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Making Money by Giving Away an E-Book

September 29, 2008 By 3 Comments

It may seem counter-intuitive, but one of the best marketing tactics out there is actually to give your hard earned work away.  This makes more sense once you look at all of internet marketing, by blogging I am giving away my knowledge free of charge in hopes that people buy stuff from my 7 advertising blocks, and with an ebook the story is much the same.

Giving away an ebook works great for three main reasons, the most important of which is that it can be used to gain opt-in subscribers.  The next most important is that it can also be used as a tool to gain a few affiliate sales, when I write an ebook I typically inject in a few affiliate links so I can make a couple bucks off it.  Lastly, I use ebooks as a way to show others that I am an authority within my own niche, which happens to be internet marketing (probably the best niche to write ebooks for).  Due to this combination of factors, writing ebooks is extremely profitable especially when done correctly.

So why exactly do I need to give away an ebook in order to see these benefits?  Well, you don’t necessarily, I have my own ClickBank ebook (you can see the advertisement for “The Seven Day Millionaire” to your right), but that doesn’t stop me from writing less in-depth ebooks to give out as well.  The main reason for giving it away is quite simply because you will make more money as a result of people reading your content then you would if you were to sell your product.  When I write a 10 page ebook, I am mostly trying to get people to join an automated follow-up series of emails with an occassional broadcast tossed in.

If you read my recent post about how “the money is in the list” you would be aware that there is a great deal

Blogging 101

of money to be made by gaining opt-in subscribers through an autoresponder such as Aweber.  I have done it in the past with other websites, and the reason why I have decided to write this post is that I am at it again.  This time I have started writing an ebook on creating a blog, from the web hosting aspects to gaining traffic and links and monetizing it correctly.  The tentative title is “Blogging 101: Traffic and Link Development Tips”, for which I spent a couple minutes throwing together a quick image in Photoshop (I’m not an artist, but it works well enough for me).  I am hoping to finish writing it within 2 weeks and make it easily accessible from this website.

Actually creating an ebook is quite easy (excluding the content), I would recommend downloading Open Office and simply writing out your content in their equivalent to Microsoft Word.  In my opinion, Open Office Writer is a superior product to Word, and another great thing about it is that it allows you to convert your documents into a .PDF format with a click of a button, rather than paying a couple hundred dollars to do so with Adobe Professional.  Another Adobe product, Photoshop, is more or less essential for creating the graphics unless you want to pay out a good deal of money to a designer or for over priced software.  A little graphics skills will allow you to make a decent looking ebook relatively quickly.

As for the format of the ebook, I typically follow the format below:

  • Title
  • License (in which I allow people to redistribute my book, but not to modify it)
  • Table of Contents
  • Content
  • Resource Section (important as this is how you make money off affiliate links)

Once you take these steps, simply stick your new ebook up on a couple forums in your signatures, threads, etc. as well as putting it prominently on your blog and you are all set to make money while increasing your reputation.  Go get them you esteemed author, you!

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How to Use Article Marketing for Traffic and Links

September 28, 2008 By 8 Comments

One thing that many people pass over because they don’t wish to spend the time is article marketing.  In my opinion skipping this tactic is quite ridiculous, especially for bloggers.  As a blogger, I typically write in article format as it is, making it quite easy to convert them into an article format for distribution.  I am not alone, almost all blog posts can be used as an article to be submitted to article directories so bloggers are missing out on an additional set of eyes and links when they do not submit their content.

If you plan to simply copy and paste articles from your blog into article directories, I would take into consideration the “duplicate content” filter that Google uses to penalize sites for copying content (supposedly), by making sure that a site:http://www.yourdomain.com actually shows the blog posts before you submit them to major directories, because once they go to something like EzineArticles they will quickly get scooped up by Google’s crawler.  I would also highly suggest that if you write a lot of link bait like I do, that you spend a few minutes dressing it up so that it looks nice in the article.  When I write, I typically write posts such as “23 link building tactics”, which would not look right without the <li> tags.

