Posts filed under 'Affiliate Marketing'
Why should you consider using Squidoo for promoting your business? I guess that’s the most obvious question to start with! It also perhaps gives me a way of explaining a little about why I personally like it so much.
Let’s just recap on what Squidoo actually is. It’s a community of people who are building web pages, which they call lenses, in a diverse range of subjects. In fact the range of topics is incredibly diverse and you can find lenses on just about every subject imaginable and some you might not imagine! Everybody from the hobby enthusiast to the business person is now recognising the power that Squidoo provides to connect with others who share their interests or might be potential customers.
Squidoo also epitomises what Web 2.0 or what is becoming known as the Social Internet is all about because it provides you with so many opportunities to enable your visitors to interact with you. Whether you want to
The other great thing about Squidoo lens building is that it is easy! Through a series of preformatted modules you are able to shape your lenses exactly how you want.
Now let’s think about why we as Internet Marketers should use Squidoo. Well let’s first see what those nice people at Squidoo said when asked why you should use them:
• It’s free;
• It’s amazingly easy to set up;
• People with lenses get more traffic to their blogs and other sites;
• People with lenses earn money from the lenses themselves - In fact I use that last one to donate some money to Charity so you even get the opportunity to feel good using them!
From a Marketer’s perspective this is ideal! It gives you a great opportunity to create a series of lenses around what are termed the “long tail” phrases within the niches in which you operate. You can drive visitors to your other sites in the niches in which you operate and to your blogs and of course to your affiliate links! For those of you who like me use Firefox they have also added a rather nifty Firefox extension!
In fact what I have been using Squidoo to do is:
• Generate Affiliate Income;
• Drive Visitors to My Websites and Blogs;
• Generate Subscribers;
• Turn PLR Articles into money Generators;
• Achieve Top Ten Ranking on Google For Keyword Phrases;
• You can explore a possible niche to see what the level of interest is and alsdo what level of knowledge you can develop;
• Make Donations to Charity!
It appears at the moment that our friends at Google really seem to like Squidoo. So we want to take advantage of that don’t we? I know that with the majority of the lenses I create I can fairly rapidly get into the 1st to 3rd page of Google Search Results.
Indeed, I recently created a demonstration Squidoo Lens and within a week it was in 10th position out of 4,450,000 results for its’ keyword phrase. Not a bad result in a week I am sure you will agree!
The other thing that is worth noting is that at the moment there are many keyword phrases still available on Squidoo. So whether you are a hobby enthusiast, a small business looking to grow your business or an Internet Marketer keen on promoting affiliate products Squidoo is the place to be!
To really get ahead with Squidoo check out my Squidoo Secrets Revealed Report!
April 15th, 2007
It’s ten days into the Squidoo Challenge and as from here on in it’s about more tinkering. The lens I entered into the Challenge Hair Loss Remedies has risen from a lensrank (rating) of about 109,000 at the outset to 486 as of today. It’s also rated 13th in the Health Category of lenses. So I thought it would be an opportune time to post some thoughts and reflections.
Why Use Squidoo?
The most obvious question to start with and perhaps a way of explaining a little about why I like it so much! Let’s just recap on what Squidoo actually is! It’s a community of people who are building web pages, which they call lenses, in a diverse range of subjects. In fact the range of topics is incredibly diverse! The other great thing about Squidoo lens building is that it is easy! You have a series of modules that you can pull together and develop. It’s almost like one of those “drag and drop” type website builders and you have the opportunity to tweak them as you become more adept with using their system.
To quote the people at Squidoo when asked why you should use them:
It’s free.
It’s amazingly easy to set up.
People with lenses get more traffic to their blogs and other sites.
People with lenses earn money.
In fact I use that last one to donate some money to Charity so you even get to feel good using them!
From a Marketer’s perspective this is ideal! It gives you a great opportunity to create a series of lenses around what are termed the “long tail” phrases within the niches in which you operate. You can drive visitors to your other sites in the niches in which you operate and to your blogs and of course to your affiliate links! For those of you who like me use Firefox they have also added a rather nifty Firefox extension!
So let me give you an example of a lens like that so you understand what I mean. I created How To Stop Your Dog Digging yesterday and by the time of the update today it had already risen from about 109,000 to 6,360 and had been viewed by a fair few people. Now that lens was developed from a PLR article I had sat on my computer doing nothing. Imagine if you are one of those who subscribes to a PLR Membership site where you get packs of articles around particular niches each month. A fantastic opportunity there to develop as many lenses as you want!
