This woman has nothing to do with the post, but people like picutres

A while back when I was still fairly new to the “make money online” game, I wrote a post about what to blog about to make money. It was an okay post with some decent advice, but now that I have some authority under my belt, I want to give those that are new the business of how to make money online.

First off…you should stay away from making blogs like this one. I am serious. The “make money online” arena is stacked with people who have been doing this for a while and you are not likely to find a ton of success – especially if you don’t have a track record. I know, I know – you really are interested in how to make money online and now that you know how to set up a blog, you can teach others how to do it too and then talk about content and SEO.

But everyone and their brother is doing it – including me. I don’t make most of my money from this blog – this is just kind of a hitching post for me. Most of my money is made from other niches – man I hate that word. I used to think of a niche as something really specific, but it has gotten so diluted that a category is now called a niche. But alas, I will sucumb to the IM industry and refer to categories as niches.

Okay, off on a tanget, let’s get back to what to blog about to make money. Now that we have come to the realization that you shouldn’t blog about how to make money online (right?), what should you blog about? Well, if you’ve already picked a “niche” – then you should have an idea and should be blogging on a consistent basis.

If you aren’t – why not? My bet is that you picked a niche that you’ve got no real interest in – you’re not personally invested in the subject matter pertaining to your niche. So how are you supposed to write convincing commentary on the products or services related to that niche?

I have been there and done that and I tell you it is nothing but work! It is laborious work and that isn’t what I got into internet marketing to do. Don’t get me wrong – I work, but I try to work as smart as I can and for me, that means writing about things that I am interested in.

I’ve got a ton of websites about things that I don’t have interest in too and do well with them – but that’s because I outsource the work to have someone do the drudgery for me. Unfortunately for many people though, outsourcing isn’t in the budget. A lot of people find themselves looking to make money online because they are already on a tight budget and need extra money. Does this ring true for you?

If it does, I suggest you start your internet marketing career based around a “niche” that you enjoy – something you already or really want to participate in. When you do this, your writing is genuine and your words ring true with the readers. You will gain respect and authority within your niche and when it comes time to recommend a product to your readers, they will be happy to buy because they trust you.

Build upon that and try to be the best you can in your niche and you will go far.

Thank for reading, even I could have summed up what to blog about to make money in one sentence:

Write about something you love, and you can make money online.

And you can take that to the bank!

If you’d like to learn more about how to make money online, then get ahold of my free 7 part course that will teach you how you can take your passion and turn it into profit. Sign up below:

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This site, like most of mine is based on the WordPress platform. A few years ago I ran across WordPress while looking for another way to get a website online. I had been using FrontPage, but since I had chucked my PC and opted for a Mac, FrontPage was no longer a viable option. Luckily I found WordPress and although I have tip-toed into the waters of other platforms, I keep running back to WordPress. I am not going to disparage any other platform, but instead simply why I like WordPress.

