Making Money Online

ShoeMoney® - Its Like Fishing With Dynamite

2009-02-03T14:47:00.000-05:00

Here's a great site full of information on making money online. ShoeMoney is loaded with information and visitors. It's a very valuable resource for optimizing your websites.

ShoeMoney® - Its Like Fishing With Dynamite

Build Traffic Through Links

2009-01-08T12:16:00.004-05:00

Face it. You're not going to make any money online if people don't visit your site. So how do you go about getting traffic? You have to build popularity with the search engines so people can find links to your site when they do searches through search engines such Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, etc.

Obviously content is king. In other words, if you write about Red Barns in Idaho, your content will be picked up by the Search Engines and people can find your content if they search "Red Barns in Idaho". Of course there are 250,000 links found on Google for this topic, so you've got to get your link to be listed before the other 249,999 links.

One way to increase your search engine popularity is by having your links added to other sites, especially the popular ones. Here are a few ways to accomplish this.

1. Submit Article to Directories: Find online article directories (see list on this blog) and submit your article information.

2. Comment on other blogs & websites: When you post a comment on a popular website, chances are many people will read your comment and some may potentially click through to your blog/website. This type of adding links isn't as important to the search engines, but it will bring traffic.

3. Trade links: Find websites or blogs who may be willing to add a link to your site on their site in return for you adding a link to their site on your site. Search engines count links into your site in their rating of the popularity of your site. Don't expect everyone to add your links; but you'll find they will be much more receptive if you help them promote their site through comments, Stumbles and Diggs, and other ways of promoting their site.

These are just a few ideas on how to help bring traffic into your website or blog. It takes time and effort, but in the long run you'll find your front end efforts pay dividends in the future.

Make Money Online the Easy Way.

2009-01-05T14:53:00.005-05:00

A great way to earn income online is through affiliate marketing. This is basically a commission system used for internet marketing. The way this works is

You put ads to online retailers on your website
Your visitors click on the ads and are directed to the online retailers website.
Your visitor makes a purchase from the online retailer.
The online retailer sends you a commission for bringing them the business.

It's that simple. You don't have to take orders, stock inventory, or ship any products. In fact, you do nothing but receive your check.

While some online retailers offer affiliate programs directly with their company, most use an affiliate marketing company such as LinkShare. You can Join the LinkShare Referral Program for free!

Linkshare lines up thousands of retailers who sign up with their program. As a website owner you can also sign up with Linkshare as a publisher. All you have to do is create and account and start looking for links to put on your site. When you find retailers to promote...you apply to their program and, if and when you get accepted, you can copy and paste html code to add to your website which will show links or banner ads for the retailers.

At Linkshare you will have an account where you can check on your account status, check your visitor CTR(Click Through Rate), apply to more retailers for additional links, and find information about the companies listed as retailers.

This is one of the best ways to monetize your website. Find a niche, write about it, build traffic to your site, and the clicks will come. With a lot of work on the front end you can produce an income generating site which almost runs on autopilot. Isn't that what we all want? A way to make extra money without having to put in 40 hours a week.

Click here for free LinkShare Membership

Good luck and Have fun.

Submit your site to Over 100 Web Directories.

2008-02-27T14:48:00.004-05:00

If you are interested in Making Money Online you need to generate traffic and you need to generate backlinks. One of the best ways to accomplish these goals is to submit your website or blog to Directories.

Web directories offer categorized list of sites to offer visitors a resource for finding information on the web. Utilizing directories offers two valuable things for website administrators. First, directories bring traffic from their sites to yours. Second, listing your website or blog on directories provides backlinks (links to your site from other websites) for search engines to find. The more backlinks you have generally increases your Page rank in the larger search engines such as Google or Yahoo. Also, if a directory already has a high Page rank it will potentially improve the rank of your site based on the keywords used in your sites title or description.

Below is a list of OVER 100 web directories in which you can submit your website or blog. Next to the directory listing is the actual Page Rank of the directory. Page ranks are rated from 1-10 with the highest number being the most popular directories. Generally you can find a "submit site" type link on the directory's home page in order to submit your website or blog. (Note: thumb through the Directory site to make sure your website or blog is appropriate for each directory. Some are for specific categories such as children only, women only, or for a specific geographical area)

http://yahooligans.yahoo.com/ 7

1 http://www.boingboing.net/ 6
2 http://www.femina.com/ 6
3 http://www.seznam.cz/ 6
4 http://www.accoona.com/ 6
5 http://www.ananzi.co.za/ 6
6 http://www.anybrowser.com/directory/ 6
7 http://www.aviva-directory.com/ 6
8 http://www.best.sk/pridat.asp?k=12&p=In%9Atit%FAcie 6
9 http://www.bezvaportal.cz/ 6
10 http://www.bloggapedia.com/ 6
11 http://www.canadaone.com/ 6
12 http://kat-reg.centrum.cz/reg2.php 6
13 http://www.ehealthdirectory.eu/ 6
14 http://www.ezilon.com/ 6
15 http://www.globeofblogs.com/ 6
16 http://www.kormidlo.cz/aaa/modules/links/ 6
17 http://www1.lanic.utexas.edu/ 6
18 http://www.maven.co.il/ 6
19 http://www.mxdu.com/ 6
20 http://www.mygreencorner.com/ 6
21 http://www.nzs.com/ 6
22 http://www.payvand.com/yp/ 6
23 http://www.planning-directory.com/ 6
24 http://www.poweredbywp.com/ 6
25 http://www.scrubtheweb.com/ 6
26 http://www.searchwords.com/ 6
27 http://www.searchzone.com.au/ 6
28 http://www.stopdog.com/ 6
29 http://www.szm.sk/ 6
30 http://www.thefreewebsite.net/ 6
31 http://www.uncoverchina.com/ 6
32 http://www.wezp.com/ 6
33 http://www.worldhot.com/ 6
34 http://www.zoznam.sk/ 6
35 www.pandia.com/plus 6
36 http://www.thelivinglink.net/ 6
37 http://www.mygreencorner.com 6
38 http://jayde.com 6
39 http://www.directory.ldmstudio.com 5
40 http://www.theshoppings.com 5
41 http://www.niche-listings.com 5
42 http://www.linkslive.info/ 5
43 http://www.re-quest.net/ 5
44 24. http://www.kcindex.com/ 5
45 http://www.webworldindex.com/ 5
46 http://www.re-quest.net/ 5
47 http://www.psychnet-uk.com/ 5
48 http://www.clickey.com/ 5
49 http://www.cantufind.com/ 5
50 http://www.elib.org/ 5
51 http://www.lsblogs.com/ 5
52 http://www.5starblogs.com/ 5
53 http://a1-website-hosting-directory.com/ 5
54 http://www.abilogic.com/ 5
55 http://www.adventuretraveltips.com/ 5
56 http://alik.idnes.cz/ 5
57 http://www.anoox.com/ 5
58 http://az.ezilon.com/ 5
59 http://www.azet.sk/ 5
60 http://www.blogannounce.info/ 5
61 http://www.bloghints.com/ 5
62 http://www.brightsidexdr.com/ 5
63 http://www.builder.cz/ 5
64 http://directory.candomultimedia.com/ 5
65 http://www.canlinks.net/ 5
66 http://www.caramba.cz/ 5
67 http://directory.classifieds1000.com/ 5
68 http://www.clickfire.com/directory/ 5
69 http://www.csdir.org/ 5
70 http://www.czlist.cz/ 5
71 http://www.tcpls.net/ 5
72 http://www.microbicides2004.org/ 5
73 http://www.diroot.com/ 5
74 http://www.discoverireland.net/ 5
75 http://websitespromotiondirectory.com/ 5
76 http://alfa.elchron.cz/ 5
77 http://www.em-design.cz/shop/pages-links/index.html 5
78 http://search.ezilon.com/ 5
79 http://uk.ezilon.com/ 5
80 http://www.freewebsitedirectory.com/ 5
81 http://www.gainweb.org/ 5
82 http://www.geniusfind.com/ 5
83 http://www.globalgateway.com/ 5
84 http://www.gmapsdirectory.com/ 5
85 http://www.hladat.sk/ 5
86 http://www.hotelbeam.com/ 5
87 http://www.imegamall.com/ 5
88 http://www.indiecoffeehouse.com/ 5
89 http://www.information.com/ 5
90 http://www.infotiger.com/ 5
91 http://www.internetoveobchody.cz/lin...id=&idcat=1212 5
92 http://www.isoctv.org/ 5
93 http://www.jamjaa.com/ 5
94 http://www.katalog.sk/ 5
95 http://www.la-toile.com/des_toiles/submit_proposer.html 5
96 http://www.luxpoint.lu/ 5
97 http://www.marketingpatch.com/ 5
98 http://www.mobilemost.com/site_ekle.php 5
99 http://directory.mrgoodfox.com/ 5
100 http://msn.katalog.atlas.cz/ 5
101 http://www.najdes.sk/index.php?act=90 5
102 http://www.nationmultimedia.com/webdir 5

