Blog Income Life

Blogging for Money and Loving It!

Archive for November, 2009

No. 2 Sucks!

Nov 28

Posted by Valentina in Internet Marketing, Making Money | 5 Comments

The worldwide metals value hierarchy goes like this:

No. 1 = gold
No. 2 = silver
No. 3 = copper

Today, gold is trading at US$1176, silver at US$ 18.34 and copper at US$3.13. There is a chasm of a difference between number one gold and number two silver.  The same applies to the world of the internet and blog incomes.

I’m a note collector.  The notes would be better served if I also noted the source of those notes.  Recently I was going through my “ blog content” file and came across a sheet of notes.  At the top I had written “No. 2 Sucks!”

Looking at the numbers I immediately understood why.

The numbers addressed Google, but as a rule of thumb you can easily apply it to any sort of traffic driven income.  Under discussion was the income that the top ten ranked in Google would get as a percentage of total traffic for a keyword.  Number one position can expect to get 42%, number two 11.9%!  The drop off after that continues but is not as dramatic, by the time you get to number ten, you are looking at 3%.

Let’s just stay with positions one and two and ten for the time being.  Take an extremely competitive keyword phrase, but an extremely lucrative one such as internet marketing.

Daily searches:  73,647

No. 1 ranked receives 42% of traffic:  30,930
No. 2 ranked receives 11.9%  of traffic:  8,763
No. 10 ranked receives 3%  of traffic:  2,209

Here is how the potential income for the keyword phrase internet marketing looks like in rounded off numbers

No. 1  = $259K
No. 2  = $ 73K
No. 10 = $ 18K

Now granted $18K isn’t exactly chopped liver IF you can get to that page.  Considering that there are almost 7 million pages which mention “internet marketing” the jostling in the lineup starts long before page 1.

What if you have a niche market where the daily search is 217 and the total number of pages that the keyword appears on is only 40,000.  Say the total purse for your chosen keyword is only $316.00, then this is what the figures begin to look like:

No. 1  = $138
No. 2   =$37
No. 10 =$9

In both instances the biggest drop is between position no.1 and no. 2.  It’s like that in everything in life.  The brand new car driven off the show room has the biggest depreciation in value after year one.  The leading movie star gets millions, the co-star thousands.  The gold medal winner makes the money with lucrative sponsorships, the silver gets the second tier.

That reminds me of the time my accountant and I were discussing my income and tax strategies.  As an employee I had only the most basic of tax deductions available to me.  I fell into the highest income tax bracket and was crying the blues about how little of my hard earned money I got to keep.  No wonder it was tough meeting all my financial obligations, I blurted out, how can anyone live on that amount?

My accountant looked me straight in the eye, and after what seemed like an eternity of time, he broke the silence and told me that I was in the top 3% income earners of the country, of the COUNTRY!  I was aghast.  I had no idea I was in such an elevated percentage. Considering what I was making, I didn’t think that was all that impressive. I immediately asked what did the top 1% make?

“Aaah, that’s a different story” he said.  “The difference is huge.”

If you want to develop a blog income life, to drink fine wines, dine on epicurean delights, travel on exotic vacations and live in the house of your dreams, then you have to write a “different story” and leap the chasm.  Work smart, put in the time and get to position one or at the very least on page one.  That goes beyond Adsense.  The no. 1 affiliate for a product is light years ahead of no. 2.  The highest traffic generating blog asks for and gets the highest sponsored ad dollars.  Pick your battle and go win it.

Happy Blogging!

Valentina

The Big Cheese is No. 1

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Link Exchange Strategies that Work

Nov 23

Posted by Valentina in Internet Marketing, Link Building, Making Money | 6 Comments

When speaking with other bloggers the topic of how to exchange links often comes up.  I am not a great fan of  requesting link exchanges. I think that this may have been effective in the past, but the value of two sites bouncing off of each other with links is minimal at best in helping you to grow your blog income life.  Those bots are getting smarter all the time and see that as being artificial.  Does that mean that you should never request any link exchanges?  No, of course not, but let’s strategize  for maximum effect and apply some basic rules.

