WP-Answers is a cool new plugin that will convert WordPress into a question and answers community like Yahoo Answers. People can register and ask questions and then other members can then answer these questions to gain points. The question asker can then choose the best answer which is promoted to the top and the answerer gets extra points.

The plugin includes 6 premium themes that are fully widgetized and include a theme options panel. [ Theme Demo ]

Another really awesome part of the plugin is that it can pull questions from Yahoo answers using their API and post them on your site, any replies are also posted so your site can look busy from the start.

You can use any and unlimited search terms to add content to your site and setup to auto post them every hour, every day, etc.

There is an advertising management system included to place banner adverts and contextual adverts within the theme.

The developers have run this plugin on a number of test sites for over a year and are making up to and over $1000 per month on some sites.

Check out the full list of features.

Why YOU Want Wp Answers

Probably the biggest benefit to you adding WP Answers is... Traffic. Not only are you going to rank better for SEO (because a huge amount of people type questions into the search engines) but you're also [probably] going to get more traffic because of it.

I'm already thinking how I can implement it into my blog here.

Discount

Because I really liked the WP Answers plugin, I worked out a deal with the maker of it to give all readers of this blog a discount (and no, it's not an affiliate code or anything of that sort):

Use voucher code JV2000 and get 20% off. They also have a great affiliate system and are paying a flat 35% on any sales (potential to earn up to $87 per sale!)

EDIT: Looks like Ian Fernando also did a review on WP-Answers. Check that one out too.

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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One of the users over at my Facebook coaching forum, dbucklew, found an awesome ad on Facebook a couple weeks ago. Perhaps you've seen it, but here it is:

LOL! Along with that one, browie (another member of the forums) also made a thread for this Affbuzz ad 5 days earlier:

Hahaha! Word on the street beach is that these ads have an amazing CTR and it makes sense. I'm sure Justin is using "like" page and group targeting so that these ads are appearing to a very select group of affiliates who have an eye for Facebook ads, who will appreciate the uniquely ridiculous and hilarious style of the ads, and who will be familiar with Wes and I.

These are some great examples of very creative ads.

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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The following is a guest post done by Tom, a UK entrepreneur from Wongawise.com. You can visit his blog at http://www.wongawise.com and follow @wongawise on Twitter. If you're looking for a guide to advertising on Facebook, you should check out Jonathan Volk's Fb Ads Guide.
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With over 500 million members, Facebook is fast becoming one of the preferred platforms for online advertisers. With the ability to target users by age, sex, interests, location and more; small businesses are replacing shop window and local magazine advertisements with a simple Facebook ad. Last year it was reported that online marketing is bigger than TV, radio and print for the 1st time ever.

As an online marketer, I have seen a massive increase in local businesses marketing online from orthodontists to estate agents to local gyms. Facebook ads are not only easy to setup, but with the right targeting they perform great with VERY little optimization needed. Creating and managing campaigns for local businesses is a fantastic way for online marketers to earn additional income. A lot of small businesses frankly won't have a clue when it comes to setting up an online ad campaign. If you have the knowledge and experience with such platforms, businesses will be willing to pay you.

I wanted to show you an example of a very simple campaign I set up for a local boxing club here in London, UK which is still running on Facebook. They had a very small budget and were not prepared to pay $x,xxx per month for local newspaper or magazine advertisements.

Facebook provides the perfect platform for local marketing. Not only is quick and easy to set up, but you can target users by location and interests. 2 VERY important aspects when promoting local businesses online. Without location targeting, local marketing does not work for obvious reasons.

We decided upon a daily budget and I set up 4 ads targeting the following users:

who live in the United Kingdom
who live within 40 kilometres of London (Boxing club is in London and people won't travel much further)
aged 13-40
male and female (they cater for both)
who like boxing (important!)

(We could expand on this and target users interested in other sports or women trying to lose weight.)

We used the following ad title and description:

title: Boxing Classes in London

desc: Interested in Boxing classes in London?
Click here for more info.

(Users were sent directly to the boxing club's website - no need to create a landing page).

