I just wanted to let you all know about a great program that I have just signed up with. It is called My Homepage Friends, and they pay you to search the internet. Now it’s not one of those programs where you have to doa heap of fake searches, or stay on a website for at least 3o seconds. All I do is use the yahoo search box as I would normally search google.

In two days, I have already made 43 pence, which would be worth over $1 in Australia. That is just just over 3o seaches - which is just how I normally search - searching for things and websites that I needed. My Homepage Friends is so simple and easy that you will be wondering why you didn’t sign up earlier.

I was a little worried that people woundn’t get paid, but those fears were quenched when I read of a popular forum all the people who had been paid - most multiple times. This was a real encouragement and  so I decided to test it out - and I am not regretting it. You should try it too. Get paid to search the internet with My Homepage Friends today!

How Would you like to be abel to get a heap of quality ebooks on subjects such as:

• Blogging
• List Building
• Search Engine Optimisation
• Make Money Online
• Traffic Building
• Other Must Read Ebooks

Well now you can!

I have complied a list of free money making ebooks (over 80 currently). all free, however some do require email addresses.

You can view the list here:

FREE MONEY MAKING EBOOKS 

I really hope that you are able to save yourself a heap of money that you can put into actually making money online! If I have missed your ebook, or you know of one that I have forgotten. Let me know, and I will make sure that it is added to the list.

I have just gone through the process of chosing the niche for my next BANS store, and I thought I would share with you my process of choosing a niche to help others. (feel free to critique my process)

1. Go to Ebay and find an interesting category.

I like to look for ones that have expensive products, that people would be interested in checking out even if they are not interested in buying. So I went straight for the collectables section.

2. Choose a Category You Like

After looking through the collectables, one kind of jumped out at me.

Fossils - I thought this was an interesting topic so I clicked on it to view the products and sorted it by most expensive first, and found out there are a couple of fossils for in the low $XX,XXX.

So I had found a niche of interest, but was there enough people interested in the topic?

3. Check Search Engine Stats

I like to use the SEO Book Tool because it gives indepth info on both google and yahoo search results.

What I did was type “Fossils” into the search box, and see what came up. there are a few key phrases that are getting a lot of traffic, but they would also probably have a lot of competition for keyword results. Plus I needed just the right keyword.

A little way down the page I noticed “Fossils For Sale”

It was getting about 3,500 searches a month, which is quite good, and fitted my future BANS store perfectly.

4. Check Your Competition

Do a google search for your chosen key phrase, try with and with out paranthesis. If your search results in over a couple of 1,000,000 results you know that your niche is to broad, so go back to step 3 and look for a less competitive keyword (but make sure it is still getting traffic).

“Fossils for Sale” has 1,420,000

This is still a fair bit of competition, but I am willing to give this a shot, but only if I can get the right domain.

5. Buy Your Key Phrase As Your Domain

Go to your preferred domain registrar, and type your keyword into their search box. Don’t fret if the .com is taken, it doesn’t make too much of a difference, and the .info is much cheaper anyway ($2.99 with Godaddy).

www.fossilsforsale.com was taken, but www.fossilsforsale.info was available - so I snapped it up.

This is the process I go through to pick a quality niche, I hope it is a help to you.

I know I have been plugging the benefits of report writing for a while now, but I have never actually done it before - so to be honest I have no credibility on the subject!

But that is about to change, I am currently about to go into lock down to write a small 15-20 page report for my acne blog. The report will be free - I know I talked about selling them for $7-10 each, but this is about list building and brand awareness, not money at this point in time.

So Here Is My Strategy:

1. I Focused On My Strengths - I havn’t cured my acne so I cannot promote a so called miracle cure. What I have focused on is what I know that doesn’t work - some of the myths.

2. Topic Sure To Attract Attention - I will keep this under wraps until I launch it (you never know who is reading this blog :P)

3. Written In A Conversational Tone - There is nothing worse than a ebook report that is written like a text book. This will be very easy to read, and only take 10-20min to read.
The Free report will be targetted at long term acne sufferers. This is my main target market, because :

1. They will be long term readers

2. They are the most desperate to try new products as they just want to get rid of their acne.
Will be interesting to see how it turns out, I will be getting a professionally designed ebook cover done - and hopefully I can build a decent opt-in list, and traffic to my new blog.

