Blog Income Life

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Gather Success Challenge III – Affiliate Marketing

May 19

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

affiliate marketing money

Earn Money with Affiliate Marketing

Tonight was call-in number 4 for Gather Success’ Blogger Reality Show.  Our challenge for the last week as centered around affiliate marketing, we were to promote, market, and ideally make a sale of Atomic Blogging 3.0 system.    At least one challenger had a sale.


I did not even attempt this challenge.  Last week was crazy busy with non-IM type of stuff.  So of course I did not get any points awarded.


Speaking of points,  Alvin made some good ones on how to choose your affiliates.  For the purpose of the call he used Clickbank as a good example of an affiliate directory.  Here is a step by step process on how to find a good affiliate:


  1. If you don’t already have an account set up go to Clickbank.com and set one up.  It’s easy and its quick

  2. To select a product click on Marketplace.  It seems that many of the challengers are in the make online income niche, which is very competitive and even though Alvin makes good money in that niche, his suggestion is that it is much easier to make money promoting affiliates that are not in the  blogging for money business.  The competition is significantly less

  3. Clickbank is really good at giving statistical information on the affiliate program.  One of the statistics that Alvin likes to look at is the gravity.  Gravity tells you how popular a product is so the higher the number, the more popular or demand there is for it.  There are several factors that contribute to the popularity of an affiliate program:- collateral support such as banners, sales page and ongoing marketing  including but not restricted to emails.

    -  conversion
    -  commission

  4. After selecting a program, check out the sales page and any other promotional material the affiliate publisher is offering.

  5. Where do all the screenshots come from?

  6. Transaction records

  7. Be sure the product has testimonials

  8. Get your link, button or banner and test it.

  9. Try the buy button to see whether it works or not

  10. Check the bottom of the page to make sure that the affiliate link is the same as your Clickbank ID.  If its not then don’t promote this product.  Go through the process with another.

From the submissions it seems that many of us have our own challenge with affiliate marketing.  How many times have you been told to promote a big ticket item because the amount of time and effort spent is  the same as for a small ticket item but the financial rewards are much greater even if you sell far less.


That might work if you already have your affiliate marketing chops down pat.  You really need to build your affiliate marketing muscles before going for the big game.  Alvin’s suggestion is to challenge yourself with small weekly goals, something like “… I am going to earn US$200 this week selling product XYZ  at $20 each…” and then set your whole campaign up for the week.  See what results you get at the end of the week.  Make small adjustments to the campaign for week 2.


Track everything.  You may hit your $200 mark the first week, maybe not.  The thing is now you have a goal and a method and as you continue to improve your marketing skills, the sales will begin to come in.  This takes practice.  As you get better you can start marketing higher priced products.


Affiliate marketing when mastered  is an easy  way to earn an online income.

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Keyword Stuffing Confuses Search Engines

May 13

Posted by Valentina in Internet Marketing, Keyword | 5 Comments

keywiord buffet

keyword buffet

Keyword rich might be good for your static home page – don’t count on – but used liberally in your posts it has the same effect on search engine spiders as a buffet laden table of food:  no focus.  Keyword stuffing might be the better term for it and you know what you get when you stuff yourself at a buffet


Indigestion.


At our weekly Gather Success Challenge online get together, Alvin took us through a number of items we should keep in mind when writing our posts.


TITLE
Capitalize the first letter of each word in your title.  This Small change makes the title stand out more.


Consider:

Keyword stuffing  confuses search engines
vs
Keyword Stuffing Confuses Search Engines

As you can see the second title commands greater authority. Rule of thumb is that words such as the, a, and, for, are not capitalized.


PLUGINS
The beauty of using WordPress is that there are plenty of plugins to help us optimize our marketing effort, but the one plugin that you must have is the All in One SEO.  When installed, enabled and configured, this plugin helps to optimize your keywords with  search engines.