• Quick Installation – WordPress was never that difficult to install (going back to the “Famous 5 Minute Install” days), but it has become more than a breeze. Someone with no experience installing a website (assuming they can simply log into their cpanel and click on Fantastico De Luxe) can have a WordPress site up in not time flat. I don’t know about you, but I like simple, especially when it comes to what is generally considered “technical stuff.” No need to be a techy to use WordPress.
• Easy Design Options – Themes, themes, themes. Sure regular html sites have tons of templates available, but the integration of themes with the WordPress back-end allows for such quick changes and easy editing. Want to switch from a single column to a no column – two column- three column – right column – left column – pink theme – silver theme – blue theme – no problem, just pick your theme, click activate and your theme is changed. With all of the free and paid themes out there, your design options are vast.
• Easy Editing and Publishing – With a simple visual and html editor, WordPress is so easy to use when creating and publishing content. No need to ftp it – just click publish and you are done. Easily change your page or post without having to open up additional software. This might be a minor point to many, but once again – I like easy. People who are not computer savvy like easy too, and this is why WordPress is ideal for many people.
• Pictures and Video – Wordpress makes it easy to a picture to a post and place it within the text, adjust the size, tag it, hyperlink it – all just very simple. Adding videos is a snap too. These functions do have their issues, but I notice a progression in usability as upgrades occur. Sooner or later, they will have all the options you need to fully customize images and videos from directly within your WordPress panel.
• Plugins! – Plugins are probably the single biggest reason why WordPress is so popular. The sheer number of plugins that give your website additional functionality is staggering. From super simple things like tag clouds to complex functions like pulling content from around the web there are plugins for just about every need. Can these things be accomplished with an html site? Sure, but they can’t be done from a single point platform. I can add plugins from within WordPress and not have to worry about uploading anything and wondering if I am going to have to create a new folder, or put it in an existing one – easy. (Yes, some plugins require you to add files to the root directory, but most don’t)
• SEO – You hear all the time that Google loves WordPress – I can’t say that is the case one way or another, but WordPress is easy to optimize for the search engines. There are plugins, and even some themes have functions to help you easily optimize your site for the search engines.
• The WordPress Community – The WordPress community is huge.  If you need help with a WordPress problem, you will be able to find an answer. From the WordPress.org forum to a simple Google search, you will find people out there that can help you with your WordPress issues. While you might be able to find your answer for other platforms, you are likely to find your answer faster and find more up to date information when it is a WordPress issue.
• Future Development – The fine folks at WordPress seem to be committed to the long-term success of the WordPress platform. I don’t think it will be going away any time soon and if you want some corroboration, check out this video of Matt Mullenweg at WordCamp San Francisco earlier this month here.

I like WordPress and will continue to recommend to anyone interested in blogging. Is it perfect? No, but it is perfectly simple to use, looks good, functions good, and if you ever have a problem, there are people who can help you to fix it.

‘Nuff said.

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Okay, but what is it?  Google Wave is a new communication tool that is open source (so it can be further developed) that will revolutionize (IMHO) the way we communicate online.  I could go on and on, but you’d be better served by watching the video and poking around the preview pages.

All I can say is I want it!

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So why am I now recommending this even though I gave Datafeedr the thumbs up?  Is it because of the awesome affiliate commissions I will get paid for referring you to PopShops?  No, so far as I can tell, they don’t even have an affiliate program (let me know if they do).  

It boils down to ease of use.  Datafeedr is probably easy for those of you who are well versed in tweaking code and the like, but PopShops is exceedingly easy – you just copy the code and pop it in your post or page – done.

Here are some layout examples you can use with PopShops (feel free to buy these watches, they are from Overstock.com):

Standard PopShops layout:

And this one is cool – although too wide for this blog…for the right layout, this looks really nice:

This one is borderless:



This is only a sampling of the layouts you can have with PopShops. If you are looking for an easy solution to “popping” in a store, I think that PopShops is about as simple as you can get. Give the free version a try and see if it is for you.

If anyone would care to comment about their experiences with PopShops versus Datafeedr or any other store solution, please comment below.

On a closing note, you might ask why not just integrate an Amazon store with your blog?  Well, I do utilize my Amazon affiliate tools on many of my blogs, but the thing with Amazon is the cookie lasts less than a day and the payouts aren’t that great (usually).  So while I do use it, I get better results with other tools like the ones above.  Many of the stores that work with PopShops and Datafeedr have cookies that last at 15 days and many will be quite a bit longer giving me a better chance for those who aren’t impulse buyers, but eventually come back to whatever store my affiliate link sent them to and then buy.  If they went to Amazon through my affiliate link and they don’t buy within a day, I am out of luck.

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…and yes, these are my affiliate links.  As it seems everyone is offering something if you sign up through their affiliate links, I will do the same -  use the contact form to let me know you signed up and I will give you some great bonuses – what you get will depend on what you need.  While I don’t have everything you might ask for – I pretty much guarantee that you will get a great value. 

