My first earnings in ‘passive income’ was through Adsense – a proxy website in 2007/8 that was making $20.00+ per day without me working on it. I promoted it in the standard way you promoted proxies at the time – social bookmarking swaps (Digg/StumbleUpon) mainly and for some reason it shot up to those levels in less than a week.

I used to get excited logging into my account every day, realizing I’d done jack all work and seeing that twenty dollars. Eventually I moved onto other things after I was scammed out of that site… but I’ll always remember the ease of it.

I’ve recently (as in the last few months) concentrating on focusing on niche website development again, focusing on building basic websites around long tail keywords and using Adsense/affiliate products on them. This was the main reason for starting my company – I want to build up enough passive income so that I can retire I can relax a bit more than I’m currently doing so.

Anyways, I’ve seen a reasonable amount of success with Adsense, but wanted to take it a step further and build it up to higher levels… here’s my strategy, the tools I used and how you can get started.

My Adsense Inspiration

There are two main people that are the reason for this focus:

a) Grizz – I suck up to him all too often on here (when I owned it in the past, at least ) and it’s because he’s awesome. There’s enough free information on his site to get you started – check out How To Make Money For Beginners. Solid info.

b) Xfactor – another Adsense king (to the tune of $300 – $500 a day). Read his Warrior thread for 30+ pages of free information that will help you get started with Adsense.

Now see, the main problem people have is getting traffic. Once you get that targeted traffic, you can pretty much use it for whatever you want – Adsense, affiliates, products, whatever. My primary goal is Adsense and self created products, but what you do is up to you.

What John (Xfactor) recommends is that you go after product keywords, where the searcher is looking to buy something / information about buying something and thus are more likely to click your ads. I’ve followed this for some sites and have found it works pretty well – a CTR of 50% and over at times depending on the template used.

Now of course there are tools that help shorten time with various parts of this however knowing that a lot of people don’t have money to get started I’ll provide both the free way (how I started) and a few tools that I use now.

The Free Way To Making Money With Adsense

Blogger vs Hosted Websites

Although I used to look down on Blogger, despite starting with a blogger blog myself (about football, in case you were wondering), Grizz and a few other sites changed my opinion. See the misinformation I was given after reading various ’social’ blogs was that blogger blogs couldn’t rank, were less powerful than standard sites etc. Through experience (I’ve tried blogger blogs to rank for one day/week “hot trend” keywords that I didnt want to buy and setup a site around) and from looking at Grizz’s blog, which is a Blogger blog and ranked for top keywords, I have to admit that Blogger is just as powerful as Wordpress or HTML sites – it all depends on how you use it.

However, if you’re going after a keyword that has any kind of long term value I always recommend you buy the domain ($9 from Name.com using the coupon code CRUSHIT) and setup a Wordpress site on hosting ($0.01 your first month with Hostgator using the coupon code 404page or jury).

The main reason for this is because I love Wordpress, being a code newb and more importantly this gives you a way out.

See I’ve always been someone that looks at the immediate rather than the long term, which has been stupid in the past (for example I’ve taken an up front $2,000 for a site making $200 passively per month), something I’m going to change however if you have a need you have your way out in the form of selling the site when you own it. Selling a Blogger blog is against TOS whereas you have no problem listing your own site (say you have an emergency and need $$$, or don’t have the time for online stuff anymore, you get the idea).

So get your own domain and hosting.

Okay, now step by step the free way to making money with Adsense.

Finding a keyword – Google Keyword Tool

Google Keyword Tool gives you suggestions for keyword variations (for example, if you type weight loss it’ll give you 50-100 long tails/related keywords).

Type in a keyword of your choice and play around with it. Make sure you change “Match Type” on the drop down box to Exact.

You’ll get dozens of keywords. Look for anything with 2,000 searches per month and up on the Global Monthly Search Volume after sorting it in descending order.

Above is an example search for “table” shown sorted in descending order (taken a long time ago but the tool hasn’t changed since then ).

Your next step is judging the competition for individual keywords.

Read this post on how to analyse your competitors to see whether you could outrank them.

A simple rule – I’ve found that if the exact keyword is available in .COM / .NET / .ORG and there isn’t another site developed with that keyword (for example, if dressingtable.org was available and .COM and .NET weren’t developed sites) the term is easy as hell to rank for.

Domains are powerful – I’ve found simply by setting up a Wordpress blog with plugins and the exact keyword as my domain I’ve ranked top 5-10, sometimes without any backlinks at all.

If there is another site and it’s developed, it means ranking is still possible but you’d be pitting your skills against another internet marketer. Never scared me but if you’re starting out you may not want to do that.

Once you find a keyword, and after checking out your competition you want to see if the domains are available.

A site that helps you check whether the keyword is available as a domain in .COM / .NET / .ORG extension is Instant Domain Search. Simply enter your term and it’ll automatically search for you.

