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Niches

Various wealth and finance niche ideas with examples

by shedders
written by shedders

The wealth and finance niche is always a profitable and sough after niche.

Here are some typical Wealth & Finance Micro Niches in this space, now I don’t recommend that nowadays – much better to have a broad set of topics for a blog in my opinion. For example you will see 4 crypto ones I have highlighted in bold, its easy to expand these and there are many other cryptocurrencies and topics you can explore in that space – just as an example.

You can also factor in with the concern of the economy in various countries, rising costs and many companies reducing their workforce  that these subjects will be popular as people seek extra employment, saving money and even a new job.

Niches

Starting an online business
How to build and grow a blog
Affiliate marketing
Copywriting
Make money with online surveys
Investing
Forex trading
Insurance
Debt settlement
Credit cards
Mortgages
How to manage your finances
Sensible spending
DIY Accounting and budgeting
Cryptocurrency
Crypto mining
Bitcoin investment tips
Etherium investment tips
Binary options
Personal loans
Tax preparation
Gold
Passive income
Financial Independence

A better idea is to use these to generate some ideas for articles, youtube videos and even a report that you could grow a mailing list with. Lets try one – I’ll pop over to ChatGPT and type in the following

Give me 40 different SEO-optimized titles for a blog post about Passive income, each title must be a different idea

Lets see what ideas get cranked out by ChatGPT – you can of course use other services

Certainly! Here are 40 SEO-optimized blog post titles about passive income, each offering a different idea:

  1. “The Ultimate Guide to Passive Income: Start Earning While You Sleep”
  2. “Passive Income Streams: Your Path to Financial Freedom”
  3. “10 Proven Passive Income Ideas for Beginners”
  4. “The Science Behind Building a Passive Income Portfolio”
  5. “Generating Passive Income: How to Make Your Money Work for You”
  6. “Real Estate Investments: A Lucrative Path to Passive Income”
  7. “Create a Passive Income Blog: A Step-by-Step Guide”
  8. “Passive Income vs. Active Income: Which Is Right for You?”
  9. “The Power of Dividend Stocks: Your Passive Income Solution”
  10. “Affiliate Marketing Secrets: Earning Passive Income Online”
  11. “Rental Properties: A Comprehensive Guide to Passive Income”
  12. “Passive Income Apps: Boost Your Earnings with Smart Investments”
  13. “Ebooks and Passive Income: How to Write, Publish, and Profit”
  14. “Retirement Planning: Building a Comfortable Passive Income Nest Egg”
  15. “Cryptocurrency Investments: A Modern Approach to Passive Income”
  16. “Passive Income for Creatives: Monetize Your Art and Talents”
  17. “Passive Income Through Peer-to-Peer Lending: A Risk-Managed Approach”
  18. “Turn Your Hobbies into Profit: A Guide to Passive Income Ventures”
  19. “Passive Income and Taxes: What You Need to Know for Financial Success”
  20. “The Passive Income Mindset: Shifting from 9-to-5 to Financial Independence”
  21. “Passive Income with YouTube: Building a Channel that Pays”
  22. “Investing in Stocks and Bonds: The Foundation of Passive Income”
  23. “The Art of Affiliate Blogging: Passive Income Strategies Revealed”
  24. “Diversifying Your Passive Income Portfolio: The Key to Stability”
  25. “Selling Digital Products: A Route to Scalable Passive Income”
  26. “Passive Income through Licensing: Maximizing Your Intellectual Property”
  27. “Automating Your Finances: The Key to Effortless Passive Income”
  28. “Dropshipping: Launch Your E-commerce Empire and Earn Passively”
  29. “The Passive Income Pyramid: Building Multiple Revenue Streams”
  30. “Self-Publishing Success: Turning Your Writing into Passive Income”
  31. “Mastering Real Estate Crowdfunding: A Passive Income Revolution”
  32. “Passive Income in Retirement: Enjoying Life and Financial Security”
  33. “Becoming a Passive Income Affiliate Marketer: A Step-by-Step Guide”
  34. “Creating Passive Income with Online Courses: Share Your Expertise”
  35. “The Power of Patents: A Passive Income Strategy for Inventors”
  36. “Mastering the Art of Royalties: Passive Income from Intellectual Property”
  37. “Passive Income Pitfalls: Avoiding Common Mistakes on Your Journey”
  38. “Building Passive Income for Early Retirement: A Strategic Approach”
  39. “Niche Websites: The Secret to Generating Passive Income Online”
  40. “Passive Income Success Stories: Inspiring Examples of Financial Freedom”

Now for me that’s a few good ideas in that list and you can easily expand on these ideas to start cranking out content, if you plan your content out you can quite easily produce an article which can be turned into a script for a youtube video, audio for one of the many podcast sites and as I stated earlier a report. You can even join them together to create an ebook if you want.

If you factor in revenue streams for these then as you can see – good opportunities available here.

Go out, act and make money – what are you waiting for.

 

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Niches

50 SEO-optimized titles for a blog post about retro gaming

by shedders
written by shedders

OK, so you have a blog and you need article ideas for the retro gaming niche but you cannot afford a subscription to a service like ChatGPT, we are here to help.

Here are 50 – use these as ideas, spin them to individual game or consoles. You could even use them for Youtube videos of course as well

Ideas

“The Golden Age of Gaming: Exploring Retro Video Games”
“Nostalgia Unleashed: A Trip Down Memory Lane with Retro Gaming”
“The Top 10 Must-Play Retro Games of All Time”
“Retro Gaming Consoles: From Atari to SNES”
“Collecting Retro Games: A Beginner’s Guide”
“Classic Arcade Games That Defined an Era”
“The Art of Retro Game Preservation: Why It Matters”
“Retro Gaming vs. Modern Gaming: Which Is Better?”
“Emulation and Retro Gaming: What You Need to Know”
“Retro Gaming Communities: Where Old-School Gamers Unite”
“Hidden Gems in Retro Gaming: Overlooked Classics”
“Retro Gaming Accessories: Enhance Your Vintage Setup”
“The Evolution of Graphics in Retro Video Games”
“Vintage Gaming Memories: Recollections from the ’80s and ’90s”
“The Impact of Retro Games on Modern Game Design”
“Retro Gaming for Kids: Introducing the Next Generation”
“The Rise and Fall of Retro Game Companies”
“Speedrunning in Retro Games: Breaking Records with Style”
“The Role of Soundtracks in Retro Gaming”
“Retro Gaming Collectibles: Valuable Treasures for Fans”
“Retro Gaming Challenges: Mastering Difficult Classics”
“Preserving Retro Gaming History: Behind the Scenes”
“The Influence of Retro Games on Pop Culture”
“Retro Gaming and Nostalgic Marketing: A Winning Combo”
“Retro Gaming YouTube Channels: Must-Follow Content Creators”
“Retro Game Reviews: Rediscovering Old Favorites”
“The Science of Retro Gaming Addiction: Why We Can’t Quit”
“Gaming Back in the Day: A Look at Vintage Magazines”
“The Future of Retro Gaming: Trends and Predictions”
“Retro Gaming Tournaments: Where the Legends Compete”
“The Story of Retro Gaming ROMs and Emulation”
“Creating Your Own Retro Game Collection: Tips and Tricks”
“Retro Gaming and Virtual Reality: A Match Made in Pixel Heaven”
“The Preservation Efforts of Retro Game Museums”
“The Retro Gaming Renaissance: Why Old Is New Again”
“Retro Gaming on Mobile Devices: Ported Classics”
“Video Game Urban Legends: Myths from the Retro Era”
“Retro Gaming Merchandise: From T-Shirts to Action Figures”
“The Influence of Japanese Retro Games on Western Culture”
“Retro Gaming Documentaries: Exploring the History”
“The Psychology of Nostalgia in Retro Gaming”
“Rediscovering Retro RPGs: Immersive Worlds Await”
“Retro Game Soundtracks: Composers Who Shaped Gaming”
“The Impact of Retro Gaming on Indie Developers”
“Retro Gaming and the Art of Speedrunning: A How-To Guide”
“Classic vs. Modern: Remakes and Remasters in Retro Gaming”
“The Rise of Retro Gaming Conventions and Expos”
“The Joy of Retro Game Collecting: Hunting for Treasures”
“The Legacy of Retro Game Developers: Icons of the Past”
“The Cultural Significance of Retro Gaming: Pixels and Progress”

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Youtube

Developing Your Youtube Content Strategy

by shedders
written by shedders
If you want your YouTube channel to be successful, then you need to develop a content strategy that includes how often you are going to post, as well as what kind of content you’re going to post. It’s a good idea to have set days where you post new material because it creates a sense of anticipation for your subscribers. It can also help to keep you on track by providing you with a deadline for filming, editing, and posting new content.

 

Why Consistency is Important
The consistency of content is incredibly important if you want to grow a successful YouTube channel for your brand. While you won’t be able to satisfy everyone, you must satisfy your target audience. Switching topics and focus will only confuse your viewers and result in fewer subscriptions to your channel.

Only YouTubers who have a reality show style channel or you have gained credibility and respect over time can get away with producing videos on a range of topics.