Over the last couple of days my work future has become a little uncertain.

My boss is looking at selling his current franchise to more onto something else, and to be quite honest if he does, then I won’t want to stay - and if he asks me to go with him, I don’t think I will.

I feel like a change, but I am not sure how to handle it.

In all honestly I would love to focus on internet marketing full time. But at the moment I don’t have the results to back myself up when it comes to explaining to my parents that I want to be a full-time internet marketer.

So over the next couple of months I really need to bump up my online workload to build my online ventures to a level that I can live off.

I don’t need anything flash, I live at home and am pretty frugal when it comes to spending money, but I want to be making some money before I finish up my current job.

And in all honestly, I really don’t want another job. I hate the idea of working for someone else, and will ever be truly happy while I am.

So keep watching this space as I use this as a motivation to take things up a notch. And if you havn’t already subscribed to my rss feed than now is the time - you will not want to miss the next couple of months of my online journey.

“Wow… thats a bold statment to be throwing around” you may say.

True, but let me explain.
I logged onto DealDotCom today, and noticed the product was Keyword Elite. Keyword Elite is a product that I have been looking at purchasing for a while to use with my PPC campaigns, but at $176.00 I just wasn’t ready to purchase.

So when I saw it today, I thought “you beauty” I mean at $129.00 it is still expensive, but it saves me $50 (any kind of saving is good right?)

But then a thought hit me.

What is the affiliate payout on clickbank for the product?

So I went on over to the Clickbank market place and found Keyword Elite, and do you know what the pay out was?

50% per affiliate sale!

That means that DealDotCom in theory could just be using a clickbank affilate link, to purchase Keyword Elite through and reselling it at a $30 profit! It makes me wonder whether they are even cutting deals with the product owners.

I might just have to purchase the product through my own Clickbank hoplink, and keep the $30 for myself.

I woke up this morning expect my five latest articles to be accepted and taking me one step closer to an upgraded account. I have already had 14 articles accepted by EzA and was expecting to see the number jump to 19 when I logged in.

But what I found was a totally different story.

I got one email saying that one of my articles had been rejected due to an affiliate link. Which is just stupid as I have used one of my own domains in all my articles which is then forwarded to an affiliate link, in accordance to their terms and conditions.

I don’t understand how 14 articles with a link to the same domain get accepted and 1 doesn’t? How does this work?

So I logged onto my EzA account, hoping it would be an easy fix and got another shock.

My account had been suspended because of “An invalid email address on file”

Obviously my hosting provider was down for the couple of minutes that they checked two of my articles, because they reported invalid links, and then they tried to email me and my email bounced.

I mean apply some logic, I have received 28 emails to that email, 1 each time it write the article and 1 each time it is accepted. None of them bounced back! Wouldn’t you first check back at how the submitter had 14 articles accepted and no emails bounced back - promoting the same domain, and think “maybe they are having some hosting problems”. I mean this is the first thing I would think of.

Why suspend an account, when you can just put the articles on hold, and ask for an explanation? I think there are some EzA reviewers that are picking at little things to the “Nth” degree.

Sorry about the rant, but it has really got me frustrated, I have just started to get something happening, with:
125 Views
2 Affiliate Sales
$56.56 Profit
in just 4 days

And now I have to wait at least a day for my account to get reinstated.

I have pretty much had a whole week of blogging, and having that time off gave me a bit of time to think about things. One of the things I did stop and think about was:

Why do I Blog?

Is it for money or fame? What was the main reason I was actually blogging for. I came up with 3 main reason why I personally blog.

1. Networking - In the early stages of blogging I started to notice the great potential for networking through blogging. There was the opportunity to network with:
   

   • My Readers
   • Other Bloggers - I have been able to build relationships with a couple of bloggers that I have been able to learn so much from, which I never would have been able to learn if I had not started this blog.

