Everywhere I turn nowadays I hear more and more people talking about learning how to make money online, in particular, how to make money with blogs. Although the number of people using blogs to make money has skyrocketed over the past few years, the vast majority of them are failing miserably. If you’re one of them, here’s a way to make money with blogs in 7 easy steps:

1) Pick a niche market you are very much interested in, and is a “buyers” market, and start posting Search Engine Optimized (SEO) content to your blog that solves a problem for your reader in that market. Think of this blog as a “Theme” blog, with all that you do centered around this one theme. This helps you to focus and not get distracted by the “latest & greatest” money-making gadget or online opportunity.

2) Write SEO content articles about your topic and submit them to article directories, with a link back to your blog in your resource box. Be very mindful to follow the rules as outlined by the blog directories you are submitting articles to. No link baiting, flagrant promotion or hyper-links within the body of the articles. I personally use ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com and articlealley.com for my article submissions.

3) Pick one (1) quality forum that is related to your niche market and actively participate in that forum, both asking and answering questions. Again, no link baiting or flagrant promotion, etc. Focus on adding value to the conversation and what you can give versus just what you can take. You want to build your reputation as the “go to” person in your market and not the “run from” person

4) Place affiliate ads using anchor text links on your blog, paying close attention to the words in your anchor text. Be sure that they include the same keywords that you use in your blog posts, your article submissions and your forum posts. For example:

<a href=“http://yourdomain.com”>How To Save 50% Or More On Camera Supplies!</a> would create a link at your blog that looks like this:

How To Save 50% Or More On Camera Supplies! (with “camera supplies” being the obvious keyword here.)

With the right market, the right words and the right offer, you increase your chances of making a sale when they click-through.

5) Add a link to your newsletter at your blog, being sure that the name of your newsletter is closely related to your niche. For example: Jim’s Camera and Photography Tips: “How To Save Money While Taking More Photos!” – Whatever name you choose be sure that it reflects what you offer your readers, and that your message is congruent with your blog posts, the articles you submit to directories, as well as your forum posts.

6) Email your opt-in newsletter subscribers a weekly tip that is useful and solves a problem related to their needs. Also, once a month send a special offer with a link to your product or affiliate product. Don’t overdo it here and try to take advantage of your list by sending them a weekly offer, once a month is fine for a responsive list. Remember, your list is there for you to serve and not vice-versa.

7) Be consistent. Nothing works unless you work at it consistently. Even if it was the greatest, easiest and most incredible money-making business ever created, it will not work unless you work it consistently. Consistency, or the lack of, is the number 1 factor in all business failures. The same is true when  using blogs to make money.

Using blogs to make money doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, it can be much easier once you establish the steps you need to take to make money with a blog, then be consistent in your efforts. Consistency, more than anything else you do online, is what will determine your success or failure at making money.

I hope you’ve received something of value from this post! As always, your comments and feedback let us know if we’re helping you make money with your online business.

Until next time,

Blessings to you and yours!

James

Now that you’ve begun writing articles and submitting them to the article directories, it’s time for you to start promoting them. Even though it’s a good thing that you’ve got your marketing articles scattered around the web for others to read, to get the most of out of your marketing efforts, you must also promote. There are five simple steps you can take to ensure you get more exposure for your articles:

1. Tweet!  - It’s easier than ever to let people know when you’ve posted a new article, simply by tweeting the link to your followers on Twitter. If the post really rocks, then there’s a good chance it will get retweeted by your followers. Keep your tweet short and sweet, the topic and the link will work just fine. Also, keep the characters below 120 so people have room to retweet your message without it getting cut off.

2. Post Articles To Your Blog – When posting to your blog, post a snippet of the article you wish to promote and not the full article. For example, “If you liked this blog post on driving more traffic to your site, be sure to check out: “How to Increase Blog Traffic in 3 Easy Steps!”, and then link to the page.

3. Article Reprint Page – Create a separate page on your blog or website, and include articles there with permission to reprint. Then, link to the reprint page from the main page with a sentence saying: “Want more information on increasing traffic to your site, or would you like to reprint my articles on your site? Click here for more information.” Then include links to all your articles, as well as information of how people who are interested in using your material can contact you for more information.

4. Article Linking – Tell your readers about additional information you have available as often as possible. This is another good reason to have multiple marketing articles out on the web – you can mention one in your newsletter, another on your Facebook page, another in your signature line with your emails, another in forums, and so on. When you create targeted, relevant content, people will take notice and seek you out!

5. Republish Content – Once you’ve published 10 or more articles on a similar topic, edit them to flow from one to the next, then combine them into an e-book or a special report. Again, add additional information so it transitions well, or “bridge the gap” so to speak, and use and site your resources well.  Once you’ve finished, you’ve got an instant info product you can either give away or sell!

