Back Scratching Doesn't Always Make Money

As I mentioned on December 20th I am giving Squidoo a trial to see if it will:

(a) Make money in it's own right
(b) To see if it can generate traffic to my blogs
(c) To see if it can generate traffic to affiliate programs and thus make money

It's very early days to make any assumptions as yet. From what I have found out so far I think it will take at least three months to establish if Squidoo is a worthwhile project, as far as money making is concerned.

I've been attracting some traffic to my Squidoo lenses and this has come from:

(1) 47.2% - Referrals from my own blogs
(2) 22.8% - From Google search engine
(3) 18.6% - From within Squidoo
(4) 10.0% - Arrived direct, not sure how
(5) 01.4% - From Ask search engine

What is encouraging from the above is the percentage from Google. I have now created 5 Squidoo lenses but the search engine referrals are to only two of these. This shows that you have to follow the normal SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) rules and think about keywords and the like when setting up lenses.

A decent percentage has arrived from within the Squidoo community itself. In other words if you participate in commenting and ranking other lenses, and joining in on their forum, this will produce traffic in relation to the effort you put in but ...

... from a money making viewpoint is this traffic actually of real value? It's a little like everyone scratching each others backs. You scratch mine and I'll scratch yours.

Absolutely nothing wrong with this as it will boost your Squidoo rankings and standing within the community but ...

... if you are in Squidoo to make money then you won't make much from this particular direction - at least not as far as I can see.

I wrote a post back in April 2008 titled Regular New Blood Is Needed To Make Money. In this I wrote that, as valued as subscribers are, they don't really make you money. I feel it's the same when attracting Squidoo members to your lenses.

Of course it all depends why you are setting up Squidoo lenses or blogging. If it's just for fun then it's fantastic to get lots of stuff going on with other members and lots of back scratching.

If your mission is money making, however, I still stick to the principle that this comes from fresh blood via search engines and good links.

As with Dracula continuous new blood is required to keep your money making alive and well.

Anyway, just a few initial thoughts on Squidoo. The four most visited of my Squidoo lenses are:

The World Of Ponzi Schemes
Celebrities Photos and News
Everything Perry
Making Money With Free Blogs

Good luck and wishing ...

A PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR
TO ALL
SUBSCRIBERS, READERS AND ADVERTISERS
Best wishes,
Mike

Can You Make Money With Google Groups?

Way back in November 2006, when I was trying out different ways to get traffic, I started a Google Group called Free Blogs 4 Money.

I wrote at the time that I did this because, "A strange thing happened yesterday. Someone mentioned this blog in a Google Group and this brought me in 76 visitors."

Anyway, to cut a long story short, the Group wasn't really a success and after a couple of months I forgot all about it. I figured at the time that this was probably because I hadn't put in enough promotional effort.

Suddenly however, after all of this time, the Group has become active again and has 263 members. This may sound okay but most of the messages - there have been over 60 in the last 3 days - are rubbish, typical hyped up virtual spam.

It has got me thinking though as to whether there is any mileage in a proper run Google Group - for the purpose of money making and/or creating fresh traffic. The one I created is too overrun now to be worthwhile.

Has anyone had any success with a Google Group? Either running one or maybe just participating in a few? It would be interesting to know. Thanks.

Good luck,
Mike.

Squidoo Lenses: The World Of Ponzi Schemes / Making Money With Free Blogs / Everything Perry / Secret of Eternal Youth / Celebrities Photos and News

Seasonal Greetings!

Other Peoples Goals Make Money

Would you share your goals and desires with the Internet? If you would perhaps you may be interested in the website 43Things.

"Yes, but what use is all of this?" you may ask.

Well if you think about one of my pet themes, the one about how you should give people what they want (and not what you think they should or might want ... etc) then seeing what are popular goals and desires might just be useful.

For example the most Popular Goals on 43Things are:

1. Lose weight (32978 people)
2. stop procrastinating (24573 people)
3. write a book (22771 people)
4. Fall in love (22445 people)
5. Be happy (19819 people)
6. Get a tattoo (18184 people)
7. Go on a road trip with no predetermined destination (16992 people)
8. Drink more water (16949 people)
9. Get married (16474 people)
10.Travel the world (16414 people)

... and the most Popular Goals today are:

1. Drink more water
2. Fall in love
3. Lose weight
4. Write a book
5. Run a marathon
6. Learn Spanish
7. Be happy
8. Be more confident
9. Travel the world
10.Get a job

43Things could be useful for generating ideas about which type of products to promote, or maybe a niche for a blog, or an idea for an ebook. Though I'm not too sure about this obsession with drinking water!

Well I thought it was interesting anyway. And it's all done anonymously.

But why 43 Things? This is what they say:

People have known for years that making a list of goals is the best way to achieve them. But most of us never get around to making a list. 43 Things is great for that! Make a list on 43 Things and see what changes happen in your life. Best of all it’s a way of connecting with other enthusiasts interested in everything from watching a space shuttle launch to grow my own vegetables. So the next time someone asks you, "what do you do?" you can answer with confidence, "I am doing 43 things!".

Made your goals for next year? Are you going to drink more water for example!

Good luck.
Mike.