1. Climbing the Page Rank Ladder
It’s a big payday if a PR4 or PR5 publishes a link back to you.  We dream of this.  Chances are that it will remain a dream unless we somehow earn that distinction and it certainly won’t be just by emailing a request for a link exchange.

I’ve read somewhere that it’s a numbers game and if we send enough requests to high ranking sites that some will accept, and that it takes only a few to make us look like an upcoming celebrity in the eyes of Google.  Personally I don’t like this approach.  It’s like throwing mud at the wall and hoping some of it will stick

2.  Guest Blogging.
One way to get a strong backlink from a high ranked blogger is to submit a guest post. Make it good.  Nathan Hangen who developed Twitter Rockstar has built up at least a portion of his blogging career by posting on high ranking blogs.  He says that he put in more effort into his guest blogs than he did into his own, that his best work is on other blogger’s blogs.  That makes sense.  If a high ranking blogger is going to give you valuable space on his blog the content and quality better be good.  Chalk it up to the cost of doing business.

3. Develop Relationships
I am a strong believer of developing online relationships.  Select blogs that are in your niche or are complimentary and post comments there.  But please, do me a favor, something more than just “Hey dude!  Great post man” … that is an insult.  There is no indication that you actually read the post and it looks like you are just milking the system.  Developing a good relationship in the blogosphere world is getting to know the blogger, and the best way is to read the posts and make good thoughtful comments.

The immediate thought is to pick out only the top bloggers to post on.  Sure, that is good but a top blogger who gets thousands of visitors a day and a lot of comments is not going to take notice of you, at least not right away.  His assistant might.  What you get here is a low value backlink to your blog.

There are many good up and coming bloggers who are in the lower hierarchies of page ranking – maybe not even ranked.  If there content is good, if they make me think, if I learn something from them, if I like their spunk and stick toitiveness, I’ll certainly comment. The favor may be returned but don’t expect it.  This is not the type of bouncing of links that I am talking about.  This begins to establish rapport with someone who is in your leagues, is on the way up and with whom you would like to build a relationship.  Even if you are ranking above this aspiring blogger, giving a leg up is good.

I think a good strategy would be to comment on both the super blogs and the up and coming ones.

4. Develop Your Own Community.
Search for bloggers not only in the same niche but with some commonalities so that you already establish yourselves as part of a group.  One of the best ways to do this is to comment on the blogs of commenters.  .  What you will find is that the same bloggers are commenting within the same grouping of blogs and that there is a bit of camaraderie already established.

5.  Become a Cheerleader
When you visit your colleagues’ blogs make note of their victories, big and small, congratulate them.  It’s a lonely world out there – sitting in your basement subsisting on ramen noodles…ok, I know of at least one guru who started that way – interaction and acknowledgement is powerful.

5.  The Daisy Chain
When you have rounded up a group of bloggers playing in your niche with complimentary topics etc. that’s when it is time to exchange links, or better yet, formalize a daisy chain.  I have done this with my dog related sites and it works well.  Here is how it goes:

Blog #1 – dog skin care:  my blog
Blog #2 – all about raw dog food: colleague blogger
Blog #3 – natural dog treats: my blog
Blog #4 – dog toys: colleague blogger
Blog #5 – pet insurance: colleague blogger
Blog #1 – dog skin care: my blog

It doesn’t have to be in that order.  Notice that I started with one blog and by the 6th link had returned to it.  This is a complete circle.  In between the blogs owned by my colleagues I peppered some of my other blogs.  These all have dogs as a common theme, the bots crawl all the sites connecting them to each other and giving the backlink credits to each one as it grows.   If you own a group of blogs that are complimentary as I do with my dog ones, you can actually do the daisy link process without even going out of your own, but then, you’re not developing relationships that way.  You can mix and match with the same grouping, just be mindful of straight bounce backs.

Granted the above takes time.  Is there a way to leapfrog this process?  Yes there is.  There are companies that have developed software systems that get you lots of links by auto-submission to bookmarking and directory sites.  I am using one such service.  It is still in beta but I am pleased with the results.  When I changed the domain name of this blog I lost all the backlinks of the original one that I had worked so hard for.  That was October.  I was crying the blues because I lost over 230 links.  As of today, with this service I have 872 backlinks. It is scheduled for a future review on this blog, so stay tuned.