Using Add This to Generate Traffic on Social Bookmarking Sites

2008-02-19T11:12:00.006-05:00

One of the keys to Making Money Online is bringing traffic to your site. After all, sales is a numbers game. The percentage of people who actually click on your ads is generally low; therefore, you will need a lot of visitors to generate clicks.

For example, if your CPM (Clicks per thousand impressions) is only 2%, then only 20 people click on your ads for every 1000 page impressions. Twenty clicks won't buy you a condo on the beach in your lifetime. If you get 10,000 page impressions your clicks jump up to 200. Over a year, 10,000 impressions per day may buy you a used car. If you reach 100,000 impressions per day you are now generating 2000 clicks per day. Now you're making some serious online income.

100,000 impressions per day may sound impossible but it is being done by the successful online marketers. How do they do it? They work at it very hard.

One of the best ways to generate high traffic is to get your site noticed on the social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Stumble Upon, Technorati, Propeller, Reddit, etc., etc. These sites already have established traffic of millions of viewers every day. These sites also have high page rank in Google Search Engines. If you can grow in popularity on these sites your traffic will increase exponentially.

So how do you get noticed on these social bookmarking sites?

First, you need to write good articles which would be of some benefit to the readers. If your articles are newsworthy they will get noticed. When social bookmarking site users vote for your articles it snowballs and other users tend to read the articles which have the most votes.

Second, when you create a good quality article you need to get your article submitted to all of the social bookmarking sites. It can take hours if you submit your article individually to each site. Fortunately there are software applications which simplify the process. We use addthis.com. With add this you copy the code provided on their site and paste it into your blog or website. This adds a button to your site which allows your readers to easily submit your articles to over 50 social bookmarking sites. When they like an article they click on the add this button and choose the site they would like to submit your article to. If they are registered to the site your article is automatically submitted. You can see the "Bookmark" button on our blog on the right side of this page. If you click on the button a pop up box will open listing all of the social bookmarking sites. If you click on one of the sites (we love Digg), this article will be submitted to the Digg website. If it's already been submitted all you have to do is "Digg" the article and your vote is cast.

You can add your sites to the social bookmarking sites yourself...but be careful. If you only add your own articles you will be labeled as a spammer and you will get negative votes, no votes, or your account will be banned. It's very important that you submit articles from other websites and vote on articles from other sites. This gives you credibility with other users and your votes on others sites will often bring them to your site to see who voted for them.

Using social bookmarking sites is a very important element in Making Money Online. It has been our #1 source of traffic/income for the entire existence of our blog. So go to http://addthis.com/ and get the button on your site ASAP. Go ahead and register the Social Bookmarking sites listed on the AddThis button and start generating some traffic. You won't be disappointed.

PS. If this article is helpful we hope you'll submit or vote for this article on your favorite Social Bookmarking Sites.

Adsense is Great

2008-02-13T12:29:00.003-05:00

I know a lot of internet marketers who don't care for Google Adsense. There are plenty of reasons or excuses and most center around "They don't pay enough" or "They banned my account for not reason".

These are the people who haven't learned how to utilize the service.

Face it. If you start a website or blog would you really have enough time to write your posts, bring in traffic, and then go out and call on advertisers to publish ads on your site? Even if you did call on the advertisers, do you think they would want to do business with a newbie?

What Google has done is create a platform for the "little guy" to advertise on their own website or blog without having to go out and sell ads on their site. Adsense can bring in large or small companies to your site, and because of Google's expertise in search marketing they are able to bring in Advertisers which relate to the content of your site. It's actually pretty amazing when you think about it. Let's say you decide to write an article on tractors. Well Google picks up your article and puts ads on your site which relate to tractors, farming, etc. The next day you decide to write an article on dating. Guess what happens to your ads? The ads change from tractor ads to dating service ads. This is a great service because your readers have an opportunity to find MORE information on the article you have written by clicking on a link.

Now before you get all excited and set up an Adsense account and start telling all your friends how easy it is to Make Money Online, you need to make sure you FULLY understand Google's Adsense Terms of Service (TOS). If you don't follow their rules you will be banned from their service without any notice or explanation. Trust me on this one. We got banned once and it took forever to get reinstated (and we were one of the lucky ones because this rarely occurs). Here are some of the main things you need to be careful with.
1. DON"T Click on your own ads. This will get you banned very quickly.
2. DON'T ask others to click on your ads. Repeated clicks from the same IP address will get you banned in a heartbeat.
3. Be careful what you tell your friends about the program. They might go in and click on a bunch of ads to "help you out", and if you don't realize it you may get banned without ever knowing why.
4. Be careful with artificial traffic generating sites. Google frowns upon these tactics used to bring traffic to your site for the wrong reason.
5. Keep an eye on your account. If you see an extraordinary amount of clicks on your ads it is best to notify Google of the suspicious activity. This may keep you from getting banned. Also, there are some disgruntled people who may click on your ads repeatedly just to get you banned. Like it or not...these people exist.

