Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Free eBook

I wanted to make it clear that I have not given up on Google AdSense. I still believe it is a valuable resource for establishing multiple sources of income. I woke up this morning to find that I had made $1.99 on Google AdSense so far today. It's always fun to see what I earned while I was sleeping. The problem is that I have been focusing too much on just that source. Now, I'm ready to add more sources of income to my work-from-home business. Are you?

I found a free ebook on how to choose the best affiliate programs and use websites to become a successful affiliate. I've learned a lot already. I can see why I failed at affiliate marketing before. I'm ready to put what I have learned to good use and add more sources of income to websites.

I won't stop what I am doing with my websites. I love providing helpful information to people. I now see how I can help my visitors find the resources they need and put a little more money in my pocket at the same time.

I will keep you updated on how the affiliate marketing is going, but don't wait for me! If you read the free ebook, put your new knowledge to practice too and let me know how it is going by posting a comment on this post. I look forward to hearing from you.

Monday, June 28, 2010

What is Affliliate Marketing?

I am exploring affiliate marketing. I always knew I would use affiliate programs as part of my plan for making money from home but as many of you know, I spend most of my time writing articles for clients' websites. I need my freelance writing income, but I also need to supplement it with my own projects.

For those who are not familiar with affiliate marketing, I'll give a brief explanation. When you become an affiliate, you are paid a commission for selling something. Huge affiliate programs give affiliates numerous items to sell. This means that you can pick a product that you feel strongly about and write blog posts or articles about the subject. Then, include an ad or a link for the product you are trying to sell.

For example, I have a website about setting goals called GoalPlan.org. Here is a post for that website in which I included a link to a product for which I am an affiliate: Online Goal Setting Software

You see if you click the link in my article, it takes you to the sales page for the product that I am selling. For each sale, I get a commission. You can take a look and see what I am talking about. I may change some of the wording on the article, but it will give you an idea of how to sell products with blogs.

There's one very important thing I need to mention. You should NEVER pay to be an affiliate. You should not be required to purchase anything. The affiliate program that I joined is one that is reputable- ClickBank.com
They are free to join of course, so feel free to sign up and explore the program.

If you already have a blog or website, you may want to check out ClickBank's programs to see if there are some products you could be marketing to increase your income from the website. Just make sure that affiliate links do not violate the terms of service for the host of your blog or website first.

Another thing that I fully intend to do is participate on ClickBank as a vendor. That means that I create a product like an ebook and sell it through my website and ClickBank affiliates. Being a ClickBank vendor would give my ebook more exposure. Someone might think that paying affiliates commission is not appealing, but if you think about it, I would be saving lots of money. How? Because instead of paying advertising on the Internet that may or may not give me a sale, I am paying affiliates only for sales. Therefore, all the money spent on commission is because there were sales- not because I am trying to get sales.

So Clickbank is a win-win situation for people who want to make money promoting products and people who want to make a quality product and sell it. I suggest you think about using both sides of the ClickBank affiliate program- as an affiliate and as a vendor. I'm sure if you are reading this, you have insight or experience that could make a great ebook. Now, you just have to sit down and do it! Turn your dreams into success by taking action on your goals.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

New Path from Poverty Website!!!

I am in the process of setting up a new Path from Poverty website- http:/www.pathfrompoverty.com. The website is up and running. I will be adding more content frequently so please bookmark it and check it often. So far, it has information about search engine optimization (SEO) for beginners, making money by writing, and starting a home business. I will continue this blog as a place for personal notes about how well my methods are working. I'll try to post more status reports about my projects. I always have so much going on!

Along with my websites, I am designing a line of graffiti-inspired t-shirts that will be sold online. I'll be posting more about that soon on both the website and the blog as well as how anyone can make money selling t-shirts that they design! It's a very exciting new endeavor! Look for that post in the couple of days.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Publishing Poetry Article

Today, I wrote an article about publishing poetry. The same information could apply to any book, not just poetry.
Publishing Poetry

I hope you find some information in this article that you can use.