Why should you integrate article marketing into your overall marketing techniques?

  • Highly targeted traffic, equivalent quality to that of a PPC campaign
  • Increase name recognition; always a good thing to be recognized as an expert in your field
  • Great way to increase the number of incoming links, a properly distributed article should be on 700-800 websites each with a link back to your site.
  • It can actually be fun, don’t make it into a chore and it won’t be.  If you don’t enjoy what you are doing now though you are in the wrong business anyway.
  • Great source of opt-in subscribers to your mailing list so that you can later monetize that traffic.
  • Good way to push affiliate sales if you do it right, since affiliate links are typically not allowed.

So now you want to know how you actually get these waves of traffic, backlinks, fame, and fortune all for free!.  That is understandable, so I will give it to you straight.  I typically follow a multiple step process to get my article to the masses.

Step one should be pretty obvious, pick a topic, research it, and then write the article.

Step two is to submit it to major article directories (EzineArticles, iSnare, GoArticles, Article Dashboard) either manually or with some help from automation.  Typically, I will submit them using a program called Instant Article Submitter to about 70 article directories (although it has a capacity near 600), and then I will use iSnare’s distribution service ($2/article) to get the word out to thousands of webmasters.  Using this method, I typically get around 800 backlinks from a single article.

Step 3 is the most important aspect in my opinion that people often miss.  Obviously the most important part is getting it out to enough directories and writing a high quality article that people want to link to, which is why I didn’t mention that part.  The less obvious par,t is that you should also do a little work to increase the traffic to the various article directories that you submit to.  I will go through and do some social bookmarking on each of the articles for a few of the directories that I submit to, typically I make sure to at least do it for iSnare and EzineArticles as these give me the best quality traffic/opt-ins.

Step 4 is the most fun, do a google search encompassing a unique sentence from your article, such as “and then the 20083 tigers in Alaska went extinct due to hypothermia”, by putting it all in quotes Google will only search for that exact term.  As a result, the number of sites that show as indexed represents the overall reach of your article (in terms of Google anyway).  The more sites indexed, the more backlinks to your website and the better off you are.

And that’s really all there is to know, just make sure that you properly distribute your articles and have an overall marketing strategy before embarking on an article writing binge.  I typically either try aim for RSS subscribers, opt-in subscribers, or affiliate commissions as the traffic coming from articles is typically very high quality.  On that note, feel free to add this blog to your RSS feed :)

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23 Link Building and Traffic Driving Tactics for Blogs

September 22, 2008 By 20 Comments

I am constantly seeing posts on various webmaster and marketing forums asking how to drive traffic or gain backlinks for a blog.  I find it funny since blogging in my opinion opens so many different doors that would otherwise be closed.  The social media, blogging community, marketing community, and many more are willing to be return visitors to your blog if you do it correctly.  This blog has only a couple posts so far, starting less than a week ago, yet I have already gotten around 1500 backlinks and well over 1k unique visitors.  It isn’t that hard, simply write good content and then find people that are interested in what you have to say and you’ll be on your way to blogging success.

One main point first is that the focus should always be on the content before worrying about how you market it, get links to it, etc.  If your content sucks, nobody will care about what you have to say, what you are promoting, or what you do in the future.  The better your content, the less leg work you have to put in yourself in getting visitors.