PAGE URL
Each page has its own URL.  To optimize the keyword you are fighting for, place them at the beginning of the URL title.  For example:

The domain URL for this site is:  http:// www.blogincomelife.com
A page URL looks like this:  http://www.blogincomelife.com/new-look-for-blog-income/

The page URL always follows the domain URL.  After hearing what Alvin has to say, a better way to have titled my article would have been “Blog Income Sports a New Look” the reason being that the keyword is “blog income” and not “new look”.


KEYWORDS
Many of us tend to put as many of our keywords into our posts as possible with the idea that as  our sites are crawled, we begin to rank higher and higher for our list of keywords.

Stop it.

Too many keywords confuse the search engines.  They don’t know what sort of traffic to send to your site.

Use no more than three of your keywords.  Mention your main keyword once in the first 50 words of the post and once in the last 50 subwords, i.e., words related to your keyword or a slightly different phrasing of the keyword .


CATEGORIES
Just as with keywords, when writing your post think of two maybe three categories that it will fit into, definitely no more than five.


BACKLINKS
The importance of backlinks cannot be stressed enough.  Search engines consider backlinks as votes for your site – simply put, people like it and if people like it then the search engines give you good marks and move you up along their ranking.

Quality links carry more weight than others.  Here are some good ways to get quality backlinks:

-          Get backlinks from .com,  .org or .ed

-          Age domain matters

-          Authority sites (have lots of traffic, links and ranking)

-          Article directories

Comment on blogs that fit the above criteria.  Personally I like to mix it up otherwise  how would the newbies ever get started.

spider keyword buffet

spider keyword buffet


IMAGES
Now this was a new one for me.  When uploading images to your post, give the image an alt tag.  For example the when I uploaded the image above this was what I filled out.  Images get crawled and it’s just good practice to have something for the spiders to read.


There was so much more.  Each challenge is a stand alone.  You can always join and do the latest challenge.  Points add up.  At the end the participant with the most points wins to work with Alvin on his new project.  Definitely some of the participants are internet marketing savvy.  No matter.  If you participate you will learn.  From my perspective its all about tweaking the details – even if you only pick up one point, that point can make a huge difference to you.

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Gather Success Challenge II – Red Cross Receipt

May 13

Posted by Valentina in Internet Marketing, Miscellaneous | No Comments

Further to my post of yesterday re my saga of donating to the Red Cross – it’s here!  The receipt by email has arrived in my Inbox and here it is

gather success red cross receipt

red cross receipt

Just as an aside – if you ever need an instant econfirmation on a purchase (or donation), do it online, not by phone.

Once again … Thank You.

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Gather Success Charity Challenge

May 9

Posted by Valentina in Internet Marketing, Miscellaneous | 2 Comments

Alvin Phang’s Super Blogger Challenge is in full swing. Our 2nd challenge is to raise money for a worthy charity organization: The American Red Cross.


I don’t think Alvin could have picked a more universal charity organization. The Red Cross crosses both geographical and political boundaries. Whenever disaster strikes, Red Cross workers and volunteers are first on the scene, helping out with manpower, supplies, food, medical care, water and doing whatever is necessary to bring the area to as near normalcy as is possible.


Recognized as a universal sign of help and hope the Red Cross is more than just a logo. It’s workers and volunteers put in selfless hours of physical work, often under difficult conditions.



The Red Cross is a confederation of relief societies in different countries acting under the Geneva Convention. In 1863 an international public conference was held at Geneva, Switzerland. Twenty-five nations attended and struck a treaty which was adopted as the Geneva Convention.


“…the treaty provides for the neutrality of all sanitary supplies, ambulances, surgeons, nurses, attendants and sick or wounded men and their safe conduct, when they bear the sign of the organization: the Red Cross.Although the convention was international, the relief societies themselves are national and independent.