You may want to do this before you analyse your competitors.

Next step – is this keyword going to make me any money?

Two ways to do this.

Easiest way is Spyfu.com – plug in your keyword and see if are ads.

Generally you’d estimate you get around half of the ad cost so look for a minimum ad cost of $0.40 per keyword.

Here it’s just under $0.40, but there are a lot of advertisers – depending on competition strength we’d still probably go for this keyword.

Now we’re still covering the free way to get started – this can take a lot of time but I’ll list it. If you’re going to use Blogger.com, you’d check if your keyword is available as keyword.blogspot.com and setup a site.

I’m going to assume you have enough money for a domain and hosting (under $10 for your first site – if you don’t have that write a couple articles or sell something you own on ebay) so let’s cover Wordpress setup.

With Hostgator your control panel has Fantastico – I’m not going to cover that as that would make this post too long but basically it’s a breeze and takes about 2 minutes to setup.

Once Wordpress is setup, you need a theme:

Best Free Themes for Adsense

There are two I’ve used in the past:

1) Pilkster

2) Bluesense

I’ve found that Pilkster tends to do slightly better CTR wise but Bluesense looks a lot more professional (a lot less like an MFA site )

Plugins for your WP Blog

1) Google XML Sitemaps

2) All in One SEO

The first two are the main ones you need. If you want to save time, though, get:

3) Easy Privacy Policy

4) Ultimate Google Analytics

5) Contact Form 7

The bottom three help track stats, and add a privacy policy / contact form to your site (needed for Adsense sites)

Also get an Akismet API key (if you don’t have one) and activate it to stop most spam.

You’re looking to setup a website with 2-5 articles as pages, targeting your main keyword and any sub keywords you’ve managed to find.

An example niche site that was sold on Flippa recently is Cheap Picture Frames (this site is HTML).

Once that is done your aim is to build backlinks to it. John recommends article marketing, but you can also use forum signatures, blog commenting, social bookmarking, linkwheels… or even hijack existing links.

Sites will bounce around for the first couple weeks so build a few and build backlinks depending on whether they’re ranking (ie if you’re ranking at no5, building a few backlinks may see you rise to no2).

The paid way to make money with Adsense

There are three things I recommend you get that will save you time.

1) Micro Niche Finder (aff link)

Basically does all the steps of the keyword research above in about 3 minutes for all your keywords. I’ve heard Market Samurai is decent too and plan to try it soon, but I’m pretty happy with MNF.

MNF costs $97 and if you have the money get it as it drastically saves time. If you don’t want to spend, that’s fine – you can get it later.

Here’s a couple examples of the results MNF gives you:

Keyword, local / global results, ad cost, strength of competition and domains available (exported into Excel).

Here’s what the actual results from the tool look like. Pretty slick.

So instead of going to Instant domain Search, Spyfu, Google Keyword Tool and Google to check the various results, you have everything displayed for you.

Again, you don’t need it but it’ll save you time. You can get Micro Niche Finder here.

2) Clickbump themes (non aff link)

Another thing that’ll save you time. The Clickbump theme provides you with five variations of a theme made for Adsense / affiliate sites, and have a sweet backend that lets you input your ads, change theme, colour etc easily.

Costs $47. Not needed again (you can go with the free themes) but it gives you some variety if you want that. Check it out at clickbump.com.

3) Xfactor course (non aff link)

Basically all the content of the thread and a little more than that summed up into 90+ pages of Adsense advice. Costs $77. Not needed (spot a trend here…? ) but it’s very detailed and will help you understand Adsense better / save you some time. Check it out at Adsense Masters Course.

Another couple resources:

Forum thread with more Adsense information

Make Money With Adsense Today.com Griz

Unfortunately since I rebought this blog the posts seem to be way too long… but I hope the information above helped. And of course if you have questions/comments etc, the comment section is below.

First off, let me state that I’m no SEO legend – unfortunately if you’re looking to rank for terms like “credit cards” or “weight loss” which get millions of search hits per month, I can’t really help you there. However, if you’re looking to rank for longer tail keywords which see anywhere between ten visitors a day to a few thousand visitors a month… this report should help.

The problem with ranking for a term is that there are other people that you have to outrank, either because they’ve specifically decided to rank for that term or have done so without knowing.

Those guys are preventing you from making money, and the nicest thing to do is (politely) annihilate them.

No, you won’t be using blackhat techniques or illegal methods to cause harm to them, just using your own awesomeness and new knowledge to outrank them… and steal their traffic.

This was originally part of a paid product I wrote to build a list with a partner titled Google Hijack… it’s edited slightly and republished here so you guys can take advantage of the information.

This is the exact strategy I use for part of my own niche marketing business, and it works pretty well.