Ways to build links and drive traffic to your blog:

  1. Create link bait, people love “Top 10″ lists, quirky fact and cultural phenomenon, breaking industry news, etc.  Good content is also good link bait!
  2. Use social media such as Twitter, MyBlogLog, Facebook, etc. to your advantage.  Do not abuse the system, just use it as it is designed while marketing yourself.
  3. Relevant link exchanges with sites within your niche, especially blogroll trades for bloggers as it is seen on every page.
  4. Comment on DoFollow blogs *cough*  You won’t have to look far!  If you use your imagination, you might find a PR 7 blog that is very lightly moderated fully dofollow and millions of visits a month, I’ll tell you the answer in 43 days.  Type in “dofollow blog search engine” in Google and you will find quite a few nice tools.
  5. Submit your blog to blog directories and blog aggregating websites such as Technorati (Remember to favorite this post!) ;)
  6. Submit your blog to good old fashion link directories (yes, they do still work for links, and no, they don’t work as well as 5 years ago).
  7. Use social bookmarking websites such as StumbleUpon, Digg, Mixx, Sphinn, etc. to bring in big traffic and decent backlinks as many bloggers frequent these sites in search of content to link to.
  8. Link to other websites!  You would be surprised how many people check who is linking to them, and might give them a favorable mention later on.  I have found random people linking to me in my Yahoo Site Explorer backlinks before that I have decided to link to for the hell of it.
  9. Create articles and submit them to article directories such as Ezine Articles, Article Dashboard, iSnare, etc.
  10. Yahoo! Answers, this is a great way to get some visitors to your site as long as you don’t overtly spam them, the links are nofollow but a steady traffic flow is good for the health of any site.
  11. Start a contest and post it on popular forums and contest websites, this is a great way to get some interested visitors.  Make them work for it a little with comment contests, traffic contests, something creative.
  12. Create a WordPress theme and distribute it for free, if this doesn’t work pay somebody else to get a Sponser link stuck in the footer.
  13. Create a WordPress plugin that makes life easier for everyone (akismet anyone?).
  14. Find “Top Commentator” enabled blogs that will give you sitewide links for quality comments, and decent traffic from my experience.  ShoeMoney has this enabled, but this doesn’t mean you should go spam up his blog.
  15. Be a guest blogger on another blog, many people will be willing to allow other authors to share new insights in exchange for a couple links back to your site.
  16. Create a press release and distribute it to various PR sites, only do this if you have something that is actually news worthy but if played right it will work great.
  17. Keep your blog up to date!  By having an up to date blog it will make people far more likely to link to your site, and Google will love you for it.
  18. Create a Squidoo lens to build links and generate traffic (and hopefully earn some cash along the way).
  19. Use forums to boost your “expert” status while gaining quite a few backlinks, there are countless dofollow forums out there.
  20. Be creative, piss off a major industry expert such as ShoeMoney or John Chow to get them riled up, or sue a major corporation.
  21. Get your readers to participate in your site’s expansion, encourage them to use social media and to tell friends and family.  If your content is good enough, this will happen automatically!
  22. Create a good freebie such as an ebook to generate traffic, it will bring in people and if you do it right it will make them stick too.
  23. Flattery will get you everywhere, if you butter up some webmasters they will give you a link.  It never hurts to try….and no it won’t work with me :)

And now you are well on your way towards building links and gaining huge traffic for your blog.  Be creative, don’t be annoying and don’t go down to the level of spamming and you will be in a great position.  It is all about building long term visitors, traffic, links, and getting the word out.

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Using Squidoo to Build Links and Make Money Online.

September 21, 2008 By 6 Comments

One of my favorite ways to build backlinks, increase traffic to my sites, and make money online is using Squidoo.  I’m sure most of you know what Squidoo is, but for the rest of the world, Squidoo is a social networking/content publishing platform that allows you to create “lenses” on whatever topic you would like to talk about.  It provides an easy to use template where you literally jsut say what you need to and add whatever modules you would like, therefore no computer savvy is really needed except for the simple <a href><a> to make the links.  As a result, many people that don’t want to take the effort to set up a self hosted blog or website have a way to get their thoughts out, which is great because that is really what the internet is for anyway; CERN (yes, the lab in Geneva) created the “world wide web” in ’93 as a free platform to spread information so it works as a great analogy.

