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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

The Plan for 2010 & Instructions for Starting a Website

I hope everyone is ready to set their goals for 2010. I'm working on building my monthly passive income through websites and affiliate programs. For those who may not know, passive income is money that is received over and over again from work that you did once. For example, I build my websites, then almost every day I receive money from the ads on my websites. I love checking my Google account when I wake up in the morning. It shows that my websites are working for me even while I was sleeping. That's passive income.

I recently added affiliate programs to my passive income sources. I will explain that further in a post in the near future. First, I want to make sure everyone understands how to get started with free or low-cost websites of their own.

I'll explain how to get started by explaining the step-by-step that I took to start PTSDcentral.com which is the website of mine that brings in the most income at this time.

Step 1: I signed up with HostGator.com. There's a link to sign up for Host Gator right on this page. I discovered Host Gator by asking my freelance client what hosting service he uses for his websites since he has so many websites. I thought he must be spending a small fortune in hosting fees! He gave me the link for Host Gator and quickly explained why he are the best. With Host Gator, you can have an UNLIMITED number of websites for roughly $10/month! (more or less than $10 depending on which service you sign up for) An additional reason that I like Host Gator is their live chat tech support. I have learned a great deal from these technicians.

Step 2: I bought my domain name through Host Gator. I don't always use Host Gator for domain name purchases, but that is who I used for PTSDcentral.com.

Step 3: The welcome email from Host Gator includes the DNS settings. On the page (or other website) where you bought the domain name, click to manage the domain name and change the DNS settings to the settings that were in the Host Gator email. After the DNS is set, it may take up to 24 hours for the domain name to be active.

Step 4: Sign into Host Gator. In your control panel, you will see Fantastico towards the bottom of the page. Click Fantastico, then click Wordpress. When you download Wordpress to your domain, you enter the domain name as the folder where Wordpress will be installed. After Wordpress is downloaded, it gives you the link that you will use to sign into Wordpress and manage your new website.

Step 5: Sign into Wordpress. Choose a theme for your website under the category called Appearance. The theme is the look of the website. You want to select something that looks professional, has 2 sidebars, and has black type on a white background. I made the mistake of using a light gray text on a black background for PTSDcentral.com at first. I changed it when I figured out that many people were leaving my website very quickly. Many people just hate black backgrounds. Once you found the theme that you like, apply the theme.

Step 6: In Worpress, click Permalinks under the Settings menu. Type /%postname%/ at custom links. Type a short word like on or at in the field labeled category base. Click Save Changes. This is what makes your article URL's say the title of the article instead of a number. Having the article title in the URL can help boost the position of the article in the search engine search resullts if the article title includes keywords.

Step 7: Under Appearance in Wordpress, click Widgets. This is how you add your Adsense code to your website and the categories of your articles so people can browse your website. Sign into your Google Adsense account. Click Adsense Setup, then click Adsense for Content. Then, you click either Ad Unit or Link Unit. I usually put one of each on my websites. When making the links, you want to choose sizes that will fit in the sidebar of your website. I think the Skyscraper ad unit size usually works well. Change the colors to match the theme of your website. For example, if your theme has a white background, make your ads have both a white background and white border so that it blends in. After you're finished, copy the code. Go back to the Wordpress widgets page and add a Text or HTML box to the sidebar where you want the ads. Paste the Google Adsense code into the box and click Save. On the other sidebar, you may want to add a Google Adsense text unit and the categories widget to show your website's content.

Step 8: Go to Wordtracker and get a list of keywords. Search for multiple terms related to the topic of your website. For example, if I was doing a website about dogs, I might search "dogs," "dog health," "dog diet," "dog training," etc. I save the search results to an Excel spreadsheet, but you could save it to a Word document. I save it to Excel, because it's easier for me to put them in the order that I want and to color the field after I've written an article about that keyword so I know which ones are finished.

Step 9: Set up you article categories on Wordpress. The link for categories is in the Posts menu. The category names will relate to the keywords that you plan on using. These will often match the search terms that you used on Wordtracker, but they can be anything that makes sense for your website. Looking at your list of keywords, imagine grouping them together under main topics. Those main topics are your categories. Add categories to your categories settings in Wordpress. You can always go back and add or change categories.