Please note that this is my SEO advice which I have learned from a couple years of trying to develop niche websites (and eventually doing this successfully). You may not agree with parts of it – SEO is not an exact science – although the way I’ve detailed works for me and those that have put this into action. Just a little disclaimer.

Your first step is finding a keyword. I’m assuming you already have one – I’m not going to go into keyword research or anything in this post, although I will do a post about this soon if you guys like this type of content.

You’ll need a couple tools to begin (free)…

1) SEO Quake – http://www.seoquake.com

SEO Quake adds a toolbar to search results when you Google your keyword. Below is a screenshot example:

Here’s what the important terms mean…

PR: the pagerank of the domain. Pagerank in itself is a worthless number, but here it helps because it tells you the authority of the links linking to the website you’re trying to outrank.

L: Number of links to the exact page which has ranked for the term. So Wikipedia has 5,190 links to its Internet Marketing page.

LD: Number of links to the website. In this case, Wikipedia.org has over 104 million links pointed at it

Age: The older the website, the harder it will be to outrank as Google likes age. Luckily for you, most long tail websites will have been created within the last 3 years so they’re easy enough.

Now basically, Google looks at two things:

1) On page SEO (how your website is optimized for the keyword)

If you grab the exact domain keyword for a term (for example, internetmarketing.com (or .ORG or .NET) you have a much better chance of ranking for it than someone without.

If you install basic Wordpress on the keyword domain, with the All in One SEO Pack plugin (and input your keywords) and the Google XML Sitemap plugin, you will outrank 95% (and sometimes 100%) of your competitors just doing this, depending on their strength.

2) Off page SEO (in bound links and their quality)

Google rates links to your website by three things:

Number of links x quality of links x anchor text

So for example, ten backlinks with the anchor text “internet marketing” from Wikipedia, InternetMarketing.com etc would be a lot more valuable than 1,000 backlinks with no anchor text from unrelated websites.

Your basic hijack strategy is to look at the pages competing for a search term, better their on page SEO and better their off page SEO. It sounds simple, doesn’t it?

Your second tool you’ll need for the hijack strategy…

2) BacklinkWatch.com – http://www.backlinkwatch.com

This tool tells you the anchor text used in the backlinks for the domain.

You could replicate exactly the backlinks already pointed to a competitors website, add a couple of your own and bam, you’re outranking him/her easily once those backlinks kick in.

Now here’s what you do to outrank someone for a long tail keyword:

1) Buy a domain with the exact keyword in it. If they aren’t available in .COM / .NET or .ORG, grab keywordx.tld.

So for example, weddingcakesx.com

Or you could add shop / details / info… you get the idea. But you want your main keyword to start the domain and your terms to be all together.

2) Setup Wordpress and get the following plugins:

- All in One SEO Pack
- Google XML Sitemaps

3) Change your permalinks to /%postname%/

4) Add content to your website.

I’d like to add a special note about content.

You want to have your keyword mentioned around 3-5 times per 400 word article. No more, no less.

You want your content to be boring if you’re using it for Adsense websites (of course, grammar, spelling etc should be alright but don’t engage your visitors as they’re one time and all you want them to do is click your ads) and interesting if you’re using it for affiliate websites (so that they believe your content has value and will click through to the product you’re offering, or sign up to your list)

That’s it!

Some rules…

If the competitors for your keyword have less than 50-100 links pointing at the page and less than 300 links pointing at the main site, they’re insanely easy to outrank. (They’d be PR2-PR3 or less, anything more than that is still possible but will be a bit harder as generally that means quality of links is higher)

If your competitors are less than 2 years old, they’re easy enough to outrank. If they’re greater than 2 years old, they can still be outranked depending on the number links to the page.

If your competitors don’t have the exact keyword listed at least in the title and in the meta description (the text below a link for a Google search result) they’re easy enough to out rank unless they have thousands of links.

Now of course there are some exceptions…

If your competitor has a high PR, but is not optimizing for the term, they may rank simply because the authority of their website is strong. They’re easy to outrank if you optimize yours better than theirs.

If the competitor has very few links, but a high PR this may mean that they cannot be outranked (look at other examples on the page to see what the general strength of those ranking on the first page is).

Why? Because as mentioned above, 10 links from Wikipedia.org with the proper anchor text (you can use BacklinkWatch to check where links are from and their anchor text) is more powerful than 1,000 links with rubbish anchor text. And if a competitor has a high PR, it generally means links are from authority websites.

Your first step after this is to go look at different keywords and get a feel of the domains ranking for this. Once you examine competition for a bit, and try ranking yourself, you’ll get a better idea of exactly what it takes and whether or not you can outrank a term.

Now one of the ways I love to get websites that I can outrank is by surveying Flippa.com or DigitalPoint.com websites for sale section and looking for websites already on sale and making money.

