Why are Too FEW and Too MANY Affiliate Programs a Problem?

by Stone Evans, The HomeBiz Guy

The fact is that there are many people who are a member of TOO FEW affiliate programs and there are many people who are a member of TOO MANY. There are only a handful of people who have found the magic "sweet spot" right in the middle and those are the happy people who are making the most money.

Why is TOO FEW affiliate programs a problem?

Joining too few affiliate programs is a problem for 3 MAJOR reasons:

#1. The bottom line is that you absolutely, positively MUST start earning multiple streams of income.

One income stream, even 2 is not enough in today's world. If you are only relying on you job as your main source of income right now, you're a sitting duck for a financial disaster. If you lose your job or your health, God forbid, you could be in big trouble financially. Most people are just one paycheck away from bankruptcy.

Affiliate marketing is the same way. If you're relying on just one or two affiliate programs to pull in the bulk of your income, you're extremely vulnerable. Even if you've built up a big residual income in a program, if it goes out of business so do you. I had one program a couple of years ago that I was earning $5,000+ per month from and then circumstances happened with the program where they had to cancel all recurring billings... I lost $60,000+ a year in income in the blink of an eye! You absolutely, positively MUST develop multiple streams of income to be secure in today's world.

#2. Joining only one or two affiliate program does not give you enough experience to compare strengths and weaknesses of different programs.

 It leaves you being unaware of different possibilities and that's very dangerous to your fiscal health.

#3. There's is a saying that "If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."

If you only have one or two different products or programs to promote, that's not enough to solve the many different problems people will be coming to you for. You need to have a variety of tools in your affiliate toolbox so you can pull out the right one at the right time for the right person. If you don't, you'll be leaving money on the table. It's that simple.

Why is TOO MANY affiliate programs a problem?

Joining too many affiliate programs is a problem for 2 MAJOR reasons:

#1. You'll get way too distracted. Focus has great power and if you have too many things to think about at one time, you'll get confused.

When you're confused, you don't take action. When you don't action, you don't make money.

#2. People won't take you seriously.

If you're promoting everything and anything, people will sense your lack of sincerity and have no desire to do business with you. One of the big secrets to affiliate marketing success is promoting things you have some experience with and believe in.

But there a magic "sweet spot" somewhere in the middle of having enough products and programs to promote that keep you diversified and capable of solving multiple problems for people.

For example, if you get 100 people to visit your website and only have one product you're promoting and your website successfully converts 1 out of 100 visitors to a sale, then you've made 1 sale.  But if you have a couple more products on your site that are related but different, you may find that you get 3-5 people out of 100 who buy from you because they find other things that solve their problems. So just having a few different options for people can multiply your income 300% or more without any additional effort.

In my experience, 5-6 different affiliate programs in a niche is the generally the best starting point. This gives you enough experience with different programs to compare their strengths and weaknesses. It gives you enough diversity so you can offer your prospects the right solution at the right time.

And it broadens your own affiliate portfolio enough so that you can survive a disaster JUST IN CASE one of the affiliate programs you are promoting falls on hard times.

That's also why the Plug-In Profit Site includes 5 of the best affiliate programs online in the "work at home" niche as you can see here in Step 1 on this page: http://xr.com/pips

These are all proven programs with a long and successful track-record for helping people make money online.

They are the cream that has risen to the top for me personally after testing hundreds of different affiliate programs since I started this journey many years ago...

No matter what niche market you are in, I encourage you to you diversify your affiliate portfolio and get at least 4-5 high quality, TOP-PAYING affiliate programs to promote in
order to guarantee your * IMMEDIATE * and long-term success.

Your partner in success,

Stone Evans, The Home Biz Guy
http://xr.com/PIPS

How To Choose A Good Domain Name That Attracts Customers

The quickest way to getting eyeballs on your business these days is by establishing an online presence and central to establishing a powerful online presence is choosing a domain name that will attract the right customers.