Writing articles and submitting them to the directories is just the beginning of increasing your online exposure. Think from your potential readers point of view, and about how they would like the information you’ve written, and of how you can get it to them. Done correctly, and you’re well on your way to creating a steady stream of traffic to your web site…FREE!

Hope you’ve enjoyed this post, until next time…

Blessings to you and yours!

James

If you’ve wanted to make money with an online business, but found how to get started overwhelming, fear not! Starting and profiting from an online business is perhaps easier than you may think, it’s not a ‘walk-in-the-park’ mind you, but the processes are rather simple. If you’ve considered starting an online business, but just aren’t sure how to go about it, we discuss a few of the basics in this post!

Perhaps one of the most exciting ideas behind making money on the Internet, is that you can do it from practically anywhere in the world. So long as you have a Internet connection and a computer, you can be in business in a matter of hours! I personally know of one “older” couple in the Australian Outback (Not the steakhouse) who are making money this very moment, with not much more than an old PC and…A Dial Up Connection! Talk about dedication.

Usually when I hear someone talking about making money online, they tend to complicate things. After all is said and done, you really only need 3 things to make money on the Internet:

1) A website or blog with a product offering

2) A follow up contact system, and

3) Web site traffic

As for websites, you can get a blog setup and running in no time at all using WordPress. WordPress is a quick way to get started making money online, with very little cost involved. You can start posting useful information to your blog that readers crave, and while they’re at your blog, they can check out products and servies you have in your sidebar related to what you blog about. This ain’t rocket science folks

For best results, you’ll want to use a “self-hosted” WordPress blog and not the free kind. To do this you’ll need the following:

• A quality hosting company for your blog
• A domain name comprised of keywords that describe what you do, and
• A WordPress theme to use with your blog.

As for setting up your blog, you can follow the instructions and install it yourself or, for a nominal fee, many hosting companies will install it for you. Don’t let the sound of this overwhelm you, it’s simply a matter of learning how to use software programs as tools; much like screwdrivers, wrenches and hammers are tools to do their respective jobs.

As for a follow-up contact system, you’ll use an autoresponder as a means to automatically send messages to your subscribers via email. By placing a simple opt-in form on your blog, this allows you to capture your readers first name and email address. After your reader has entered their information, your auoresponder automatically sends them their first follow-up message. Many people offer a free report or special bonus as an enticement to give their readers a reason to sign up for their newsletter.

By providing your blog visitors access to the free report in exchange for their name and email address, you now have their permission to follow up with them again and again. This process is called “list building” – and is perhaps THE most important thing you can do to make money with an online business, consistently.

Now, as for getting traffic to your blog, this is perhaps the most difficult and time consuming part of making money online. Increasing traffic to a website takes effort, consistent effort! Your best bet is to start off with free traffic, or what is most commonly referred to as “organic” search engine traffic. The more free traffic you can create, the better off you’ll be in the long run.

To get free traffic coming to your blog, you must make it your ambition to master article marketing! Article marketing is the bedrock upon which all other free traffic strategies are built. In addition to article marketing, you’ll also want to post appropriate comments in forums related to your niche market; as well as social media marketing and several other modes of free blog advertising.

Once you’ve established a consistent flow of free traffic to your blog, only then do I recommend investing in pay per click (PPC) advertising. PPC advertising can provide you with an immediate increase in web site traffic, but this can get real expensive real quick. As you can see, making money with an online business is not difficult, it can however be time consuming. Hopefully, these online business tips will help you get started and allow you to make money online from wherever it is you choose to be at the time!

Until next time,

Blessings to you and yours!

James

Writing and creating content for your website is perhaps the single most important marketing and business-building strategy available to online business owners. However, in addition to simply creating content, you want to have your articles read. Articles that are compelling pull the visitor into your website where they’ll continue to search for more valuable content. They will begin to not only remember your website as a source of good content but also as a reliable business.

Here are five top tips to get your articles read:

#1 Compelling headlines are a must. Your headline is the first thing that your visitor or reader will notice. It must grab their attention by appealing to their emotions, making a promise, offering a benefit, inciting controversy, arousing curiosity or stating something newsworthy.

#2 Your article’s layout is very important. How you present your content may very well be the next most important factor in getting your article read, right behind your headline. Articles that are heavy with long paragraphs are often skipped. Not because the reader isn’t interested in the content, they’re just not interested enough to spend the time reading the article for value.

In general, people tend to skim when they read online, and an article that is difficult or cumbersome to read won’t be read. Instead, use shorter paragraphs, short sentences and formatting like bold type, bullets or numbers, and subheadings to help your reader make a decision to read your article.

#3 Your intro paragraph is next in line in importance to getting your article read. It should be short and to the point, yet still compelling. Your intro paragraph is used to set the stage for the rest of the article. It’s where you let your potential reader know what you’re going to tell them.

