Internet Business

Bright-Shiny Syndrome – There Is A Cure

Posted on by Marie

If you’ve spent any amount of time online you’ve either heard of, or been victimized by, Bright-Shiny Object Syndrome.

This syndrome will waste your time, waste your money and keep you chasing your tail without going anywhere.

Bright-Shiny Object Syndrome is the condition where you are always enthralled with new products, new software & new systems, to make money online… and you just keep buying them.

Your addiction is great for all those people who create those products, but for you, not so much. The more you buy the more they make. But, unless you break the cycle, you’ll never go anywhere and you can forget ever getting out of that 9-5 rat race.

I know, I was a Bright-Shiny Object Syndrome addict for more years than I care to count . But there is hope. You can overcome this malady and stop wasting your time hopping from one surefire system or software to another and actually start making money.

Wanna know how?

Step 1: Step Away From Your Mouse. Stop hitting that “Buy Now” button. It’s tempting, I know, but you have to stop. Spending (wasting) your time and money on every new done-for-you software, or “proven” system that lands in your inbox is an exercise in futility.

The truth is that the only people making money on the majority of these products or systems are the people selling them. It’s actually in their best interests if you fail because then you’ll buy another product.

Now, it’s important to note that that doesn’t mean the courses or systems don’t work. They will… as long as you stick with them long enough!

Step 2: Figure Out What You Want. What are you trying to accomplish and what is the best way to get there? There are a lot of ways you can make money online. The best business model for you will depend on how much you want to make, how much you’re willing to work for it, how many skills you’re willing to learn / hone and how much time and money you can put into it.

Here is a great article on the different types of online businesses. Choose the one best for you.

Step 3: Check Your Expectations. Hey, I get it. You’re hungry, you are desperate for a change and you are impatient. Been there, done that, have the credit card bill to show for it.

That is what makes Bright-Shiny Object Syndrome so insidious – the sales pages for these products makes it all look so great. But think about it. Do you really think you can make a gazillion dollars with no experience in just 24 hours???

Of course not. These sales pages are created by expert copy writers to do one thing only – sell. They’re very good. And very tempting. But you need to become a discerning consumer.

Most of the products you’ll see can work with some patience and effort. But there is no overnight, instant money machine around (if you find one, hook me up, will you???)

Step 4: Only Buy These Types Of Products. This step will take a little discipline. But once you figure out the type of business you want to create online, as mentioned in Step 2, only purchase products that will either –

That’s it. You don’t need 10 different courses showing you how to start an eCommerce store, or a blog or whatever type of business you’re building.

Find the best course you can afford, follow it studiously and put what you learn into action. DO NOT get frustrated that “it’s taking too long” and go out and buy another course in a week.

Newsflash, the “new” course will take just as long to implement!

Now You Have The Cure

A solid system, game plan, whatever you want to call it is all you need. Learn the ins and outs of the business model you want to build than put that knowledge to work.

When you’re making money and having success, you may find automation tools to do some of the more mundane day to day tasks. It’s ok to buy those too.

That’s it. That’s the cure for Bright-Shiny Object Syndrome.

And, that’s also the cure for huge credit card bills, lots of time online with nothing to show for it, and frustration.

Figure out the type of business for you. Invest in a quality course to teach you how to do it. Invest in quality courses to teach you how to get traffic to your business. Invest in tools to automate your workload…

And nothing else!!!

Was this helpful? If so, please share on Facebook, Pinterest or wherever you like to hang out!

Internet Business

Make Money Online Starting Today

Posted on by Marie

There are many ways to make money online. You can even make money online starting today.

To decide the best method(s) for you consider these points:

  • How much do you want to make? Is this just a side hustle where you’ll be happy making a few hundred extra dollars a month, or is this business going to replace your full time income?
  • How much time, effort, money are you willing to put into growing a business?

Being clear on your objectives will make it easier for you to choose which business model is best for your goals.

Get my latest book FREE Fastest Way To $100 A Day With Affiliate Marketing Learn how to quickly get to at least $100/ day. From there you can build your business as big as you want!

If you decide to build a full time online business there are many options such as an eCommerce (online store) site, you can become an affiliate marketer and make a commission by driving traffic to other people’s products.

You can also start your own blog and sell your own, or other peoples products.

This article goes into more detail about your online business options.

It really just depends on what you want, and what you’re willing to invest in terms of time, gaining knowledge and work.

A Few Extra Bucks…

If you just want to just make some extra cash each month, a survey site or app testing site should do the trick. There are many of them online, just search for “paid survey” or “app testers” to find some to apply to.

Another option is freelance work. If you are a good writer, graphic designer, photographer, etc. you can sell your services to other online, or offline, businesses. And you can sell your services on your own eCommerce website.

Get my latest book FREE Fastest Way To $100 A Day With Affiliate Marketing Learn how to quickly get to at least $100/ day. From there you can build your business as big as you want!

The good thing about being a freelancer is that you can pick and choose which jobs you want to take and how often you want to work.

The bad thing about being a freelancer, at least in the beginning, is that you’re always on the lookout for your next gig. Eventually you should build up a portfolio of repeat customers but at first be prepared to hustle to get the jobs.

An Actual Business…

If you’re looking for a full time income replacement online business, there are many options.

You could start an eCommerce store and sell products or services. There are many wholesale companies that will drop ship orders directly from their warehouses to your customers so you don’t have to stock any inventory.

This is a great option for anyone who makes their own products.

Another really simple online business is affiliate marketing. This is the best online business for newbies because it can literally be started with no money.

An affiliate is someone who drives traffic to an offer and makes a commission when anyone purchases that product or service. As an affiliate your main job is driving traffic to your offers.

It’s All Up To You

Many people will start off with affiliate marketing as their first online business because it’s so easy and inexpensive. But, if you want to start an eCommerce business where you can sell a product or service, you can grow it into a generational type business.