Somehow, there hasn’t been enough emphasis placed on choosing a domain name that attracts the right customers, so allow me to expound on this subject with some tips you can put to immediate use for your next website or blog.

1. Choose A Name That Describes Your Website

Your domain name should aptly let your visitors know what your website is all about even before visiting your site. In other words, give away as much information in your domain name as possible, leaving no room for your visitors to guess what your website is selling.

For example, if your name happens to be Sue Brown and you own a hair salon called Sue’s Hair Salon, get a domain name like, www.sueshairsalon.com instead of www.suebrown.com. Seems pretty obvious, but you’ll be amazed at how many business owners use their personal names as domain names instead of choosing one that specifically describes their business.

Also, try to keep your domain name within a range of 13-15 characters, as shorter domain names tend to stick in people’s minds. It also makes it easier for them to type out your web address in their browsers without too much head scratching

2. Select A Keyword-Rich Domain Name


It’s becoming increasingly important for business owners to have their websites indexed and ranked well in search engines like Google.com, MSN.com and Yahoo.com. And it helps this cause tremendously if you have a keyword-rich domain name. The reason for this is simple: Your potential customers search using specific keyword phrases to find what they’re looking for.

If you’d done the research and used these customer-specific keyword phrases in your domain name, more than likely your website will be listed on the very first page of the search engines, outranking your competitors because you had exercised due diligence where keyword-rich domain names were concerned.

Of course, there are other SEO tactics to implement for better rankings, but getting a keyword-rich domain name is the first step towards ensuring your website will be search engine friendly. Avoid using any weird characters like apostrophes and even hyphens in your domain name as this will eventually affect rankings.

3. Must A Domain Name End With .com?


In a word, “No.” You could very well use .net, .biz, .org or .info as an extension and no one would complain, except that you’ll likely regret that decision in the long run. Here’s why. Websites ending with any other extension besides a .com usually requires extra marketing efforts to establish credibility because everybody assumes a .com extension to be the standard in domain name branding.

Another reason is when emailing, customers automatically assume every company ends with a .com extension and this can be devastating to your business if your customers’ emails keep ending up in your competitors’ database.

Unless you’re intentionally targeting to brand your business as, let’s say, a nonprofit organization, in which case the .org extension is highly recommended, then sticking to the instantly recognizable .com extension is the best way to go.

So, don’t rush headlong into purchasing a domain name without first taking the time to research keyword phrases that would be a perfect match for your product or service. You can perform this much needed research at websites such as www.wordtracker.com, www.keywordtumbler.com and www.goodkeywords.com.

It requires some effort, but acquiring the keyword phrases that are used by prospects and incorporating them into your domain name will pay off handsomely for years to come.

*Unlimited Web Hosting with Free Domain Name [click chere]*

How Video Can Enhance A Website

Adding video to a website can greatly enhance its appeal. It allows communication with customers in a new and fresh way. The popularity of video on the web is growing rapidly. YouTube.com, one of the most popular video sites on the web was bought by Google for 1.65 billion dollars. Google would not put that much into something that was a fly by night venture.

According to imdediaconnection.com, the number of people who view videos online has grown from 55 million in 2003 to about 140 million in 2007. Many people falsely assume that most of these viewers are young and that they are watching videos of their own content that they have made and posted to the web. News is actually the most viewed format and viewers are between the ages of 25 to 44 years old.

When you pair those findings with the fact that broadband Internet is no longer a luxury item, and the fact that the latest generation of iPods are now video enabled, it opens up a whole new way to market a business.

As a website owner, you don’t even have to worry about creating videos, as there are thousands of videos you can place on a website for free. Try searching sites such as YouTube, Google Video, MSN Video and Yahoo! Video.

Like everything else on the Internet, publishing content is only part of the process. Make sure people view the content by marketing it. Right now, using online video for business is not as popular as e-mail marketing or websites, however, it's growing. Keep an eye on this market and start testing its viability for your business now. You'll be ahead of the curve and ahead of competition in engaging customers.