I let the campaign run for 1 month without split testing or changing 1 single aspect and these are the following stats:

659,279 impressions
577 clicks
Avg. CPC = $0.10 (We use GBP in the UK, so this was JUST 6p per click!)
Avg. CTR = 0.088%

As you can see, the ad is simple, direct and to the point and more importantly it's costing the company just $0.10 per click. Not bad from an ad without any optimization and only showing to a small group of targeted users!

If the CTR begins to drop (as it will with most campaigns after some time), changing the image or title will help to increase it again. Adding further interests to target new users is also a great way to increase CTR and reach a new audience.

So... you may be wondering whether theses ads actually converted to bookings or made the boxing gym any money?!

To be honest I don't know as of yet, but they have requested to continue running the campaign for the foreseeable future so they must be pleased with the results thus far. In most cases, you will find that local businesses are willing to pay such rates simply for brand awareness and additional exposure. At the end of the day you are being paid for your knowledge and experience to drive cheap and targeted traffic to their products and services. If you deliver this then you're holding up your end of the bargain and there can be no complaints; especially when it's costing them just a fraction of what it would cost/is costing them for print, radio or tv advertising.

To manage an online advertising campaign for a local business, you can charge anywhere from $100 per month PLUS their advertising budget. Now I know this may sound incredibly low and in some cases it will be, but the amount you charge simply depends on their budget, your current situation, knowledge and experience as well as how much you're prepared to work for. This is an example for a very small business with a low budget. When I started managing campaigns for businesses I was more interested in building a list of clients than making thousands of dollars. I knew over time I would earn more once I began managing campaigns for larger companies.

Nevertheless, an additional $100 per month was still well worth having for spending a few minutes each week checking over their campaign. I will be on Facebook managing my own campaigns anyway, so I may as well manage a few others whilst I'm there and get paid for it!

Generally, the budgets will be much greater and you can charge $1,000+ per month to manage a campaign. Just 5 or 10 clients could pocket you an extra $5,000 - $10,000+ per month.

PS. Don't be shy to charge them a one off setup fee as well as a monthly management fee. A lot of clients will expect it.

So, why is local marketing a great thing to get into?

- You can approach ANY local business. I can assure you that those currently paying for advertising in a local magazine or similar will be interested.

- You can charge a monthly fee to manage their campaign. This provides you with regular, re-occuring revenue.

- There is no limit on how many clients you can take on.

- Word of mouth advertising will increase your list of clients after securing as few as 4 or 5.

- If you're already promoting your own campaigns on Facebook, managing a handful of campaigns for your clients will be effortless and extremely rewarding without the worry of checking conversions and sales daily.

- There are still a LOT of local businesses not advertising online.

- HUGE potential!!

I hope this post has given you a few ideas and will help you earn a little extra $$$. Good Luck!

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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Jounce is a really cool new search engine for affiliate offers that is truly unlike any other out there! Let's say you're wanting to affiliate link an iPhone 3GS case but don't want to go search CJ.com (and the many other affiliate networks out there) for the right affiliate program with the right price and the right case.

With Jounce, you simply enter iPhone 3GS case, for example, and you'll be able to see all the offers, the payouts, and the best part, your affiliate link for the offer. It's a REALLY slick system. Rather than try to explain it... check this video:

Jounce

And then check out this video on how to use Jounce:

Free Account

Besides being a really awesome way to save time, Jounce is free. If you're serious about being an affiliate marketer, you need to have an account at jounce!

My Review

I think Jounce is the affiliate offer search engine done right. After launching at Affiliate Summit, the guys behind this site have really started to gain traction and are in talks with companies like Tracking202, HasOffers, and a few other big players.

In fact, you should check out their blog posts about the three days they had at affiliate summit. Pretty cool to see all the photos. Day 1, Day 2, Day 3.

The thing that really impressed me about this site is that not only do the searches pull relatively good results, the fact that you can get your affiliate link without having to go into the networks website was really nice!

So often while I blog or tweet, I forgo using an affiliate link simply because of the process of trying to find the product on the affiliate networks, get the affiliate link, etc.

Being the internet entrepreneur that I am, the main question I have is how these guys plan to monetize the site. Advertisements? Strategic alliances? Upgraded paid accounts? Who knows - but either way I think Jounce will be a big part of my personal toolbox now!