Step 10: Write some articles and add them to your website as Wordpress posts. Under Posts, click Add New. I always type my articles in Word first, and then copy and paste the article in a Wordpress post. Type in the title and paste your article in the main field. Make sure you click the category that you want your article to be in before you click Publish.

Step 11: Continue to add articles and promote your website. If you made a website by following these instructions, please leave a comment on this post with your website address so I can check it out. Feel free to ask questions in the comments section as well. If you have any problems at all with Host Gator, I suggest using the 24-hour live chat tech support. They are awesome!

And there you have it. I'll talk a little more about promoting websites for free in a future post. For now, there are two basic ways of promotion that you need to know:
1. Submit to Search Engines for free. I use Submit Plus.
2. Announce your website to your friends, family, Twitter followers, on Facebook, etc. Where ever you think people might see your link, share it. I would not promote my websites until I have at least 10 articles on it. Then when I share the website, I might mention that more articles are on the way. You don't want to share an empty website with people who will then visit once, consider it pointless, and never visit again...

Wow, so those are the basic steps to creating a website like PTSDcentral.com. The cost is about $10/month to Host Gator (which includes all my websites) and roughly $15/year for the domain name. That's it.

Passive income. That's what it's about. One website is not likely to provide all the income you need. If you plan on making a good income from websites, you need many websites. Multiple streams of income is necessary. If you haven't read the book Multiple Streams of Income: How to Generate a Lifetime of Unlimited Wealth! Second Edition
by Robert Allen, I strongly suggest it.

My Newest Website- Goalplan.org

I've been working on my newest website- Goal Plan. It's not finished yet, but I wanted to show you what I'm working on.

Also, don't think because of the snags with the Social Security Administration over self-employment as I discussed in my last post that I regret working from home. The opposite is true. It has made me more determined that I do not want my income to be in the hands of such an illogical beaurocracy. It has only strengthened my drive to be off SSDI.

A Word of Caution about SSI

If you receive SSI and not just Social Security Disability (SSDI) and you start working from home as being self-employed, the Social Security Administration calculates your self-employment earnings from the beginning of the year. So, if you started working from home in July (or any other month), the SSA treats it as if you have started working from home in January.

Therefore, they can decide that you need to repay the SSI you received during the months that you weren't working. For example, I started working from home in July. I reported my income in July. They decided that I should no longer get SSI since my work from home limit was above their monthly income limit for SSI. I was totally fine with that since I make much more from home than my small SSI check.

What I was not prepared for was the letter that I received a few months later that said that I owe the Social Security Admnistration the SSI money that I received from January-July. Granted, a person can appeal this or claim hardship. Even if the person does not appeal the decision or claim hardship, when the person files their income tax the following year, the amount is calculated for the year. If the amount calculated from the income tax shows that the person did not make enough to have the SSI taken back for the year, the Social Security Administration may return some or all of the money that was paid back.

Obviously, this is not logical. You would think that the SSA would use the person's start date to do their calculations for SSI. It's just another example of how the Social Security Admnistration makes it more difficult for people who need to work from home due to anxiety disorders like agoraphobia.

So, if you work from home instead of having a traditional job, you will have to pay back the SSI from the beginning of the year if the SSA decides you no longer qualify for SSI. Also, people who work from home who are on SSI or SSDI can only work 45 hours a month. People who work outside the home can work more hours. (Again, I don't see the logic in that at all. I think it should be a straight income limit for everyone.)

If ANYONE understands the logic for these SSA practices, please share!
I am not an authority on SSA practices. Please contact the SSA and discuss your case and situation if you have any questions.

Thinking about New Year's Resolutions

Consider the current balance in your life as well as your priorities for the new year.

'The Parable of the Professor and the Bucket
By Michael Masterson

A philosophy professor and his student stand in a warehouse. A large tin bucket and several boxes are in front of them.

