Updated Version of Problogger is NOW Available

Yes it is true. You can make 6 Figures with your blogging! Here is one of my inspirations. Grab a copy of his updated book by clicking on the picture above.

Sometimes when I get a wee bit slowed down in my blogging I remember that you really can monitize your blogging efforts. As a matter of fact the widget you see in this post is a direct link to the 34% discount you will get by ordering on Amazon. And I will get a small yet true percentage of every sale I make. (4.00%)
Now some of you are saying,” Ha, you certainly can’t make much for your pension that way,”
But it’s like saving pennies, it all adds up.
So grab a copy today and read along with me.
That’s all I am going to say because I am going to get over there and grab my copy.

What Type of Membership Site Should You Create?-Video

Are you thinking about creating a membership site but unsure of the type you want?

Well, I am struggling with this same issue. I have some ideas , have the software but still fine tuning the types of sites I will create. It is also a bit scary but so was blogging.

So, if you are struggling with the type of membership site you want to create check out this video.

Google Page Rank, Alexa and Textlink Ads Communication Error

Recently I sent an email to a fellow boomer blogger and raved about their Google Page Rank, Alexa rank and suggested using Textlink Ads. I got an email back saying thanks but it was all gooogly gook.

Shame  on me, Ms. Communication Expert, Trainer, Presentation skills expert and baby boomer to do something so stupid.

So,  to all my readers I now ask for your forgiveness when I have just threw out terms without defining them.

So, I would like to begin by defining the terms Google Page Rank, Alexa Rank and TextLink Ads. I promise to make this painless.

Google Page Rank:

Google gives a numeric value from 0-10 for each webpage on the Internet. This rank tells you how important Google thinks your site is to them. This numeric value is complicated and you math genius should explore this in more depth.
Now, I have downloaded a free page rank tool and placed it on my tool bar. Hence, whenever I am at a site I can see what rank it has according to Google. If you want to place one on your tool bar you can by just putting the term “Google Page Rank Toolbar” into ____(You are correct, place it into Google.)
If you don’t want to put the tool bar on your site there are sites that will allow you to key in the url and get the page rank for any site.

Alexa Rank

 According to Wikipedia, Alexa ranks sites based on tracking information of users of its Alexa Toolbar for Internet Explorer and from integrated sidebars in Mozilla and Netscape.

They went through a complete overhaul in March of this year(2009) and added some really cool features. For example,  you can go do a review of a site and then post it directly on your Facebook page.  Go give it a try while you see what rank they have given your site.

With Alexa you want the lowest rank you can get. But, note that they have big time competitors. There are other companies that rank your site also like  Adgooroo-really great if your are a search marketer doing serious affiliate marketing, plus more.

 Compete.com-visit and key in  at least 2 other sites to compare with your competition.

 ComScore-Another awesome site for serious search marketers plus more

 Hitwise-All I can say is take the tour!

 Netcraft-Ok I confess I enjoyed keying in sites to see what host they were using. But there is a great about of information on this site and tools you can use.

You can start by visiting each site and learning from their blogs.

Finally, there is Textlinkads. I have their ads on two of my blogs and make money from them. That makes me one of their publishers.

Who are they? Well this is from their About page.

Located in New York City, Text Link Ads is the premier targeted traffic and link popularity ad firm. We specialize in placing static html links on high quality, high traffic web properties. Our clients have seen a dramatic increase in targeted traffic, brand exposure, and organic search engine rankings with our service. We currently work with a wide range of clients from Fortune 500 firms to individual website owners.

I have had a good working relationship with them and they make their payouts to my PayPal account every month.

You can click on the graphic below if you want to get started for yourself.  Was this clear, what did I miss?

Ready to Blog for Bucks ?

Courtesy of The US Mint Store

Courtesy of The US Mint Store

Baby Boomers appreciate good learning just like a coin collector appreciates great coins. With that in mind I wanted to tell you that I just signed up for an upcoming session on making money with your blogging. Now the Instructor, The WordPress Wizard, Cathy Perkins, is simply excellent. But I cannot believe she is sharing  a session like this for only $25.00.