If you have a fitness channel, you may decide to upload cooking videos showing viewers how to make healthy dishes on Mondays, training videos on Wednesdays, and update videos on Fridays. Whatever you choose to do, the important thing is to remain consistent.

Types of Videos You Can Create
One of the reasons why many businesses have yet to jump on the video marketing train is because they feel they lack creativity. Many smaller companies and entrepreneurs see articles and blog posts as the safe choice and much easier to manage. It may seem like it is much easier to write about a different topic each week, then it is to create a new and unique video every week.

However, it doesn’t have to be as hard as you think. There are a number of useful types of video content that your YouTube viewers will enjoy and that will help to separate you from the competition.

Vlogs
Video blogs or vlogs are easy to produce, won’t cost you a ton of money to make, and are personality-driven, which can substantially increase your engagement with your audience. However, few companies are taking advantage of this unique content idea.

More companies are choosing, instead, to spend their money on product demos and polished business intro videos. While there is nothing wrong with taking this approach, vlogs are much cheaper to produce and can be created in as little as five minutes.

More and more businesses are embracing vlogging, so instead of trying to come up with new content every week, you could try documenting your journey through a vlog. Vlogging is a great medium to share your journey because of its intimacy and how easy it is to build a relationship with your target audience.

Company Culture Videos
Company culture videos can make your business seem more human and more alive, and there is no better medium for tapping into this human element than videos. Culture videos can include birthday parties, pranks, slice-of-life employee interviews, and everything in between. The goal is to show your target audience that your business isn’t just clockwork, but a social fabric with a ton of personality.

These days it can be hard for businesses to create unique and compelling content that cuts through the online noise. At some level, you will end up just regurgitating material that is already out there. The only way your company can truly stand out and be unique is by differentiating yourself through your personality, and the easiest way to do this is to lift the veil and provide your viewers with a behind the scenes look and what goes on in your company.

Interviews

One of the best ways to become a thought leader in your industry is by interviewing other thought leaders. Video interviews are a great way to insert some authority into your library of engaging and humorous offerings. They can also help to build relationships with potential referral partners, which can’t hurt. Video interviews can be an easy way to produce content quickly and gain a positive brand association by interviewing well-known guests.

Webinars
One of the most valuable offerings you can give your viewers is webinars. Webinars are high-value and low-cost endeavors that require no scripts or actors. You can host Q&A sessions with clients, product demos with participating customers, or roundtable interviews with thought leaders in your industry.

Webinars are also great pieces of content that you can promote through paid traffic. They can be incredibly useful gateways to your other content, where you can drive leads to a consultation call or sell them another product through an email series.

Events
An event video is a step up from a webinar and covers the proceedings of a corporate event, in a polished and highly shareable manner. Traditionally, event videos take a lot more to produce than other kinds of videos, but with the popularity of 15 second Instagrams and Facebook videos, more companies are beginning to capture snippets of their events in a montage form. Event videos bring the excitement of the event to viewers who couldn’t make it to the party. A great event video will increase your online presence.

Presentations
A presentation video takes the excitement of an event and combines it with the usefulness of a webinar. They can create a compelling and shareable narrative that will help you stand out from the crowd. One way you can use the excitement of presentations to your advantage is by providing a targeted presentation at a company event or at smaller-scale networking events.

Tutorials
Providing your audience with helpful content has to reach further than simple promotional tie-ins and soft selling because your target audience is smart enough to know when they are being sold, and it is never something that they like. Consider providing video tutorials that focus on helping your audience.

For example, if you are a tech company, you might want to consider focusing on creating product tutorials, or if you are a health and wellness video, you could produce training videos that offer viewers helpful workout tips. You have to think of a way that you can provide an actionable resource that is relevant to your target vertical.

Product Reviews
If you have an audience that trusts you, you can review products that they might find useful. The product reviews don’t have to be reviews of competitors products, but instead, they can be reviews of products not in your industry that you believe will be useful for your customers. You just need to think of products that you trust and that you feel will help your customers in some way.

Choosing the types of videos that you will produce is almost just as important as the content that you are sharing with your viewer. Creating different types of videos that focus on the same topic can be a great way to keep your viewers from getting bored with your channel.

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Money making

7 Steps On How to Pick the Right Niche

by shedders
written by shedders
Understanding this chapter is crucial if you want to make money as an affiliate marketer on the internet. If you blow off this chapter don’t be surprised if your business goes belly up! That’s how crucial it is.

Things often go seriously wrong when sellers pick the wrong niche. Unfortunately, you will only become aware of your mistake when it’s too late to rectify it. You will know you picked the wrong niche when you have spent a tremendous amount of time, effort, emotional energy, and money only to find that you have very little, if anything, to show for it.

Remember, never trade your time for money! One of the most common mistakes that new sellers make is to sink money, effort, and time into a resource that simply does not provide a real service or, if it does provide a service, provides it at too high a cost to justify it’s use.

I simply can’t emphasize enough that niche choice is crucial to your affiliate marketing success. A Quick Rundown of What Can Go Wrong? First, there may be low or no demand for your product or service. When you pick the wrong niche, the demand may not be there. You might think that it’s the hottest thing since sliced bread, but people really could care less about it – what they care about is whether you produce the kind of results that they would pay dollars for.

Another problem with picking the wrong niche is that you may pick trendy niches. This may seem really hot right now, but they may be “here today, gone tomorrow.”

A good example is fidget spinners. These spinners created a rage in 2016. Now, nobody wants to have anything to do with them. A lot of people made money selling these fidget spinners but a lot of people also lost money because they entered into the niche too late. Trendy niches can mean the end of your affiliate marketing investment. Avoid trendy niches and instead pick niches with tried and true long-standing sales histories.

Another problem that you can avoid by picking the right niche involves low return on effort. A lot of people confuse this with return on investment. These are two totally different concepts. Return on effort is the amount of time you personally invest something. The iron rule of return on effort is to put in as little effort and time as possible, while getting as many dollars as possible.

If you don’t stick by the iron rule and pick the wrong niche, you could end up making some money but only at the expense of your time, mental energy, and emotional resources. Pouring your life into that activity is simply not going to be worth the return on effort. Of course, there is always the possibility that you would pick a niche that has really no return on investment. This speaks more to the amount of dollars that you’re going to be putting into your affiliate marketing business. Maybe you put in this money up front or at a later stage in the development process.

Whatever the case may be, whatever profit your business produces does not in any way, shape, or form come close to justifying the amount of dollars needed to put up the business in the first place. Sadly, people commit this mistake all the time. Another danger with picking the wrong niche involves competition. People routinely pick niches that are too competitive.

As a result, there are just so many of these niche websites out there that the competition becomes a washout altogether. In other words, the competition is so great that essentially no one wins. This is a serious problem because if the typical consumer interested in that niche gets the impression that your website is just like everyone else’s website, there’s really no compelling reason for them to go to your site instead of the thousands of other websites that share your niche. It simply is too saturated. Another danger that you need to avoid involves your mindset.

You may be making money off your business. Things may be looking great on the surface, but somehow, some way, you lost interest. You just don’t have the heart for it anymore. This pitfall is often the true reason that your business is unsuccessful. If you truly lose interest in your niche or your business you will not have the level of passion you need to solve problems as they present themselves.

That is the essence of successful business. Successful business people solve problems. That’s their job. That’s their calling. Unfortunately, if you lose interest in whatever it is you’re doing for money, you’re not going to be excited to solve issues. You’re probably not going to be in a hurry to put out fires as they appear. As a result, your business starts to die slowly.

In other words, you find yourself in the pitiful situation of putting in all this time, effort and money creating a website that pulls in a nice chunk of traffic, only to end up completely empty handed because you have nothing to sell or promote. Sounds ridiculous, right? Unfortunately, you can suffer any one or even a combination of all of the problems listed above if you do not pay close attention to the niche selection process.

You have to know how to select your affiliate marketing niche in a systematic and methodical way. Otherwise, you may end up creating the wrong business.

How to Pick Your Niche the Expert Way

By following the steps I lay out below, you increase your chances of affiliate marketing success tremendously. Instead of coming up with a “hot” idea and wasting a tremendous amount of time, effort and money on it, if you follow the steps that I lay out below, you go through a tried and proven niche selection process that dramatically increases your likelihood of success. Now, this is not a guarantee that if you just follow these steps riches await you in your bank account. Still, it will give you enough of a competitive advantage that your chances of success are much higher than if you were to fly by the seat of your pants.

You need to go through these steps. Don’t skip any of them if you want to make sure that you are targeting the right niche.

Step #1: List out all your interests

List your personal interests and hobbies. Really think about what you personally like to learn about, see, do, collect, or spend time on. Apply the following test: Ask yourself, as you go through each of the interests line by line, if you would talk about those topics even if you were not getting paid. This should narrow your list substantially. Once you have cleaned up your list, go on to the next step.

Step #2: Filter by commercial interests on Google Keyword Planner tool

If you haven’t already done so, create an account at Google Adwords. Using its Google Keyword Planner tool, enter some keywords related to the topics on your list. If you don’t know how this works, just type in the interest and you would be able to find keywords related to it. Group these keywords based on the topics they’re related to.

When you look at each keyword, Google Keyword Planner tool will show the estimated cost per click for that keyword term. This should give you a rough dollar value of the overall demand for each niche. Now, simply eliminate any listed niches that have very low commercial value.

