Go Legit… and Make Everyone Happy

No matter what industry you are in, someone is out there to scam you. If you own a store, you always have to worry about staff taking money from the register. In internet marketing we have to worry about marketers sending bad leads, and networks shaving. Even in every day life, people are looking to use you, just to get ahead. It’s everywhere… but eventually, people get caught, hurting both the businesses they work with and themselves.

I recently made a blogger job posting and hired a few new writers. One of the writers was simply taking content from other sites, posting it to another blog, then calling it his own. The blogger job description laid out the terms very clear; “all work has to be original content”. So I contacted the guy, he simply replied back, “Those were copied, so please erase them.“. The results was he was fired without pay, and all of the copied content had to be removed.

My site wasn’t the only one he was writing for, and in the end he lost a few hundred dollars a month writing for both sites. However, if he had provided quality work, there was a lot of potential for longer term jobs and better opportunities, but instead his focus was to make a quick buck with little to no effort. Which in the end, was a waste of his time and mine.

This is just one example of how easy it is to scam and try to make a quick buck online, but a great majority of scams never even get noticed, but they also usually don’t last long. From simple things like fill out lead gen with fake info, to stealing and selling private information, scams and fraud is everywhere.

The bottom line is… it may be easier to fool around and keep trying to scam people over to make a quick buck, but a legitimate service and business model will win in the long run.

28 August, 2011 Posted by: Zac Johnson Filed Under: Affiliate Marketing, Blogging

How to Get Guest Bloggers to Flock After Your Blog

Guest blogging is one of the best things that has ever happened to bloggers today, because aside from the fact that you can easily use guest blogging to build your blog it can also be a great way for you to introduce a unique perspective on your blog while at the same time ensuring your blog doesn’t rely on you alone.

Introducing guest bloggers to your blog can be great but the problem is that a lot of bloggers have done all they think they need to do to ensure they get guest authors to contribute to their blogs, but unfortunately, they don’t seem to be attracting any. This article will be giving you a few tips on how to get guest authors to write for your blog.

Market Your Blog

The first step you need to take when trying to ensure you get a lot of people to guest post on your blog is to work on consistently marketing your blog.
There are several reasons people write guest posts on other blogs, but in my own experience they do it mostly for the following reasons:

Traffic
Links
Branding
Exposure

If you want your blog to be attracting the right types of guest bloggers on a consistent basis then you need to ensure your blog is able to provide them with any or all of the above.

The reality is that to ensure your guest bloggers enjoy the above you might also have to be writing for other blogs yourself. This means you need to gain as much quality backlinks to your blog as possible, you need to ensure people are able to hear about your blog in as many places as possible and you need to let your guest authors know that they stand to get the above things if they write for you.

Don’t Let Quality Suffer

A lot of bloggers think they can attract guest bloggers to their blogs if they keep on publishing just any content on their blog, and even though this seems to work for them initially the end result is that the quality of their blog suffers, the traffic and exposure guest authors stand to gain reduces and people start to feel less interested in guest posting for their blog.

I get a lot of guest posting requests for my blog, in fact, I get as much as 30 guest post requests in some months but I end up rejecting a large percentage of them. A lot of people will think that people will stop trying to write a guest post for my blog because of this but the result is that I keep on getting more requests.

Guest bloggers will start valuing your blog if they see that not just anybody is able to get published on it. People appreciate exclusivity, and they know that a lot of results comes from this. If you work more on rejecting the bad guest posts and only publishing the best guest posts you will start getting a lot more requests from people wanting to write on your blog. Only that this time, the requests will be from people wanting to contribute quality guest posts.

Give Guest Authors an Opportunity to be Compensated for Their Work

One thing about me is that my entire blogging career is built on guest blogging, and I earn my living by guest blogging for clients in other niches. As a result of this I have been exposed to contacting bloggers in other niches to write a guest post for their blogs and I become really disappointed when they don’t provide guest bloggers the opportunity to use their author bio.

The reality is that when it comes to letting people have a bio in their guest posts some people will try to abuse this, but you can easily moderate that. People won’t just come to write for your blog if they stand to gain nothing since they are doing it for one of the reasons listed above.

Don’t deprive people of the opportunity to tell your readers about themselves after writing a guest post for your blog and you will start getting a lot more people to contribute for your blog.

Invite the Influencers

This technique is one I have seen used effectively by some blogs in the blogging niche.
The reality is that in every niche there are people who are highly respected and looked up to and an endorsement from some of these people can make a difference in your blogging career.

