What I really wanted to see was just how well that system would work if you followed it to a “T”. Much like a beginner would do.

First off though, I want to rant a bit. I don’t visit the forums much over at the Keyword Academy. As stated above, I’m very busy and don’t have a lot of time. When I do get time, I’m working on my sites. The other reason is because of all the nonsense that goes on there.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a boat load of good info on there. The people are nice and very helpful.

No, what I mean is the ridiculous questions that keep being asked by beginners who obviously are not following Court and Mark’s program.

Look, if you’re a beginner and you’ve started the Keyword Crash Course, do yourself and others a favor and watch ALL of the video’s, especially the Core Video’s. They’ll answer just about anything you need to know. Don’t join and immediately go the forums and ask silly questions that are answered in the video’s!! It tells everyone that you haven’t sit down and watched the Core Video’s or the Webinar Video’s. It’s like saying you don’t want to take the time to watch and learn!

Okay, I’ve ranted long enough.

What’s New With The Keyword Crash Course

Court and Mark have done an amazing job with the Keyword Crash Course. I can’t imagine how much work they must have done in order to make everything run seamlessly. I have a great deal of respect for those two. They have, without question, put together the most informative and legitimate course on making money on the Internet that you’ll find anywhere. Bar none in my opinion, and I’ve seen a lot of programs come and go in my time.

Here are just a few of the things that are new.

1. The Niche Refinery. Helps you sort through keywords and helps you discover which ones have the potential to be the profitable ones. No more guessing whether or not the keywords you use will earn money. It’s the best Keyword Tool I’ve ever used, hands down.
2. The Forum has changed layouts and is much more user friendly in my opinion. There are a ton of features, including icons and badges that Members can obtain. They’ll show up next to your Screen name and Avatar.
3. The Webinars are now nicely organized so they can be downloaded and watched.
4. The Earners Club. This is a cool feature, especially if you visit the Forums. The Earners Club is a progress tracking system that is totally voluntary. You send your earnings verifications privately to Court or Mark and they’ll reward you with a badge showing how much per month you make via Internet Marketing. This let’s you know who knows what they’re doing and who is just regurgitating the same old crap found on the Internet! It’s like ‘I dunit, here’s proof’.
5. By far the best feature that I’ve found most useful is the Post Runner system. I can’t really go into detail what this system is or how it works, but once inside you’ll see that it’s worth it’s weight in Gold for getting your ranked!

Like I said earlier, Court and Mark have done an impressive and amazing job in just one year! At the time of this post, they’re running a FREE trial offer for the first 30 days. This is plenty of time for you to see what all the Course has to offer and learn some of the tools and methods successful Internet Marketers use.

The Keyword Crash Course – One Year Later

So what I did after doing the initial review was to go out and grab 7 domains for niches that I felt would be profitable using the formula for finding high paying keywords that Court outlines in the Course.

I then followed the directions outlined in the course. I did not use any of my other resources that I had available unless they were mentioned or proved by The Keyword Crash Course.

I built the sites using WordPress. I used Hostgator for my blog hosting provider.

From here, I simply followed the course’s instructions.

I have to admit, I had my doubts even though I knew this system worked. Of course, even when I do it my way, I have doubts. I don’t know why because they always work out.

In the first month or two, I saw little to movement in the rankings for these 7 sites. Of course, that’s normal unless you’re in a very Uncompetitive niche! Plus, I’m not a person who can sit for hours on end at the computer. I usually work about 3 or 4 hours total in one day and I break that amount of time over the period of the day. I guess you can say I have Affiliate Marketing ADD…LOL

But then months 3 and 4 saw these sites breaking into the top 100 and slowly creeping up the SERPS. This was exciting even though I’ve done it many times. I guess I was anxious because I was watching these 7 sites much closer than my others new sites I built doing it my way.

By month 5 and 6, a few real winners were beginning to show up among the 7. I had one that just wasn’t (and still isn’t) performing the way the numbers say it should, but that’s the real world. The site is in the top 5 for several of it’s keywords, but the traffic just isn’t there. I’m hoping it will come along once I expand the keywords it ranks for.

By months 7 and 8, I was making money with the sites. Well, actually some of them had been making money by month 4, but by the seventh and eighth months, nearly all were (all except 2).

I monetized several of the sites with Adsense and several with affiliate programs. Since I’m an affiliate marketer, I prefer affiliate programs over Adsense. You’ll also find out that some niches are just naturally easier to monetize with Adsense or affiliate programs.

Months 9 through 12 were spent tweaking the sites, adding content and promoting them further. I spent a great deal of time on the 2 slow performers and I found additional keywords to help one of the slackers. The one mentioned above is still giving me fits. Sometimes you just have to let ‘em go. Kinda like tough love for websites!

Am I making a killing off of these sites? No. But I am making some good money. How much you ask? Well, if you read my blog any amount, you know I stopped outing a lot of my methods and other info. But I’ll say they’re making just a little above 1k per month now and we’ll leave it at that.

If you need further proof this system works, as of the time of this blog post, the Keyword Academy blog has an unsolicited post from a Member who is making $800 per month from his website! Geez, it’s taking me 5 niche sites to do a little more than that!

It’s not surprising really. This system works if you’ll just put the time and effort in. I just wanted to prove it to myself even though it’s along the same lines I’ve been using for years. And the cool thing is, now that all the work has been done, they’re nearly on auto pilot. Very little work will be required to keep their rankings. This means you’ll have more time to create more sites following the Keyword Crash Course method.

They’re still running the FREE 30 Day Trial at the time of this blog post. What will you get for your free trial? You’ll have access to everything in the Keyword Crash Course. Unlike some other programs that only tease you with a few pieces of info, The Keyword Academy will allow you access to all the info. (if you choose the Premium account) The FREE trial is the best way to see what all the Keyword Crash Course consist of. If you’re a beginner or someone who has been banging their head against the wall trying to make a buck on the Internet, try the Course for Free for the first 30 days. If you’re like me, you’ve blown a lot of money on the Internet! Click here to look over this system Free for the first 30 days.

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Having said that, a while back I bought The Keyword Crash Course. This is a course that Mark Butler and Courtney Tuttle have developed. The whole course was about starting Niche sites, monetizing them and getting free traffic from search egnines like Google. Although I was sure I knew 99% of the stuff they were going to teach (afterall, I make a good income from this stuff already!), I was hoping to learn a few tricks that would make me more money or save me time. I wasn’t disappointed in the course. In fact, I felt like the Course paid for itself within the first 30 minutes of watching the first video. By the way, the course cost $597. I’ve spent a lot more on courses that didn’t have near the amount of information in them.

If you know Court and Mark, then you know that they are honest and helpful. In fact, they’re some of the most honest and helpful people I’ve ever met on the Internet. Everything is laid out for you and they don’t hold anything back. (unlike a lot of courses I’ve bought!) In fact, I’ll go as far as saying the Keyword Crash Course is the most legitimate and easy to follow course I’ve bought. It’s a nuts and bolts Course that nearly anyone can follow and make money with. You can take a look at it by clicking here.

Within the first 30 minutes of the first video, Court describes how to find profitable keywords using “The Formula“. This was the bombshell that I had been looking for. Every once in a while, something will come along that makes you set back and take a deep breath, all the while thinking “Damn, this is what I’ve been searching for!” That is how I felt when Court showed me The Formula for evaluating profitable keywords.

I’ll tell you this also, when you start finding those little Gold nuggets of Keywords, it won’t take you long to figure out that you can use them to build Affiliate Sites rather than Adsense sites if that is what you want to do. If more people would use The Formula, there would be a lot less people failing at this game.