Step #3: Filter by consumer demand on Google Keyword Planner tool

Now that you’re entering keywords related to your niches on Google Keyword Planner tool, the next step is to pay attention to the average monthly search volume projected for those keyword clusters. A certain pattern should emerge from topic to topic. It should be fairly clear which topics have more searches. Now, delete listed niches that do not have enough demand in terms of projected search volume, as well as those that have too much demand. Again, think of this concept as the previously mentioned competition for competition. If a topic generates too many searches, the competition is too great to allow any one or two particular websites to flourish at all. The pool is too full! Now you will see a list of niches that are considered “middle of the road” as far as monthly average search volume is concerned.

Step #4: Filter by competition level

Take the keywords related to each of the niches remaining on your list and search theose keywords on Google’s main search engine. Take note of how many websites are returned by Google. Usually, Google will show a number figure of how many websites are related to the keyword you entered. Write these numbers down. After you’ve done this with all the keywords related to all your remaining niches, compare them with each other. You should wipe out niches on your list that have too many websites targeting them. You should focus on a fairly manageable level of competition.

Step #5: Filter by consumer trend

At this stage, your list of niches should be growing shorter and shorter. Now, apply two more filters to your search so that you can zero in on the niche you should target. This is the expert way of picking niches. If you follow this process, there is a high chance you will be more successful with your affiliate marketing business. For this step, you’re going to type in the keywords related to each of the niches on your list into Google Trends. Pay attention to the chart. Is it flat or does it show a decline over time? If it shows any of these two patterns, delete that niche from your list. Chances are, the demand level for that niche is dying over time. If you need a good example of this, look at the search pattern for the keyword phrase “fidget spinner.” There were many previously hot products and hot niches, that have dropped like a rock. You don’t want to be stuck with those. Filter from your list any niche with a declining or flat lining trend line.

Step #6: Filter by social media demand

For this step, I need you to go to Twitter or Facebook. I need you to enter keywords related to your niche on those platforms and see if there are hashtags on Twitter or really big accounts that target those keywords. On Facebook, see if there are any big pages or Facebook groups that tend to talk about those topics. If a niche isn’t already being talked about on these two platforms, you might want to take it off your list. If you pick a niche that already has some sort of demand on social media, you’re making your job much easier. You know that there are already platforms and groups as well as promotional spaces on social media. You only need to go to those existing places to promote whatever it is you’re promoting. Do you see how this works?

You don’t want to have to create social media demand. You don’t want to put yourself in a position where you’re going to have to reinvent the wheel, as far as your niche is concerned. You have to ask yourself, “Are there enough people already talking about the niche that I’m thinking of promoting?” Similarly, “Are there areas on social media dedicated to this niche already?”

Step #7: Filter by content ease

This is an optional step. You don’t have to delete items from your niche list if it doesn’t fit this criteria. However, if you are operating on a tight budget, you might want to do just that. The question you need to ask yourself is, “How easy is it to come up with content for this niche?” For example, among the three remaining niches on your list, one involves really complicated robotics technology, this might be an issue. You better have the time to properly research content for that niche and do things yourself, or you better get ready to hire somebody. If you’re going to be outsourcing content creation, it may be very expensive because the niche is so specialized or involves some sort of cutting edge technology. Since you’re going to be spending money for this content, it may prove to be too costly or, in the case of you writing stuff yourself, too time intensive. You may be better off sticking with a niche that is easier or cheaper to produce content for.

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Articles

Getting traffic the smart way for your site

by shedders
written by shedders
Getting traffic the smart way Just like with anything else in life, there are two ways to do things when it comes to online marketing. You can choose to do things the easy way, or you can try doing things the hard way.
The funny thing is the easy way is often also the smart way. In this chapter, I’m going to teach you the smart way to get traffic for your affiliate marketing business.
Regardless of how you choose to convert that traffic, I’m going to teach you the smart way to produce traffic. Put simply, the aim is to work less while getting more results.
Unfortunately, a lot of books out there that teach you affiliate marketing have it in reverse. They talk a good game but you end up doing things the opposite way of what I’ll teach you.
You’ll end up putting a tremendous amount of time only to have very little results to show for it because the turn-on-effort simply isn’t there.

Social media is the key

Forget what you’ve heard about social media and the effectiveness of its traffic. Social media is the key to your affiliate marketing success. Here’s how to do it.

Find your competitors on all social media platforms

By this point, you should already have a clear idea of who your niche competitors are. Go ahead and find their accounts on all social media platforms. By “all”, I mean the major social media platforms. This means look for your competitors on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest. For bonus points, look for their account on Google Plus. Focus on in the social media platforms where most of your competitors are found. After you’ve done your research, you should have raw count of where your competitors are and where they’re not. A pattern should emerge. It may well turn out, depending on your niche, that most of your competitors focus primarily on Twitter. Some niches tend to focus on Facebook. Whatever the case may be identify the social media platforms where most of your competitors can be found.

Figure out their influencer base

How influential are your competitors on the social media platforms your niche tends to focus on? In the most common platform for your niche, look for the base of influence your competitors have. For example, on Twitter, are there special accounts that they keep mentioning? Are there industry specialists or industry experts or consultants that they always mention in their posts? What kind of hashtags do they use? Similarly, on Facebook, do you find them on certain groups? Do they tend to congregate in certain groups?

The bottom line on social media reverse-engineering

I hope the pattern is clear. Make sure that, regardless of where your competitors are on the major social media platforms, you figure out how they distribute their content.

Do they participate in group discussions? Do they have their own pages or do they basically promote their content on other people’s pages? What kind of hashtags do they use? Pay attention to what they’re doing on the major social media platforms your niche congregates in. Pick apart their patterns.

The smart way to build credibility on social media

By this point, you should have the three crucial things you need to reverse engineer your competitors on social media. First, you should have a clear understanding of which platforms to focus on. Since your niche tends to congregate within a fairly narrow range of social media platforms, you should know which ones these are. Second, you should have a clear idea of where they promote on those platforms.

You should try joining those groups. You should try to be visible in those areas. Third, you should have an idea about the hashtags that they use. Facebook and Twitter use hashtags. So, identify the hashtags that are most commonly used in your niche. Now that you have all this information, you are ready to build credibility on social media.

This account must reflect your content branding strategy. If you have a blog or a central website for all your articles, your accounts on your target social media platforms should look similar to each other. There has to be no confusion regarding your brand. If you feature a logo or a header graphic on your blog, it should be consistent on your social media accounts as well. Next, you’re going to gather as many of your competitors’ best content. At this point, you should have already done that.

You already should have a large list of top-notch thirdparty content that gets a lot of love from social media. These get retweeted a lot. They get shared a lot on Facebook. They get a lot of Plus One votes from Google Plus.

Whatever the case may be there is an objective indication that these are quite viral on social media. You should have a list of the URLs of this content. Your next step is to create a list of your improved versions of some of this content. This is your own top-notch content.

Your secret sauce

The secret sauce that you’ll be using is to “sandwich” your best content with your thirdparty competitors’ very best content. In other words, you use high-quality materials produced by third parties, and these could be your competitors, to establish credibility and context. When people see your brand on social media and they see your post, it becomes readily apparent that you’re only going to talk about a fairly narrow range of topics. This establishes your brand as some sort of expert or credible authority within a fairly narrow range of subject matter categories. This is crucial.

You can post all sorts of content about Kim Kardashian, celebrity content, Donald Trump, political, economic stories as well as gossip. That’s going to dilute your message. You have to stay on message. You have to stay laser-focused on your niche. On top of this, you have to feature the very best credible and authoritative content within your niche to position your brand as an expert.

This is why it’s crucial to go through that list of third-party content that you’ve reverse-engineered from your competitors with a fine-tooth comb. You have to be very meticulous regarding filtering that material to make sure that it gets people’s attention as well as gets them thinking about your credibility and authority. You may be thinking “How can this build my create ability when it’s somebody else’s content? This is not my own stuff. If people click on that link, they’re not going to go to my website. They’re going to go to my competitors’ website. What do I get out of it? Well, here’s the thing. When people can tell that they can reliably go to your social media account and get the very best content regarding the niche you’re targeting, they trust your brand more.

So, even if they click on a link and it takes them somewhere else, they will still go back to you because they can then find another link that is guaranteed to add value to their lives and when they click that, they get quality. They get value so they would want to go back to you. You are the hub that holds everything together. That’s how you develop a solid brand on social media. That’s how you become credible. This is also the way to establish context. The key here is to establish this credibility to the point that when people just give you the benefit of the doubt automatically and they just click link after link that you post because they know that it’s going to be on point, you basically have them feeding off the palm of your hands because sandwiched within these high-quality, top-notch third-party links are your own links. This is the payoff.

When they click these, they go to your website. That’s where you can show them ads that pay you money. That’s where they can sign up to your mailing list. Whatever the case may be once they go to your website, they can take an action that can end up putting more dollars in your pocket. That is the name of the game.

However, to get there, you have to be trustworthy. People have to have a good reason to trust you instead of somebody else. They should have a clear idea of why they should keep going back to your branded account instead of just picking out generic content through a random Google search. I hope you can see the difference here.

