Hey! It’s Rachel Rofe and Nate has given me some interview questions to answer here. So he told me to basically just take a bunch of questions and write down answers. But I think if I made a video, I could answer more. Let’s get started.

The first question was, “What got you interested in starting an online business and how did you get started?”

The answer to that is basically I was working in retail management before I did full-time online. I was working like 70 to 80 hours a week, I was going to school full-time, pulling these 36-hour shifts all the time, and it was just like pretty miserable. At the time, I was 23, I was making $55,000 a year and I thought I’d never be able to beat that, and I would literally apply for secretary jobs. I had just so many credentials, so many things and I wouldn’t even get hired for secretary jobs. So I felt like I was stuck in retail for the rest of my life.

I came across one of those eBooks, you know, “Make a Million Dollars a Minute” kind of thing and in your underwear. But it was basically just an affiliate book just saying, “sell this book and every time you sell a copy, you’ll make affiliate commission.” That’s what I did. I started spamming Craigslist, not necessarily proud of it, but that’s what I did back in 2006, and I was instantly making between $500-$800 a day.

So that was, like I said June 2006, and I’ve been full-time ever because I realized it was possible to make money online and since then I’ve done all kinds of things like affiliate marketing and copywriting kindle books and just offline marketing, and just really every business model you can think of because I just like to explore and try new things.

Next question was, “Did you have any failures early on and what did you learn from them?”

The big failure that I talk about a lot is that when I first started, like I said, I was making $500-$800 a day. And then I started learning about internet marketing. Until then all these people’s list and stuff and I found that every time I would get on somebody’s list, like they would market me something. And so I have like XsitePro stuff here or ad sense here. Everyone has a different opportunity. And because they all see you like you make thousands and thousands of dollars a day, then I would start to chase all of them. And so my income just taped because I stopped focusing just on Craigslist, which by now I could say it, was spamming, so not sustainable or really ethical or anything else. But the point is I just I realized when I focused on all these different things that it’s just not good for income or for really like just level of being okay with yourself. It was really hard. So what I learned from that is to focus.

What I like to do now is I have my goals, this is for everything – let’s just say for income since that’s what we’re talking about. I take out my goals and then I basically reverse-engineer what I need to do to reach those goals. So let’s say I want to make $10000 a month, then I’ll think, “What do I need to do to make $10,000 a month?” Could that be like $500 student, $20 a month; that’s definitely a way. So what would I need to do to do that? So that’s setting up the membership site, getting content in, blah, blah and then day by day out exactly what need to be done and then just working towards that goal. So I figured that the niche I’m going to sell is in all that stuff, it must be something that I know about and I can provide value in. Maybe it’s selling X amount of copies with Kindle book; that’s something that I do now live. I love Kindle. I have 40 plus books there. And so I just think, “What do I need to do? What niche would I need to find? What can I write about and speak about intelligently or outsource?” that kind of thing. And then I just reverse-engineer because I’m so focused on my goal, I don’t sit and look at this opportunity and this opportunity. So that’s definitely what I learned from that.

Next question: “What’s the main thing that made the difference for you to cross the line from struggling to become successful?

Well I think I was unique and I was successful in the beginning and then it was when I started going wobbly off-focused and stuff, that’s when I stopped becoming that successful. So, I think when I became struggling was the last of focus, and also I was just, I think like starting a whole lot of things and even when I was focused, I was starting thing and getting excited about them, but sometimes it takes a little bit of time to build up momentum.

So, when I was going paycheck to paycheck and it was really frustrating because I’ve been, it’s about seven years now, almost seven years and two months that I’ve been full-time online. So there were times that it was like paycheck-to-paycheck and so what I tell people now is that if you ever need assured income to offer some kind of service. So, for me that was copywriting. When I had that service and I was able to sell them all the time and I had guaranteed money from my freelancing that was just amazing because when you’re not working from a place of desperation – I don’t know. For me it’s a lot easier to work from a place of knowing I’m okay no matter what. I don’t really work so well under like stress. Some people they do, but that was just for me.

Next question. “What’s the best piece of big picture advice you would give to someone just starting their online business?”

I would say, again focus. Just figure out what you want to do and make sure that it’s something that people would pay for and then just focus on that, get that done. Don’t look at all the other bright ideas. I wouldn’t get under a million different people list just to get on the people’s lists that you think can actually add value to whatever you’re wanting to do. So, let’s say you want to do Kindle. Well get on to people’s Kindle’s list. I would put in a filter and then give it time to look at them like once a week or put it in a whole other email and then, whenever you’re looking for something specific, just search in Gmail and look for whatever tool you’re looking for. So do something for you versus constantly letting your day be dictated by what everybody else wants to sell you.

Next. “What is your system for sitting down and getting work done on daily or weekly basis?”

So when I said that I reverse-engineer my goals, what I do is – so I have my big picture goal and that’s kind of my year-out plan whenever I want to get done in a year. So let’s say make $10,000 a month. Then I break it down into a six-month plan. So what could I do to get that big goal done? Like what would need to happen for me to reach that year goal. So maybe the six-month plan is that I do my 500 members at $20 a month. So then, I break it down into what I need to be doing daily, like I was saying. So, basically now I know what my daily activities are because I’m working towards that long-term goal.

And so whenever I schedule up my daily things, I look at like my daily to-do lists, I look at everything that needs to get done. I’ll schedule the hardest thing first. Well, I schedule either the hardest thing or the thing that’s going to make money first. So, like let’s say if I just send an email to my list, that might be the very first thing that I do and then I do the hardest thing. but it’s always one or the other. I want to get the hardest thing done quickly while I have momentum on that, tired or anything like that, and it’s also obviously the thing that make money, it makes to do right away. So that if I walk away at the end of the day I can say at least I’ve done something that brings me towards income. Every day I want to do something that brings me towards income because it’s a very easy to just fill yourself with jus busy work and not do that, and that’s not helping you at all.

Okay, “What could you have done that would have made you successful sooner?”

You know I had a whole bunch of products in the beginning and I didn’t keep a list for them. I didn’t believe in lists at that time. that was back in 2006 and 200. And so I think if I would have had a list that would have been great. I think if I would have emailed my list more, and I think just again the whole focus thing.

“What would you tell people just starting out that they should focus on?”

So I would say focus on whatever excites you. I think that if  you need quick cash, services are a great thing so that could be like copywriting or article writing. It could be like a video editing, graphic design, anything – like virtual assistance, anything like that. Or you can go on to oDesk and just see the types of things that people look for. So it could be a service.

Also I love Kindle. I’ve been spending a lot of time with Kindle lately and I think it’s just really a quick way to be able to earn revenue pretty quickly. That’s passive income; you can start building in lists and stuff from it. I have my stepdad right now, I’m mapping out a book that he’s writing because it’s just a very easy like you don’t have to worry about copywriting. I mean you don’t have to make compelling descriptions but it’s not that hard compared to like learning how to write sales letters and building a list and all of that stuff. Amazon right now has tons of traffic they’re willing to bring you. So that’s what I would say.

Next, “Why do some people succeed online and others never do?” 

You know a lot of people say it’s because people don’t take action, but I don’t believe that. I think a lot of people take action. I think it’s the focused action. A lot of people would just do a whole bunch of random things and they see that one thing isn’t working and so they’ll jump to the next, and jump to the next. And I think that’s the biggest problem. also, it’s so often that you’re so close to hitting success and then you just like, “Forget it. it’s not going to work,” and then you go away. I think if people will give it a little bit more of a push,  more people would be successful.

Okay, next question. “How is writing your online business changed your life?”

Well, as I was saying back in 2006 I was working full-time, I was going to school full-time, got to sit in the office with the other retail managers and we would just talk about how much we hated our lives. I mean it was just terrible. And so now, I’ve been to all 50 states; I’ve travelled to all 50 states and lived in Rio de Janeiro, I lived In Buenos Aires, I’ve been to Europe and going again shortly. So I have a lot of freedom and I’m able to impact to a lot of people, and what I think is a positive way. Like this morning someone sent me an email and said, “Thank you for sending a love-tour industry,” and that’s why I want to be.

One of the things that I want to be known for is just being able to make a difference. And I’m able to have much more of a platform to do that, to really support people which makes me feel really great. So I love and so hopefully, I know that it makes other people feel really good too. So I love that, I love flexibility. Right now, I know people are asking me, I’m running an event in New York City. I’m bagging this; I just ordered my green shoes from this awesome website that delivers it and then I’m going to an event soon.

And so people are asking me where I live, like “I don’t know where I live right now.” I was in San Francisco and I just left and then I want to visit some family in Pennsylvania, got to go to my boyfriend in Kansas, and then maybe I’ll find a place in New York City. It’s just I can be really loose and flexible. And so I really appreciate all of that. And also when I used to go travelling, I would literally just drive down the highway and pull up my air card, get some work done if I needed to get work done, and then I keep driving. So if you can work anywhere, it’s awesome.

Okay, “What motivates you to keep going and become even more successful?”

I like to create “whys” so emotional “whys” and things that I start to just visualize and I get really excited. So for example one of the things that I’ve wanted to do, I did this last year and the year before because I wanted to give my family just a whole bunch of money. I wanted to give my parents money to pay off their bills; I wanted to give my family just like my sister and my brother. And then at the time it was her fiancé now he’s my brother-in-law, and then my mom and dad, just frivolous like go spend this money.

And so I created that “Why”, and so I told myself once I had my next $80,000 month, I’m going to give them a bunch of money. I just kept thinking. It was so much more exciting to make the money, because money for money’s sake bores me but money where I can support people it’s just really cool. And so I just kept thinking about that, and it just gave me that “umph” that extra push to keep going. And so I had the $80,000 that month and I gave my family the money and it was incredible. I was shaking when I gave it to them. I was so terrified, not like terrifying but just like, it is really a cool moment. So there’s that and there is a whole bunch of things that I love to do just to give back to people. So different charities and different things like that. And that’s really, really fun for me. I feel like if I can have a bigger platform to make a difference, that’s what I want to use it for; it’s just doing more good in the world.

All right, next. “What is your favourite software tool that you use in your business and why?”

Probably Kinstant Formatter that’s actually something that I created where I had a programmer create it. But with all the Kindle books it’s very easy to upload them and for them to look bad. And so I had a book that I’ve been like $3000 a month, and then I started getting bad reviews because of the formatting. I didn’t realize that even the formatting was bad, but I didn’t know how to fix it. I kept reading all the Amazon stuff but it was just like the zillions of rules and terms of service and that stuff and I just could not figure it out. I don’t like all that detailed stuff. So I asked my programmer if he can create some kind of tool that would basically just, I could put my Word file and then have it look good, have the books look good. And he did, and so it bred the tool wheel, it’s called Kinstant Formatter and it works amazingly for me. I ended up selling it. That’s got on to sell thousands and thousands of copies too.

Okay, next question. “How much of your time do you dedicate to 1) Self-education and learning new skills; 2) Generating new traffic, leads and customers for your business; and 3) Generating revenue.”

Okay, so No. 1 – Self-education and learning new skills. All right, every day. But I’m in New York so there; right now is for personal development workshop. Every day I’d like to read at least 15 pages of something self-development or listen to 15 minutes of audio that’s personal self-development. So I think it’s a constant thing. I read this awesome quote on Facebook that was something like, “People say motivation doesn’t last.” Like when you think about these rah-rah personal development things, that people say motivation doesn’t last, only they’re just bathing. That’s why you do it daily, right? So that’s how I feel about personal development; every day I want to do something more and learning new skills. That’s also really important, and at least once a week I go through and I buy new courses and then I go through it and I look that. And then I don’t spend hours, and hours and hours, but I definitely want to look through and see what’s going, see what I’m missing. Things change quickly and I think it’s really important to keep yourself educated.

Generating new traffic, leads and customers for your business. Right now, what I’m working on is launching a new book at least once a month and then also having either an internal launch for my list, or an external launch for my internet marketing stuff and other niches so that I’m always making sure that it’s systemized that I’m bringing in new people. And then generating revenue – same thing. Every day I’d like to do something that’s going to bring in money. That doesn’t mean like emailing my list every day, but just something, that works towards gaining more revenue.

Okay. “What are some of our best Kindle tips for people that are building a Kindle business and what are some tips for people who want to but haven’t started yet?”

Okay, one of my best Kindle tips for people that are building a Kindle business is obviously you want to get as many reviews as possible. And so something that I love to do with my Kindle books is at the end of each book, I put a post-it note that just says, “Don’t forget to leave me your review.” And then I write like, “If you like this book, please leave me your review. It really helps me out, blah, blah.” And that’s a really great way to get more reviews.

Other things I would say is make sure to use pen names for anything that’s not like if you’re in different niches, you use a different pen name for each line one before you start to lose credibility. I would say I like to do books that when I go for keywords I like to have stuff that’s 500 results back or less. What else? Makes sure not to skimp on the cover and, well no. That didn’t answer the specific question but the only ones that came in my mind first. As far as some tips for people who haven’t started yet, I would say start out small, say you don’t overwhelm yourself. What I like to do is I’ll create cheaper books like $0.99, $2.99 first. And so those only need to be 20 pages. Just make sure that you don’t misrepresent what people are going to get. Let them now that it’s a short book that they’re going to get whatever they’re going to get. And then if it’s profitable then you can reinvest your profits into outsourcing and writing more. So it doesn’t need to be this huge thing like you need to outsource the book and spend hundreds of dollars or write it yourself. Just start small and then keep building. But definitely make sure that you get it up there.

Okay, next. “What Kindle strategy working the best for you right now?” 

What Kindle strategy that’s working the best for me? I don’t know exactly. I mean there’s so many different things. I think just uploading the books and the review things is really, really helpful. I’ve been playing with the idea of doing like five-day promotions when you do KDP select versus just one and two days. And that I read about in book and his premise was it makes more sense to do a five-day promotion and put all your juice in it versus doing a couple like half-fast one or two day promotions. And that’s pretty cool. So that’s something that I’m playing with it. I think it’s going to be really good because whenever you have your free promotions, you always end up getting more sales. But if you do a five-day, you work really hard in getting your book to the top 100 for free downloads, then you just get so many more sales after. So that’s something that’s pretty cool and very contrary to what a lot of people say.

“If someone only has an hour a day to build their Kindle business, what is the best use of their time?”

So I’m assuming that this means that they’ve already gotten their book up. So what I would say then is if you have an hour left, I would go each day and go on related – well first of all I would have some kind of Facebook fan page. And I would log in at the Facebook fan page and then go in related Facebook pages and your niche and answer like posts and comment on posts, as your Facebook fan page name, so people start to see your fan page and like click over and just a way to get more traffic and more traffic. I would go on good reads and then I would just like look at other people’s books comments on them, go on in groups and stuff and just make activity. I would like self-promote your book and stuff, which is getting, like getting more exposure. That will be another way to get more people, trying to get reviews for your books.

So this is all, if you’re trying to promote one book. If you’re wanting to do just writing your book every time, I would say get it one day, you would make an outline of the book. And how I make outlines of my Kindle books is basically I figure out what niche I want to be in and then I go on to Amazon, I take them the niche, I go on to Amazon and then I look at all the books in that niche. And I’ll open up, look inside, I’ll look at the table of contents and I’ll see what people are putting in their outlines. And then I’ll write everything else and I’ll see what comes up the most. And so that gives me kind of a loose outline.