Before this, I had my own system for finding good Keywords, but it was hit and miss. Some keywords paid very well, while others fizzled. I still get some keywords that don’t pay when I use The Formula, but a lot less. By using Court’s Formula, I’ve been able to amass about 90 keywords that will turn into some very nice Niche sites.

Now Court and Mark have opened up the site to the Public and you can see everthing in the original Course for only $1 (yeah, the same Course I paid $597 for!)

Learn How To Make Money Online With The Keyword Crash Course

Whether you’re a beginner just starting out, or an advanced marketer, The Keyword Crash Course has something for you.

What You’ll Get For $1

You’ll be able to see the original course including the 10 training video’s. These video’s will take you step by step and show you how to pick profitable keywords for your niche site (using The Formula), setting WordPress, how and where to find backlinks, how to obtain content for your niche sites and how to set up Adsense and other advertising to make money from your sites.

Plus there is a little video at the end that will show you how to flip your new sites for Money. I found this one to be very interesting and something I may try down the road.

Why Are They Only Charging $1?

Court and Mark feel that once you’ve seen the quality of the training material, you’ll want to subscribe to their monthly service where they’ll be bringing you more information about building and ranking websites, live Webinars and live Q&A sessions. This subscription is $29 per month and totally optional. You can sign up for $1, get all the information that was in the original course for $597 and forget about the rest if you want to. They’re fine with that. They only want people who are serious about making money online.

People, if I could stear you to another course that I thought was better, one that taught you how to make money online with Niche sites, I would. But there is simply nothing out there as thorough and easy to follow that Court and Mark’s Keyword Crash Course. If you’re serious about learning how to make money online, this is one course you need to take. If after the course, you can’t make money online, then this business is probably not for you. That’s how good I believe this course is. And for only $1, you sure as hell won’t find a better bargain. Click here if you want to learn more and take advantage of this opportunity.

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The System I Used To Make Money In Two Weeks

If you read the mid-month Challenge update, you know up to that point I had made only approximately $200. So I’ll pick up from there.

Since I was really strapped for time, I had to change the way I would try and reach $2500 in two weeks. What I finally decided on was to build two simple WordPress blogs and 2 Blogger blogs.

I then searched for two different products or service affiliate programs that I could make anywhere from $9 or more from each sale. I chose products in the Health Care and Pets niches. My other offers were in the $20 to $35 range.

One thing you want to keep in mind when choosing an affiliate products is whether or not it has appeal to people who are desperate for solutions. The more desperate, the better the product. For example, Gamblers and Smokers are two desperate groups of people. One group wants to learn quick tips for making money with Gambling, the other wants to learn how to stop smoking. Addicts are a great group of people to target.

I started building a Network of profiles on Social Media sites. I’m not a big fan of Social Media, but for this system, I needed some eyeballs on my offers and I needed them quick! So I made multiple profiles on places like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo Answers and others. For example, for this Challenge, I made 17 MySpace profiles and 8 Yahoo profiles.

In order for all your profiles to be effectice, they have to look like real profiles. If you get lazy and create a bunch of spammy profiles, you’ll get them banned very quickly.

Another thing I did (which proved to be the most profitable) was find 8 forums that were relevant for my Health Care offer and 5 forums that were relevant for my Pet care offer. Again, I made a profile on each forums and made it look good. This takes time but will pay off if you don’t get greedy and try to spam the forums.

How To Set Up WordPress and Blogger Blogs To Use This System

To be effective, once again your blogs need to look legitimate. So I set up each WordPress blog with 5 to 7 pages of Content, an About page along with Privacy and TOS pages. I did the same with my Blogger blogs.

The only two plugins I used with the WordPress blogs were Redirection (this is an important one) and All In One SEO pack.

I didn’t worry about getting them indexed quickly. They wouldn’t be live long enough to bring in the organic traffic I needed to make these offers pay off. I needed them as Sales pages to divert traffic to so I could pitch them my offers.

On each WordPress blog, I used the main index page as my landing/sales page and all the additional content pages were redirected to my affiliate link to the Merchants. The important thing here is that these index pages looked like normal blog post, not those long spammy looking sales page most of us are used to seeing. Each sales/landing page was written like a review or as a product info page. You just need to make it irresistible for them to go and sign up once they’ve finished reading it!

Where The Money Came From

Since I was strapped for time, I started pushing the offers before I had all my networks set up. I normally would have cultivated those profiles for a few weeks or months before using the links. But I just didn’t have to time so I had to do the best I could.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to make your Profiles and your post look normal and not spammy. If you don’t know how to write a good blog or forum post recommending a product and not make it look spammy, then go to your favorite forums and start reading. If you’ve been in this business long enough, you’ll soon be able to spot the spammers from the regular posters.

Another area where some of you get hung up at is the nofollow vs do follow links on some Social Media sites and forums. It doesn’t matter! You’re looking for traffic here, not backlinks that push link juice to your sites. Leave links to your blogs everywhere you can without making them look spammy and forget about whether or not they pass PR.

My most profitable avenues for income were from the Forums and Yahoo Answers.

My conversion rate on the Health Care product was around 4 percent and my conversion rates for the Pet Care products ranged from 3 to 6 percent. The highest converting of these was one Forum and Yahoo Answers.

I ended the month earning $562 for the Health Care products from Forums and Yahoo Answers and $157 from other Social Media.

For my Pet Care products, I ended the month at $781 from Forums and Yahoo Answers traffic and $117 from other Social Media.

The grand total of these came out to be $1617. When you add the $200.43 I had already made, the total for the month comes out to be $1817.43. About $700 short of my goal but pretty darn good in the small amount of time I had to make it.

Once again I have to tell you that in those last two weeks, I spent an enormous amount of time making this money. I worked from 2 to 4 hours in the evenings and a lot of weekend time.

Although you can make money with this system, I wouldn’t advise it for long term income. It’s just too tedious and time consuming for me. For the amount of time I spent on this project, I could have set up 6 blogs, wrote content for each and started building backlinks to them for long term growth and income.

Using Social Media To Make Money

I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it here. Social Media doesn’t convert well. The reason I believe is because these people are not looking to buy anything. They are also Internet Savvy. In order for your affiliate programs to do well, you really need to target people who are looking to buy what you have to sell. Simple technique but one that many people fail to implement. That’s the real secret to making money on the Internet!

The reason the Forums and Yahoo Answers did so well is because I targeted my post to people looking for what I had to sell.

Another important thing to remember is not to spam the Forums or Yahoo Answers. For every post I put a link in, I had made around 10 to 15 helpful and informative post without a link in them. Many of you get greedy or impatient and use short, spammy comments to leave a link in and then wonder why you get banned or or links removed. You have to make your profiles and comments look real!

With this Challenge, I only had 4 MySpace profiles banned. Which is very good considering the time I had.

The Giveaway

As promised, I’ve decided to give something away for the followers of this Challenge. Even though I built several Squidoo lenses, I’ll be keeping those for further use. I can’t stress enough how important it is to build good Squidoo lenses for making money and backlinks. The best resource I’ve found for building high quality Squidoo lenses is an ebook from Tiffany Dow titled “Flip That Lens“.

What I decided to give away to 3 readers is 3 of my domains. These don’t have sites on them and you’ll have to be registered with NameCheap in order to get them. It’s free to sign up for an account at NameCheap, so 3 of you can expect emails from me in the next few days. If you haven’t signed up for a free account at NameCheap, you might want to do it now.