The bottom line is that if you want a business, there will never be a “perfect” time to start so start today!

Marie
Follow her
Latest posts by Marie (see all)
Affiliate Marketing

How To Start A Blog And Make Money – Step By Step Directions

Posted on by Marie
how to start a blog and make money

Want an easy, step by step way to learn how to start a blog and make money?

See, that’s the trick – actually making money with your blog.

Many people create a blog but never make any money.

Get my latest book FREE Fastest Way To $100 A Day With Affiliate Marketing Learn how to quickly get to at least $100/ day. From there you can build your business as big as you want!

There are many reasons for their failure, and in this article I will show you the proper way to start a blog and make money and help you avoid the pitfalls.

But remember, to be successful online you have to be realistic in your expectations. If not, you’ll get disappointed and give up.

how to start a blog and make money
Was this article helpful. Why not pin it?

Do these things and you can be successful:

  • Stay focused on your business.
  • Continue to learn and gain knowledge.
  • Apply the knowledge you’ve gained.
  • Be consistent

Only you can control these things!

Start here…

STEP 1: Pick Your Niche

To start a blog and make money the first thing you need to do is decide on the topic your blog will cover.

Take some time to do this step properly and pick a strong niche and you will set up a strong foundation and increase your chances of success.

But, pick an overly competitive niche and you’ll struggle to stand out or pick a niche that’s too small and you’ll struggle to get enough traffic / customers.

You need a “Goldilocks niche” a niche that has enough interest to be profitable but isn’t so competitive you’ll have a hard time standing out… it’s just right!

To find that niche, start big and drill down. Don’t start a blog in the broad fitness niche. Instead start a blog for new moms (or dads), start a fitness blog for people with limited mobility, for older people, etc.

Any of these sub-niches will have tons of potential customers but they are far more targeted and less competitive that the broad “fitness” category.

STEP 2: Set Up Your Blog

The first step is to pick a domain name. Use these tips to get started:

  • Pick a name that is 2 or 3 words long
  • Find a name that is memorable and lets people know what your blog is about
  • Don’t use anything but a .com name
  • Try to come up with a few variations, that way if your first choice isn’t available, you have some other ideas in mind!

Next, you’ll need to buy your domain name, set up a hosting account, get a private email address for your domain and get an SSL certificate. This can all be done for around $50 / year.

Get my latest book FREE Fastest Way To $100 A Day With Affiliate Marketing Learn how to quickly get to at least $100/ day. From there you can build your business as big as you want!

For all your website needs : Buying your domain name, getting hosting, adding a private email address and an SSL certificate, I recommend NameCheap and the basic “Stellar” plan for now. You can always upgrade as your blog grows.

I’ve been using them for years and their customer service is some of the best I’ve ever used!

They can walk you through every aspect of buying your domain name, setting up hosting, getting your private domain email address and setting up your SSL certificate.

And don’t worry if you don’t understand what any of those terms mean, just let their amazing customer service walk you through the process and you’ll have a great blog ready to go.

When your blog is set up, you can customize it any way you like. Add a logo, change a color scheme, whatever you want!

Don’t worry about a logo either. You can go to Canva.com and create a logo for free. Don’t waste a lot of time stressing about this. It doesn’t have to be perfect and if you want you can change it later. For now just focus on getting your blog up and running as quickly as possible.

At this point your goal isn’t to be perfect it’s to get going!

STEP 3: Add Content To Your Blog

Now that you’ve got your blog set up and looking great (great, not perfect!) it’s time to add content. Content can be articles, videos, infographics, photos, or a combination of all of them.

To choose what types of articles and what topics you should create content about, do some research. A great resource you can use for free is Buzzsumo.com

If your blog is about fitness for people over 50, you can go to Buzzsumo and type in the search phrase, “best exercises for people over 50” or something like that.

You will get the top content ideas along with the count of how many views each of those articles has gotten. Just find an article that has a ton of views and recreate that article.

WARNING: Never, ever, plagiarize. This is the quickest way to ruin your reputation. It’s ok to use someone else’s work for inspiration, but write all content yourself. It’s not ok to go through an existing article and change a word here or a sentence there, you must completely create a new and original piece of content!!!

This step will take some time to do properly. Start with at least 10 original pieces of content. Your posts should have short, punchy paragraphs. This may not be what you learned in elementary school, but it’s how people online like to read their articles.

Keep plenty of white space throughout your articles, and add a few attractive, eye catching images to each post. Also add sub-headings throughout your articles, people tend to skim through articles so make it easy for them to find what they’re looking for!

STEP 4: Monetize Your Blog

There are many ways you can make money with your blog – you can use your blog as a way to drive traffic to another offer such as an eCommerce site.

Or you can sell your own products or services, if you have them, right on your blog.

how to start a blog and make money

And, the simplest way to start a blog and make money is to add advertising to your blog!

There are many ways you do this: sign up as a publisher with Google Adsense. They will place ads on your blog, you have control over where they go and what they look like. When one of your blog visitors clicks on an ad, you earn a commission.

Another option is signing up to other affiliate networks such as Clickbank, Amazon, JvZoo, WarriorPlus, Commission Junction, and Share-A-Sale, place ads for some of those products on your blog post pages. When someone makes a purchase through one of those links, you earn a commission.

It’s really simple, in theory, but it will take time and a lot of website visitors before you are earning a full time income.

The sooner you start driving traffic to your blog, the sooner you’ll be making some nice commissions!

STEP 5: Drive Traffic To Your Blog

Getting traffic to your blog is your main job. There are many ways to drive traffic – some of them will cost money and some are free.

One of the best free methods for driving traffic is Pinterest. By adding quality pins on a regular basis, you can grow a loyal following. Every time one of your followers clicks on your pins, they will be taken to your blog.

Tailwind is website that allows you to schedule your pins in advance. In addition, with Tailwind tribes you get more exposure for your pins. When you join tribes in your niche you share their pins with your followers and your tribe mates will share your pins with their followers. That massively increases the exposure your pins receive.