Now to the good stuff – again, I only promote products I use and like, so no B.S. reviews here.

1. Affomatic Free eBay Store Plugin

The Affomatic Free eBay Wordpress Plugin is a cool tool made by Mike from Digital Product Reporter (formerly 45n5.com) – he also makes the second product on this list.  But this one is FREE!!!  This plugin for Wordpress allows you to add an eBay store in any of your posts.  While this is not a totally new concept, in my opinion, this is the best FREE eBay plugin out there.  It does allow some customization, but if you need a more robust solution, you can check out phpBayPro – and check out the type of niche stores people make with these types of plugins in their Customer Stores sections.

2. PLR to Wordpress

PLR to Wordpress is another Affomatic plugin for Wordpress (not free, but very well priced – $39) that solves a huuuuge problem for those of us who do niche blogging with PLR articles and that is how do you get all those PLR article sitting on your computer up to your blog?  PLR to Wordpress solves this by allowing you to FTP your into your plugin and then setting the publish intervals for those articles.  Not quite clear?  Say you got 50 PLR articles that want to publish….first, you upload the PLR to Wordpress plugin to your blog.  Next you upload the 50 PLR articles to the plugin (don’t worry – instructions are included – super simple).  Once that is done, you log into your blog and go to settings.  There you click on the PLR to Wordpress plugin and you can determine when you want the article to start posting, how many hours in between each post, and to what category you would like those article to be posted to.  You hit “Import Articles” and all 50 get imported instantly(works best with .txt files and no formating – this is the only slight negative IMHO).  Then, your article pop up on your blog at your predetermined time.  So for 50 articles, if you chose 72 hours (3 days) between posting, you would have articles posting every three days automatically for 5 months!  Highly recommend this tool as it has made my life so much easier.

3. FirePow

This tool is really aimed at people who are or want to be niche bloggers and want to form a large number of blogs fairly easily.  Firepow is not cheap, but it is very powerful.  If you decide you want to use this tool, or try it, don’t pay retail, you save $50 per month through this link to Firepow.  You have most likely heard about this tool and may have been scared off by the steep monthly cost.  Well, let me tell you that you get a lot for your money.  Firepow has a powerful dashboard that helps you to semi-automate your blogging efforts.  You can put up multiple blogs, and have access to a wide array plugins available only through Firepow – some really cool ones too, like automatically finding pictures or videos for your post right from the edit window of your post…plus a lot more.  You can even post articles to be posted on other blogs – instant backlinks for you!  Conversely, you can get some free unique articles posted to your blog if you want them from other FirePow members – this is a very powerful feature that can really help boost your traffic.  There is also a great forum to help you out with all your questions. So is FirePow perfect?  No, but it’s pretty good.  The biggest drawback for many appears to be the price, but even if you just invested in it for a few months, you could really explode your blog network (if this is what you are interested in doing).  Another drawback is that at this point in time, you cannot utilize FirePow for your existing blogs – but this may be changed in the future.  Other than that, this is a system in which you get a lot of bang for your buck.

4. DataFeedr

If you want a really cool internet store on your blog and you really don’t want to mess around StoreStacker or BANS, then DataFeedr is for you!  It is certainly the best tool that I have come across for integrating storefronts into WordPress - looks really professional and is quite easy to use.  I am not going to do this justice by writing about it, so just go watch the video about DataFeedr - I love it and am using it on several blogs right now.   It take the hassle out of putting up a store and allows you to offer up products from Commission Junction, ShareASale, LinkShare, Pepper Jam Network, Clickbank and many others.  Again, very professioanl looking and flexible with great customization options.