Final Thoughts

For now, I’ve got to get back to my sites that make me money. The way I earn money online is by building sites and getting them ranked in the Search Engines. Once built and ranked, these sites are pretty much hands off except for building links to them and adding content once a month or so. This is long term work and I don’t expect to make money with any of these sites for at least 6 months and most likely a year or more. Many people don’t have the patience to make sites like these! I love free targeted search engine traffic!

If you decide to try the system I used, take your time doing it. Don’t get impatient and spend some time building believable profiles. Add pictures (you can get them at Istockphoto.com) and other stuff that real users add to their profiles. Don’t spam other people. Build friends slowly and don’t blast them with alerts.

Now you know that it is possible to make decent money in a short amount of time. The question is, do you have the will power it takes to spend the time and effort doing it!?

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The first thing according to Forbes that we Consumers are still spending money on is Smart Phones. If I was in this niche, I would concentrate on building sites over a specific phone. Say, the Blackberry Storm or a Samsung. The iPhone niche is very competitive and unless you already have a authority website about iPhone’s, I’d stay away and go after one of the other lesser known Smart Phones.

Video Games and Consoles are the second item on the list in the Forbes article. Their theory on why we’re still buying this is that Consumers want a quick escape from reality. I say it’s because Video Games are addictive and addicts buy stuff! Whatever the reason, people are still buying them in droves. Pick a game and build a site around it. Websites about the Wii, PlayStation and XBox are really popular. Unless you can come up with an unique angle, I’d concentrate on picking a game since the Console market is flooded right now.

Gym memberships are also on the list. I’m not sure why people would cut back on their spending then blow bucks on a Gym memberships, shoes, clothes and gym bags when you can get a decent workout at home or by walking/jogging around your neighborhood, but Forbes says it’s so. I’ll just stick with my Health niches and maybe write some articles on Gym reviews if I need that traffic.

Personal care also made the list of things we keep spending money on. This would be an easy one to implement with Health. You could also start a affiliate site with a lot of persona care items. Just research the niche and try to find one not full of big players like Johnson and Johnson.

Toy building sets also made the top 10. This one surprised me a bit and I’m still not sure if they mean the Toy Building Sets their self or Toys in general. Their theory is that it’s hard to say NO to you kids. There’s a lot of truth behind that statement as I can relate to that! The article says that Lego sales were up 12 percent in 2008! In November, the word “Lego” was searched for over 673,000 times according to the Google Keyword tool. Anyone have a Lego blog?

Car Maintenance is also on the list. Consumers aren’t rushing out and buying a new car now days but they are spending money on the ones the do have. This would be a good niche if you could find some specific products and build an affiliate site around them. Everything from products that clean and beautify your car to performance enhancing products would be good sellers.

Another surprise for me on this list was Dress Casual Shoes. Google shows 33,000 searches for Casual Shoes and 49,000 searches for Dress Shoes. Grab a domain with the words Dress Casual Shoes in it and you have several options to profit from this niche. A blog reviewing Casual and Dress shoes to an affiliate site selling both Casual and Dress shoes would be a hit if you can rank the site on page one of the Google SERPS.

Restaurants was on the list also. Most specifically fast food chains as people are looking for inexpensive meals. I’ve always thought about starting a blog and reviewing the popular menu items at fast food places since I eat out a lot. But I just haven’t had the time.

Movie tickets took my be surprise also. I guess the American Family is looking for alternatives when it comes to entertainment. The article says that attendance is down but profits rose in 2008. I’m not sure how good a niche this would be because I the prices of everything at Theaters are outrageous these days. I also believe services like NetFlix, Blockbuster and Red Box have taken a big chunk of money away from the Theaters. But hey, maybe you can get an unique angle on this niche and make some money from it.

Netbooks is a niche I think some money could be made at. These are relatively new to the market and due to the low price, becoming more and more popular. Review sites and affiliate sites would be a good way to monetize these niches.

If you were looking for something to make money from in 2009, the above niches to make money with should do you well. Several have been good niches for years and will likely be so in the future. Do some research on them and pick one or two and give them a try!

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Anyway, the first weekend of the New Year found me running a few errands into town. I browsed Craigslist that morning before leaving the house. I always check out the ‘Free’ section to see what people are giving away. Saturday morning I found a lady giving away 2 wheels and tires to a Chevy pickup. They were out by her Garage and she wanted them gone. Also near the same place was a Family cleaning out their Garage and they had some Sports equipment set out on the curb. Since I would be going by there, I decided to stop and check it out.

As luck would have it, the 2 tires and wheels came off of a late model compact Chevy pickup so I took those. I think they were factory originals. The tires had some wear, but still had life left in them.

I didn’t make it to the Family with the stuff from the Garage until later, by then most of the stuff was gone but I did score on 4 rods and reels that were left. They were pretty junky except one, which I kept for myself.

One the way home, I stopped by a Tire store and sold both tires and wheels for $45. I figured they were worth more, but I didn’t want to waste time with the guy. Besides, $45 for a few minutes work isn’t bad.

I stopped at a Pawn Shop to offload the rods and reels (except the one I kept for myself). Since they were pretty crappy, I could only manage to get $20 combined for the 3 that were left.

Oh well, I made $65 that morning simply by taking a few minutes out of my day. I had to go in that direction anyway, so stopping by those homes wasn’t a big deal.

Craigslist is an excellent place to find stuff to sell offline or online!

Sunday I logged on to my Project Payday account and filled in some offers. It’s been a while since I’ve used Project Payday, but filling out offers is still as boring as it ever was. I spent about 3 1/4 hours Sunday and made $45. Not bad for sitting at the Dining room table pecking out offers in my shorts and T-shirt!

Sunday evening I start getting calls from Clients and for the next week and a half I was on the road a bit. I did manage to type out 10 articles, in two 5 article sets, on a competitive subjects and sold them on Digital Point. These articles ranged from 600 to 1100 words each. One set I got $30 and the next set I received $35 for.

These were just rewritten PLR articles. They were well researched and written in SEO copy for websites. One gentleman has already emailed me back asking if I had more. I’m not sure if I’ll do that again. I hate having to set down, research and write lengthy articles on subjects I know little about! As you can probably tell, my attention span isn’t very long

I also started creating some Squidoo Lenses and HubPages. I’ll probably use some of these to help push offers and I might try and flip a couple of the Squidoo Lenses. I’m not sure yet, but I know there’s a chance that I’ll need them later on.

Now I’ve known how to make Squidoo Lenses for a while. But it wasn’t until I read “Flip That Lens” by Tiffany Dow that I found out how to trick a Lens out that I could flip. While there are some people selling Lenses on DigitalPoint Forums for $30, she gets anywhere from $125 to $250 for her Lenses. One look at them and you’ll know why. She takes building Squidoo Lenses to the next level!

Start Small and Work Your Way Up

As you can tell, these small sales will not get me to $2500 this month alone. But there is an important reason you want to start with these small sales.

1. They give you a little bit of confidence. There was a time long ago that I was ‘between jobs’ and made yard sales, estate sales and grabbed up free stuff off of Cragslist to make some extra money until the next job came along. I either sold this stuff locally or I would put it on eBay. So I knew I could make some quick cash that way. But if you’ve never done this before, these are easy ways to make money while you learn.
2. I know I’m going to need more than $50 in the future to buy stuff for bigger projects. These small sales gives me some operating room to buy what I’ll need later on.

Back To Making Money From Home

Once I was back at home, I started doing some keyword research to see if I could find a niche to make some serious amount of money before the end of the Month. Now that I only had about half the month left, it was going to be a big challenge.

I found a few niches I thought I could make some money off of. So the first thing I did was start visiting some of the Affiliate Networks to see what kind of offers were out there for these niches.