To join Tailwind for free, go here.

I recommend using multiple methods of driving traffic. But to start, pick one method and learn it inside and out. Then move on to another source, say Google Adwords, SEO, or other paid or free sources. Keep adding traffic sources until you are getting enough traffic to make the income you want!

Final Thoughts

Learning how to start a blog and make money is just the first step. As you grow you’ll want to add email marketing to your blog.

Be patient, keep learning, and be consistent with your efforts and you can create the blogging lifestyle you want!

Marie
Follow her
Latest posts by Marie (see all)
Traffic

How To Drive Traffic To Your Blog With Pinterest – 5 Steps

Posted on by Marie
drive traffic to your blog

Learning how to use Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog is one of the simplest ways to get tons of highly targeted traffic without going broke paying for ads.

Was this article helpful? If so, pin it!

Since traffic is the lifeblood of any blog in any niche, finding economical and efficient ways to get that traffic is your main goal.

Get my latest book FREE Fastest Way To $100 A Day With Affiliate Marketing Learn how to quickly get to at least $100/ day. From there you can build your business as big as you want!

Use this step by step tutorial and drive traffic to your blog for free:

STEP 1: Open Your Pinterest Account

If you already have a Pinterest account, make sure you change it to a business account.

If you’re signing up to Pinterest for the first time, sign up for a business account right from the start – http://pinterest.com/business/create/

It’s free.

STEP 2: Set Up Your Profile & Boards

Add your name and fill out your profile completely. I recommend using your personal name even if your blog is in a company name since this personal touch will make it easier for you to connect with your followers.

Once your profile is set up, create 10 boards. Each board will be on a certain subject or product from your website.

For example, if your website sells gardening supplies you could create a board for soil additives, a board for pest control products, a board for handheld gardening tools, etc.

Once you have 10 boards created, go through Pinterest and find other accounts in your niche. Then go through their boards and find pins that are congruent with your boards.

drive traffic to your blog with Pinterest

For example, for your board on soil additives from my example above, find pins on other peoples boards about soil additives. Add 10 of their pins to your board. Then move on to your next board and do the same thing.

Also, once your blog has 10 or more posts, create one more board and call it “Best of YourWebsiteName.com

On this board you will only add your pins from your own blog content.

That’s it. You have the start of a great Pinterest account!

STEP 3: Get Followers

The process I have used to get followers on Pinterest is this: I find an account in my niche that has a lot of followers. Then I go through their list of followers and I follow each of them.

It’s a numbers game. Many of those people will follow you back, some won’t. But doing this consistently everyday for several weeks will get you a decent number of followers.

Get my latest book FREE Fastest Way To $100 A Day With Affiliate Marketing Learn how to quickly get to at least $100/ day. From there you can build your business as big as you want!

Don’t try to follow too many at once, Pinterest may not like that. Instead, go through and follow about 15-20 at a time. You can do this several times throughout your day. I’d recommend not going over 100 a day. That’s the way I’ve done it and I’ve never had any problems.

By following people who are already following other leaders in your niche, you will build a huge following of people who actually have an interest in your product or service!

That’s important.

NOTE: If you do this for several weeks, you will eventually have a lot more people you are following than are following you. This can look a little wonky.

An easy fix is to wait 7-10 days after you follow someone, then go back and un-follow them.

To do this accurately you will want to create a spreadsheet of each person you’ve followed complete with the url to their Pinterest account.

Then after the 7-10 day period, go through that list and unfollow them. That way your ratio of those you follow to those who follow you won’t be so unbalanced.

Using this method will allow you to get to 50+ followers very quickly. So, to re-cap – at this point you will have 10 boards with 10 pins each and at least 50 followers. You should be able to accomplish this in about a week or two.

Now you have a legitimate looking Pinterest profile. Time to start leveraging that.

STEP 4: Create Really Great Pins

To get the most out of using Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog, never lose sight of what Pinterest is all about.

Pinterest is a visual medium, so give people on that platform what they want!

Creating a great pin is really simple, go to Canva.com and use their free Pinterest pin templates. Make the changes in text, colors, images, etc. that you need but the foundation is already there.

When you upload your pin to Pinterest, you have to include a title and a description. If you do it properly, these will help you get more traction with your pin.

Your title should be compelling to grab attention or pique curiosity. You want your title to make your pin hard to resist clicking on!

The same holds true with your description – use curiosity or ask a question. Try to make the pin irresistible so they feel like they have to repin it!

For both the title and the description, use keywords relevant to the topic of your pin. To find good keyword ideas just go to the search bar on Pinterest and type in your keyword phrase. You will see other ideas pop up under the main search bar, many of these can also be used in your title or description.

A word of caution though, while keywords in the title and description are very important, don’t get carried away. Your title and description should be fairly short and to the point. One or two keywords or phrases is plenty per pin!

STEP 5: Leverage Pinterest

This is the step that will really make a big difference in using Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog. Without this technique, it will take a lot longer to see any real results and increases in traffic!

Use a service called Tailwind to pre-schedule pins (a huge time saver!) and to exponentially increase the number of views your pins get.

In addition to the scheduling feature, Tailwind has something called tribes and this is the best way to leverage all your Pinterest efforts.

Pick up to 5 tribes that are in your niche. Then, when you pin your tribe members pins to your boards, the people in that tribe will pin your pins to their boards. You scratch their back, they scratch yours kind of a thing.

Just think how much more exposure each of your pins can get this way. Even if only one tribe member re-pinned one of your pins you could get exponentially more exposure if that tribe member has a ton of followers!

Final Tips

This is an incredibly effective way to drive traffic to your blog. And not just any traffic either, highly targeted traffic.

The only downside is that this method will take a few weeks to get off the ground. Just be consistent, keep adding followers, keep re-pinning pins from your Tailwind tribe members and you will see results.

