How To Write A Book

This is something I have been thinking about for a little while.

Should I write a book that goes into greater detail then what I post on my blogs?

Now this book will not be about making money online or anything like that. It will be on one very specific topic. As with all books a great deal of research and effort will need to be put forth as well.

I'm probably not going to get picked up by a major publisher, but with POD I can self publish and manage my own ISBN if needed.

Best of luck on all your money making efforts. Take some time to take a break, you know what they say about all work and no play.

Michael

Tax Rebate Check

What are you going to do with your Tax Rebate Check?

I was going to pay down some debt, or make a few advanced car payments. But then we decided to stimulate the economy.

Looks like we will be taking a vacation this year. We were going to skip taking vacation. But thanks to the relief payment from the government we decided to plan a vacation.

More on that later.

I have a poker tournament in 10 minutes, other then that no work tonight.

Michael

Use Tools To Help You Make More Money

The best way to make a hard job easier is with tools.

It will hake hours to cut your lawn with scissors, but a lawn mower will make the work easier and produce better results.

The same holds true for making money online. That is why I use the tools at Wealthy Affiliate.

Big things are happening at Wealthy Affiliate and in addition to the tools already offered, more are on the way.

I use the competition spy tool to help me spy on markets before I start promoting within a niche. Works great and saves me a ton of time.

If you are serious about making money online now is the time to join Wealthy Affiliate. The price goes up on Tuesday, but you can lock in the current low price if you join now. Thats right, join now and pay the same price for as long as you are a member.

I don't know what the new price will be, but the tools alone are worth 3 times the price of membership. They also offer free website hosting for 3 sites and have free tools to help you build sites quickly.

Join today before the price increase and start using tools to help improve your online income.

Michael

One Blog or Many Blogs?

One of the comments I got yesterday asked why so many blogs.

Do you think it is better to have one blog or multiple blogs? There is no one right answer, but below is my answer.

I prefer to have multiple blogs based on topics. Would you keep coming back to my blog if I posted about solar power one day and mountain bike tires the next?

I create a new blog for each topic that I am interested in. Some of the blogs only get one post per month, others once per week and others once per day.

By keeping the topic content together I get better search engine results. So this benefits me in the SERPs and benefits my readers as they don't have to weed through content that they are not interested in.

Michael

I Joined The Mile High Club

While in Denver I joined The Mile High Club. Well, not the one you are thinking.

As you can see from the photo I visited the Capitol building and had my photo taken on the 15th step. We all took the 10 minute walk from the conference center to visit the capitol.

What did you think of the post title. Using attention getting text is important. But you have to use the right mix and not overdo it.

Stop back next week to see how I start using the $170 to test selling some products.

Michael

MyBlogLog Widget

So far my community count isn't increasing any quicker by displaying the MyBlogLog Widget. I had hoped my count would go up quicker but it didn't.

Traffic is the lifeblood of any web business. I get traffic from multiple sources and MyBlogLog is one of those sources.

Where does your traffic come from? All one source or multiple sources?

For some of my sites I do paid advertising, but this blog is for research, testing and reporting, so I don't advertise it as much.

Time to check in on my Facebook profile and get some work done.

Michael

Back From Denver CO

I am back from Denver. This photo is of the stuff I got from the Event Booths.

This Year Collaborate 08 was in Denver, CO. I don't mind the cold, but it was odd to travel into colder snowy weather when spring is starting to warm up where I live.

I won't go into details about Collaborate from the educational and networking side, but I do want to mention the vendors. Like all previous years, the vendors work their magic to lure you to their booth.

Most have something to give you in exchange for a scan of your badge. That gives them full access to my contact info.

So what do they give away. I got at least a dozen pens. Not all of them made it into the photo. Some were giving away an iPod or more expensive gift as a prize drawing.

Does the SWAG matter if you are interested in a specific product or service? I don't think so.

As a matter of fact one vendor stood out way above the rest. Their SWAG was not as good as many of their competitors. But they knew that trinkets are not what convert prospects into customers.

While I have your attention, I donated $20 of my $200 prize money from WinningOnTheWeb to MDA. Someone I know was soliciting donations and I felt it was a good cause.