Tips For Choosing An Affiliate Offer

I visited ClickBank, Azoogle, CJ, Copeac and ROI Rocket looking for the best offers. Now, when I say ‘Best Offers’, I don’t necessarily mean the highest paying offer. What I look for first and foremost is what the Customer has to do in order for me to get paid.

For example, for this niche there were several offers that I found. One offer paid $37 per sale. In order for me to get paid, the Customer would have to buy that product. Another offer for the niche paid $22.50 per lead. In order for me to get paid, the Customer has to fill out a contact for and pay $2.95 shipping & handling.

Another offer paid $9 per lead and all the Customer has to do is fill out a contact form with a valid email and address before I get paid.

Now, which one do you think I chose?

For this niche, I chose the $9 offer because I know it’s easier to get someone to give their email address than it is for them to whip out $37 or even $2.95. If this Challenge were longer, then I would come up with an action plan to make money with the $37 per sale offer.

Even though I’m making less money per lead with the $9 offer, I can get people to sign up quicker than making them pay for something. In essence, I can make money quicker in the short term.

As I said before, I have several other niches that I’ll be looking at and finding offers for those too. I’m not sure if I’ll have time to start working them, I’ll just have to wait and see.

Getting Started Promoting Affiliate Offers

Here’s how I started getting ready to push this offer. Again, this is not how I would do it if I had more time. This short term promotion isn’t the best way to make money with these offers in my opinion, but I have to work in the constraints that I set for myself.

I started off by buying two domains for 8 bucks and change from NameCheap for niches. They’re normally $9.69, but I used the NameCheap Promo Code of ‘Happy2009′ to get a discount of $8.81 per domain. If that NameCheap Promo Code doesn’t work for you, then just Google “NameCheap Promo Code” and you can find one that does.

I also signed up for the Pro Hosting Plan at NameCheap because they will let you pay by the month. It’s not the cheapest plan, but it’s the cheapest plan you can get and still pay by the month. You can also host multiple domains on one account for the $6.95 where you can’t with the cheaper plan.

I then went to Blogger and built two Blogger Blogs for that Niche.

Next, I’ve started writing some articles that I will be promoting my Niche with. I’ll use both EzineArticles and GoArticles since they are both free. I’ve written 10 articles and have submitted them to promote my niche.

I’m nearing the point now that I’ll be setting up the WordPress blogs and designing them the way I want to push the offers. I hope to generate some quick targeted traffic and start making sales!

Finally, I used www.big-boards.com to find forums relating to my niche. So far I’ve found 8 forums where I’ve set up accounts at and have started posting some general information post and answered a few questions to get my post count up.

I’ve also set up accounts at MySpace, Twitter, Yahoo Answers and Facebook to do the same. I’ve started using these accounts and building up friends and post.

The reason behind doing it this way is because I’m going to need a lot of traffic and need it fast. These places have a lot of traffic. Not great converters, but some will take the offers I push. It’s very important that you get started on the Forums and Social Media sites early and build up a reputation. Do not Spam them. You should be actively involved and asking real questions or giving real help. This will pay back huge dividends down the road as you’ll see with the next update.

As you can see, just getting ready to push an offer can take quite a bit of time!

The next update should be at the end of the month and I’ll let you know how well it’s gone. Don’t be surprised if I don’t make it with the unforseen time I spent on the road, I ended up with about half the month to work on this. But I think I’ll still have a pretty good show!

A Word About Making Money Fast On the Internet

These tactics that I’m using to make money quick aren’t the same ones I would normally do. I don’t want anyone to get the idea that making money online is quick or easy. It’s hard work, at least it is for me. I spend a lot of time working on my online businesses.

Whenever I start up a new website, I plan on working on it a year or more before I start seeing any tangible results. Especially if it’s in a competitive niche. For smaller niches with less competition, maybe 6 to 8 months before I start seeing any real rankings and sales.

I like to use organic traffic to drive sales to my websites. I’ll admit, I’m kinda lazy and don’t like spending all my time on one website. I like to build them and forget ‘em as they say. Still, it takes a lot of time building content and backlinks to these sites to get them making money.

The only reason I decided to do this little Challenge is to show you that money could be made rather quickly online. It’s been my experience that these little quick cash cows don’t last long. With more work, you can generally turn them into long term money makers. Sometimes they do well, other times they don’t. That’s just the fact about making money using websites and organic traffic on the Internet.

I’m kicking around the idea of starting a new website after this Challenge is done and doing a 1 year challenge where everyone can follow along with me. I’ll have to wait and see how this idea pans out and whether or not I think I’ll have time to take on another project! I do think it would be ver beneficial to many of you just getting started in Internet Marketing though.

The Janurary Make Money Online Challenge Financials

Okay, I wanted to share a little bit with you about how much I’ve made and spent so far. Here’s the breakdown.

Startup: $50

Craigslist Sales: $65

Article Sales on DP: $65 (two article packs, one sold for $30 the other for $35)

Project Payday: $45

Total not including initial $50: $175

Total money including $50 seed money: $225

Expeditures

Two domain names at NameCheap: $17.62

Web Hosting: $6.95

I’m not counting the Gas I used to get the Craigslist items because both places were in the same area as I was going to run errands. (less than 3 miles away) The cost of gas is minimal for these items.

Total Spent so far: $24.57 (this will start changing here soon)

Subtracting the money made from the money spent leaves me with a Grand Total of $200.43

Only about $2300 to go in about a week and half! WooHoo!

Once I get into really pushing these offers, you’ll probably see the expenditures go up a little.

Be sure to sign up for my RSS feed so you can find out how this all ends at the end of the month. I’ll be  sharing with you more details about how I set up the offers, reactions and lessons learned.

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Anyway, it was probably a troll email, but it did get me to thinking.

Could I start out with nothing and make some decent money online without all my tools and resources? Yes, I think I could.

So I decided to challenge myself for the month of January. I’m going to start a Challenge to make $2500 online during the month. Why $2500? I don’t know, it seems like a decent number. Plus, that’s $30,000 per year before taxes. I’d say that’s pretty close to what the average household brings home in the U.S. At any rate, that added income would sure come in handy to many families across the World right now, not just here in the U.S.

I’m setting some guidelines for myself to try and make it as fair as possible.

Here are some of the guidelines I’m setting.

• I’ll only be using free or low cost resources that are available on the Internet and accessible to the general public.
• I’m only going to start the Challenge with $50. Nearly anyone can beg, borrow or steal (just j/k’ing about the stealing part) fifty bucks. Sure, you can get started with nothing, but in reality, an online business is just like any other business. You’re going to have to put up a little money. Any money I make, I’ll reinvest it into the challenge if I need to.
• I won’t use any of my existing websites for help. It would be much easier, but I realize many people do not have a network of websites in place, so mine will be off limits to help me with this challenge.
• I’ll use a variety of techniques to make money online. I haven’t sit down and figured all the ways that I’ll try, but I will do a weekly post and let people know what I did the previous week and how much money was made or lost for that week.
• At the end of the Challenge – win, lose or draw – I’ll be giving away a lot of my resources to a few lucky readers. (I’m thinking a website here, tools, ebooks, etc…) Since I don’t know where this will take me, I don’t know yet what I will have to giveaway!
• To be elgible for the giveaway, all you need to do is leave a comment on any of the post relating to the January $2500 Challenge and ask to be entered. You must let me know through the comments you want entered as some people will not be wanting to enter but yet want to comment. Extra entries will be given to people who blog about the January $2500 Challenge.