So what’s the advantage in building lenses? Well as I mentioned a little while ago there are benefits in terms of being part of a growing community, driving traffic to your other sites and making sales. In addition there is an opportunity to create content in a niche that you want to explore but have not yet had the chance to. So let’s think about the lens that I created for The Squidoo Challenge around Hair Loss and Hair Loss Remedies. I have been able to make some affiliate sales from it and I might therefore decide that it is an area that I want to pursue. Or I might think, well I will just keep it ticking over and see how things go. In fact that is probably what I will do in this instance. However, with some others that I am exploring at the moment I will certainly be developing them much further because I am interested in them and they are profitable.
The other thing to mention is that Google really seem to like Squidoo. There is a bit of a glitch going on at the moment because they have added something like 600 characters worth of javascript at the start of each lens – but from the fuss that is being kicked up at their forum Squidu I suspect that will soon be sorted. I am sure someone more technical will be able to explain that one!
Okay Paul, I hear you say, you have got me interested! What do I need to do to make my first lens?
Building Your Lens
The tips that follow are based on what I have discovered from what I have done on the site. I am sure others will be able to add more and as I continue to learn I will be adding more tips. In fact what I have done is started a new lens today at How To Succeed at Squidoo so that those who are interested can follow along over the coming days and weeks.
So you need to start by creating an account at Squidoo and setting your personal preferences. I think it weighs in your favour if you set your income earning to be split with the charities – no hard evidence but just a gut feel about that one.
Then you will want to take the big leap and start creating your first lens. Don’t worry if you get it wrong at first – you can always delete it! What I would suggest is that you find yourself a niche and then look at something like Good Keywords and find some of the lower rated keyword phrases to build your lens around. Notice how each of the lenses that I have quoted in this post has dashes between the words – as I am sure you have picked up from other threads here that seems to be something that Google like. So go with it!
Okay you have created your lens, chosen your category and you have added the first set of keywords as they request, you are half way there! Then a page appears saying “Edit Your Lens.” Don’t panic! I have this vision of Sergeant Jones from Dad’s Army at the moment – which may mean nothing to non-UKer’s! However, really do not panic! Have a play, try adding some modules and even get really adventurous and try deleting some. You can always add them back. In fact I would strongly recommend that you do add and delete some and fill them with content and see how they look. Until you push the big button labelled “Publish” no-one will see your creation.
Once you have started to get a little more familiar with the way it works it’ time to get serious about building your lens. Here’s what I did with my The Squidoo Challenge Lens and what I will be replicating at How To Succeed With Squidoo so that you can follow along.
Day One of Your Lens you should
Add an Introduction – conveniently they have a module called Introduction already there for you. Put a few words about the Lens and what you will be covering. Make sure you use your primary keywords (the name of your lens) in the Introduction and “bold” them. Add an appropriate picture so that your lens is already starting to look different than others and draws the reader in.
Add Some Content. This is done through the Text/Write Module. Content is vital if your lens is to be taken seriously and rated by visitors. It’s something that an increasing number of marketers seem to be forgetting that actually we do need to have content which real people can read when we are trying to get their attention! You can use some basic html in the Text/Write Module so you can have links in there if you wish. You can also “bold” your keyword phrase which again helps.
Add some Interactivity. Web 2.0 sites are about interacting with your visitor and giving them the opportunity to make comments or take a poll. So we have the Guestbook and the Poll Module which you can add. Here’s a good place to talk about adding Affiliate Products. The Links Plexo Module allows you to add your links and give the visitor the opportunity to vote on them. This is the module through which I would ordinarily add some affiliate links.
Now take a break! I am very conscious that this post has become very long! I will add more tips through the lens I have already mentioned over at How To Succeed With Squidoo during the next few weeks. Have a look around that lens and see what you notice I have already done that will hopefully help it move from it’s first day ranking of 110,406
For now take action!
March 25th, 2007
A short while ago someone asked me to explain my overall approach to Niche Marketing and to give some examples of areas I work in!
They asked which of the following types of marketing I preferred:
Affiliate Marketing
Adsense Content Sites
Creating Your Own Products
Okay let’s look at the three types of internet marketing mentioned and let’s throw a few more into the mix. Many people who sell to internet marketers will tell you to focus on each of the areas independently:
Affiliate Marketing
Adsense Content Sites
Creating Your Own Products
Membership Sites
Master Resale Rights and Resale Rights
Private Label Rights
If you look back over what I have said elsewhere you will see that I actually don’t think like that. I don’t think in terms of doing “affiliate marketing” or “creating adsense sites” at all. I really do not see them as independent business models in anyway. The integration of every type of product delivery into an “offering” to the market or niche in which you are operating in is where I focus. I have talked elsewhere of having a Strategy that focuses on depth within a niche and also exploring parallel niches. That is where I am focused and if there is one reason I decided to venture into working with Internet Marketers through my Internet Marketing Outlined site it was to try to change the way people think!