Squidoo is 100% free to use, in fact they actually pay you to use it.  The company is the creation of the guru internet marketer Seth Godin.  It is set up as a co-op, meaning that all profits made are split between the company, the users, and charity organizations.  50% of the profits from Google AdSense ads automatically generated on the pages is sent directly to the lensmasters, 5% goes to various charity organizations (the lensmasters can also opt to donate their proceeds), and 45% goes to the company.   The amount of money that a lens earns is determined by a ranking algorithm to divide up the AdSense earnings.  Money can also be earned via modules such as Ebay, Amazon, or others which each pay on the same scale based on the commission Squidoo earns except for these sales there is no ranking algorithm, just directly attributable sales as if it were your own affiliate link.

The main reason why I use Squidoo is not because of the AdSense/module earnings, but for 3rd party affiliate sales.  I have a couple of Squidoo lenses that pump out a couple thousand dollars a year in affiliate commissions.  The beauty of Squidoo is that it is nearly effortless to create a lens, I have one lens that has made me $1500 in the past 6 months and it took me 7 minutes to create it.  The internal linking system makes it so that all of the Squidoo pages typically have a high page rank, and as a result they are weighted highly in Google.  This means with minimal effort, you can have a high PR web page that is sharing profits that can dominate the search results for some keywords.  Using this PR, you can then build relevant high quality backlinks to your own site and drive traffic or just directly drive affiliate sales.  There is also a great community within Squidoo, and this makes it an ideal place for marketers or average joes to go to make a buck, build backlinks, or raise funds for charity.

If you would like to see my Squidoo lenses check out my bio page, Lensmaster Page.  If you would like to sign up and start building links and earning money from Squidoo you can Sign Up Here.

***My RSS feed is now working, sorry about that guys.  I saw a couple people signed up for feeds but then when I checked Feedburner it was empty, apparantly feedburner doesn’t play nice with WP Super Cache so I had to play around with the caching a bit.  Should work great now, I would appreciate it if somebody tests it out for me :)

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The Importance of DoFollow Blogs

September 16, 2008 By 9 Comments

Well, this is my first “real” post on this blog so I figured it would be suiting to talk about the rationale behind it. The invention of the “rel=nofollow” tag was a huge set back for many in the SEO world while also easing pains on those within the blogging community. This tag makes it so that the major search engines do not recognize links within a given page as passing any link power. In effect, this makes it so that most spammers do not see a value in spamming, this is the theory anyway.

The problem behind this theory, is that the real hardcore automated spammers out there will still continue to do so, they are just now hoping either for traffic or to hit a few of the “dofollow” blogs. Think of it this way, if you were to have a comment on every single blog post on the internet, would you really care whether or not the search engines are looking at it? The traffic from this would be absolutely massive and it would have to make others take notice and link to your site anyway. The creator of WordPress himself says that the nofollow tag is not the solution to blog spam as it helped short term but then others continued anyway.

As a link builder, it is essential to seek out dofollow blogs and keep tabs on them so that you can wring out some of those all important do follow links (and blogs are viewed very highly in the eyes of a search engine). This explains the recent popularity of “dofollow blog search engines”

What is the solution? In my opinion a combination of software, social responsibility, and personal responsibility. If you haven’t noticed, this blog is “dofollow”, I have installed the Lucia’s Linky Love plugin which rewards those that continue to come back to my site and post. I feel that the way to reduce the amount of spam you deal with should be handled mostly by society and software that you use to weed through blatant spam attempts. This is done by showing your readers that unless you have reasonable comments, they will be deleted. If people look at the comments and they are all well thought out responses that took a minute or two to write, others will follow suit. As a reward for this, those that return and post several times will see that their links become regular links without the nofollow tag and those that truly take the time to contribute should be added to your blog roll.

In closing, making your blog do follow can be a blessing as it will increase traffic and the comments will pour in and as long as you tightly regulate the comments coming in, it will set the right example for future visitors/commentators. Feel free to comment below, and read my comment policy first ;)

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