It was necessary for recognition and safety and for carrying out the general provisions of the treaty, that a uniform badge should be agreed upon. The Red Cross was chosen out of compliments to the Swiss Republic, where the first convention was held … The Swiss colors being a white cross on a red ground, the badge chosen was these colors reversed.” Excerpted from ‘The History of the Red Cross”


The origins were founded on devastation of war. Today the Red Cross is present not just on battlefields of conflict and at scenes of disaster, but in the humanities of all societies.


In the wake of Haiti, Nashville, Chile, Indonesia … the list of the Red Cross presence is inexhaustible, its funds are not. The objective of the Gather Success Charity Challenge is to raise as much money as possible by May 11. I am taking part in this challenge.


Any contribution is appreciated, every amount, no matter how big or small makes a difference. As a small gesture of my “thank you” to you, I am offering a free PDF of my e.book, The ABCs of Blogging For Money (Value US$47.00). To donate just click on the donate button below



You will be taken to my PayPal. After all the funds are collected I will issue a check made out to the American Red Cross and will publish both the check and the receipt from the Red Cross for the contribution.


I am taking part in Alvin Phang’s “Gather Success Charity Challenge“ if you wish to take part please click here to find out more.

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Content Left – Sidebars Right

May 6

Posted by Valentina in Blogging for Money, Internet Marketing | 4 Comments

When selecting a style for your blogs look for themes that have content on the left and sidebars on the right.


That was just one of the nuggets I took away from last night’s call-in for Super Blogger Reality Show. Actually it was the first call-in and with just 16 of the 100 plus registered reporting in, it was like a private chat with Alvin of Gather Success in a cozy online living room.


The challenge was to post daily from May 01 – 04 inclusive.  That was an easy gimme for 10 points and all reporting got the full 10.  But things are heating up for the coming week and getting very interesting.  The curve just took a sharp uptick.  More on the details later – suffice it to say that we’ll be raising dollars for charity and I’m hoping that you’ll respond to the tap on the shoulder.  A few things need to ironed out first.


Alvin went over a few of the blogs.  Yup.  Blog Income was one of them.


Alvin is using UStream so it’s like a classroom tutorial – you get to see exactly what he is talking about.  Here are just a few of the gems I took away and want to share with you:


CONTENT LEFT THEMES


No contest here.  Look for themes that have content to the left, sidebars to the right.


Reason?


Google reads left to right (whod’uv thunk!) but only the first 50 words.  What that means to those of us who have sidebars to the left of content is that we are wasting a lot of precious real estate on items such as, for example on Blog Income, social media chicklets, archives, blogrolls, tags, and other minute type stuff.


The default to this is that when writing include your keyword(s) in the first 50 words if you can – this is something I struggle with.  First I don’t get keyword obsessed when writing, sometimes the keyword(s) don’t show up until several sentences later.  But now that I know the 50 word rule, I’ll try and play pretty with Google without sounding stilted.


OPT-IN BOX


You have to have a way to collect names to create a list.  I know it sounds trite.  We have heard it sooooo many times, yet it is an oft overlooked item. Most of the reviewed blogs fell down on this one.    Make a free offer.  Make it a call to action.


Something like


CLICK HERE FOR FREE WEEKLY BLOGGING NEWSLETTER
AND GET MY ABC’S OF BLOGGING FOR MONEY EBOOK (VALUE $47)


I did have an opt-in for my ABC’s of Blogging for Money up as a banner and yes, it did generate signups. Huh!  Wait till I get my new theme up!


AFFILIATE LINKS WITHIN YOUR ARTICLES


Unless you are blogging as a charity case with no intention of making money, you have to sell.  It doesn’t have to be salesy, but you should have affiliate links within the body of your article.  It doesn’t have to be every article and go light on the links, which should all be anchor text.


Just about all of us who had our blogs reviewed fell down on this one too.  We had banners up but any content linking was geared towards reference rather than product.


Here’s a sobering thought:  On average your product needs to get 100 click for one sale.   Track, track, track.  Use Google’s Analytics “Goals” to get metrics on impressions to conversions, for example how many eyeballs have to fall on your article/page for the affiliate to be clicked once?


