Million Dollar PortfolioReal Strategies for Making Money Online

A couple weeks ago I was introduced to a new business that I think is going to be amazing. Having been involved in previous online businesses as well as direct sales, this is one of the most amazing opportunities I’ve seen.

That being said, I wanted a way to introduce the opportunity to new people and in a way that would bring them in easily and with as little effort on their part as possible.

This is where a great landing page is useful.

The EvolvHealth business is going to be huge, I’m sure of that. However, the web page the company gives you isn’t exactly a great selling point simply because it’s too much without explaining anything.  This isn’t the first opportunity like this I have looked into and in my opinion isn’t the best way to introduce a new business to a prospect.

That’s why I created a landing page.

Landing pages are a way of providing information to new prospects by getting them interested in what you are offering. Often they feature lengthy explanations of the product and/or service and provide testimony from successful people using said product, but none of that is really necessary.

All you really need to do is provide a simple, effective means of explaining what you are selling and the page does the rest. I created ShopEvolv.com to do just this and so far it’s been phenomenal. It’s not only an effective landing page that works, but I also really believe in the product so check it out for yourself.

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I know this blog is about making money online, but every single book, article, blog post or ezine I have read talks about donating as a way of making money.

I know it seems contradictory. Why would I donate money to make money? That’s ridiculous!

It might seem so on the surface until you realize a couple important, common principles among the truly wealthy.

Maybe you stumbled upon this blog thinking it was just rehashed garbage reprinted from other blogs. Or maybe you “googled” make money online and happened here. Perhaps you used “finder-Spyder” (ok a joke) and landed on one of my pages. Regardless, you are here and you want information.

I am here to say that if you are serious about making money online. If you are truly committed long term to being an entrepreneur and want to make money using the internet as a tool, you MUST. You MUST…nay it is IMPERATIVE that you donate some of your money to charity.

One of the most amazing books i have ready is Robert kiyosaki’s book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”.

Though the book itself is mainly fictional, the goal is to illustrate how we think about money and how we spend our lives around it, even consumed by it.

When you understand that money is just another tool like a screwdriver or hammer…it loses power but you gain some clarity in how to use it. You can begin to see how this knowledge can be used as a tool to further education and understanding. How to build anew on the ashes of what once remained. I urge you to donate whatever you can spare to a worthy cause just as my friend is doing. Or, find your own cause to support. I am sure there is no shortage of individuals needing help these days.

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It’s been a while since my last post. My hosting provider decided to move hosts so all my blogs have been migrated to the new host. All is now well, and this new host is much better.

I’ll be posting an end of the year wrap up soon detailing December’s income statement and my thoughts on how the year went.

Overall, the blog has been a great success and I intend to build on that success in 2009. I hope to run some great new contests and give away even more this year than i did last year.

If you haven’t done so already, sign up for my RSS feed and my Twitter feed so you can keep up with all the latest news.

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At the beginning of this month I started an Affiliate Challenge with a grand prize being a Flip Video Mino Series Camcorder, 60 Minutes (Black). The purpose of the challenge was to illustrate how to make money using affiliate programs. For this challenge, you had to sign up for a PepperJam Network affiliate account and begin promoting products through advertising them on your blog, using adwords or any other way you know of to promote affiliate products. The winner would be the affiliate that sold the most.

And the winner is…well, nobody. One person signed up using my affiliate link but so far I haven’t seen any sales. So although I won’t be giving away a camcorder this month, I will be talking about my earnings for August.

Traffic, Traffic, Traffic

Traffic, as always is key to any successful blog or web site. Traffic means eyes looking at ads and that means revenue.

According to Google Analytics, there were 428 visits with 720 pageviews averaging 1.68 pages per visit. Bounce rate was 71.03% which means 71% of the visitors read only the first page of the blog before leaving to go elsewhere. I don’t completely rely on Google Analytics though because if I look at my webalizer stats they paint a different picture. What Google Anylitics don’t take into account are repeat visits. Webalizer shows 9109 total visits with 18656 page views from 698 unique URLs.

This is down slightly from July but that’s likely a result of July having an easy contest to win where I gave away a  Flip Video Ultra Series Camcorder, 60-Minutes (Black).

