The One Step Process To Make $1 Million

I know you have been waiting for this a while now.

I am happy to report that there is just one step to make $1 Million. Funny thing it was much easier then I thought.

Last year I planted a $100 bill in my back yard. With the warmer weather I noticed a vine sprouting from that area. Just today I saw the corner of a $100 bill from 10 of the sections of the sprout. If this keeps up I will have $1 Million in no time.

By the way, don't forget to check my other posts from April 1 (give or take a day).

April Fools - Happy April Fools Day!

Michael

Track Your Advertising - AdWords and Paid Links

Sorry for the delay in updates. I was working on a big project and had to focus my energy on that product.

Once a month I review my traffic and advertising for each of my sites and blogs. This helps me avoid throwing advertising money away.

First I check AdWords and adjust my spending based on how many sales I got. For products I am testing I adjust prices and keywords. Some of my product tests may be dropped if not enough sales convert.

Then I check my paid links to see how many visitors I got from those links. If my cost comes below 3 cents a click I may choose to buy another months of advertising from them. In most cases I find that text links don't bring in that much traffic.

Weekly I check and adjust advertising on some of my testing products and on new tests I always check daily. I use the tools at Wealthy Affiliate to help me find new products to promote and also with keyword selection.

Michael

What Does It Take To Make Money Online

A popular question with new bloggers is can I make money with my blog.

The simple answer is yes and no.

Yes, you can make money with your blog, but it takes a good deal of work. An no there is no guarantee that you will make money blogging.

That said, learning from others is a great way to get started. I just joined 2 new affiliate networks the other day and will be reporting on them soon.

Google AdSense is a popular form of income for bloggers because it is easy to install and Google is well trusted. I do run AdSense but if you read my past posts you will see that most of my money comes from other sources.

Traffic is the lifeblood of your blog. Do you know where your traffic comes from? Do you know how to get more people to see your blog?

More on that in a future post.

Michael

Tools To Make Life Easier

Do you know what products to promote on your BLOG?

I use the tools over at Wealthy Affiliate to find products to promote.

I also use their tools to spy on the competition and find new niches to market.

Did you know that you can be a member of Wealthy Affiliate for less then $2 a month? Heck they will even pay you to be a member. They pay you $14 per month for every person you refer that joins.

So just refer 2 people and your membership costs only $2 a month.

This is a win - win situation. You get your membership for almost free or make a profit and the people you refer get full access to the best website online for those who want to make money online.

If you join Wealthy Affiliate post a comment here and we can chat on the site.

Michael

Know Your Advertising ROI

Do you track your advertising spend vs. income?

If not you could be throwing money away.

I track a good bit of advertising online, including the competition. It is important to know what advertising is bringing in a profit and what advertising is throwing money away.

Some bloggers may advertise to build their brand, but I have a small budget so I need to see a profit.

There are multiple ways to track advertising, traffic and income source. Many of the networks allow tracking ids and this makes life even easier.

Michael

March Madness Internet Marketing

Do you play the brackets for March Madness? You know the office pool where you pick NCAA college basketball teams, narrowing your selection down to the champion.

I like basketball and enjoy playing the March Madness basketball pick games.

How does March Madness connect to Internet Marketing.

If you think about it, the teams are all seeded or ranked within their devision. In internet marketing we have a seeding in that Google ranks websites and blogs.

With March Madness there is competition. Again we compete in Google for top position. If Google doesn't give it to us through a "Seed" we have to buy it with AdWords.

And finally the champion. Well I guess that would be every internet marketer that makes more then they spend.

Best of luck on your basketball picks and your internet marketing.

Michael

One Month To Live

Yesterday I mentioned about the book "one Month To Live" by Kerry & Chris Shook.

Since you are only supposed to read one chapter a day I will have to add a second book to my current reading list.

So far I love the book.

I may not have agreed to roller skate on Saturday had I not been reading this book.

What does that have to do with internet marketing?

For me when I think about only having one month to live and the work I do online. It helps me to focus on what is important and cut back what is not.

The 4 Hour Work Week did a great job of guiding my thinking at eliminating things that were not important. But 30 Days To Live does so with a thread of purpose throughout.

What good is working only 4 hours a week if you are not going to use the free time for something important.