Of course there was more.  You can still register and participate in the challenge.  Each week appears to be a standalone but the longer you wait, the more difficult it will be to catch up.


Stay tuned for the details of the Gather Success Charity Drive …


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What Do Citizen Journalism and Blogging Have In Common?

May 4

Posted by Valentina in Internet Marketing, Miscellaneous | 3 Comments

What is Citizen Journalism and what does it have in common with blogging?


Everything!


Citizen journalism IS blogging.


I was reading an article on the success of an early stage company , NowPublic. After four years in the making it sold for a reported $25M to media chain, Media Clarity.

What does NowPublic do and how did it command that kind of coin?


NowPublic is a news aggregator.


When you log on to its home page, NowPublic  appears no different than any other news aggregator:  MSN, Yahoo, AOL and the list goes on.   Its masthead says that it is crowd powered media.  But as you begin to read you notice a difference and that is that some of the articles are well …  rather amateurish.  Content is good but it sometimes comes with all the warts and blemishes of a teenager and has about as much polish.


NowPublic is the brainchild of Leonard Brody.  What caught his attention was the way that self-published blogs were overturning traditional media.  He and his partners saw the opportunity to funnel the eyes and ears of the average Joes and Janes, people who happened to be at the right place at the right time and witnessed a happening worth writing about and did -  on their blogs.  He saw this as the next generation in news publishing.


The term citizen journalism took hold.


The very successful and popular Mashable is an example of a similar idea – it is an aggregator of news in the world of the internet – a little more specific and niched than NowPublic which covers pretty much everything under the sun.


I recently met with the CEO of a company that seems to be running on parallel lines with NowPublic but instead of text content it is latching on to video content in much the same way.  Citizen videographers … ground breaking news caught on phone video and flashed around the world.  Think about the Mumbai bombing incident when the first videos out were from amateurs who were on the scene, pointing, clicking and submitting to You Tube.


Add crowd sourcing to your list of new terms.


So what does all of this have to do with you?  Read on.


The article is title The Prime of Mister Brody Its a good piece of writing and an interesting read.


Tony Wanless, the author of the piece interviewed experts in the field of journalism and media for this article … to quote

“  … crowd sourced news movement has supplemented traditional newsgathering …  so down the road we may see a ‘pro-am’ model where professionals work with amateur journalists…”
attributed to: Kirk LaPointe, UBC Graduate School of Journalism & Managing Editor of the Vancouver Sun


“… media outlets that are prepared to adjust to change will likely partner in the future with citizen journalism sites and other online content delivery systems …”
attributed to SFU communications professor Richard Smith, who concentrates on online communities and technology.


I have visited many a blog that was well written, interesting and worthy in my view of publishing in print media.  Now it may be an easier, you can be a citizen journalist and  have your piece in an online publications, such as an aggretator of your topic, or, you just might get featured in NowPublic.


Welcome to the world of citizen journalism!

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What Does a Blog Income Life Look Like?

Apr 17

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

“What does a Blog Income Life look like?”

This is a question I often get asked.

The real answer is that it differs blogger to blogger.  But that’s not what the question is about.  The question is about my blog income life.  It’s not stated that way but I know.  So I answer accordingly.

I think that there is some disappointment when my answer fails the litmus test.  People have read and heard that there are bloggers out there who are living the life of Riley, drinking fine wines, dining on epicurean delights, travelling to exotic destinations and living in the house of their dreams.

The answer is that yes, there are bloggers who do pull in the big bucks and enjoy a lifestyle to which many aspire – bloggers or otherwise.  The disappointment is in my answer.

Amongst my friends I am living the life of Riley – now wasn’t he the real life spy after whom Fleming supposedly modeled James Bond? – after all I ditched the 9 to 5 a long time ago, have the luxury of doing what I please during the week as opposed to leaving things like mountain hikes and day fun trips to places like Whistler for the weekends.