Then I’ll go into the reviews of those books and see what people liked or what people are missing. And then I’ll make my outline from that. So then either I’ll outsource it or this is something that you know about, then each day just get time, record like just voice record your chapter, just talk about it, then send it to a transcriber; have them clean it up and transcribe it for you. Then you can edit another day and then publish it to Kindle. So that’s something else. I would also spend a chunk of your time; maybe even 15 minutes just if you’re new to Kindle go into different products and making sure that you’re learning different things that work.

I know I talk fast, hopefully this helps and just good luck with everything that you do.

Have a comment or question? Leave it below…

If you take some extra steps you can do even better.

First, let me tell you a story that illustrates the power of this concept. I’m a little embarrassed I didn’t think of this sooner since this is my own story… but that’s how it goes sometimes.

Here’s the story…

Several years ago, I was a door-to-door pest control salesman. We would go to different cities, mostly across the South, and we would walk through neighborhoods all day long and try to sell a one-year pest control contract to homeowners. It was rough work, but for the guys that could hack it, it was pretty good money.

These companies that trained us had gotten the sales pitch down to a science, so that as long as we delivered it how we were supposed to, we would sell close to 1 in 20 homeowners that we talked to. The guys that were good refined this further and could sell 1 in 8, sometimes a little better than that.

Either way- 90% of the success of the sales pitch hinged on one key aspect… the fact that it was a special offer, and that it was time-sensitive.

We would explain that if you were to look up the company online and call, the price for the initial service was $150. But… since we were “in the area” that day building a route, we could offer the initial service for just $75 if the service was done either “today or tomorrow”.

So in case you missed that, we were offering the initial service for half-price, as long as the contract was signed right then and there so that the service could be completed within the next 48 hours while the technicians were in the area.

This process worked very well… I was always amazed that we could knock on someone’s door, be a complete stranger, and within 20 minutes walk away with their credit card number written down on our sales contract. Luckily for them we weren’t scam artists!

How To Use This In Your Business…

You can probably guess what I’m going to tell you how to do, right? I have done this with several of my niche sites that I sell my own info products on, and it works like crazy.

What you do is, you go into your main autoresponder sequence that sells your product to prospects (you DO have an autoresponder sequence setup, right?), and after the initial sequence, all you do is add in 4 more emails that promote a 50% off sale.

Each email counts down to the last day, so on the first email you say, “I’m offering a half-off sale for the next 4 days, etc…”

The next email will say, “3 more days to get my product for half off”, and so on…

How to Really Take It to the Next Level…

There is a little plugin that I use that has made this “half-off” sale work 10 times better, because it makes the scarcity very real, and thus that much more effective. It’s called “Scarcity Samurai“, and it’s from the guys behind Market Samurai.

You install this plugin, and you activate it on your half-off sales page, and you set the timer to run out after 4 days. This timer begins separately for each unique visitor to the page… so you have an evergreen 4-day timer that starts once someone lands on the page, and the page will actually expire after the 4 days.

I think you can see why this works so well.

One of the most powerful things you can do in your marketing is force your prospects to make a choice… when your product is always up for sale, you’ll make sales and you can do very well. But, when you offer a sale and the scarcity is real, thanks to Scarcity Samurai, you’ll be amazed at how many more sales you’ll get that you wouldn’t have otherwise…

 Questions? Comments? Leave them below…

In today’s post I wanted to give you a few(16) call to action examples and phrases that you can start using in your marketing immediately.

Here they are:

1. Click here to learn how to _______________
2. Enroll now in our free online workshop
3. Take this simple quiz
4. Take this quick quiz
5. Get this free report on ______________
6. Click here to retweet this
7. Click here to share this on Facebook
8. Start my 30 day trial
9. Send me my free report
10. Send me the info
11. Learn how to ________ fast without ____________
12. Create account and get started
13. Free Ebook: How to _____________
14. Find out more
15. Create my free account
16. Click here to save __% today

Share your favorite calls to action in the comments below…

This interview is with Derek Doepker, the guy behind “Kindle Bestseller Secrets“. Derek cracked the code to publishing an Kindle bestseller without a huge marketing budget or a huge list behind him.

You’re going to learn a lot…

Q: What got you interested in starting an online business and how did you get started?

I volunteered at a seminar that taught people how to start their own online business. When I realized the knowledge I had gained researching health and fitness over the years could be used as an asset to make me money, it got me excited about the prospect of creating passive income streams.  While having an online business started as a way to make money, it eventually became more about the ability to help change people’s lives.

Q: Did you have any failures early on and what did you learn from them?

My very first attempt at affiliate marketing through facebook ads didn’t work out well at all. I lost quite a bit of money and didn’t get back into online marketing for about another year or so.  Once I got into blogging, it was a big struggle to drive traffic to my posts. The was a bit frustrating because I knew I had great content. I’m pretty grateful those things didn’t work out though because it forced me to learn other methods to grow my business and to become an innovator rather than just copying all the other “push button” systems out there.

Q: What’s the main thing that made the difference for you to cross the line from “struggling” to becoming successful?

Looking back, I realize the vast majority of my success came from developing relationships and friendships with other successful people. These relationships also came about when I placed my focus on serving others. The more I focus on serving others and providing value, the more comes back to me in return. I also believe one must blend imitation with creation.  That is, model what works, but also find your own path so you stand out from the crowd.

Q: What’s the best piece of “big picture” advice you would give to someone just starting their online business?

Don’t ask yourself “how can I GET xyz…”  That could be “how can I get money?” “how can I get traffic?” “how can I get fans?” etc.

All my success came when I switched the focus to what I could provide others.

“How can I provide so much value people will WANT to pay me?” “How can I help someone in my niche spread their message?” “How can I serve people and make their lives better?”

When I asked myself those types of questions, not only did I more creative business ideas, but I made a lot more money too.

Q: What is your system for sitting down and getting work done on a daily or weekly basis?

Usually I just force myself to get started, and then I’ll get into a state of flow naturally. Many times the biggest obstacle is to just get the ball rolling. One way I do that is to just say I’m not going to do anything else until I knock out whatever is on my priority list for the day.

Q: What could you have done that would have made you successful sooner?

Network and make connections in my niche. My biggest success is thanks to the people that have helped me and guided me. Also, not trying to do a bunch of different stuff, but focus on doing one thing and mastering it.

Q: What would you tell people just starting out that they should focus on?

Find a way to make people’s lives better.  Business is all about solving problems for pay. Figure out a way to help others and improve their lives, and there’s a way to make money from it.

Q: Why do some people succeed online and others never do?

There could be many reasons for this.

One thing is that people are looking for “step-by-step” systems that they think will do the work for them. Instead of asking themselves why certain things work on a bigger picture level.  The more I’ve studied business principles in a general sense, the more successful I’ve been.

That’s because I have a greater context of why things work vs simply what things work. Then if the landscape of online marketing changes, such as google updates or new social networks, I can rapidly adapt. Don’t rely on a guru to hand you the system. Instead, look at why their systems work and innovate to create your own tactics.

A side note is that I see a lot of people going through stuff and they just want to skim through different products taking bits and pieces. If you’re going to be successful, you need to really sit with information for a while.  Ask yourself a lot of questions. Do a lot of market research. Get to know your target audience. This isn’t an overnight thing, but a process. Some people are too impatient to learn the details and go through the process. It’s not particularly hard, but they have a short term “make money now” mentality instead of treating their online business as a real long-term legitimate business. The funny thing is, their desire to cut corners and save time just keeps them struggling longer and ultimately wasting their time.

Q: How has running your own online business changed your life?

I’ve been able to quit my job and pursue what I love. Most importantly, I get feedback from people telling me how much my training or information has helped them. It feels amazing to know I’m living a life of purpose where my contributions make a difference in the world.

Q: What motivates you to keep going and become even more successful?

Realizing that if I hold myself back, then I’m robbing others of my insights and information that could change their lives. The more I place my focus on service to others, the more inspired I am.

Q: What is your favorite software tool that you use in your business and why?

My brain is the most reliable tool. There’s a lot of cool software, but somehow I never end up really falling in love with anything because it’s usually my intuition that has led me to my best insights.

Q: How much of your time do you dedicate to: 1) self-education and learning new skills 2) generating new traffic, leads and customers for your business and 3) generating revenue?

This isn’t set in stone. These things constantly fluctuate depending on what I’m doing with my business. With kindle however, I spend very little time actively pursuing leads and customers since I let Amazon do that for me.

Q: What are some of you best Kindle tips for people that are building a Kindle business, and what are some tips for people who want to but havent’ started yet?

Create quality content that people will rave about. This makes the whole promotion and selling process easy.

Also, I love running 5 day promotions and hitting each promo with everything I’ve got. Treat launching a kindle book like a grand opening of a brick and mortar business. Invest all your resources into doing a couple of days of really heavy promotion to drive it up the bestsellers list, and then let Amazon do the rest. Amazon will bring you more traffic than anything you can do on your own.

For people who haven’t started, I would say just get your first book done. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Even if it totally sucks, you can go back and change the title, description, cover, keywords, or even the book itself. Amazon is a very low-risk way to test things out. And if it doesn’t work out, then you can still probably sell at least a few copies and make back your initial investment. It’s not like driving paid traffic to a report that has to convert or else you lose all your money.

Q: What Kindle strategy is working the best for you right now?

KDP select free promotions, 5 days in a row, every 90 days. I hit those hard with free and paid traffic. Get my book a ton of free downloads, and then sit back and do nothing once it goes on sale because Amazon will drive thousands of buyers on autopilot.

Q: If someone only has an hour a day to build their Kindle business, what is the best use of their time?

Kindle works in phases. So when you’re in the writing (or getting someone else to write) phase, that whole hour is dedicating to getting the book together. Then the next phase is the pre-launch phase, then the launch phase. Basically, you’re totally focused one whatever it is you need to do during each phase. It’s not like a person needs to do a bunch of different things each day. There’s usually only one or a couple main things on my to-do list on any given day for my kindle business.

I want to thank Derek again for taking the time to answer these questions- he gave away a ton of solid info. If you haven’t picked up his course ‘Kindle Bestseller Secrets’, click here to get it…

You’ll be glad you did.

She is waiting to read YOUR ebook.

I’ve kind of come full circle on the idea of ebooks.

Back in the day, my first “info product” of any kind was an ebook. I tried several formats for that information and it ended up being a video course, and for awhile video courses were all I created.

Now I’m back to creating ebooks for the Kindle store and I love doing it.

The Amazon Kindle platform has given everyone the opportunity to make money from publishing an ebook. Or ebooks.

Why You Should Publish an Ebook on Kindle

Before I get into the details of choosing a good topic for an ebook, I want to tell anyone reading this that you should publish an ebook on Kindle. You could have one done and published in the next two weeks, whether you write it yourself or have it outsourced.

It’s not hard to do, and it’s great experience. It will take you through all the steps of publishing your own info product, but you don’t have to figure out your own delivery platform like you do when you sell an ebook from your own site.

Not to mention that you have Amazon.com’s marketing machine working in your favor.

That’s all I’ll say about that. Try it. It’s fun.

Finding Topics That People Buy

Have you ever tried to go on a diet and lose weight? If the answer is yes like I think it is, how many different products or services or books have you paid for to try and do that? Whether you realize it or not, it’s a lot.

The same thing goes for hobbies or problems you’ve had that you wanted to figure out.

The point I’m making here, is that when someone is really interested in something, they don’t just go and buy one book on the topic- they buy several or even a bunch of them.

So to get this out of the way, this post is not dealing with fiction books at all. If you’ve got a story in your mind, then by all means get it down onto a Word document and publish it… But for this post I’m talking about non-fiction books help people solve some kind of problem.

To find topics that people are willing to buy a book about, the first place you should go is the Kindle store itself.

I like to Google “Kindle bestsellers” first, and the link that comes up will let you look through topics on the Kindle store sorted by bestseller rankings within each category. As you drill down through the different categories, you’ll notice how many categories and sub-categories there are.

You can see there is no shortage of topics. As you read through book titles within a given category, try to notice the recurring themes or ideas that come up within the top 100 books in that category. If you jot down notes as you go you’ll end up with a list of “hot buttons” that you can write a book around.

Find an Angle

Once you’ve done the exercise above and have a small list of key topics within a category, think of how you could craft a book that combines two or three of the elements you’ve written down.

This is pure marketing by the way, and like I said, it’s fun to do.

Writing a Book That Will Sell

I can tell you this, while you need to have your “marketing elements” down in order to even get any sales, the content of your book is what will make it continue to do well in the Kindle store over time.

In other words, it can’t suck.

You can’t expect to put up a garbage book and have it do well. The Amazon system works off of buyer’s feedback, and that’s what drives that best-seller lists. Take some time doing your research and putting together something quality.

You’ll find that getting organic reviews where someone said your book really helped them or that they really liked your book will be just as satisfying as making sales.

The Beauty of the Kindle Platform

One thing that’s so nice about the Kindle platform and an ebook itself is that you can revise your book and constantly improve it, and simply upload the updated version whenever you feel like it.

You can tweak your cover, your book description, your book preview- you can re-do anything to do with your book on the Kindle platform and have it re-published within 12 hours.

Just Do It

Like I said in the beginning paragraphs, the best thing you can do is to set a goal to write and publish a book, and then set a date to be done and get it done by then. You can obviously improve it as time goes on, but just get it done at first and publish it. This type of project  completion will give you more confidence and motivation to finish the other projects and goals you have for your business.

Email marketing is something I’m constantly telling my readers and customers that they should start doing, and if you’re not building a list and using email marketing… you should start.

Email marketing works… It’s effective, it gets results, and it will generate sales… especially if you do it right.

Getting subscribers and building lists all start with your opt-in page.

Squeeze Pages vs Opt-in Pages

You’ve probably heard the term “squeeze page” thrown around a lot, and maybe you’re wondering what the difference is between a squeeze page and an opt-in page.

At the core- they’re the same thing. They are a page that is dedicated to getting someone to give you their email address. But, there are some differences to point out.

A squeeze page is really just a type of opt-in page. A squeeze page typically has no navigation links, a few bullet points explaining the benefits of opting into the list, and then the actual opt-in form.

Again, this is one way to do it. These types of opt-in pages convert really well, especially when you have effective and compelling copy. I still use squeeze pages on a lot of my sites, but I’ve discovered a few elements that most “squeeze pages” are missing…

1. Let Your Opt-in Page Pre-Screen Prospects

The first goal you probably have when you start your list building efforts is to simply get as many opt-ins as you can. But, as you get some experience mailing your subscribers, you’ll quickly find out that having as many subscribers as possible isn’t the best way to go. The way autoresponder services work is that you pay more the more subscribers you have, so that’s the biggest downside to having a huge list that isn’t responsive.

One of the best ways I’ve found to get the best prospects on your list is to basically have an article as your opt-in copy(this is an idea from this free list building bootcamp). You can see this in action on my 500 Club page- you can tell it’s not a standard squeeze page. The idea with this is that you write something long enough that it can contain your key points, and ideally you’ll have subscribers that are much more receptive to your message. In fact, according to Eben Pagan, you actually want your marketing copy to filter out everyone except your ideal prospects. That makes sense when it’s put that way, but most people start out wanting to build as big of a list as possible.