In closing we are grateful to Google for giving us an opportunity to make money online even though we don't have advertising sales experience. It's fun to get checks in the mail...I promise.

Reading this Post is Worth a minimum of $100

2008-02-06T15:05:00.000-05:00

No, I'm not going to cut you a check, click your ads, or pay you for a review. There are plenty of sites which will do that, plus I don't want to get banned.

This article is mostly for US bloggers as the information is based on US taxes.

While your out there in the blogosphere trying to create a site which Yahoo or Google will swallow up for millions or at the very least make enough to quit your real job, there are a few things you can do to put a little money back in your pocket.

If you treat your website or blog as a business there are plenty of tax write off's you are entitled to as a business owner. Maybe you don't treat your blog/site as a business, but if you're making any revenue off of advertising, payperpost, etc. you have a businsess...plain and simple.

So what if you've only made $14.53 in revenue this year. You've spent time and money to create, manage, and run your blog. In doing so you've created several tax deductions which may be eligible for write off.

Here are a few examples:

If your internet service costs $30/month that's $360 a yr. of expense incurred to "run" your blog. This alone is worth close to $100 a year in deduction "income".

If you're using your computer, or if you purchase a new computer, you could potentially depreciate the value of your asset computer)over time. An accountant would have to advise you of the depreciation schedule for equipment.

How about software on your computer? Anti virus, annual subscriptions, etc. are all necessary expenses for keeping your business running smoothly.

If you have business cards, hand out flyers, etc. you can deduct some of your office expenses as well.

You could also have some promotional items such as t-shirts or e-books which you give away for free to market your site. Promtional items are 100% deductible.

If you go to blogging seminars or conferences you can write yourself a check for mileage and potentially write off travel expenses such as airfare or hotel accomadations.

You could even buy me dinner to discuss how to save money and write off 50% of the meal. :)

How about ebooks and/or SEO submissions you purchase to improve your traffic generation? It could be considered a write off under dues & subscriptions.

You may even be able to write off your cell phone if you need to be contacted with new blog content or if your site is down.

Here's another. If you use part of your home as your "office" you can potentially write off a portion of your utilities and any office furniture or upgrades you do to your home office.

Now I'm not an accountant nor do I play one on TV so you'll need to consult with a professional accountant to determine what you can and can't utilize as deductions on your tax return. I do imagine you will be able to utilize some of these ideas to save yourself some dineros and decrease your taxes due or increase your refund.

How many of you actually take advantage of your website/blog expenses on your tax returns? If you utilize deductions how much do you write off?

Feel free to comment with any other deductions which MIGHT be of use to all of us in the website/blog community.

Use Entre Card to increase Traffic

2008-01-30T15:28:00.001-05:00

One of the main things you have to do to make money online is generate traffic to your site. Well there's a fairly new trafffic generating system which is bringing a lot of success to bloggers and website designers in the internet world.

It's called EntreCard. It's a FREE advertising website where members create their ads and then earn points by "dropping cards" or clicking on other members EntreCard widgets on each members website. When you place the Entre Card widget on your website or blog other members are able to purchase ads on your site for "points" in an amount determined by the popularity of your blog or website.

What this does is it gets members to look at your site (traffic) to determine if they want to advertise on your site. Members also drop cards i.e. click on your site (traffic) to gain points for their account. Every time you drop a card on a site you get a point. When members advertise on your site you get anywhere from 5-500 points based on the popularity of your site. And finally, when you get enough points to purchase ads on other sites you get clicks from their site visitors (traffic).

It's a great idea for advertising without spending actual money.

It's actually very easy to create your ads. They have a template where all you have to do is type in a few words or the title of your blog and you're good to go. If you are experienced enough to create an image file of 125x125 pixels you can even make your ad look very appealing.

You can see the EntreCard widget on this blog over on the right hand side of the page. Once you create your account come back to drop your card and gain a point or two. You can drop a card on each site once a day.

Each members ad is listed on the EntreCard site in categories ranging from Make Money Online to Religion & Spirituality. This way you can target ads on sites which are best suited for your blog or website. You also have the ability to reject ads if you feel the requested advertisers ads could impact your website or blog in a negative way.

So go to entrecard.com and get yourself some traffic so you can improve your chances of Making Money Online.

TOP 50 SECRET CODEWORDS TO USE WHEN SPEAKING ABOUT GOOGLE ADSENSE ON THE WEB

2008-01-24T23:14:00.000-05:00

Everybody knows Google. They are probably the most well known name on the internet, and as far as internet advertising goes…Google Adsense is the leader of the pack.

Millions of website owners and bloggers use Google Adsense in hopes of getting rich online. We do everything we can to increase page rank and improve Search Engine Optimization because we have to count on Google Adsense achieve these goals.

In fact, Google and Google Adsense have become so popular that we have created a new vocabulary or “secret code words” to use when referring to our Adsense Accounts in hopes of avoiding being caught when discussing our Adsense accounts online.

Of course we know it won’t take long for the Google Staff to discover this new “Dictionary of Googlespeak”; and when they do we hope they’ll have a good laugh on us for a day or two before they change their algorithm to recognize this new terminology.

(Note to Google) Hopefully the smiles we put on your faces will stop you from disabling our Adsense account out of appreciation for today’s source of entertainment.

(Note to Adsense Users) We’re sure you’ll understand the meaning of these TOP 50 new secret code words which you should use when discussing Google or your Google Adsense account on your blog, your website, or in your forums.

(Drumroll) So Here they are………

THE TOP 50 SECRET CODEWORDS TO USE WHEN SPEAKING ABOUT GOOGLE ADSENSE ON THE WEB

1. ALPS: A Losing Performance Site…your pagerank is tumbling down the mountain and your click thru rate is very low.

2. ADD: Account Disabled Dummy: You blew it and violated Googles TOS

3. AND: Adsense Never Develops….No one likes your site or your ads

4. ANIMAL: Account Never Is Making A Living….hope you didn’t quit your day job.

5. ARE: Adsense Revenue Exceeded…almost got your check so expect account to be disabled soon.

6. ARTISTIC: Adsense Reached Timely Investigation So Trouble Is Coming…. Visitors finally found you and they’re clicking your ads so you’ll soon get dropped with no explanation.