How to execute the sandwich strategy

I call this the sandwich strategy because that’s what you’re doing. You’re sandwiching your own content with the content of movers and shakers as well as proven and recognized authorities in your niche.

If you play this game correctly, you are essentially going to be piggybacking on the authority and credibility they worked so hard to build. The more people can see that your account only shares the very best content, the more credible your account becomes. You then end up benefiting from the existing brand authority of your competitors.

Isn’t that awesome? It’s definitely better than starting from scratch because, believe me, establishing a solid and credible online brand nowadays can set you back tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars pores. There are specialized public relations firms in the United States and Western Europe that are built specifically for this job. However, you’re doing this on a shoestring budget. In fact, you’re doing this for absolutely free thanks to reverse engineering and the sandwich strategy. How the sandwich strategy works To spell it out in greater detail, the sandwich strategy works this way. First, you need to get a massive list of your competitors’ content.

Next, you’re going to have to filter these based on social media signals.

• Are people retweeting these materials?
• Are people clicking the thumbs-up Like button on Facebook?
• Is this material getting a lot of love on YouTube?
• Are the YouTube comments generally positive?
• Are these getting up pinned a lot on Pinterest?
• Do people on Instagram love this stuff?

Whatever the case may be there has to be some sort of objective social media validation. You can easily detect this looking at the social signals. Ideally, if a post gets retweeted a lot, that is more credible than a post that just gets a lot of thumbs up. On Facebook, for example, if a post gets a lot of shares, that is more credible than a post that just gets a lot of thumbs up and reactions. Once you have loaded these, you then get the URLs of your own content. Remember your content is reverse-engineered from the best materials your competitors can come up with. In other words, you’ve taken their best and improved on it.

Maybe you’ve updated it. Perhaps you’ve included all sorts of multimedia bells and whistles. Possibly, you’ve made it easier to read. Whatever the case may be just by looking at your own content, people can easily conclude that this is better than the competition. This is the kind of stuff that you’re going to be sandwiching so you’re going to first post several links establishing context and credibility. This is done courtesy of your competitors’ content. Next, you post your own content.

This immediately establishes your brand’s credibility and quality. Your visitors only need to click on the link to your own content to see how you beat everybody else hands down in terms of the information and value you bring to the table. After you post your own content, you then resume with posting other people’s content. Again, it’s all about building context and credibility.

You also want people checking out your social media pages to see that all you talk about is your niche, and the way you talk about your niche is not to sell stuff or cram products or services down their throat.

Instead, when they go to your account, they see high-quality content that answers the questions that they already have. After a few more posts of third-party content, you then follow that up with a call-toaction content. Call-to-action content is different from your own content. Your own content is a link to your article or blog posts. It can also involve a link to your YouTube videos. Your call-to-action content, on the other hand, goes to your squeeze page. This is where people can sign up for your mailing list.

Usually, this offers some sort of freebie like a free book, free software or a free video course. Whatever the case may be there is some sort of free premium being given out in exchange for the prospect entering their e-mail address. Once they get on your e-mail address, you can then send them prescheduled e-mails that qualify them to eventually buying something from you.

Once you have posted your call-to-action content, you then post third-party content and then you keep rotating. You’re basically alternating between third-party content, your own content, third-party content and then call-to-action content and then back again.

 

Automate your social media presence

As you can tell from my description of the sandwich strategy above, this is going to be a bit much to handle on a manual basis. You can do that if you have a lot of spare time or if you’ve hired a virtual assistant from places like the Philippines or India. However, the better approach would just simply be to automate.

By using tools like SocialOomph or Hootsuite or one of many other versions of these two tools, you can feed your social media accounts a huge amount of content URLs ahead of time. You feed them once, but these tools make sure to publish based on the schedule you set. You don’t have to publish manually one by one. Instead, you just input everything once, make sure you set everything up in terms of the think, the title as well as other elements and then the software does it on an autopilot basis.

This doesn’t mean that you’re just going to relax and take it easy. Even after the software is already posting your updates, you should also log into your social media accounts and engage with influential thought leaders or known-and-proven subject matter authorities in your niche on those different social media platforms.

This way they can republish some of your stuff. Maybe they can retweet your stuff. Whatever the case may be you end up getting some of their fans’ eyeballs because of your engagement with them. Don’t think that just because you have set up your automated software that is all you need to do. You also have to manually engage on social media. It is social media so this means that you have to be social.

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Using facebook to drive traffic to your website

by shedders
written by shedders
Facebook is one of the most complex social networking sites for business because they are always changing the algorithms, which can make it challenging to reach your targeted audience.

Facebook offers both profiles and business pages. Profiles allow you to add friends and are a two-way connection to other members of the site. When Facebook business pages, users ‘like’ the pages, which allow businesses to push content out to the users who ‘like’ them.

Unlike profiles, business pages are public, which means anyone can follow a link to see everything that has been posted on the page. With a business page, you can also set up paid advertising for both Facebook and Instagram.

For single-man operations, like media personalities and authors, a Facebook profile may be enough. However, for most companies, you should be creating a business page. It is essential that you link your business page to your personal profile. The advantage of using both your own profile and business page is that you can utilize your friends’ list form your personal profile on your business page.

With profiles, you can tag friends in business posts, invite them to events, and ask them to ‘like’ your page, while you also monitor conversations. Understanding your audience based on the content they post is not available with your business page, which is why you should have your personal profile linked.

The best way to grow your network with Facebook is to connect with the professional contacts on your personal profile. Be sure to add any media contacts, collaborators, other people in your industry, and potential clients. You might also be able to find potential friends in various Facebook groups or in the comments of other Facebook pages.

While it is understandable that you might want to keep your professional and personal pages separate, the great thing about Facebook is that you can create friend lists and control what the different lists see. You can have as few as one list for professional contacts, or make 100 lists and segment them in different ways.

When posting content, you can exclude lists from seeing a post or target a specific list, so they do look at your post.

How to Utilize Facebook to Grow Your Business

While you may have a Facebook page for your business, the question becomes whether or not you are using it to its fullest. Facebook is a great tool that can be used to effectively grow your business with a lot less effort than you’ve been putting in up until now.

In addition to posting updates about your business, there are numerous ways that you can utilize your Facebook page to create awareness among your audience to spread brand awareness and gain more followers.

Here are some of the most effective ways that you can use your Facebook business page to grow your brand awareness and gain more traffic to your company website.

Ask for Testimonials and Reviews

To improve your brand name and spread awareness about your company, it can help a great deal if you post testimonials and reviews on your business page. If you’ve ever used your page to promote local business, it provides you with the opportunity to gather testimonials and reviews from your customers.

While it might be challenging to motivate your customers to review your business page, you can put a sign up at your place of business to make your customers aware of the option to discuss your business on Facebook.

Apart from having a Facebook page filled with reviews of your customers, you can also select some of the best reviews and post them on your company site so visitors can see what others are saying.

Strike a Connection with Your Audience

An essential element of using your Facebook page for your business is connecting with your audience. Your audience on Facebook will consist of fans of your business, fans of your content, current and former customers, as well as potential customers. When you post content on your page, you need to keep this in mind, because your first priority is to connect with your audience.

If you follow the traditional method of audience engagement, you should be following the 80/20 rule. This means that 80 percent of the content that you post should be value-added content with the remaining 20 percent promoting your business. You can fill the 20 percent with material that is used for marketing, sales, or selfpromotion purposes.

It is imperative to engage with your audience if you want to promote your business page. The best way to catch their attention is by posting unique and informative content that is related to your business or industry. To win a loyal and engaged audience for your business, you have to create content that is relevant to your niche.

It is also critical to interact with your audience. This can be done by providing them with the kind of content the desire, as well as replying to the comments they post to your page. To ensure that you produce content that will engage your audience, monitor the comments that are posted so you can find out what your audience likes or doesn’t like about what you’ve posted.

If you notice that one of your posts gets a substantial number of likes and shares, it is up to you to try and find out what makes that post special. This will help you create similar posts in the future so you can increase the exposure that you gain by regularly posting the kinds of posts that your customers respond well to and by avoiding those that they seem to hate.

Utilize News Feed Ad Placement

Facebook provides its users the opportunity to place ads within the news feed that is located in the right-hand column of the site. The only requirement for this is that you must add your link to a Facebook page so that it is displayed in the news feed. In case you don’t have a Facebook page, you can only take advantage of ad placement services that appear in the right-hand column.

With news feed ads, your business page is used as the source of the advertisement by Facebook. This feature will provide your target audience an option to like your page apart from connecting with the primary objective of the ad.

Get Feedback from Your Audience

It is always best for your business to get a clear understanding of your customer’s expectations and then to strive to fulfill their demands. The best way to get an accurate understanding of how current and potential customers feel about your brand or product is to survey them. Not only does polling your audience give you a path to connect with your customers, but it also helps you understand what your customer’s expectations in a much better way.

If you find creating a survey is too time-consuming, Facebook has made it easy for users to create simple polls with their Facebook polling app. The app allows you to create a simple to use survey which can be easily understood by your audience. The best thing about the app is that it will provide you with readymade answers and can collect personal information in a way that will satisfy any privacy concerns that might arise.