As for the remaining $180, stay tuned for some testing. I am anxious to find and test more products to sell online.

Michael

What To Do With $200

I spent some time thinking about what to do with my $200 prize winnings. PayPal took $6.10 of it off my hands and I will be donating $20 to a charity or my church.

So I have $173.90 to invest, spend or hold.

My first thought was "Spending money for my Denver trip". But for the most part that is paid for and I don't want to spend that much on stuff. My second thought was credit card debt.

I have plenty of credit card debt, so that would be a guaranteed return above what I could get in a savings account.

But on the other hand if I use it to test some offers I could find one that will convert that money at least 50% every month. With $173 I should be able to find an offer that brings in at least $50-60 a month in profit. The hardest part is getting past the testing and keyword refinement stage.

I did look on Wealthy Affiliate last night and found a product that looks awesome. It is an under the radar mover, so right now competition is very low.

The only down side is I don't have a site already in that niche and I would have to build one. Since I leave for Denver in a couple days, I don't have time to do that.

I will probably Spend $70 of it in Denver and use the rest to test 2 offers/products.

More on that in a future post. I will also provide an update on some of my advertising tests in a few days.

Michael

I am a Winner !!!!!!

I won a couple prizes over at Winning The Web.

You may remember me telling you about the contest early in March. Well I did most of the stuff to earn entries and my effort paid off.

I won $200 from AffSpy and a 125x125 banner for one month on Blog About Your Blog.

Gyutae is heading away for a conference so I won't get my prizes for about a week. I'll update on what I do with the $200 when I get it.

I just may have to look for more contests to enter.

Michael

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

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

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

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

Time To Pay The Tax Man

Now that I am back from New Orleans I need to work on my 2007 Taxes.

If you make money online, keep track of all your income and expenses. The best way I found so far is to use a spreadsheet. Include a category column that matches the IRS categories for small business. That way you can create a pivot table to sum it up for you.

If creating a pivot table is not in your skillset, just pick up a 4 column notebook and keep track that way. Or use the spreadsheet and manually choose the rows & columns to add for each of the IRS categories.

This year I am cutting back a little on the networks I promote. There are 3 good ones so I will stick to those 3, plus AdSense.

I'm going to be selling on Ebay this year, so that will add another layer of record keeping.

Trust me, keep your papers in order throughout the year and it will save you time and hassle at tax time.

Michael

Learning From The Right People

Would you rather learn how to make money online from a free forum loaded with people how want you to buy their product? Or would you rather learn from people that are successful and doesn't let "Product Pushers" mess up the forum?

I do read a couple free forums from time to time, but I find my time better spent on the forum over at Wealthy Affiliate. People on Wealthy Affiliate are there to learn and to teach.

No need to buy tools for research, all the tools you need are included. No need for web hosting or a website builder. You can build 3 websites and host them as part of your membership.

There is so much more to Wealthy Affiliate, but you have to try it to believe all the cool stuff you get to build, grow and improve your business.

Michael

Do What You Can - Don't Sweat The Details

Hello All,

Our group arrived safely in New Orleans yesterday after a bumpy, but uneventful flight. We took a tour of one of the houses we will be rebuilding and should be set to start work on Monday.

Today is Church then we may spend some time in the French Quarter. Love the music and atmosphere of the French Quarter. But as always many places are better enjoyed every once in a while rather then every day.

Many of the people who read this blog are bloggers. One thing I often struggle with is the details.

There are 2 types of posts for me. Results and Information.

For "Results" posts I write about things I have tried and how they worked for me. Take for example my thoghs on the tools I use at Wealthy Affiliate. I also try verious advertising methods and ways to make money online.

What I do and what I learn from it are written as "Resluts" posts. Many of my readers prefer those posts over the information posts.

I do information posts because not everyone is at the same level. So I try to write about some things that may be known to many, but not to someone who is new at blogging. These posts take much more time to write then the Results posts.

What I am starting to learn is that I don't need to write all the details, just a high level post with links to others that have more detail.