Go get your free account now!

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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This week in review, my arch nemesis, Mr. Green, takes the cake for awesome post.

• Plenty Of Fish Slaps Facebook In The Face With A Smelly Tuna - Ads.POF.com Rocks. Plain and simple. The team behind the system is awesome... AND willing to work with affiliates. This is a good comparison post for sure.
• Cause Marketing - This is a REALLY cool idea. Basically it shows how giving some of your profit to charity equates to higher sales. Really interesting idea to think about...
• Starting Over - This is a cool post from Shoemoney about starting over. Although the post is a bit of a advert, it still is quite inspiring and interesting to think about.
• Guide To Buying Banner Advertisements - RileyPool released a (no email opt-in required) guide to buying banner inventory. It's pretty legit from what I have checked out so far and has some good intro material. You can also check out my free affiliate marketing guide for information on this.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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Last week, I started a new Saturday series where I post about a Proverb I read during the week. I read Proverbs nearly every day because there is a deep well of awesome advice for life and business in it.

This weeks proverb is:

The reason why I picked this verse is because it's something that I have found true in establishing a lot of business relationships.

You're probably wondering how this applies. Let me give you an example.

When I first was starting to build my email list, I spent a TON of money paying people up front to email out my free affiliate marketing guide. Like... over $5,000 in total marketing expenses.

The interesting thing is that many of the people that I paid eventually started promoting my future releases like the Facebook Advertising Guide and my Facebook Ads Coaching Forum without me even asking.

I believe that initial payment or investment is what opened the doors to a great business relationship between us. I in turn promote stuff for them when it's a good solid quality product and they do for me.

Now... compare that with the exact opposite.

Personally, I get asked to do joint ventures just about every day from people of all walks of life. Most of the time, it's something like, "I have have no money, a new product, no email list, just... an idea..."

Unfortunately, these are the ones that get filed into the "pass" folder the most.

I've found that just about every good business relationship has come from people who are willing to pay a "gift" to show they mean business up front and that eventually turns into what becomes a mutually beneficial relationship later.

Although I could go on and on about how I have seen this work, here is one final example:
In early 2009, I went to AdTech San Fran to do an interview with Wes from T202. Before the interview, I met Justin from Affbuzz. This was before Affbuzz was really huge like it is now. In fact, before then, I had never heard of it. During the interview, Justin offered to get me something to drink. Besides being a cool guy to hang out with, the fact that he was willing to get me a drink really impressed me. I know it's silly... but for whatever reason I have not forgotten that.

So when I got home, I made sure to post about affbuzz... and still do to this day (much like I am now... ).

What do you think?

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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Bryan Shearer is a 28 year old full-time dad and affiliate marketer. He defines his life by his family and what they do together and loves the freedom that affiliate marketing has given him. His blog, Ahaze.com, gives you an honest view of some of the ways he goes about a campaign and how to tweak even the most profitable site for a little extra money. He is an easy going guy who helps people too much at times, but will always lend a hand if needed.

Tell us a little background info about yourself. Where are you from? How old are you? How long have you been working in this industry?
I am 28 years old and I am from the tiny little Civil War town of Gettysburg, PA. I love living the rural life and wouldn’t change it for the world. I have been working online since October 2006.

What accomplishments so far are you the most proud of?
Just being able to to support my now family of 5 for the past almost four years from my online income is definitely what I am most proud of. It was tough for awhile and the hours get to be long at times, but the quality of life I have gained is amazing.

How did you come to learn about this industry? Why did you choose this career? When did you first realize the full potential in affiliate marketing? When did you first “hit the big time?”
As a lot of people who are in this industry, I fell into this career as a necessity really. I was extremely sick (you can read the full story on my blog) and I needed to replace a pretty decent salary and my wife didn’t have the skills to replace that income. So, I needed to support my family fast and figure something out.

Playing around one day when I was sick, I found Yahoo Answers and played around a bit on it. A couple days later, I found a link to MyLot.com, where you got paid to post on their forum. I started posting there and getting referrals and started to see my money grow. Like big time money, $3 a day at times.