Generally they want 7-10x revenue (so for example, a website making $10 a month the seller would want $100).

I can take 25-50% of what they want, invest it in a website and have it outranking theirs pretty soon.

That way I save 50% of the asking price, build my websites from the ground up and set up easy income streams that last ages if not forever. I can then sell these for 100% (or even more, if I optimize it and rank for other terms or increase it’s ranking to the top three so it makes more money).

Your goal is to build more backlinks than they do, either on the same pages or on pages that are ’stronger’ than theirs. So if they have 15 backlinks of which 10 have the anchor text required, you build 20 with 15 having anchor text.

It’s as simple as that.

Building 20 backlinks (which would take a day or less than $10 if outsourced) will take  you above the website you’re targeting. And you could keep building more with that anchor text – having 50 backlinks with the anchor text would see you outrank some of the results above it and increase your ranking.

Find a keyword, optimize your website for it and destroy your competition. Sounds easy, right? You’ll find out how easy it is when you do it! There’s no point in having the information if you don’t use it.

The “hijack strategy” works for pretty much any non-authority website (it will work for an authority one too, but will take more time obviously as they have age on their side).

The basic concept (in case you skimmed the above post) is you find a website that looks hijack worthy, optimize your page to match it and then build more/stronger backlinks than it currently has. Once your website is making money, you either keep building backlinks until you rank #1 (or focus on other keywords as well) or create a new website. Rinse, repeat, etc.

Feel free to ask questions, otherwise good luck!

Some of you will remember me as the person who created this blog in October 2007. I recently was informed that Stanley was looking to sell this blog (again) since he had university issues and I thought… why not have a go.

Although I’ve been away from blogging seriously for a while now, and been involved with a tonne of other stuff (a long vacation being one of them, along with offline marketing, seminars and moving to India to start my own company – more on that later) I’ve always felt selling this site for the amount I did was a mistake. And now that mistake has a chance to be rectified.

Firstly, the main thing which I’m sure anyone that reads this post is interested in – price. I paid just over $3,000 USD for this blog, which is the same price I sold it for. Some of you may feel that was a huge waste of money, others may feel it was a bargain. In my point of view when I sold it around April 2009, it had similar statistics to this one – traffic has slightly increased, comments on posts etc are pretty much the same, and although earnings were next to nothing, the subscriber count has roughly doubled… for me, that’s a reasonable deal.

Kind of like having someone else who’s experienced maintain your blog for almost a year at no cost.

Anyways, let me know whether you think the decision to buy the blog was a good one below…

I think I was the only person interested in the price of $3k, so that’s food for thought. But this is the site I created, and I do see the potential in it considering I probably did nothing to promote / monetize in the last 6-8 months I was running it, I think I could make it bigger than before.

I’ve merged the website I had posted on sporadically with a partner (Make Money Dynamo) to this one, so if you’re confused seeing this in your email box you now know why you are. Hope you’ll stick around

With the MMD subscribers added on this blog now has almost 3,000 subscribers, which is pretty sweet. I’m aiming to take that to 10,000 before the year is up.

To all the old readers of this blog that have stuck around till now, howdy and I hope all of you still remember me. To those that have found this site after that, welcome and I hope you’ll give me a chance to wow you.

Of course I have ideas of what I’m going to do with this blog, the type of content I’m going to put out… however I’m always open for any suggestions. You can contact me through any of the below mediums:

MSN: JPereira.Owns@gmail.com

Skype: leonetworks

Yahoo: jasonpereira34

Email: use the contact form

Phone: +919036133170

I’m still working on things in the background so there may be some screwups on here in the next few days… one of the things I’m looking at is finding a good theme designer as this theme doesn’t quite look right. I also have a few (around 20) employee interviews over the next few days for my offline company – I’ll explain about that in a post in the next few days.

I feel that blogs have so much potential as a medium, both in terms of boosting brand reputation, marketing things online, making big connections in the form of joint ventures and of course to make more money online. I think I’ll stick to what I did when I was running this blog – a mix of entrepreneurship / make money online posts, and maybe some interviews as they seem to be pretty popular on here. Again, all suggestions welcome.

Welcome to the blog whether you know me or not and I hope I can give you the type of content that’ll keep you coming back again and again. For starters, check out the report in the sidebar – It’s a product about how to make money through Warrior Special Offers, around 30 pages of solid content that explain what they are and what you need to do to start making money with them.

Jason

You are probably wondering how much it would cost you to implement this method. $0. That’s right. It won’t cost you any money although it will cost you time.

If you have a lot of time and no money, this is surely the best method to get targeted traffic.

And the method is…… Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is the process of writing an article for a blog which will in return link back to your site.

How will this help you?

1. You will get free backlinks with anchor text of your choice. This means your page rank will increase and so will your site’s ranking for the keywords you choose.