The professor picks up a box that contains large rocks, each one about four inches in diameter, and pours them into the bucket. The stones reach the top of the bucket, and he asks the student if it is full.

'It is,' the student replies.

The professor takes another box, this one containing stones about one inch in diameter, and pours them over the rocks in the bucket. The smaller stones fill in the spaces between the rocks. Again, he asks the student if the bucket is full.

The student looks and says, 'It is.'

The professor then pours in the contents of a third box, this one containing small pebbles. Again, the student looks in and agrees that the bucket is full.

Finally, the professor pours a box of sand on top of the rocks, stones, and pebbles. And once more, for the fourth time, the student has to acknowledge that the bucket is full.

'The lesson,' the professor tells the student, 'is to do the most important thing first, and each lesser thing in order of its priority. In this way, you will be able to fill up your life four times, instead of just once. If you do the unimportant things first, you'll be filling your bucket with sand... and there won't be room for anything else.''"

Finding Topics for Articles

I wrote an article on HubPages to answer a question from one of my fans on there. I was asked how I come up topics for my HubPages articles (called hubs).

How to Find Topics for Hubs

That brings up another benefit of HubPages. The interaction with people who like your articles and join your fan clubs can help boost your self-confidence. It's also helpful to get feedback from readers that let's you know what the strengths and weaknesses are of the articles that you have written. This can help you improve your writing skills for the Internet.

Writing for the Internet is not the same as writing for print media. The ideal word count for the Internet is under 750 words. For most freelance assignments that I have had for articles for websites, the client wanted articles for 350-450 words. Since the word count is much smaller for the Internet, the articles need to focus on the most important information on the topic. If you are not used to writing for the Internet, it can take some practice to write such brief, but informative articles. This is why feedback from readers can be so helpful.

Getting Started with Freelance Writing for FREE

So, you want to be a writer. I believe that writing from home is one of the best ways to increase income from home. The Internet has made this an easy way to make some extra money.

But, where should you start? How can you make money from home without paying any money at all? While starting a website with articles about carefully selected keywords that draw visitors from search engines is one ideal way to make money as a writer, there are other options for people who want to start without paying money for website hosting.

Here is a Step-by-Step Guide to Making Money Online without Paying Anything:

Step 1: Sign up for a free Google Adsense account. Simply go to Google.com and sign up for Google Adsense.

Step 2: Start with HubPages. Go to Hubpages and sign up to be a new hubber. During the sign up process, you can add your Google Adsense code. This way, ads on your articles on HubPages will display ads with your Google Adsense code. Therefore, when people click on ads on your articles, part of the advertising proceeds will be added to your Google Adsense account.

Step 3: Write articles for HubPages about your interests. During HubPages sign up, you may be directed to select areas of interest. You are not restricted on writing articles only in these categories. HubPages has numerous categories and writers can add articles to any of them.

Step 4: Practice doing keyword research and writing articles about a keyword. Use the information on this blog about WordTracker or click to add on the blog to be taken to WordTracker. There, you can do free research on keywords. Select several keywords related to topics that you would like to write about. Then, write articles for HubPages on these keywords.

Step 5: Spread the word! Let people know about your HubPages articles as you submit them. After publishing an article on HubPages, there is a function that makes it easy to share your articles on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking websites. Feel free to post a comment here to let me know of your articles on HubPages and I will be happy to check them out! I also encourage anyone who finds this blog helpful to offer mutual support and encouragement by checking out each other's articles and offering feedback through HubPages voting feature or with an encouraging or helpful comment. Let's help each other!

In addition to letting people know about your HubPages articles here and on social networking websites, you may email your friends and family the links to your articles. Google will eventually index your HubPages articles, but if you want to help that process along, you can submit your article link to http://www.submitexpress.com/submit.html for free. This may speed up the addition of your article to several search engines.

A word about the quality of articles:
Don't be intimidated by making your article perfect. A heartfelt, informative article can draw readers in. However, I would suggest writing the article in MS Word first so that spelling and grammar errors can be caughts before publishing the article to HubPages.