This will benefit my regualr readers who already know the topics I am writing about as well as the visitor who is new.

Take Care,

Michael

Update on Blogging Projects

I am heading to New Orleans to help with the rebuilding efforts for a week. There will be little or no blog posts until I return. Depends if I have time to write in the evenings.

If you are new here there are plenty of archives to read. Probably enough to fill a book or two. My suggestion would be to go back to the beginning and read all of them to here.

When I return the private advertising sales will begin. Post a comment here with your email address if you are interested in purchasing a spot.

I started testing a few new things and should have a report ready next month. With going away for a week I want to re-test some stuff before I put the stats together.

The traffic to some of my blogs has picked up. Most of them only get one post a week, so when traffic picks up I tend to get a little excited. It looks like natural search results, so if this keeps up for 2 weeks I will have to increase posting frequency on those blogs.

There were no entries for the Valentines Day contest. So no winner there. But I will have another contest sometime in the future. Next time the prize will be much bigger.

If you are interested in checking out the tools I use for research and making money just click --> here.

If you blog for money or you blog for fun, always enjoy what you do. It makes life easier.

Best of luck to everyone, see you in a little over a week.

Michael

Provide Exceptional Value and Live Forever

Ok, you got me. I added the live forever part. I had a conversation about vampires, so I just threw that in.

But in a sense you could be imortalized by providing exceptional value. Write an interesting book and it could be read thousands of years for now.

There are two directions I am thinking for this article.

First, free content. While writing free content is great, if it doesn't provide exceptional value visitors may never return.

This goes for offline as well as online writing.

Second, paid content. If you write an ebook that provides exceptional value and charge below that value you could have a customer for life. But provide marginal value at a fair price and you may have lost future sales from that customer.

Imagine going to the movie theater to watch a movie. The $7-16 to get in ontop of $8-12 for food make for an expensive experience. But what if at the end of the movie, the stars where there to take pictures and sign autographs for free.

People would no longer complain about spending $28 to see a movie because of the exceptional value added by the photos and autographs.

I am a bargan shopper. I buy good stuff, but as cheap as I can.

By providing value beyond what the customer expects they will look up to you. It is a win-win situation. They were happy to give you $20 for an ebook that was worth $47 and you have a customer that is more prone to make a future purchase.

Blog content may be free, but it must be good to keep people comming back. And if what you write (ebook, etc) isn't free, then customers better be asking you why you sell it so cheap.

Michael

Testing All Kinds of Advertising Income

After some thought I decided to open up advertising sales again.

I stopped last year when Google started dropping sites that had the TextLinkAds code on them. That was closely followed by the PayPerPost slap.

To avoid big brother Google from beating me up for something they have no problems doing themselvs I decided to make a change.

Starting in March I am going to open up private advertising again on my network of blogs. There will be paid post options as well as text link and advertising banner options as well.

I am heading to New Orleans a week from today and will be gone for 8 days. When I return I will start accepting advertisers.

If you are interested, just post a comment to this post and include your email. Don't worry the comment won't show on the blog and I will delete it after transfering your email adress to the advertising waiting list.

Prices will be cheap since I am cutting out the middle man (TLA & PPP).

When I start using private advertisers I will cut the AdSense SkyScraper back to a single ad unit. 125x125 I think it is.

Take Care,

Michael

Did You Go Online Because of the Super Bowl Commercials?

The price for a 30 second commercial last night on the Super Bowl was about $2.8 Million.

Some of the commercials were funny, and others had me wondering why they didn't just show their logo for 30 seconds. A couple of the commercials didn't reveal the product until the very end.

I digress, this isn't supposed to be about commercial quality.

What I want to know is. During or after the Super Bowl, did you go online because of a commercial?

For example GoDaddy did a great job of directing the viewer to their website where they can actually make a transaction. The commercial was about how they couldn't show the commercial on TV. There is also talk about "Exposure".

Even though I am already a GoDaddy customer and knew of them I will bet they got a bunch of new customers last night.

Overall I think GoDaddy did the best at directing viewers towards a purchase point.

What are your thoughts?

Michael

P.S. Don't forget about the $75 Contest.