2. Targeted traffic. You will get high conversions whether you are selling a product or getting them to subscribe to your list. (Side note: If you want to learn about getting the most out of your email list, read this post on “Do you make this mistake many email marketers make?“).

3. Expert status (More on this at the end of the article).

How is this different from article writing?

I know most of you are already confusing this with article writing. When you write for article directories, you get backlink and traffic but the traffic you get from guest blogging will be much more targeted.

You will also have access to a huge reader base by writing for another blog.

Here’s what you should do:

1. Find blogs in your niche (Go to google and search for “your niche blog” with/without quotes)

2. Comment on the blog a few times so that you get to know the author

3. Send them an email asking whether they accept guest articles or not

4. If they say yes, write an article and send it to them

Things to note before writing for the blog:

1. Always make sure the blog has good pagerank.

2. See how many readers the blog has. You check the blog feed subscribers count. If they don’t have one, see their alexa traffic (not accurate though).

3. Check if the blog posts receive comments. A good blog will receive at least a couple of comments.

How you can modify this method?

Find internet marketers who have huge lists and ask them if you can write a couple of informational emails to their list for a link back. There are many marketers who don’t have enough time to send useful emails to their subscribers. Even if they do have, they wouldn’t mind someone else writing for them which will give them a week’s rest.

So stop thinking whether this method would work or not and start writing articles to be submitted as guest posts or emails.

Once you do this for a few weeks, analyze which blogs are getting you the most traffic and concentrate on them. Write more and more articles for these blogs.

When you submit an article to an article directory, you will be just another person because most people who read your article will be search engine visitors. They won’t remember you. But if you are writing for a blog, you will be read by a targeted group of readers. When they see your articles often, they will start seeing you as an expert.

Have you tried guest blogging before? What results did you have? Will you be trying it now? Please share your views in the comments.

So what is the mistake that I’m talking about?

Not caring.

That’s it. You should care for your subscribers. It is the best thing you can do.

Agree or not, that single word is the main reason why you are not earning the money you should be.

I know some people care for their subscribers but still don’t show it enough. If you are one among those, this post is for you.

You are a smart marketer and have very good products than most of the gurus, but you are not earning to your potential because you are not showing to your subscribers that you care for them.

Let me give you this simple formula:

Care = More Trust = More Sales

How do you show to your subscribers that you care? I’ll share a few tips here.

1. Connect With Them

How many times have you become a fan of a marketer only because they replied to your email? If replying to an email can have that much effect, how much will people like you if you start connecting with them in every way you can?

I know some of you are thinking “Oh well. I don’t have time for connecting.”

But hey you spend time tweeting everyday right? You use facebook too right?

Then you don’t need extra time. All you have to do is, reply to your subscribers in twitter and facebook.

Homework: Do this now. Send out an email asking your subscribers to follow you and you follow them in return. Reply to tweets they send to you and also answer their questions if they have any. Do the same in facebook also.

2. Send Out A Freebie

It might sound like a lot of hard work but let me tell you, this is one of the best ways to build trust.

Create a small report. It need not be 100 pages. Even 5 or 7 pages would do. If you don’t have time, combine two or three blog posts and create a report.

People love freebies. They will pass it on and you will get many new subscribers.

Don’t worry that your subscribers will become freebie seekers. If that was the case, no blogger would be earning money because they give away free content all the time.

It is often the other way round. Your subscribers will think that if a freebie itself has so much information, your paid products will have tons of useful information.

A Tip: For those who do not want to spend time creating a report, find free and useful tools and send it to your subscribers. I use stumbleupon a lot to find interesting websites. Once you find something very interesting, pass it on to your subscribers. They’ll love it.

3. Ask The Problems Your Subscribers Are Facing

You send out promotions all the time. Why not send an email asking your subscribers about the problems they are facing right now. Reply to every mail you get.

The specialty about this method is that even people who don’t share their problems with you know that you care for them.

The ones that shared their problems and got it solved will become your fan.

You can build a tribe by doing all these. There are many more ways to build a tribe. I recommend you to read this book called “Tribes” by Seth Godin.

Do you care for your subscribers? How do you show that you care for them? Please share your views in the comments.

Wish you a Happy New Year. Hope you achieve success and live a happy live.

Get the #1 best-selling book eMillions: Behind-The-Scenes Stories of 14 Successful Internet Millionaires for just $13.57 on Amazon

I have been listening to a lot of keynotes lately by entrepreneurs, especially ones by Gary Vaynerchuk. He’s accomplished so much and his philosophy is to do what you love, work your tail off, care about your customers, and you will be able to monetize. Hearing this from someone who came from Russia with no money to build a 60 million dollar company in Wine Library is very inspirational advice. Its advice I myself have taken, but many people still question how they can do the same thing he did with their business? Like any business, becoming successful takes time and it’s not going to happen overnight unless you work for it. Granted, people here this all the time and it’s obvious, but does anyone truly understand where businesses are headed today?