Creating a video can easily be accomplished with products such as Camtasia. Of course, if you are not technically gifted, you could outsource this task to a virtual assistant.

The following are a few ideas for video use on a website:


• Highlight products and services

• Offer helpful tutorials on subjects visitors want to learn more about

• Showing people how to use a product

• Create an “about us” video where viewers can see and hear the passion for a business

• Build a mailing list by offering videos; simply create a form to collect visitors’ names and email addresses.

Use an autoresponder to automatically send them the link to the videos once they fill out the form

These are just a few of the ways that video can enhance the appeal of a website. You may want to give video a try by posting some free videos to your site. If your website visitors seem to enjoy them, you may want to consider creating a custom video or hiring someone to create one for you.

*Make Money Online 100% Guaranteed [click here]*

Part 2: 25 Biggest Mistakes for First Time Bloggers who want to earn online income

by Jomar Hilario



50 Biggest Mistakes of First Time Bloggers2 Part2 PDF

Source

Learn How To Make Money on Blogging [click here]

X-Factor Video: 7 Killer Tips For Optimizing Your YouTube Videos

by Gideon Shalwick



Press play to begin watching the video (this video is taken from directly inside the Become A Blogger 2.0 Premium course).

The essence of an X-Factor technique is combining multimedia, such as audio or video, with a social media service. The idea is that multimedia has more impact than text and through the use of social media you can syndicate the content further, thus bringing more traffic back to your blog.

The single most powerful X-Factor tool I’ve seen in recent months is YouTube. We all know how good Google is at delivering traffic and ever since Google purchased YouTube, they have placed YouTube videos at the top of their search result pages. As a result of this, simply learning how to effectively use YouTube to market your videos can bring in significant traffic back to your blog.

I’ve had first hand experience seeing how many of my student’s blogs benefit tremendously from YouTube, so much in fact that they haven’t needed to focus on much other content. I’m talking about hundreds of daily unique visitors coming from YouTube and Google within a matter of weeks, just by using YouTube with a few smart optimization techniques.

The problem, which this video helps you solve, is how exactly to get the most from YouTube.

In this X-Factor video Gideon reveals 7 tips you can use to optimize your YouTube videos to bring in maximum traffic for your blog. This really is killer stuff and I promise you, if you do each technique, you will get results.

Do You Want An Insider’s Edge?

This is just one X-Factor video from the Become A Blogger Premium 2.0 course.

Inside the program is a full range of X-Factor techniques for each different area of building a successful blog, plus the entire series of training videos on how to set up and optimize your blog, create powerful content, market your blog and of course, make money from the audience you build.

If you’re new to blogging, want to build a truly successful blog with traffic and income, and you like to learn via video, don’t miss the opening of Become A Blogger Premium 2.0 on June 29th.

The program will open for five days only, then close up. You can take the course over six months paying a low monthly fee, or pay a one time fee for access to all 60+ videos at once (plus the other resources we provide in the program).

We anticipate this will be the last public opening for the program in 2009. The first run during the first six months of 2009 was hugely successful, with over 1,000 eager blogging students participating. If you want to take your blogging serious throughout the rest of this year, then please join us next Monday.

Become a Blogger Premium [click here]

How To Market Your Product With SQUIDOO

Squidoo is a website where a network of users can create pages, known as lenses, on various topics that they have knowledge in, or at least have some interest in. Ads are displayed on these lenses, and the users who create them can receive commissions when those ads are clicked upon by their lenses’ visitors. However, you can earn even more by using Squidoo to market your products.

Marketing your own products with Squidoo is very easy. When editing your page, use the “write” feature to add some simple HTML. If you sell information products, you can offer a free ebook or special report and a link for the sign-up form for your newsletter. Once they are your subscriber, you can continue to market your products to them.

You can also use the “write module” to post articles and links to your information product’s landing pages. Providing the content will help you get indexed in the search engines and your visitors will appreciate the fact that they can learn something from your site.