Offer Helpful Resources

The best way to grow your audience and get more targeted traffic to your business site is to offer resources to your audience. Providing your audience with helpful and value-added resources will also help to set you up as an authority and thought leader in your industry.

Some of the best posts that you should be sharing on your business page is breaking news, blog entry posts, new tools, features, and products, book recommendation, and other useful websites. The kind of content that you post on your business page will shift depending on your specialty and business. On the off chance that there is a tool or blog that you depend on in your business, share the information with your fans.

Use Images in Your Posts

Photos are an extraordinary addition to your Facebook posts. So you want to post the highest number of pictures as you can. Not only can images convey a wide range of information, but it can also focus in on a single thought or emotion. Recent studies have also determined that images get shared more often than posts that contain only text.

The best part about adding images to your Facebook business page, it that they don’t need to be created by an expert photographer. Some of the best pictures that you can post come straight from your phone. The best images to display are ones of your employees, your products, or you in action.

When it comes to utilizing social media to grow your business, you want to try not to put all of your eggs in the Facebook basket. While Facebook can be an extraordinary way to showcase your business, it should be used in conjunction and supported by different channels.

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Money making

Pinterest Profits – Training Guide

by shedders
written by shedders
Introduction To Pinterest

 

Pinterest is a fast growing image-based social networking site that not only offers a unique approach to the way that people communicate, but it offers incredible potential to maximize your business exposure and brand awareness.

Even those who held no interest in other types of social media sites have jumped on board Pinterest simply because it offers a very innovative method to share and communicate with others who hold the same interests.

With more than 10 million visitor’s monthly and over 2 million visitor’s hitting the site each day, Pinterest is an extremely valuable resource for spreading your business message, connecting with potential customers, and furthering your brand.

But how exactly does Pinterest work?

Pinterest is similar to the bulletin boards that you’ve seen located in shopping malls, local grocery stories, and perhaps convenience stories, but on a global scale.

Similar to the way that corkboards and bulletin boards work in local shops, where people can pin up announcements, news, items for sale and of interest, Pinterest’s foundation is based on providing users with the opportunity to “pin” the things that interest them.

Imagine being able to create a virtual “sticky note” for your business that is seen by thousands of visitors a day. Now consider the branding opportunity that is now at your fingertips, just by utilizing the popularity of a virtual “corkboard”.

It’s no surprise that hundreds of businesses, entrepreneur’s and marketer’s have begun to develop creative marketing campaigns based around the ever-growing Pinterest community.

 

Exploiting The Popularity of Pinterest

In order to create an effective marketing campaign within the Pinterest community, you need to understand the features and extended options when creating pins.

Image Showcase

One of the most powerful components of a successful pin is in your ability to create, collect and display various images from your websites, resources, and even other website’s in your niche market.

Visitor’s to Pinterest are interested in exploring relevant content pertaining to their interests, and while many of Pinterest pages are designed around specific brands, physical products and collectibles, you can easily create popular Pinterest pages around your offers, just by helping members discover your very own “themed” image collections.

For example, if you are in the business of selling physical products, such as t-shirts, mouse pads, books, DVD’s or anything in which you can usual visual marketing components to sell your items, you can easily create a Pinterest page that includes a full collection of product images from your inventory.

But even if you sell digital products, you can still take advantage of image themed pins by creating a visual library of everything associated to your brand, including your logo, ebook covers, and other image-based marketing materials.

And don’t just stop there. With Pinterest you can also create visual-marketing campaigns around other image types including spreadsheets, graphs, charts, and even mindmaps!

 

Examples of Successful Pinterest Campaigns

Consider the image-based training tools that you use within your products. All of these can be used to create Pinterest based pages that provide a visual illustration of the services and products that you offer.

Drawing from a couple of examples of successful Pinterest marketing, let’s take a closer look at Etsy – their Pinterest page vailable at http://pinterest.com/etsy/pins

Etsy has developed a presence within Pinterest just by showcasing handmade crafts, clothing, vintage collections and designs from their community.

But Etsy is only one of many online businesses who have taken advantage of Pinterests global community. Sony Music, Pepsi, clothing designers, interior decorators, and many other big-brand companies have established Pinterest accounts in order to futher connect with their target audience.

When it comes to online businesses, Mashable has had great success with their Pinterest page, available at http://pinterest.com/mashable/pins

Mashable is the perfect example of how online businesses can begin to generate high targeted traffic to their websites instantly, while maximizing exposure with very little work involved.

The basis of Mashable’s Pinterest page is to simply take traditional blog posts and create a simple image-based overview or summary of each content piece.

For example, if you were writing a blog post about the “Top 10 Traffic Sources For This Year”, you could easily create an image that represents ‘traffic’, with 10 headlines outlining the different traffic sources.

You could then link that image to the full article on your blog, directing viewers from Pinterest to your website!

When someone clicks on your image, they would be directed to a full article on your website or blog – or perhaps you may lead them to another social networking account such as Facebook or Twitter.

You can direct people anywhere you choose from sales pages, squeeze pages, download pages (lead capture) – or to another one of your Pinterest pages.

 

Viral Marketing With Pinterest

There’s another powerful component to the way that Pinterest has been created – your pins can easily go viral!

If people like your pins, they can choose to “re-pin” your content, maximizing exposure and carrying your message throughout countless Pinterest pages.

If you take a closer look at a popular pin page, you can see the number of re-pins that took place for each update. In some cases, a single pin has been re-pinned hundreds of times!

People can also “like” your pin, and the number of likes will appear at the bottom of your Pinterest pages.

Creating images for your Pinterest pages is also extremely easy to do. You don’t have to have fancy graphics, nor do you have to outsource the work to a graphic designer. Quite often, the best pin based images are those that are simple, direct and to the point.

Your image could simply be your product cover, with a direct link to your sales page. Or, for a more effective Pinterest campaign, you could create an image based around a current news headline, capturing attention from a larger audience, with your image leading them to a full article on your site that ties in with the current event.

You want to focus on creative Pinterest campaigns that will reach a broader audience, and capture a browser’s attention quickly.

Most of the images used by successful marketer’s are very simple and clear, while others create more elaborate graphics that include charts, full article content in image-form, and even cartoons that help carry their marketing message.

Just get creative and start pinning every bit of content you can that will help to build awareness of your brand. There is nothing that can’t be pinned with a bit of imagination and creativity!

Quick Start Ideas

 

  • Post comical or funny images that tie into your niche market, and lead people to a full article on your website.
  • Create Pinterest based contests and giveaway events encouraging other members to repin your pages.
  • Take advantage of visual “stimulators” and create pins that offer colorful images to attract attention. High resolution images from stock photo sites (providing you with a valid license to distribute) work well at capturing attention quickly.
  • Include training based images in your pins. If you are involved in social marketing, you could create a simple graph that illustrates the top social marketing websites based on traffic stats and outreach. If you are involved in the weight loss market, you could create an image that offers the average weight loss.

Maximizing Exposure For Unlimited Free Traffic

Pinterest offers a great way for business owners and even affiliates to connect with potential customers and generate fresh, new leads as well!

Here are just a few ways that you can take advantage of the popularity of Pinterest to maximize your affiliate profits.

  • Create images around current events and then tie that into an article on your website. Make money from affiliate offers that are somehow connected to the topic. Your content doesn’t have to be about the event, but should lead in with it.

For example, you could create a pin with an image and headline that reads “Apple’s New iPhone Failure” – which directs people to your website that features an article on Apple’s inability to keep up with market demand, and how it’s almost impossible to get your hands on one.

You could follow up with an overview of other mobile phones that are similar to the iPhone, leading visitor’s to distributors through your affiliate link. Think about how much money you can make just by exploiting current news and events!

Features include the ability to collect and display images that you find on the Internet. You can browse boards from other members to discover new items as well as create your very own themed collections.

Pinterest is truly the most visual-oriented social networking site, making it easy to create attractive pin boards that will attract attention from potential customers.

Pinterest will work for your marketing campaign if your business is focused on fashion, photography, travel or design based offers, but with a bit of creativity, you can take advantage of the popularity of Pinterest to promote nearly any other business type.

For example, one company created a “Twitter Cheat Sheet” that was a simple image outlining the different areas of the Twitter community site. This image was pinned thousands of time by new Twitter users and marketer’s.

Consider what you could create that would attract visitor’s to your website and create your own visually enhanced marketing campaign with Pinterest.

Ideas:

  • Create image based content around your niche. Consider graphics, spreadsheet images, or infographs.
  • Encourage others to pin your image content by opening up contests and events based around your customer base creating additional images involving your brand (logo, creatives, etc).
  • Tweet out links to your Pinterest collections, pushing traffic from one social media site to another.
  • Sell your products directly! If you add a $ sign to a number in your pin, Pinterest will automatically create a price tag for your pin. You could sell photographs, stock photos, logos, mascots and other creatives.
  • Think about the different image based training tools that you’ve used within your business, and consider how you can use similar images to create popular Pinterest pages. Visual tutorials or illustrations.

The key to success with Pinterest is to be proactive in marketing your pages. Add a “follow me on Pinterest” button or tag to your websites and blogs.

Pin other people’s pages rather than just your own content and provide value to existing and new followers by helping them discover new images.