If you struggle to get guest authors to write for your blog then all you need to do is get in touch with 2 or 3 highly respected bloggers in your niche, whom you know will be happy to honor your request, and then contact them to write a guest article for your blog. When your readers and other guest bloggers start to see the caliber of people writing for your blog they will be more inclined to write a guest post for you.

Dedicate a Page to It

While there are some A-list bloggers who don’t need to have a guest post submission page to get guest post requests because they are already very popular it is very important for you to know that not everybody can afford this luxury.

Sometimes the best way to get what you want is by asking. Don’t expect people to visit your blog and expect you to be accepting guest posts. You need to realize that there are thousands of other blogs in your niche fighting for the attention of guest bloggers so make sure you have a page dedicated to inviting guest authors to your blog, explaining what your rules are and what they will gain from writing for you.

Conclusion

If you’ve been the only one writing for your blog for a long time now introducing a few guest posts every once in a while could make a difference in how your readers perceive your blog and your readers will happily benefit from the new perspective.

This guest post was written by Onibalusi Bamidele, a 17 year old blogger and freelance writer who teaches people how to write for traffic and money. He has also written an ultimate guest blogging guide for the benefit of everybody.

06 August, 2011 Posted by: Zac Johnson Filed Under: Blogging

Save and Make Money with Online Webinars

One of the biggest trends among top bloggers and gurus in the internet marketing space, is that they all love doing webinars and live meetings with their readers, fans and customers. It’s an excellent way to get real with your audience, without having to meet them in person at an expensive conference and it eliminates the need for travel.

When choosing what webinar / conference meeting software you are going to use, it’s important to look over the the pricing plans and the amount of members that you can include within your package. ClickMeeting.com has become a popular company in the conference and webinar space, and offers competitive rates that allow even the smaller blogs and businesses to get up and running without having to spend a lot of upfront cash.

Doing a quick price comparison between ClickMeeting and GoToMeeting, you can see how you could end up saving almost 50% if you were to run a webinar with ClickMeeting over GoToMeeting. Over the course of the year, this could result in thousands of dollars in saved money.

When choosing a webinar package, the most important thing to look at is the amount of attendees you can have in your event at one time. A webinar with 100 users would cost you as low as $59.95 a month on ClickMeeting, while the same attendee size would cost $99 a month on GoToMeeting.

ClickMeeting Affiliate Programs Pays 20%

In addition to focusing on lower price plans, ClickMeeting also offers a nice affiliate program than offers 20% payouts. With annual discounts and packages available, as an affiliate, you can earn as much as $648 per one sale.

Once logged into the affiliate area, you have a wide selection of methods to promote ClickMeeting, as they have videos, pre-written blog posts, email ad copy, banners and more. ClickMeeting has a great affiliate members area and is extremely easy to use and navigate through the different tracking and ad creatives.

Other benefits of the ClickMeeting affiliate program include:

As a marketer, guru or blogger, there are a lot of opportunities to promote ClickMeeting and make money through their affiliate program. You can signup for a free trial with ClickMeeting and write up your own review on their webinar services, then use your referral url in the post. The growth of people using webinars to reach out to their audience just continues to growth, and so will the opportunity to make money in this space.

ClickMeeting Webinar Soution & ClickMeeting Affiliate Program

26 July, 2011 Posted by: Zac Johnson Filed Under: Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Get Reviewed

Key Insights to Buying and Selling Web Sites

As a long time developer of Internet businesses, I’ve always built things myself. Now with the growth of the Internet, the days of do it yourself are opening up to a real business of buying and selling web sites businesses.

This video and blog post come from my coaching of Zac Johnson while he was developing his new book, Flip This Web Site. What I share below are 3 case studies from Flippa, done live (and I’ve never worked with Flippa or know any of the people involved in these web sites, so this is my opinion only), showing you how to evaluate a web site business purchase by looking at 3 sites that were bought recently on Flippa.

Key Insights to Buying and Selling Web Sites

Buying and selling web sites demands that you know the business you are getting into and have some sense of how to evaluate it.

After all, if you buy a site that needs tons of tech development, and you have no tech skills or don’t know anyone, or can outsource this well, that’s not a smart buy.

But if you know your skills and can leverage the foundation someone else has built, this is a powerful tool. And it’s smarter than building from scratch, or if you want to develop a portfolio of businesses.

What inspired me about reading this book is that there is real value in a web site purchase. This is not just about buying a domain, which is an excellent investment but often requires business development.

Here I’m talking about buying a web site that exists, with assets like steady traffic, email lists, and sometimes revenue. The way Flippa lays it out for you is powerful, easy, and safer than anything I’ve seen before, including eBay.