2. Remove Distractions

The reason why squeeze pages don’t have navigation or the regular sidebars is because if those things are there, you simply lose people to them. Whether you’re using a standard squeeze page with just a few bullet points, or a opt-in page with more content as described above, you should remove these things. A good WordPress theme made for marketing will make this really easy, such as Profits Theme that let’s you drag and drop the elements you want on a page.

Distractions can also come in the form of ineffective copy, in other words sentences or paragraphs that you don’t need… length in itself isn’t a benefit. Every  sentence on your opt-in page should be there for a reason.

3. Ask for the Email Address, Nothing More

I’m sure you get emails that address you by your first name, which is really cute. But the hards facts from tons of different experiments have shown that the more info you ask for, the less opt-ins you’ll get. You’ll do best to simply ask for the email address.

4. Your Freebie

The freebie… I’ve tried everything there is. PDF’s, free video courses, mindmaps, “cheat sheets”, ebooks, ecourses, etc.

What works best?

My favorite by far, and this will get you the best results if you do it right, is a series of emails that deliver what your prospects want to learn or get advice on. This works the best when you can weave some sort of a story line throughout your autoresponder sequence, so that your subscribers eagerly await each email.

The problem that I’ve found with a free report is that people will opt-in just to look at it, and you’ll see a lot of unsubscribes after that first email. This happens because you’ve instantly given them what they wanted and there’s no real reason to stay on your list, as well as the fact that you haven’t given them a chance to get to know you.

When you send them a series of informative and entertaining emails, people start to feel more comfortable with you and know who you are when they see your emails.

5. Split Test

This is another thing I talk about all the time, because it really matters. There are many ways to split test and many tools you can use, so I won’t get into that here. The main point is that you should always be running two versions of your opt-in form. Colors and fonts might yield small improvements, but you’ll get by far the biggest results by tweaking your actual copy- primarily your headline.

Not Building a List Yet?

If you’re not, you should be. One of the best resources out there, which is FREE, is this little bootcamp by Andre Chaperon.

If you liked this post/podcast, please “Like” it below or share it in some way(or leave a review on iTunes). Thanks!

Do Affirmations and Positive Thinking Work??

I was looking through my journals from 2007 and I was a goal-writing maniac. The funny (or depressing) thing about reading back through that stuff is that I was making pretty lofty goals for the timeframes I was giving myself, and I wasn’t hitting any of them.

I was also doing a lot of affirmation stuff and physically writing down affirmations everyday… such as, “I make $10k a month online…”

But… the interesting thing is, a lot of my affirmations that I was saying back then, and most of my big goals that I set for myself back then I have now achieved, and even surpassed.

If you read this post, then you know about my “goal pictures”. I actually haven’t updated that for a long time and I was looking back through it and it turns out I’ve bought every single one of my goal pictures in the last year… I didn’t even realize it… down to the exact model of car that I was opening up and looking at every morning for months…

While I definitely don’t believe in the “law of attraction” at face value, of course money doesn’t just come to you just because you want it, there is definitely something to consciously spending time thinking about and visualizing yourself achieving your goals.

Having said all that, I work a lot on my business. It takes both.

An Interesting Email From a Reader…

Along these same lines, but on a different note, I got an insightful email from a reader a couple week ago that basically asked:

“It seems like everything you try seems to work and do well… what are the skills that you attribute that to?”

The first thing that came to my mind was my 2-3 years of “failure” where I worked and worked on my first website writing content and trying different ideas and nothing happened.

The quick answer to his question though, is sales, marketing, & copywriting skills. Maybe not so much the actual skill of writing up a sales page, but more of just having an understanding of the sales process, and what makes a potential customer want to buy something.

This comes into play whether you’re writing a product review as an affiliate or the sales page for your own product.

Hey… This Post is Called “How to Make 2013 Your Year”… So Tell Me

You’re right. I guess this will be easiest to put in list format. Here are some of the things I think are the most worthwhile to focus on in the coming year:

• Your Marketing Skills: Sales, conversion, copywriting… it’s essentially the same thing. Being able to get in the mind of a potential customer and speak like they think and position a product as something that will help them solve a problem is the most fundamental skill  to making your online business a success. This is what allows me to have an ebook outsourced by a great writer on a certain topic, and then create the “marketing” stuff for it, AKA anything the customer can read to make their decision, and have it be a success even though I’m not an expert per se on that exact topic. It should also go without saying that the product is actually high quality and will actually help someone interested in that topic. I’m working on a course module specifically on copywriting and the marketing skills I’m talking about that I’ll add to StraybloggerTraining sometime early next year.
• Your Own Paid Product(s): Your own products can be a membership site, a video course, an ebook. I hate to toot my own horn some more, but my Niche Video Tycoon-type sites still churn out consistent sales every day. It’s a solid system… you create a course or ebook for your niche, then setup articles & Youtube videos around the topic that send traffic to your sales page(it also builds you email lists at the same time). The Niche Video Tycoon course is also a part of StraybloggerTraining. If you’re apprehensive about creating your own product or ebook… GET OVER IT. You become someone worth listening to when you decide you’re someone worth listening to.
• Email lists: Like I just mentioned, I have a bunch of little sites that get anywhere from 1-10 optins a day, and some of them I totally ignore/forget about. One list just recently hit 1000 subscribers and I haven’t sent a promotion to it in over a year. I wrote 3 emails around a subtopic and then picked a product to recommend on email #3, and sent the emails to that list over the course of a week. It did a little over $300 in commissions. Not huge, but awesome at the same time. Building email lists ties nicely in with having your own products… but you don’t have to. A blog with a lot of content can build a valuable list over time as well.
• Productivity/Time Management: Chances are if you’re reading this, you already know enough about internet marketing to build a very successful site/business over the next year… the main reason you haven’t yet is because of productivity or time management problems… And you know it. When it comes to working for yourself, you have to own your time. You can’t hold out for weekends or ideal 6-hour blocks of time, because those just aren’t going to happen in the real world. You have to be able to put in a productive 30 minute work session when you have the chance, as well as figure out how to get 10-20 hours of real production out of yourself each week. I’m also working on a set of productivity videos for StraybloggerTraining that I’m hoping to have all done in the next 6 weeks or so.
• Kindle ebook(s): I know I already mentioned your own product or an ebook, but I wanted to mention this specifically. I’ve published several ebooks on the Kindle marketplace over the last year, and once a book is selling well, it is hands down the most passive form of online income I have in my business. I think everyone should give it a try, but at the same time make it a book worth buying if you’re going to do it. The first group of participants in the Kindle Publishing Workshop that we’ve been doing for the last month are getting their first books published and it’s going great. I’m hoping to launch another session of the workshop this month… probably towards the end. A lot of the participants have mentioned that the best part of the workshop is the built-in accountability which pushed them to actually take action and get their first book done.
• A Long-Term Authority Site: One of the best long-term models is obviously an authority site. No matter what Google does SEO-wise, if you have a site with a lot of content that people like, your traffic and income will continue to grow.

There you have it… Start thinking about some of this stuff and some of your own goals you want to accomplish next year.

A Little Giveaway: I haven’t done this in awhile, so I’m going to now… If you ‘like’ this post on Facebook below, and then leave a comment about what you should have done better in 2012 and/or what you plan on accomplishing in 2013, you’ll have a chance of winning a $50 Amazon Gift Card. The winner will be selected randomly from the qualifying comments this Sunday night at 11:59pm, Dec. 9th.

Enjoy…

If the workshop sounds interesting you can see if there’s still any spots here…

The first workshop webinar will take place Friday, Nov. 2nd and signups will be closed if they don’t fill up by then.

Amazon Niche Selection – My 3 Most Important Lessons Learned

I’ve learned a lot over the past couple years creating niche blogs that sell Amazon products. Perhaps the most important lesson was, don’t put the word ‘Kindle’ in a domain name…you’ll get your account shut down and all your accrued earnings held hostage for months, provided you can get them at all.

Uh, okay…moving onto other lessons…

Some (other) most important lessons I’ve learned about making money with Amazon Associates surround the process of selecting a niche.

I personally found it difficult in the beginning to choose a niche that I felt comfortable with. Would I make any money with it? Would it be a waste of time? These are thoughts my mind wrestled with. The more I teach people, the more it seems we all think the same way about this.

But it doesn’t need to be so mind bending and stress causing in my experience.

In this post, I’m going to detail three lessons I’ve learned that allow me to make money each and every time I enter a niche now.

I’m not going to tell you any formulas to follow, as I haven’t been able to identify one with my experience with Amazon Associates.

What I have been able to identify, are a few lessons I’ve learned along the way about selecting niches that seem to make or break my success. Here they are…

Lesson 1 – Choose Something You Have an Interest In, Or a CHANCE of Being Interested In

I used to find myself asking the success-shattering question, “What if I don’t succeed in this niche?” I then later found myself asking a more relevant question – “What if I DO succeed in this niche?”

Here’s what I mean…

I started out writing about all sorts of very strange subjects for the purpose of entering a niche that I thought would make me money. What I ended up with were niche sites based on topics I had absolutely no interest in whatsoever.

Coffee tables? Office furniture? Shoe storage? Good Lord…just reading those topics has put you in a state of boredom. I’m sorry I did that to you…But nonetheless, I built entire blogs around those topics.

What happened? They started making money at the beginning, but I simply despised the blogs. So, I didn’t even look at them. I didn’t add more content. I looked forward to getting myself on a different track. So I moved onto another strange niche, and so the process repeated itself.

In the end, these sites dropped in rankings, stopped making money, and I didn’t care. Done.

Conversely, when I was interested in a niche, the writing came naturally and was very persuasive. I didn’t even have to think about it. I had more to write about, so I had more content bringing more traffic. The sales increased dramatically and work was actually enjoyable.

Specifically, golf is my favorite niche. I love golf. I feel like I could have an informed sounding, coherent conversation with anyone about golf. I feel I could teach anyone golf. I would listen to or watch anything that was about golf over most anything else…you get the point.

So, back to the “What if I DO succeed with this niche?” question…

So now if someone asked me, “Oh cool, you make blogs. What are some of your blogs?”

Telling them I have a few golf blogs and listing them off felt cool. “Yeah, I have a site that reviews the best GPS’s, one that sells training aids, and another that reviews golf nets, I also have an instructional site…” etc… I felt good about it.

I can tell you when people asked me about my blogs and I was saying “Uh, I have a blog about coffee tables, office furniture, kitchen tables, ummmm, what else…oh yeah, shoe organizers…” I was thinking to myself AS I was telling these people what I was doing, what the heck am I doing? Their facial expressions would tell me they were asking the same thing.

I wasn’t proud of what I was doing, and my level of success followed suit.

I don’t mean to demean anyone for any niche they have chosen. Because the bottom line is I made some good money with some of those sites! Some random niches I chose became VERY interesting me when they were making hundreds or thousands of dollars a month!

I’m just saying, I go with topics I like from now on. I find success easier – much easier.

Lesson 2 – Niches With Cross Selling Items and Items That Sell In Numbers

If there aren’t any items that are an obvious cross-sell, or any items that sell in numbers in the niche, I don’t usually go into it.

A Good Example – Golf Grips

If someone is purchasing a golf grip online, then there is a large likelihood they are going to purchase 16 to 20 of them. That’s because if a golfer knows what they are doing, then they will want a consistent feel on all the clubs (and I’ll tell them they do!), so they’ll purchase new grips for ALL the clubs.

Because the golf competition rule states that one can only carry 14 clubs in the bag, most people have 14 clubs. So, let’s add a few in case they screw up putting them on. That means they are buying at least 16 grips.

Furthermore, most amateurs have more clubs than 14, since they aren’t in competition, so they’ll probably buy 20 grips.

THEN, the customer will need some double-sided tape, a pack of hooked razor blades, some fluid, a vise, maybe a blowtorch and maybe even a few more things if they want to do the job right!

It’s now easy to see how this one person has just purchased 33 things from my link in one sitting!

My commission percentage is now going to go up for all my items that month. That’s going to make a huge difference for the $500 golf mats I’m selling!

(NOTICE – Since I’m so interested in golf, I know about this opportunity. You can see  it’s very related to the first lesson.)

A Poor Example (for me) – Shoe Organizers

I don’t know what people want to buy along with shoe organizers. Shoes? No, that doesn’t work…I don’t care…why are we talking about this again?

Lesson 3 – Don’t Be Afraid Of Hot and New Niches 

The hotter a niche is -> the more reviews products within the niche are going to have -> the more products are going to sell in the niche -> the more potential money your blog can make per visitor to the blog.

That’s what logic says, and I’ve found it to be the truth in my experience.

Most people balk at the competition at this point, however. “Yeah, but everybody and their sister is trying to sell these things then! How will I stand out?”

Yes, but everyone is usually trying the exact same angle. They are trying to write content that is “Product X” with a “Review” tacked onto the end of it. That’s great for unsaturated niches, but for established hot niches, you may need to find a different angle into the niche.

So, instead, perhaps you could talk about “Product X vs. Product Y – Which Is The Best?”

Or, maybe a how-to topic that teaches a subject, then recommends the product There are many different ways to claim a portion of commissions for a hot product, or hot line of products.

What about NEW hot products?

I learned a couple years ago that a large percentage of people simply do not take action writing content for brand new products.

I learned this by writing about products that came out the day, or maybe the day after, they were released, and finding my content on the front page of Google for many relevant keywords in a just a day or two.

These are often products that become very hot, and then everyone else is playing catch up and climbing over themselves to rank highly months later, when it’s much more difficult. Why? Because your site has been at the top getting shared, and getting commented on, and getting views…and that kind of stuff can entrench content in the search engines.

The point is, a little action with hot niches, or new niches, can really go a long way.

It’s tough to calculate your way into these opportunities as stats often won’t exist. Instead, it’s more done with gut feeling and action.

I hope that you found my three learned lessons useful to you.

Jeff has put together a very in-depth training course that walks through setting up a successful Amazon niche site from top to bottom. It’s called Azon Classroom and it’s a great course that will teach you how to set up your site the right way, and how to write content that generates sales.

In this webinar we go over my favorite 3 methods for getting free, targeted traffic that converts to your websites. I think you’ll especially like method #2 of increasing your site’s traffic, since it’s just building on work you’ve already done.

The tools you’ll hear mentioned in this webinar are:

• Market Samurai
• Unique Article Wizard
• iContact
• StraybloggerTraining

In this interview, we have the pleasure of hearing from Jon Wedel, and 18 year old free traffic whiz. I recently picked up his course on getting free traffic I could tell that Jon is someone who has spent his time in the trenches learning and actually doing this… so I contacted him about an interview. Here it is:

What got you interested in starting an online business and how did you get started?

I started off when I was about 13 years old. I had seen people around me my whole life working hard at jobs to only be stuck paying bills. I decided that the lifestyle of trading my time away for money wasn’t for me, and looked for alternatives. I found internet marketing and decided that the lifestyle associated with it was perfect for me.