Gary has stressed the starting an online business is so easy that anyone can do it. There’s no cost to start up like there used to be. So, what better way to get a company started? Free to start and you don’t need a facility. I think anyone can appreciate the simplicity in that. Businesses are headed in a direction where the old way we remember businesses being are becoming no more. Now you may be wondering, what does this mean?

Well, with everyone having the ability to start a business online, you take a business like newspapers. Most people are reading the news online and the need to buy a physical newspaper isn’t in demand like it was 10 years ago. When companies put coupons for discounts off their products in both the newspapers and online, where do you think most people are going to get that coupon off of? Quite simple, it’s the internet. The internet business is taking over physical businesses to be as straight forward as possible. This doesn’t go for all businesses, but with customers being able to purchase products online, they are less likely to go to the location of the business. Why would they? It’s easier to do things online.

Online businesses become more and more accessible as the internet grows by the years. I think businesses that aren’t making a presence online are seriously missing out. There’s so much potential revenue from companies online just as there is at their current location. Today, the money is predominantly coming from their online business. Having an online business is being served to practically the entire world as more people each day engage with each other online. Those companies that are hesitant to bring their company online aren’t only limiting themselves from making more money, but they are being ignorant! The internet is a space where we as people live. Your company will have more luck converting your customer to a sale online than doing it at a location. This isn’t to say that physical businesses can’t make money anymore because they definitely can, however they need to realize the direction businesses are heading. If they fail to acknowledge this, they will be eaten alive by the competition.

So the question is, where is your company positioned in the marketplace? Can you be found online as well as at current location? Please be aware that this is a fact with where companies are heading. It’s not a joke and it’s where many individuals are making their careers off of. My three takeaways that any new or current business should be aware of are as follows…

1. You are not a dominant company today if you don’t have a presence online. The world we live in is changing and growing. You must understand that even though your company may make millions of dollars at your facility, you have the potential to double that with an online presence.
2. Your cost to startup up your business online is NOTHING. For those that run their business through a facility, think how much you paid to start that and business and compare that to ZERO.
3. Listen to keynotes by Gary Vaynerchuk to get an even in depth description of why online businesses are the way to go and why anyone can do it!

Frank Angelone is the founder of Social Tech Zone. He provides individuals and businesses the news and tips they need to better interact with social networks and technology.

You have come to the right place. I have been using these 3 simple ways to write articles on any topic I want.

Last week, I gave you tips on how to find article ideas. Maybe you read that article (if you didn’t, do check it out), spent some time brainstorming article ideas and sat in front of computer wondering what to write in the article.

That is exactly why I have written this article. You’ll be able to write content for all the article ideas you have created.

Without any further ado, let me show the 3 simple ways.

1. Videos

This is the best way and I simply can’t stress the importance of this method any better. As far as I know, very few internet marketers use videos to write content.

Here’s how you do it:

Go to Youtube. It has videos on every single topic. Search for the topic you want to write about.

Now go to the videos that appear in the results. Watch more than 3 videos.

Note down all the key points in each video in a paper.

That’s it. Filter the points to three or five best ones and write a post in your own words.

If you are not satisfied with the results you got for a particular search in youtube, search in Google Videos for your keyword. You’ll be amazed at the number of videos that are available for your topic.

2. Article Directories

There are hundreds of article directories out there. When you want to write an article, go to the top 5 directories. I normally go to Ezine Articles, Goarticles, article dashboard, buzzle and article base. Your top 5 may differ and it doesn’t matter as long as you have Ezine Articles in your top 5.

Go to the article directory and search for your keyword.

Note: Not all the articles your find in article directories are good. Some of them are crap. It is better to read many articles and note down the best points that you think your readers would love.

There are articles in these article directories on every niche and you can read them and write an article on your own words.

3. Books

Yes. Books are the best way to learn about anything. By books, I don’t mean e-books. I mean the traditional books.

You can find everything you want to know in these books.

Want to write an article in the health niche? Buy a book from Amazon and read it. Note down all the useful points in the book.

You cannot write everything in the book as it is. You have to do some research on the points you have noted down and write articles based on that.

There are books in every niche you can think about.

The best thing about this method is that, by the time you read 10 or so books in a niche, you will know a lot about that niche. You can create an expert blog or even write ebooks in that niche. So don’t underestimate this method.

A piece of advice: Whatever method you use, don’t use the same content that you heard or read. It is not ethical. That’s the reason why I stressed under each method to write articles in your own words.

By following the above three methods, you can write articles on just about any niche. Have you used any of the above methods to write articles before? Did you find any of the methods useful? Please share your views in the comments.