Free traffic gives you more money in your pocket each month so don’t ignore the possibilities!

Marie
Follow her
Latest posts by Marie (see all)

Email Marketing

Email Marketing: Top 10 Email Marketing Tips The Pros Use To Make More Money

Posted on by Marie

Email marketing is the most foolproof way to make sure you are doing all you can to optimize every single website visitor.

If you’re on the fence about building an email list you shouldn’t be. Not having a well managed email list is costing you money. You are literally leaving thousands of dollars on the table!

email marketing
Was this article helpful? Pin it!

Don’t believe me? Look at these numbers about email marketing:

  1. Studies have consistently shown that over 80% of shoppers will likely make more purchases online when they receive emails based on their past shopping behaviors.
  2. Top marketers found that their email campaigns delivered as much revenue as their social media and ads campaigns…combined!
  3. Surveys found that over 70% of customers prefer email as a way to stay connected with a business. And, over 60% of them enjoy getting promotional emails every week. Even better, almost 30% would like to get promotional emails even more often than weekly!

Like I said – no email marketing strategy = money left on the table


So, now that you know how important it is to build an email list, these tips will get you started…

Get my latest book FREE Fastest Way To $100 A Day With Affiliate Marketing Learn how to quickly get to at least $100/ day. From there you can build your business as big as you want!

Get The Right Email Marketing Software

Automation is the name of the game for email marketing. No way you want to manually send out hundreds or thousands of email every day, right?

There are many good email software companies out there – Aweber, GetResponse, MailChimp are my top 3 recommendations. I’ve used them all at one time or another.

Currently I’m exclusively using GetResponse and I really like working with the interface. It also comes with a 30 day free trial so you can be making money before you pay a penny!

The interface is really easy to use, even for beginners, and their customer service is really quick, polite and helpful!

How To Get People To Optin

When people fill out a form with their name and email address they are “opting in” to your list. The email marketing company you signed up with will have templates so you can easily create optin forms and place them on your website.

You’ve probably been on the other side of this many times yourself. Remember that time you went to a website and there was a pop up window, or a sign up box, that offered you something if you signed up? That’s what I’m talking about.

Get my latest book FREE Fastest Way To $100 A Day With Affiliate Marketing Learn how to quickly get to at least $100/ day. From there you can build your business as big as you want!

To get people to optin to your list you need to decide what you’ll offer them. It has to be something that is compelling enough for them to want to sign up to your list. Many people call this an “ethical bribe”. Whatever you choose to call it, it works.

To figure out what to offer, just ask your existing customers what issues they face. If you’re just starting out and don’t really have any customers to ask, look at your competitors websites to get ideas of what they offer for their email list bribe and offer something similar.

When creating your optin form make it sizzle! Create a compelling headline that really makes the person WANT to sign up and receive your offer!

Where To Put The Optin Forms

There are many types of optin forms you can use and many places on your website you can place them. You can even create stand alone “landing pages” whose sole purpose in life is to get people to opt in to an email list.

Depending on your website layout you can easily place an optin in the sidebar of your pages, you can add stand alone landing pages, and you can add pop up optin forms that will popup when a website visitor starts to click away from your site.

At a minimum, I would add an optin form in your sidebar and in your footer.

And remember, each of these optin forms can use either the same ethical bribe product or different ones.

As you get further along in your online career you may have multiple reports, videos or short courses to give away.

You can create an optin and a list for each product and then add that optin form to specific pages or articles on your website.

Subject Lines

No matter how many people you have on your email list, you won’t make a penny if they never open your emails! That’s why subject lines are so important.

The #1 takeaway is that your subject line should be interesting enough to make your subscribers curious enough to open and read your email!

There are many ways you can pique their interest – ask a question, point out common problems in your niche and hint at a solution, be a little provocative.

Just don’t get too “edgy” or you might offend people and they may unsubscribe from your list.

email marketing

Email Topics

I’ve been on more email lists than I can remember over my years working online. From a subscriber point of view, I have very strong opinions about the best topics to write about.

The best way to build trust and rapport with your list is to help them. Give them great information that will solve a problem they have.

Occasionally reach out to your list and ask them specifically what problems they need help with.

It’s all about giving them your time and your help. If you do that, they will learn to trust you. Then, when you recommend a product or service, they will be far more likely to make a purchase.

One other thing to keep in mind as you create your emails – make sure they are optimized for mobile.

An increasing number of people check their email on the go on their phone. Make sure you’re emails are easy to read on mobile devices or you will miss out on a ton of opportunity.

How Often Should You “Sell” To Your List?

You will need to tweak some elements of your email marketing as you go to determine which methods work best for your list and your niche.

A good rule of thumb that I’ve used is a 3-1 ratio. Out of every 3 emails I send, 2 are helpful info and 1 is a sales pitch for a product or service I’m promoting.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with including a P.S. at the end of each email promoting something. But beyond that, offer great, actionable tips relevant to your niche more often than you send an email that is strictly promotional.

How Often Should You Send Emails?

This too will have to be tested and tweaked as you go. You can start sending emails, the first one goes out immediately after they optin to your list, several times a week at first.

Keep a close eye on your open rates. If they start to go down, you need to figure out why – are you sending too often, are you not providing enough value, are your subject lines boring?

TIP: Whenever you are testing any aspect of your online business, including email marketing, make sure you only make one change at a time. Then see what difference, if any, that change made. If you make multiple changes at once you don’t know which element actually made the difference.

For example, lets say you’ve been emailing your list 3 times a week for two weeks. Suddenly your open rates start to go down. To determine the issue you can start spicing up your subject lines. Did that help? If not, check the email itself. Is it well written, easy to understand, helpful?

Test each element and monitor the results before changing something else!

What Is The Best Day And Time To Send Emails?

This is also someting you can test.

My email provider, GetResponse, gives me the option of sending the email at the same time someone signed up.

It won’t always be the same day since I send my emails out several times a week.