After about two weeks of that and rocketing up their top referrers lists, I found another link to a GPT site. So, I tried it out and within the first month, I made over $1500 on doing offers on that site plus I won a $1000 gift card as well in the highest earner’s contest. I then realized that while that was nice to get, I need to build a recurring income and more of it. I then decided to open my own GPT site.

I bought a site that had a small membership that wasn’t very active for $100. Within three months, the site was profiting over $1500 a month and within six months, it was over $3,000. It was then that I realized that I needed to diversify my income as well, and since that incentive site was mainly on auto-pilot, that I needed to build other sites, and that is how I got started in non-incentive marketing.

I don’t think I have hit it “big” anytime, just that I slowly built my business the right way. I have always strayed from the quick money to build profitable, long-lasting sites, and my income has stayed steady for the most part the entire time.

What do you think it takes to be successful as an affiliate?
Long hours, dedication and the ability to think outside the box.

What have been your biggest failures and frustrations?
My biggest failures I try to turn into positives. I have failed at so many sites that I have built that it should be enough to deter my efforts. But the key was to keep at it and keep trying new things. However, here is one example of when I was just starting out.

When I first started with AdWords, I somehow messed a bid of mine up and let them determine my max bid. As a new marketer, I was trying to run some cash advance offers because of the big payout. Also, this offer was on CJ.com and as you may know, they are not the best when it comes to CPL stuff. Anyways, I started the ad up with some great keywords and messed up my bidding but didn’t realize it. I came back just a few hours later and I had spent over $400, which was a lot to me then. I got a couple of leads, but it taught me a huge lesson to always pay attention to detail.

What is the single toughest problem you've had to face, and how did you get through it?
My toughest problem hasn’t been in my career, although it does impact it at times. My daughter is 4 years old and is autistic with a seizure disorder. She does really well and we have her immersed in all the services we can, and she has come a long way. But, she still has her moments and this past winter was the worst. She would go into basically psychotic rages where they would last for hours and she would scream and attack myself and my wife. It was just really taxing on our whole family mentally, but we got through it, and she is doing better then ever.

Is there anything that you don’t like to do, that you just hate working on?
I hate tedious stuff. I don’t like to do a lot of things associated with the actual building of sites, I just like developing the ideas and how to market them. I outsource my major design stuff, unless it is a simple WP blog, all my link building and most of my content. I do write some of my own content, especially if it is something that I like, but for the most part, I do not like to write either.

What is the future of marketing?
The future of marketing is constantly adapting new technologies to better serve people in their own lives. We also always need to stay on top of the latest trends, as that is the only way to truly profit. Think of AdWords when it first started. People made a killing off of it until it was abused and was changed. Same thing with Facebook. It is always about doing the most with what you have and trying to maximize your profit.

If it’s possible for you to share, are there any particular niches that you currently favor? Or that you aren’t necessarily in right now but that you would recommend?
When dieting was hot, I built websites, not landers. I built a large network of dieting and healthy living sites for the long run and I am starting to really see the fruits of my labor from that. My suggestion to everyone is not to go with the hottest niche or if you do, build it for the long term. You may take a bit of loss at first, but what you build for the future will be much more profitable then just taking the quick money.

What niche has worked best for you?
Dieting and entertainment (my wife and I run a bunch of fan sites for reality shows)

Which methods of promotion do you favor?
Whatever makes me money! But seriously, every niche is different and it all depends on your business model. I use the content network a lot and target sites that I want to run on and I love the control it gives me. Also, with my dieting sites, I run an email list off of that and that is my favorite because what the return that I have seen on it.

How have you made those promotion methods successful?
I just wrote a blog post about color psychology and how to use it on your websites. The whole purpose around that post is about building trust. We have such a short time period to build trust on our sites that we must utilize every chance we get in order to make money. On my email lists, I don’t always sell to them. I constantly send out emails with no links in them to products. I may send them to a site of mine that shows products for sale, but it is a soft sale. That is what we need to focus on the most, getting the consumer to trust us.