If you would like to add a photo to your article, which can make the article more attractive to readers, there are websites that have free public domain photos. Two such websites that I use are:

Imagebase Free Photos
Photos8 Public Domain Photos

When you write 2 HubPages articles on similar or related topics, you can link them together. For example, if I wrote an article on Lupus, then wrote another article on the treatments for Lupus, I may put a link on the end of on my first article that looks something like this:
For information on Lupus treatments, look at my article on Treatments for Lupus.

After typing that, select the words "Treatments for Lupus" and click the world with a chain (hyperlink) icon. It will allow you to select one of your other HubPage articles to link to. It's very easy, and you will see what I mean when you are doing it.

If you have any questions about HubPages or anything in this blog entry, feel free to ask a question by posting a comment. If some things about HubPages are unclear, you can read their guide after joining HubPages. They have a lot of information that walks you through the process of writing and posting articles.

Why Complex PTSD Should Remain A Fictional Diagnosis

Why Complex PTSD Should Remain A Fictional Diagnosis

Please take a minute to read this article. I have a couple good comments. I hope for more.

SSI for Anxiety Disorders: A Bridge to Wellness

I wrote this article to express my opinion about why SSI is important for people with anxiety disorders:

SSI for Anxiety Disorders: A Bridge to Wellness

In the article, I also discuss the basic options for achieving independence after receiving effective treatment for the anxiety disorder. Though this article was written specifically for anxiety disorders, the information could apply to several disabilities.

How to Make Money With HubPages

Here's one free and easy way for writers to make a little extra money. Apparently, some writers are doing very well with this. I'm talking about HubPages.
Here's my first HubPages article:

Symptoms and Treatment of Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Feel free to sign up for HubPages from my article page. You can write about anything that interests you including health, parenting, pets, writing... I mean anything!
It's pretty cool because you can add pictures and videos to your articles too.

After you sign up for HubPages, sign up for a free Google Adsense account if you don't already have one. Then, go back to HubPages and put in your Adsense ID # in the Affiliate Settings section. HubPages will automatically add Google ads to your HubPage articles (called "Hubs"). So, when people read your articles, you can make some money from people clicking on your ads.

One word of caution for people who may not be familiar with Google Adsense. I plan on putting much more information on this blog about making money with Google Adsense. Google Adsense is free for people to post ads on their websites and receive part of the revenue from Google ads. Never pay money to someone to join Google Adsense or make money with Google Adsense. Also, never.. and I mean NEVER click your own ads. Google can close your Google Adsense account and ban you from Adsense. It's not worth the risk. Instead, learn how to legitimately make money with Google Adsense. I suggest you start with HubPages. I will talk more about choosing keywords for Hubs and so forth, but for now, join and post your first Hub. Get a feel for it. They have an excellent guide to show you step by step how to do it.

Also, after you publish your first Hub, share it with people! If they join, you can earn a little extra income from their web traffic too. Remember, it's free to join. It's free to post articles. Google Adsense is free. Pretty cool, huh?

Google Scams

I want to make it clear that by mentioning AdSense as one stream of income for people to get off SSI, I am NOT advocating the popular Google money system scam going on right now. Here is an excellent overview of the Google scam that I found on YouTube.



Is Google cash a scam? Well, yes and no. Unfortunately, scammers have taken what can be a real and excellent source of income and turned it into a Google cash scam. Anyone can make money with Google AdSense. You don't have to subscribe to a Google cash kit in order to make money with Google AdSense. Google AdSense is FREE for anyone to join.

Anyone can start with a FREE blog, get a FREE list of keywords from Wordtracker, sign up for Google AdSense for FREE, and start earning money.

It upsets me that people have taken what can be a free opportunity to help people with disabilities (and others) establish a source of income and turned it into a make money with Google scam.

So, please, don't pay for something that can be done for free. With a little keyword research and patience, anyone can work towards making money with Google without the Google scam.

Creating a Keyword List

Once you have done some searches using Wordtracker's Free Keyword Suggestion Tool, take some time to look over the list. Which are the top keywords? The toplist of keywords are the ones with the highest number of searches. However, there is a problem with using the most popular, highest searched, top list of keywords. The problem is COMPETITION!!!

