Investing For Bloggers

Jack Humphry did a post over on Friday Traffic Report about investing money and how investing $1000 in beer was a profitable idea compared to the sharp decline some stocks have taken.

Granted the post was made in fun to show and not meant as real investment advice. Obviously the goal of investing is to try to improve the financial outcome, not lower it.

If you had $1000 to invest what would you do with it?

This is what I would do. I am not telling you to do this and I am not doing this myself, I am just saying for point of comment that if I did this is probably what I would do.

I would invest $200 to have a couple quick read information packed info products created that promote a few affiliate products.

Then I would promote those info products on free niche specific blogs and give them away free, just for providing an email address. Not rocket science here, I know this is stuff you herd before.

Lets see I still have $800 to spend....

Ok, I would then spend $300 on Google AdWords to promote my free blogs. This would obviously be to collect subscribers into my email autoresponder.

For the last $500 I would hold a contest where the winner gets the $500 for writing about my free blog. They could make a video or whatever. The idea being bloggers generating buzz about my blog, and I pick a winner.

In the end I have a list and hopefully made some affiliate sales through the links posted in my info product.

If I did it right I would hopefully also have made at least my $1000 back.

If you had $1000 to invest right now, what would you do? Post your answer on your blog and link back here.

Take Care,

Michael

Use Networks to Control Your Income

Using Merchant Networks to control your advertising.

One way to control what advertising your blog displays is to join merchant / affiliate networks. I often use
MaxBounty to find offers to place on my blogs.

Many times the payout is much better then what you would get from a PPC ad. Last year I found an offer that was so good I used PPC to promote it and made almost $1000. Haven't been so lucky this year.




Try taking control of what ads display on your site or blog and join an affiliate / merchant network. They are free to join.

I have been paid by
MaxBounty and I have talked to my affiliate rep in the past. That reminds me. When you join MaxBounty they hook you up with an affiliate manager. They work with you to pick out offers if you need help. (hint: you can ask them questions for free)

Enjoy your day!

Michael

Extra Cash with Ebay

Last year I went to local auctions and purchased items to sell on Ebay. It was fun because I purchased items that I liked, but the process was very time consuming.

An easier method for making money online or on Ebay is by using a dropshipper that gives you wholesale prices. I did this before too in the BBQ niche.



I built a site that sold nothing but BBQ stuff, then 2 months later sold the site for $500. Had I kept the site it would probably be making that much per month by now.

There is no need to build a whole website anymore. BLOGs are a great way to talk about your niche and introduce products to your readers. Enjoy the hands off selling using a wholesale dropshipper.

Take Care,

Michael

p.s. Check out Doba for products to sell on your blog or on Ebay.

It's all about your choice

The current economic crisis is global. Depending on what expert you listen to we are either in a recession or headed towards one.

How you choose to react now will have a great effect on your future. Not just in your bank account, but also in your lifestyle.

Only you can make the right choices for yourself.

Is now the time to start blogging and building a community? Should I go back to school to improve my employment status? Should I start an online business?

Be realistic in your expectations and don't jump into anything.

For example if you have a headache and take an aspirin you wouldn't take an aspirin again in 10 minutes if you still had a headache, you would wait a couple hours first.

Evaluate your skills and your goals. What do you want to do and what do you have the ability to learn?

There are some parts of affiliate marketing that are easy to learn, while others may take some time. I started marketing online 3 years ago and I am still learning new methods.

One great way to get a jump start on your training to make money online is with the Clickbank Blueprint. Explode your skills now by following a step by step system to make money online and control your future.

Best of success,

Michael

The Economy

A couple weeks ago I move my 401(k) money into something safer.

Considering the beating the stock market is taking now I am happy that I did. Many have told me that what I did was not a smart move.

Advice is not a one size fits all thing.

I stopped putting money into my 401(k) a few years ago. So moving my current balance into a safe fund was the right move for me.

When the market turns around I will buy back in at a lower rate. If I fail to buy back in then there is no benefit to my selling off of the higher risk funds.

Right now when I look at my account I figure out how much I "didn't" loose. At some point the stocks I sold will be of a higher value then what I sold them for. I need to buy back in before that happens.

I don't have any advice as to what you should do with your money. Just pointing out what I did with my 401(k).

Take Care,

Michael

Entrecard Drops

I am back to using Entrecard again.

The system is great for checking out new blogs. As a bonus you earn credits that you can use to advertise on other blogs. Very cool, I love free advertising.

The key is to not go overboard. There is no value in surfing Entrecard 3 hours a day just to get your BLOG Ad on a few sites. It would be cheaper in the long run to pay for advertising. What is the value of your time?

On the other hand, spending 10-15 minutes checking out some new blogs is great. As you know I love to read and blogs are a great source of reading material.

Check out my Entrecard link to the right and sign-up if you are not already a member.

Michael

How Many BLOGS is enough?

I used to have over 12 BLOGs. Today I only have 2.

Some of my BLOGs were for testing and others were just to get traffic. I have decided to start up a couple more BLOGS on the topics I enjoy.

Much like doing research and writing for One Penny Project I have a few hobbies. It won't be hard for me to write weekly on those hobbies.

As mentioned above traffic is key. That is if you want to make money with your BLOG.

I like to write, so even if the BLOG doesn't make any money I am doing it because I enjoy it. You can tell when a blogger is only in it for the money.

Money is nice, but there is so much more to life then trying to squeeze $10 of income out of blogging.

Michael

Halloween & The Economy

Can anyone figure out how so many big financial industry companies filled with super smart people can make so many mistakes?

Granted the increase in loan and mortgage defaults isn't the fault of big company CEO's. But as the company visionary shouldn't they have done better to protect the company from such defaults?

Here I am busting my butt to pay down my credit card debt and now it looks like I am going to have to help bail out the financial troubles of some large companies.

Lets hope someone makes the right decision to get this situation fixed and the economy turned around.

Do you think it will be Obama? How about McCain? I doubt they will be able to get things in order fast enough to fix this. I wonder what America would be like today if Ross Perot had been voted president some years ago.

At any rate, it looks like we will all have to tighten our belts and try to pinch the pennies a little tighter.

Now on to Halloween.

I like Halloween, probably because I love to eat candy.

I'm off to look for some good Halloween CPA promotions. Not Halloween Costumes, the market is too crowded. I like to stick with the path less traveled.

Michael