Although I sincerely believe anyone can make money online if they just put forth a good effort and stay focused, I know that many people don’t have a clue where to start. I’m of the mindset that making money online is a long term proposition, but I believe some money can be made rather quickly in certain areas. These short term money making projects can help you get by while waiting on your long term business to become profitable.

I’d love to hear from you folks. Suggestions, comments or just to enter the giveaway that will happen at the end of the Challenge, leave me a comment. I’ll keep you updated as I sit down and plan how I’m going to make money online with the January $2500 Challenge.

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Outsourcing your work isn’t for everyone. But at some point in your affiliate marketing efforts, you’ll have to decide whether or not to bring new people in. People who are just beginning in affiliate marketing generally have time to do all the things necessary to become successful.

Once you’ve started building up your portfolio, things can get pretty tight. Especially time. If you stay in this business long enough, there will come a point when you discover that you don’t have enough time to get everything you need done accomplished. When this happens, it’s time to look into outsourcing some of the chores.

For me, it was content writing. I had so many websites that I didn’t have time to write content for every one of them.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to write. But I can only do so much. Plus, there are different types of content. For my Adsense sites, I don’t need the best content. In fact, I’d say poor content will actually convert better on an Adsense site than good content. I can get 500 to 750 word articles written for these sites for as little as $3 to $5 per article. I don’t know about you, but my time is worth a lot more than that plus these articles pay for their self rather quickly.

There are literally people willing to do anything that you can think of. And many of them will do it rather cheaply. It comes down to the value of your time plus how much more money you could make by spending the time you do have on actions that create the most money for you.

By having a lot of articles written for my sites, the time this frees up is spent on building backlinks to my sites and creating more sites, which makes me a lot more money than writing content!

Where to find outsourcing resources

There Internet is a wonderful place to find people willing to work for you. All you need to do is look.

Here are some of my favorite places to find people to outsource my work to.

DigitalPoint forums. They have a section called the Marketplace. You can find anything you want here. Content Writers, Coders, Content, eBook creation, Link building services to people who will build backinks for you and submit your articles to directories and so on. Make sure you check the iTrader reputation of the person before hiring him/her to work for you. Most other Webmaster forums also have a similar marketplace. Other sites you may want to look into are; SitePoint, Webmaster World, V7N, Warrior Forum, etc.

eLance, Rent-A-Coder, RentAFreelancer, GetAFreelancer. These are great places to find people to outsource every aspect of your affiliate marketing. From building website templates to PHP coders and people who will build you landing pages, you’ll find them here.

Need-An-Article. When I need great content, I use these people. I can get 1000 plus word articles written by native English speaking writers for as little as $12.50 and these articles are as good, or in many cases – better, than ones I have paid $30 or more for. Their research is excellent as well and most of my article request are turned around in a few days.

Craigslist – Ha! Gotcha didn’t I? Yeah, I’ve found some good freelancers on Craigslist. Several Content writers and a Coder. Look toward the bottom of the page under the heading of “Services”.  Also be sure to check out the “Gigs” section. If you want someone local, just put up a post and you should have plenty of people responding shortly.

There are tons of other places to find people to outsource your work to. For many of you, you get hung up on the cost to hire these people. I think this generally comes from lack of confidence on most peoples part. If your sites are making money, then your outsourced work will pay for itself many times over. This will free you up to create more sites or work on an area that you enjoy and let the freelancers work on the chores you hate to do or are not particularly good at.

One last bit of advice here. And you’d better take this to heart. Once you find several freelancers that you like, keep their contact info close by. These people can be invaluable to you. Also, treat them fairly in all your business dealings. If they’re good, they’ll be an asset to your business. The few bucks you’ll save by trying to screw them over isn’t worth it. A good freelancer can be like the Goose that laid the Golden egg.

Remember, you’re the Money Man, the Rainmaker, the person with the Creative Ideas. Do what you do best and let the freelancers do what they’re best at!

To you people, I’d say give it a try. Budget some money and get those time sucking jobs that are holding you back outsourced! Your bank account will thank you!

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Yeah, for some of you BANS owners, it’s been a pretty tough last few months.

I’m knocking on wood here. If you remember right from my initial Build A Niche Store Review, my goal was to build 100 BANS sites. Now I’m thanking my lucky stars that I have AMADD (Affiliate Marketing Attention Deficit Disorder) and only made it to 30 sites before I lost focus and went off doing something else. So far none of my sites have been touched by either Google or eBay. I’ll give you my theories on why that is on down the page.

A Few Theories Why Google Is De-Indexing BANS sites.

I’ve been following a lot of the chatter on forums about this subject as well as receiving a lot of email. This is what I’ve figured out to this point. No one has 100% concrete proof why Google is de-indexing BANS sites. There are a few theories floating around.

1. The BANS program was being used by a lot of spammers. Many of these guys/gals were throwing up huge numbers of BANS sites on .info domains. They never bothered to change anything with the programs, their only concern was to get as many BANS sites up as they could, as cheaply as they could. This left a huge footprint for Google to follow.
2. Most of these same people never bothered to put any content on their sites. They were simply ebay sites with ebay auctions on them. This would be what Google calls a “thin affiliate” site. And we know what Google does with thin affiliate sites.
3. In order for Google to get all the spammy BANS sites, it had to take some legitimate sites along with them. It’s the shotgun approach. Use a huge pattern to make sure you get all of them. Try and limit the casualties but go forward knowing some innocent victims will be in the pattern.

My Theory On Why Google Hasn’t De-Indexed All BANS Sites

Even as far back as when I bought the Build A Niche Store program, there was talk about Google finding the footprint of all the standard BANS templates and possibly penalizing them. It seems this bird has come home to roost. From the start, here is what I did to try and make my BANS sites unique from all the other cookie cutter BANS sites.

• I changed up the CSS a little bit on every site. I made sections like the header and content fields larger and smaller.
• I changed the colors on every site.
• I changed the size of the headers on every site and used graphic headers.
• I DID NOT go out and start sending hundreds of backlinks to my sites. I built them up over time using blog carnivals, article submissions, reciprocal linking and adding one way permanent links.
• I added content to nearly every page plus I used a lot of graphics.
• I never put eBay auctions on my main page. I put content on the index page to make it look as much like a informative content site as I could. Just look at how many BANS sites have nothing more than auctions on their front page.
• On many of the domains that hosted my BANS sites, I added blogs, article directories and forums to many. (mostly just blogs that supported the main domain)
• I never put more than 2 BANS sites on one hosting account plus I paid extra for all sites to have a dedicated IP’s. I’ve read stories of people hosting all their BANS sites with one hosting company. Wow, I can’t fathom that idea. I’m just too paranoid I suppose.
• I only used dot com domains. Of course, these last two items is what I do for nearly all of my affiliate sites, not just for BANS. I want to make it as hard as possible for Google or any other search engine to spy on my websites.

Now, I’m not saying if you do these things that Google will not index your site. These are the things I did to every BANS site I had. I did these things from day one and as I said above, knock on wood, my sites haven’t been touched. In fact, many are still climbing the SERPS.

Is the Build A Niche Store Still Worth Buying?

I’ve had a few emails asking that question. Honestly, I’d say yes it is. But only if you intend to build sites that have a lot of content and you make them unique. If you’re plan is to buy it and throw up a bunch of BANS sites without adding any value to them, I think you’d be wasting your money. Google is on to you.