Can you imagine creating a website on a simple, yet extremely popular keyword? If thousands of people are searching for that keyword every day, how many websites do you think already have a strong Google ranking for that keyword? Too many.

What does that mean for you? When starting a website, don't try to run with the big dogs just yet. Choose a list of keywords that fall in the middle of most searched and least searched. Choose keywords that may not have as much competition as the others but still have a decent number of searches. Common sense should help you select some excellent starter keywords for a beginning website.

If you would like to see how much competition there is for a keyword, doing a Google search for that word can give you some idea. Don't get too stressed out about finding keywords with NO competition. That is not likely to happen.

Start weeding through your list and selecting twenty keywords on your topic that would be good for a starting website. If you did keywords on more than one topic, you may want to chose one of the topics to start based on which you think has the most middle-ground keywords.

Keywords: The 1st Step Towards Making Money Online

Step One: Select a topic and generate a keyword (KW) list about the topic

What are keywords?
Here's a simple keywords definition: A keyword is a word or phrase that people use on search engines to find what they are looking for. For example, someone looking for information on "cats" may use a variety of keywords to find the specific information they are looking for. "Cats," "cat facts," "cat," "cat declawing," and "cat health" are just a few words and phrases that people type into search engines. The words and phrases that people use are recorded as keywords.

If you write an article for your website, you want to use keywords in the article. Why? If you include keywords on your website articles or blog posts, the search engines are more likely to recognize those keywords and include your website in search results. Therefore, people who are searching for information related to your website might see your website in their search results.

Once upon a time, people with a little HTML knowledge could "cheat" and include keywords in metatags for the website without having the actual keywords in the text that shows on the website. Search engines have gotten smarter. While these tools are still being used, the content of the website has become much more important.

I've written numerous articles on several websites that are consistently in the top 5 Google results. Being placed high in the Google results is important since it vastly increases the chances of your website being seen by people doing the search. Imagine the difference of being on page 1 of the Google results as opposed to page 50. Not many people even go to page 2 of their search results.

Selecting a topic for a website is not that difficult. First, jot down a list of things that interest you. They could be academic interests, medical topics or diagnoses, hobbies, skills, etc. Then, take your list and go to Wordtracker's Free Keyword Suggestion Tool. There, you can sign up for a free trial and do some free keyword searches.

You may do more than one keyword search for each possible topic on your list. Start by entering a word or phrase that best describes the subject. For example, if "psychology" is on your list, enter "psychology" in the search field. Wordtracker will generate a list of keywords. Copy the list and paste it onto a blank MSWord document.

Then, try some different phrases related to your first subject word or phrase. For the "psychology" example, you might want to try "psychological theories" or "mental illness." Copy and paste list of keywords onto your Word doc.

From this list, you will be able to make a top list of keywords. The Wordtracker results show how many searches are performed for each of the keywords. The most searched keywords for your topic are the ones with the highest number following the word or phrase. After you have gathered a long list of keywords for the first possible topic, start a new Word document with keywords for the next possible topic. Do this for all your possible website topics.

One thing to keep in mind-- all keywords are not created equal! I will discuss how to choose the best keywords to include on your website in the next post. The most searched keywords are not necessarily the best when you are starting a website!

How Do People Make Money from Websites without Selling Anything?

Many websites designed to make money are websites that promote opportunities such as MLM, direct sales opportunities, or websites that sell products. I do not like either as a home based business opportunity. Each of those relies too much on an investment from visitors.

How do people make money from websites without selling anything?

There are 5 basic steps to earn money from websites:

1. Select a topic and generate a keyword (KW) list about the topic
2. Choose a cheap website host with a sitebuilder and cheap domain name registration like Host Gator
3. Create the website with plenty of articles containing the keywords from your list
4. Add Google AdSense to the website
5. Promote the website


I will be talking more on how to earn money from websites. I will break down each of the steps for making money with websites in the next blog posts including what is a keyword and where you can get a keyword list on any topic.