P.S. Just been looking at ClickBank and these are examples of some of the things to promote that could, perhaps, tie in with the Most Popular Goals:

Strip That Fat
Make Women Laugh And Fall In Love
Tattoo Me Now.
Attracting Wealth, Health, Happiness And Love
How To Find And Marry A Girl Like Me.
How To Get Dirt Cheap Airfare Tickets

Money Making Test: Squidoo Lenses

With the New Year approaching I thought I needed something different to test, and I've decided on Squidoo. I dabbled with this a while back but got sidetracked onto something else without giving it a decent trial. This time, hopefully, I'll give it a proper money making test.

Why Pick Squidoo?
Firstly because it's similar, in many ways, to blogging. Secondly I've come across a few reports of people who have done quite well with the progamme. One in particular reckons to be making over $1000 a month - and that would be a worthwhile addition to my blog income.

What Is Squidoo?
If you haven't heard of it before it's all about creating single web pages on any subject you want, like a glorified big blog post. Squidoo call these pages lenses and you can have as many of them as you want.

On your page (lens) there are affiliate links, plus you can add aditional modules. All of these can make money. Squidoo distributes the income, from the 700,000+ lenses, in the following way: 5% goes to charity, they keep 45% and the rest goes to the lensmasters who build the pages.

There is also additonal money to be made from special eBay, Amazon, CafePress modules which can be added to pages if you choose.

Money can also be made by introducing new members to Squidoo, but there is more ...

Your lens or page can be used for virtually anything so it could be for promoting your own blog, products, business, affiliate programs etc. etc. If you can get traffic to your lenses they can be a useful promotional tool.

Okay here's three examples of Squidoo lenses I have just set up. They are far from perfect as yet, and need some editing, but it'll give you a general idea.

(1) Celebrities Photos and News: I'm using this mainly to try and get extra traffic to my celebrity blogs. As you will see I have been able to use RSS feeds so that a selection of my latest blog posts are on the lens.

(2) The World of Ponzi Schemes: I used this theme as Ponzi has been in the news recently following the massive fraud in the USA. The article I have published I wrote a year or so ago.

(3) Making Money With Free Blogs: The lens is to promote this blog. I've included an RSS feed but there is still a lot of work to do on the lens. I want to add a lot more information, but I'll do this gradually as and when I have time.

The people who make the decent money direct from Squidoo have hundreds of lenses and you could, of course, link these together so they produce traffic for each other. And don't forget the secondary income which can be made from your own affiliate programs and other stuff.

For example, you could use something like a ClickBank product, write an article about it and then use links to direct traffic to the main product sales page. There's lots of ways for which a lens could be used if you give it some thought

What Are My First Impressions?
It's very early days and I've only had about 145 hits on my lenses so far - hopefully this will grow considerably. What I have noticed is that, after just two days, I had referrals from Google, now that is a good sign.

There are lots of other ways to attract traffic to a lens. They have their own forum and I've also come across several websites especially for Squidoo lenses. I won't give details now as I can't say if they are worthwhile, as I haven't tried them myself. I'll get back to you on this.

On the Squidoo main page they write that you can, "Create your own page in 60 seconds.' This is slightly misleading. It's true that a page is ready for you pretty quickly but it'll take a while to enter the content, to grasp all of the things you can do with a lens and to get it looking as you would wish.

I'll leave Squidoo there for now and will do an update as soon as I can give a few more facts and figures as to how I have got on. I will add that it's not a get rich overnight progam, the lenses will take time to develop and quite a few will be needed to make decent money.

If you want to have a go as well here's the link: Squidoo. Let me know how you get on.

Good luck,
Mike.

Other reading: 40 Ways To get More Blog Traffic.

Make Money From New Year Resolutions

It's nearly 2009. Okay, I guess most of us know this, but the beginning of a New Year is a good time for promoting products - the right products that is.

Despite being skint after the Christmas holiday most of us start a New Year with great enthusiasm.

It's a time for New Year resolutions and setting ourselves targets and objectives for the year ahead. It makes sense therefore to try and make money out of this this buzz of excitement.

It is now time to plan for January, if we haven't already done so. What is it that people will be thinking about? Probably things such as making money, getting a better body, losing weight, giving up cigarettes, making new friends, romance, adult contacts and so on and so on.

So if we can fill these sorts of needs, with the right products from affiliate programs and the like, we could see a rise in our blogging earnings. Looking through my own records January 2008 was one of my highest earning months and I aim to make 2009 even better.

Now is the time to do our homework and prepare for January with the right affiliate programs and promotions applicable to our particular blog niche.

There is only one opportunity each year to cash in on the hopes and dreams which a New Year brings. Don't miss out!

Good luck,
Mike.

Your Own Money Making Space on the Internet with Squidoo. Have one page or hundreds of pages and make money from them! Set up your first money making page in about 10 minutes. Example page (lens).

Beware of Dodgy Money Making Schemes

There has been a lot of publicity regarding Ponzi schemes following the con by Bernard Madoff in the USA which run into billions of dollars. Even UK banks were sucked into the so called investment with HBOS losing £653 million, RBS £388 million and the Spanish bank Santander £2.03 billion. Unbelievable.

I wrote about the danger of Ponzi schemes way back in January 2007, see Warning: Beware Of Ponzi Schemes. The thing to remember is that 'if something looks too good to be true it probably is.'

This is why at the time I made a fuss about things such as Wealth ToolBox.