Alternatives to The Build A Niche Store program

If you’ve been reading this blog for more than a week or so, you know I’m impressed with the PHPBay plugin for WordPress. As I stated in my post Advanced Build A Niche Store Strategies, I’ve been using PHPBayand WordPress to make blogs and stores with eBay auctions. It seems every week that my PHPBay/WordPress stores outproduce my Build A Niche Store sites. Hey, it’s no secret that Google is crazy in love with WordPress blogs. Why not take advantage of that? Plus, to be honest, a WordPress blog and PHPBay combination site just looks much better than 99% of the BANS sites out there, mine included. (hey, maybe Google hates ugly sites?)

Whatever the real reason that Google is de-indexing or penalizing BANS sites, owners using this program need to proceed with caution. If you continue to make sites with BANS, then do everything in your power to make them unique and stand away from the crowd.

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I’ve been experimenting for a few months on my Build A Niche Stores to see what would increase traffic and rankings. Other than building links to the BANS store. Don’t get me wrong, without links, your BANS store is dead in the water.

What I wanted was a way to increase my SERPS rankings, traffic and get more pages indexed in Google. I tried several things, but this is what I’ve come up with so far it is working like gangbusters.

Increasing Your Build A Niche Store Rankings and Traffic

What I started to do with my Build A Niche Store sites is add a WordPress blog to them. I choose a main keyword that I’ve been targeting the search engines with then I add a sub-domain onto my site. Then I install WordPress.

For example, let’s say you have a BANS site about Watches. Let’s say your site name is mybanswatchsite.com. When you add a sub-domain, it would look something like this: watchblog.mybanswatchsite.com.

Now, you also have another keyword in your domain name!

There are many advantages to adding a sub-domain to your Build A Niche Store site. Here are just a few.

1. Increased rankings. Google loves blogs, especially WordPress blogs. Expect your post to get indexed faster with a blog.
2. Easier Content Creation. What I started doing was featuring some products from my BANS site on my blog. I then link from my blog back to the page on my main BANS site where they find many of the products for sale. Let’s say you had a post about fake Rolex watches. You’d create the post on your WordPress blog then link back to the category on your Build A Niche Store site that had all the auctions for fake Rolex watches. Now you’ve also created one way links with anchor text AND directed visitors to a place where they can by fake Rolex watches.
3. Easy link building. Blogs just naturally attract backlinks if the content is anywhere near informative. But the real advantage of having a blog as a sub-domain is that you can create one way anchor text links from the blog back to your BANS site. This will give your BANS site a boost in the Google SERPS.
4. More income streams. With WordPress, you can add a few plugins and actually increase the income your Build A Niche Store is capable of making. For example, on my Build A Niche Store blogs, I use the PopShops WordPress plugin and PHPBay plugin. I have several BANS sites where the sub-domain actually makes more than the main site. Let’s go back to your Watch blog. With PopShops plugin, you can feature new Watches from merchants on any affiliate network where you’re a member. (don’t forget to sign up with the merchant first!) Then at the end of the post, you can add ebay auctions from PHPBay. Your giving your customer many ways to buy from you and little reason to click off of your website!

Think this out. With WordPress as a blog on your Build A Niche Store sub-domain, you can do many, many things that will enhance your main site. Don’t be surprised to see your sub-domain actually make more than your main site. The sites I have PHPBay on are really outpacing my Build A Niche Store only sites.

What do I blog about on my Build A Niche Store Blog?

Anything I want!

Seriously, I will do product reviews, special deals from merchants, hot auctions on eBay, coupons and I even search article directories about articles relevant to the content on my BANS site. At the end of the article, I put the PHPBay auction in and sometimes even some new products with PopShops. This is all good stuff! 

PopShops is also adding a nice stream of income for those Customers who come to my sites but want to buy something new rather than play the eBay game.

Currently I’m playing with 3 other plugins to see if they can help my Build A Niche Store or not. I’ll keep you updated on those results!

Tools Used In This Strategy

• Build A Niche Store Program
• PHPBay WordPress Plugin
• PopShops WordPress Plugin

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It seems more and more people are starting their own blogs. Or at least I’m getting more and more emails asking if I can refer an affordable blog web hosting provider. Over the years, I’ve used many web hosting providers. Some good, many were not. In the early years I’m sure it was because I went with the cheapest web hosting provider or used the free web host. You know the kind, the ones that put a gazillion banner ads on your site because they were letting you use their service for free!

In the last few years, web hosting has come a long way. Nowadays you can find affordable and reliable blog web hosting providers everywhere. Currently I’m using about 20 different web host for a variety of reasons. Everything from big affiliate marketing websites down to personal web hosting of blogs and websites for my family and close friends.

Before I show you the list, you need to be aware of a few things if you’re a beginner looking to host your first blog. There are a few things you’ll want to look for before choosing a blog web hosting provider.

Here Are The Things I Look For In A Blog or Personal Web Hosting Provider

These are the things I want when looking for blog web hosting.

1. CPanel – The blog web hosting provider you choose should have CPanel so you can easily maintain your account. The only exception that I would make for this rule is DreamHost. They have their own “one click install” program which make using their service as easy as a web host with CPanel.
2. Fantastico – This is a program that will install a number of programs for you with minimal effort. It makes it really easy to set up a blog or personal website. Programs such as WordPress, bulletin boards, photo galleries and much more. Most web host provide it with CPanel, but not all.
3. Multiple Domain Hosting – If you’re just looking to host a personal blog, then this will not matter to you. But if you’re looking for easy web hosting so you can run multiple blogs or websites, then make sure the web hosting provider offers the ability to host multiple domains on one account. Some will only let you host 1 domain while other will allow you to host more than one.
4. Multiple SubDomains – Again, if you’re just looking for a personal web hosting for a single blog, this probably doesn’t matter. But for Internet Marketers, the ability to have multiple sub domains can come in handy.
5. Domain Registration – Although it’s pretty easy to buy a domain in one place and then host you website in another, not everyone wants to fool with this. For this reason, you may want to make sure the blog web hosting provider you choose offers domain registration. What’s even better is if that web host will give you a free domain for buying their web hosting services.
6. Customer Service – Before I sign up with any blog web hosting provider, I email the company and ask a few simple questions. I already know the answers to the questions before I send them. What I’m looking for is how quick they get back to me and how informative their answers are. This tells me a lot about a hosting company.

That’s about it for the “must have’s”. I don’t worry much about the storage space. Most of the web host listed below give you plenty of storage space for your blog or website. Also I don’t worry much about bandwidth on my small blogs or for personal web hosting.

I will tell you this about personal web hosting. If you plan on using your blog or website to store pictures for the family, you’re better off using a service like Flickr and then using a WordPress plugin to show those pictures on your blog rather than try and upload a bunch of pictures to your web hosting account. Your storage and bandwidth will be ate up by large files and pictures.

Okay, here’s what you’ve been waiting for.

11 Affordable Blog Web Hosting Providers for Beginners

Note: Prices and features are current at the time I wrote this. Things change so you should check their websites to see if any changes have occurred since this article was posted.

Dream Host
Price: $9.95 per month on a 1 year sign up or $5.95 per month on a 10 year sign up.
Domain Registration: Yes
CPanel: No
Fantastico: No
Host Multiple Domains with 1 Account: Yes
Multiple SubDomains: Yes
Easy WordPress Installation: Yes
Comments: DreamHost has their own “one click” install for WordPress. This makes it just as easy as having Fantastico on CPanel. I have two DreamHost accounts that I’ve had for many years. I’ve had a few problems in the past (as you will with all web hosting companies from time to time). They’ve been quick to fix any problems I’ve had and their Customer Service has been excellent any time I needed help. They’ve also been very quick to get back with me. A good choice for the beginning looking for personal web hosting or affiliate marketer. Click here for more information on DreamHost blog hosting.