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Affiliate Marketing Terminology

by shedders
written by shedders
If affiliate marketing sounds like something you’d like to get involved in, you’ll want to brush up on the most commonly-used terms associated with this multi-million-dollar industry.

Here are some of the terms you should know:

Affiliate Program:
An arrangement in which the advertiser pays a commission to an affiliate for each sale captured via their website or advertising link.

The commission model is based on actions performed by users, usually involving lead generation, subscription to a service, a direct one-time purchase, or other actions.

The advertiser will utilize performance-tracking software to track the users’ actions and the affiliates who have assisted in that process.

Many service providers run their own affiliate program, which means they buy traffic for themselves to increase their own profit.

Affiliate Manager
An Affiliate Manager is any person who communicates with the affiliates. They often create offers and take care of maximizing performance of the affiliate program.

Advertiser
This is a person or organization that owns a business and offers services or products to customers.

Advertisers are willing to pay affiliates for each new lead or customer they bring. This helps them promote their brand and acquire new customers.

Affiliate Network
An affiliate network acts as an intermediary between affiliates and advertisers. Affiliate networks allow affiliates to easily find and participate in affiliate programs suitable for their inventory.

Advertisers who offer affiliate programs work with affiliate networks to reach larger audiences (i.e. all affiliates participating in the network).

Bonus Offers
In affiliate marketing, you are competing against other affiliates, who quite often, may be advertising to the same group of customers.

This is where the power of bonus offers comes into play.

Affiliates will often offer bonuses to persuade a customer to purchase through their link rather than someone else’s. Typically, the bonus adds additional value to the product that is being promoted. In other words, it is relevant, in the same niche/topic, and serves as an auxiliary component.

The greater the perceived value, the easier it will be to convince people to purchase through your affiliate link. Therefore, it’s very important to learn how to create high-quality bonuses that stand out and capture the attention of your target audience.

Building your bonus offer doesn’t have to be a difficult process, but does require some knowledge of design and/or content creation.

One way around this is to use a program like Commission Gorilla, which simplifies the entire process of creating affiliate bonus pages. They’ve essentially done the heavy-lifting for you.

 

Cookies
In affiliate marketing, cookies are used to identify a visitor who has clicked on an affiliate link. It’s simply a form of tracking.

Cookies are usually assigned for a specific period of time. If the visitor returns within that timeframe, the affiliate marketer will be paid for the sale, whether or not the visitor uses the affiliate link to complete the purchase.

CTR
Your Click-Through Rate (CTR) is the percentage of website clicks for the number of advertising impressions displayed to visitors or bought from other networks.

CPA, CPS, CPL & CPC
Cost Per Action, or CPA, is the cost of an action carried out by a visitor. An action is almost always a form of conversion (see below).

A visitor either purchases the product or shows an interest in it. This is also referred to as Cost Per Sale (CPS) or Cost Per Lead (CPL), respectively.

Cost Per Click (CPC) is a payment model for online advertisements. Each time the ad is clicked, an amount will be paid to the advertiser.

Cost Per Action (CPA) is a payment plan where advertisers pay their affiliates for conversions only. If a sale is not made, the affiliate is not paid.

Campaign or Offer
This is the promotion of a product or service. Offers are created by affiliate managers or product owners, and usually contain all relevant information about the payout model, commission offer, and best marketing practices.

An Offer URL is the final URL where the visitor will land after clicking the promotion link or banner. This is your landing page where they will find your offer or campaign.

Conversion
This is usually a target action of the end user, defined by the advertiser. It can be a subscription to a service, lead generation, sale of a product, or installation of a mobile application.

Conversion is the final goal of advertising and is the event the affiliates will be paid for. In other words, the consumer has now been converted into a paying customer.

The Conversion Rate is the percentage of website clicks that converted (turned, changed) into a lead or a sale.

For example, if one in every hundred visitors to your site makes a purchase, then your conversion rate would be 0.1%.

Data Feed
This is a file containing lists of all the products an advertiser sells, including prices, images of products, descriptions, and affiliate links for the products.

Disclosure
This is a notice on an affiliate’s website or blog, notifying visitors that the affiliate is being compensated or paid for sales, recommendations, endorsements, and advertisements of a product and/or service on their website or landing page.

This is an important part of your marketing campaign because it’s required to comply with FTC laws. You should place this statement towards the top of your landing pages before you mention the affiliate offer.

Tracking Link
This is a unique URL to which an affiliate sends an audience for a particular offer. It can also be called a click tracking link or affiliate link.

Third-Party Tracking
This is the principle of notifying affiliates in real-time for every conversion. When a new conversion (or sale) is received, affiliate software automatically sends a conversion notification to tracking systems at the affiliate site or other third-party systems.

For example, if an affiliate program or network works with another affiliate network, each valid post-back can be forwarded to that affiliate network.

Creative
This is simply an advertisement (ad), or, in a broader sense, any form of content that helps sell the product, including graphics and banners.

There are many types of creatives used by affiliate marketers. Choosing the right type depends on the advertising channel, target audience, and advertising message.

When it comes to using banner-type creatives, they are typically large enough to be easily noticed without disrupting the user’s experience.

Interactive banners are, as the name suggests, dynamic and highly interactive. They usually offer more than one interaction, trying to get users to engage. This type of ad can contain an interactive element (a video or game) plus a call to action (a contact form, for example) all within the same banner.

An Ad Tag or Ad Snippet is an HTML element used to display ads by dynamically fetching them from an ad server.

Referral Bonus Program
This is a special type of payout awarded to affiliates who brought new affiliates into the affiliate program.

For each referred affiliate, they can receive a fixed-price sign-up commission and a percentage of their total earnings in a given period.

Client-Based Tracking
This is a tracking method in which information is stored on the user’s computer. A cookie is saved in the user’s browser when they click on the ad, and then linked back to the affiliate that brought in that user.

After the user completes an action on a page, the tracking program records a conversion for the proper affiliate using a piece of tracking code called tracking pixel.

The pixel is also called an impression pixel or iframe pixel, depending on which of these two methods are used.

Client-based tracking is simpler to implement on the advertiser’s side, but is less accurate, since it uses cookies.

Impressions
This refers to the number of times an ad is shown on a page.

Landing Page
This is a website or webpage to which affiliates refer traffic.

For example, when a user clicks on an ad or banner, they are redirected to a webpage that gives them more information about the product advertised on that banner, usually with purchase options.

The main purpose of a landing page is for the user to complete an action. It can be a purchase, service sign-up, download, or any other action that has a positive value for the advertiser.

Your landing page should reflect your online personality and use your charisma to encourage users to take action and gain you those commissions.

You can also use a bonus page as your destination URL when promoting offers.

Niche Marketing
This type of marketing is focused on a specific group of consumers.

Niche marketing targets a far smaller group than general ads do. For example, if you are promoting yoga products, your niche is yoga while your main industry might be health and fitness.

A well-defined niche allows marketers to create more personal ads that will yield better results.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
This is the process of getting a better ranking on search engine results pages. The purpose is to achieve higher visibility and attract more traffic (more visits or clicks) to a website, which in turn results in more sales or leads.

Lead
This is a contact with the potential to become a customer. A lead, in other words, is a person who shows interest in the product or service you are promoting, which makes them more likely to become a customer instead of a browser.

This is also known as a prospect.

Keep in mind that the definition of a lead may vary depending on the organization using the term.

For some companies, a lead is a contact already determined to be a prospective customer, whereas other companies consider any sales contact to be a lead. Your goal is to convert the maximum number of leads into actual customers.

EPC (Earnings Per Click)
This refers to the amount of commission an affiliate earns fro every person that clicks on their advertisement and purchases from the merchant’s website.

A/B Testing
This refers to an instance where you are running two or more versions of a webpage or creative at the same time in order to identify the most effective campaign.

Affiliate ID
This is a unique identifier given by the affiliate program or merchant that you are promoting. It tracks your sales, clicks and often, overall traffic.

Ad Blocker
This is the technology that prevents online ads from displaying on a website.

Ad blocking is on the rise, so the International Advertising Bureau (IAB) has launched its L.E.A.N. program to make ads better, and therefore, to encourage users to give up their ad blocking.

The latest research shows that over 15% of online consumers are using ad blockers nowadays, so something needs to be done to restore the balance in the marketplace.

The problem is that unscrupulous advertisers have started showing heavier, more distracting ads that impose on the customer instead of enticing their interest. IAB has owned up to this mistake. They realized that the most important thing to do now is to improve the experience of internet users so that ad blockers are no longer needed.

Encrypted: To advertise on secure websites, advertisers need to create secure, SSL-compliant creatives for display and video ads. SSL is a protocol for establishing a secure connection between two parties on the internet.

The goal is to make sure that communications are encrypted (or encoded) so that unauthorized users cannot understand them.

Return on Investment (ROI):
This is the amount derived by subtracting your net revenue from the total amount of your costs. The result shows you the profitability of your campaign.

A high ROI means the gains compare favorably to the cost, so you’re making good profits.

There are two main benefits to using the ROI calculation: it’s easy to calculate, and it’s almost universally understood.

First Click
This means that the affiliate program will reward commissions to the affiliate who was the first to refer the customer who made the purchase within the cookie duration timeframe.