What have you been up to recently? What projects are you working on?
I am working on a social site that basically will combine all the topics that you find spread across the other social sites into one site, called AllTopics.com. I have been working on it for a little while now and it has undergone many changes, but we will soon be doing a full out advertising blitz on Google and Facebook.

What problems have you had with those new projects?
Working with coders, getting the site to act the way we want it, site speed and changing our mind/focus of the site about a million times.

Do you think anything particular in your past prepared you for this industry? Your education? Jobs you’ve held before?
I was the finance manager at a Honda dealership before I got sick and it helped me with the sales end and always thinking how to solve the puzzle and get the customer what they want. I am also an Economics major, so that helps in the grand scheme of things of just how I look at my business model as a whole.

What are your greatest strengths?
I feel I have a good ability to think outside the box and I am willing to put the time in to make something work. I also know when to cut my losses and can handle criticism in a positive way.

What are your greatest weaknesses?
I don’t know how to code really at all, except to add some basic things to code. I am also cheap, which is good at times, but can also cause more headaches in the long run.

What motivates you?
Being able to stay at home with my family. Working long hours in the car business really gave me a sense of appreciation of this business. I love working from home and I love the freedom that it gives me. If I want to go outside and play soccer with my son, I can drop my work and go do it. If something comes up, I can go do it immediately. I love my quality of life and I work hard to protect it.

What is the best advice you’ve been given and try to apply to your life?
When I worked in the car business, we preached the saying, “Pigs get fat, Hogs get slaughtered.” I feel that is the perfect quote for our industry. It is okay to make a profit and to make a nice profit, but when you start to do shady stuff and really take advantage of people, it will come back to bite you in the long run. We have seen that in the diet area, and I feel that I was a pig and built my business the right way while others took advantage of people and got slaughtered.

Who has impacted you most in your career, and how?
My wife. She always believed in me and defended me early in my affiliate marketing career. In an area like mine, saying you work online is like a curse word. People think you are automatically a bad person and that there is no way that you are doing anything legal when you “work online.” So, her support has meant the world to me and always kept me believing in everything I did.

What are some of your long-term goals? How much is enough? If money was no object, what would you be doing?
I hope to build a stable enough income so that I can cut my hours back more not just because I want to do more leisure activities, but because it would be good for my health. So, in five years, I hope to have at least half my income on auto-pilot, requiring an hour or so of work a day. If I can get there, I know I will be happy and be able to slow down a bit more.

If money and health was no object, I would be a golf pro. I was a pretty good golfer back in high school and was just getting started, but life got in the way of any dreams of becoming a golf pro. If I was able to, I would be out on the golf course every day, training for the PGA Tour.

Where do you want to be ten years from now?
Hopefully working less but staying productive. I would love to work more efficiently or smarter, like the quote says, “Work smarter, not harder.” I love working hard and making something successful, but I do need to keep in mind my health. Also, my children will be hitting the busy stages of their lives, so I want to have more free time to be involved even more in those activities.

How do you like to spend your free time? What doe work-life balance mean to you?
My free time is spent with my family. Family is everything in my life, so there is nothing I enjoy more then going to a cookout and just spending time with family and playing with the kids in the creek. Yes, it is a hillbilly lifestyle, but a simple life is not a bad life. It takes the stress away from campaigns and worrying about coders and everything else.

If you could go back to being 18, what different career choices would you make?
Wow, I think about this a lot, especially in my affiliate marketing career. When I was 18, I was looking for opportunities online, but never found affiliate marketing. I got into the MLM stuff and of course that never worked out, so I stayed away from online money making for a long time. If I could go back, I would have learned more about affiliate marketing and would have been around for some very prosperous times and I hope I would have taken advantage of some of those opportunities.

What is your greatest achievement outside of work? What are some of your unfulfilled dreams?
Just being a father and a husband and being able to get through what we have gone through is what I consider my greatest achievement. I can’t say it enough, but they really are my world.

As far as unfulfilled dreams, I dreamed when I was younger that I would be rich all the time and always was thinking of different ways to do that. I would still like to develop something that would really take off, as it would provide for my family for generations to come.

Do you have a Twitter account or Facebook “Like” page?
@plibb.

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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