BlueHost
Price: $7.95 per month for one year or $6.95 per month for two years
Domain Registration: Yes
CPanel: Yes
Fantastico: Yes
Host Multiple Domains with 1 Account: Yes
Multiple SubDomains: Yes
Easy WordPress Installation: Yes
Comments: This is another host that I’ve had for years. Good customer service and I have few problems with their hosting of my blogs and websites. They also have free set up, free domain privacy and free domain registration for as long as you keep the account.

SiteGround
Price: $7.95 per month for one year, $5.95 per month for 3 years
Domain Registration: Yes
CPanel: Yes
Fantastico: Yes
Host Multiple Domains with 1 Account: 5 – extra fees apply
Multiple SubDomains: Yes
Easy WordPress Installation: Yes
Comments: I only have 2 blogs hosted at SiteGround but I haven’t had any issues with them. WordPress installtion is a snap with CPanel and Fantastico and the people I’ve talked with over there are friendly and helpful. The only drawback for me is that you have to pay extra to host multiple domains on one account. Not an issue if you plan to start 1 blog or website.

HostMonster
Price: $6.95 per month on a 1 year signup and $5.95 per month on a 3 year sign up.
Domain Registration: Yes
CPanel: Yes
Fantastico: Yes
Host Multiple Domains with 1 Account: Yes
Multiple SubDomains: Yes
Easy WordPress Installation: Yes
Comments: Popular hosting provider. A good choice for beginning affiliate marketers looking to host multiple blogs on one account.

GoDaddy

Price: $4.99 per month for 1 year with their basic package. $6.99 per month for their Deluxe Package
Domain Registration: Yes
CPanel: No
Fantastico: No
Host Multiple Domains with 1 Account: No for their Basic Package, Yes for their Deluxe Package
Multiple SubDomains: Yes
Easy WordPress Installation: Yes
Comments: Another website host who doesn’t offer CPanel or Fantastico, but their dashboard is easy to use and they offer easy installation of WordPress as well as other scripts and programs. You can also pay month by month if you prefer, they don’t require any long term contracts. They also have Danica Patrick as a GoDaddy Girl. Reason enough to choose them Seriously though, they’re an okay host for personal web hosting but I’d choose another host for building websites and blogs for affiliate marketing.

HostGator
Price: $4.95 per month
Domain Registration: Yes
CPanel: Yes
Fantastico: Yes
Host Multiple Domains with 1 Account: Yes
Multiple SubDomains: No for their $4.95 per month “Baby” package, Yes for their $7.95 per month “Hatchling” plan
Easy WordPress Installation: Yes
Comments: A very popular host for affiliate marketers, especially those using the Build A Niche Store program. I believe their servers are a bit crowded for my taste. But they do have excellent customer service and the accounts I’ve had with them, I’ve had few problems.

MidPhase
Price: $6.95 per month on a 1 year signup and $5.95 per month on a 3 year sign up.
Domain Registration: Yes
CPanel: Yes
Fantastico: Yes
Host Multiple Domains with 1 Account: Yes
Multiple SubDomains: Yes
Easy WordPress Installation: Yes
Comments: I have some large sites hosted by MidPhase and they’ve been a good and reliable host for me. They offer a free domain for the life of your account when you purchase web hosting services from them.

1and1.com
Price: $3.99 per month for their Basic package
Domain Registration: Yes
CPanel: No
Fantastico: No
Host Multiple Domains with 1 Account: Yes
Multiple SubDomains: Yes
Easy WordPress Installation: Yes
Comments: I only have static websites hosted at 1and1 so I’m not sure about their WordPress installation. They claim to be the World’s #1 web host. I’d check them out if your looking for personal web hosting for a simple website or blog. Like GoDaddy and DreamHost, they have their own dashboard that makes it easy to install scripts and software such as Guestbooks and Forums. About the lowest reliable cheap blog hosting I know of.

Dotster.Com
Price: $6.95 per month on a 1 year signup
Domain Registration: Yes
CPanel: No – Have thier own program for easy installation
Fantastico: No
Host Multiple Domains with 1 Account: No on Starter plan, up to 50 on their Standard Plan
Multiple SubDomains: Unknown
Easy WordPress Installation: Yes
Comments: I’m not a huge fan of Dotster for ease of use. But to be honest, I’m more familiar with dashboards like DreamHost and Fantastico. Couldn’t find out whether or not their basic package allowed multiple sub domains.

iX Webhosting
Price: $4.95 per month for a 1 year sign up and $5.95 per month on a 2 year sign up
Domain Registration: Yes
CPanel: No
Fantastico: No
Host Multiple Domains with 1 Account: Yes
Multiple SubDomains: Yes
Easy WordPress Installation: Yes
Comments: Their dashboard is very similar to CPanels and just as easy to use. WordPress installation is a breeze also. One of the first blog web hosting providers I used and I still have blogs hosted there.

WebHostingPad
Price: $3.96 per month for their Basic package
Domain Registration: Yes
CPanel: Yes
Fantastico: Yes
Host Multiple Domains with 1 Account: Yes
Multiple SubDomains: Yes
Easy WordPress Installation: Yes
Comments: A good choice for personal web hosting or small affiliate marketing blogs or websites. Customer service has been good for me as well.

Okay, there you have my pick of the 11 web hosting providers I would start with if I was just getting into building websites or looking for a personal web hosting provider. Could you use these for larger sites? Sure. But I prefer a little more meat in a hosting package when running larger sites. For blogs, the 11 above are hard to beat for price and reliability. Drop me a line if you have comments about these or other blog web hosting providers.

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I’m not a sales letter writing Guru, but I have wrote my fair share for my online as well as my offline businesses. Here’s the way I go about writing a sales letter.

First off, I gather up other sales letters that speak to me. Yeah, it sounds corny, but I figure if a sales letter can make me buy something, when I know it’s a sales letter, then it’s pretty good. Whenever I come across such a sales letter, I either save it in my bookmarks or print it out and keep it in a file. If it can make a sale to me, then it can make sales to most other people.

Whether you like them or not, those sales letters that are rampant in the Internet Marketing industry sell products over and over. I hear people say they hate those “spammy” looking sales pages, yet it’s some of these same people who buy products from them, myself included. Face the fact, those sales letter type pages sell products or no one would use them.

Another important point to keep in mind when writing a sales letter is to put yourself in your potential customers shoes and ask “What’s In It For Me?” Forget about yourself for a moment. Your sales letter should be all about the benefits the customer will get when buying your product.

The Title of Your Sales Letter Will Make You or Break You

Once you start pouring over those sales letters, read through them all and see which Title really speaks to you. Which one really gets your attention? Which one makes you want to continue reading the rest of the copy? This is probably the one you’ll want to pay attention to.

I also keep the crappy sales letters. I try and determine where the ad copy lost me. Was it the title? or the ad copy itself? When you can answer these questions, you’ll have a good understanding of how a sales letter works.

A good title, or header, should grab your customers attention and make them want to read the sales letter. Writing an attention grabbing title takes some work. As with many things, the more you practice it, the better you’ll become.

The 4 Basic Building Blocks of A Sales Letter

When writing a sales letter, there are 4 basic things you must keep in mind and address if you hope to convert readers into buyers.

1. What problem does your product solve?
2. What does your product do?
3. What makes it better than anyone else’s product?
4. Finally, how much will this cost?

Now that you have a good foundation to start with, it’s time to put some meat into your sales letter.

There are an additional 4 things you must convey in order to make your sales letter do its job.

