets should blatantly show how you are spending your time and it should be easy to regroup and concentrate on more revenue generating activities.

Do you have different methods for being successful online? Do you plan your online work?