Choosing to send email out at the same time they signed up to your list is a safe bet since that’s the time they signed up, there’s a good chance that’s the time they’re online with a little free time.

Again, test, test, test!

Be Yourself

Another important part of building trust is to let the people on your list get to know you a little bit. Of course, I’m not talking about getting overly personal, but let some of your personality shine through.

Don’t get hung up on the writing part either. Write like you speak. Keep it casual and conversational.

After you’re created your email, read it aloud to yourself. Make sure it flows. And, of course, always proofread every email before you send it out!

320x100 Get More Done, Together

Treat Your Subscribers Like A Trusted Friend

Putting in a little time and effort to build your email list is just the first step; That alone won’t get you anywhere.

To optimize your time and effort make sure you treat the people on your list very well…or they will unsubscribe from your list and that time and effort will go right down the drain.

Always be respectful of your readers time, never try to mislead them and always offer them helpful information.

These are just a few of the ways you can keep your email list subscribers happy and coming back for more for a very long time!

email marketing

Have questions? Just leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to help!

Marie
Follow her
Latest posts by Marie (see all)
Traffic

8 SEO Tips For More Free Traffic

Posted on by Marie

Getting tons of highly targeted free traffic is what everyone wants. Using these SEO tips will help you get your share.

Hands down one of the best free sources for highly targeted website traffic are search engines. That’s why search engine optimization (SEO) is such an important skill to learn.

You’re already familiar with seo even if you don’t realize it. The last time you typed a word or phrase into your browser to find something online you were relying on seo to bring you the best results.

Like this? Pin it!

The websites that came up on the first page of results were the ones who optimized their content and used these SEO tips with the same keywords you searched for.

Get my latest book FREE Fastest Way To $100 A Day With Affiliate Marketing Learn how to quickly get to at least $100/ day. From there you can build your business as big as you want!

Simple in theory…

Finding the right keyword can generate tons of free, targeted traffic. And, it can continue to do so virtually indefinitely.

The traffic is so targeted because the person coming to your website via search is doing so after they used the same keyword you had in your content.

In other words, their search directly matches what you’re offering!

Of course, it’s not always easy to find the exact keyword to rank for. Most of the keywords you want to use are already being used by your competitors. Because of this, it may be very difficult for your site to show up on page one of results due to all that competition.

Still, its well worth your time to learn more about SEO and to find ways around that pesky competition!

These tips will help give you an edge and improve your SEO strategy:

Quality Content

Content is king… still. That saying about content being king has been around for a long time because it’s true. At the end of the day, search engines want to ensure that their customers (people using their search engines to find information online) get good results.

Search engines have developed algorithms that are increasingly complex and are better at detecting “good” quality content rather than a “keyword stuffed” fluff piece. No matter what type of content you create – articles, videos, etc. create great content that can genuinely help your visitors solve a problem or learn a skill.

Get my latest book FREE Fastest Way To $100 A Day With Affiliate Marketing Learn how to quickly get to at least $100/ day. From there you can build your business as big as you want!

Yes, sprinkle the keywords you are trying to target throughout your content, but most importantly create helpful, well written content that people will enjoy and that is congruent with the keywords you are using.

Mobile Friendly

SEO tips

Ensure your website is mobile friendly. This has been a big criteria for several years.

Today, over 50% of people doing online searches are doing so from a mobile device. If your website isn’t optimized for mobile you’re missing out.

And, no search engine is going to reward you with high rankings, even if you have stellar content and are keyword optimized, if your site isn’t optimized for mobile.

Add Videos

Create video content. One of the things search engines look for when ranking sites, beyond keywords and mobile friendly, is the bounce rate.

A bounce rate is defined as: “the percentage of visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page.” You want your website visitors to stay on your site for as long as possible, and navigate to multiple pages… and that’s what search engines want to see too.

Adding helpful content in the form of entertaining videos is a great way to keep people on your site longer, and to keep them coming back more often.

And, many online sites aren’t using video yet, so this is a great way to increase your reach even in a competitive market. The best option is to mix your content – some video, some infographics, some articles, etc. All are keyword optimized of course!

Become An Authority

SEO tips

Part of the equation for good seo is authority. The search engines want to know who is creating the content on your site.

Search engines like the idea of experts creating quality content for their website visitors. So, to let search engines know your site is legit and to learn a little about who you are, always include these pages – A detailed “About” page, a contact page, privacy policy and terms of services pages as well as links to any sources you quote in your content.

Eye Catching Images

Content may be king but visual impact is queen. Always include several attractive, eye-catching photos with your content. This is also helpful when you post your content on visual sites like Pinterest and Instagram.

Active Community

SEO tips

Encourage visitors to leave a comment. Search engines consider content that has a lot of comments to be a great indication of an active community.

And, to them, that means your site has great information that will help their customers get the answers and info they are searching for. Everyone wins!

Fast Load Times

Make sure you website is loading fast. Believe it or not, the speed at which your web pages load is part of the equation as to how well your site will rank.

You can do a free speed test for your site. Just go online and search for “website speed test”.

If your site is too slow, reach out to your hosting company or web designer to find ways to increase the speed.

Stay Up To Date

SEO is a complex issue and one that changes. To continue to optimize all you content for seo make sure you keep up to date with the changes.

It’s a good idea to periodically “prune” your content and make sure that only the best content is presented to your website visitors. Doing so will optimize your websites rankings well into the future!

Reach Out

Have a question or comment? I’m here to help. Just leave a comment and I’ll get back to you asap!

Marie
Follow her
Latest posts by Marie (see all)
Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing For Newbies: 5 Essential Affiliate Marketing Tips For Beginners

Posted on by Marie

People flock to affiliate marketing as a way to make money online because it seems so easy.

And, in theory it is.

The concept to affiliate marketing is simple: you sign up to become an affiliate, you send website visitors to the website you get to promote a product then when someone buys that product you receive a commission.