Since each lens should have its own unique topic, you can create a lens for each of the topics you would like to establish yourself as an expert in. You can then create a lens roll and link your lenses together. This can create a stream of traffic for you. If you have other business blogs or feature a podcast on the subject, add that information to your lens as well. If you have created a physical product, you can add pictures of it to your Squidoo site.

In addition to adding content, links, and pictures to your lens, you can join Squidoo groups. If someone is searching for information on a topic, they may choose to find a group on the subject in order to find lenses on that subject. This will also allow you to interact with other people interested in the subject of your lens. This is a ready-made market of people interested in your products.

Just like your website, you will want to keep your lens fresh by adding new content each week. This will encourage your visitors to return again and again. You may want to pick one day each week to add something such as an article or a link to something your visitors may find useful. You can even add links to viral reports and other things that you are offering on your own website.

By using these techniques you can add targeted traffic to your site, increase the size of your mailing list, and add to the number of your customers. Plus, Squidoo is free. You’ll be growing your business and saving money that you may otherwise be spending on pay-per-click programs.

*#1 SQUIDOO on the Internet [click here]*

25 Deadly Mistakes of Bloggers who Wish to Earn Money Online (Part 1)

Blog Mistakes 01 Jomar pdf

Source

* To Learn More About Blogging [click here] * 

The Man Who Makes $132,994.97 from Blogging - Believe it or not?

Adsense cheque for US$ 132,994.97
by Jeremy Schoemaker

This was the bigest paper cheque I have ever recieved. It was way back in August of 2005. 100% of this income was earned with organic seo. I had not heard of search engine arbitrage at the time and did not buy traffic from MSN Yahoo or Google itself. I did that about 1.5 years later :-)



Source

*** To learn more about blogging [click here] ***

What Makes SQUIDOO Popular?

In late 2005, a website named “Squidoo” launched. Squidoo is a way for people to share information with others. Users can create a page, also known as a lens. Each lens has its own topic. A user can create a lens about gardening and another lens about cooking, or whatever topic they choose.

They can fill their lens with their opinions, recommendations, and other information. Other people can view these lenses in order to learn about a subject. Ads are featured on these pages, and if someone clicks an ad on the page, the creator of that page, also known as the lensmaster, will earn a commission.

Users who create lenses are called lensmasters. Squidoo offers lensmasters various tools to create unique and informative lenses. For example, you can add modules that allow you to enter your own text, create a list of other sites you recommend on your lens topic, add your own RSS feed, share photos, and even integrate your lens with services such as Google Blog Search or merchants such as Starbucks and earn more commissions.

As far as commissions go, Squidoo offers 5% of their commission to charity, the site keeps 45%, and the lensmaster receives 50%. Lensmasters can choose to donate their portion to charity as well. The site claims that half of their lensmasters are doing just that. Squidoo has partnered with various non-profits, such as the American Heart Association, March of Dimes, Children’s Defense Fund, and more. Squidoo allows other non-profits the chance to be listed as well.

Squidoo allows users to create and join groups on all types of topics. This is a way for you to meet others and promote your lenses. Another feature of the site is “SquidU”. This is where you can go to study up on Squidoo, learn how to make more money, and chat with others via forums.

Squidoo offers a lot of value to those with Internet-based businesses. You can create multiple lenses on various topics that match your website. You can also use Squidoo to “test the waters” on niche topics and see if they are profitable before you take the time to build a whole website around them.

For example, if you have a website with content on parenting, you can create a lens with the same type of content in order to promote your website. Or, you can create a lens on a niche topic within parenting or on a totally different topic just to get a feel for the number of views it receives, the amount of commissions you earn, etc.

You can also use Squidoo to conduct research and get opinions from others. This is especially helpful if you find yourself getting confused at the staggering number of websites you receive in search engine listings. Of course, using Squidoo means you are receiving others’ opinions and recommendations; some of the information you receive may be skewed. Therefore, if you are researching something of a serious nature, you should use reference sites.

*The Giant SQUIDOO [click here]*