It's so easy to get sucked into these sort of schemes - as we've seen, incredibly, even banks are fooled. Be careful!

Good luck,
Mike.

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Lessons From State Of The Blogosphere

There is an interesting but long report on Technorati called State of the Blogosphere. If you are interested in all sorts of blogging stats and information you'll most likely find it within the report.

For example, on the subject of How Bloggers Attract Visitors, these are supposedly the most popular methods, though I'm a little suspicious of the number one!

1. List your blog on Technorati - 83% of bloggers do this.
2. Comment on other blogs - 77%
3. List your blog on Google - 73%
4. Tag your blog posts - 68%
5. Link to other blogs and hope for reciprocity - 64%
6. Participate in a blogroll - 54%
7. Get listed in a blog directory - 53%
8. Produce content for other blogs - 24%
9. Pay for online advertising - 4%

Regarding number 4 on the above list, it's interesting that Technorati's Top 100 Bloggers use tags more than two times as much as the next 500 and 19 times more than the next 5000 blogs. This illustrates the importance of using tags for every posts, and using them wisely.

The Top 100 also update their blogs more frequently. The elite 100 have twice as many postings as the next 500 and 12 times more than the next 5000.

There are lessons to be learnt from this State of the Blogosphere Technorati report as it covers a wide aspect of blogging in general.

Regarding making money with blogs: for those with over 100,000 unique visitors per month, in the survey, they produced an average income of $75,000. This, however, was slightly skewed by some top bloggers who have over one million uniques each month and had a considerably higher income. A truer figure for this group of 100,000+ was a median annual income of $22,000.

You can see the full report here.

Good luck,
Mike.

See also: 40 Ways To Get More Blog Traffic

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Disguise Your URL

There are often reasons why it may be helpful to disguise the URL of something you are promoting. Perhaps with an affiliate program such as ClickBank where it may put off readers if they see it is a ClickBank product. Or maybe where the URL is very long.

For whatever reason there are a several ways by which a URL can be disguised. Here are a couple of easy to use free examples.

Suppose you have the following URL, which you want to disguise:

(1) http://seeker76.maverick66.hop.clickbank.net
/?tid=MAVMONEY

You could disguise it, via WhyLong.com, and it would become:

(2) http://whylong.com/469

Or you could use this one from tinyurl.com:

(3) http://tinyurl.com/5enuu9

All three links will go to the same product.

Or as another example, what looks better and is easier to handle:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470246677?ie
=UTF8&tag=celebinsid-20&linkCode=as2&
camp=1789&creative=390957&
creativeASIN=0470246677

or

http://whylong.com/470

Both WhyLong.com and tinyurl.com are simple to use and don't require any form of registration.

Good luck,
Mike.

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40 Ways To Get More Blog Traffic

The secret of making money with blogs is quite simple and can be summed up in one word: traffic.

If you get sufficient traffic / referrals / hits, or whatever you want to call them, you have the potential to make money.

But how do you get traffic? The first thing (1) is to do something every day, or at least on a regular basis, to try and get more traffic. To help with some ideas here is a list of 40 ways to get more traffic to your blog.

(2) MyBlogLog. Join MyBlogLog, list your blogs and if you wish put their widget on your blog - see example in right hand column of this blog.

(3) myLot. As well as making a little cash on this site it's also possible for members to list their blogs as well.

(4) Mister Linker This sort of thing is often frowned on by blogging purists but can bring in a few hits.

(5) Zimbio. I've had over 10,000 referrals from Zimbio. I use the 'automatic option' .

(6) Klik.Us. Doesn't work for everyone but my photo is on their first page and it brings me visitors.

(7) BuzzFeed. I've had over 25,000 referrals from this website.

(8) Mahalo. I've received about 1000 referrals.

(9) Wikipedia. I'm sure we've all used this website but it has also sent me over 5000 referrals. How? By being listed within the 'external links' on three or four celebrity pages - these are at the bottom of the respective pages. I'll leave you to fathom out how to do this!

(10) Technorati. Join and 'claim' your blogs.

(11) Images. Use images and photos in your posts. These can produce referrals from Google Images and also from other search engines. On one of my celebrity blogs this has brought me in over 350,000 referrals in one year.

(12) Wowzio. If you do use images in posts try a Wowzio widget - see example in right hand side column of this blog. I use these and get referrals.

(13) Videos. Publish videos on your blog. They don't have to be yours - use YouTube or whatever. These can bring referrals via Google Videos. On one of my celeb blogs this had brought me in 5000+ referrals.

(14) Keywords. Essential for getting referrals from search engines. Use them in titles and the body of posts but without overdoing it, as that would be considered spam.

(15) Long Tail Keywords.

(16) Emails. Use your blog address as a signature for every outgoing email.

(17) Forums - 1. Use your blog address in signatures on forums.

(18) Forums - 2. Participate on forums relative to your blog's niche.

(19) Subscriptions. Make it easy for readers to subscribe to your blog by using Feedburner or something similar. And make sure this is easily seen on your blog.

(20) Traffic Exchanges. Websites such as Blog Explosion, Blog Soldiers and Blog Mad will bring you traffic. As to the quality of the traffic, that's debatable - but they can make the stats look good! Important Warning: Do not use traffic exchanges if you have AdSense on your blog, they are not compatible.

