There are many different ways to generate revenue online and some are more difficult than others.
Let’s face it, many people that first come online and find out they could make a few bucks realize really quickly that it's not all that easy.
They start searching for information about making money online and find out all too soon that there are a lot of sites out there that will let them purchase information they can use to learn how to make tons of cash for themselves and shortly thereafter they realize that the next step is to go purchase even more tools, info and study material at an even higher cost.
The other problem many people run into is that they find the many different newsletters that are online and each one is promoting a different way of making money online. Some may talk about affiliate marketing, others are discussing how to use their blogs or the power of Web 2.0 and yet others review how to use AdSense and PPC (pay per click) to boost their business.
In both cases, the new and aspiring Internet marketer is confused, lost and all too quickly fed up and frustrated after just a short time and most likely a ton of money they feel was thrown out the window.
And yet, making money online doesn’t have to be difficult, you don’t even have to have a website, your own products are not needed and you don’t have to run a massive affiliate program of your own to at least make some money to help you get started and you can quickly plug that hole in your wallet where all those precious dollars have been falling out of.
One of the simplest and quickest ways to get started generating some revenue online is to use articles coupled with affiliate marketing.
Here’s a simple guide to help you get started:
1. Head over to Clickbank and take a look at the many products waiting for you to promote them.
There are a few things you might want to look at while you are browsing around the Marketplace. Clickbank has a pretty good guide that will tell you how to tell the difference between products that are performing well and those that are bombing, but here’s one simple tip to keep in mind as well. As you look through the Pitch Pages, think to yourself for just a moment, if I was interested in this product, does this page even grab my attention? Would you be likely to purchase what you saw?
Once you have picked out a couple of products you really like, consider purchasing them so you can provide high-quality reviews of them, but if the budget is tight, that sometimes isn’t an option, so you will have to make note of the features, benefits and any other important information you got from the sales page.
2. Write one article.
Yes, that’s it. Write one simple article that features some of the key benefits of the product you will be promoting. Keep it simple and don't make it look like a sales page. For example, if the product you plan to promote is about Planning Your Wedding you could write your article based on "The Top 10 Things To Keep In Mind When Planning Your Wedding" and then list the 10 things (or however many you got) from the sales page that are related, such as Choosing The Location For Your Reception, How To Avoid Relatives Embarrassing You, How To Keep Your Bridesmaids From Looking Like Clowns. Whatever the information you found, write it out in a bullet point list and then add a few short sentences to each bullet point. It doesn’t have to be fancy, short and sweet works better. For example, if you are working on Choosing The Location For Your Reception, you could add a sentence or two about the things to keep in mind if you are planning an outdoor reception.
3. The Resource Box or About The Author
If you go look at some of the popular article directories, such as eZineArticles.com online you will find at the bottom of each article a section known as the Resource Box, or also called About The Author.
This is your place to shine. Your article was to the point, without any sales pitches, but now in this last part you are free to tell a little about yourself (and if you have a website you can add a link there too) and you can also suggest a helpful solution (the product you are promoting) that could further assist the reader with the challenges of planning their own wedding.
Keep in mind that you only have a few lines for the resource box, so you will definitely have to rewrite it a few times just so you can tweak it and get it just the way you want it, but ultimately, the goal is to have the reader click the link at the end of your article and purchase the product you are promoting, so make it straight to the point. A simple and yet effective example might be: "For more helpful information as well as awesome ways to save hundreds if not thousands on your wedding visit youraffiliatelink.com today".
Again, you don’t want it to be fancy, but your call to action has to make sure the reader has no choice but to click the link and hopefully the sales page you are referring them to is good enough to close the deal and earn you some referral commissions.
4. Last but definitely not least.
If you go to your favorite search engine and type in "Article Directory" you will find hundreds of different websites where you can submit your article for inclusion. There are other ways to spread the word about your new article, but directories are a quick and easy way to get the word out there and they are all quite easy to use. Just search for the article directories and then submit your new article to as many as you can. If possible, try to submit it to at least 20 or 30, but the more the better.
What will happen is that webmasters, bloggers and newsletter publishers that search through these directories will come across your article and if it’s a good match for their readers and visitors they will be inclined to post your article on their website, or publish it in their newsletter and they will include your Resource Box, along with the link to the product you are promoting.
Bottom line this has the potential to get your article very quickly on thousands of websites, in front of tons of newsletter readers and ultimately you didn’t have to spend a single penny for all this exposure and advertising, you didn’t have to have your own fancy website or subscriber optin list and you didn’t have to create your own product.