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Have you ever impulsively jumped on a great new idea to make money only to find that your enthusiasm dwindled after the first week or two? Have you started a hobby that a friend got you fired up about, dropping a big investment to get started, but soon after you completely lost interest?

In order for an activity or goal to sustain itself long enough to be successful through life’s ups and downs, there must be meaning or a passion behind it. This love of your work, relationship, hobby or practice is the glue that will keep you cherishing your wins and picking yourself up after your losses as you progress on your path toward success. When an activity or goal has meaning to you, you are more likely to give your heart and soul to this cause, making sure that you stay focused, labor over every detail, and absorb yourself in every moment. When you spend time on efforts that really matter to you, it’s much more probable that you’ll make the commitment that’s necessary to build a lasting entity.

Millions of people desire to leave the confines of the corporate world to start their own business. Even though they fantasize about the idea of freedom, they become paralyzed with fear at the thought of leaving a safe, secure job. I talk to people all day that tell me they are feeling empty as if something is missing in their daily lives. They spend three quarters of their lives at a job void of soul and passion. Their creativity and drive are buried so deep within them they feel numb and shut down. The status quo, title and a paycheck are not enough anymore. They have upped the ante. They now want to be inspired and fulfilled with purpose in their home and work life.

Then there are those who have taken the haphazard plunge into a business that they are not passionate about, and find themselves feeling like they have fallen into the drudge of yet another boring job. What was once their mission becomes their biggest nightmare. After a few years of being disillusioned they opt to throw in the towel. This does not need to happen!

When the purpose of your business matters to you on a deeper level, your efforts will endure. And when you reach your meaningful goals, success will feel like a shining glory. When you have built something you can be proud of, something you are completely passionate about, the satisfaction is not only in the outcome, it’s in the day-to-day process. If you’re only working toward the destination and not reveling in the journey, you miss out on the abundance of life. When you are only focused on the goal , you may find yourself thinking, “Is that all there is?” while feeling empty, sad and bored, and once again, unfulfilled.

What’s the difference between those entrepreneurs who are optimistic and moving forward and those who are just getting by? I believe that much of it has to do with how you view the glass – half full or half empty. George Sheehan (author, track star, cardiologist), once said, “Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be.” People with a positive outlook and a life plan don’t get off the track when things change – they just change tracks.

As a life and business strategist, I spend a great deal of time helping clients tap into their passions, and then guiding them to create a business that reflects their inner purpose and dreams. Particularly in this economy, if you are a business owner that is having some slower weeks or months, it is crucial that you stay connected to your mission and why you started the business in the first place. If the business is only about making money, there is not much heart or soul to draw from to get you through.

Here are a few tips to feeding the soul in yourself and your business.

• Surround yourself with inspiring and motivating people. You may find that your usual crew begins to lean toward the negative side of life when times get tougher. Seek out those people who are supportive of your goals. Join groups or seek counseling to keep you motivated and accountable.
• Be Easy on yourself. Change and transformation can bring up all sorts of good, bad and ugly stuff. When you feel yourself struggling, take a break. When you have small successes, give yourself kudos for all your hard work and continue to move on toward your bigger visions and dreams.
• Start now. You don’t want to look back in ten years and realize that you’re still at the same place in your life then as now. Even if you love your life now, growth is a necessary part of your evolvement on this planet. Every single day of your life is precious. Embrace it, and those you love, to the fullest.

Once you finally connect with something that has meaning to you, and your internal passion regarding this is accessed and utilized, your once deadened perception and reality will be pumped with new and energized life blood. I call this your Secret Spark, a perfect mix of meaning and passion that enlivens your life purpose and gives you the drive and stick-to-it-ness to make things happen. When you discover the soul in your business, your work will become stimulating and fun, and you’ll be immersed in your satisfying activity and lose track of time.

Dreams are gifts of the soul.
We need to make every effort
to cherish them, to live them.
Otherwise they only surface in our sleep.
A soulful life is an awakening
and actualizing of our
deepest dreams within.

~Allison Maslan

Allison Maslan, HHP, CCH has been an entrepreneur for the past 25 years and has a vibrant array of nine successful businesses to her credit. She is an author, life and business strategist, homeopathic physician and international speaker. Her book, Blast Off! The Surefire Success Plan To Launch Your Dreams Into Reality launches on January 19 2010.

You are not alone. I have been in that situation many times in my early freelance writing career. Instead of getting depressed, I tried to find ways to come up with article ideas. I learned many ways to brainstorm article ideas by practice. I also read many blogs and got few tips.

Now I’m going to share the 3 best ways with you.

1. Books

I come up with tons of ideas by reading books. I’ll show you how to do it and will also give you an example for it.

When I say books, it doesn’t mean you have to read books related to your niche. You can read any book. I can brainstorm article ideas for the make money online niche by reading health books.