(21) Exchange Links with blogs of a similar niche to your own.

(22) Google Groups. Create your own Google Group, relative to the theme of your blog, and/or participate in existing Groups.

(23) Profiles. List your blog on every profile of anything you join. If there is ever an opportunity - anywhere - then enter your URL. Might not bring in much traffic but you never know who might just click on your blog.

(24) Blog Directories. Get listed within as many Blog Directories as possible. This doesn't bring in a volume of traffic, but the links are useful in other ways - such as PR.

(25) Comment on other blogs. You mostly get at least the blogger returning your visit and sometimes many more as well.

(26) Freebies. Offer some sort of freebie on your blog, maybe an ezine, ebook or some sort of blogging tool.

(27) Competitions. Run a competition on your blog and do a form of Press Release to other relevant blogs telling them all about it.

(28) Link Love. Give some link love. This is odd but by listing other blogs within a post this creates good karma.

(29) Make a list of other bloggers interesting posts, as a post, on your blog.

(30) Squidoo. Create some Squidoo lenses and use them for links to your blog(s).

(31) Blog Carnivals - 1. Join a Blog Carnival and have your posts, with links, listed on other blogs.

(32) Blog Carnivals - 2. Host a Blog Carnival on your blog.

(33) Articles. Write articles and submit them to the various article directories. You are normally allowed to include your link in a footnote following the article.

(34) Link Bait. Write a 'special post', something that has taken a while to produce and is of value to a lot of people. With luck this will be linked to by other bloggers.

(35) Ping. Regularly ping your blogs. This tells search engines and other services that your blog has been updated. ping-o-matic will ping your blog to lots of services.

(36) Free Classified Ads. There are dozens of places where you can place free ads. A few examples: craigslists, Kijiji, ClassifiedAds, US FreeAds, WebLeeg, EPage etc. etc.

And these only start to scratch the surface. Once you start looking and thinking about attracting more traffic you'll find dozens of more ways. I haven't, for example, even mentioned social media networks like (37) Facebook or (38) Twitter - there's a list of the main social networking sites on (39) Wikipedia.

and (40) ask other blogs to link to your posts!

Link to this post

<a href="http://mikesmoneymakingmission.blogspot.com/2008/12/40-ways-to-get-more-blog-traffic.html">40 Ways To get More Blog Traffic</a>

Good luck,
Mike.

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Money Making Top Ten Lists

I see that Yahoo have published the Top Searches for 2008 for various categories.

I often generally look at such lists - though prefer things like Google Trends - to find out what the hot searches are. I base some of the posts on my Celebrity blogs on Trends. Here is Yahoo's 2008 Top Ten

Yahoo Top 10 Searches For 2008
1.
Britney Spears
2.
WWE
3.
Barack Obama
4.
Miley Cyrus
5.
RuneScape
6.
Jessica Alba
7.
Naruto
8.
Lindsay Lohan
9.
Angelina Jolie
10
American Idol
The above shows how celebrities dominate the Internet, whether we like this or not. And, as I often write, we have to give people/readers what they want as opposed to what we think they may or should want. Keeping up with trends means more traffic - and there is even more traffic (and money making potential) if we can anticipate something about to happen or hone in on something on the way up.

Google have a list of Top Ten Product Searches. Again this allows us to promote what people are searching for and want - as opposed to what we think they may want.

Google Top 10 Product Searches
1.
Nintendo Wii
2.
Wii Fit
3.
iPod touch
4.
Xbox 360
5.
Nintendo DS
6.
iPod Nano
7.
Uggs
8.
Nikon D90
9.
Zune
10.
Digital Picture Frame
There are lots of search categories about that can help us decide what we are going to write about or promote. Another example is the Google Top 10 Video Games & Toys.

Google Top 10 Video Games & Toys
1.
Bakugan
2.
Guitar Hero World Tour
3.
Webkinz
4.
Gears of War 2
5.
Call Of Duty World At War
6.
Rock Band 2
7.
Elmo Live
8.
Wii Music
9.
Fallout
10.
LittleBigPlanet
If we look there is a heap of information on the Internet to help us find out was is really popular. Most of the main search engine's publish such stuff. It all helps to increase a blog's money making potential.

Good luck,
Mike.

Dissatisfied Customers Will Make Us Money

Here's some food for thought I read on CacheClosed.com. It's only a small part of an article but it describes how we, as money making bloggers, want dissatisfied customers! This is probably something different from the standard way most of us think.

We normally think that we want satisfied customers but if they are satisfied can we really motivate them to buy something? Here is a snippit from the article.

"Two things motivate all potential customers: a feeling of dissatisfaction and a desire for change. All good advertising creates a focused storyline with a singular message that stirs the emotional dissatisfaction in the audience and offers a solution that will initiate change.

Thank goodness people are insatiable for what's new and improved. We are a species motivated to constantly strive for more: more money, more power, more success, more stuff; and when we have more stuff, we want better stuff. We are in a constant state of desire. The advertisers job is to access that desire and push that motivational button so that the audience takes action.

The job of advertisers is to create dissatisfaction in its audience. If people are happy with how they look, they are not going to buy cosmetics or diet books; if people are happy with their old twenty-inch tube television they are not going to buy a sixty-inch LCD flat screen TV. If people are happy with who they are, where they are in life, and what they got, they just aren't customer-potential, that is, unless you make them unhappy.