#4 Photos, graphics and illustrations come next. For some reason we’re attracted to content with images. Maybe it’s because it breaks up the content or maybe it’s because a few good images can help you tell your story. If you can include relevant images in your content, it will draw the eye of readers.

#5 Credentials is the last tip. Sometimes a website visitor does two things: they read the headline and then they scan down to see who wrote the article and if they’re qualified to talk on the subject. This is particularly important if you’re publishing articles on websites, blogs and ezines that are not affiliated with your business website. Create a bio paragraph that puts you in a good light and boosts your credibility and authority.

Getting your content written is half the job, getting it read is the other half. And in addition to these top tips, it is of course essential that you market your content with a variety of marketing and traffic generation strategies.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post, be sure to check back often for more updates. As always, we appreciate your feedback, comments and questions.

Until next time,

Godspeed

James
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To all writers and non-writers alike, now is the time to dig up those previously buried creative writing skills! Along with the communication technology explosion, not to mention what’s happening in the web 2.0 world, came the ever increasing demand for information-based marketing content. Which, by the way, is one of the oldest and most effective techniques in getting targeted prospects to sites and converting them into buyers.

This is why we’ve seen an exponential, almost overwhelming, increase in demand for article writers, article submissions and publications.  Currently, there is a smorgasbord of tools and services from which to choose to make the process of distributing articles more easily. Though this is invaluable in getting the contents more exposure, it is only one half of the story.
Let us take a look first at the common mistakes that some people make before submitting their contents to article directories.  I have included 3 here for the purpose of this post:

1. Confusing the reason to promote the articles with the reason to write them.

In article writing, there are three key benefits why you are promoting them; branding, lead generation and promotion, which are all part of your optimization efforts.

But there is only one reason why you write an article, and that is to inform your audience. If the article is not focused on this primary and most important purpose, it will fail to achieve the three promotion benefits because no one will be interested in reading them. You must determine first how to get people to read what is in your article, then make them click on your resource box. You can achieve this by producing better contents.

2. Failing to maximize the promotional opportunities of article marketing.

You may know already that your articles can help you generate additional links back to your site. But do you know that you can get more visitors and better search engine results from those same articles?

This may appear obvious to some, but often times people fail to mention keywords at strategic places within their articles. Just be sure not to overdo them, or you’ll do more harm than good! Likewise, many writers use anchor texts which is also an effective method. But it is important to know, that even today many of the directories are not able to support this.

Remember that is not only about the links back to your site. Part of doing well in your article marketing is getting picked up by publishers with a large number of audiences and gaining the ability of leveraging other brands because of the quality of your work. Better search engine results also are great benefits.

But these things do not put much money in your pocket. There are other factors that can turn your article marketing efforts into an opportunity that can boost your earnings. Not just increase the number of visitors to your site. Start out with a plan and see to it that your article will serve the function that you intended it to have.  You’d be surprised how may writers get “caught up” in the process, and forget why they are writing the article to begin with.   Which reason is?

3. Publishing content that does not help your readers.

This may seem like a “no-brainer’ to some, but not to those who write articles simply for creating traffic.

Maybe in the process of writing articles, you are thinking that all you wanted is links back to your site. And any visitors it can generate are fine.  Guess what? Not all article banks and directories are going to accept your content automatically. More often than not, they have some guidelines and specifications on the articles that they are accepting.  If not, then they are more than likely not worth your time and effort to submit to!

Listen, you can double the number of sites you can submit to by writing articles that the directories want to share with other people. All it takes is one publisher with a hundred thousand readers to increase your potential audience overnight. Write the articles that publishers want in their publications if you want your article marketing to work the most effective way for you.  Look at your article writing from the directories perspective, and not just your own.

This also means you have to obey the standard guidelines, spell checks, researching on a good topic and even hiring a writer to produce a good content on your behalf.  In the end, it is all really a matter of choice on your part. You can start getting a little exposure from increased links back, but on a very basic level. Or enjoy massive exposure from a little extra time making quality contents. It will be your choice.

You may not be aware of the fact that, an article submitted on directories is not meant to have the same level of exposure as highly-targeted content ones geared on a narrow group of people.  Learn the difference between these two and it will surely help you know what kinds of articles to write and to submit.

And remember,

“Do What Works!”

James

Now that you’ve got your blog up and running, it’s time to start making some money on the internet. All you’re missing now is traffic. No traffic = no money! And like most all of us using blogs to make money online, you’d probably like as much of your web site traffic to be free and not the paid stuff. 

Almost anyone can cough-up a couple hundred dollars in PPC advertising to get more traffic to their blogs. Seriously, if you throw a brick into the pond more than likely it’s gonna get wet, right? The problem is, most people either can’t afford to or simply will not invest in pay-per-click advertising. Why pay if you don’t have too, right?