I tried promoting a Clickbank product about shoulder pain. I did article marketing and tried to rank on Google for a bunch of different keywords. I never made any money from it and couldn’t figure out why. The end result? The product was total garbage, along with the sales page. To date I’ve delivered thousands upon thousands of clicks to the offer and not made a cent from that offer.

Then came CPA marketing. I heard it was a fast-track way to make money so I looked into it. Most methods required paid traffic and being 13 or 14 at the time, I didn’t have the funds to invest. I started looking towards free traffic methods and it all started from there. I earned my first dollar, repeated the process, and grew outwards.

Fun Fact: I still have the shoulder pain website to this day for sentimental reasons

Did you have any failures early on and what did you learn from them? 

Definitely! I think everybody starting out in internet marketing has (or should have) failures. My biggest problem was that I liked the idea of the lifestyle associated with internet marketing, but I was too lazy to actually put in the required work to get where I wanted. I got sold by the hyped up world of “you can be lazy and rich” and it really wasn’t working out. I learned that the only way to succeed is to put in the hard work and build up a real business.

What’s the main thing that made the difference for you in becoming successful?

There are two main things that made a big difference. The first one was the realization that hard work turns into success. I finally realized that there is no such thing as push button profits and magic bullets. Realizing this was kind of a hard moment for me… it was like my dream of internet marketing was ruined. I sat back and thought about it and realized that people do make money online but they actually work for it. The people earning good money weren’t sitting on a beach somewhere doing nothing while counting cash… they were online WORKING HARD.

The second thing is something I think is the absolute most important piece of advice someone new to the game of online marketing. You ready?

Pick something. Stick to it. Get results.

Too many people get caught up jumping from method to method and trying different things but never sticking to one. This is commonly referred to as the “shiny object syndrome” and is a very real problem in online marketing. There are so many opportunities and ways to earn money online you can’t just choose one – so you try them all. I think most people have done this and most will agree that you only see success once you start to focus on one thing and bring it to results.

Looking back at my past  attempts to earn money, I now realize my failures would have been successes if I hadn’t thrown in the towel so soon.

What’s the best piece of “big picture” advice you would give to someone just starting their online business?

Start somewhere. Anywhere. I know it’s hard, I know it’s scary, but it’s worth it! The whole world of opportunities opens up once you take your first step.  Furthermore, once you take that first step continue to work in that direction until you see results. If you have a solid game plan and consistently take action on it – you will succeed.

What is your system for sitting down and getting work done on a daily or weekly basis?

I’m a big fan of white boards. I’ve got one sitting right beside my desk where I make gigantic to-do lists that help to keep me motivated. I create a list on paper on my desk as well and make it each night before I finish up work, so I know what I have to do the next day.

Obviously I don’t follow it to a tee but it’s nice to have as a guideline to see if I’m being as productive as I should be. If I don’t finish something that’s on my list, I move it on to the next day. Stuff happens and you might not get it done, but at least it’s a good reminder to actually finish it!

What could you have done that would have made you successful sooner?

It might be the ultimate internet marketing cliché, but if I had to start all over with no knowledge at all, I would find one good method, one that has been proven to bring in money time and time again.

Stick with that method until one of two things happens:

1. You get results. Awesome, stick to it and do it again and again.
2. You realize you’re doing it wrong. Find out why, correct it, and reach success.

What would you tell people just starting out that they should focus on?

Focus on a single method. I don’t care if it’s building adsense websites, creating products, CPA marketing – it really doesn’t matter. If you focus on one thing and stick to it you will learn the process behind making money.

Once that first dollar comes in, an entire world is opened up to you. You can scale it up, branch outward, and ultimately realize that you can earn money online. Make that first dollar and go from there – your first project doesn’t have to be a blockbuster but it should set you up to produce more and more successful projects.

Why do some people succeed online and others never do?

It’s funny how once people start to learn that you earn an income online, they all want to learn how to do it. For some reason people think that earning money online is super easy and requires no real work. These are the people who will not succeed until they realize how untrue it really is.

Too many people come in with high hopes and no work ethic. This is a recipe for disaster and leads to people throwing in the towel too soon. Like I said before, stick to it – you might fail for 6 months until you earn that first dollar.

That first dollar might seem small, but it is life changing. It’s at that moment you sit back and think:

“ I can do this. I can really earn money online.”

And from there a whole world of opportunity is opened.

How has running your own online business changed your life?

Knowing that I’ll never have to work a “real job”? It’s awesome.

It’s a nice feeling knowing that no matter where I am in the world, no matter what situation I’m in, I’ll be able to access the internet and earn money. It’s truly a blessing and I’m happy that I finally got over my initial phase of laziness and put in the true hard work that allowed me to reach this stage.

What motivates you to keep going and become even more successful?

I made the mistake of getting too comfortable and relying only on one source of income early on in my career online. When that source dried up, I lost everything. It was devastating but it was a lesson well learnt.

Since that happened I have always worked on expanding my business and trying to diversify into as many different fields as possible. At first it was grueling work but now it’s something that I enjoy doing and wouldn’t change for anything.

Another thing that’s really important to me is understanding that it’s impossible to know everything. There are so many new methods and lucrative opportunities out there that I can’t wait to learn about – but not until I finish what I’ve already got going!

How much of your time do you dedicate to: 1) self-education and learning new skills 2) generating new traffic, leads and customers for your business and 3) generating revenue?

I like this question because I think too many people focus too much time in the wrong areas. I’ve got a lot on my plate right now as far as ideas I want to go after, new methods I want to try, etc. so I don’t spend too much time learning new skills BUT – I’ll never stop. This is an ongoing process where you can never learn everything there is to learn, so I’m always doing my best to put a solid effort out there to learn more.

Lots of my focus is placed on generating traffic and getting customers, because in the end that’s what generates you revenue. I’ve found that by putting customers first you will find that the money follows. I know it sounds like total crap but it’s just the way things work. This is all crucial in building a solid online business, rather than a simple one-off method to earn money.

I wasted so much time spinning my tires trying to chase money, but it was when I focused on building a real business that I started earning.

You seem to teach mostly about traffic strategies… What is the top skill that someone needs to learn in order to always be able to generate traffic?

You want to know the secret to getting traffic? Be social. That’s where the internet is heading now, and I’m sure that’s where it will stay. In the last year we have seen such a huge shift to social aspects of marketing and you need to know how to take advantage of it.

Find out what makes people feel the need to share content, learn how to spice up your website’s content so people feel that need to share.

If you learn what makes people tick and how to get deep within them and make them share, you’ll forever be a traffic generating machine.

What traffic strategies are working for you right now, and are there any that will always work in your opinion?

Since I already mentioned being social (which will always work in my opinion) I recommended mastering the art of getting inside of your users heads. Sound creepy? It’s not really!

Always be thinking like your prospect/user/buyer would and ask the question “what’s in it for me?”

Try to use this knowledge to offer them something of value. Put together a free report for them on the subject and then use other websites in the niche to drive traffic to your own using a call to action.

Where can you go to do this? Think of places where other people are leaving low quality backlinks. Use these exact same places but put big, bold calls to action with an enticing offer.

Methods like posting to forums, document sharing websites, getting guest posts publishes, press releases published, and so on are all very much alive. You just need to create that perfect enticing offer and then get it out there as much as you can. Remember you can do this by asking that very important question of “what’s in it for me?”.

If someone only has 20 minutes a day to dedicate to generating free traffic, what is the best use of their time?

If I only had 20 minutes to spend getting free traffic I would do a few things.

First, I’d work on building up a solid following on social communities (forums, Reddit, StumbleUpon) and become an authority there. These kinds of followings last a lifetime and can bring you steady, consistent traffic for a very long time.

Look for places where you can leave calls to action and start becoming everywhere within your niche, once you get the hang of finding where to post them – you can do it over and over again.

Getting free traffic is so easy once you have a good system in place. A good system to me is one that you can scale up and repeat multiple times. Obviously finding places to leave calls to action is both very repeatable and very scalable, so try it out!

Where can people go to learn more from you?

I would recommend starting with my course, Traffic Shockwave, where I detail my exact system for generating a lot of free, non-Google traffic.

If You’ve Read This Far…

Good… I’m doing a simple giveaway of 3 $25 Amazon gift cards.

There’s just 2 simple requirements to enter:

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With that, there’s been several different new keyword tools released specifically for finding long tail keywords.

Well… that’s great but there are already ways to do it with tools you already have and free tools. In this post I’ll show you how.

How to Find Long Tail Keywords for Your Websites

Before I start this, if you’re serious about building websites, keyword research, and SEO, you should own Market Samurai. I’ve purchased several premium and not-so-premium keyword tools just to see what’s out there, and Market Samurai is what is the one that has stood the test of time for me.

To find these keywords, I use two tools:

1. Market Samurai
2. Amazon.com

I made a video where I walk through exactly how I find these keywords, and I think you’ll get a lot of ideas from watching this:

[contentlocker]

How often do full days slip by without you doing any actual work on your online business? Chances are it’s most of the time… meaning 4-5 days a week where you do absolutely no content creation , back link building, or traffic generation.

It’s an easy cycle to get into… you sit down to “work”, but you need to check your email first. There’s a few interesting offers or blog posts that you decide to read, and before you know it two hours have gone by.

Okay… before you really get started you should probably get a snack and go to the bathroom so that you can put in a few solid hours without having to get up. Once you’re in the kitchen, you decide that you’ll just watch one episode of your favorite show off the DVR before you jump into to a massive work session.

Alright, now that you’ve watched an episode, you’re going to get really productive. But you need to check your email real quick before you get started so that you don’t miss anything. You also check your stats because you might have made a few cents from Adsense or maybe even a Clickbank sale.

You open up Market Samurai or Google Keyword tool to find a good topic for the article you’re going to write. You see a few interesting keywords that you haven’t thought of before… but these are good enough to start a new site on. Your mind starts running wild with ideas about how this new site could make money. You go to Clickbank to see if there’s any related products you could sell, and then you check Amazon as well. It looks good… there’s products to market and it seems you’ve found some really great keywords.

Then your wife/husband/kid/phone interrupts you with an urgent issue.

“No problem” you think… “tomorrow I’m going to get a ton of work done.”

Getting Real Work Done at Home is Actually Very Hard to do

I’m sure the above scenario sounds painfully familiar, or at least parts of it do. Even as I write this blog post, my mouse keeps wanting to open up my Kindle ebook stats after every sentence (my latest addiction).

If you have kids, it’s 10 times worse. I don’t yet, so I’m guessing at that figure but it might even be 20 or 30 times harder to put in a few solid hours than for someone with no kids running around the house.

There’s just something about being at home that makes it harder to do real work for extended periods of time… I’m pretty sure it has something to do with not having anyone there to tell you what to do. In fact, you probably have someone there competing for your time. Your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse is probably telling you to help with the kids, clean something, or they just want you to hang out with them.

Another problem is that no one takes your “projects” seriously until you’re successful at it. If you’re making millions as a pop star, you’re awesome. But if you tell your friends and family you want to be a famous singer, they roll their eyes and tell you to get a job.

There’s a lot of other scenarios or issues that make it hard to get work done at home, but let’s move on to my best tips for getting things done despite the issues I’ve mentioned.

My Top 5 Productivity Tips For Getting Things Done

1. Identify your “prime” work time, and take advantage of it: This will be different for everyone. If you have kids and a family, the best thing for you might be to get up an hour or two earlier to work, or maybe after your kids are in bed. If you have an hour or two right when you get home before your spouse does, that is your prime work time, and you cannot afford to use it checking emails or watching TV. The bottom line is, you need to either figure out when your prime work time is, or create some prime work time. Once you know when it is, you do absolutely nothing during that time except real work.
2. Identify your avoidance loops, and preempt them: An avoidance loop is a series of events or time wasters that you engage in when you’re about to actually get something done. For example, my standard avoidance loop is to check my email, then various stats, then Yahoo, ESPN, and DailyMail to see if anything crazy has happened. Usually nothing has, but there is always some interesting news stories that I end up reading. The first step to avoiding your avoidance loop is to identify it as such. Once you’ve done that, the next time you start your loop, you can step back and realize it, and stop yourself.
3. Use a timer for solid blocks of work: There’s all kinds of specific productivity techniques out there such as the Pomodoro technique, but I like 50 minute blocks. These blocks are most effective when you identify one single activity. If you’re writing copy for a sales page, then when that timer starts you shouldn’t leave your word processor once during that block. If you’re writing a blog post, shut every other browser tab and do not leave your seat or your WordPress interface for the entire block.
4. Do not check your email until you’ve completed your key task for the day: Whether you get up early to work on your online business or you work on it at night, when you walk up to your computer, identify the one key task that you need to accomplish for the day. If you’re just starting then this would most likely be writing an article for your site. Once you do sit down and turn on your computer, do not check your email or any other time waster until you’ve completed that key task. If you can make this a habit and something you do everyday, you’ll finally start to make progress. Even just a little real work done day in and day out adds up… most people let several days go by at a time without doing any real work and that just doesn’t cut it.
5. Plan monthly > weekly > daily: Most people plan way too much or way too little. I have found the most successful way is to identify some key things you want to accomplish in the next month, then break those down into weekly objectives, and then into daily goals. For example, if I’m planning a new site and I want the site up and to have 20 pages of content on it by the end of the month, I would make a week-by-week timeline of what I need to do. Then, it’s easy to break each week down into daily objectives. As I mentioned in this post, I use a Blogger blog to track my goals and plans.

In this episode I go over some of the skills required to start a successful authority site and then some of the best actions you can take to grow your site.

Skills & Mindset Required:

1. Produce pillar content, then one solid post a week
2. Forum participation
3. Interviews
4. Series of ebooks
5. Youtube videos
6. Look at what the most popular posts are on other sites
7. Guest posting
8. Blog commenting
9. Email list
10. Starting a podcast
11. Contests

UPDATE: You can now get Erica’s most popular course, Extreme Review, for just $29 here…

What got you interested in starting an online business and how did you get started?

In 2008, I developed an interest in HTML.  At the time, I was not looking for a new career.  I had a senior management position at one of the largest banks in the country and was just looking for a hobby.  I received a book on how to write HTML for Christmas that year and decided I’d build a family website.  I was a bit frustrated with the limitations of the free site platform I was using and began researching how to build a more substantial site.  That led me to WordPress and I started a personal blog.  Jumping into WordPress with no website experience at all was a challenge.  I enjoyed it but it only led to more research and that led me to Squidoo.  I was hooked.  I had no idea you could make money online unless you actually ran your own online store.  I’d never heard of affiliate marketing.  I joined a group on Squidoo to learn as much as I could, abandoned the idea of a family website, and spent every spare minute online building Squidoo lenses.  When I felt I had the concepts for keyword research and marketing down fairly well, I went back to WordPress and started building Amazon review sites.

Did you have any failures early on and what did you learn from them?

Ha!  I’m the queen of failures.  I don’t think there’s a better way to learn in the whole world.  My first WordPress site was hacked in the first couple of weeks.  I’ve broken my own sites, accidentally deleted them, and made tons of Squidoo lenses that have no hope of ever making a sale because I completely misunderstood how to target buyers with my content when I was building them.  I’ve had sites, too, that never made a sale.  I’ve tried PPC and spent plenty that never resulted in a gain no matter how analytical I am and exacting in studying the results.  I’ve chosen stupid domains, spent weeks spinning useless content and tried tools that aren’t helpful.