This same method has been used for quite some time very successfully and has in many cases returned more than just a few hundred bucks within a couple of weeks, in some cases, 1 single article has returned over a thousand dollars in a month and the best part is that your article will continue to be out there, week after week for others to see, click your link and order the product, making you more commissions.
The final thing to help you get started is when you’ve gotten this far congratulate yourself. You have done more than many of the people "day-dreaming" of making it online; you’ve actually done something about it. Now get back over to Clickbank and find yourself another product to promote, start back at step 1 and have fun making money.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Six Tips In Setting Up A Sitemap
A sitemap is to a website as the table of contents is to a book. The sitemap lists all the pages in the site, helping visitors and search engine robots find pages in that website. This not only encourages live visitors to return to the site, but also helps in the optimization of the site for search engines.
There are three major types of sitemaps:
1. indexed - The sitemap appears as an alphabetical listing or directory. The relationship among the pages is not indicated.
2. full categorical - The map displays all links which are classified in categories. This type was found to be the most preferred type by users as it makes it easier for them to search for certain topics in the site, and it eases comparison between and among categories.
3. restricted categorical - The sitemap displays all links in a chosen category at a time; you will not see all the links of a website, as compared to the full categorical type. The sitemap confines the list of links under a selected category. This makes viewing easier and less eye-straining.
With any of these types are techniques you can use to set up a superior sitemap. Here are six tips that you can use:
1. Link the sitemap only to your homepage. This will ensure that the search engine robot starts searching from your homepage down to all the pages listed in your sitemap. In this way, no page will be left unvisited by the robot.
2. Limit your sitemap to 30 pages. If you have more than this, the search engines might think that your sitemap is a link farm, and you will be penalized for that. Limiting the number of pages of your sitemap also prevents overcrowding of links. This will make viewing less tiring.
3. Check all the links in your sitemap. It can be discouraging for your visitors if they click on a link only to get a 404 error message or the page requested is not found. Or your visitors click on a link only to be shown a page that has a different topic to that of the link. You should, therefore, test your sitemap, clicking on all the links in every page, to ensure that there are no unbroken links, and that all links are indeed linked to the right page.
4. Give keyword-rich titles to your sitemaps. This helps in the optimization of your website. Search engine robots will search your website properly under the right category.
5. Provide a short description for the links. This will help your visitors to know what to expect to find in a link. This can save your visitors time surfing your website.
6. Be consistent in designing your sitemap with that of the other pages in your website. Use the same HTML template for all pages in your site, including the sitemap. This will establish identity and build character to your website.
By following the above tips, not only will you create a sitemap that is pleasing to the eye, but will also encourage your visitors to return to your site, have the search engine robots crawl through all the pages in your site, and increase your ranking in the search engines.
There are three major types of sitemaps:
1. indexed - The sitemap appears as an alphabetical listing or directory. The relationship among the pages is not indicated.
2. full categorical - The map displays all links which are classified in categories. This type was found to be the most preferred type by users as it makes it easier for them to search for certain topics in the site, and it eases comparison between and among categories.
3. restricted categorical - The sitemap displays all links in a chosen category at a time; you will not see all the links of a website, as compared to the full categorical type. The sitemap confines the list of links under a selected category. This makes viewing easier and less eye-straining.
With any of these types are techniques you can use to set up a superior sitemap. Here are six tips that you can use:
1. Link the sitemap only to your homepage. This will ensure that the search engine robot starts searching from your homepage down to all the pages listed in your sitemap. In this way, no page will be left unvisited by the robot.
2. Limit your sitemap to 30 pages. If you have more than this, the search engines might think that your sitemap is a link farm, and you will be penalized for that. Limiting the number of pages of your sitemap also prevents overcrowding of links. This will make viewing less tiring.
3. Check all the links in your sitemap. It can be discouraging for your visitors if they click on a link only to get a 404 error message or the page requested is not found. Or your visitors click on a link only to be shown a page that has a different topic to that of the link. You should, therefore, test your sitemap, clicking on all the links in every page, to ensure that there are no unbroken links, and that all links are indeed linked to the right page.
4. Give keyword-rich titles to your sitemaps. This helps in the optimization of your website. Search engine robots will search your website properly under the right category.
5. Provide a short description for the links. This will help your visitors to know what to expect to find in a link. This can save your visitors time surfing your website.
6. Be consistent in designing your sitemap with that of the other pages in your website. Use the same HTML template for all pages in your site, including the sitemap. This will establish identity and build character to your website.