Last Click
Affiliate programs that reward commissions based on last click attribute the sale to the affiliate who was the last to refer the customer who purchased the product or service.

And finally, here is a list of a few common affiliate marketing abbreviations:

• AOV: Average Order Value
• B2B: Business to Business.
• B2C: Business to Consumer
• EPC: Earnings per Click
• SEM: Search Engine Marketing
• SERP: Search Engine Results Page

Final Words

Affiliate marketing is one of the few opportunities available today that provide you with the opportunity to make money instantly, without hefty start-up costs, experience or skill.

In fact, you could very well see results from a single affiliate campaign within just a few short hours from now, even if you’ve never set one up before!

The next step is to create an action plan and build your bonus pages so that you can stand out in the marketplace and maximize conversion rates.

It truly is an exciting and incredibly profitable market to be a part of.

In fact, an affiliate can earn anywhere from $10,000 a year to six-figures and beyond when they focus on building a targeted list and then creating emails that motivate their audiences.

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Money making

3 Ways to Make $10 an Hour

by shedders
written by shedders

We didn’t start online businesses to make 10 bucks an hour, right? Our goals are obviously much bigger. But here’s what new comers need to know that only seasoned online pros can tell you – you’ve got to start somewhere.

There are three key components to that sentence – “You have got to start somewhere.”

First of course is “you,” because nobody is going to do it for you.

Second is “have got to start” – if you haven’t started to make money online, now is the time. Not tomorrow. Not next month. NOW.

And third is “somewhere.” Meaning you’re not going to start out making a thousand dollars an hour or a million dollars a year. It’s not going to happen. You start out making maybe 10 dollars an hour, and you move up from there.

I’m not saying you can’t move up fast – you can. But you have to START where ever it is that you’re able to start, and for nearly everybody it’s making a few dollars an hour and working from there.

For those who don’t want to work your way up, that’s no problem. Close this newsletter and go find a get rich quick scheme or 2 or 20. Then get back to me when you’re rich (should be next week sometime, right?)

You might even get lucky and find yourself a one hit wonder. You know, like those musicians who get a song on the charts – and then can never duplicate their success so they just fade away. It’s almost worse then never getting success at all because then people say,

5 minutes of fame and the rest of their life is a punch line.

I see that happen in online marketing. Some newbie makes a product that sells a few hundred copies, they get some money in their pocket, and then they just fade away, never to be heard from again.

Who the heck needs that? But it’s the get rich quick mentality that makes failure like that happen.

For the rest of us who have the common sense to know you don’t win a marathon by starting on the finish line, let’s get started.

And one more thing: As you begin making money online, a funny thing happens. You get addicted. You get to where you want to make more, and you do. You want to find ways to leverage yourself and your work, and you do. You want to find methods to make a lot more money in a shorter amount of time, and you do. But it all starts at the beginning – making a few dollars an hour and then working up from there.

Method #1 for making $10 an hour online – freelancing.

Maybe it’s freelancing writing articles or blogposts. Or building backlinks, or putting up websites, or whatever. Pick out that thing you do the best, and offer it as a service to others who either don’t do it as well as you, or would rather hire you than do it themselves.

What’s that? You don’t have a skill worthy of hiring out your services? Then get one. You’re going to need to master these skills to get good at online marketing anyway, so pick something that really appeals to you, then research the heck out of it for 10 hours. In 10 hours you can learn more about any topic than 99.9% of people know.

Then advertise your service on the Warrior forum or any website that lets you sell services. Start out working for cheap, get some clients and some testimonials, and gradually increase your pricing.

Find faster ways to perform your service, and even hire out the work to someone else. In other words, LEVERAGE what you’re doing to increase your hourly rate.

For example, if you’re getting paid $5 an article and you write 2 articles an hour, you’re making $10 an hour. Get faster to where you can write 4 articles and hour and you’re earning $20 an hour. Hire someone overseas to write the articles for you for $2 apiece, and you’re earning $3 an article for simply reading them over and doing light editing. If you can edit 10 articles and hour, you’re earning $30 an hour. And so forth.

Of course what is the problem with all of this? You are trading time for money – something that by itself will generally not get you to that magical six figure per year income.

Unless, of course, you not only hire out the work – you also hire someone to take the orders, edit the articles and fill the orders. Now you have a completely hands free system for making money, and it all started with you earning $10 an hour and working your way up from there.

Method #2 for making $10 an hour online – writing and selling PLR.

In our previous example we were writing articles for others. Of course in freelancing you can choose to offer any service people are willing to pay for – writing articles was simply one example.

But what if, instead of writing articles for one person, we write a packet of 10 to 15 articles on one specific topic using the best keywords for that niche, and then SELL that packet of articles to fellow marketers for their own private use?

Now you can sell the same articles over and over again. If you sell that packet of 15 articles for $10, and you sell 15 packets, you’ve earned $150. If it took you 5 hours to write the articles, you’ve now earned $30 an hour. Of course, if it takes you less time, you earn more per hour. And if you sell more packets, you’ve again made more per hour.

There are PLR writers who do exactly this. They write packets of articles, offer those articles either on their own websites or on the Warrior forum, and do quite well.

Can you outsource the writing of the articles? Of course you can. And with PLR, you are not limited to just articles – you can write blog posts, reports, ebooks, make recordings, videos, etc. You are also not limited by how many times you can sell each PLR product you create, unless you choose to set a limit so as to create scarcity.

So now you’re naming your own price, and you’re creating a bank of products you can continue to sell for as long as you choose. And you’re also creating a loyal following of buyers because once your buyers see that you offer good quality at a good price, they will come back time and time again.

Maybe your first PLR product only sells 10 copies, but then your next one sells to 10 new buyers and 5 of your previous buyers, and your next one sells to 10 new buyers and 10 of your previous buyers, and so forth. Every time you offer a new PLR product you’ll have more customers who already know that you put out great stuff, and so they’ll snap it up in a heartbeat.

Plus, as new customers arrive they’ll see your previous PLR products and purchase some of those as well. So that packet of 15 articles you wrote 3 months ago is still selling a couple of copies a week, and if you’re putting out new products every week, you’ve got more and more to offer and thus more and more to sell.

Leverage this by outsourcing some or all of the writing, and you’ve not only created a method to earn $10 or more per hour – you’ve actually got yourself a nice little business where you are in control, you set the hours and you set the prices.

Do you see how you are progressing from a freelancer to a service provider? And it really is that easy, but the first step is you have to actually START. And that’s the step that trips most people up. The second step of course is that once you start, you keep going. You’ll find the more you do, the more you want to do, and it just gets easier as you go because you’re building momentum and you’re seeing success. Plus as you go you’ll get more and more testimonials, which will make it all that easier to make more and more sales and even to charge more money for your work.

Again, getting started is the hard part, yet it can be easy if you get started right now before you have a chance to put it off. There is nothing stopping you because if you have time to read this, then you have time to start your freelancing business or even jump straight into your PLR writing business.

Method #3 for making $10 an hour online – Write an Info Product on How You Did It.

Did you get started? Are you now making $10+ per hour freelancing? Or writing and selling PLR? Then your next step is to write your own case study on how you did it, and sell that. For example, you might title your report, “How I went from $0 to $10 an hour in one day, and now earn $30 an hour doing simple work.” Or something like that (perhaps a bit shorter.) Then sell your report on the Warrior Special Offers forum or on your website or Clickbank or where ever you choose.

In fact, no matter what you’re doing online to succeed, once you get good at this you can always write a report detailing what you did and sell it to make easy, extra money.

In our example, if you price your report at $7 and sell 50 copies, you’ve made $350. The cost to run a Warrior Special Offer is $40, so you’ve netted over $300 for something that probably took you 3-5 hours worth of work. That’s $60+ per hour, PLUS you now have 50 additional buyers on your list that you can sell to again and again.

More tips – whatever service you’re offering, be sure to offer it with a twist. If you’re writing articles, use a spinner to give them multiple versions of each article, or use a program to transfer them into video, or blast the articles to article directories. If you’re doing backlinking, don’t just offer a standard package of one type of backlink – offer a package that includes multiple types of backlinks so it looks far more natural to the search engines. And so forth.

Your service could be something as simple as creating videos using any of the video programs out there. There are programs that make videos that look like Hollywood trailers, and others that make videos that look like home movies. Do your research, find a program you like, and offer the service. Sure you might spend some money on software or access to a special website that produces these videos, but then it’s as easy as ‘plug in and create’ to fulfill your video orders.

Now I know a lot of people are going to want me to outline a detailed step-b-step plan on exactly what you should do to earn your $10 an hour and work up from there, and I’m not going to do it.

First, I’d have a hundred people all competing against each other and complaining of the competition. Second, it’s not about me telling you what to do – it’s about you finding what you’re best suited for and following that path.

More to the point, this is where you do your research and you find something that resonates with you, and then you learn everything you can about it. Set aside 10 hours and just learn learn learn. Then you’ll know more about your topic than most people, and you’ll be ready to offer your service. And it will truly be YOUR service, not something you copycatted from a step-by-step action plan like a hundred other automatons.