Most cosmetic advertisements feature beautiful woman, igniting the promise that you too can look like a drop-dead glorious model if only you use their product. This approach is based on showing an ideal that the audience will undoubtedly be unable to stack-up against. The audience after seeing what they could look like, is no longer happy with what they do look like, and are now motivated to buy into the promise of change."

CacheClosed.com has some interesting stuff on their site - if you are dissatisfied with your lot that is! Go and read the full article.

Good luck,
Mike.

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We keep being told by the media that we are either heading for, or are in, a recesssion. It therefore makes sense to save money whenever possible. And if this also means that you can make money as well so much the better, and if they also give you £5 for free even better still!

Mirror Cashback is one such opportunity for UK residents.

With this particular cashback scheme there are all sorts of savings to be made on purchases, which most of us will probably make anyway. Here are just a few examples (current at today's date):

Avon cosmetics fashion etc 5% cashback, Burton menswear 2.5% cashback, Comet electrical equipment 1.5% cashback, Dell computers 1% cashback, Dixons electrical 2% cashback, Ernest Jones jewellery and watches 7% cashback, Figleaves lingerie 4.5% cashback, H Samuel jewellery 6.25% cashback, Greetings by PhotoBox greetings cards 20% cashback, Healthy Direct vitamins etc 10% cashback, House of Fraser 2.5% cashback, Knickerbox 5% cashback, Moss Bros 4% cashback, Nike iD 4.5% cashback, Pet Supermarket 3% cashback, Pizza Hut 3.75 cashback, The Body Shop 4% cashback, Thorntons 4% cashback - and many, many more including up to £45 cashback on insurance, £36 cashback on mobiles, £53 cashback on broadband.

To start getting cashback - it is completely free to join - click here.

Plus you can earn £5 for each friend or family member you refer. Full details are shown when you join.

The small percentages of cashback all add up, especially over the Christmas and New Year period.

Oh and did I mention that you get £5 when you join!

Must be worth a go. You will find the full information here.

Good luck,
Mike.

Google Blog Search Can Make Extra Money

I've noticed that for some of my blogs I have been getting more referrals recently from Google Blog Search. To me more referrals means the possibility of making more money.

Google Blog Search is something I haven't really thought about too much before as I have relied mainly on normal Google searches to produce traffic.

From what I can see it pays to have the 'right' blog title and blog address to get a good supply of referrals from Google Blog Search. If you get this right you can get listed at the top of the page as a 'related blog'.

As an example see the screen shot below. I have a small blog about the UK television presenter Konnie Huq and my blog is listed at the top of the page as a 'related blog'.


I checked a few more of my blogs and I also get listed as a related blog for Celebrity Insider, Helen Flanagan, Celeb Tease and a few others as well. Being listed at the top of the page must obviously an advantage.

To get in this position I see it as being necessary to think about keywords that will most likely be used in a search and include these:

(1) within the blog title/name and
(2) within the URL.

This is something that many of us don't consider properly prior to setting up a new blog.

Having keywords in a blog name, URL as well as in post titles and the body of posts appears to pay dividends - both with the normal Google Searches and also with Google Blog Search.

A little thought and forward planning at the beginning of a blog's life can make a big difference.

Good luck,
Mike.

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Other Blogs Clean Up

I've been tidying up my 'Other Blogs' list for Mike's Money Making Mission - the link for this is always in the header.

I went through all of the blogs listed, to make sure they are reasonably current. Some have therefore been deleted.

If I have removed any in error just let me know and I will be pleased to replace them.

I don't judge the blogs listed, some are good and others perhaps not so. All I ask is that they are decent, won't offend anyone and are updated recently.

Just leave me a comment either here or on the Other Blogs page if you wish your blog to be added. Blogs of any category, other than adult, accepted.

Good luck,
Mike.

Making Money With Network Marketing

I just wanted to clarify something about the likes of the ei42 money making program that I have mentioned in the previous two posts.

I wrote that this particular program was on seven levels and this turned some readers thoughts to pyramids. And pyramid scams at that.

However, network marketing is a legitimate marketing system and is regulated both in the UK and USA. There are rules and the such but it's really all about lots of people selling small amounts of products.

It's perfectly true that pyramid selling is illegal in most countries, but pyramids are about getting paid for purely introducing new people into the business, with actual sales being unnecessary.

With the likes of ei42 members only get paid if or when people part with their cash for products. Though with this particular program members do get cashback on their own purchases, should they choose to buy anything themselves.

Years ago - good gracious 20 years ago - I was quite into network marketing and made some serious money with several companies, Herbalife being one example.

There are two things you need to be successful with network or multi-level marketing.

(1) You need to build a network (or downline) of people under you. This is from where the big money is made. It's about introducing new members into the business who also do the same. All networking companies differ but with ei42 this goes down seven levels. People you introduce, people they introduce, people they introduce and so on seven times.

Note that simply introducing others does not make money.

However, it can that it is possible, in theory, to end up with lots of people in your network/downline. Now if they all sell goods, even small amounts, this will add up to a lot of commission.

The reality is though that most recruits won't live up to expectations. This applies to most sales teams. If you make say 20 referrals only one or two will do well. The others will have every excuse imaginable as to why they can't succeed.