So the question remains: “How can I get more traffic to my blog for free?” Perhaps the most successful way to increase traffic to your site is with article marketing. Simply write an article something like this one here, submit it to several of the preferred article directories, people read it and visit your blog. Presto, Chango… You’ve got free traffic!

There are a few article marketing pointers you need to learn first, but you don’t need a Degree in English to write quality articles that will increase traffic to your blog. Take this article for instance. Do you see anything “extraordinary” about my writing style? Not at all, I’m just an ordinary guy with an extra-ordinary attitude! And if I can do this, so can you.

What you need more than anything else to be successful at article marketing, is a belief in yourself, and an ability to convey a simple message in as simple a manner as is possible. A couple other things you need to know is:

• Focus on your reader
• Choose topics you’re familiar with
• State your point in the first sentence
• Stay on topic (focus) and
• Leave your readers hungry for more!

There’s no “big secret” when it comes to making article marketing work for you, but there is a learning curve involved. However, since article marketing costs you absolutely nothing, any blog traffic you do get is better than none at all! Well, I lied, there is one secret…

You have to stick with it!

Listen, if you write and submit just ten articles you will see a bump in traffic to your blog. However, the longer your articles “stay out there”, the better you get and the more you submit, the more traffic you’ll begin to see. Now, do you have to slave away at your computer keyboard eight hours a day? No, you do not!

On average I spend about 5-7 hours a week writing articles to submit to directories. I’m not a super article marketing freak dorked out on caffeine either! I simply plan (think) ahead what I’m going to write about, I then sit down to write with a timer set to go off in 45 minutes, and I rock & roll until the timer goes off! After an hours time is up, I usually have at least 2-3 articles that I can “pull” from my speed writing content.

One important note to make here is, I do not try to edit or make corrections until that timer goes off. Then for the remaining 15 minutes in the hour, I edit, make corrections and review for punctuation, etc.  I most often do all my article writing in one day, but you can stretch it to two, or three when you’re first getting started. Then after you start getting better, do your best to cut it down to no more than 2 days, and preferably only one day.

Here’s another pointer, this is MY routine, it does not have to be your routine! The most important thing to remember about article marketing, and writing articles in general, is that you have to do what works for you; and that the end result is what you wanted to happen to start with. Listen, if you can only write two or three articles a week to start, that’s ok, you’ll still get some much needed free traffic. Just keep plugging away, find your writer’s groove, and stick with it!

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s post, until next time…

Blessings to you and yours!

James

PS: If you’re struggling to come up with good quality content for your blog, check this out…

When it comes to writing articles, there is unlimited subjects that you can choose to write about. However, in order for your articles to achieve the best results, your articles must address the needs of your audience. For instance, if your online business targets stay-at-home moms, who want to start a work-at-home business, then you’ll want to write articles that illustrate your expertise in this area.

By targeting your readers interests and solving their problems, your readers are more likely to click on the link in your resource box once they’re finished reading your article.  For example, writing articles for parrot lovers when your target market is work-at-home moms who want to make money working from home makes no sense. If you want to get the best results from your article writing efforts, then stay on topic and add something of.

Perhaps one of the best explanations I’ve heard on writing articles was by Jimmy D. Brown, who coined the term “Useful But Incomplete”.  What Jimmy meant by this, was that your articles must be “useful” to your readers - but at the same time - “incomplete” in that they should leave your reader hungry for more information from you. This is why your resource box is so important, it is your readers link to you and… more great information!

Another key ingredient to writing successful articles is Quality. Listen, anyone can throw together a couple of sentences, combine a few paragraphs, and then paste on a resource box and call it an article. However, this “slop & drop” writing method is not very likely to produce the results you seek. Quality content is the key to your success as an article writer.

Online article directories can be some of the best examples of poorly written articles. Inferior article directories are crammed full of junk articles, many of which have been written by writers who are not native to the country they are writing for. If writers aren’t familiar with the language and customs, and who may not understand proper grammar or sentence structure, are doing more harm than good for themselves and to the article directories to which they post. Using such shoddy marketing methods will not help your article marketing efforts, and will likely brand you as unprofessional and harm your reputation as a online business owner.

Most editors in search of quality content would rather look to an expert on EzineArticles.com or LadyPens.com with only 10 high-quality articles, than one with 500 garbage articles. When editors and readers see garbage articles, they automatically assume that everything else that person does is garbage. This is NOT a great way to build a business!

When you provide well-written, relevant and quality content that provides your reader an answer to their question, or gain new insight and understanding of a subject they’re interested in, you’ll establish yourself as an expert and advance your article marketing efforts, and your online business. Like Grandma always said: “Son, if you’re gonna do something, you may just as well do it right the first time.”

Until next time,

Blessings to you and yours!

James