Happy Blogging and Happy Linking

Valentina
872 backlinks in less than two months – nice brand of cheese.

RELATED POSTS:
Link Building Part III – Pingbacks & Backtracks  081009
Link Building – Part II  – 05/10/09
Link Building  – Part I – 02/10/09

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What Do Stories Have To Do with Blogging for Money?

Nov 22

Posted by Valentina in Blogging for Money, Miscellaneous, Random Thoughts | 11 Comments

What do stories have to do with blogging for money.  More than you think.

Sundays are catch up mornings for me.  Typically it’s the time I spend catching up on the little things in my e.box, you know non blog income items flagged but not urgent, jokes, Facebook and Twitter announcements of new followers or invites to become friends – ok, the last two could be Blog Income items, but you get the idea, it’s not a blogging for money day.

I give myself two hours – what doesn’t get attended to suffers the fate of the delete key. I give myself another hour to go over my Google Reader and read up on items of interest that I may have I missed on my daily scan of this service.  After that it’s a day off.  Today, maybe dim sum in Richmond and then a walk by the bay – yes, even in the rain.

The first item that caught my eye this morning was a post by Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.  I don’t know how I missed this earlier.  I am a raving fan of his.  It is an article on story posts on his blog.  His observation is that over the years the posts that told stories were the most popular. That is not surprising as stories engage the reader.  It is that rule we learned in sales:  facts tell stories sell.  You can read the full article here

The post got me thinking.  I prefer writing stories over technical reports and have enormous admiration for those who can present good, clear facts without much froufrou and still keep the reader engaged.  I had such a challenge this week.

Recently I was invited to author a chapter for an upcoming book.  It was on a subject I know well but the publisher asked for a slightly different twist on it.  For weeks I had the devil of a time trying to manipulate the information in such a way that it would mesh with the new angle.  Writer’s block loomed large as deadline date drew closer.  What to do.  What I had in my computer was dull and boring even to me.  How could I expect others to read it. How could I let the publisher down?

Then I had an idea.  What if I approached the angle from a storyline?  I phoned the publisher and told him what I had in mind.  I can tell you his response wasn’t exactly extatic.  “Sure” he said tentatively “send me a few paragraphs and the rest of the content in point format.  I did.

Suddenly my creative juices began to flow.  I finished the chapter in two days.  Had it reviewed by a friend who said she was galvanized every step of the way. Submitted it just under the wire.

Haven’t heard back from the publisher yet.  I think he’ll like it.  If not it’s not a bad piece of work and I can certainly put it to use in some other way.

Stories are easier to write, at least for me and for most people.  When you think about it blogs started with stories, that’s what a journal is, it is the daily story of something, often that of a personal experience.  The next time you are faced with writer’s block dig deep into your own experiences and fish out those that have a connection with the topic on which you write, guaranteed, your fingers will start flying over your keypad and you’ll be one step closer to an awesome blog income life!

Happy Blogging!

Valentina
Blogging for some good cheese.

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Review: Secret Affiliate Weapon

Nov 21

Posted by Valentina in Affiliate Marketing, Internet Marketing, Making Money, Reviews | 2 Comments

Every journey eventually comes to a fork in the road where we have to make a choice.  I wrote about that in the October 21 post, titled Fork in the Road as it applied to the journey of developing a blog income.  The choice was to repeat or take on something new.

There was no right or wrong answer.  In the past I have often repeated a course as I found that the second round gave me a stronger grounding and I picked up things that I missed the first time.

The next step I chose for Blog Income Life was to take on affiliate marketing.  This was already on my mind and earlier I had purchased several courses that would take me through the basics of affiliate marketing.  I knew that to be successful in affiliate marketing it meant more than just slapping on an affiliate banner or two and hope that the traffic that came to my website would click on the banner and buy that product.

I picked Ewen Chia’s Secret Affiliate Weapon to start with.  If previous material I bought from Ewen was anything to judge from, then this would be an easy to understand, follow and implement course.  I was right.