This also applies if you are introducing others to new affiliate programs or whatever. Lots of people like the idea of making money but few have the energy, effort and persistence to actually make lots of money. That's the way it is, you can't change human nature.

(2) Products have to be purchased, either by separate customers or by your downline. Some scams laughably talk about just introducing two people, who do the same, and so on and you'll make money. This is nonsense and only applies if sufficient people part with their cash and that everyone plays their part as expected - which they won't.

I wouldn't for one minute say that network marketing or multi-level marketing is easy - and that applies to any program. But it does work and it is something that gives the average person a money making opportunity, without laying out lots of money for a franchise or something similar. It works and it is legal but, like most things including blogging, it has to be worked at.

Okay, that's it!

Good Luck,
Mike.

P.S. Kindly nore that ei42 is for UK residents only at the present time.

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Investigate Anyone Anytime

Very often, we get a feeling that we cannot shake that something isn’t right about a person we have just met. A new person starts at your place of employment and when you are introduced, you instantly feel apprehensive about that person. Or, it may be that you begin to suspect something is off about that person after knowing them for a short period of time, and you begin to wonder that perhaps there’s something you should know about this person.

Chances are, this has happened to you. Many people can shake of the feeling that something isn’t quite right, but very often that feeling lingers. In order to get the answers you need regarding that individual, it used to be that you would have to spend days running between public offices in order to find the evidence you need in order to know if you should be wary of this person. Investigate123.com can do all the searching for you and provide you with all the records that are publicly available.

You do no need to snoop around or feel like you are invading someone else’s privacy when you are using Investigate123.com. You will not need to provide the web site with any private information about the person in question. The only information you will need in order to conduct a search is the person’s first and last name and the state in which they reside. Once you hit the enter key, all of the public records on this individual will be at your disposal in a matter of seconds.

Investigate123.com is a database that has access to all the public records in the United States. This number is over the one billion mark. This means that if a citizen can have access to a document, then Investigate123.com can provide that document for your review. The information you can obtain from Investigate123.com is of the same quality as that which a private investigator would provide you. However, the service that Investigate123.com provides is much quicker and is a fraction of the cost.

Investigate123.com offers a variety of records which include: criminal records, complete background checks, phone investigations, criminal records, public records, and people search. The list of available searches and records is so comprehensive that if there is something untoward in the individual’s past, Investigate123.com will find it and bring it to your attention.

One of the most valuable services of Investigate123.com is that they will find any alias or other names used by the individual. Very often, people will change their name or use their middle name if their original name is linked with a crime. When you conduct a search on Investigate123.com, you will learn all of the names used by the person in question so that you can learn everything you can about the individual.

Intuition can be a powerful thing. If you have 'that feeling' about someone, do not wait to learn more about their background. Take advantage of Investigate123.com and put that nagging feeling to rest.

This article was not written by Mike Perry but was prepared by Investigate123.com

Five Free Online Businesses To Make Money

Following on from the last post, here are five websites where you can get your own free online money making business - either a store, shop or agency. Everything is completely free including the website and hosting.

Amazon USA and Amazon UK.
You can open up to 100 aStores with Amazon which you then stock with their products. You choose what you want to have in your aStore and can give it, within reason, whatever name you wish.

This in effect means that you if you had a blog, say about music, you could have stores perhaps with the name of singers, groups, types of music. You could stock each one with products that match.

To open an aStore you need to become an affiliate at Amazon, again no cost involved.

Zlio.
Similar in some ways to Amazon. They will set you up with a website, you give it a name and then stock it with whatever you want from their range of thousands of products.

Again this allows you to find a niche and fill it with exactly the right products.

DIY Dating.
Not a shop, but this time a dating website.

You name the site, choose the design and also decide on the sort of dating you want to promote from their massive database: marriage, romance, gay, adult etc. etc.

In effect you can have your own dating site with millions of profiles for potential clients.

SexToySex. (strictly over 18's only)
This is one for those who want to get into the profitable adult market. I won't go into details about the sort of products they have but they are definitely for broadminded people only.

The company set you up with a free website and stock it with thousands of products. You get excellent commission on any sales made.

ei42
I wrote about this one in my post Money Making Test ei42 With Free Website. It's for the UK only at the present time but offers a free website that leads to 1500+ well known online outlets, shops and stores.

Comment.
Setting up your store, with any or all of these five, is reasonably straight forward. I found Zlio perhaps to be the most tricky and ei42 the easiest.

Once the stores are set up now comes the more difficult bit. As with blogs you need traffic and lots of it. This is another case of it being a numbers game. The more people who visit your store, the more opportunity you have to make money. The opposite is also true: if no one visits - zilch!

The advantage of already having a blog is that this can be used to promote your store. This will be a lot easier if the shop and the blog are of a similar niche. This is the case, for example, with my aStore Blogging Good Blogs as I've stocked it with books about blogging.

Opening one of these online style stores could be profitable if the niche, and perhaps the time of the year, tie up. Toys at Christmas, Dating and Romance in the New Year and so on.

They cost nothing try out but be realistic with your expectations.

Good luck,
Mike.

Money Making Test: ei42 with Free Website

This is something I'm testing and it's a bit different from the usual money making affiliate program. The only snag is that at the present time it is for the UK only. Other countries will follow in due course and I'll let you know when this happens.