By following the above tips, not only will you create a sitemap that is pleasing to the eye, but will also encourage your visitors to return to your site, have the search engine robots crawl through all the pages in your site, and increase your ranking in the search engines.
The Skinny on Free For All Pages
An FFA page is a free for all page. Its operation is very simple. You submit one line of text to the page and when other people see it, they pick up the link and go through to your page. The concept sounds very simple, and it would be if it actually did what you wanted it to do. Which is generate traffic consisting of interested buyers instead of generating a huge load of emails from people just like you who are trying to promote a product. The truth is that for most people, FFA pages have not produced the returns on income necessary for me to be able to recommend FFA's as something you should put your money into with high expectations of return.
There are a number of reasons why this form of advertising has not promoted much for its users. First, your ad is one line among hundreds or thousands of one line ads. On top of this the few people who might see this page are the other advertisers who have submitted ads to this page, not shoppers looking for your product.
Another problem with FFA pages are they are usually designed to scroll. As new information is added the older information is advanced off of the page and out of sight. Before FFA pages were as popular as they are now, your line of advertising may have been visible for a day. That is why the FFA hosts had instructed you to submit your information to the FFA page daily. Today, now that FFA pages are a dime a dozen, your submission may be scrolled out in as little time as half an hour. This in turn means that you have to go and submit your information again and again throughout the day. However, you still have the first problem to deal with. People who look at FFA pages are there to sell, not buy.
A third problem with FFA pages are that sites known to advertise on them are in a number of instances either banned or ignored by the search engines. The search engines look at FFA pages as a page filled with irrelevant links, and whenever a search engine is aware of an FFA page it avoids that page whenever it can. The goal of search engines is to look for information/links that is highly regarded as helpful by other users, to pass on to their current users, and FFA pages produce links without producing the high quality information that the search engines are looking for. As a result, instead of giving you credit for your link, the search engines penalize URL's that come from known FFA sites.
You see the people who run FFA pages are just a little bit ahead of the game than the FFA page submitter. The first thing you are asked to do on an FFA page is to register your email address. This way the user has your information and is able to promote his products to you at will. So the ones to benefit most from FFA pages are the ones who actually host the page.
So are FFA pages a waste of your time? Maybe they are, maybe they are not. If you go there as an advertiser, it may be a huge waste of time. But if you go there as the FFA site host, you may have just hit the jackpot. When FFA users sign up to post their information on your FFA site, you will advise them that when they post to the site they also have to agree to get emails from you as well. Herein lies your opportunity to promote, and herein lies the way you can probably take best advantage of using FFA pages and sites.
Visit TheInfoSource.com for more info about Free For All Pages
There are a number of reasons why this form of advertising has not promoted much for its users. First, your ad is one line among hundreds or thousands of one line ads. On top of this the few people who might see this page are the other advertisers who have submitted ads to this page, not shoppers looking for your product.
Another problem with FFA pages are they are usually designed to scroll. As new information is added the older information is advanced off of the page and out of sight. Before FFA pages were as popular as they are now, your line of advertising may have been visible for a day. That is why the FFA hosts had instructed you to submit your information to the FFA page daily. Today, now that FFA pages are a dime a dozen, your submission may be scrolled out in as little time as half an hour. This in turn means that you have to go and submit your information again and again throughout the day. However, you still have the first problem to deal with. People who look at FFA pages are there to sell, not buy.
A third problem with FFA pages are that sites known to advertise on them are in a number of instances either banned or ignored by the search engines. The search engines look at FFA pages as a page filled with irrelevant links, and whenever a search engine is aware of an FFA page it avoids that page whenever it can. The goal of search engines is to look for information/links that is highly regarded as helpful by other users, to pass on to their current users, and FFA pages produce links without producing the high quality information that the search engines are looking for. As a result, instead of giving you credit for your link, the search engines penalize URL's that come from known FFA sites.
You see the people who run FFA pages are just a little bit ahead of the game than the FFA page submitter. The first thing you are asked to do on an FFA page is to register your email address. This way the user has your information and is able to promote his products to you at will. So the ones to benefit most from FFA pages are the ones who actually host the page.
So are FFA pages a waste of your time? Maybe they are, maybe they are not. If you go there as an advertiser, it may be a huge waste of time. But if you go there as the FFA site host, you may have just hit the jackpot. When FFA users sign up to post their information on your FFA site, you will advise them that when they post to the site they also have to agree to get emails from you as well. Herein lies your opportunity to promote, and herein lies the way you can probably take best advantage of using FFA pages and sites.
Visit TheInfoSource.com for more info about Free For All Pages
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