I was online probably six months before I made my first dime and it was just that – almost exactly a dime.  Something like $0.11 or $0.16.  It was the most exciting money I’d ever made and I was earning a healthy six figures from my day job.  Why I’d be so excited by that first sale only other internet marketers will ever understand.

What’s the main thing that made the difference for you in becoming successful?

Only when I focused on one project exclusively for months at a time did I see any real success.  I decided to build a site around a keyword that only gets about 500 exact searches a month.  It seemed important to find something simple to work on so that I could see how the strategies all came together.  I wanted to know what it would be like to rank really well for just one keyword.  Ninety posts later the site was getting 500 visitors a day and making money through Amazon sales and a Clickbank product every day.

Focusing on just one keyword, one site for an extended period of time just seemed so strange.  When you read the internet marketing forums – which so many of us do when we’re new and trying to get our arms around how to make money online – they’re so bloated with strategies and advice that they almost make you think you have to have your hand in five or ten different business models in order to be successful.  That’s just not true.  It’s also not what the forums intend you to think but it seems a natural outcome of seeing so much information in one place.

Even today, I get emails from people who list out the 20 different projects they’re working on and they’re asking for help understanding why they’re not making any money.  I get tired just reading how much work and energy they’ve put into everything they have going on.  Makes me feel almost lazy in comparison. It shows that energy and effort are not the issue, in most cases.  It’s knowing what to do first, second, and third on a single project to carry it to fruition.

Almost any single, niche can bring in a full time income.  Giving up too early and spreading myself too thin were probably the biggest hurdles I had to overcome.

What’s the best piece of “big picture” advice you would give to someone just starting their online business?

Everyone has a unique set of skills.  Those skills might work really well with one online business model and not well with another.  This means everyone has the potential for success but they have to know what they’re good at, be able to compensate for what they’re not good at, and choose a model that plays to their strengths.  I love to write, enjoy numbers and analysis, and find researching products a satisfying challenge.  This makes me a good match for affiliate marketing and review sites.  Find your strengths and make sure you choose a path that plays to those strengths.

As I mentioned, almost any niche can bring a full time income.  When you think about the millions – billions, even – of dollars in sales that take place for just a single product and that you’d be happy with just a small percentage of that income, then it starts to make sense how this is true.  If manufacturers and retailers make millions every year selling baby cribs and you get into the baby crib niche, even 1% of the sales that take place is a great deal of money.  The potential is almost always there.

What could you have done that would have made you successful sooner?

I think the only thing that would have helped me see success more quickly would have been to start sooner.  I understood the mechanics of how to get material online but not the art of putting the right content together with the right keywords and I’m not sure you can gain much of that without taking action and seeing the results.  A lot of people that I work with struggle with over-analysis and it prevents them from getting content up online.  They have ebooks, they read all the forums they can find, they ask questions, and they study different business models but they don’t actually BUILD anything.  It’s taking the time to TRY that will teach you more than you can gain from any other resource.

What would you tell people just starting out that they should focus on?

Focus is really the key.  Write a plan and follow it out.  Make adjustments only when you think they’ll make a material difference to your results.  I don’t care if the plan is just a set of hand written notes or a detailed spreadsheet of what you want to do but come up with steps you want to take to get started – find a niche, get a domain, get hosting, write my first post, etc.  Write them down somewhere and start working through them.  There is a ton of information available that outlines step by step action plans for you to follow. Find one that resonates with you and work it from start to finish.

Then, take the time to analyze the results.  There’s a concept that businesses of all sizes have followed for years.  Launch, analyze, refine, and keep going.  For affiliate marketers, we should put up content and then analyze the results – what keywords are bringing traffic, what is that traffic doing when they land on our site, are they finding your affiliate links, are they following them?  There’s a ton of information in tools like Google Analytics or stat plug-ins you can use for WordPress.  Look for problems and then refine your site to address those problems and keep going.  This doesn’t have to be done daily.  Keep building your site but once every month or two stop for a couple of days and just digest the site statistics and see if there’s something you should change to improve traffic, clickthroughs, or conversions.

Why do some people succeed online and others never do?

That’s a tough question.  There’s no one single reason that divides those that are successful from those who are not.  For some people, it’s a lack of taking action but there are many people who take so much action that I’m awed by their energy and yet that doesn’t lead to success, either.  When action IS taken but doesn’t achieve the desired results it seems to boil down to a few, common issues

First, a lack of quality content can be a problem.  I don’t necessarily mean that the writing is poor and unpolished.  I mean that it doesn’t help the reader.  We can all put words on a page but it’s putting the RIGHT words on the page that will answer whatever the visitor was hoping to find when they entered the search term in the search engine that makes the difference. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy and you don’t have to use big words, you just have to lead the reader through important points to consider when they’re considering buying this product.

In the case of review sites, people are looking for honest, well-researched reviews of a product that give them information they can’t find on Amazon.

Posts like the “Best Such and Such for 2012″ can be great traffic getters but if all it does is showcase a product without any explanation as to why it’s the best product, then it lacks the reasons people need to feel comfortable that the product really is the best.

Second, using shortcuts in hopes of speeding things up doesn’t usually bring success but it’s easy to think that they will.  In fact, we really want them to so we pin our hopes on them and give it a shot because it sounds so easy.  Easy isn’t always good.

People are amazed when I tell them I don’t use a lot of sophisticated tools or a large team of assistants to do what I do.  I put up my own sites, I write my own product reviews, and I write all the content I use to promote my sites (web 2.0 pages, articles, or press releases).  I have occasionally outsourced these things but I’d say that I’ve done 90% of the work myself.

Outsourcing is fine but it does require that you stay heavily engaged with the content that you’re putting up.  If you’re not really reading it for understanding and if you aren’t in touch with the products you’re promoting, you’ll miss opportunities to expand your site.  Some of the best posts I put up are those that compare one product to another and it would be hard for me to know which products I should compare if I didn’t know them as thoroughly as I do.

Third, I think passion for the niche and the process has a lot to do with success.  I’m just finishing up with some one-on-one coaching with a number of students.  Those who did the best had such dedication to their topic and the process that it was like they were unleashed by just having a plan to follow.  All they needed was some guidance in the right direction and they’ve come up with amazing ideas for distinguishing their sites from their competition.  They’ve added their own, unique spin on the niche and it’s simply amazing to watch them go.  While they’re certainly hoping for sales (and making them), they’re almost more driven by putting together something they can be proud of.

How has running your own online business changed your life?

My life is about as 180 degrees different from what it was and it’s all due to affiliate marketing.  In 2010 I left my job at the bank and became self-employed.  I’ve had moments of sheer terror wondering what I’d done but also moments of incredible freedom.  As the sole provider for a family of 5, there’s a great deal of responsibility on my shoulders and I often lose a great deal of sleep because of that pressure. Taxes, medical insurance, and retirement planning when you’re self employed are way more challenging.  I’ve easily got several more years before I’ll feel I’m as stable as I was when I was working for someone else.

My lifestyle is very different, too.  My previous work life involved a great deal of meetings, travel, and long hours.  I still work long hours but only because I choose to do so and not because I have to do so.  I get up when I want (unless the kids are in school), we travel when we want, and I work in a tank top, jeans and flip-flops (something you can do just about year round in Arizona) sitting on my patio and right by the pool. Seriously, it’s like an amazing dream!  My parents have been extremely supportive of the change even knowing it was a big risk.  My mother asked me the other day if I would ever go back to working for someone else and I told her I couldn’t ever see myself doing so again.

What motivates you to keep going and become even more successful?

I’m highly motivated by achieving new goals.  Once I made my first dime, I wanted to make my second dime that much more quickly.  Soon it was $100 a day and then I wanted to make it $200 a day.  Supporting my family is also a huge motivator.  I have a son entering college and another son who will need a car in a couple of years.  I want to be able to help pay for those things.  My husband and I have travel goals we’d like to meet, too.  Hawaii, Greece, and a comfortable retirement. Each new financial goal I meet means I can achieve another level of success and so I keep striving for that next level.  I have a fixed amount I’d like to make each month and I won’t slow down until I’m there.

You’re obviously an expert Amazon affiliate… what are some of the best tips you have for creating successful Amazon affiliate sites?

One of my best tools for creating a successful site is content.  Content can be a great traffic getter all on its own.  If you write useful, relevant content about a niche, you will get traffic – long-tail at first but then you’ll gain traction when your site continues to explore that topic in depth.  I use very targeted posts that go after long-tails so that my sites become a sort of full-service, authority site around a niche.  Once the visitor lands, I want them to have all the information they could possibly need before deciding which product to buy.

When you’re researching a product, ask lots of questions.  Why does a product have a particular set of features?  Who would need those features?  When are they important and when are they not useful?  Find the answers and include that information in your posts.  It will connect your content with more readers through long-tailed searches and it also makes your site unique from most competitors.

Ignore products people don’t buy online.  If a product appears to be something people would prefer to buy in person, it’s not worth your time when there are so many products available that people DO buy online.  Why work harder than you have to?

Find products that people buy online and buy in multiples.  When I buy lawn chairs, I never buy just one – I want a set of 2, 4, or 6.  Products like these might have lower ticket prices but when you sell multiples of them at a time, you’ll see higher commissions more quickly.

How do you go about choosing niches or topics for your Amazon sites?

For my Amazon sites, I tend to pick complex products that have lots of features, buttons, controls, motors, and accessories.  The more complex the product, the better, because I know that I’ll research it more thoroughly than most people will attempt.  By doing so, I’ll get more traffic in the long run.  These kinds of products also tend to have higher prices and the commissions are good for each individual sale.

I make sure that there are signs that these products are bought online by checking the number of reviews that are on Amazon.  The more reviews, the more people have purchased these online before and the chances are good they’ll continue to do so.

At the root of things when it comes to getting Amazon sales, the overall goal is just to get the visitor to click thru to Amazon.com. Have you found any tricks to really increasing conversions or seen big differences in what types of calls to actions work best?

For my sites, I link almost every image in the post to Amazon, I include two Amazon style buttons, and I include at least 3 or 4 text links.  Those have worked well for me.  For my Squidoo lenses, I’ve been testing out using a button that says something like “see today’s favorite such and such” and link it to a search listing page on Amazon.  This gets a good clickthrough volume but a low conversion rate.  However, it showing incremental sales and I’ll take every one of those I can get.

What traffic strategies are working for you right now, and are there any that will always work?

My favorite traffic strategies – which also make for good backlinks – are several web 2.0 sites.  Squidoo is by far my favorite.  They rank well, they’re fun (in my opinion), and they can earn a strong page rank in their own right if done correctly.  I have some sites where the site and a Squidoo lens rank on the first page for my main keyword.  If I don’t capture a searcher one way, I stand a chance of getting them through the other link.  Squidoo has a great system in place for referral traffic that your lenses can gain from other lenses.  If you can tap into that traffic, you can use your lens to drive that traffic to your sites.

Where can people go to learn more from you?

I don’t have an internet marketing blog only because I’ve not carved out the time to set one up.  I do have a list where I routinely send out informative emails, updates, and tips and a set of ebooks around Amazon affiliate marketing.

Erica’s main course is Extreme Review. If you’re not making money with Amazon yet but you want to then get it.

If you want to get as much in-depth info from Erica on being an Amazon super affiliate, then check out these products of hers:

• Reviewers Edge
• Squidoo Niche Blaster
• Amazon Niche Master

Hello- In this episode I’m going to be talking about what I would do if I were just starting over, and what I think the best methods/models are for the long-term.

Click here to join StraybloggerTraining…(listen to the podcast for details)

This interview is with Chris Sorrell, who is an expert Amazon affiliate. He doesn’t use the Amazon affiliate program like most people- here’s the interview:

What got you interested in starting an online business and how did you get started?

Mainly being very disinterested in the world of work.  I started looking at whether selling on Ebay would be viable for me to be able to earn money from home, and for a while it went fine until Paypal problems forced me to reconsider.  I then started looking into other ways of making money online, and so gravitated towards the usual Clickbank stuff for a while.  It was probably ‘The Rich Jerk’ program that made me aware of ‘online marketing’ in the first place.

Did you have any failures early on and what did you learn from them?

I certainly failed, especially with my early experiences of Google Adwords and some technical issues of setting up websites etc, but looking back now, it was just part of of the learning process.  I kept going and simply learnt that trial and error is part of the game.  Also, getting good at just 1 or 2 traffic generation techniques is good enough for most marketing needs.

What’s the main thing that made the difference for you in becoming successful?

I just used the confidence booster that some initial success gave me to force me forwards and keep learning.  I took the view that if you can make $10 a day, then if you keep at it, $100 a day and more will soon come your way.  I also started looking out for certain marketers once it transpired that they were worth buying from and learning from.  I got some material by Brian G Johnson and Mark Ling which definitely helped me along.

What’s the best piece of “big picture” advice you would give to someone just starting their online business?

I would tell them to remember that all the rules are the same as the offline world.  You need consistent traffic, leads and sales to prosper.  Focus keenly on proven traffic models and become very good at a handful of things, rather than trying to figure out dozens of techniques all at once.  List building, relationship building and traffic generation techniques are definitely some of the best things to get good at and continue learning about.

What is your system for sitting down and getting work done on a daily or weekly basis?

I just have a work room where there’s no other electrical devices.  I find that working in the same room as your tv, xbox, and whatever other electrical stuff you own is just too much of a distraction.  I get plenty more done in a quiet room with no distractions so that’s now what I do.

What could you have done that would have made you successful sooner?

I really wish that all those times I heard someone say ‘build a list’ and ‘the money is in the list’, I’d taken action there and then.  I do well with my list building efforts now but I think like a lot of other marketers I got too distracted by other things to focus on it.  List building is now a big priority for me.

What would you tell people just starting out that they should focus on?

Try and work out what’s going to be the best fit for them.  Are they more interested in providing services or selling products?  Either way, you’ll need to get good at traffic generation, relationship building and work out what products are best to promote, or brainstorm some ideas about creating your own products.

Why do some people succeed online and others never do?

I think people get tired of buying junk products and simply decide to never bother with pursuing an online business.  The easiest way to avoid it is to remember that the rules of making money online are no different to the offline world.  If a product isn’t teaching you about leads, sales or conversions then it’s likely not to be worth getting.  Also, some people just lack the persistance to keep going through the early setbacks, which is just like it is in the offline business world.

How has running your own online business changed your life?

It has allowed me to be free of the horrors of working 9-5 and I’m a keen traveller, so getting away whenever I feel like it is a serious benefit to making your money online.  I spent nearly a month in Vietnam this February and will probably go to the Philippinnes or Thailand near Christmas time this year for at least 3-4 weeks.  None of that would be possible if I was in a regular job.

What is your favorite software tool that you use in your business and why?

I’m a fan of Magic Submitter for seo purposes and I stick to Market Samurai for niche research tasks.  But I’d say the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, SEOquake and Magic Submitter would be good enough to get anyone going if they were on a  tight budget.

How did you come up with your strategy of making money with Squidoo lenses, and what steps did you take to get it to the level you’re at?