The company is called ei42 - though I'm not sure why as yet!

So what's it all about?
The easy answer is shopping!

But not at just one store. At the moment there are 1512 stores and shops on the Internet to choose from. And these are the big names in the UK such as Argos, HMV, Woolworth, Currys, Comet, Sky Digital, Waterstone's, eBay, Amazon, Littlewoods Direct, WH Smith, Boots, Superdrug, Carphone Warehouse, Virgin Holidays and so on and so on.

So stores where most of us shop.

When you join you get your own standard website - here's mine: Mike's Mission Shop.

As I understand it you make commission in two ways:

(1) Purchases made on your own website/shop - including cash back on your own purchases.
(2) You earn a percentage on sales generated by people that you introduce - and this is on seven levels. So yes it is network marketing (which is perfectly legal, when products are involved).

Seven levels means: People you introduce, people they introduce, people they introduce and so on for seven levels.

Needless to say it's all free to join and you don't have to buy something yourself to qualify for payments. Though most of us probably will because of the cash back payments.

I can't give commission rates as they vary from shop to shop.

The positives, as I see it, are that your own free website links to all of the 1,512 shops - which in the main are major, well known outlets.

I won't go on any longer as you can see the full info on their website. I think it's worth a punt, especially at the present time, because most of us, and the people we know, will shop at these major stores anyway.


I'll keep you updated with how things go, any success, snags and so on. Obviously, having only just joined, I can't guarantee that this will be a success. As per usual time will tell.

Good luck,
Mike.

P.S. And there are usually 'special offers' as well. I noticed, for example, House of Fraser have £10 off first purchase, £5 off at Needapresent.com, 70% off boxsets at HMV, 10% off at Bodyshop and so on.

Every Referral Helps Make Money

I wrote back in August about how I was using a widget from Wowzio on several of my blogs to try and promote my Celebrity Insider.

So, how has it done?
I've been using the Wowzio widget which you can see in the right had column of this blog. It's something that can only really be used if you regularly have images or photos within your posts. In saying this Wowzio also have a range of other easy to install widgets as well.

Regarding the one I'm using, looking through my Celebrity Insider referrals I see that this brings in about 10 referrals a day. Not exactly a big success, say compared with Google who sometimes refer well over a 1000 or more per day, but every little helps.

I'll stick with the Wowzio widget as it seems to load pretty quickly and every extra referral is always a money making bonus.

Good luck,
Mike.

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UK's I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here starts on Sunday so here's Introducing Nicola McLean plus other news and gossip on the I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here Blog.

How Much Should You Earn For 1 Million Page Impressions

I use several email addresses and the other day I received a promotional email from WidgetBucks. I am actually already a member. This is part of what the email said:

"Are you tired of low-paying ineffective ads cluttering your website? WidgetBucks has the remedy! WidgetBucks offers Interactive ads that bring in some of the highest paying eCPM rates around. Our hybrid CPM/CPC ads are guaranteed to make your blog look much more appealing to your audience and bring in the big bucks."

And one of the reasons they gave to join WidgetBucks was that it would give 'Higher ad revenue for your site or blog.'

All sounds very good but I've been trying out WidgetBucks again recently as a trial on one of my blogs. Here are the latest figures of what I have earned.


So their 'highest paying rates' made me $0.75 for 8540 page impressions. So perhaps not quite as it appears as per the sales patter in the email.

I then took the statistics a stage further for the whole of this year. This time the figures showed.


From this you can see I had WidgetBucks on over one million page impressions and this made me just over $115. That's $0.106 per 1000. Still not too impressive is it?

Now what was it they were saying in that email? Oh, yes, "Are you tired of low-paying ineffective ads .."

I'll leave the post there as I think the figures speak for themselves. All that glitters is not gold.

Good luck,
Mike.

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The Recipe For A Money Making Blog

I like reading money making blogging success stories and I came across one on the Herald Tribune about a Dr. Arnold Kim who has given up medicine to concentrate on his website MacRumours.com.

As the Herald writes about him:

"Kim epitomizes the home-grown publishers whose wealth has been enabled by the Internet. Although few of the millions of blogs ever make their creators rich, the ones that do provide all the incentive necessary to fuel the medium."

The thing that really struck home though is something that I keep saying about how to make money with blogs myself. I don't claim to be anywhere near his success but when he was asked the simple question about his website, "How does that make money?" He answered that it can all be ...

"... boiled down to one simple accomplishment: building traffic. That's it. If you have a site that attracts a lot of visitors, you will be able to make money. On the Internet, traffic equals power, which subsequently equals money."

Exactly!

Kim's website attracts a lot of traffic. In July of this year it was quoted that his site attracts, '4.4 million people and 40 million page views a month.'

This all didn't happen overnight, as a lot of bloggers seem to expect.

He started way back in 2000 plus he picked a good niche in writing about gossip, rumour and facts about Apple. It has now become one of the top technology websites.

What can we learn from this?

The recipe for a successful money making blog is:
time + the right quality niche + traffic.

Get those three ingredients, in the right amounts, and you'll be laughing all the way to the bank.

Good luck,
Mike.

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ClickBank Money Making Report

Well that was tough going. Making money with ClickBank that is.