5. Instant Article Wizard Pro

Instant Article Wizard Pro is a great tool to really saves me time by helping me to create unique blog content in minutes.  There are a lot of tools out there that help you do this, but most cost way more than this one – $7 for the first month and $27 after that if you like it.  It is very easy to use and you can create new articles in minutes that are unique!  You can add them to your blog or make a bunch of article to submit to article directories for backlinks and traffic!  If you have more than a couple blogs, this is really a must have.  Again, my write up won’t do the product justice – they have a video and samples of the content that this software will produce. Any drawbacks?  Yes. This program is for PC only – not exactly my favorite…but other than that…pretty darn good.

6. Niche Blogging Network

Niche Blogging Network by Victor Franqui of Blogger Unleashed has released this product that gives you tools, content, and training for niche blogging.  You get 250 niche articles every month that are of fantastic quality – trust me as I have tried many of them – these are good.  The Niche Blogging Network takes a lot of the headaches out of getting content for your niche – or from even finding one.  Very reasonable – $27 per month. You may also want to check out Vic’s Private Label Chest – the PLR content is different and includes ebooks, website templates, articles and software.

7. One Click Sales Sites

So you want a sales letter type site to sell your own unique products or a landing page to promote other affiliate products…but you don’t want to learn how to put up a website. However, you do know how to use Wordpress already – so what do you do? A blog can’t look like a landing page – or can it?  You have to see One Click Sales Sites – totally awesome and easy to use.  The quality is just fantastic.  Just look at the landing page – that is Wordpress!!!  This is such a cool tool – a little pricey, but way cheaper than paying to have landing pages made.

Well I hope you found something that is useful for you and your niche blogging.  I ran across a lot of other things that were pretty good, but these 7 topped the list for me. 

A word of caution for those of you that are new to niche marketing – it ain’t for everyone – and since I don’t want to re-invent the wheel, just watch this video by Vic and decide whether or not niche blogging is for you.

…and now, a musical interlude:

…get what you will out of this…but I think as people involved in internet marketing, we all need to step back from time to time and take a look at how much of our life we dedicate to internet marketing.  Just make sure that there are no regrets when it comes to IM interfering with your life and relationships.  Internet marketing should improve your life – make sure you keep balance – make sure you don’t wind up with regrets.

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This campaign is coinciding with my new diet which you can see over at LosinFat.com  You see I need to do something to keep my mind off of the food thing so I thought this would be a perfect time to start this test.

I will explain the methodology after the study is complete.  I am going to give you a couple baseline stats for my blog and we will see what happens by the end of the study – January 4th, 2009.

Yahoo! Site Explorer

Xinu Stat Checker

If any of you would like to share ways you have utilized to increase traffic or any case studies on your own blog that you have done, please share it with the class.  I am not going to veer of my original plan, but I am always open to suggestions on ways to improve the effectiveness of my commenting.

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What?

Anyway, I am sure that this isn’t the end.  YouTube certainly will go back to the drawing board to come up with a similar feature that just “seem” so intrusive.  I think I will wait at least a day before I post something on that just to make sure that they are going to keep it around for more than a few hours.

Oh well…..

Update

Looks like the fix is to have the search bar drop down when you scroll over the player – much better.

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Which do you prefer?:

Which looks better to you?

So I did a little search to find out if anyone else disliked this little “upgrade,” and I found quite a few.  The people over at TechCrunch were kind enough to post a link to the Google site to explain the mods you need to do to get rid of it.  

Pretty easy actually, you just need to add &showsearch=0 to the end of the video ID in SWF URL of the embed code (what???).  If you don’t know what that looks like, I am going to give you an example below of the embed code for the video Pride by Syntax which I have posted on my sidebar.