I found a lot of Squidoo lenses on the first page of Google for various bits of niche research I was doing, so I decided to check it out and I found that you could use their functionality to promote Amazon products without having to apply to the Amazon associates program.  I then started building lenses one after the other with a solid, easy applied methodology and the traffic and money started coming fairly quickly.  I now manage the ones I’ve got and focus on outsourcing various tasks to keep traffic levels up.

Your strategy for making passive income from Squidoo seems to be something anyone could do… What are a few key tips that will give a beginner a better chance of seeing success?

Make sure your niche research is spot on from the start.  Without a good foundation then the rest is pointless.  Go after popular products that have lots of available and variable keywords to target and then focus your efforts on quality content and seo.

What traffic strategies are working for you right now, and are there any that will always work?

Long tail buying/product related keywords are always great to get traffic from.  They’re easy to rank for and bring in great quality traffic.  I think that’s a method that will be around for a long while yet.  Also, Youtube traffic via seo, squidoo lens comment swapping and occassionally PPC campaigns through Bing and 7search usually provide me with the traffic I need and are evergreen methods.

If someone only has a few hours a week to dedicate to their online business, what are the 3 key activities you would recommend they focus on?

1 – Know what you want then find good people to do the work for you.  Websites like odesk, scriptlance and fiverr are all good places to look for people with the skills you’ll need.

2 – Try and find a focus group of like minded individuals or a forum where you can ask questions and learn the things you need to know in a short space of time.

3 – Try and become proficient at one traffic generation method, whether it be seo, ppc, social media or video marketing.  It will serve you well over time.

Where can people go to learn more from you?

For a limited time I’m offering my Amazon Niche Nuke course for free to people who want to sample one of my Amazon related products.  Just go to http://www.amazoncashcloneaccess.info and sign up to access- it’s free.

I’m excited to share this post with you…. James Penn is someone I’ve followed for a long time, which he doesn’t know. For more than a year now I’ve visited his blog every week or so to see what new case study or technique he’s sharing because they’re always very helpful and fresh.

James is a successful blogger, niche marketer, product creator, and affiliate… he’s a  young guy making it happen.

I approached him about doing an interview for the Strayblogger readers, and here it is:

Q: What got you interested in starting an online business and how did you get started?

In 2005, when I was just fifteen, I decided to sell all of my unwanted items on eBay to raise some money to get me through summer.

I made about £300 ($500) which was a LOT of money for me at the time. I also got a bit addicted to online auctions. I loved waking up every morning and seeing the increase in bids on my items, and I loved constantly refreshing the last few minutes of an auction and watching the bidding rise.

Eventually I ran out of items to sell, but I wanted more so I purchased some wholesale lists for all sorts of different items, such as DVDs, clothes and electronic items.

My plan was to use my £300 to buy more items in bulk and then sell the items on eBay for more money. I researched so many different wholesalers trying to find products I could sell and make a profit, but in the end I didn’t have the guts to part with such a significant amount of money.

Then I realised that I’d accumulated the details of so many different wholesalers that I decided to create my own lists of the best for all sorts of different niches – such as DVD Wholesaler Lists, Designer Clothes Wholesaler Lists and iPod Wholesaler Lists.

I put these lists on eBay at prices from 99p to £4.99. On a bad day I’d get three or four sales and make around £10 ($16), but on a good day I’d sell 10-15 copies and make around £30 ($50) which was pretty good for a 15 year old.

I also bought some eBooks with resale rights and would sell these for low prices. After a customer purchased I automatically had the download sent to them and promoted a Clickbank product in the email. This was my first foray into affiliate marketing and I loved it.

Eventually I set up a website (after a lot of stress – I’m technically challenged!) teaching eBay selling and I wrote my first eBook called Hidden eBay Wealth which sold very successfully at $15 for a few years.

All of this gave me experience in selling, upselling, setting up websites, getting traffic, affiliate marketing, traffic generation and product creation and gave me a fantastic platform to kick on.

Q: What’s the best piece of “big picture” advice you would give to someone just starting their online business?

FOCUS is imperative.

Pick one business model, whether it be affiliate marketing, email list building, product creation or blogging, pick one and focus on making that work.

Don’t jump from idea to idea or website to website and don’t buy all the latest “instant money systems”.

Q:What would you tell people just starting out that they should focus on?

It depends on each person’s situation as to what business model they should focus on. If you’ve just lost your job, have a family to support and need to replace your income ASAP, then I’d suggest creating your own product, setting up your own affiliate program and spend every waking minute recruiting affiliates.

But if you still have a job and a few hours to spare each week, or if you have the luxury of not needing money right away, then I’d suggest blogging.

Being a blogger will likely take at least a few months, if not more, of hard work before you get noticeable gains but once you get your blog to a level where it produces income that you’re happy with, you really can live the dream internet lifestyle.

Plus, as a blogger you can incorporate all the other methods of making money online in your business. You can create your own product and sell it through the blog (something I’m in the process of doing for my health and beauty blog), you can sell affiliate products, you can build email lists, you can gnat ad revenue and much, much more.

If you blog about something you are interested in, then you’ll never get bored.

Q:What motivates you to keep going and become even more successful?

I’m a big believer that “success breeds success”. If you reach one small goal, such as making $10 in a day, then that will motivate you to go and reach your next goal.

My motivation at the moment is just to beat the previous month.

If I can grow my traffic every single month then I’ll be very, very happy. I’ve increased traffic to my blog every month since December. In December I got 6,126 visitors to my blog, traffic has risen every month since and last month (May) I got 58,551 visitors in the month.

There are also the motivations that everyone else has, such as the ability to buy nice things, to take luxury holidays and just not to worry about money. In the early days, my biggest motivation was just to prove the negative people wrong!

Q:What is your favorite software tool that you use in your business and why?

I use very few tools in my business. To run my blogs I simply use WordPress which is free, a couple of premium themes and a few plug-ins (mainly free ones).

I also have an Aweber account which I use to manage my email lists.

Most of the processes I undertake are manual. I don’t do automated directory submissions, or mass article distribution, or anything that Google might frown upon – which is why I was surprised my blog took such a punishment in the Google Panda update.

To see all the tools and plug-ins I use to set my blogs up and make money from them take a look at my Ultimate Bloggers Toolkit page.

Q:How much of your time do you dedicate to: 1) self-education and learning new skills 2) generating new traffic, leads and customers for your business and 3) generating revenue?

I don’t dedicate specific times to any of the above, but I’d estimate that about 5% of my time is dedicated to self-education (more time was spent in my early days, though), 90% to generating traffic, leads and customers and 5% on generating revenue.

Revenue generation is already in place (such as Adsense ads, Amazon and affiliate links) so revenue is generated by simply getting more traffic – that’s why so much of my time is dedicated to that.

Q:You seem to teach mostly about traffic strategies… What is the top skill that someone needs to learn in order to always be able to generate traffic?

I’d say there are two main skills…

1. Creating content that people in your market want to read

2. Finding ways to get this content in front of them

Here are some ways to get the content in front of them…

- Build your distribution channels (email list and social following) and share it with them

- Get authorities in your market to share it with their distribution channels. I’ve developed a really clever way to do this and it enabled me to generate over 17,000 visitors to one blog post in just a few weeks by convincing other people that they should share my blog post with their social following. If you want to find out what this method is then download my viral blog post case study.

- Guest post on high traffic blogs and funnel readers back to your blog

- Increase your rankings in the search engines to capture more visitors.

Q:What traffic strategies are working for you right now, and are there any that will always work?

My two biggest and best traffic sources right now are Pinterest and Facebook.

To take advantage of Pinterest you need to have high quality images on your blog and you need to encourage your readers to pin your content. You can do that by having prominent “Pin It” buttons around (or inside) your images.

Here’s a blog post I recently published revealing five tricks to get more people to pin your content (because the more pins you get, the more traffic you’ll get).

http://www.bigblogtraffic.com/pinterest-traffic-tricks/

I get traffic from Facebook two ways…

One way is my own Facebook fan page which is made up of close to 1,500 very engaged “fans”. I post 2/3 updates to these fans each day with a link to a blog post from the archive. Each update can send 50-200 visitors depending on how many people like and share.

The second way is by getting other Facebook fan page owners to share my content. People like to share good content and I’ve got a neat little trick to convince them to share my content which I reveal in my viral blog post case study report.

I also get a nice chunk of traffic from guest posting. In fact using only guest posting I got my blog to 1,000 visitors per day from Google alone. After Panda struck me, that dropped to just 200 – but I still get traffic from links in my guest posts.

QUICK TIP: Guest post on blogs with BIG Facebook followings (20k+). I noticed that the guest posts sending me the most traffic was because the blogger notified their FB fans of my guest post.

Q:If someone only has 20 minutes a day to use social media sites such as Facebook and Pinterest to get more traffic, what is the best use of their time?

First of all I’d make sure your site is set up properly.

For Facebook, make sure you have lots of calls to action asking your blog readers to like your page on Facebook  and have a Facebook like box in your sidebar of all pages. At the start of each blog post I try to put a paragraph like this…

Like Us On Facebook to get updates of new content, to take part in our fun and games and to win prizes in our competitions. 

If you can build a big FB fan page that will enable you to generate big traffic and give you incredible leverage.

For Pinterest, you need to make sure you have high quality images and display a “Pin It” button in prominent positions as close to your images as possible.

If I had just 20 minutes per day I would…

On Facebook:

• Post 2-3 updates to my fans per day with links to blog content
• Comment on other pages updates as my page rather than personal profile (good way to get authority fan page owners in your market to notice you and increases the chance of them sharing your content)
• Seek out FB page owners with similar fan sizes and arrange a “content swap” (you share one of their blog posts to your fans, they share one of your blog posts to their fans while also “tagging” each other to grow each other’s fan bases.)

On Pinterest:

• Pin images from around the web (including your own when appropriate)
• Be active to get followers – e.g. repin images, follow people, like images and comment on them.
• Similar to FB content swaps, once you have a significant Pinterest following, find other power users and arrange “Pin swaps” – you pin their content, they pin yours.

Q:Where can people go to learn more from you?

Visit my new blog at BigBlogTraffic.com where I reveal ALL the traffic strategies that are working for me right now.

Plus, if you’d like to learn my secret system that I used to generate 17,000 visitors to one blog post using OTHER people’s Facebook fan pages, then download Viral Blog Post Case Study…

Q:Final Words:

Thanks Nate and all the readers at StrayBlogger for having me. If you have any questions please leave a comment below and I’ll pop in and answer them

Article rewriting and spinning gets a bad rap… When you hear “spun content”, most people think of spammy, low quality content that barely resembles English. In reality, learning how to properly use article-spinning software is one of the best ways to leverage your time and existing content.

What an Article Rewriter Does

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, “spinning” an article is when you take a standard article and rewrite it in a special format that will result in a “unique” version when put through spinning software.

For example, let’s say we have the following sentence that we want to spin:

Learning to garden is a great hobby to pick up.

A spun version might look like this:

{Starting a garden|Learning to garden} is a {great|fun|fulfilling} {hobby to pick up|way to spend time|pastime}.

As you can probably guess, this would result in several different versions such as:

Learning to garden is a fun pastime.

Starting a garden is a fulfilling way to spend time.

Learning to garden is a great hobby to pick up.

They all mean the same thing, but they’re all different- especially in the eyes of the search engines.

How to Use Article Spinning Software

There are two main uses for high-quality spun content:

1. For use on buffer pages and other content syndication
2. For use as link-building content

When you think about the “buffer page” method of link building, which involves posting similar but unique content to a number of web 2.o sites that link back to your main site, you’ll quickly realize how much content you need to accomplish something like that. Technically, you could use the content word-for-word from your main site, but that isn’t ideal for obvious reasons. When you take your original article and put into “spun” format, you can then spin it into an unlimited number of unique versions.

This makes the otherwise tedious and boring buffer page process extremely quick and easy. You can keep hitting the “generate a unique version” button, and paste each new version to as many other web properties as you want.

If you use Unique Article Wizard or any other article submission service(which is the second part to the buffer page method), instead of painstakingly re-writing three versions of your article to submit, you simply hit the ‘generate’ button three more times.

Another Great Way to Use Article Spinning Software

PLR. I stayed away from PLR for a long time, but it has become one of my favorite ways to quickly produce new content for my sites. You can buy PLR packs for much less than you can buy original articles, and one quick trip through your article rewriting software will produce a unique version for your site, as well as all the unique versions you need for your buffer pages and link building.

What is the Best Article Spinning Software?

The best known is “The Best Spinner”. My biggest problem is that it runs on your own machine, and it’s only for PC’s. The article spinner that I think is hands down the best is Spin Rewriter. Spin Rewriter is web-based, so it’s always the most up-t0-date, advanced version without you having to do anything. The other huge advantage is you can use it from anywhere… you don’t have to install it onto every computer you want to use it on. Spin Rewriter also has a completely free-but-fully functional trial that you can use to see if it’s right for you…

Here’s a video on how to use Spin Rewriter:

There’s some valuable lessons in here, especially if you’re just starting so make sure and listen to it.

Little Favor: Please take a second and click this link to visit the podcast page, and then rate the podcast and leave a comment if you liked the content. Thanks! (you do have to be in the iTunes application to leave a review and rate the podcast)

As far as what’s happened to my own sites, the results are very mixed. The one thing that has been consistent is that a lot of my inner pages from larger websites all experienced drops in rankings.

I’ve read a lot of blog posts a lot of forum posts and a lot of other information on this latest penguin update, and while nobody knows for sure exactly what’s going on and how to deal with it, there are some common denominators that people have figured out.

I myself am not an SEO master over the last few years I’ve learned enough about SEO and getting websites ranked to be able to earn a decent income but after this penguin update there really aren’t any SEO grandmasters.

So, I’m just going to go down the list of any discoveries, hints, tips, tricks, or other relevant information that might be helpful going forward.

Back Linking After Penguin and Any Other Tips or Tricks I Know Of

Internal Linking

Internal linking on your site is something that doesn’t get much attention, but seems like is becoming more and more important. Without attempting to BS my way through an explanation, what makes sense to me is that it does at least two things: 1) it keeps your visitors on your site longer and helps increase your average number of page views which helps your “Google stats”, and 2) it let’s Google see that you link to other pages on your site instead of just a bunch of outgoing affiliate links.

The latest version of WordPress makes it really easy to go through your pages and quickly build links to other pages:

Probably a good rule of thumb is to have more internal links per page than affiliate links.

“Dofollow” Links and Nofollow Links

First of all there aren’t any links actually labeled “dofollow”… I remember thinking I was a genius back in the day by looking at the page source scanning for “dofollow” and never finding any… there are just regular links and then links labeled ‘nofollow’.

I read an interesting idea/theory that seems to be completely accurate… After Penguin, Amazon.com’s results are even more powerful than before, and this theory I read said that even though people think ‘nofollow’ links don’t matter or aren’t ‘counted’ by Google, the evidence suggests otherwise. Then he pointed out that with Amazon’s affiliate program, Amazon has got thousands of people to build millions and millions of back links to their site and individual product pages, and that’s the reason why their product pages rank at the top for every conceivable keyword.

The other thing to keep in mind is that if you use a bunch of different paid link building services, most(or all) of your backlinks will be ‘dofollow’ links, which looks incredibly unnatural to Google. Your link profile should include both types of links.