So many people jump from one niche to another and from one type of marketing to another. They have a little success with one type of marketing and then they pursue it for a while and they literally leave so much money on the table. Then when they find that the niche they are operating in isn’t yielding the results any longer they move on.
My approach has been substantially different since the outset. I choose six to ten niches in which I have an interest or some knowledge and I dive deep within them. That approach is what enables me to operate successfully in some of the largest niches there are. Does that make sense? I really do believe that you can succeed in any niche where you can have a level of passion for the subject, or at least some interest! You can explore it and over time become acknowledged as having a level of expertise within the niche. Then you can expand into other areas of that niche with the confidence and with the recognition that your activity to date brings you. Sometimes you will make mistakes and find that an area you thought you could pursue does not have the potential that you thought. Let me give you an example. I work quite extensively in the Genealogy Niche and am forever looking at ways I can develop different things within the niche. I pursued the idea of a Social Bookmarking site within the niche and spent a lot of time having that developed and promoted. The indications from those I talked to within the Genealogy Community were that it would be ideal. So it was launched with great fanfare, promoted in the Genealogy Magazines and across many of the Genealogy Forums……and it completely bombed! Very little interest at all from your average amateur genealogist! So I could have moved on and just left it. However, there was some interest from some professional genealogists and researchers in integrating it into their storage systems for online genealogy research. So we repackaged it and it is now being used quite extensively within another product. It doesn’t make me any money at all directly but indirectly it does because it has enhanced my reputation within the niche.
Anyway I digress! However, it is an important digression because hopefully it sets a context for the way I will look at each of the marketing types mentioned earlier. But rather than look at each of the types independently let me show you how I interweave things.
Let’s start by looking at what most people will tell you is the easiest thing to get online, especially if you are a member of site which offers pre-built Adsense Sites.
Now you will hear many say that you cannot make money out of adsense nowadays. It’s true that for me anyway the direct income is not as great as it once was. Some of those promoting using adsense will tell you to throw more and more sites up to generate the income. My approach is different. I look to build adsense sites in the niches I want to operate in. Or I choose to take some pre-developed ones and then build a complete offering around them. That’s one of the reasons I love Niche Mania because they offer pre-built sites which you can work with and adapt. I especially like their XPro Mania sites which are more suited, in my experience anyway, to adding affiliate information, autoresponders and the like to. I am sure you can do it with the .php types of site but I tend to use them for directing people to from other sites within the particular niche I am using.
The articles within the sites are easy to rewrite and can be made to fit very neatly into an existing niche. I sometimes will develop a complete offering as a result of seeing sites on offer at Niche Mania. Let me give you an example. I saw they were offering sites around the subjects of Tea, Coffee, Beer and Wine! I thought to myself that there could be quite an interesting niche in “beverages” in general so I bought the sites. I now have a complete offering which covers many of the areas in that niche from Home Beer Brewing to which are the best coffee makers. So you will find me offering affiliate products such as the different types of coffee makers but also eBooks on Home Beer Brewing. I also offer an autoresponder delivered weekly newsletter (bought that already written and then adapted it to suit my style) in the beverages niche. That newsletter offers helpful information to people looking for information within the niche and it points them to useful resources. Sometimes those “useful resources” will be other sites I have, ebooks to which I have Master Resale Rights or Resale Rights or affiliate products from major retailers or wherever is appropriate.
Now could the beverages niche benefit from a membership site? That is something I am currently looking at and I must admit at this stage I don’t have enough evidence from observing what happens in forums etc to make a decision. I think there is a great push to create “Membership Sites” for just about every niche at the moment. If you have noticed in your email recently that Butterfly Marketing is being offered at a cheaper deal now? If memory serves me right it’s monthly hosting? I am not sure what that is telling us – if anything? However, from my experience there are niches that are right for Membership Sites and some that are not. I am currently looking at a number of niches that might have the potential for a good, focused Membership Site and I will share those with you as my thinking develops. Let me tell you now though that I have something really exciting planned for later in the year which is around the whole baby boomer thing and there will be an opportunity for others to benefit from that.
I am hoping by now that you will understand that I do not see any form of internet marketing as a “this is the thing to do.” When I first started to think about creating a business online I started from a different place than it appears many other people do! I didn’t start from the question “How can I make money online” but instead thought “How can I build a business online round what I am interested in?” I started in the broad area of Genealogy and Family History and as I saw success I have been able and willing to expand into other areas that I have an interest in – some indeed that I didn’t even know I was interested in!