7. ASS: Account Suspension Specialist…….Highly trained Google employee who notices your site is about to make money.

8. ATOMIC: Always the Other Man’s Invalid Clicks….It’s never your fault is it?

9. BED: Before Earnings Disappear….The time when your adsense account reaches $99, or before your check is scheduled to be mailed.

10. BBW: Not big busted woman, but Big Brother’s Watching…Like Santa Claus, Google knows when you’ve been bad or good.

11. BIRD: Blogging is Ridiculous Device…Do you really think you deserve money because you can write words on a free service?

12. BOAT: Better Off at Target…..Quit wasting your time chasing the Adsense dream and go back to work stocking shelves at Target for better wages.

13. CARE: Can’t Adsense Reinstate Me?....Don’t count on it, you’re not that important to a multi billion dollar company.

14. COAT: Cancellation Of Account Time…The point where your acct. reaches payment point.

15. COME: Click On Mine Everyone…asking people to click on your ads.

16. CPM: Click Pushing Man….Person who does #15.

17. CTR: Click Trouble Repossession….someone illegally clicked your ads and you’re account balance is going to be removed without any explanation.

18. CYA: Click Your Ads…..Account disabled, end of story, (see #12)

19. CYANIDE: Clicking Your Ads Never Induces Desired Expectations…you think you’re going to make some money being sneaky but it’s instant adsense death.

20. DEAD: Did Every Advertiser Disappear?….No one likes your site that you spent way too much time creating and promoting.

21. DIGG: Don’t Ever Get Greedy…..Too much promotion will cost you in the long run.

22. DOT: Dumped On Time….term for account being disabled about the time your check is supposed to be mailed.

23. DR.: Damn Robots…..no explanation necessary.

24. EAT: Every Account Tumbles…..Don’t expect to put much food on the table with your adsense account.

25. FART: Falling Adsense Revenue Trouble….Google profits are down so expect your earnings per click and page rank to drop immediately.

26. FWIW: Fifty Will Invite Watching….Newbies reach the verification point (also known as the account disabled point)

27. GAIN: Google Adsense Is Nil…..99.9% of web owners will have this.

28. GEEK: Google Earnings Expectations Kaput…The Adsense team has figured you out and there’s nothing you can do about it..

29. GONE: Google Offered No Explanation…..Account disabled? Too bad. cya

30. GREW: Google Revenue Escaped Wealth…You found the traffic for your site but the $$ never came.

31. GRIP: Google Revenue is Paltry….expect this; slang = “Get a grip”

32. GROPE: Getting Rich Only Pays Employees…Shouldn’t you have bought a TV for your trailer instead of a DSL or Cable Modem line. Don’t be jealous.

33. GULP: Give Up Loser People……….Why are you wasting hundreds of hours for less than $1 per day.

34. HARM: Hide, Adsense Reaching Monetization….You’re about to lose your adsense account.

35. HIDE: Hefty Earnings Didn’t Exist….point where you realized you should’ve given up when your friends told you that you were not going to retire by making millions online.

36. ICE: Invalid Click Earnings……guaranteed to freeze your account.

37. LAP: Laughing Appeal Process……send the Google Adsense team your sad appeal stories so they’ll have entertainment at your expense.

38. MAILMAM: My Adsense Is Losing Money At Moment….People have clicked one of your ads and they’ll never come back.

39. MINT: Money is Not There…..Duh, what did you expect? Fort Knox?

40. MRS. : My Revenue Sucks…..your marriage with Adsense didn’t work out like you planned.

41. NED: No Explanation Doofus…..Sorry gooberhead, your account has been disabled.

42. NERD: Never Expect Revenue Deposit…..your code and SEO expertise won’t get you far with Google Adsense.

43. OGRE: Only Google Reaps Earnings…..The big boys and girls at Google will eat you alive.

44. PAD: Pennies A Day………and you though you were going to fill your nest egg..ha!

45. RARE: Revenue Almost Reached Expectations…people actually clicked your ads for about a year and you didn’t get banned.

46. SLIME: Selling Lemonade Is More Earnings…..haven’t you wasted enough time?

47. SPAM: Suspect Payouts Are Minimum……That’s for Adsense to know without telling you anything.

48. WYSIWIG: Why You Spending Intellectual Wisdom In Google?.....Can’t you do something more productive like work in a fast food restauant.

49. WIMP: Wont Increase Money Performance………Give up sissies, it ain’t gonna happen.

50. YELL: Your Earnings Lost Luster………।the point where you realize you have spent valuable time chasing an impossible dream with Adsense.

So there you have it. The TOP 50 new code words for Google Adsense users. You are welcome to use these words in your blogs if you’ll add a link to our blog. ;)

Building Your Website for Dummies

2008-01-18T10:02:00.000-05:00

If you use blogger and you've grown to the point that you want to build your OWN website with your OWN domain we've found the best way to make it happen at ipower.com. They currently host over 700,000 websites as proof of their popularity and professionalism.

Unless you're some big company with huge budgets you don't have between $2000 and $20,000 to have someone build your site; therefore you need a hosting company who makes it easy and affordable.

We searched and researched and fortunately we found ipower.com. This is a great web hosting company which lets you do it all with ease. First you can search for a domain (website) name on their site and purchase the domain right there on the site. Next, you can "rent" one of their server's (computer) space to build your site for very competitive pricing.

You can purchase your domain for about $7. The next step is figuring out how to build your website, especially if you have limited knowledge of HTML code. Fortunately ipower
was the solution. When you sign up for a hosting account with them they provide basically everything you need to build a website. In fact, ipower offers the most complete Web Hosting Solutions in the World.
(Hint) We'll show you later in this post where you can set up your account for less :) All you have to do is select the applications (things) you want to put on your site and click on a few icons or buttons to upload them into your main index file of your site.

The applications they provide are real easy to figure out. They have pre-designed templates you can use where you just add your information and they make it look pretty, or you can upload your own templates. You can add blogs, forums, picture galleries, chats, e-commerce shopping carts, and many other options just by clicking on an icon or button and uploading it into your index file (main file). It was much easier than we ever thought. You can even upload files from your computer if you've already designed "things" you want on your site.

They even have keyword auto-submitters which submit your website and favorite "keywords" to most of the Search Engines located on the web. Once again...you just add the words you want and click a button and you your site submitted to the search engines automatically every month. We couldn't imagine having to figure out all of this meta tag and SEO stuff manually.

Once you've added on all of the application (things) you want on your site you just click publish and you're done.

Obviously through time we have figured out more about HTML through the many NICE tutorials they have on the iPower main website. Through the tutorials we've figured out how to change the format of our site by uploading some different databases better manage our site. This was because we wanted to filter out and administer the "bad guys" who post ugly comments or spam on our site.