“Spammy” Back Links and “Negative SEO”

There’s a lot of irony going around… especially from the supposed SEO Gurus. The first part of this comes from Matt Cutts telling us that your site’s rankings can’t be hurt from a competitor pointing thousands of crappy back links overnight at your site. Then on the other hand, Google is handing out penalties for “unnatural” back links, and the gurus are telling everyone not to join “spammy” link networks.

The problems are obvious: If Google does penalize sites for “unnatural” back links, then “negative SEO” is definitely possible… meaning a competitor can knock your site off or get it penalized.

What should you do about this… I have no idea. I point this out merely to illustrate that Google search is perpetuating problems for itself by allowing this to happen, but I don’t have a proposed solution.

Varying Your Anchor Text

This is one part of the Penguin update that everyone agrees on… If you built all your backlinks with your keywords in the anchor text without any variation- or just a little variation, then your site got hammered.

Moving forward, you need to vary your anchor text to include phrases that are loosely relevant and even flat out generic.

For example, if your main keyword is “dog training”, then build links with keywords like: dog articles, pet advice, pet tips, click here, visit our site, check out this article… etc.

Shoot for your main keywords to make up less than 50% of your anchor text as you build back links.

Web 2.0 Sites and Authority Domains Getting All the Rankings

If you want to absolutely geek-out on this stuff, you can read Jonathan Leger’s full post here… One of the main takeaways from this post and thread I’ve read on his forum is that authority domains are getting higher preference in the SERPs even with little to no back links. Sites such as:

• Blogger
• Tumblr
• WordPress.com Blogs
• Squidoo
• Hubpages
• LiveJournal
• Yahoo Answers
• PRWeb

So… it seems that you can use the “buffer site” back linking method to kill two birds with one stone: Link back to your main site like normal from these buffer sites, but add some affiliate links as well since these might end up outranking your site for a while.

According to Pat Flynn’s latest income report, he built a site following his “backlinking strategy that works” while he hired a service that claimed to replicate the process only faster, and after 3 months both sites were getting similar results, but when Penguin hit the site Pat had done manually stuck in its rankings and wasn’t hit, but the site the hired company did disappeared from the SERPs.

That’s pretty telling, and is great to know… if that method withstood Penguin, that’s amazing since even a lot of authority sites that were completely white-hat were hammered.

I do also want to point out that Joseph Archibald is the guy behind the “buffer site” back linking method, and this method is more relevant than ever.

Take It Easy(easier) for a While

Slow your roll and don’t try to build back links as fast, and remember to vary your anchor text. Unique Article Wizard has even changed their daily recommended submissions from 25 to just 5, so you might even want to set it to 1 or 2.

And yes, I’m still using UAW and overall, it still does what it says it does.

Conclusion, and What to Do Now

Going forward there are a few key things to do and/or keep in mind.

Diversify your traffic: Go out and try to figure out other traffic methods and put SEO on the back burner. Figure out getting traffic from Youtube, article syndication, tutorial sites, forum marketing, blog commenting… there’s a bunch of stuff.

Ironically, the more traffic streams you get coming into your site, the better your site will do in Google’s organic rankings.

Experiment and Research: Use whatever SEO tools you have to look at competitor’s backlinking profile and anchor text profile to see what they’re doing and to get a feel for what type of sites are ranking for particular keywords. Here’s a tip… you can do most of this with Market Samurai.

For example, enter a new keyword and then click on the “SEO Competition” module:

Then, click on ‘Generate Results’, and you’ll see the results, and I want you to notice the little down-pointing arrows next to each result:

If you click on one of those arrows you’ll see this:

Clicking on the ‘AC Rank Analysis’ will show you where they’re getting their back links, and clicking on ‘Anchor Text Analysis’ will show you a breakdown of the anchor text in the back links pointing to their site:

This is very valuable info if you’re trying to rank for these keywords. By the way- researching the top 10 results for a given keyword and analyzing what they’re doing and why will always be the best way to figure out any update.

One Method Per Site: This is a solid, common-sense idea I picked up from Chris Rempel’s blog post: If you have the means, set up as many sites as you can and experiment with one back linking method per site. The idea is to profit from diversification and a ‘safety net’ of many small sites.

That’s it… What do you think about all this? Please share this post and leave a comment below.

In this episode of the Passive Profits Podcast, I go through some simple things you can do to set goals that actually motivate you, and some tips on ways of writing them down so that they’re always accessible.

Please take a second and go to iTunes and leave a comment and rating for the podcast… (you have to actually be in iTunes to do it)

How to Set Goals That Motivate You

Setting goals is a big deal… you need to be doing it.

The most profound thing I’ve noticed about goals and goal-setting, which is closer to a phenomenon, is that someone who is obsessed with hitting a goal can literally will them self to reach it. I’ve seen this first hand countless times, and I’ve also done it myself…

I’ve got two good stories about this… so listen to the podcast if you want to hear them- I’m not going to type them out here.

Okay… let’s get into the ‘how-to’

First of all, I’ve read a lot about goal setting and there are simple explanations and there are incredibly complicated explanations and methods.

I’ve kind of got my own system for goal setting, and it’s been working

The Foundation: Tony Robbins has two books that are both excellent sources on goal setting and achieving your desired life. But, when I said there are incredibly complicated ways of setting goals, he gives you some of those… submodalities and NLP- very cool stuff but there’s one technique in particular that’s simple and has worked wonders for me. Basically what you do is identify  your top 3-5 goals. In other words, figure out what 3 to 5 things that if you did or accomplished would make the biggest difference in your life. Then, for each goal, you’re going to write out 5 things or reasons why it would change your life for the better and how it would benefit you. Then, you write out 5 detailed reasons or things that will or won’t happen that are bad if you don’t accomplish that goal.

Once you’ve done that, you then write out a detailed plan of how you will hit that goal. The follow up to this is that you read these statements to yourself every morning. This is incredibly powerful for cementing in your brain what your goals are, and more importantly, the ‘why’ behind them.

Get Inside Your Own Mind: Save this one for a day when you have a few hours… but this is so revealing and helpful that you should do it as soon as possible. The book “Think and Grow Rich” should already be on your desk. If it isn’t, order it now. Without preaching about how great every one of its chapters are, the most helpful chapter in my opinion, is the last chapter, “The Six Ghosts of Fear”. When you read this, you’ll wonder how Napolean Hill knew you so well, and the inner slacker that’s constantly trying to prevent you from getting your work done. But that’s not all… at the end of the chapter, he lists out quite a few questions that he advises you sit down and answer with as much brutal honesty as possible. And I’m telling you to do the same thing… Sit down, and write out a very honest answer to every single one of the questions. This will results in quite a bit of writing, so this I don’t recommend you read every day, but go over weekly to keep your inner slacker/limiting beliefs in check.

Nate River’s Goal-Setting Tips

Now I’ll tell you exactly how I do my own goal setting and mental pushups each day. First, I setup a Blogger blog and set it to private so that no one can see it but me. You can make yours public and do whatever you want obviously.

First off, I recommend writing out the previous two exercises I just mentioned in your blog. This way everything is all in the same place, and you can access it from anywhere. So you’ll have one page where you wrote out your biggest goals and 5 reasons why you need to accomplish them and 5 bad things that will happen if you don’t. Then you’ll have another page where you write out your answers to Napolean Hill’s self-grilling questions.

Now we’ll go over some of the stuff that I personally do that really helps me stay focused.

Affirmations: I have another page where I type out my five affirmations every morning. The point of typing them out each time is to hammer them into your head, especially your subconscious. You can read more about affirmations in the chapter called “Auto-Suggestion” in Think and Grow Rich.

Goal Pictures: This is a fun one, and is easy to look at everyday. Just go online and find a picture that represents things you want or want to do. Don’t put any text on this page, just pictures… and go crazy… the more pictures the more motivated you’ll be to jump into your work that day.

Goal Rewards: This is a post where you list out something like, “when I hit my first $1,000 in a month I’ll buy myself this”, “when I hit my first $3,ooo in a month I’ll by myself this”… This is another layer of motivation for obvious reasons.

Financial Statement: Another big tip you’ll get from Think and Grow Rich is to write out a statement of your financial objective and read it to yourself morning and night. So, I have another page for that.

Ideal Day: This exercise includes writing out your ideal day… it can be as crazy or as low-key as you want.

Journal: Every week I write a new post in my “goal blog” where I review myself and what I did the past week, and what I accomplished and what I need to improve on. This is very therapeutic and helps to solidify your work ethic/goal-hitting-ability/whatever else you want to call it.

Income Report: Every month I go back and do my accounting for the month… this part I actually track in Excel but once I have totals I just make a quick post in my goal blog.

Monthly Plan: After I do my monthly accounting report for my business I then write out my next month’s plan.

Essential Books on Goal Setting and Achievement:

1. Think and Grow Rich
2. Unlimited Power
3. 7 Habits of Highly Successful People
4. The Psychology of Selling (very good tips on goals dealing specifically with income)

Please take a second and share/like/+1 this… if you liked it of course

When it comes to website structure, there are two main benefits to putting a little planning and know-how behind setting up your site:

1) Better stats for Google (lower bounce rate, longer avg. time on site, etc.)

2) Higher conversions… whether that’s sales or signups

I follow some pretty simple guidelines for my own sites that definitely work for me, so I’ll go over some of those in this post so that you can use some of them on your own sites.

Tips for a High-Converting Website Structure

A static homepage: I don’t do this with Strayblogger yet, but I do it on most of my sites. The main idea behind this is so that you control exactly what your visitors see when they land on your homepage. Your homepage will be the most visited page on your site by far, so it’s a good place to put your most valuable(both to you and your readers) information. If you’re not aware, WordPress by default uses a dynamic ‘posts’ page as your homepage that will show your most recent posts… a blog in other words.

When you use a static homepage, you go in and choose a “page”, not a post, that will be your homepage and will always look and stay the same unless you manually edit the page of course. To set that up, go into ‘Settings’, and then ‘Reading’, and you’ll see this:

You just check the ‘static page’ option, and then choose the page you want as your homepage. If you want a dedicated blog page, you would just setup a “page” titled ‘Blog’, and choose that as your ‘Posts page’ below the Front page option.

Some ideas of what to put on your homepage

First of all, your homepage should basically be an article about the overall topic of your site. Shoot for 700 to 1,000 words so that it’s substantial… both for human readers and search engines, and then as you build your site out you’ll be able to add links to your main pages right from the content of the homepage. If you look at my stroller site, you’ll see this in action:

The links on your homepage within your content shouldn’t just link to your money pages… that’s the wrong place to link to your money pages. Your homepage should link to your main category pages, and those main category pages will then have links to your different articles in that category. So basically what you have is a hierarchy of pages like this:

You should choose anywhere from 3 to 6 “categories” that any article on your site will fit into. Then, you create a “page” in WordPress to serve as that category page. Then go into your menu options and list these category pages in your navigation. First you have to do it under “Appearance” > “Menus” like this:

In Profits Theme, you choose ‘Top Navigation 2′, because that’s the menu under your logo… that’s just the way I setup all my sites, you can do it whatever way you want. I just prefer one main Nav bar under my site logo such here on Strayblogger. In Profits Theme, this is under Profits Theme > Site Options > Display, and then check the box to Remove/Collapse Top Navigation #1:

Then, on each category page, you make it another general article about that category or topic, and then link to the pages within that category. Here’s another example from my stroller site:

What this does is it gives your visitors a lot of places to go, and this increases your avg. time on site and avg. number of pages that visitor views. The longer you can keep a visitor on your site, the higher chance they’ll subscribe or buy something you’re promoting. These improved metrics also increase the quality of your site in the eyes of Google, which will improve your search engine rankings as well.

As you continue to build more and more pages, you should spend a little time going through and interlinking your articles. If you have a page titled “How to Cook Trout”, then in your other articles whenever you  mention cooking trout or eating trout, you would link back to your page on “How to Cook Trout”. Interlinking is another thing that boosts your search engine rankings, mainly because it get’s people viewing more pages per visit and staying on your site longer.

What to Put in Your Sidebars

Your sidebars are very important to the success of your site. This is where the bulk of your money-making actions will take place: 1)people subscribing to your list and 2) visiting your money pages.

As you can see in the shot below, I have a simple optin on my top-right sidebar, which is the best place to put it.

I know I beat this like a dead horse, but if you’re not building a list yet- it will drastically reduce the amount of time it takes you to build up your traffic, sales, and income. You can also watch the list building webinar if you haven’t yet…

I know this will get asked, so to get an optin form like the one you see above, you can either use Optin Skin, or Profits Theme has a sidebar optin widget you can use. In either case, you simply get your form HTML from iContact and paste it into the widget where it says “Paste Autoresponder code here”:

The next best way to use your sidebar space is to link to your money pages. It’s not a bad idea to include a couple of your best pages, whether they’re money pages or not- this goes back to the idea that you want your visitors to see your best stuff when they visit your site.

The easiest way to list the specific pages you want is to first create a custom menu in your ‘Menus’ options inside WordPress:

Then, you need to simply drag the “Custom Menu” widget into your sidebar inside the ‘Widgets’ menu:

Putting your Amazon.com affiliate disclaimer on every page: If you’re an Amazon.com affiliate, you need to have a disclosure statement on any page with Amazon affiliate links that discloses your affiliate relationship with Amazon. An easy way to this so that you don’t have to edit every single page is to use the “widgetized footer” feature in Profits Theme. Here’s what it looks like in action:

To set it up, it’s under Profits Theme > Design Options > Layout. Then you find this section, and make sure it’s un-checked.

Once you’ve done that, then you need to configure the widgets inside your “Widget” options:

At this point the only other thing I can think of that you might be wondering is, “How do I link to all my other pages besides my money pages in my sidebar?”

To answer that let’s recap: You setup your homepage which will link to ‘category pages’ and other main pages, and then on your category pages you’ll link to all the articles within that category. Then, you want to interlink your article pages wherever it makes sense to, and that way there will be a way to access any given page within a few clicks from the home page.

The idea of putting your best content directly accessible on the homepage and from any page in the sidebar is that it will be your individual pages that bring in most of the traffic, and then the main thing people click on is your homepage link, and from there they’ll funnel to your money pages… that’s how it works hypothetically and it will work that way the majority of the time. Some visitors will bounce after just a few seconds no matter how good your site and content are, but if you’ll take some time to plan out your site and set it up correctly, over time it will perform much better both in terms of traffic and revenue than it would if you just kept publishing pages and didn’t do anything to organize them.

Okay- I hope you liked this post and learned something useful… Please share/tweet/+1 this below and leave a comment or question.

In the webinar we covered the basics of getting a list up and running, and how to structure your first auto responder campaign.

Tools Mentioned:

If you’re just starting out with building a list, I think iContact is the best choice.

Optin Skin is the plugin that lets you put great-looking optin forms throughout your site along with a lot of other features.

Here’s the replay from last night’s webinar. We covered a lot of stuff, and there was a lot of good questions.

If you want a spot on the private webinar next week, there are still some spots available- watch til the end to see how to reserve your spot.