Actually I probably put in longer hours than my 9 to 5 friends.  Not all my time is devoted to blogging.  I have several businesses and each needs my time.  Internet marketing is a new venture for me and so far the ROI, both in terms of money and time invested is miniscule.  So if I do drink a fine wine even if only now and then it is not because of my blog income – not yet.

The question that goes begging then is why do I persist with blogging if my other sources of income are sufficient to buy me that fine wine – even if only now and then?

The answer is passive income and living the life of Riley – eventually.  Fine wine any time I want it!

Most of my business activities are linear – that is, produce the results and make the money.  There is no recurring income for having done something one time and having a  check arrive in the mail on a regular basis.  No, actually I do have one such business in network marketing and it is the reason I looked at internet marketing in the first place – to market it online.

I got hooked.

Internet marketing had a lot of intuitive appeal to me.  I dove in head first.

After taking several courses the penny dropped – the best place to cut your teeth on internet marketing is in blogging.  Hard costs are minimal.  Expertise is gained on the job and progress is largely dependent on time available and general comfort level with the internet.

So perhaps the proper question at this point of my blog income life is

“What does the time you spend on blogging look like?”

On average I put in four hours a day.  Not all those hours are devoted to Blog Income Life as I have other blogs which I market online.  Ironically it is these others that make bank for me.   Here are the activities that make up the four hours a day on blogging:

  1. Writing content.  I write fresh, original content for all my online marketing – that goes for blog posts, article marketing, long sales letters, squeeze pages  and feeder pages.
  2. Publishing to appropriate venues.
  3. Visiting similar content blogs
  4. Commenting on blogs
  5. Visiting forums
  6. Social media marketing

These activities are what I would term as high gain, their function is to ultimately make me money.

In addition to high gain activities I also schedule at least an hour a day to continue my internet marketing studies.  I still buy courses that I think will help broaden my knowledge and more importantly online experience – it`s what I call muscle building.  Confession:  sometimes this part of the day does not get done.

Sorry … the blogging money truck may have left but it has not arrived at my doorstep yet.  The little guy, the tonka truck makes frequent stops though.

What do you think is at the core of the question of “What does your blog income life look like?“

Curiosity for one.

But I think the question is deeper than that.  I think that the real question is `

“Is it true about what they say about blogging – that you can make a lot of money in no time flat and with little effort?”

They have seen the ads, read the long sales letters, watched the videos.  What they take away is that this is a piece of cake and anyone can have the cake and eat it too.  Overnight success is shouted from one guru to another.  The questioner wants me to validate this with an affirmative, that yes, I make gobs of money blogging.

The truth is that overnight success can and does happen – most often after months and months, even years of continuous effort.  Ask any guru – most have put in the time in some way or another on the internet.  Even John Chow who started to make $40K per month in less than two years on his blog already had another online business.  To hear him tell it, his John Chow blog kind of just happened.  It appears that way, but John has smarts and had already built up his internet muscles and when you already have muscles, the heavy lifting isn`t so heavy.

What I find enormously rewarding with my internet marketing in that for the first time in many years there is a learning curve to scale.   Too often we  get into a groove that has become comfortable and that groove provides us with what we need.  We don`t need to learn new things to perform well.  For me internet marketing was completely new.  I had to engage my brain and apply.

On this blog I write about things I have learned and experienced in my blogging career.   I hope that the content is of value to you, my visitor; that you can take a nugget or two away with you and that it will help you in your own journey to a profitable blog income life.

An unexpected bonus.  Well you could have knocked me over with a feather as I never would have thought that I would enjoy studying but I find  the challenge of learning invigorating, it’s like feeding your brain that has been starving all this time.  Feels good.

So for now my blog income life is mostly about learning, applying and measuring … and a whole lot of satisfaction with the progress I am making.  Financial success?  Promise, I’ll let you know.  If there is one piece of advice I can give it is simply this:  stay the course,  correct, continue.