Like the article? Pin it!

Of course, with most things, simple doesn’t mean easy.

This article will give you a great jumping off point, but to ensure you are successful as quickly as possible, you should think about investing in affiliate marketing training too.

In this article I will break down the 5 must do tips you need to know right from the start:

Pick A Niche

Before you sign up for an affiliate program and start sending traffic, you need to decide what types of products or services you want to promote.

You’ve no doubt heard people say you should pick a niche that you’re passionate about, and that’s not bad advice, as far as it goes.

If the niche you love is populated by tons of other people who love it too…and spend money in it, you’re good to go. But if your passion is for something a little more obscure, you need to keep looking.

A good niche has tons of passionate people who buy lots of niche related items. There’s tons of niches to choose from.

For example, start in a huge niche like fitness, food, sports, parenting, etc. than drill down to sub-categories (don’t go too far down or you might get such a small sub-niche that there’s not enough potential customers).

So, instead of choosing the fitness niche why not choose fitness for new moms or fitness for retirees, etc.? These sub-niches will still have tons of potential customers but they won’t be as competitive as the broader fitness niche will be.

Also, spend some time researching the affiliate marketplace you’re considering signing up with. You already know about Amazon.com but some of the other marketplaces may be unfamiliar to you.

Before you promote any product from a marketplace do your due diligence in both the marketplace and the specific product.

You don’t want to promote crappy products to your audience. If you do, they won’t trust you anymore.

Research Your Audience

It’s very important you know who you’re marketing to. If you pick a niche that you’ve personally been involved with for a long time, this part will be a lot easier.

You should already have a really good idea of the people who love your hobby as much as you do. If not, do a little research to find out who your ideal customer would be.

It’s incredibly easy to do, just go to Facebook and create a business page. Then you’ll have access to their audience insights tool. This tool will tell you virtually everything you need to know about the people in your niche.

You can find out which gender is most interested in the niche, the average age, the average level of education, income, whether or not they have children, etc. All of this can provide you with a good idea of who you’ll be “talking to” with the marketing you create.

Get A Website

As an affiliate, you’re main job is to get interested website visitors to the offer you’re promoting.

If you’re just starting and you don’t have your own website, you can send traffic to the web address you were assigned when you signed up to promote a product on some affiliate networks like Clickbank.

This is an acceptable way to start, but only if you absolutely have to due to lack of money.

AND, it’s only a short term fix.

You never want to build your online business on assets you don’t actually own.

Setting up a Facebook page and thinking you’ve got a website is a very bad idea. You don’t own that. Facebook can decide they don’t like something you’re doing and they can boot you off their platform at any time for any reason (this also applies to Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, etc.).

Using these resources to grow your audience is smart, relying solely on them for your online presence isn’t smart.

Think how you would feel if you spent months, or years, building up an audience on their site and you lost it all overnight…yikes!

These social media sites are only to help you grow your audience and drive traffic to your website. Nothing more!

Since a domain name only costs around $10/ year, and a hosting account can be bought for around $4/ month most anyone can afford to get their own website.

Create your Web Presence with Namecheap

Build An Email List

I’ve heard it over and over, and seen it in action myself – up to 98% of the people you drive to your website won’t make a purchase and they won’t come back.

Let that sink in for a second: all your work to get people to your website will be wasted for almost 98% of your traffic! And, if you’re paying for traffic, it’s even worse!

There are tweaks you can do to your website to increase conversions, but there is always going to be a lot of leakage… it’s just the nature of the beast.

People aren’t as likely to make purchases from you when they just met you. It takes multiple positive interactions before people like and trust you enough to buy something from you.

That’s where an email list comes in. It’s a pretty simple strategy and one you’ve probably already seen in action yourself:

  • You visit a website and a form pops up offering you a small gift (a free report, discount coupon, etc.)
  • You enter your name and email address and you receive your freebie either on a thank you page or in an email
  • You are officially subscribed to their email list and they can continue to legally email you.

Pretty simple. When you sign up you are “opting in” to their list and giving them permission to email you. The good thing is that you can always “unsubscribe” from the list. This is the legal way and all promotional emails must contain an unsubscribe link.

If you use this process of building an email list on your website, and offer all your subscribers truly useful information, you can build a huge list of very loyal customers.

Just don’t abuse them – I use a 3-1 system. For every 3 emails I send only one is a “sales pitch”.

Always offer truly helpful information for your audience and they will stay away from the dreaded “unsubscribe” button and you can make a lot more money and better leverage your website traffic!

Drive Traffic

As I said, your main goal as an affiliate is to drive traffic to your offers. It’s up to you to learn which traffic source is the best fit for your budget, your time and goals.

I personally recommend using some lower cost paid traffic methods at the start while simultaneously building up your free traffic strategies.

Doing so can give you some fast sales while your free strategies are gaining traction.

One of the best free ways to drive traffic is with content marketing.

Content marketing is a very simple method of getting very targeted traffic to your website.

Targeted traffic means the people you are sending to your website are very interested in your product or service and there is a high likelihood they will buy.

You simply add quality content to your site on a regular basis. To expand the reach of your content you can share that content on social media sites like Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram or Youtube.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is another great way to increase the reach of your content. By putting targeted keywords in your content, you can increase the chance of your website showing up on the first page of results when someone does a web search using those keywords.

You’ve seen this in action yourself. Remember the last time you searched for something online? Remember the phrase you typed in to find that information? That phrase you typed in was a keyword.

The results that appeared higher on the first page of results were there because those content creators used that keyword in their content. The search engines saw they had the same keyword you searched for and placed those websites at the top of the search results.

S.E.O. should be an important consideration when creating your content. There are even plugins you can use with WordPress website that will improve your SEO.

Just Repeat

Many affiliate marketers have several websites in several niches. That way they optimize their reach. When you have 5-10, or more, websites, you don’t need to make tons of money from any one of them but rather can make a great living even if you only make a little from each website each day.