2. Authority - I guess this could also be called “creating a brand”. But there is authority that comes with a blog. If you can provide quality information on a specific topic, you start to become known around the blogging circles as an expert in the field.

   I am currently planning a few niche’s that I will be focusing on shortly with my blog, trying to do this very thing. By becoming an expert in something it allows you to start creating products, and recommending products in that niche - and people will buy because of your position ( so don’t abuse their trust)

3. Money - I put this third on the list because I believe it will follow if you are able to do the first 2 points. If you are networking with other bloggers and building a community around your blog, and also becoming an expert in your field that bloggers start to associate you with a certain way to ‘make money online’ for example - then the money will follow.

That is why I blog. I’d love to hear why you blog. So why not drop me a comment

Ok that could be a little bit harsh.

But I am getting really sick of reading sales letters where it shows every single internet marketer  sitting in a lamborghini, and photos of a mansion that would cost millions of dollars.

Maybe they do own a lamborghini and live in a mansion that is fully paid off - then good on them.

But I find it hard to believe that every second internet marketer is making an absolute killing online - but don’t feel the need to show some proof.

Internet Marketing is all about hype!

How do you feel about that statement? I mean if you can get their emotions you can make the sale right? I think it is one of the lowest forms of marketing - think about a few of thoughts for a second…

• If they were that rich from the work they have done that they talk about in their ebook - why do they need to even write an ebook?
   
• If their product was as good as they say it is - do they really need to convince you to buy it? Why not let your customers, and testimonials and product benefits win them over!

Sure they may say things like:

• Now I have learnt, I feel the need to educate others. Sure this may be true for a select few. But for the majority it is about the money (most likely because they are not as successful as they make themselves out to be)
• Hype Sells, people need to be sold to. As I said above, if the product is as good as they make it out to be, the hype about how rich you are should not be needed.

So why the sudden rant?

I am in the process of helping a client launch her first ebook (it is my first as well), and I have been doing quite a lot of market research. Checking out almost every single clickbank product, looking at their website and sales letter, and comparing it to their success.

And I have come to the conclusion that all the gloating about how much money you are making and the flashy cars that you drive don’t really have an impact on the success of your marketing campaign.

Hopefully I can take what I have learnt, and turn my clients product into a success!

Who said it was hard to make money online?

I have been reading a lot about ebooks and more importantly writing ebooks for profit, but the thing that kept stopping me was the fact that I did not have the time or patience to write a 60-100 page report on a single topic.

But I have noticed a growing trend towards the purchase of much shorter reports. 1-15 page ebooks that provide a short blast of information on a subject - and they are selling for $7-10.

Now I am just thinking out aloud here, as I have not tested this yet - although I definitely will be! But If you wrote 2 10-15 page reports a month - that is less than one page a day, one blog post, one article (I’m start starting to sound like one of those marketers that validate their high prices by saying ‘for less than the price of a cup of coffee a day you can…)

Think about it, if you blog every day, you would easily be able to produce two reports a month, and if you sold 50 of each report for $10 each there is your $1,000! Simple right?

also think of the potential, if you make the reports into a series, once you have created 6 or 7 of them what is wrong with packaging them into a complete ebook, or package? Plus you will already have a long list of testimonials!

You must be thinking there has to be a catch, it cannot be this simple - and you are right. There is one thing that you absolutely must do to make sure you reports are a success, and that is to make sure you are writing the report on an in-demand topic. You need to have people wanting to find out about what you are writing.

A few places you can look to find out what topics are hot are:
2. Clickbank Marketplace. Go to your preferred topic and look at the top results. Maybe you could make a similar abridged version?

2. Forums. Join forums in your area of interest and find out what people are talking about. If there is a topic that generates a lot of interest and maybe some signs of misunderstanding, you may have found your first report topic.

3. Article directories.Look at their most view articles, as the readers of these articles are you potential customers. Make sure there are a lot of them!4. Yahoo Buzz. This website is great to find out what people are talking about.