I like the way that Ewen makes everything so simple.  I like the way that his whole course follows the most basic of teachings:

- Tell them what you are going to tell them
- Tell it to them
- Tell them what you just told them.

His video tutorials show screenshots of everything, from forms to be completed, what to enter on the forms, how to submit to what to expect when you complete your task, and what that should look like.  He explains the importance of each step and how it will affect your marketing results.

As a reader of this blog you are probably aware that I have a grouping of dog related blogs.  I have several affiliates but one in particular has been paying me some income.  The plan is to apply this course to that affiliate on all the sites.  I figure that by the time I get all of them done they’ll be running on a “set it and leave it” mode … ok, close to it anyway.  It will be interesting to see the increase in sales and whether it will become a passive income.  I am also an affiliate of this course and will go through the same process to see what kind of dollars I can drum up.   Will you keep you updated via the Month in Review stats that I publish on this blog.

Some of the information covered is not new to me.  It won’t be for you either.  What I like about the course however is that it sets out a systemic approach to affiliate marketing which when followed thoroughly should drop paychecks into your mailbox with increasing regularity.

Something that was not new for me was how to set up an account with Ezine Articles.  I was going to skip this tutorial but thought that if I was going to review this course, I should go over everything with a fine tooth comb. I was surprised at how poorly I had set up my Ezine Articles account.  That was in the early stages of my internet marketing career and I did a poor job on the resource boxes and the bio.  This also underlines the importance of continuous tweaking – small changes can reap big rewards.

Affiliate Weapon leads you through the mechanics of autoresponders, web pages, thank you pages, how to use Squidoo, Tube Mogul and more.  I have to say that Ewen’s tutorial on installing Wordpress is by far  the easiest of tutorials  on this subject that I have ever watched (it was included in a previous course of Ewen’s that I bought) – even though all my blogs are now on Wordpress Direct I still occasionally refer to Ewen’s video when I need to tweak something in the admin area.

One item I was not completely crazy about.  There is an excellent interview with Stone Evans who is one of those super affiliate marketers.  The story is inspiring and I liked it.

Stone’s product is Plug In Profits and I must say the business model is brilliant.  The short of the long of it is that you sign up for five network marketing businesses and Plug In Profit takes you to well, profits.  I have over ten years of experience in network marketing and while I do not dispute that Stone and many others do indeed make money on these companies, none of the chosen ones would float my boat.

Aside from that one personal quirk, I found that Secret Affiliate Weapon is an excellent course.  It starts off gently easing you into the process.  Soon without your even noticing it your internet marketing literacy has taken on a significant upswing, your language now includes viral marketing and you actually know what that means!  The simplicity of the course is ideal for newbies, the content makes it a good buy for advanced internet marketers and at $27 it’s a bargain for everyone!

Happy Affiliate Marketing!

Valentina

PS. Secret Affiliate Weapon offers an affiliate.  You could open your affiliate account and apply the course to promoting it – and make a few dollars while learning “on the job”

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Disclosure:  I own and paid for my copy of the Secret Affiliate Weapon.  I did not receive any compensation for this review.  I am an affiliate and should you decide to buy it through my links, my Bank of Blog Income will thank you.

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Flipping Turnkey Websites – Is It For You?

Nov 19

Posted by Valentina in Making Money, turnkey website systems | 3 Comments

The newest online goldrush is selling websites or blogs. Yes, there is indeed money in them thar blog!   Suddenly there is a proliferation of programs that offer you turnkey websites that are all pre-loaded with content, SEO optimized, monetized  and lickety split, you have a working site.   All you have to do is drive traffic, bank the checks and then flip the darn thing for a cool $10K or more.  All in a day’s work.

Sounds good doesn’t it?

Well yes, in fact in my ABC’s of Blogging for Money e.book I suggest that when you start your blog, think of an exit strategy as well.  By that I mean think of building your blog with a view to eventually selling it.  Blogs and websites are virtual real estate. If your blog is giving you an income then you have a commercial or business site.  There are many variables in determining the selling price of a site, but a typical structure would be 2.5 to 6 times the value of net income generated.