Here’s to your blog income!

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Four Bleeping Hours!

Apr 12

Posted by Valentina in Internet Marketing, Time Management | 3 Comments

Four Bleeping Hours! Daily!

Just to keep up with your emails!

I recently had a discussion with a colleague — someone new to the world of Internet Marketing. Like so many newbies, she had subscribed to several guru newsletters and had bought a course or two, OK, make that three or four and maybe more. What this means of course is a very active Inbox. In the course of our conversation she fessed up that going through the emails took as much as four hours every day. Four hours? Four bleeping hours! She was frustrated that after half a year the results were abysmal and was wondering if she shouldn’t throw in the towel with this latest venture of building a blog income and try something else.

Ok, four hours may be a bit on the high end of the spectrum for just “managing” your inbox, but honestly, don’t all of us fall victim to doing exactly what my friend did? Lets do a quick inventory. How many newsletter subscriptions do you have? How many courses have you signed up for – the freebie ones, the cheapie ones, and the not so cheapies? You get emails from all of those too even after the course has run its course (yes pun intended … ok, I just couldn’t help myself). Never mind the plethora of jokes from friends who obviously have no intention of making money on the internet. Then of course those jokes have to be forwarded to your own special inner joke circle.

STOP! This is insanity! If you’re serious about becoming an Internet Marketer – one that makes money that is – then you have to declutter, unsubscribe, don’t open the jokes – or at least save them for “break” time. I save mine for the weekends, and if some don’t get opened, so what.

The first thing that newbies need to know is that the internet is not a free ride. It is a continuous process of learning, and, unless you have the basics down pat, you’re never going to join the ranks of the gurus whose newsletters you so readily subscribed to and from whom you bought the courses and for which you now have no time because it takes you four bleeping hours every day just to read all that good stuff that comes into your inbox. FOUR HOURS!!! … and there is so much information you don’t know where to start and then you get frustrated because nothing is working and you throw up your hands in frustration and start looking for the holy grail of the internet and you can’t find it! Whew! Months go by, even years.

Don’t fall victim to this trap.

I bet you have emails in your Inbox that have not been opened.  I would even go so far as to say that some have been sitting there for over a week, maybe even a month!  Be ruthless with the stale dated ones – open and unsubscribe.  Don’t start reading!  If you haven’t read something for a month don’t read it now!  If you really like the newsletters save the links.  You can always resubscribe at some future date when you are ready for more and have learned how to manage your online time better.

Good News/Bad News. The good news is that you know more about the internet than you think you do. You’ve gone through kindergarten. You know the basics of being on the computer: open, close, send & receive emails, browse, Google something. You might even be active on some social marketing sites … you know, Facebook, Twitter and perhaps niche specific social media sites. Later on you will learn how to use these sites as valuable marketing tools, but for now, put your time into the action packed basics that will help you towards earning an online income.

Take these steps immediately:

1.  Email all your joke buddies. Tell them that you love them and appreciate their jokes but could they put them on hold for several months. Tell them that you are working on a very important project to build a blog income and much as you love a good laugh here and there, for the time being the Ha Ha’s have to stop.

2.  Love em and leave em. Unsubscribe to all but 5 of the top newsletters you receive.  Make sure that the ones you decide to keep will add value to your online income career.  I would suggest that you keep one or two that give information on how to maximize your blog, the others should be about your niche so that you can broaden your own expertise in your field.

3.  Those course gather dust on the shelves are never going to do you any good unless you crack them open and start in on them.  If you more than one still sitting there (or downloaded into your computer), choose one to work on now.  Calendar time to work on it.  . Whether you decide to devote 3 or 4 hours a day or a week, schedule it. This is very important. I would recommend scheduling some time on a daily basis, but if the weekend is all that you can realistically devote to your course, then bunch up the hours, four or five on Saturday and another four or five on Sunday. 