First read the book and write down the key points. You can group the points into categories. Once you have the categories written, try to relate the category to your niche.

Example: Last month I read a book on getting abs (yeah). Whether it helped me to get abs or not, it did help me coming up with article ideas. I had an idea for an article just by reading the introduction.

When I read the introduction, the author of the book stressed on how hard it is to get abs but once you put in work, you can achieve it.

I came up with: “7 Reasons Why Making Money Online Is Like Getting Stripped Abs”

You can come up with many when you read a whole book.

2. Free Wordtracker Keyword Question Tool

This tool is a goldmine. It is completely FREE and I can’t believe many people are not using it.

Go to the keyword question tool (different from the normal wordtracker keyword tool). Type a keyword and you’ll get all the questions people are typing in Google.

Are they hot keywords? It should be because people are searching for it. Are there many questions? There are tons of them.

Here’s what you get when you search for “Christmas”

There are more results for that keyword. I couldn’t capture them all. You can find it by doing a search.

I have written a detailed post on 3 ways you can use Wordtracker keyword question tool.

3. Magazines

This method is different from the first one. There are many magazines available in the market. You actually don’t need to buy a magazine.

Go to the magazines’ home page and find the cover of their current and previous issues.

What do you see in the covers? A cool looking graphic? Yes. But that’s not what we want.

What else do you see? Do you see the headlines of the best stories you’ll find inside the magazine? That’s what you want.

Let me show you an example

I found this headline in Cosmo magazine.

What 81% of Men Expect on a First Date (You’ll be Pleasantly Surprised)

Now I can change this headline to come up with a post for copywriting.

What 81% of Your Customers Expect When Reading Your Sales Page

Sounds cool? You can find thousands of headlines that can be reworked for your niche.

If you follow the above three methods to come up with an article idea, I’m quite sure you’ll never face writer’s block.

Please share your opinion and how you brainstorm article ideas in the comments.

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You don’t have to do it anymore. You can get responsive followers without following hundreds everyday by using the simple tips I’m going to tell you in this post. The best part is that you can do it for free. But don’t let the word free to fool you.

In order to follow these steps, you don’t need:

1. Money

2. Softwares that cost $97+

Here’s what you need to have:

1. Time (Not a lot)

2. Some knowledge in your niche (which you probably already have)

That’s it.

What about the results? Here are some of the benefits:

1. Followers who don’t mind whether you are following them or not but they will follow you

2. People who are interested in what you share and see you as an expert

3. Followers who actually check out the links you tweet and buy stuff you sell

Without any further ado, let me take you through the simple tips I use to get responsive followers:

1. Post Tips of Value

Whatever niche you are in, tweet tips that people will be interested in. Are you in the weight loss niche? Great. Tweet tips on how people can lose weight fast. You are in the make money online niche? Cool. Share your ideas on how to build a list or get traffic or just about anything related to make money online. You don’t have to think much. You would have written articles or ebooks. Post something from them.

When you tweet tips, your followers will often retweet your message. So their followers will see your tweet and if they are interested, they will follow you.

By doing this, you are also showing yourself as an expert in your niche. Once you give information and build trust, it will become easy to sell whatever you want.

2. Use Twitter Search And Answer Questions

Find keywords in your niche and search twitter for those keywords. If you are using a twitter client, you can create a column for your search keywords. Whenever you find a question, you can hit the reply button and reply to the person who has asked the question. Its as simple as that.

Let me give you an example. Say you are in the dog niche, you can use a keyword like ’stop dog’. This will provide you results with those two words. You will find people asking questions like “how to stop my dog from barking at my neighbors?”. You are an expert in the dog niche, right? Why not help them with a tip?

You can do that in just about any niche. The people whom you have answered will be happy for the help you just provided and will follow you. When they follow you, they will see that you are always tweeting useful tips (see number 1). So they’ll trust you a lot more and buy from you.

3. Retweet Others Often

This is something you might already know. But I don’t see many people doing it. You have to retweet others. Give and you shall receive. Retweet others and you will be retweeted. When you are retweeted, you will be followed by the followers of the people who retweeted you.

When you are doing the number 1 item in this list (posting useful tips), you will often be retweeted. The number of times you get retweeted will increase tremendously if you retweet others.

A piece of advice: Don’t retweet for the sake of it. Only retweet stuff you like. It is just like forwarding a mail. You forward only the ones you like. Its the same with twitter. Retweet what interests you. Chances are your followers will also like it.

So don’t let anything stop you. Start implementing these three tips right now and see your followers grow. You won’t get hundreds of followers everyday but as I said in my previous post, quality matters more than quantity.

Please share your opinion in the comments.

Get the #1 best-selling book eMillions: Behind-The-Scenes Stories of 14 Successful Internet Millionaires for just $13.57 on Amazon