What I am concerned about is that there is suddenly a proliferation of online businesses offering turnkey sites that promise you instant success.  Now there may be a company that has successfully mastered the system so that if you have the money you can just buy the business, set it and leave it or flip it for a tidy profit.  I haven’t seen one yet.

Several years ago I bought into such a system.  This company was one of the early birds of a complete turnkey system – and I have to give it to the founders for recognizing that you can build a turnkey system-  and voila!  The cash starts rolling in.

My experience was significantly different from the promise.  Without going into details the “set it and leave it” part was anything but.  Tech requirements which while relatively simple to the techie initiated were beyond the capabilities of most moreover, the cash cow seemed to be dry delivering mere dribs and drabs of pennies.  I don’t think the company was trying to scam anybody, they just overestimated what their system could do and underestimated their customer’s willingness to do more than their sales pitch promised.

Now there are several gurus who have “found” or “perfected” the secret to the riches of turnkey sites and have authored courses and developed software systems so that you and I can finally see the money truck rolling up the driveway.

That may be so.  But my eternal optimism in this business of internet marketing is now sprinkled with a healthy dose of skepticism.  If the turnkey systems are that easy why do the courses come loaded with a ton of instructions and a passel of videos that show you how to do the business?  That just tells me that no matter how “turnkey” the system is, you still have a lot of work to do.

Call me old fashioned.  I still believe that you have to know your business.  You get to know it by rolling up your sleeves and learning about it and developing the smarts needed to make it profitable.  Flipping your sites?  Sure.  I’m not above a course that shows you how to quickly build value for your blog or site or even of being in the business of buying and selling sites.  But honey, it’s just like the business of physical real estate – you better know what you are doing.  If you are an experienced internet marketer then these turnkey systems may be ideal for you, if you are a newbie my opinion is that it will be an expensive indoctrination into the world of internet marketing.

Build your internet marketing muscles first – develop your own blog income.  From your own personal experience you will be better able to judge a good deal from a bad one.

Happy Blogging!

Valentina
Get your own cheese first.

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Blog Income Goal Setting

Nov 17

Posted by Valentina in Goal Setting, Making Money, Starting a Blog | 6 Comments

Something different today but very important. If you are blogging because you want to develop a blog income, it is that time of year to review your current situation and set goals for the coming year.  In corp speak that would be working on your business plan.

Why is goal setting important?

The most obvious reason is that it gives you something to work towards, a destination that you want to reach by the end of a certain time line and it must be committed on paper.

Why on paper?

One, the very act of writing something down has neurological implications.  There is a connect between the brain and the writing, a greater commitment and a message to the brain that this needs doing.  The goal is then accepted and submerged into the sub conscience.

Two classical studies underline this importance of writing down your goals.  The first dates back to the 1953 graduate class of Yale.  Armed with impressive degrees the graduates were eager to take on the world, to redefine the meaning of success.  Twenty years later the graduates were contacted as a matter of interest to measure their level of success.  While most were found to be doing well, a small group stood head and shoulders above others – a mere 3% had achieved enormous financial success, more than that of the 97% combined. When interviewed further one commonality was found amongst this elite 3% group: each one had written down their goals, something none of the others had done.

A subsequent study at Harvard had similar results.  The year 1964. Once again all graduates stated that they had lofty and clear goals to achieve.  Only 5% took the trouble to write down their goals.  A follow up twenty years later showed that of the 5% who wrote down their goals, 95% achieved their goals, while of those who did not write down their goals, a mere 5% did.

Goals can have different time lines:  lifetime, 10 years, 5 or maybe just one.  Daily factor in as well.  Goal experts recommend 5 year goals, with checkpoints along the way, usually at the 3 year mark and 1 year mark.  They can be complex or simple.  I like simple.

Set a goal for each area of your life for 2010.  Make it doable but not a gimme – it needs to be something that you have to stretch for.  Start with the current situation, and end the year with where you want that situation to be.