4.   Resist the temptation to check on your Inbox all the time.  I used to check three times a day, now I check only twice a day.  Once in the morning and again at close of my official business hours.

5.  Small consistent steps will pay off.  Do whatever you can to free up more time to do that which is a high gain activity … write daily.  You don’t have to publish daily, but by putting in even 30 minutes a day on writing, you will be building your blogging muscles and will always have articles on the go.

this post was first published in December 2008.

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This Too Shall Pass

Apr 8

Posted by Valentina in Internet Marketing, Valentina Recommends | No Comments

Today I got this in my inbox.  Its a link to a You Tube video.  It’s hilarious!   Takes the domino effect olympians to a whole new level.   You can watch it here (for some reason I was unable to download/embed correctly – just click the YouTube option and it will play.

As I was watching the video I could not help but draw parallels to blogging and internet marketing.   Lets take a look at what we can learn from this video:

1. UNIQUE

What first caught my attention is that this is a departure from your standard domino effect videos.  Clever as those are they are from today onwards – at least in my eyes -  just thematic variations on dominos falling in rapid succession.  In this video the dudes devised a clever use of mixed objects  to move inertia to action

How does this apply to blogging?

In yesterday’s post I talked about your blog’s USP and how  differentiating your blog from others was important.  In this video we see imagination taking over and the result is a uniquely creative domino effect.

2.  FIRST STEP

The simple act of pushing the truck sets off a succession of movements that impact some domino style blocks.  I like the use of these blocks as it tells us from the outset that this is another one of those domino wonder videos, then it changes tack as  a string is toggled, then a marble then a series of half pipes and the whole thing goes down a wild rabbit trail. It had me glued to my screen.   I watched it several times to see the point of connection at each new article in motion.

How does this apply to blogging?

The first physical step that a blogger takes is to buy a domain.  From there on the ball starts rolling.  In this video there were 89 mechanisms involved.  As you progress in your blog you learn how to optimize your keywords,  how to appeal to the search engines, to drive traffic, to develop a community, to attract stark raving fans, to have conversions.  Ultimately to make money.

3.  CONTENT

Did you notice that all the items are ordinary, every day things?  Same with what you write in your blog.  Unless you’re writing to a very small niche of rocket scientists – well, this is not rocket science.   Content for your blog is all around you.  Some seemingly  non related items can be worked into your post, no matter what your topic is.  Think about how strong March winds, or April flowers, or fashion shopping baskets might fit in to what you write about.  My friend Cheryll just started a site on her collapsible shopping baskets (its a work in progress just wanted to show you an example) … if yours is a greening the planet type of blog, would these not fit in nicely as a post.

    Most importantly, keep it simple.

    4.  ENGAGEMENT

    Make it fun.  OK.  This is a tough one.  Not all of us are blessed with clever witticism, thigh slapping humour or the ability to string a bunch     of words in such a way that they will entertain your audience.  Ok … the least that you can do is lighten up – yes, I am working on it!

    5.  LEVERAGE

    Excellent example of the leverage of the power of kinetics.  How can you leverage your blog for traffic, conversions, links, list building,           making money

    6. TENACITY

    This took a lot of planning.  Do you think that it was perfect from the get go?  How many “takes” did it take?  It took months to perfect the concept and get this – there are 89 points of connection and it took 85 takes!  Aaah.  Tenacity, thy name is success!

    If you get the time watch the other videos on the behind the scenes of the making of this video, do.  It is both inspirational and informative.  I was so taken by the video it took me a second or two to clue in to the fact that this was a band!  OK GO!  The creators?  Oh I dunno, gotta be engineers or just dudes with too much time on their hands and bent imaginations living in their heads!

    BUT DON’T YOU JUST LOVE IT?

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    7 Reasons Why People Buy

    Apr 1

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

    New month, new quarter.   Is your blog income growing?