So again, we highly recommend iPower.com for building your website. We personally believe it is important to own your own domain vs. using some of the free blog websites currently available. We believe you will get better search results because of your unique domain name. It also keeps someone else from buying a similar domain name overtaking the popularity you might have from other blogging software. Finally, it gives you more flexibility to add new applications (things) in the future.

If you're one of the many people who would like to start your own website you should check out ipower.com. If you want to start a "family" website for your own family and friends or a highly visible website for your business iPower.com is the way to go.

In fact, right now they are having a sale on their hosting service. Check out $3.95 Web Hosting from iPower so you can run your site for less than $50 for the first year. Even at full pricing it's only about $80 per year.

If you would like to see one of our sites we built using Ipower.com you can visit our site at http://www.ImaNicePerson.com.

Good luck and have fun.

Increase Traffic with Blog Catalog

2008-01-08T16:22:00.000-05:00

Hello,

Today we want to share a great way to increase traffic to your site. After all, an increase in traffic generally relates to an increase in income.

Blog Catalog is a web community where thousands of Bloggers gather to share information, links, ideas, and discussions about blogging. Not only is it a great way to meet people...it is also a great way to learn many of the tricks of generating traffic and income. You can click on the following button to take you to Blog Catalog and register your blog. Have fun!

Affiliate Marketing: How to find products or services to list on your website for a Commission

2007-12-12T09:10:00.000-05:00

One of the easiest, no risk ways to generate sales on your website is to offer products to your visitors through affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing gives you the opportunity to find products which relate to the content of your website/blog so you can offer these products to your readers.

The best part of affiliate marketing is you don't have do all the hard work associated with retail sales. You don't need a store, you don't need to speculate and buy inventory to sell, you don't have to deal with shipping and handling, and you don't have to handle returns. All of these activities are performed by the company who has signed you up as an affiliate. As an affiliate marketer all you have to do is drive your traffic to these products or services and the rest is up to them. When a sale is made you make a commission. It's as simple as that.

When you sign up as an affiliate marketer you are given several types of "ads" to choose from which you can put on your website or blog. Some ads are full ads with pictures and all the bells and whistles. Some are simple text links. An example of a full ad is shown here.

These ads are a nice way to ad a little color and pizazz to your site and they are good at catching the eye of your site visitor. Other ads are less conspicuous and are easy to embed in your content. They are called text ads. Text ads are a good way to offer products without "in your face" selling. For example, let's say you are blogging about the latest cellular phone technology. In your blog you start to review the Palm Handhelds. If your visitors click on the words Palm Handhelds in the previous sentence they are taken to the Palm Store to browse the various products Palm has to offer. If they make a purchase...you get a commission. In many cases these affiliate marketers have cookie based programs which basically means, if a customer visits their website from your link and then comes back up to 45 days later and makes a purchase you still get credit for the sale! This is nice because many consumers don't purchase items without doing their research and price comparison. You don't have to coax them to buy now; you just have to get them interested in the product and get them to the retail site of your affiliated producer. The items you can cell are almost limitless. Electronics, Books, Movies, DVD's, MP3 downloads, Dating Services, Greeting Card Companies, Website Hosts, and Contest entries are just a few. When you sign up as an affiliate marketer you'll need to read the terms of each affiliate to see how their system pays out.

With your affiliate programs you are also able to buy your own products and receive commission for your own purchases. When I buy Christmas cards I buy them here:
Spread some cheer this Christmas with the new "Elfis" eCard from AmericanGreetings.com. It's simple, I don't have to leave the house, and I get paid a commission for making the purchase.

As an affiliate marketer you don't have to view yourself as a pushy salesperson. You are offering a multitude of products to the entire internet community. Many of your readers may come from small towns with no shopping mall. In essence you are bringing the malls to their computer. It is one of the best opportunities for retailers. They can reach any consumer with an internet connection regardless of where they live. It is also equally beneficial for the consumers. If you live 40 minutes from the mall you have to plan a special trip to go shopping. Even then you may not find the product you want. Shopping on the 'net opens up thousands of stores with a simple mouse click. With affiliate marketing you can lead these consumers to products and make money by doing so.

So where are these affiliate marketing companies? I'll show you a few of the most popular companies who make millions of dollars through their programs. You've probably heard of Amazon.com. They started out as a book retailer but now they sell hundreds of products. By becoming an Amazon Associate you are able to sell their products for a commission. They do all the work; all you do is lead your visitors to their site or specific product. All you do is create an account and find the products you want to offer. Once you find a product to offer all you have to do is get the HTML code for their ad and place it on your website or blog. Copying and pasting code is not as difficult as you may believe. There are many free software programs which interpret the code into "layman's terms". In other blogs we'll offer some basic code lessons to simplify these tasks. I like Amazon because you can offer specific products, products relating to a topic, or all products they have available.

Here's a few examples. Let's say you want to offer the new Desktop Computers. You go to your Amazon Associates account and find this specific product. You copy the code and paste it on your website or blog. Now your readers can buy the Desktop Computers by clicking on the link on your site. At Amazon you can click on the category of Desktop Computers, copy and paste the code on your site, and now your visitors have an opportunity to browse Amazon's site for all of the latest technology to find the product which they desire.

As you can see affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to monetize your website or blog. All you do is write the content and paste the code. That's ALL the work you have to do. As long as you are an active member of these affiliate programs your "sales pitch" is already done. People can find your site 24/7 and you don't have to be available when the customer arrives to help sell them the product. You don't have to feel the rejection of a customer saying no, and you don't have to feel the guilt of pushing a product on your customers. Additionally, your customers are able to shop at their convenience without being pressured by a salesmen, without having to drive to the store, and without having to buy "on the spot".

I highly recommend that you take advantage of this simple way to monetize your website. You shouldn't expect to get rich off this technique but you can make good money on the side through affiliate marketing. At the very least you can pay for your website. With a lot of work (posting a lot of content or creating several websites) you can make substantial income for a long time.

HTML Code for Dummies

2007-12-04T13:07:00.000-05:00

Some of us want to build our own websites but we don't know the first thing about creating the HTML code needed to build a nice site. If you want I guess you could spend some money (and time) to sign up for classes which teach HTML. That's fine if you know your site is going to generate good revenue. Otherwise, you just spent your hard earned cash and countless hours preparing for a venture which may not make you a dime. If we want to make income we probably don't need to be wasting too much time on these types of things.

I promise I didn't know the first thing about HTML code when I started my first website. Fortunately I had a friend who pointed me to a website where I could download FREE software which generated the code for me.

With this software you are able to type your content just like you are using a more "normal" setup. After you type your content you can click on the HTML tab and your code is generated. Now all you have to do is click on the code, click on Ctrl & A to highlight the code, right click and "copy" to copy the code, then paste the code on your site. When you save the newly added code your site will look just like you originally typed it on the generator.