In terms of blogging my goal for Blog Income Life for this year was to be at a four figure income at the end of 2009.  I had nothing to base this on.  It was a figure I thought would be nice to achieve.  It’s not going to happen.  What I have achieved however is a stronger understanding of the business of blogging.  On review I know the mistakes I made, I know what works, I know what I need to concentrate on to make the desired income.  I now have a base from which to work for my 2010 goal.

Perhaps the biggest lesson learned is that an income goal is not the best to get started with, I would leave the income goal to a longer term.  Here are some benchmarks that may help you with your goal setting

-         frequency of posting:  3 times a week or more

-         first 100 visitors

-        first 1000 visitors per month

-         first 100 subscribers to your newsletter/email list

-         backlinks:  1000 backlinks

-         first $100 from adsense

-         first affiliate sale

-         first affiliate campaign

-         first 1000 Twitter followers

-         first e.book written

There are plenty more but the above should get you started.  Begin with where you are right now and determine where you want to be on December 31, 2010.  If your current situation on traffic is an average of 5 visitors per day, you may want to look at an average of 100 visitors per day.  Now make a plan for achieving that.

What will it take?  What do you already know on generating traffic?  What more will you need to learn?  Where can you get that information?  Is there a Traffic Generating course that you can buy?

I subscribe to The Goals Guy to plan the year ahead and to keep me on track with my goals.  When you draw up your plan for achieving your goals for 2010, make sure you set up review dates, I make mine quarterly.  It is a good practice to see what is working and what is not.  For that which is not working identify, correct and take action.

Here’s to great goals and great achievements!

Happy Blogging!

Valentina
The cheese is in the goal.

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Review: Viper Chill Blog

Nov 16

Posted by Valentina in Internet Marketing, Reviews, Starting a Blog | No Comments

On my top ten “blog income” blogs to visit regularly is Glen Allsop’s Viper Chill. Glen apparently started this blog several years ago, let it lie dormant for four years, and has just re-launched it with impressive results.  Now we’re not talking newbie or even competent here, we’re talking super on the way to uber.

Glen’s online business drops a significant five figure income to his monthly bottom line.  It’s not surprising.  The man knows his stuff.

Viper Chill delivers content like no other blog on blogging that I know of – there is a freshness to it, a lot of punch, but most importantly, Glen mines his knowledge and presents information that is beyond the typical white bread content that proliferates the internet.  He dives deep into his own practices and shares them with his readership which is rising faster than a loaf of bread dough.

And talk about value!  Case in point is his latest post on his 24 point checklist that he implements with every new blog he starts.  Not only have I bookmarked that post, but I have actually hard copied it so that I can follow each step, point by point.  This is now in my internet marketing tool box and  I  will use this checklist for all future blogs as well as go through the list for all my current ones -  I already started on this one and found that there are many holes that need to be filled.  Watch for subtle and maybe not so subtle changes here to see what I mean.

What I find most interesting is that part of Glen’s blog flies in the face of “basics” – the domain name is absent of any hint of what the content may be.   Everything I have read and learned to date is that having the domain name congruent with content is an important factor and topic keyword is highly recommended.  Hey I like the domain name, it captures your imagination and is memorable but never in my wildest would I look at the domain of Viper Chill and say to myself that this is a blog I need to visit because it obviously holds a ton of content on blogging.  Nope.  This is branding at its best.  It just goes to show that in the hands of a master, a domain name bereft of topic/content keywords can fly with the best of them.  Before  you let your imagination take hold however,  the keyword here is “master” and it takes a master to develop a brand.

I encourage you to go read the article for yourself at Viper Chill and save a copy of it somewhere so that you can reference it on a regular basis.  It’s that good!

Happy Blogging!

Valentina

That is some potent cheese there in Viper Chill

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Blog Income Sports a New Look & A New Feature.

Nov 15

Posted by Valentina in Link Building, Making Money, Starting a Blog | No Comments

Short and sweet on a rainy Sunday afternoon …..

Two things:

1.  New Look of Blog Income Life
2.  New Feature for You

1.  New Blog Income Life Look.

How do you like the new look of Blog Income Life?