These are:

• Create hope: Its been said that people buy hope. A person with a tooth ache will stop at nothing to get it taken care of. The same is true for someone who needs quick cash for whatever reason. Whatever problem your product or service cures, make sure you show your customer that there is hope when purchasing from you
• Relate to your customer: Talk to your customer as if they were a long lost friend. Become personal with the customer so they feel that you can relate to their problem. People feel secure with someone they can relate with and they buy when they feel secure. Two of the best ways to do this is to tell a personal story and add a photo of yourself to the ad copy.
• It’s all about the FUD: Create FUD in your ad copy. FUD, or Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt, is a time tested technique to get people to buy. It’s been used by both large corporations and small companies alike. It’s in nearly every ad you see in one form or another. It takes practice and experience when using FUD in an ad copy. It must be subtle or you risk turning off the more experienced buyers. This is where those good sales letters you kept will pay off. Pour over them and see how the Copywriter used FUD to sell.
• Ask for the sale: No, wait, DEMAND the sale! When you’re looking over those ad copies you’ve saved, you probably notice that there are several call to actions in the body of the sales letter. Don’t assume that your customer will just get up and order from you. Tell them to do it now! Create a sense or urgency. One good way to do this is by giving them a deadline or give them a bonus if they act now. People hate to lose out on an opportunity! Make sure you tell them why they must act and explain what they’ll be losing if they don’t act NOW!

Learning how to write a sales letter takes a little time. You should also test, test and test more until you get that sales letter that pulls in the customers!

Aggressive Sales Letters Are The Best

The argument against aggressive sales letters has been going on since the first ad copy was written. It’s a proven point, aggressive sales letters sell better than passive sales letters. I don’t like to write aggressive sales letters, but they work.

A long aggressive sales letter will put more money in your pocket than a sales letter that sounds like you’re talking to your Mom. People are lazy by nature and you have to make them act. That’s what writing a good sales letter is all about, making the people you’re reaching out to order from you!

Start looking over those ebook sales letters and begin writing some of your own. Keep at it until you think you have it down. Put the ad copy away for a few days and come back and reread it. Keep making changes until it’s as good as you can get. Send it out and then write another one, send it out and see how it fares against the first. Keep doing this until you see one sales letter converting better than the others. This will be your money maker and you’ll be glad you learned how to write a sales letter!

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The Affiliate Marketers Prayer

O Lord, you know I have a website that is small
and my traffic numbers are low
I ask for a little favor because this affiliate marketing is tough.
No money am I making and I have a Web Host that is slow.

O Lord I’ve tried Overstock, Wal-Mart, JC Whitney and Bass Pro
and a host of others that didn’t pay.
They all left me disappointed and flat broke
Oh, I almost forgot, I did make some money with Ebay

O Lord, just give me an Affiliate Manager that is honest
and the network is parasite free,
Where all my clicks are counted,
and my commissions come straight to me.

I’ve got the latest custom WordPress theme
I bought some those expensive custom graphics
I didn’t spam and I didn’t cheat
I even resisted trying some Black Hat tactics

My website is SEO Optimized and I’ve built backlinks galore
I’m waiting on traffic so I can head off to the bank
So if You decide to look down on me today,
I’d sure appreciate that #1 Google Rank

O Lord, if you don’t mind me asking one more thing
I’m grateful for the chances I’ve had and I really don’t mean to complain
But if You could see fit to give me favor
Could you Bless my PPC Campaign?

Okay Lord, soon I’ll be headed for my computer
to pull up my stats with Google Analytics
I’m hoping to see big numbers that translate into orders
Oh what is this I see? I’ve sold a dozen books and two hammocks!

Okay, there you go. I was feeling a little silly this morning. You have my 8th grade English Teacher to thank for that. She used to make us write poems all the time. I hated it and as you can tell, not very good. Besides, she never like my poems very much any how!

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I’d like to take this time between writing the big articles and ask my readers what they would like to know more about concerning affiliate marketing or Internet Marketing.

So if there’s been a question you need the answer to or you need some help to get over a hump, let me know, I’ll write a blog post or reply in the comments if I can help. Chances are if you’re having a problem or have a question, someone else is having it also.

Feel free to ask about any topic as long as it pertains to affiliate programs, affiliate marketing, internet marketing, search engine optimization, blogging or Adsense.

I’m no Guru, but I bet I can help most of you if you’ve reached a dead end. Just leave a comment and I’ll get started.

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I’m going to start off by telling all you people who are new to affiliate marketing about a 30 Day Challenge you really need to be taking part of. Especially if you’re new to affiliate marketing or have had trouble making money from affiliate marketing.

I’ve told you in the past about the 30 Day Challenge. This year, it starts August 1st and the “pre season” has already started.

If you’re beginning in affiliate marketing, it’s worth your time to go over and sign up. Even if you’ve been around a while, watch the video’s. I’m sure you’ll pick up some good money making ideas.

Dan Raines and Ed Dales have been showing people how to make money with affiliate marketing for many years now.

It was only a few years ago that Dan ran the 15 day challenge, where he tried to make 15 thousand dollars in 15 days. And he almost succeeded! I learned a lot of useful tricks from that challenge.

The 30 Day Challenge site already has some very good videos up. You’ll get instant access to these video’s as soon as you sign up. For you that are just starting, I’d suggest starting at the beginning. For those of you who need a few tips, just browse through the lessons until you find the subject you need to brush up on.

The goal, as usual, is to take you from nothing and show you the basics of affiliate marketing. They’ll be taking you by the hands and teaching you every step. The lessons available will take you from nothing to showing you how to make your first $10 within 30 days.

I know, $10 dollars doesn’t sound like much. But you have to start somewhere. This is the problem with many new affiliate marketers. They want to start one day and think they should be earning $1000 per day by the end of the week!

The truth is, if you don’t have the skills to legitimately make $10 with affiliate programs, you’ll never make your first $1000. And that is what the 30 Day Challenge is all about, giving you the skills to make your first $10 which then gives you the confidence and skills to make much more.

I can’t tell you how many emails I get from people who want to know the “secret” of making money with affiliate marketing. If you suggest they try to make $10 in 30 days, they come back with something like “Oh, I can do that, but what I need to know how to make enough to live on.”

When asked further questions, I find out that they haven’t even taken the first step in building a website or choosing an affiliate program. These are the people who will more than likely never make it in affiliate marketing.

In my opinion, the best thing about the 30 Day Challenge is the members forums. Here you have many like minded people, many who are already successful in affiliate marketing, helping beginners and throwing out ideas. You’ll be exposed so many different ways to make money with affiliate programs it will make your head spin.

Go ahead and sign up for the 30 Day Challenge by going to http://www.thirtydaychallenge.com. Give it an honest try and I’ll think it will answer many of your questions and open your eyes to some of the “secrets” to affiliate marketing.

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It seems that some punks with nothing better to than try and screw up other people’s stuff have hacked into the server that host Blogging Zoom.  You know when a site like Blogging Zoom has been hacked, that it has showed up on somebody’s radar. Blogging Zoom has been going where many Social Networks only hoped too.

Court at CourtneyTuttle.comasked all bloggers to put out the word. He said that Blogging Zoom would be back up in no time and better than ever.

If you don’t know what Blogging Zoom is, it’s a Social Networking site similar to Digg, only on steroids! Unlike Digg, you don’t have this sub-society of smarter-than-thou types running the show.

There were reports that Vic at BloggerUnleashed.Com was also hacked, but I just checked and his site is up and running.

Both Vic and Court have been turning out some damn good information lately about blogging in general and niches specifically. You need to stop by and check them out.

I suspect Blogging Zoom will be up tomorrow or the next day. Court and Vic may decide to do some changes before bringing it back online, this would be the perfect time to do so.

Blogging Zoom Hacked

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