This great HTML generator helps us "non-techies" get started in the growing website and blogging industry.

Intrigued? I would imagine so. If you don't believe me you need to try it yourself. Go to the following website and download the FREE software. The site is nvu (pronounced (in-view).

Here are some of the things you can do with nvu without knowing the
code necessary to make these changes in your text.

Can you read this. Here
are some of the things you can do with nvu. Not too bad for a novice.All of this text has been generated with nvu.

You can change the font size.
You can chance the font style.
You can bold,italic, or underline.

You can add Links

You can add tables, forms, etc.
You can add images.

Not too bad for a novice. Also, this software will basically teach you a lot of the code just by reading the code generated by the software. After you download the software (it is an exe.file) you can open nvu and go to work.

First, on the bottom of the "screen" you'll find a few tabs. [Normal, HTML tags, Source, and Preview] Click on normal to create your content. You can use the buttons on the top to make changes such as bold, bullets, italics, insert images, change font size and style, etc.

When you're done click on the "Source" tab at the bottom of the screen. This will display your content in an HTML format. Click Ctrl & A to highlight all of the code, then copy the code and paste it on your website.

This is a great way to spruce up your website to give it a more professional site with nice graphics.

Not bad for free.

Of course you need a hosting server to host your site. I recommend iPower Web Hosting. They are affordable and they currently host over 700,000 websites. In other words...they know what they are doing.

Good luck and Happy Website Building!

Customers Trust Professionalism

2007-11-14T00:02:00.000-05:00

Obviously if you want to make money online you've got to be able to promote your business through various marketing channels. Search Engine Optimization, Link Trading, and Press Releases are some of the most effective and most discussed means of reaching audiences online.

While these are the most discussed marketing techniques on the internet we must not forget that traditional marketing can also be effective. Print. radio, and television media advertising have been used effectively for decades. If you have a substantial marketing budget you will most likely consider these forms of marketing.

We often forget about one of the simplest and effective forms of marketing...word of mouth. We come in contact with people on a daily basis. If we get an opportunity to discuss our website, product, or service we need to do so and we need a way for these prospects to remember how to find our business. This can be done with professional business cards, flyers, pamphlets, emails, magnets, thank you cards, etc. A company I use for these products currently has huge discounts on these items with 50% OFF Premium Business Cards & FREE Return Address Labels

While selling online can be done from your home in a hat and shorts your customer more than likely WON'T do business or recommend your business to others if they believe your business is unprofessional or even a scam. You don't need a large staff of dedicated employees, a brick and mortar office, and a suit and tie to present your business as a professional organization. Your website is your store with all the bells and whistles. Of course this is the same with all of the other sites. Your exhibition of professionalism after contact can make a huge difference and may potentially give you the edge you need to win your customers over your competitors.

For comparison sake let's picture two websites who offer similar services. When you apply for more information Company A sends a high quality multi colored brochure and business cards ,and Company B sends a typed letter on no letterhead and a one color business card on thin card stock with perforated edges such as those offered at retail office products companies.
Who do you think you'll choose to do business with? More than likely you'll choose the company who appears to have a more appealing level of professionalism. Additionally, wouldn't you hate to capture the interest of a prospect only to lose them because of a cheap business card, a shoddy print job, or an unprofessional letter with no company letterhead. Currently you can get Save 30% Off All Letterhead, Brochures, Flyers, Folders by simply clicking on this link.

Another popular item you can use is MAGNETS. Many people use magnets to post family pictures, schedules, and/or kids work on their refrigerator or in their office. This form of advertising puts your brand in front of your customers over and over. If you want magnets why not buy them at 50% Off All Magnets - All Sizes.

The small stuff you do to differentiate yourself from your competition can potentially result in increased sales and therefore...more money for you or your company. Business cards and professionally printed brochures or pamphlets are a very small cost when considering the potential impact these simple items can have on the success of your online business. Cutting corners just isn't worth the risk.

Save 30% Off All Letterhead, Brochures, Flyers, Folders

How to Sell with Amazon

2007-10-31T11:06:00.001-04:00

In our last blog article we explained the basics Affiliate Marketing. In today's blog we're going to take it a step further. We're going to teach you how to add links to your site in a step by step process. Today's lesson is based on using the Amazon Associates program to monetize your site.

Step One: Go to the Amazon Associates website to create an account.

Step Two: Fill out the information to create your account. This includes name, address, email, payment information, etc.

Step Three: Learn How to Find Products: There are many elements to this step. As technology improves Amazon has created many platforms for adding products to your blog or website. You can add specific products, products within a defined group or category, products based on certain "keywords", products recommended by Amazon, etc., etc. For example, let's say you want to offer books on the Best Selling Movie "The Secret". You can link specifically to the Movie itself or you can link to products which are generally related to the movie and/or the concepts of the Laws of Attraction made so popular through this inspirational movie.

When you're logged into your Associates Account you will find a link in the left margin named "Build Links". Clicking on this link opens several options for adding links to your site. You can add banners, text links within your blog, coupons, products related to the content of your site, product 'clouds'...basically you can add links in just about any way conceivable.

Step Four: Learn How to Copy and Paste Code on Your Site. Once you've found your product or "widget" you would like to add to your site you'll need to generate and copy the code provided by Amazon which you can add to your site. When you find this code you need to copy this code. The easiest way is to click on the code and type [Ctrl+A]. This highlights all of the code. Next, right click the highlighted code and choose "copy" from the dropdown of options. Next you'll need to go to your blog or site admin. panel. You'll need to convert your content into an HTML format. With blogspot your click the "Edit HTML" tab on the top of the toolbar for your post. With other sites using SQL you'll need to access the area you would like to transfer this add code. In HTML format click on the area you want your Amazon links or banners to appear. Next, right click and choose "paste". The HTML code will be added to your site at this point. Next you'll want to check to see if your code was inputted correctly. Go to your site or blog to see if your ads appear. If so, congratulations...you have taken a big step towards being able to monetize your site.

Here's a list of some categories of products you'll be able to offer through Amazon's Affiliate Marketing Program. This just scratches the surface of ways to promote their products.

Electronics

Magazine Subscriptions

Books

Cameras & Photo

Fragrances

Jewelry & Watches

Sports and Outdoors

Musical Instruments

Toys & Games

MP3 Downloads

Step Five: Track your sales and clicks from your Site.

Congratulations and good luck. Your comments and suggestions are welcome. With so many people using Affiliate marketing I'm sure many of you know "tricks of the trade" which could benefit all of us in our efforts to Make Money Online.

Affiliate Marketing: Finding Products to Sell on Your Site.

2007-10-31T09:54:00.003-04:00

One of the easiest, no risk ways to generate sales on your website is to offer products to your visitors through affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing gives you the opportunity to find products which relate to the content of your website/blog so you can offer these products to your readers.