I changed it because a blogger whom I respect suggested that the theme I had was bland (or words to that effect).  I often thought about that myself and chalked in “custom design” as a future expense item for when the blog starts to bring in the bucks.  But when Glen Allsop, who owns and authors Viper Chill pointed out the blandness of the theme, I thought it was time to take action now.

Still I did not want to dig into my pocket to the tune of $2K for a webmaster just to redesign my blog and header and you know what my thoughts are when it comes to anything techie … not my strong suite, not an area I want to become an expert in.

What I did instead was to visit some other successful blogs.  I looked at their designs.  I noticed that while most were extremely well designed for SEO they did not really have bells and whistles and pictures and graphics and a slick “professional” look(well OK, Glen does have a slick logo on his header) – they were bang on about what it is that their blog is about and, I noticed, they were well monetized.

Back to the drawing board.  The good thing about Wordpress Direct is that there are plenty of templates to choose from.  After going through the choices several times I chose this one.  It’s cleaner, modern and to the point and took me all of a minute to change the template … I also like where the comment option appears.

Do you like it?  Yes?  No?  Post your comments below.

New Blog Income Life Comment Feature.

This is a do follow blog, in other words, if you comment on this blog the bots will follow your comment to your blog and give you what is known as link juice, or backlinks, but unless you know how to check this out, there is nothing to show the visitor that this is a comment friendly blog.

To those with quizzical looks on their faces now, the common practice these days is to not allow “do follow” in which case, when you post a comment to someone’s blog, the bots will not follow the link back to your site.  This was implemented some time ago to discourage spam comments.  If you comment on such a blog, your effort is not entirely wasted,  as if your contribution was worthy,  some of the readers may visit your blog, so inch by inch, traffic becomes a synch.

While visiting other successful blogs I noticed that many used the Comment Luv plugin.  Success leaves clues.  I went and registered at Comment Luv and downloaded the plugins for both the Comluv and Twitterlink features.  Now, when you comment here, the title of your latest blogpost will appear and it will be tweeted to your twitter community.  You do need to register at Comment Luv to activate this feature and while you are at it, add the plugin to your own site – it also has an affiliate.

Happy Blogging!

Valentina
Comment Luv luvs cheese!

Other Related Posts on Backlinks:
Link Building Part III – Pingbacks & Backtracks
Link Building – Part II
Link Building  – Part I

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Residual Income – The Holy Grail of Affiliate Marketing

Nov 13

Posted by Valentina in Affiliate Marketing, Internet Marketing, Making Money | No Comments

How do you develop a residual income and what exactly is residual income? This is the holy grail of internet marketing and when you finally build up a decent residual blog income then you can indeed live the big awesome:  drink fine wines, dine on epicurean delights, travel on exotic vacations and live in the house of your dreams (yes I know, it’s a recurring theme with me).

Residual income, also known as passive income is a set it and leave it money machine.  This type of income is most often associated with music, movies and runaway best sellers.  Every time a blockbuster movie is played in theaters a whole lot of people get paid royalties which is yet another name for residual income.  Now wouldn’t you want to wake up every morning, check in with your computer and see that while you were asleep, your online business made you some money?  Absolutely!

Affiliate marketing is one such money machine and works best when powered on all three cylinders.  We already covered:

Digital affiliates

Physical affiliates

Now we add Residual Affiliate Marketing.  This is any program that has a continuity component built into it.  Membership programs are an excellent example as are renewable subscriptions.

Most of the digital affiliate programs already offer a continuity program which can include but are not limited to: memberships which give access to the latest updates via newsletters, webinars, podcasts, exclusive interviews with professionals in their field and often advance notice of a new program about to be rolled out.

In the physical affiliate sector a common type of continuity program would be a product of the month club.  You often see this in coffee, chocolate, wine, and florist industries.  Gift basket business are also a good fit especially if marketing to the corporate sector.

In both the above instances you earn a recurring monthly income for as long as the customer is an active member.  In addition to Clickbank, Commission Junction and the search engines, you can check out these two directories:

http://www.lifetimecommissions.com
 http://www.affiliateguide.com/residual.html

Here is what this three pronged effort looks like:

Digital product:  Even if your visitor is looking for a physical product such as cigars, you can still have an informational product that gives more information about cigars, their history, where tobacco is grown, etc.