The Good Stuff

Why do I write about earnings? I think it’s important to be honest when running any kind of business be it online or off. This blog earns enough right now to pay all my hosting fees and a bit extra. Last month I earned enough of course to pay my hosting fees and give away a camcorder. Now without further Ado…

Text-Link-Ads: $49.43
Amazon.com Seller: $54.12
CafePress: $27.96
Adsense: $0.98(anyone still making money from google adsense?)
NeverBlueAds: $0.00
LinkShare: $0.00
Clickbank: $11.04
MarketLeverage: $1.10
Pepperjam Network: $37.00
Kontera ContentLink: $0.84

Total:  $182.47

Blogger Incentive Program from PepperJam Network

Some of these aren’t that impressive but the important thing here is consistency. First of all, if you aren’t signed up with PepperJam yet, sign up now. You get a $10 bonus just for signing up and if you blog about their Blogger Incentive Program you can earn another $10 each time you do for a total of $50 a month. So if you sign up right now, you get a $10 bonus then blog about this and you get another $10. That’s $20 in your account just for signing up and blogging about it!

PepperJam is the fastest growing affiliate network out there and the primary reason is because their interface is excellent. On the home page are all my stats right there and finding new products to promote is easy. I’ve had more responses (clicks) to affiliate products through PepperJam than any other affiliate I promote. I’ll continue to promote PepperJam because I think they are awesome.

Final Thoughts

As with any business, there is going to be some amount of money invested along with time to get things off the ground. I won’t tell you that making money online is easy because it isn’t. It takes time to understand the ins and outs of marketing not only affiliate products, but marketing yourself. The only person that can make you successful is YOU.

Here’s a great quote by Warren Buffett that I think says a lot about making money.

I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.

I haven’t written about all the ways I make money here because I also buy and sell stocks on the stock market which is something I am pretty good at and getting better all the time. You can read more about my ventures in the market on my blog The Proficient Investor. Affiliate marketing is starting to work out well for me as I learn more about it and learn techniques that sell. There are a lot of ways to make money whether online or not and you need to find the ways that work best for you.

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Making money online is more than just signing up for affiliate programs like PepperJam Network and slapping up some ad spots on your blog.

To really make the big bucks you have to explore PPC (Pay Per Click) campaigns and yes, it is going to cost you some money. You can however mitigate the amount of money you are spending by focusing on a niche product and finding the right keywords for that product.

You should know that AdWords isn’t the only game in town. In fact, I have had some pretty bad experiences with AdWords and Miva as well. At times it feels like your campaigns are just sucking your funds away and not producing anything. You can avoid spending tons of money on wasted clicks by doing a few simple things with your ads which I will talk about in a moment.

If you really want to find a targeted niche, one of the best places you can look is Facebook. Facebook is the fastest growing social network on the web. It’s already surpassed MySpace and has been valued at several billion in US dollars. With their Ad platform you can create targeted niche campaigns and make some serious money.

First things first. In order to use Facebook for marketing a product, you need something to sell. The best way to do this is to sign up with an affiliate partner like PepperJam Network. Read the rest of this entry »

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It’s been one week since I started my new affiliate challenge contest. The purpose of which is to illustrate how you can make money through affiliate marketing.

If you are new to affiliate marketing and need some information on how to get started, Thor Schrock (who donated a prize for my last contest) has a great series on niche affiliate marketing. Check it out.

As of right now, I have had only one person register with PepperJam Network. I’ve seen a lot of clicks through but only one confirmed sign up. In order to participate in the challenge and win the grand prize: Flip Video Mino Series Camcorder, 60 Minutes (Black) you have to sign up to be an affiliate with PepperJam Network and start making money. The person who earns the most through promoting affiliate offers will win this awesome camcorder.

As a bonus and to get you motivated, the first person to earn just $20 will win a pristine, brand new copy of Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas issue #2. This comic book is insanely popular and the first issue is already selling for $22 on ebay! Written by Jon Favreau (director of Iron Man, Zathura).

Why join PepperJam Network? First of all, the interface is great. When you log in immediately you get a detailed report of how well you are doing in your campaigns. They also have hundreds of affiliates to choose from so you can promote exactly the kinds of things that are appropriate to your site. If that isn’t enough, right now there is a sign up bonus. If you sign up as a new affiliate, you earn $10 automatically. Furthermore, you can make $50 extra a month by blogging about this sign up bonus as part of their Blogger Incentive Program. Each time you post about the PepperJam Network Blogger Incentive Program you earn $10.

I’m really excited about this contest because I love to see people succeed. Sign up with PepperJam Network today and start making money!

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Last month I had the most successful contest ever on this blog when I gave away a Flip Ultra Black Camcorder as a celebration of my 36th birthday and appreciation to my readers for making this blog successful.

This month I want to give away as good a prize or even better but I don’t know what it’s going to be yet. I’d love to give away another camcorder or something even better but it depends on how the monetary situation presents itself this month. Of course if I can secure a big sponsor for this, I can give away something really cool.

That being said, it won’t be as simple as the last contest.