Before you spend 3 or 4 more hours surfing the net today/tonight. Cut back by 50% and head to the bookstore to purchase "One Month To Live". No, this isn't the book that was given to me for free to review. I think it will change your life, that is why I suggest it.

Michael

Bright Sunny Day - Great Day For Outdoors

Today is a bright sunny day. Still a little on the chilly side, but overall a bright sunny day.

Instead of spending too much time behind the computer I am going to take a break and spend some time outside.

My bike needs some adjusting so that it is ready to ride in a couple weeks. The car needs washed and the list goes on.

One quick topic I want to hit today.

Live life as if you are going to die in 30 days. Don't go out and max all your credit cards. I'm not talking about that. Hopefully you don't plan on leaving your kids with a ton of credit card debt.

What I am talking about is not putting off for tomorrow what you know you should do today.

Tomorrow I will have an update on some of the changes and projects I am working on.

Michael

Blog Moved to OnePennyProject.com

I am pleased to announce that I finally purchased a domain name for this blog. I will let Google supply the free hosting to save space and bandwidth on my virtual server.

Today I purchased OnePennyProject.com to replace the one-penny-project.blogspot.com URL that was pointing to this blog.

Same great content, much nicer looking URL.

There is nothing wrong with using a blogspot domain name. Heck most of my blogs still use a blogspot URL. But I figured this blog has grown to a point where it desirved to have a custom URL.

Wish I would have done this before I purchased my latest advertising. But at least I finally did it.

The next step is a professional header graphic. I currently have a project open for a graphic designer.

I like the design of this blog so I probably won't re-design the layout. I may re-arrange some of the widgets, but nothing major.

You may notice that Google is confused about what ads to display. This should be fixed in a day or two when they realize that OnePennyProject.com replaced one-penny-project.blogspot.com

Michael

How To Run A Contest On Your Blog

I am currently participating in and watching an awesome contest run by Winning The Web.

The prize pool is currently over $9,000. Now that is one way to get attention for your contest. And the great part is most of the prizes are donated by sponsors.

I am a participant in the contest and this review will get me 10 entries. Would I do the review even if I didn't get the 10 entries, well yes. This contest is the best of 2008 and I doubt anyone will be able to beat it. I would be a fool not to tell my loyal blog readers about it.

As you can see on the Winning The Web blog I purchased a text link. Earlier in the week I mentioned testing an advertising source. So far the clicks are lower then expected. But I do get an added bonus that non-advertisers don't get. I see how many uniques per day his blog is getting. This alone is worth the $24 I paid for the text link.

Good luck to all who enter.

Michael

Awesome Clickbank Profit Info

I just watched a video that Frank Kern sent out to his email list. It wasn't Frank, but the info in the video was great.

I had seen this same tip before but not in combination with Clickbank. I use Wealthy Affiliate to help me identify products to promote. And that will save me a ton of time since I won't have to go through all 10,000 products to find the profitable ones to promote.

But with this tip I now have a better chance of finding the sweet spot keywords. I would just do some light research and then see what works. But by using the site level keyword search on Google AdWords now I know what the primary keywords to bid on are.

Granted this won't work all the time. But with the help of the tools at Wealthy Affiliate I should be able to find a few more products to promote with very little effort.

Michael

Where To Get Massive BLOG Traffic?

Where To Get Massive BLOG Traffic? Note, this is not a statement, but a question.

I often test advertising. Google AdWords, Yahoo, MSN, advertising on blogs, bumper sticker on my car, the list goes on a mile long.

ROI or return on investment, being time or money, is important when advertising.

Yesterday I spent $24 to advertise on a blog that is doing heavy promotion right now. This blog isn't getting a ton of traffic, but with the volume of promotion I know it is going to spike soon.

That is why I got in quick. When the traffic spikes, so will his advertising rates.

So far my ROI is very poor. Only 4 visitors came from that site.

I'm not worried because I still have 30 more days.

Google AdWords is the easiest form of advertising, but you can loose a ton of money quickly if not done right. I use the tools at Wealthy Affiliate to help me find good keywords as well as products to promote.

Take Care,

Michael

The Perks of Being a Blogger

Every job has its perks and blogging is no exception.