If you notice  I have a picture of a coin collection from the US mint. Why? Because just like coins you purchase can go up in value the training you get from Cathy is worthy of a collection.

But just because the price is low does not mean the value will not be high! You  will get great value and information. I know and have experienced her training.

But, trust me, you will learn a lot. So, go and sign up for this Thursday session on making money with your blog and we can learn together.

15 Jaw Dropping Video Sharing Sites

Videos on your blogs are hot! Google loves them and so do I. I am exploring some of the video sharing sites you can use to host your video. Each one is unique. So, take your time, and study each site.  Some are really young and still need fine tuning so do  not hesitate to share your insights with them.

Try taking a video you already have and placing it on each of the sites below. SOME SHARE REVENUE SO BE CAREFUL YOU MIGHT MAKE MONEY.

1. You Tube

2.  Motion Box

3.  Viddler

4.  Dailymotion

5.  Flixyo

6.  GUBA

7.  Jumpcut

8.  Metacafe

9. Ourmedia

10.  Sharkle

11. Revver

12.  Veoh

13.  Vimeo

14. vSocial

15. Yahoo! Video

Pay Per Click Advertising-Some Insights

Here is an insightful article on Pay Per Click advertising. Many bloggers are do it to provide traffic and increased conversions for their products or services sold on their blogs. I thought it was a clear article that summarizes the Pay Per Click model. 
By: Matthew Meyer
Pay Per Click Advertising: An Effective Way To Promote Your Business Online
 Pay Per Click is a popular advertising technique on the Internet. Found on websites, advertising networks, and especially on search engines, PPC advertising involves sponsored links that are typically in the form of text ads. These are usually placed close to search results, where an advertiser pays a particular amount to visitors who click on these links or banners and land on the advertiser’s web page.

In essence, PPC advertising is all about bidding for the top or leading position on search engine results and listings. Advertisers do this by buying or bidding on keyword phrases that are relevant to their products or services – the higher the bid, the higher the spot on the search results, the more the people will find the ad (and click on it) to go to their websites (this is why some people call it “keyword auctioning”). Advertisers would then pay the bidding price every time a visitor clicks through the website.

PPC advertising is also known under the following names/variations:

Pay per placement
Pay per performance
Pay per ranking
Pay per position
Cost per click (CPC)

PPC advertising is usually done with the following standard procedures:

1. Setting up an account and/or deposit funds.

2. Creating a keyword list.

3. Choosing (and setting up) an account with a PPC search engine.

4. Bidding on the ad placement, including the search result words or phrases.

5. Writing out an ad copy.

6. Setting up the ‘landing pages’ for your ads.

7. Placing the advertisement in the search engine.

There are many benefits to Pay Per Click advertising, making it an effective way of promoting a business ‘online’. Some of them are listed below:

Get launched immediately. PPC advertisements are implemented very quickly – they can go ‘online’ within an hour after winning the bid and paying for it.

Obtain specific, pre-qualified, and quality traffic. PPC provides you with a quality or a well-targeted traffic. Visitors are narrowed down into ‘qualified’ people who are actually looking for specific products and/or services that you offer – those who are more likely to become a ‘lead’ (a convert) and complete a transaction (either by buying your product or subscribing to the service that you are offering.

Widen your reach. PPC advertising provides additional traffic to your site, aside from the natural or “organic” search engines.

Track your investment. PPC advertising makes use of a tracking system that will determine exactly who comes to the website and what they do once they arrive – the length of their stay on the site and the number of pages (including the actual pages) that they view. These are valuable tools in determining statistics such as return on investment (ROI), acquisition cost-per-visitor, and conversion rates (the percentage of visitors who are converted into customers or leads).

Below are some important things to consider when planning on a pay per click campaign:

1. Know your product. Take an inventory of the product and/or services that you have to offer (before anything else).

2. Stay within the budget. Determine your daily or monthly budget; and stay with it. This means keeping your budget in mind, avoiding bidding wars if possible.