The best part of affiliate marketing is you don't have do all the hard work associated with retail sales. You don't need a store, you don't need to speculate and buy inventory to sell, you don't have to deal with shipping and handling, and you don't have to handle returns. All of these activities are performed by the company who has signed you up as an affiliate. As an affiliate marketer all you have to do is drive your traffic to these products or services and the rest is up to them.

When you sign up as an affiliate marketer you are given several types of "ads" to choose from which you can put on your website or blog. Some ads are full ads with pictures and all the bells and whistles. Some are simple text links. An example of a full ad is shown here.

These ads are a nice way to ad a little color and pizazz to your site and they are good at catching the eye of your site visitor. Other ads are less conspicuous and are easy to embed in your content. They are called text ads. Text ads are a good way to offer products without "in your face" selling. For example, let's say you are blogging about the latest cellular phone technology. In your blog you start to review the Palm Handhelds. If your visitors click on the words Palm Handhelds in the previous sentence they are taken to the Palm Store to browse the various products Palm has to offer. If they make a purchase...you get a commission. In many cases these affiliate marketers have cookie based programs which basically means, if a customer visits their website from your link and then comes back up to 45 days later and makes a purchase you still get credit for the sale! This is nice because many consumers don't purchase items without doing their research and price comparison. You don't have to coax them to buy now; you just have to get them interested in the product and get them to the retail site of your affiliated producer. The items you can cell are almost limitless. Electronics, Books, Movies, DVD's, MP3 downloads, Dating Services, Greeting Card Companies, Website Hosts, and Contest entries are just a few. When you sign up as an affiliate marketer you'll need to read the terms of each affiliate to see how their system pays out.

With your affiliate programs you are also able to buy your own products and receive commission for your own purchases. When I buy Christmas cards I buy them here:
Spread some cheer this Christmas with the new "Elfis" eCard from AmericanGreetings.com. It's simple, I don't have to leave the house, and I get paid a commission for making the purchase.

As an affiliate marketer you don't have to view yourself as a pushy salesperson. You are offering a multitude of products to the entire internet community. Many of your readers may come from small towns with no shopping mall. In essence you are bringing the malls to their computer. It is one of the best opportunities for retailers. They can reach any consumer with an internet connection regardless of where they live. It is also equally beneficial for the consumers. If you live 40 minutes from the mall you have to plan a special trip to go shopping. Even then you may not find the product you want. Shopping on the 'net opens up thousands of stores with a simple mouse click. With affiliate marketing you can lead these consumers to products and make money by doing so.

So where are these affiliate marketing companies? I'll show you a few of the most popular companies who make millions of dollars through their programs. You've probably heard of Amazon.com. They started out as a book retailer but now they sell hundreds of products. By becoming an Amazon Associate you are able to sell their products for a commission. They do all the work; all you do is lead your visitors to their site or specific product. All you do is create an account and find the products you want to offer. Once you find a product to offer all you have to do is get the HTML code for their ad and place it on your website or blog. Copying and pasting code is not as difficult as you may believe. There are many free software programs which interpret the code into "layman's terms". In other blogs we'll offer some basic code lessons to simplify these tasks. I like Amazon because you can offer specific products, products relating to a topic, or all products they have available.

Here's a few examples. Let's say you want to offer Camera & Photo Links. You go to your Amazon Associates account and find which type of link you would like to add to your site for this specific product type. You click on Get HTML, you copy the code, and you paste it on your website or blog. Now your readers can buy the Bestselling Camera & Photography Equipment by clicking on the link on your site. Now your visitors have an opportunity to browse Amazon's site for all of the latest technology to find the product which they desire.

As you can see affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to monetize your website or blog. All you do is write the content and paste the code. That's ALL the work you have to do. As long as you are an active member of these affiliate programs your "sales pitch" is already done. People can find your site 24/7 and you don't have to be available when the customer arrives to help sell them the product. You don't have to feel the rejection of a customer saying no, and you don't have to feel the guilt of pushing a product on your customers. Additionally, your customers are able to shop at their convenience without being pressured by a salesmen, without having to drive to the store, and without having to buy "on the spot".

I highly recommend that you take advantage of this simple way to monetize your website. You shouldn't expect to get rich off this technique but you can make good money on the side through affiliate marketing. At the very least you can pay for your website. With a lot of work (posting a lot of content or creating several websites) you can make substantial income for a long time.

Using Stumble Upon to Bring Traffic to Your Site

2007-10-30T21:45:00.000-04:00

So you've built a nice site with good content. Now you've got to find a way to get people to your site. After all, this isn't like the movie Field of Dreams. If you build it....they won't necessarily come. You've got to help them find your site.

Fortunately it's not as difficult and costly as traditional advertising. You don't have to buy a 1/4 page ad in a news publication and you don't have to buy a 30 second spot on the TV network. You can do these things if you've got a large advertising budget. Of course if you've got that kind of money you could probably hire someone to teach you the things we'll share in this blog!

With the internet you have several ways to get traffic. We've already mentioned traditional forms of advertising. You also purchase advertising from Search Engine's such as Google's Adwords. With search engine advertising you pay for your ads when internet users click on your ads when they are shown during a Search Engine Search. Another way to get traffic is to share links with other sites, post on other website forums (including your links), or posting your content on news aggregator sites.

One of the best news aggregator sites is called StumbleUpon. This is an awesome site with millions of users. Stumble Upon works like this. Registered Users submit websites to Stumble Upon with URL of the site along with a brief description and a few tags (search keywords or categories) which these websites belong in. Members of Stumble Upon click on a button which brings up various websites in the category they have selected. If the user likes the site they give it a "thumbs up". If they don't like the site they give it a "thumbs down".

The beauty of Stumble Upon is that there are millions of users who browse this site regularly. In other words, if you're site is "posted" on Stumble Upon, you have access to this large base of consumers. If your site gets recommended by a Stumble Upon User it gets higher ranking by the StumbleUpon site. This means your site will be displayed more often when users search for sites relating to your tags.

This is one of the BEST ways to bring traffic to your site. Go to StumbleUpon, register, and start Stumbling sites of interest. If you add StumbleUpon to your web browser toolbar (The Toolbar on the top of your Internet browser) you can go to your site or blog and click on the "Thumbs Up" icon. If your site has not been submitted before you will be prompted to add the URL (web address) of your site and a title/description of the site you've 'Stumbled Upon'. Congratulations, you'll see traffic increase immediately if your site has an value. When you get a good feel for how the site works you can also find other sites which could be of benefit to your own website users. Stumble Upon is a great resource for finding sites of interest in categories you desire.

This is just one way of getting traffic. It works. On our site our traffic increased 30% in the first month we discovered StumbleUpon. We quickly realized the importance of using sites like StumbleUpon, MySpace, Facebook, etc. to reach an established audience with relative ease. The best part is....this is free!!!