Today in the mail I got a hardback copy of "Crucibles of Leadership - How to Learn from Experience to Become a Great Leader" by Robert J. Thomas. This book is hot off the press.

Most of the books I read are about Business: Marketing, Growth, How To, Fortune 500 or Religious: Mission, Outreach, Prayer.

"Crucibles of Leadership" looks like a great How To business book based on extensive research and experience.

Currently I am reading "A Shepherd Looks At Psalm 23" by W. Phillip Keller. The chapters are filled with interesting stories and this book makes for a great daily devotion.

I will do a full review of "Crucibles of Leadership" in about 2 weeks. How is that for smart marketing. The price of a book and shipping will get this author a free review that would have cost $60.

Michael

P.S. Thank You to everyone who sent me books. If anyone wants to send me a book they wrote or a product they sell I will gladly do a free review. Contact Me and I will give you my address.

Blog Posting On The Weekends

I hear many bloggers say that traffic on the weekends is lighter then through the week. In the past I would do a re-carp of the week on the weekends because of this.

Looking at my stats I can see that some weekends are lighter while others have the highest traffic for the week.

I was posting 7 days a week and at times 2 or more posts a day. Over the past month I cut back to about 5 days a week. I found this works out best for me in terms of content and time.

Keep in mind this is just for the blog you are reading. I have MANY more. Some get updated more then others, but for the most part they are on a pattern.

I found the key is to write about a targeted niche and stay on target. The search engines then give you more weight in the search results for that niche.

I love the comments, keep them coming.

Michael

Short Posts or Long Posts

Do you prefer short blog posts or longer blog posts?

I read a ton of blogs every day in addition to about 3 books a month. The problem I have is finding a place to stop.

I prefer short blog posts and short chapters in books. It makes it easy for me to find a stopping point and mark where to continue the next day.

Pictures are a nice feature as well. I will have to start adding more photos to my blog posts.

What are your thoughts on blog post size?

Michael

Multiple Streams of Blogging Income

Regular readers of my blog already know this, but I will bring it up again for my new readers.

It is important to have multiple ways to make money with your blog. If you stick to just one method and something happens then your source of income could disappear.

Not that having 100 things for sale on your blog is a good thing. Too much selling will drive visitors away.

Focus on helping your readers. Start with products and services that you use. For example I am a heavy user of the tools on Wealthy Affiliate for making money online. So it is easy for me to tell people about them.

Often when I buy an ebook that I like I will do a review and post my affiliate link.

On a rare occasion I will promote a product that I don't own or use, but in most cases I try to avoid that.

While AdSense is easy it is also a low earner. All of my blogs start with AdSense, but none of them survive with just AdSense.

Michael

Changes at MyBlogLog

Looks like they made some changes at MyBlogLog.

My guess is that the new design should deter automatic message posting. I was manually editing messages posted on my profile to remove the ones with links. With the new design I am not getting as many that need deleted.

Hopefully the new design will give way to some new features.

MyBlogLog has great potential. For bloggers being a member of MyBlogLog is a must.

What features is MyBlogLog missing that you would like to see?

Michael

February Blogging Income Report

February was much like January. Direct sales of products I own the license to were my biggest earner. I did have some other money come in, but only 3 affiliate sales in February.

Expenses were unchanged, but advertising was a little lower. I didn't get to test as much because of going to New Orleans.

I have a few PLR products that I want to start promoting in March. I'm also going to start testing a landing page for a few niches I found on Wealthy Affiliate. I used the competition spy tool and found some products that must be selling well. All I have to do is make a landing page and promote the same product.

Later this month I am going to write and give out some free reports. I may develop an info product for one of my niches, but probably not in March.

Michael

How To Share Photos

There are many places online that allow you to share your photos. I belong to a few of them, but often I just email photos or burn a DVD to give out.

Today I uploaded to FaceBook some photos of my mission trip to New Orleans. While I could have uploaded the photos many places, I wanted to allow my friends to add comments to the photos.

I am starting to use FaceBook more for networking. As long as they can keep the pushy style of marketing out, it will be a nice place to network.

Time to get ready for a busy weekend. Feel free to check out my Photos on FaceBook. You will have to join if you are not already a member.

Michael