As you will recall I started a money making test with ClickBank on September 9th and I then told you of a snag I found about receiving payment on September 25th.

I can now, however, report that at last I have qualified to receive a payment of $115.02 from them.

This means, I suppose, that I ought to come up with some sort of conclusion now.

Okay, I started out with great enthusiasm with ClickBank and even set up another blog, Good Health Source, to try and help with making sales.

At first it seemed to be going okay. I was averaging about 70 clicks a day for over a month but actual sales, and therefore commission, was hard to come by.

Recently I must admit that my enthusiasm has wained, so much so that my number of clicks for the last three weeks has been down to 20 per day.

What I find difficult to get my head round is firstly the price of some of the thousands of products on offer. They are mainly ebooks and I feel that they are often vastly over priced.

Does that matter?
If the information is excellent then it doesn't matter because the buyer will have gained something of value. Otherwise it's a rip off. The problem is that you don't actually know the quality of what you are promoting unless you buy the product yourself. The saving grace is that there is always a money back guarantee, and this is what eased my conscience.

As for the way ClickBank makes you initially qualify for payment (see here), I don't like this at all. To my mind this is done to make life difficult for smaller affiliates, in a way that AdSense similarly does by having a $100 minimum payout.

What in reality this must mean is that ClickBank/AdSense make a lot of additional money because many affiliates give up and never actually qualify for payment.

So would I recommend ClickBank to other bloggers?
It's taken me just under two months to make my $115.02, which I don't consider to be very good in relation to the number of clicks I have had. I can only give figures for the last month because, for some inexplicable reason, ClickBank records only go back for 30 days.

In the last 30 days I had 919 clicks and these converted to commission of $50.33. This means for this period each click was worth $0.054 to me.

I concentrated on mostly health orientated products, perhaps other sectors gain better results.

I can't, as I've already intimated, give an opinion on the actual products themselves. There are literally thousands of them but some do sound a bit tacky.

I'd say, if you want to add it to your portfolio of money making programs, no harm done. I should, however, take those fantastic earnings figures often bandied about with a large pinch of salt.

If I had to give a score out of ten it would only be 4/10.

I'll let you know from time to time how I get on with ClickBank.

Good luck,
Mike.

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How Much Money Is A Click Really Worth?

So what is a click really worth?

I was wondering this so I did a few calculations to see the reality. I wasn't really surprised at the results but it does make me wonder why some bloggers knock AdSense.

I've only picked out a few of the affiliate programs that I do myself. Most pay per order as opposed purely for clicks. I therefore divided what I earned last month, with these programs, by the number of clicks I had. Hope that makes sense.

This is what I found

AdSense $0.28 per click
WEGCash* $0.10 per click
ClickBank $0.02 per click
Penthouse* $0.02 per click
FriendFinder Group $0.02 per click
Amazon USA $0.003 per click
Amazon UK $0.002 per click
IcePoster $0.003 per click
*These are adult sites do not click if this may offend
Please remember these are my figures so other people may get vastly differing returns.

What it does strike home is what I keep saying about how traffic=money. The more readers that arrive at your blogs the more clicks you should have - and therefore the more money you should make.

I think the click rate for FriendFinder and Penthouse should increase considerably this month. The reason being is that they have massively increased their commission rates temporarily.

FriendFinder Group are offering a gigantic $130 per paying member introduced on four of their websites. And Penthouse have more doubled their commission to $70 for each new member.

Of course there are other ways of making money besides relying on clicks. One of the best is to sign up other affiliates into the programs you are promoting. Normally you get about 10% commission on what these people earn - but each program has it's own terms.

The beauty of this is that it's virtually money for nothing and could tick on for ages, especially if you are lucky enough to introduce a few big hitters. I make money this way myself, especially from the FriendFinder Group.

Other ways to make money include review writing, paid advertising and so on. In the end thought it's all down to traffic, and the more targeted this is the better the returns.

Good clicking!
Mike.

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Your Blog Goldmine

At the beginning of a month, when I look back at the previous one, I'm usually surprised as to what have been the most visited blogs.

These were the top five most visited on Mikes Money Making Mission for October 2008.

1
May 2008
How To Get 90% Discounts On Amazon Products
2
March 2007
How To Make Money With Chain Letters
3
March 2007
Money Making With Zlio
4
March 2007
Money Making With Free Blogs - Part 1
5
August 2007
Money Making With Your Own Social Network
I think what surprises me is how the most visited are usually quite old posts. Four of the five are from 2007, over 18 months old, plus they aren't ones that I would consider to be the blog's 'best' posts.

This illustrates that often the right keywords and general SEO are more important than what is actually written. At least as far as getting the search engine referrals is concerned.

Of course this is only part of the story. If the posts aren't well written or aren't quite what the reader expects then they will quickly move on.

To attract visitors, that will make us money, I look at it as being a twofold project.

(1) Good keywords, title and SEO to get the referral in the first place and
(2) Good content, that is of value, to retain the reader.

Everything post we write is important as we might only get one chance to impress that particular reader. This means that we can't really afford to let our standards drop.

A blog's back catalogue of posts can be a goldmine - if we have done the basics properly. Golden gems might be hiding somewhere deep in the archives.

Good luck,
Mike.

Associated post: Make Money With Your Old Posts

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