It's quite gratifying to view your website statistics and see where visitors came to your site as a result of your efforts to reach out to these established networks. Why not use a free portal to "get the word out" on your site or blog? It's a win, win. They get good content and you get traffic.

6 Most Basic Steps in Creating Your Own Website

2007-10-30T16:31:00.000-04:00

6 Easy Steps to Get Started Building Your Own WebSite

I'll start out by saying I built a website with absolutely NO knowledge of how to do it. I took and idea and turned it into a website. It wasn't easy for me but after spending close to one year building my first website ImaNicePerson.com I've found that there is a lot of good information relevant to having a successful online business available if you know where to find it. The problem is finding this information in it's simplest form and then utilizing this information to increase traffic, revenue, and sustainability.

With this blog I'm going to share a lot of the information that took me months to discover. Hopefully this information will speed up your quest for obtaining income online.

If you want to have a successful blog or website you have a few basic rules you need to follow to get started. Today's blog covers the absolute basics. They are as follows:

1. Create a Theme for your site. It can be anything from "Popular cat doors" to "How to braid your hair" to "How to Build a House". Believe me...there are sites for just about anything these days.

2. Find a place to create your site. The cheapest and simplest way is to use Blogger.com. It's free and easy to use. If you want a basic blog with areas for advertising and/or affiliate marketing you can start here without any initial expense.

If you want to create your own website which does specific functions utilizing various software programs such as online polls, forums, shopping carts, blogging, etc., I recommend using iPower Web Hosting. IPowerWeb is a Web Hosting Company or a company who "rents" their server/computer space for your site. I like IPowerWeb because it's inexpensive ($80 a year or less), you usually get your domain name for free, and it offers tons of Plugins (widget type stuff) to make your site user friendly, interactive, and professional. The iPower Web Hosting
service has Php forums, Word Press (for blogging), Stats Counters, Multiple Email account setup, Marketing Information, E-Commerce capability, Website submission to Search Engine capability, shopping Carts, Polls, etc. All you have to do is upload the files you want to use and they become part of your site. When you go to IPowerWeb you can check for the availability of domain names (website names) and choose the best hosting solution for your site. I believe the smaller shared server package is better if you are a startup. As you increase your traffic and content you may need to look at the larger plans.

3. Build Your Site: The parts or elements of your site are all stored in your index file. The index file is like your factory building and the applications are like the working parts and machinery inside your factory which create you finished product. With IPowerweb the applications are already built into the database. All you have to do is click on them and upload them into your index file. They have several templates or sample layouts to choose from to simplify the process. Most hosting companies have some types of software included in their packages to help you build your site. There is also an unlimited supply of free software available on the internet which can handle most of the the functions you need on your site.

4. Add Content To Your Site: Once you've set up your initial layout for your site you'll need to start generating good quality content which relates to the theme of your site. You can create your own content (articles), link to other sites or blogs with content appropriate for your site, add pictures, polls, widgets, news feeds, etc. It's up to you to decide how you want to lay out your site and what you want it to do. If you're new to computer technology you need to use a hosting company with WYSIWYG capabilites. This stands for "What You See Is What You Get". In other words, WYSIWYG allows you to click on words or icons to set up your site instead of having to learn complicated code needed to set up a website (HTML or XML are a couple of examples). In future blogs we'll show you ways to get around the code problem with free software available which translates "common man" language into computer code. We may even share some of the code we learned during our first year as a website rookie.

5. Find Traffic For Your Site: This is the fun part. There are many ways to get traffic to your site. The easiest way is to spend money with the professional Search Engine Optimization companies or to advertise with major Search Engines such as Google Adwords. With ImaNicePerson.com we were not 100% sure that the idea would work so we were hesitant to spend a lot of front end $$ to get started. If you have tons of money to throw into marketing this may be a good route for you. You should be careful as there are hundreds to thousands of companies who sell Search Engine Optimization (SEO) products to "guarantee" you traffic so it's hard to determine the scammers from the pros. If you want to start out for pocket change then you can read through this blog to learn more. I'll post several articles on how to get web traffic without spending a lot of money. I started ImaNicePerson.com with $150 and I spent $100 more than I should have to get started. At some time on this blog I'll show you where I could've saved this hundy.

6. Find Ways to Monetize Your Site: You've got the layout, you've got the content, you've got the traffic; now how do you turn this hard work into money? There are several opportunities for monetizing your site. The simplest form is advertising and affiliate marketing. With these forms you put targeted ads on your site and you get paid in one of two ways. Some advertisers pay on a CPM (cost per thousand clicks) and some pay based on commission for a sale made through your link/ad. The largest and most well know CPM advertiser is Google. I'm sure you've heard of them. Google has a program called Adsense where you sign up for an account and they give you code to put on your site which enables Google to place targeted ads on your site. When visitors to your site click on these Ads you get paid a portion of the advertising expense by Google. It's free to sign up! They do have very strict Terms of Service which you need to read carefully in order to prevent being dropped by Google without notice or explanation. Affiliate Marketers represent a multitude of companies who are willing to pay a commission for sales of their products made because visitors to your site clicked on these ads and made a purchase. Some of the larger Affiliate Marketing Companies are Amazon.com, Commission Junction, and LinkShare. These companies represent a wide variety of products and services which could compliment your sites content. Commissions range from small percentages up to over $100 per sale for bigger ticket items. We made several hundred dollars right out of the chute with ImaNicePerson.com. It was nice to know our site had paid for itself before we really started figuring out what we were doing. Another way to monetize your site is to sell products which relate to your site or blog. This can be done where you promote specific products through affiliates like AmazonAffiliates who pay commission or you can buy and sell items online through dropshipping. Dropshipping occurs when a person buys your product on your site, then you purchase the product from another company at a discount to create a profit. You can find a lot of dropshippers on Ebay. The bottom line is... you can sell products, services, and advertising on your website to the entire internet community. Your market is unlimited and you "brick and mortar" expense is basically nonexistent. This is the best way to start a business for those of you who want to own your own business but don't have enough money or
time to build a large store with expensive inventory.

This blog is just the very basics of the opportunities available in creating your own website(s). We'll add many articles in the future which will simplify the process and get you on the fast track to making money on your blog or website. In the meantime, visit some of these links in this article and start working towards your goal of creating your own website! If you find a good domain name you should go ahead and figure out a domain name (website name) and purchase the name. It's only about $5-$10 per year...and it's usually free when you sign up for a year of hosting on many host companies such as iPower Web Hosting
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Well do our best to provide you many useful articles and ideas on creating a profitable web business.

Remember, the key is to Have Fun in what you do and the learning and experience will come! Your comments are welcome and appreciated.