Physical product:  That would be the cigar itself, clippers, a humidor, and other accessories for cigars.

Residual product:  Membership in a cigar of the month club.

In summary, effective marketing in all three areas will triple your income over just employing one of the affiliate marketing options. Set up your affiliate marketing in such a way that you have something to offer to every visitor that comes to your site.

Here is to an awesome blog income life!

Valentina
Affiliates are cheesy!

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How to Find Affiliate Programs for Physcial Products

Nov 12

Posted by Valentina in Affiliate Marketing, Internet Marketing, Making Money | 6 Comments

Since my last posting on affiliate marketing I have had readers email me with several questions.  The two that I will address today are:

1.  Why affiliate marketing
2. Where do I find affiliate products?

1. Why affiliate marketing?
Just like I think that blogging is the best way to get started in internet marketing because you learn the basics and build on from there, affiliate marketing in my view is the obvious next step if you are to build a blog income.  What I like about affiliate marketing is that it is a “done for you” step, yet, there is enough new stuff to learn and apply if you want to do it right that it will definitely pack on some internet marketing smarts.

The done for you part is that you do not have to develop a product of your own – someone with a proven track record has already done that.  Your job is to find products that are on the topic of your blog.  For instance this blog is all about blogging and my current focus is on affiliate marketing,  so the ad that you see on the left sidebar is  on blogging and the one the right hand column is  on affiliate marketing.

Now affiliate marketing is more than just putting up ads on your site.  If you want to make money on your affiliates you have to learn how to market them.  I will be touching on the basics of affiliate marketing on this blog in the future, but if you want to get your mits on some powerful, easy to follow instructions I highly recommend Ewen Chia’s Secret Affiliate Weapon – its not going to break the bank and will get you on the road to understanding affiliate marketing and how to profit from it.

2. Where do I find affiliates?
My last article on affiliate marketing focused on digital products.  Today, lets talk about physical products.  You can have a mix of both on your site.  For example, if you have a site that has to do with dogs, an example of digital affiliates would be dog training, or an ebook on how to ensure a healthy and beautiful skin and coat for your dog.  A physical product might be a special type of training collar or a pet balm that soothes and heals a dogs skin problems.

The big difference between digital and physical products is the commission.  With digital you can make as much as 70% (50% is common), while as with physical products a 25% commission would be tops, more likely in the 15% range.  That’s why I recommend a mix and match, you’ll be appealing to those who want informational products and those who want to buy a physical product.

If you haven’t already done so, Google Adsense should be given some of your valuable virtual billboard space.  Google will place ads congruent with your topic, they could be digitial products or physical.  You need not do anything with them.  When visitors to your site click on the ads, Google will pay you a small commission.  Do not, I repeat, DO NOT, click on the ads yourself or have friends and family click them on for you.  That is both unethical and contrary to your agreement with Google.

Now trust me, Adsense is not going to have the money truckmoney truck
come up to your driveway, not even a Tonka!  You need to start monetizing your site with substantial revenue sharing affiliate products.

There are plenty of ways to find affiliates in your niche market – Amazon sells more than just books.  Just go to www.amazon.com, scroll to the bottom of the page and you will see a section there that says “make money with us”.  Click on the Associates button.

Commission Junction www.commissionjunction.com is a good affiliate directory for  physical goods.  As with all affiliate directories you need to open an account.    Linkshare www.linkshare.com and ShareASale www.shareasale.com are two others that you might want to look into.

Not all affiliate products are listed in directories.  If yours is a niche product you can search for it by using your favorite search engine using the keyword for your niche and the word affiliate with it  i.e., “pet ointment affiliates” and you will be taken to a page with lots of options for you to choose from.

This bears repeating – make sure that when you select an affiliate that it is trustworthy and delivers on its promise, a 100% satisfaction guarantee or money back is just a starter.  I recommend that you do some due diligence before putting up a banner on your site and going the full 9 yards in promoting it – remember reputation is often judged by association.

Here’s to your profitable affiliate marketing!

Valentina
The cheese is in the affiliates

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