Friday, January 1, 2010

How to Tell How Much Traffic Your Website Gets with Google

With HubPages, the Hubpage statistic button on your article give you information on how many visitors your HubPage had and where the visitors came from. Also, the View Your Hubs link on your HubPages home page will show you all of your hubs and the traffic that the hubs have received in the last 24 hours, week, month, and total traffic since the hub was published.

So, you get some information on visitors for HubPages. However, I still set up URL channels on Google AdSense for each of my Hubpages so that when I get clicks, I know which articles the clicks came from. I also set up URL channels for each of my websites and blogs.

Channels on AdSense show the traffic a website gets and the revenue it is making. To set up a channel, sign into your Google AdSense account and click the AdSense Setup tab. Then, click channels. Make sure the AdSense for content tab is active (selected), click URL Channels, then click Add New URL Channels. This gives you a field where you can type in the domain names for your websites and URL's for your HubPages articles. I copy and paste mine to make sure I get the URL correct.

I do this immediately after I post a HubPage. I view the HubPage, copy the URL from the browser window, and paste it into the Google AdSense add URL channel field.

Now, you know exactly how much money each of your websites and hubs is making.

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Happy New Year!

My little Happy New Year video:



Let this serve as an example of one of the many ways to promote your websites for free. YouTube is one medium of promotion. Like you need multiple streams of income, you should also have many sources of promotion working for you. Numerous promotion methods are free. You just need to take the time to put them in place.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Anyone Wanna Race?


I had an idea. Does anyone wanna race with me to see who can post the most HubPages articles in a month? Hubpages has become a decent source of income for me. No, it's not what it should be yet, so I have a goal to write one page article a day (or more) for a month. Several Hubpages authors have done this.



If you haven't already signed up for a free account at Hubpages, click here and sign up. There should be a link un the upper right corner of the page to sign up for an account.

Why do I promote HubPages so much? Why would I want to write that many articles on HubPages?

1. It's a way to promote my websites for free. Just like I used YouTube and continue to use Facebook and Twitter to promote my websites, I can do the same with HubPages. For example, for Goalplan.org, I plan on writing some HubPages articles about setting goals and including my link to goalplan.org.

2. It's easy. It doesn't take much time to write a 350-450 word article on a topic related to one of my websites or keywords I find on Wordtracker related to a topic I like. One little trick I learned to do, instead of writing one article for my website and one article for HubPages to use to link to my website, I write two versions of the same article! I post one version on my Wordpress website and one on HubPages. It saves time and provides content for both. Remember, content is king! You want unique content on your website and your HubPages. For your 2 versions of the same article, change the wording thoroughly so the articles seem very different.

3. HubPages is a surefire way to build Google AdSense income. When you set up your HubPages account, you can add your Google AdSense code under affiliate settings. Then, every time you write a HubPage article, your Google ads automatically appear on your article.

4. You can add Amazon.com affiliate links to HubPage articles. When you are filling out the form to submit your HubPages article, it gives you the option to add Amazon.com product links. Sign up for the Amazon.com affiliate program, and submit your affiliate ID code to the HubPages Affiliate settings. Then, when you add Amazon.com links, they will have your affiliate code. Add links to products on Amazon.com that are related to the topic of your article. The tool on the HubPages submission page where you submit an article walks you through the process.

5. HubPages help guide include a wealth of information about keyword research. Check out the section called "Before you write your first Hub." It is very informative for those who are not very familiar with how to find keywords and how to pick out the best keywords to use.


So, anyone want to race? Leave a comment if you want to race and include if you are ready to race beginning January 1st or the date you wish to start. Consider getting your Wordpress website started (as detailed in the last post) before racing so that you can take full advantage by writing 2 versions of the same article. I can't promise that I will write a new HubPage every day, but I'm going to try. Can you do it? Can you write more than 1 a day? We'll see...