And, since so much of your work can be automated or outsourced, you may find that running multiple websites isn’t as time sucking as you would think!

Use the steps above to get started with affiliate marketing. Once you’ve got your first website running and profitable you can decide if adding more websites to your online portfolio makes sense for you.

Tutorials

10 Blog Niches That Get Traffic And Make Money – And Not Just Blogging Tips Blogs!

Posted on by Marie
Like this article? Pin it!

A lot of people are intrigued with the idea of starting a blog. The problem is that most people think the only way to make money blogging is to blog about blogging! Whew, what a sentence!

You often hear that you should follow your passion and blog about what you know and love.

That’s not bad advice but it’s only half of the truth.

If you’re passionate about something that’s fairly obscure and doesn’t have a lot of other passionate followers, it will be tough going to make money in that niche.

So, ideally you want a niche that you are passionate about AND that has tons of other passionate people who actually buy products and services in that niche.

If your passion doesn’t meet these criteria, you should keep looking. Your passion alone isn’t enough to make a living if only a few others share it…or if they don’t spend a lot of money on it.

Here are the top 10 niches you can make money with. These niches are very competitive and have tons of competition, but hat’s not necessarily a bad thing. If there is no competition, there are no potential customers in that niche.

But you can do well even in a competitive niche. All you have to do is to target a sub-niche within a broader niche. For example, instead of a diet blog, why not a diet blog for women (or men) over 50? That is still a huge number of potential customers but it’s more specific than just “diet.”

All the niches in this article can be monetized with either physical products, digital products (and in most cases, both) and Adsense.

Check out these 10 blog niches that get traffic and make money:

Health & Fitness

This can include all types of products or services. You can focus mostly on exercise, but include articles on diet. Or you can focus mostly on the diet side and add in a few exercise articles.

You can monetize this niche with both digital products – cookbooks, recipes, videos, and physical products like cooking gadgets.

Health & Fitness is a huge, lucrative niche!

Make Money Online

People want to make more money, that’s a very common desire and many of them want to be able to do it from home. This is perfect for parents, that’s why so many make money blogs are targeted to new moms (or dads).

But there are also many other groups of people who are interested in learning how to make money online from home- college students, grandparents, retirees, etc.

By targeting down to a certain group, you can create unique content with them in mind. This is a great way to set yourself apart from competitors.

Travel

People love dreaming of taking trips. Even if they never actually take the trip, they love looking at pictures and reading about travel. Again, you can niche this down – create a blog about traveling with kids, or a blog about traveling as a single person or older adult.

Monetize with physical products – travel pillows, noise cancelling headphones, suitcases or digital product like e-Readers and audio files.

Crafts

There are a lot of people who love to sew, knit, quilt, etc. These people tend to spend a lot of money on patterns, tools, and books.

You can easily create either written or video blog post tutorials. You can also add ‘how to’ articles and photos of finished projects.

Monetize with Adsense, physical products and digital patterns and tutorial books.

Love to sew or craft? So do a lot of other people!

Sports

People go crazy for sports. A blog about golf, tennis, basketball, etc. can do very well. Identify questions or problems people have in a certain sport – how they can improve their putting for example, and create content that shows them how to solve that problem.

You can monetize this niche with digital tutorials as well as physical products for that sport.

Money & Finance

People are always interested in how to make more money and how to get their money to work for them. Creating a blog that provides tips on investing, improving a credit score, or how to save money on everyday items can be very profitable.

Food & Wine

A blog that provides helpful tips for cooking can become very popular. If you want to drill down, you could focus on a certain nationality of food – Chinese, Mexican, Mediterranean, etc.

You can create content – articles or videos, that show how to cook a particular dish step by step.

Wine is also a very popular topic. Create content on different kinds of wines, how to pick a wine, food and wine pairings, etc.

Parenting

Parenting is another potentially huge market. Parents are always looking for advice and to share stories about their kids. If you wanted to find a sub-niche you could focus in on a certain age group – newborns, school age, high school, etc.

There are a lot of digital products you can promote in this niche such as e books and training courses about child rearing. There are also a lot of physical products such as books, car seats, backpacks, kids room items, highchairs. You name it, the possibilities are practically endless.

Personal Development

This “self help” niche is another huge niche with tons of potential. Again, you want to drill down to a sub-niche. Focus on things like staying positive, building up your self respect, business success, etc.

Books, audios, and courses are great ways to monetize this niche. You can even create your own courses and books to sell.

Fashion & Beauty

And last, but not least, the fashion and beauty field. Styles change every year so updating your blog is easy. You can provide makeover type videos, highlight which fashions work best for a certain body type, etc.

And you can create make up makeover videos. Create how to videos or articles on the proper way to apply makeup and what colors are suited to what skin types, etc.

Final Thoughts

As you can see there is no shortage of profitable niches you can create a blog around. There are also many ways to monetize these niches.

The hard part may well be to take action and get started. But remember, if you want to live the “interest lifestyle” you need to start. Start now!

Internet Business

How To Make Money Online With No Money – Top 5 Ways To Make Money Online With No Investment

Posted on by Marie
Like this article? Than Pin It!

At no other time in history has it been so easy to make a large income and to be able to do it right from your couch. Making money online with no money is possible.

You can make a few hundred extra dollars a month taking surveys or doing market research, or you can build a business to make a full time income online.

And with the 24/7 nature of the internet, you can scale your business virtually as big as you want.

Not only can your income be virtually limitless, you also have a lot of options in the type of business you can build.

So, without further ado, here are 5 easy to start online businesses with no money:

BLOGGING

A blog is a website where you can write articles, upload photos, add videos, or all of the above.

Here are the basic steps for blogging –

Pick a niche: pick a topic you either already know a lot about or are interested in learning more about. And, something that you know tons of other people are interested in too.

Create your blog: A free WordPress blog will do very well to start. As soon as you start making money you should invest in a domain name and hosting account, you don’t want to build a business on property you don’t own.