The original embed code looks like this:

<object width=”425″ height=”344″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/BvuU3×9TpZM&hl=en&fs=1″></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/BvuU3×9TpZM&hl=en&fs=1″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”425″ height=”344″></embed></object>

…and the new code looks like this:

<object width=”425″ height=”344″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/BvuU3×9TpZM&hl=en&fs=1&showsearch=0“></param>
<param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/BvuU3×9TpZM&hl=en&fs=1&showsearch=0” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”425″ height=”344″></embed></object>

It is really easy considering I am no techie…but thank you to those that are that made this an easy fix.Similar Posts:

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I was browsing some blogs I frequent and I came across a poll on the best blog analytics software over at TopRankBlog.com.  I took part in the poll and wasn’t a bit surprised about the results that the analytics tool most overwhelmingly voted for was Google Analytics – 68% of the 188 votes (at time of this post).  Google recently integrated their analytics with AdWords making a nice one-stop-stat-checking-shop (yes, I am a poet in my spare time), and it is an extremely robust analytics tool.  So is it my favorite tool? No.

You see I use Google Analytics, and it is good for a quick snapshot (even though the feature set is actually huge), but I find that it is inaccurate when compared against the other tools I have tested – so I supplement it with a tool called Stat Counter.  I am not going to do an in-depth review as I already did a Stat Counter review over at worldomarketing.com.  I just find it a much more quicker to use tool than Google Analytics, and it is free for a log size up to 500 entries.  I know, not much if you have a lot of traffic, but if you are just starting out, it is really a great way to measure efforts.  By the way, you can pay to increase the size of your log (I think there is a joke in there somewhere).

So what do I mean by measuring efforts?   If you are new to online marketing, you may be under the illusion that all you have to do is put up a blog or website and the traffic will roll in.  Not so unless you hit the Internet lottery (don’t know what that is, but you must of hit it if you get traffic for no effort). 

Anyway, you will be undergoing different tactics to get traffic to your site.  Will they all work?  Probably not, but you can be assured that of those that do work, some will work better than others.  How can you tell?

Having an analytic tool like Stat Counter will help you to target your efforts on traffic gaining tactics that do work and not wasting time on those that don’t.

You want an example don’t you?  Okay, here is one:

You finally sign up for a Twitter account (an follow me of course), and start tweeting (your little 140 character max posts on Twitter).  After following proper Twitter etiquette of not having every tweet a blatant attempt to sell your product (trust me, don’t do this), and having a fair number of “contributing” tweets, you decide to write a tweet about your latest blog post.  You can then track and see if there is a change in your baseline (average number of daily visitors).  Hopefully there is.  But how do you know they are due to Twitter?  Well, the tools in Stat Counter tell you where your visitors come from – pretty cool, huh?  But that is just basic. 

Trust me, sign up for your free account and try it out.  I know you are thinking that I am just trying to get some affiliate money off of you by pushing this service – WRONG!  As far as I know, they don’t have an affiliate program.  I am pushing this product because I like it, and it is useful.

For more useful information about analytics, go check out the post on best blog analytics software that inspired me to write this entry.

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Anyhoo, I am pimping an e-book – that’s right – I want you to get this e-book.  It is an incredible 134 page resource that will show you how you can make money blogging.  I am not making a landing page or anything to promote it, I am not giving you some freebies if you get it through my link…you need to get it just because I said so!

This book isn’t even brand new – been around a couple of months….but you need to get your copy now if you haven’t already.  This book has made me take a step back from my bloggging and re-evaluate how I am going about things.  This e-book is the real deal – not theory.

So what is this incredible e-book going to run you?  For a limited time only, you can get your copy for $197, $97, $47….nope, if you act now, you can get this amazing book for:

FREE

That’s right – free.  I have recently bought a few e-books about how to make money blogging just to see if I missed anything in the basics – all three of those e-books sucked compared to this free one.  Just get it, read it, and apply it.  I will be appying a few things that I have learned over the next couple months.

I am making money from this blog, but it is not what I consider a lot of money.  I am looking to take it to the next progression and have this thing turn out more money for me.  I know a few of the tips I picked up are going to help me to it to a whole other level.

Now download it!!!!

Want to be the first to be on my list for my new e-book coming in January?  Sign up for my newsletter:

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