Here’s the 3 skills I see as important to buying and selling a web site:

Smart Buyer 1. Tech Savvy

Many sites for sale have been developed to a certain stage technically and either need more time, money, or resources to grow.

Those with technical skills may find these kinds of sites lucrative. Of course the nature of coding means you need to look at their code to make sure it makes sense, and you can adapt it your own way.

In a world powered by AJAX, PHP, and MYSQL, it’s a no brainer to buy many of these businesses. Think of it like buying a fixer upper house, can you add the right tech tools to improve performance, and of course drive traffic and revenue?

I’ve seen several examples of purchases, especially on the lower end, based on technical teams who can simply fix and either flip or grow a web site.

If you don’t have technical skills, be sure to research whether you need them for the site you are buying. Bad code is after all, bad, and if you can’t adapt it or improve it, you’ll have to start from scratch…which defeats the purpose of buying a web site if you can do it yourself.

In the video I share an example of a site that has traffic and an iPhone app sold for around $3500; if the iPhone app alone is good, this is a pretty low price to get going, but as with all things Internet, buyer beware…check under the hood before you buy.

Smart Buyer 2. Search Savvy

Flippa has many, many sites with high PageRank, keywords, traffic, and built are search. Search experts have long known the power of acquiring sites and creating a portfolio of high traffic, usually leveraging what they already have and integrating the new site into what they are already doing.

Search sites based on strong keywords may also be smart for a newcomer who simply needs some traffic and an existing site, while they learn the craft. Be careful if you are too much a newbie, but the allure of a search site in this market is easy to figure out.

Just be sure you check all their claims, check their PageRank out using tools like SEOFirefox (among MANY others), and search for the keywords related to the site to see the positioning.

Just like buying a house, do your research and look for what’s lacking; that’s where you can add value, and leverage the existing site to either grow your business or integrate it into what you are doing via search.

Smart Buyer 3. Internet Marketing Savvy

Internet marketing should be a required skill for anyone buying a web site, because if it doesn’t make money, and you can’t help it make more money, what are you doing?

Sure you can buy a site that is generating revenue, but anyone in the business knows you’ll have to keep up and adapt. Knowing how to convert traffic, write copy, and continually test and update the site is crucial to success.

My favorite inspiration from this review was a site called RecruitingBlogs.com, a Ning site with a huge community, traffic, and targeted to a human resources audience. Career sites with traffic and a loyal audience are incredibly valuable, and this one listed as selling for $95,000 on Flippa.

In about 4 years the loyalty this site built enabled the builder to flip it for a nice profit, and give more than just a web site…he sold a loyal audience and traffic that monetizes.

That’s the key to building a business online; loyalty and monetization. Be sure to check out Flippa and see what’s up, this is not only smart, it’s a new trend in this growing business called the Internet!

This guest blog post was written by Declan Dunn, be sure to check out his Pivot and Profit video series here, and on YouTube.

19 July, 2011 Posted by: Zac Johnson Filed Under: Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Make Money

Make Money with Angry Birds Web Sites

Angry Birds will go down as one of the most successful and viral mobile video games ever! You can even see the popular game on television being used on different mobile phone devices. Everyone wants in on the Angry Birds market! The creators of the game have already raked in millions upon millions of dollars, with earnings of over a million dollars per month!

But a better question is… how can you start making money off the Angry Birds craze?

Being an active user on Flippa, I’ve noticed a lot of attention and selling of “Angry Birds” related web sites. Some of these properties are selling extremely well. Here’s a few of the top auction listings and what they eventually sold for.

AngryBirdsNow.com – Bidding Ended at $89,000

An excellent name for a site, but it’s actually more focused on a bunch of online games than just Angry Birds. The site serves up a ton of traffic and ranks extremely well for Angry Birds related terms. (listing)

AngryBirdsGear.net – Sold for $2,500

I really liked the design and setup of this site. As merchandise and toys of Angry Birds keeps growing, so does the demand for more online specialty stores. That is exactly what AngryBirdGear.net created with their dropshipping site. (listing)

AngryBirdsGoldenEggs.com – Sold for $27,000

The first site mentioned Angry Bird games, then the next site focused on Angry Birds merchandise… now this one focuses on everything and strives to be an Angry Birds news and resource web site. (listing)

As you can see, there is no reason for you to sit on the sidelines while Angry Birds is making people a lot of money. Just because you aren’t the creator of the game and they don’t have an affiliate program, it doesn’t mean you can’t make money. Resource sites, merchandise, online games, the upcoming movie and news released on their upcoming games… there is a whole world of content and users for you to work with. Get creative and maybe you will have the next big Angry Birds site for sale on Flippa!