3. Bid just right. Know how to bid right – a bid that is too high can exhaust all of your money, while a bid that is too low can make you lose that spot.

4. Watch the bottom line. Measure your profit margin against your spending or expenses. Know when to stop and terminate your PPC program – if you spend more on advertising but have little or no sales at all.

5. Find the right keywords. Decide which keyword phrases to opt and bid for. Do some keyword research, either by actually looking at existing search terms or with the use of online keyword suggestion tools, to know which terms are mostly used when searching for items that are related to your business. Focus on specific keywords, not on general ones.

6. Write effective ads. A good PPC ad is that which can persuade and move a searcher. There are several approaches to this:

Discount offers
Testimonials
Celebrity/famous endorsers
Money-back guarantees
Free trials or sample offers
Freebies
Reverse psychology
Major benefits (“Lose weight”)
Direct instructions (“Click here”)

7. Maintain a professional-looking site. Your web content should be regularly updated and checked for spelling and grammatical errors. There should be no broken links or images. The website should be simple – designed in such a way that it will be easy for visitors to navigate and load. Include contact details to create a good impression among potential customers.

Done properly, PPC advertising can be an effective marketing tool that will maximize the return on your investment.

Matthew Meyer is an internet marketer who manages http://www.thefreeadforum.com where you can post your permanent free advertising to over 50,000 members daily. Click here to visit http://www.thefreeadforum.com

Pay Per Click Advertising: An Effective Way To Promote Your Business Online  – By: Matthew Meyer, 2008-03-02

Pay Per Click is a popular advertising technique on the Internet. Found on websites, advertising networks, and especially on search engines, PPC advertising involves sponsored links that are typically in the form of text ads. These are usually placed close to search results, where an advertiser pays a particular amount to visitors who click on these links or banners and land on the advertiser’s web page.

In essence, PPC advertising is all about bidding for the top or leading position on search engine results and listings. Advertisers do this by buying or bidding on keyword phrases that are relevant to their products or services – the higher the bid, the higher the spot on the search results, the more the people will find the ad (and click on it) to go to their websites (this is why some people call it “keyword auctioning”). Advertisers would then pay the bidding price every time a visitor clicks through the website.

PPC advertising is also known under the following names/variations:

Pay per placement
Pay per performance
Pay per ranking
Pay per position
Cost per click (CPC)

PPC advertising is usually done with the following standard procedures:

1. Setting up an account and/or deposit funds.

2. Creating a keyword list.

3. Choosing (and setting up) an account with a PPC search engine.

4. Bidding on the ad placement, including the search result words or phrases.

5. Writing out an ad copy.

6. Setting up the ‘landing pages’ for your ads.

7. Placing the advertisement in the search engine.

There are many benefits to Pay Per Click advertising, making it an effective way of promoting a business ‘online’. Some of them are listed below:

Get launched immediately. PPC advertisements are implemented very quickly – they can go ‘online’ within an hour after winning the bid and paying for it.

Obtain specific, pre-qualified, and quality traffic. PPC provides you with a quality or a well-targeted traffic. Visitors are narrowed down into ‘qualified’ people who are actually looking for specific products and/or services that you offer – those who are more likely to become a ‘lead’ (a convert) and complete a transaction (either by buying your product or subscribing to the service that you are offering.

Widen your reach. PPC advertising provides additional traffic to your site, aside from the natural or “organic” search engines.

Track your investment. PPC advertising makes use of a tracking system that will determine exactly who comes to the website and what they do once they arrive – the length of their stay on the site and the number of pages (including the actual pages) that they view. These are valuable tools in determining statistics such as return on investment (ROI), acquisition cost-per-visitor, and conversion rates (the percentage of visitors who are converted into customers or leads).

Below are some important things to consider when planning on a pay per click campaign:

1. Know your product. Take an inventory of the product and/or services that you have to offer (before anything else).

2. Stay within the budget. Determine your daily or monthly budget; and stay with it. This means keeping your budget in mind, avoiding bidding wars if possible.