 Things that were mentioned in the webinar:

Bring the Fresh- this is where, in my opinion, the most cutting edge discussions are happening on SEO about what’s actually working right now…

Unique Article Wizard- this won’t make or break your website’s success, but it sure speeds it up

Hostgator- cheapest + most flexible hosting, and they won’t kick you off when you start to get traffic

iContact- easiest autoresponder service to get up and running with, and the lowest starting price (read about my iContact bonus here)

Profits Theme- the theme I use on all of my sites

Market Samurai- still my #1 keyword tool, and let’s you do those tricks I showed you in the webinar to spy on your competition

First of all, I want to thank all of you for the huge response to the WSO I released last week, “60 Minutes to $100 Days“. I thought it would do well, but it’s been way bigger than I expected and I’m grateful for all of your support.

It really is the best approach to building an online business, both right now and for the future.

This blog post and video is sort of an update for everyone who purchased the WSO, but I think my regular readers will get something out of it as well.

I’ve received literally thousands of emails since the WSO opened last Thursday, and it’s become very clear to me that I wasn’t detailed enough in two main areas:

• Choosing a domain name
• Building a list
• Link building

So, I’m going to cover those two things in this post- let’s get into it:

How to Pick a Domain Name for your new site

The formula for a great domain name for this type of site is very simple. You want to include one or two main keywords relating to your niche, and then one word that makes the whole thing into a brand. For example:

campinggearfanatic.com

dogtrainingjunkie.com

homeimprovement101.com

You can also use .net or .org if you can’t get the .com… they’re all the same SEO-wise. If you don’t have hosting yet, don’t mess with Godaddy or Namecheap, because then you have to change your nameservers inside of your host… you can get it all done in one place with Hostgator. Plus like I said in the course, with Hostgator you have the ability to easily scale up your hosting account, where if you start with Bluehost or another shared host, you’ll have to completely move your sites when they start to get a decent amount of traffic.

That’s really all there is to choosing a great domain name that gives you the benefits of having keywords in your domain as well as it being a “branded” domain.

Getting Started with List Building

I covered this in the video so I’ll just go over the basics here…

Building a list from the get-go is a very smart move. When you can email previous readers and let them know about new content, you build a loyal subscriber/reader base, your content gets more “likes” and “shares”, this increases your avg. time on site, lowers your bounce rate, improves your search engine rankings, which leads to more subscribers, which starts the process over again, and in the end more subscribers and traffic obviously results in more sales.

As I mentioned in the video, if you don’t have an autoresponder service yet, I recommend starting with iContact, specifically for this type of site. iContact is better for this type of site because they’re the best service for creating great-looking HTML-formatted emails. It’s easy to use and you want to use these type of branded emails to build your brand and readership.

If you start with even just their $10/month plan and you buy through my affiliate link, I have a bonus video course on getting up and running with iContact and how to setup your first autoresponder funnel that I’ll give you access to. This course isn’t available for sale anywhere, it’s only available as a bonus for getting iContact through my link. If you’re interested, click here > click on ‘pricing’> scroll down to plans > find the “$10 for 250 subscribers plan” > click ‘buy now’ > then signup and then forward your receipt to me at nate (at) strayblogger.com and I’ll send you the bonus course.

There’s no time limit or something dumb like that on this bonus… but it’s not available for a free trial- it needs to be at least their $10/month plan.

A Simple Plan for Back Linking

Okay, I got a lot of questions on backlinking as well. Your backlinking plan for this type of site can be summed up in two steps:

• Build buffer pages
• Build mass links to those pages

To build buffer pages, just dedicate one day a week to link building. You need to spend your hour a day for at least five days a week creating new content for your site. So, to do a buffer page, you take an article you’ve put on your site earlier in the week, and you submit it to Goarticles and Articlebase. I skipped this in the video, but only use EzineArticles for your once-a-week 1200 word article for quality reasons.

Once you’ve posted the article on those two directories, build mass backlinks to those two articles with a tool like Unique Article Wizard. UAW isn’t essential, but it sure makes this a lot easier. I went into detail about why UAW works like it does in the video, so I won’t re-type it out here.

By following this type of link building format, you’ll avoid any Google penalties because there won’t be a bunch of low-quality links pointing directly to your site. The buffer pages of those article directories can absorb mass low-quality links and they’ll pass higher-quality link juice to your actual site, without having to worry about a penalty from Google.

Again, UAW isn’t essential and don’t feel like you need it… but if you’ve been planning on joining UAW, then you should hurry because of this email I got from Jason Arnold today:

Alright- I hope this post cleared some things up with you and gave you more ideas… Let me know what you think in the comments below.

This guy is such a terrrorizer

In this podcast episode, I go over several things relating to the recent closing of Build My Rank, such as:

• How it’s affected my sites
• If blog networks are still worth using
• Using buffer pages
• Content/Article Syndication(not article submissions)
• The future of SEO
• My plan moving forward
• Some recommendations and tips for you moving forward

Things I mention in this episode:

• Unique Article Wizard (surprisingly it’s working better than ever, but I’m going to start using it a little differently)
• Pat Flynn’s “Backlinking Method That Works”

Has this affected your sites at all? Leave your comments/questions below…

Please take a second and go into iTunes, search ‘strayblogger’, and rate and leave a comment on my podcast, Thanks!

In this blogpost and podcast, I want to talk about a sickening realization I came to, and a huge lesson I learned last night while I was playing Call of Duty. If you don’t know, Call of Duty is the war video game franchise that breaks records every year when it releases its latest title.

It’s awesome to play, super addicting, and the more you play, the funner it is. That’s the reason I have such a problem with it. Since I do manage to work most of each day on my websites, I am what you would call a functioning addict… but, I really wish I could abstain during the week and get more work done but I find myself playing COD for at least 3-4 hours every night.

Last night in particular, a message popped up after a match that made me realize something big, and I’ll get to that in a minute. But first, there are some other “lessons” that can be applied to building on online business:

Camping vs. Run-and-gun: When playing COD, there are two basic styles of playing: camping and running-and-gunning. Camping means that you pick a spot and kind of hide and wait for people to run by so you can shoot them, and run-and-gun means you run around and try to find as many people to shoot as possible. What really matters in COD is the number of kills each round, so there are obvious pros and cons to both methods. When camping, you’ll have fewer deaths, but the winner of the round is almost always a run-and-gun guy simply because they have more chances to get kills.

How does this relate to building an online business?

The whole idea of run-and-gun is essentially the same as someone who just goes out and makes things happen. While camping is less stressful and the kills are easier, what you’re really doing is just sitting around waiting for an opportunity to come to you. This is a big problem that a lot of people have when trying to build an online business. The most “effort” they put in is in looking around for a “way to make money fast”. In other words, looking for something “easy”. There are “easy” methods out there that might get you some results, but the people that are really killing it are the ones that are simply just digging in and making it happen.

Spying on the best players: Each round in COD goes for 10 minutes unless someone hits 30 kills, whichever comes first. Usually in any given match, there’s some COD freak that will hit 30 kills in 5 or 6 minutes, and the next best player only has 15 or 16 kills. Well, I wanted to be the guy that was hitting 30 kills before the match ended. This is pretty geeky, but it’s a great lesson to learn. I figured out that after a match I could re-watch the entire match from any player’s perspective. So, I would watch matches through the eyes of the psycho who got to 30 kills in 5 minutes to see how he did it.

I think you can tell where this is going…

You’ve probably heard that you should find the top people in your market, or the best websites in your niche, and figure out why they are the best, and then emulate what they’re doing. Tony Robbins calls this ‘modeling’ and it’s a proven way to get the results that you want.

Utilizing Killstreaks: Killstreaks are when you have a certain number of kills in a row without dying, and a friendly chopper will come and drop you a box with some advanced weapon that will help you get even more kills, such as a sentry gun or an attack chopper. But… there are some killstreaks that just don’t work that well, while others will increase your kill count every time.

From an online business perspective, the first “killstreak” that comes to mind is building a list. Sure, you might have a site that’s getting traffic and generating sales, but  you could get more sales over time by building a list so that you can market to those customers over and over again. Another “killstreak” that you can utilize is upsells. If you are selling an ebook or your own product, and you don’t use an upsell, you’re simply missing out on more revenue.

Effective Aim: This sounds basic, and it is the most basic and fundamental skill in COD, but it’s crucial to your success. When you’re running and you come face-to-face with another player, you only have one chance to raise your weapon, aim, and shoot. This is the exact same thing as making sure that your core message and product matches what your customers are actually looking for. Any experienced marketer or business person will tell you to find a market first and then create a site or product for it, not the other way around.

Knowing the Maps: Memorizing the maps is another strategy of elite COD players. When one shot will kill you, the ability to anticipate where an enemy is most likely to be hiding will give you an advantage over someone who is simply reacting to what’s happening on their screen. As you’ll quickly find out, and it’s not really different than anything else that humans do, COD players are very predictable. Every map has certain “hotspots” where you can always find players to kill, as well as hiding spots where you’ll find a camper every time.

This concept has several parallels to online business. One is the idea of mastering your traffic methods instead of just dabbling in every method out there. Another example is the ability to identify hot markets and opportunities before everyone else does.

Silencing Annoying Players: Since the internet makes people anonymous, a lot of players on COD say incredibly vulgar, disgusting, annoying, and otherwise ridiculous things while playing. Sometimes it’s hilarious, but after a while it gets very old.

In an online business, you’ll definitely deal with less-than-savory people from time to time. The first few times I got a “hate” email or people telling me I suck, or some other unfounded complaint, it really got to me. When it comes to dealing with customers you obviously have to stand behind your materials, but when you get someone who is just looking for someone or something to blame their problems on, don’t spend any time dealing with them. Just block them from your list, or refund them, or whatever the case is, but don’t waste an ounce of energy worrying about it.

The Biggest Lesson of All: Okay, this is what happened that gave me the idea for this entire post. So in COD, there are just random badges or rewards that you earn for different milestones you hit. Last night, I finished first place in a match, and a message popped up that I had earned a reward for “being the top player in 1,000 Hardcore free-for-all matches”.

Do you know what that means? I place first in maybe 1 out of every 4 matches, and I wasn’t consistently placing first for the first 6 months of playing… so 1,000 1st place finishes alone equals around 150 hours of video game playing. The disgusting part is I probably spent at least 6-7 times that much playing, and maybe even 10 times that much.

So what’s the lesson there? The lesson is that even just a few hours day in and day out add up to a huge amount quickly… I’ve always said that if all someone did was pick one topic and write 3 articles a day on it, everyday, they would have a big big site that gets a lot of traffic and makes a lot of money within a year, probably even just a few months.

But… no one does that because people sabotage themselves into trying different methods and techniques, thinking that it couldn’t possibly be that simple.

Please take a sec and go into the iTunes store and search “strayblogger”, and then rate my podcast and leave a review… I would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance cuz I know you’re going to!

{sorry for the raspy voice- I recorded this thing twice!}

In this podcast I cover in detail some of the best things you can do to increase your amazon conversion rate from your review sites.

Some of the things I mention in the podcast:

Easy Video Player: what I use to do the affiliate trick I mentioned (as well as anything else with web video)

Product comparison table plugin: doesn’t have a fancy name… it’s what I use to create comparison tables

How to Increase Your Amazon Affiliate Conversion Rate

Actually useful content: I hate to hammer this into your head, but if you create articles that legitimately point out pros and cons that people care about, and then provide helpful recommendations, you will get sales. The idea of providing enough information for the reader to make a buying decision is something that will take more work upfront, but it will pay off in the long run for obvious reasons.

Structuring your site like a funnel: What I mean by this, is if you’re targeting keywords such as “Sony X35F noise canceling headphones”, you might try to get a domain name as close to that as possible. But… what would be much more effective is to do some more research and find a keyword phrase such as “best noise canceling headphones” and choose a domain based on that keyword phrase. Then, instead of putting up 5 articles that are titled after 5 different models of headphones, you could get even more traffic by finding some more general keywords such as “noise canceling headphone reviews”, “best budget noise canceling headphones, “noise canceling headphones buying guide” etc. You would still create a separate page for each review of a specific model, but those more general articles will bring your site a lot more traffic than just the pages based on specific product reviews. Then, in the general articles, when you mention specific models you would link to your review page instead of straight to Amazon. Keep in mind, that the traffic coming straight from people searching specific product names will typically convert the highest, but you’ll still convert a decent percentage of the traffic from more general keywords.

Contextual links within your reviews: These will be some of your best sales-drivers. This simply means links within your actual article body. For example, once or twice a paragraph in a product review you can turn a few related words into an affiliate link back to that product on Amazon.com. You obviously want to strike a balance between too few and too many, but a good rule of thumb in product review that’s at least 500 words would be to have at least 4 contextual links.

Making product images clickable with your affiliate link: This is simple, and easy to do. When you insert a product image into your review, WordPress let’s you make the image clickable and you just insert your affiliate link for that product. This will will be another high sales driver.

Make your links a contrasting color when hovered over: I think I originally read about this on Google’s own Adsense blog. They figured out that they got a much higher click through rate when they made the hover color on links very different from the original. So if your links are blue, make them red, green, or orange when hovered over. More clicks means more sales over time.

Don’t waste sidebar space with an Amazon widget: Amazon’s own tools don’t convert very well. Instead of pasting in a widget on your sidebar, list your own review articles for the top 5 products in your niche. You can title them “highest rated products” or “bestselling products”.

Adding a “Who this is good for” section: There’s a lot of variations of this, but add a paragraph about who the product is the best fit for, and then recommend 2 or 3 other products that are either cheaper, more expensive, or would be a better fit for certain types of customers. For example, if you’re reviewing an expensive golf club set, you could write, “if you just can’t shell out the $1,500 for this set, the X set and the X set are two highly rated but very similar sets that are less than $600″.

Pros and cons bulleted list: I’ve mentioned this before in previous posts, but this is a great way to sum up the main benefits and negatives for your readers. You build these really easily and effectively by going through some of the actual reviews and pulling out benefits that people talk about. You can obviously do the same to pull out some negatives.

A high-converting video trick: For a lot of products, there will be some high quality review videos out there on Youtube you can embed on your site. Adding a good one to your review can really help. But, to take this a step further, you can use Easy Video Player to take the Youtube video, and then import it into EVP and have a buy button appear below the video after 5 or 10 seconds in. So yes, I’m saying that you can take a Youtube video that isn’t yours, import it into your EVP dashboard, and then add an “element” that makes a buy button appear at a specified time under the video. It’s a pretty awesome feature. If you have EVP and haven’t played around with the “elements” and other features yet, there’s a ton of cool stuff you can do with it.

Product comparison tables: This is something I started using just a few months ago, but they have really helped. I use a simple $10 plugin, and I can make one in literally 2-3 minutes. The best way to use it is to pick the main or best product, and then include 3 others so that you have 4 products total in your table. You can watch this video about how I use it here…

List your review articles at the end of every page: You should list your top 5 product reviews at the end of every page and post on your site- this is for obvious reasons and it will increase your sales. Again, title them something like “highest rated headphones”.

Include excerpts of real reviews: You can include the first sentence or two of some real reviews from Amazon, and then link to the full review page using Amazon’s “link to this page” tool. This is another thing that will produce more sales than you would otherwise.

So far, that’s all I can think of and this post has gotten fairly long. I hope you can use some of these tips-