Do I create my own products? Yes increasingly over the past few months I have been developing some of my own products. This is one of the areas that I am making great use of Private Label Rights (PLR) products. One of the things that you will rarely, if ever, find me doing is just throwing up a page with a Private Label Product that I have re-branded on. I use them to inspire my thinking and also adapt them to then target the niches I am working in. So I will take the core material and look to see how I can adapt it or re-write it to suit the niche that I am working within. Again there have been times when I have come across a product with PLR that has made me think about moving into a new niche. However, I try not to over commit myself by getting into too many niches at the same time!
How do I drive traffic to my sites? In every way imaginable that doesn’t cost money or costs relatively small amounts! I steer well clear of PPC because it just does not appeal to me. So whether it be article marketing, participating in sites such as Gather or Squidoo (of which more separately), promotion through other sites, search engine optimisation my aim is always to get deep within the niche. People who have an interest build communities and gather together in the same sort of places online. That is where you need to be. You need to build your reputation, you need to establish yourself as part of the niche! You need to take Action and keep taking it!
March 25th, 2007
I have found Squidoo to be an excellent source of Traffic and indeed an increasing number of sales. I love the way you can easily create a Lens about any subject under the sun and make money for charities as well as yourself.
If you haven’t checked out Squidoo yet then you are really missing out! Take a look at Squidoo by clicking on that link!
Tiffany Dow is an expert on using Squidoo and her superb ebook Dominating Squidoo is the definitive work on the subject. She even has John Reese recommending her ebook as well as me! Gosh could she ask for more!
Tiff is currently running a Squidoo challenge which I am participating in and really enjoying. You can take a look at my Hair Loss Remedy Lens again by clicking on the link!
March 18th, 2007
In the beginning there was the marketer. There are certain truths you come to understand the more time you spend making money online – or trying to.
Witness the evolution of marketing online. Whether you are new to the net game or an experienced pro, there is one thing you will have in common if you are moving towards entrepreneurial success.
As you read this article you will realize what you have in common with all the other million dollar earners online, and what you’re missing that can take you from where you are to where you want to be.
So let’s get started shall we?
I will begin with a bullet point list and short explanation of the marketing necessities you want to have:
For starters, most established markets will already be using this by default:
- A Domain: something specific to what you want to promote like (ex.www.mysite.com)
- Hosting: a place to put your site, if you’re planning on making money – find a paid solution so you look like a credible business and you cut back on high traffic crashes.
- A website: your image your presence and your marketing message, don’t get pulled into the trap I see everywhere of trying to put too many choices on your website. Maximize on the effectiveness by only giving one purpose to a page. For example if you want to build a list - focus all your efforts and copy on that singular focus, if you want your site to sell a product, then only put that focus on your site. You’ll also need a good editing program, and an ftp software to get this up and moving.
- A merchant account: If you have something to sell, people will need a way to pay you. There are a ton of great providers out there, but there are a specific few that give your visitors the security to pull out a credit card with assurance.
- An Autoresponder: This is a real necessity if you want a business and not just a hobby. When you have a family to support this is a real no brainer. This is your email follow up service. You get a name added to your list and this is where they go. You will use this to stay in touch and build relationships with your customers and soon-to-be customers.
- A helpdesk: in the beginning when your business and sales are small you can handle all the little questions and emails yourself. One of the things that will keep a small business is small is thinking “I can do that myself” if you want to truly grow; you need to share the workload (petty tasks) and focus on what you truly want to do creatively for your business.
- Membership Site software: once you’re addicted to the internet marketing lifestyle, you will realize this oh-so-simple fact, it’s great to make a sale, but it’s even better to make a sale once and get paid for it every month. Continuity is king.
- Teleconferencing software: If you want an easy way to create and crank out high ticket products, audios and a transcript is an easy to make, high-value product.
Of course everything we’ve touched on so far only scratches the surface, but these are the necessities that not only get you started but will make you above average. Keep your eyes peeled for more articles that will take you from beginner to winner.
We’ll cover resources that will help you stay organized and expand your business to make you truly prosperous such as:
- PDF creators and converters
- Mind mapping software
- Site tools to make your business a set and forget it money magnet
- Internet video and audio creating software
- And the how-to’s of outsourcing
Keep learning, and most important: be persistent – it will be a quality you share with the biggest money makers online today…
To get more information or download your own copy of the Resource Report for free visit: The Resource Report
March 8th, 2007
Just thought that I would let you know that I have set up a new Internet Marketing Blog! Whilst I will continue to post here about many aspects of Internet Marketing you will find lots of additional information being posted at Paul Duxbury - Internet Marketing Success.
March 4th, 2007
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