    Usually my post on the first of the month is a review of the previous one.   This will be included in my Quarter One review which will be published April 03.  Instead this post will be all about ramping up your blog income for the rest of the year.

    Although  Blog Income is all about how to blog, most blogs are about something else, sometimes even about things like pet balms, swim fins and chess sets.  The purpose of the blog is to promote  and help sell  the product in your niche market.  That applies across the board whether your product is digital or physical.

    What can you do to increase your online earnings?

    Understand why people buy.

    Geoff Ayling in his book  Rapid Response Advertising provides 50 reasons why people buy.  There are plenty more, the ones he lists are the main reasons.

    We tend to think that people buy because they need something – they might, but they are more likely to buy when they want something.  Emotion over logic wins hands down.

    I went through the reasons and list a smattering here.  Go through them and see how you can apply these reasons to your product then go blog/market in such a way as to appeal to these reasons.

    1. To make more money.
      There are those who scoff at money, that it does not buy you happiness, yet that same crowd is often front of line if they can make money from something.  If your blog is centered on finances, working from home, or internet marketing, this is a strong reason for people to buy your product, whether it is your own or an affiliate you are promoting.
    2. To become more comfortable.
      The same market as #1 applies, but in addition this is also a strong reason for the marketers of health products, furnishings, certain types of clothing.  If yours is the high adventure market, certain types of clothing are much more comfortable for each type of activity than others.  Think running shoes vs hiking boots, they are specialty products and do not cross over.
    3. To possess things of beauty.
      Beauty nourishes the soul and whether that thing of beauty is an exquisitely handcrafted chess set or a bronze casting keep this reason first and foremost if yours is  an aesthetic  product.  Stress how the product will look, feel and  give them great satisfaction in owning it.
    4. To avoid effort.
      Nobody likes to work too hard and if a way can be found to lessen the burden of hard work then sales will be made.  I think of the car.  In North America we take it for granted that every household has one but that is not the case in the rest of the world.  Think of China.  Until recently the bicycle was the equivalent of the car in North America.  With an improved economy the roads of Beijing and Shanghai are now as clogged as ours.  Does your product help lessen the burden of work?
    5. To be in style
      Yes, we still like to keep up with the Joneses and every niche has its own set of Joneses.  People like to be in style – would you like to be tagged as someone who is not with it?  Style does not just mean how you dress.  Within your niche there are things that are at the cutting edge, the “have to have” items that the hip and the progressive are buying.  When the iphone first came out, people lined up from the night before just to be amongst the first to own this new phone.
    6. To become more efficient
      A close cousin to item 4 above but different.  Efficiency improves output, reduces time and perhaps even develops an improved item.  Time management systems trade heavily on this and have done extremely well over the last 40 years.  In the internet world something as simple as a plugin can increase your site/blog performance for just having taken the time to install.
    7. To escape or avoid pain
      Again somewhat counter intuitive – we think that people are more inclined to buy for pleasure but statistics prove otherwise. Which of the two would have you reaching for your wallet first:

      -  a gizmo that guarantees to rid you of your chronic back pain
      -  an online game that will give you hours of pleasure

    Just recently I was speaking with someone who has been experiencing excruciating pain in his right shoulder.  He has already spent a small fortune on remedies, none of which seem to have worked so he is now looking at a product that aligns his body, a gizmo with scientific research behind it.  Is this going to cost?  Yes.  But he is willing to try it before agreeing to go under the knife (which also, according to his doctor does not offer long term guarantees).

    The 50 reasons that are listed in Geoff Ayling’s book are shades of the same thing, but shades do make a difference i.e. items #4 and #6 have a similarity, yet are different.  The book at $211.00 is somewhat pricey – head on out to your library.

    For the rest of the year, when marketing your product think about how it might fit into one of the reasons that people buy.  Marketing to the reasons that people buy will give you more sales and help you earn a better online income

    Questions:  What other reasons can you think of?  What reasons to you strive to meet when you market your product?  Other comments?

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