This isn’t just about earning $10 an hour – this is about you stepping out of your comfort zone and stretching yourself just a bit. This is about you taking your first steps without the aid of a hand railing, and it’s the best way to get started and realize just how simple all of this is if you’ll only just DO IT.

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Articles

100 Website Monetization Secrets

by shedders
written by shedders

1) You could sell resell rights products. You could also promote your online services like being a affiliate program manager.

2) You might trade advertising space. You might also sell your business talents for example being a virtual secretary.

3) You can promote private label products. You can also market your web attributes related to being a computer programmer.

4) You may add upsells to your product offers. You should also promote your internet skills for instance being a micro blog poster.

5) You should insert downsells in your product offers. You may also publicize your computer abilities for illustration being a article writer.

6) You could use one-time offers in your product offers. You could also promote your online expertise such as being a contract negotiator.

7) You might market commissioned dimes/firesale sales. You might also sell your business specialties for reference being a transcriptionist.

8) You can promote barter content with advertising space. You can also market your web tasks equal to being a social media manager.

9) You may advertise your own physical products. You should also promote your internet professions like being a photo air brush artist.

10) You should publicize membership/continuity commission offers. You may also publicize your computer experience for example being a seo specialist.

11) You could sell your own digital products. You could also promote your online smarts related to being a super affiliate finder.

12) You might market instant commissions affiliate programs. You might also sell your business duties for instance being a joint venture broker.

13) You can promote your commissioned services. You can also market your web services for illustration being a budget specialist.

14) You may advertise two tier commission products. You should also promote your internet talents such as being a sale page copy writer.

15) You should publicize cost per action affiliate products. You may also publicize your computer attributes for reference being a self improvement specialist.

16) You could promote pay per sale affiliate products. You could also promote your online skills equal to being a blog commenter.

17) You might market drop ship commission products. You might also sell your business abilities like being a online photographer.

18) You can promote pay per lead affiliate products. You can also market your web expertise for example being a foreign language translator.

19) You may advertise contextual affiliate products. You should also promote your internet specialties related to being a forum poster.

20) You should publish pay per click advertisements. You may also publicize your computer tasks for instance being a script installer.

21) You could promote opt-in commissioned giveaway programs. You could also promote your online professions for illustration being a shipping specialist.

22) You might market multi-level marketing products. You might also sell your business experience such as being a ebook writer.

23) You can promote sponsor advertising space. You can also market your web smarts for reference being a pay per click ad manager.

24) You may advertise ezine advertising space advertisements. You should also promote your internet duties equal to being a tech support specialist.

25) You should publicize email/opt-in advertising space. You may also publicize your computer services like being a niche site builder.

26) You could sell forum advertisements. You could also promote your online talents for example being a business manager.

27) You might market mini site advertising space. You might also sell your business attributes related to being a information researcher.

28) You can promote article byline advertising space. You can also market your web skills for instance being a investment broker.

29) You may advertise blog post advertising space. You should also promote your internet abilities for illustration being a internet consultant.

30) You should publicize web site advertising space. You may also publicize your computer expertise such as being a virtual assistant.

31) You could sell banner advertisements. You could also promote your online specialties for reference being a web site designer.

32) You might market syndicated advertising space. You might also sell your business tasks equal to being a accounting.

33) You can promote viral advertising space. You can also market your web professions like being a finance specialist.

34) You may advertise backlink advertising space. You should also promote your internet experience for example being a press release writer.

35) You should publicize chat room advertising space. You may also publicize your computer smarts related to being a employee recruiter.

36) You could sell packaging advertising space. You could also promote your online duties for instance being a graphics designer.

37) You might market insert advertising space. You might also sell your business services for illustration being a legal specialist.

38) You can promote footer advertising space. You can also market your web talents such as being a proofreader.

39) You may advertise classified advertising space. You should also promote your internet attributes for reference being a motivation specialist.

40) You should publicize signature file advertising space. You may also publicize your computer skills equal to being a advertising broker.

41) You could sell pop up advertising space. You could also promote your online abilities like being a commutations specialist.

42) You might market corner advertising space. You might also sell your business expertise for example being a chat salesman.

43) You can promote thank you advertising space. You can also market your web specialties related to being a product tester.

44) You may advertise ebook advertising space. You should also promote your internet tasks for instance being a market researcher.

45) You should publicize order page advertising space. You may also publicize your computer professions for illustration being a web site repairer.

46) You could sell text link advertising space. You could also promote your online experience such as being a contest promoter.

47) You might market blog advertising advertising space. You might also sell your business smarts for reference being a forum message poster.

48) You can promote keyword advertisements. You can also market your web duties equal to being a human resource person.

49) You may advertise advertorial advertising space. You should also promote your internet services like being a report writer.

50) You should publicize hover ad advertising space. You may also publicize your computer talents for example being a skills trainer.

51) You could sell viral advertising space. You could also promote your online attributes related to being a article submitter.

52) You might market freebie advertising space. You might also sell your business skills for instance being a voice over specialist.

53) You can promote side bar advertising space. You can also market your web abilities for illustration being a business consultant.

54) You may advertise contest advertising space. You should also promote your internet expertise such as being a production specialist.

55) You should publicize poll/survey advertisements. You may also publicize your computer specialties for reference being a book keeping.

56) You could sell product review advertising space. You could also promote your online tasks equal to being a editor.

57) You might market squeeze page advertising space. You might also sell your business professions like being a customer support person.

58) You can promote video advertising space. You can also market your web experience for example being a product inventor.

59) You may advertise audio advertising space. You should also promote your internet smarts related to being a ebook maker.

60) You should publicize graphical advertising space. You may also publicize your computer duties for instance being a live event organizers.

61) You could sell exit advertising space. You could also promote your online services for illustration being a software developer.

62) You might market software advertising space. You might also sell your business talents such as being a social networking poster.

63) You can promote follow up advertising space. You can also market your web attributes for reference being a computer technician.

64) You may advertise coupon advertising space. You should also promote your internet skills equal to being a webinar speaker.

65) You should publicize picture advertising space. You may also publicize your computer abilities like being a business coach.

66) You could sell social media advertising space. You could also promote your online expertise for example being a online audio producer.

67) You might market social networking advertising space. You might also sell your business specialties related to being a dvd/cd copier.

68) You can promote RSS feed advertising space. You can also market your web tasks for instance being a marketing teacher.

69) You may advertise background advertising space. You should also promote your internet professions for illustration being a business organizers.

70) You should publicize giveaway advertising space. You may also publicize your computer experience such as being a brain stormer/masterminder.

71) You could sell thank you page advertising space. You could also promote your online smarts for reference being a forum mediator.

72) You might market app/widget advertising space. You might also sell your business duties equal to being a interviewer.

73) You can promote onetime offer advertising space. You can also market your web services like being a tax consultant.

74) You may advertise directory advertising space. You should also promote your internet talents for example being a organizing specialist.

75) You should publicize free advertising space. You may also publicize your computer attributes related to being a back link broker.

76) You could sell blog comment advertising space. You could also promote your online skills for instance being a offline advertising broker.

77) You might market contextual advertising space. You might also sell your business abilities for illustration being a artist/drawer.

78) You can promote upsell advertising space. You can also market your web expertise such as being a viral marketing specialist.

79) You may advertise backend advertising space. You should also promote your internet specialties for reference being a book/ebook publisher.

80) You should publicize about me page adverting space. You may also publicize your computer tasks equal to being a barter broker.

81) You could sell profile advertising space. You could also promote your online professions like being a upselling/backend specialist.

82) You might market autoresponder advertisements. You might also sell your business experience for example being a blog creator.

83) You can promote report advertising advertising space. You can also market your web smarts related to being a app developer.

84) You may advertise sample product advertising space. You should also promote your internet duties for instance being a email copywriter.

85) You should publicize help desk advertising space. You may also publicize your computer services for illustration being a ezine publisher.

86) You could sell podcast advertising space. You could also promote your online talents such as being a teleseminar speaker.

87) You might market physical CD advertising space. You might also sell your business attributes for reference being a seminar speaker.

88) You can promote physical DVD advertising space. You can also market your web skills equal to being a squeeze page creator.

89) You may advertise print newsletter advertising space. You should also promote your internet abilities like being a infomercial producer.

90) You should publicize webinar advertising space. You may also publicize your computer expertise for example being a product launch specialist.

91) You could sell teleseminar advertising space. You could also promote your online specialties related to being a web site template installer.

92) You might market web cam advertising space. You might also sell your business tasks for instance being a advertising trainer.

93) You can promote online radio advertising space. You can also market your web professions for illustration being a web site host.

94) You may advertise eclass advertising space. You should also promote your internet experience such as being a video producer.

95) You should publicize resell rights products advertising space. You may also publicize your computer smarts for reference being a classified ad poster.

96) You could sell product beta version advertising space. You could also promote your online duties equal to being a print newsletter publisher.

97) You might market tell a friend advertising space. You might also sell your business services like being a mobile advertising specialist.

98) You can promote micro blog advertising space. You can also market your web talents for example being a on demand product publisher.

99) You may advertise tech support advertising space. You should also promote your internet attributes related to being a autoresponder host.

100) You should publicize affiliate/JV program advertising space. You may also publicize your computer skills for instance being a publicity specialist.

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