3. Bid just right. Know how to bid right – a bid that is too high can exhaust all of your money, while a bid that is too low can make you lose that spot.

4. Watch the bottom line. Measure your profit margin against your spending or expenses. Know when to stop and terminate your PPC program – if you spend more on advertising but have little or no sales at all.

5. Find the right keywords. Decide which keyword phrases to opt and bid for. Do some keyword research, either by actually looking at existing search terms or with the use of online keyword suggestion tools, to know which terms are mostly used when searching for items that are related to your business. Focus on specific keywords, not on general ones.

6. Write effective ads. A good PPC ad is that which can persuade and move a searcher. There are several approaches to this:

Discount offers
Testimonials
Celebrity/famous endorsers
Money-back guarantees
Free trials or sample offers
Freebies
Reverse psychology
Major benefits (“Lose weight”)
Direct instructions (“Click here”)

7. Maintain a professional-looking site. Your web content should be regularly updated and checked for spelling and grammatical errors. There should be no broken links or images. The website should be simple – designed in such a way that it will be easy for visitors to navigate and load. Include contact details to create a good impression among potential customers.

Done properly, PPC advertising can be an effective marketing tool that will maximize the return on your investment.

Matthew Meyer is an internet marketer who manages http://www.thefreeadforum.com where you can post your permanent free advertising to over 50,000 members daily. Click here to visit http://www.thefreeadforum.com

Does Blogging Make Money?

Does Blogging Make Money? by Kristine Wirth

Blogging is an extremely popular way to build your business. But can blogging actually make you money? The answer is an emphatic YES!

There are countless ways to make money through your blog from placing advertisements, promoting affiliate products and even getting paid for blogging for other people. Here are some of the ways you too can make money from simply blogging.

First off, one of the most popular ways to make money from your blog is by showing advertisements. You can do this with various advertising programs but by far the most popular is Google’s AdSense program. With a few simple steps, you can be displaying advertisements straight from Google on your blog. The benefit for you? Whenever someone clicks on one of those ads, you get paid.

Another way that blogging can make you money is through affiliate programs. If you find a product or service that you particularly like and want to recommend to your website visitors, all you need to do is sign up to become an affiliate of the product or service you like so well. Once you sign up as an affiliate, you will be given a special and unique link that you can then place on your blog. If one of your site visitors clicks on this link and subsequently makes a purchase, then you get paid a percentage of the overall cost of the product. Some companies will even pay you when someone fills out a form.

The difference between the two we’ve just discussed is that one is completely passive, meaning you don’t have to lift an additional finger in order to get paid while the other one requires that you actively add these links for your affiliate products to your blog.

You can also choose both of these methods as well. Regardless of which direction you choose to take, you will still be required to add posts to your blog on a regular basis. In order to earn money you need traffic and you won’t receive any traffic if you’re not posting regularly.

Yet another way that blogging can make you money is by doing it for other people. Maybe you don’t want to go through the process of setting up a blog, adding advertisements to it, posting affiliate products or even keeping it up to date. Another option you have that’s often overlooked is that you get hired to blog for someone else.

You can simply become a member of RentaCoder or eLance where you offer your services as a “blog writer”. There are many companies who need to keep their blogs up to date but simply don’t have the time or the resources to do so. By offering up your services, you will get paid for posting to blogs and the blog owner will then benefit from getting content placed on their blogs which otherwise would not have happened.

Just be sure when you’re offering up your services that you are truthful and actually are knowledgeable in the subject matter you will be writing about.

So there you have it, at least three ways blogging can make you money. This is by no means an exhaustive list but will get you started in the right direction. Remember, you can set up a blog for absolutely no cost whatsoever and almost instantly be earning an income from it. So the answer to the question we posed earlier about “does blogging make you money?”, is an absolute “yes”. But as with all things in business, it does take time and effort along with continuous action.

Kristine Wirth runs http://www.ConnectingWAHMs.com, a website dedicated to helping work at home Moms and Dads run successful businesses in Network Marketing, Internet Marketing and Affiliate Marketing with free tips, advice and more.

Article Source: Articles for Boomers