What I want to do is throw down an affiliate challenge. One of the best ways of making money on the internet is through affiliate programs. I know a stock trader who made more money from affiliate sales on his blog than he made trading last month! His success isn’t unusual either. Most of the blogs I read use one affiliate program or another. A few days ago I wrote how PepperJam Network is giving away $10 just for signing up as a new affiliate. I also wrote how you can make $50 extra a month just blogging about their Blogger Incentive Program. Read all about it.

How It Works

This affiliate challenge is going to put your skills to the test. It’s up to you to use every trick you know to make this successful.

Here’s the rules.

1. First, you have to sign up with PepperJam Network using my link. This step is mandatory. If you are already signed up with PepperJam Network and you didn’t use my link you won’t be able to participate in this challenge but there will be more challenges to come in the future.
2. Second, using PepperJam Network, start promoting products from affiliates you think you can make work. Ideally these would be suited to your blog or website but if you are doing PPC/Google Adwords campaigns it really doesn’t matter. Your creativity is what is going to help you win this challenge.
3. (optional, not required for the contest) blog about this contest on your own site. If you followed step one, you should be having people use your affiliate link.

Seems simple enough right?

The winner of this challenge is going to be the one who generates the most income! As a fast start bonus, the first person to generate just $20 in affiliate sales will get a brand new copy of Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas #2 (written by the director of the movie, John Favreau). The first issue of this comic is already selling on Amazon.com for $8.79 (original price is $3.75). This isn’t the big prize but this comic is flying off shelves and I have a mint copy to give away to the first person who can generate just $20 in affiliate sales. To clarify, signing up someone and then blogging about the PepperJam Network Blogger Incentive Program (earning you $20 by doing so) does not count toward the fast start bonus. Only affiliate sales count toward this contest.

I’ll know when people sign up by checking my PepperJam account so there is going to be no way for anyone to cheat. All claims will require proof as well. I will require that you send me a screenshot of your earnings page to claim any prizes. As long as you follow all the rules of the affiliates you are promoting, the only thing stopping you from making money is doing nothing.

Here’s what your reports look like when you’ve signed up, gotten some bonus money(sign up bonus and a blog post) and have an affiliate signed up:

Why An Affiliate Challenge?

My goal here is to have a fun contest but also to teach the power of affiliate marketing and how you can be successful doing it. At the very least, sign up for PepperJam Network and place some appropriate 125×125 banners on your site including the PepperJam Network banner. You’ll probably make a little money doing so.

PepperJam Network is probably my favorite affiliate program. The interface is simple, straight forward and finding partners to promote is easy. They have a great graphical representation of your sales which immediately tells you how you are doing when you log in and you don’t have to dig through menus to build reports, its all right there on the front page.

What’s The Grand Prize?

I’m not at liberty to reveal this at this time, suffice to say it will be at least a Flip Video Mino Series Camcorder, 60 Minutes (Black) but maybe something better. I’ll post an update when I know for sure. This shouldn’t stop you as you have a head start right now! Sign up today and get cracking! Remember, the winner is the one with the most sales at the end of this month (August 2008).

Let the challenge begin! Have fun out there and if you really don’t know where to start, use the contact form and email me. I can get you some literature to put you on the right path.

Prize Donors!

There are more prizes that what I am giving away.

• Indo Contest has donated 3000 Entrecard Credits! – Enough credits for you to advertise on major sites like JohnChow.com or ProBlogger! Thanks Indo!

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I just read on John Chow how Entrecard is going to be removing/banning sites that have only the entrecard widget and no other content. I say its about time.

I understand the need/want for EC (entrecard credits) because you want to advertise on john chow or darren rowse’s Problogger.net but to stoop so low as to only have a widget and then surf to 300 of these daily to rack up credits? Does anyone really have that much time?

I know I don’t. Some of my time has to be spent playing games like Assassin’s Creed. I’m almost finished with that one…it’s pretty good but has problems. Read my review at GAX Online.

Summer has a tendency to slow down ad revenue and other online money making strategies simply because most people get out and do stuff. Because of this, if you don’t have your ducks in a row so to speak you are going to suffer for the next 3 months. Summer is officially underway and if you don’t have plans to make some extra cash offline, you might be eating beans and rice for a few months.

I’ll be updating my income statement for June in about 4 days, so look forward to that. Locally, each Friday night during the summer there is a free concert and two big names are playing this summer. These concerts are right on the beach. Check out the schedule. I’m looking forward to Blue Oyster Cult and  Gin Blossoms!

The weekend’s almost here which means a couple films for me Saturday and then I’m recording the 9th episode of my podcast “The East Wing Podcast“. Listen in won’t you?

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