Create content for your blog: Finding content ideas is easy: just focus on problems people in your niche often have then provide solutions. Create articles, videos, graphics, whatever format you prefer and that makes sense for your niche.

Start driving traffic to your blog: The more traffic you get the more income you’ll make. There are a lot of traffic sources online, but using free resources makes getting started a lot easier.

Monetize to your blog: There are many ways you can monetize your blog, here are a few ideas; you can add Adsense ads, you can become an affiliate with Amazon or other affiliate networks and place ads for those products on your site, you can sell ad space to others.

Create a blog on a topic that you, and tons of other people,, love!

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is the easiest way to make money online with no investment… you don’t even need a website..

This business model requires you to drive traffic to the offer, then when someone makes a purchase you get a commission. You don’t have to deal with refunds or customer service. Your only job is driving traffic, and that can be done for free.

The basic steps for affiliate marketing –

Join an affiliate program: There are tons of programs around, one of the biggest is Amazon (though you will need a website). There are also programs that sell digital products such as Clickbank, on this site you get a free website for the product you are promoting. These programs are free to join.

Choose the product you want to promote: Pick the product, digital or physical, that you want to promote.

Drive traffic to that offer: Driving traffic is your primary job. But to make big money and for long term income you eventually want your own website and you’ll want to leverage that traffic and start building out an email list of website visitors so you can market to them over and over.

Freelance Work

If you like to write, draw, create websites, take breathtaking pictures or create videos you can make a good living online. There is a huge need for people with these skills.

There are many sites online such as Fiverr.com where you can sign up to become a seller. As you build up your reputation you can start making more money per gig as well as get more gigs.

Make money online selling beautiful photos

E-Commerce

Ever thought of starting a store but didn’t have the money for a brick and mortar? Than this is the perfect opportunity for you!

Here are the basic steps to start an ecommerce store –

Pick a niche: What products do you want to sell? Again, you want to pick a niche you know a lot about or you have an interest in learning more about.

Find a distributor: Unless you’re going to create your own products, which you can, you need to find someone who can provide you with the products to sell. There are tons of wholesale companies available selling pretty much anything you can think of. It’s usually free to sign up with a distributor and many of them offer drop shipping service. Drop shipping works like this: when you get an order on your site you will order that item from the distributor at the wholesale price, then they will ship the products from their warehouse directly to your customer. You never have to worry about inventory.

Set up your store: You can start a free store at Shopify.com. There are other options, but this is the best free option that I know of. Shopify takes care of hosting your store as well as payment processing. They also offer a free trial so you can test the waters before you have to pay anything.

Drive traffic to your store: Once you get your store all set up, your main job is to drive traffic to your store and handle customer services issues.

Membership Site

A membership site is a great way to create an online business and get paid month after month. This is perfect if you have expertise in an area that people are interested in.

For example, if you’re a great cook you can create a site where you offer monthly recipes and a video tutorial on how to create that dish. The same principal works with sewing, knitting, golfing, etc.

You can set up subscription payments in Paypal, add a “Subscribe” button to your site. Customers will be charged automatically every month unless they quit. All you have to do is keep updating your site with tons of helpful tutorials.

You’ll collect your subscription fees each month for as long as you provide quality content and your subscribers stay happy.

A Few Notes

These buseinss can be started with no money but you will eventually need to invest in your business for long term stability.

Free resources are great when you’re first starting out but you don’t want to rely on someone else’s platform to build your business. You want to get your own internet “real estate”. So when you can, buy a domain name, set up your own website on a hosting account you’re paying for. These things are cheap but vital for your long term success.

It’s also important to note that every new skill, no matter how easy it seems, takes time to perfect. Don’t give up when you make mistakes. Learn from them and move on. If you do, you will eventually get the success you’ve been dreaming of!

Time To Start

These are the top 5 ways to make money online with no money. Building an online business can provide you and your family with a stable, significant income while also allowing you to enjoy more freedom in your life.

The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll be where you want to be. Start now!

Marketing

What I Learned About Internet Marketing From My Daughter

Posted on by Marie
internet marketing

I recently remembered a conversation I had with my daughter.

She was drawing, as she so often did, and I asked her what she was drawing. She said it was a horse. Now, to be honest, I thought it looked more like a cow than a horse.

Not wanting to hurt her feelings, I suggested a few changes to her drawing. I told her that it looked good, but suggested that it was starting to look a little more like a cow than a horse.

She got her “serious face” and said to me…

“Mom, it doesn’t matter what you think it looks like, it only matter what the artist thinks it looks like!”

I chuckled and left it at that. But later I thought about it more and realized that she was absolutely correct!

I realized that not only was my darling daughter right, but that lesson could be applied to my marketing efforts, both online and offline.

It’s so easy to get caught up in our own “genius”. We come up with ideas for products, blog articles, books, etc. thinking that our customers will be as thrilled with them as we are.

But the truth is, just because we think an idea is perfect, our potential customers may not be as impressed with our brilliance… darn it!

As marketers, we must not let our ego get in the way. Remember, all of your customers are thinking “What’s in it for me?” If you don’t give them something that they think is brilliant or helpful, they won’t be interested.

It’s not important how brilliant you think your product or service is, it only matters what your would be customers think of it.

Huge corporations spend millions every year to find out what their customers are looking for. Smaller businesses obviously can’t afford that big of an investment, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need to figure out what the people in your market want and need…and will pay for!

Take the time to do a little market research. Find out what people are looking for, what they’re willing to pay for it and how you can best serve them.

Zig Ziglar a famous author and marketer famously said that “You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”

Taking a little time to find profitable “niches” is worth the effort not only for seeing success quickly but also for maintaining that success for the long haul.

So as you start building your online empire, just remember what my daughter said. It doesn’t really matter how great you think your product or service is, it only matters that there are enough other people that will agree with you!