Wednesday

3 Ways To Make Money Without A Website


So, you've heard of this magical place online that allows you to generate income from home, but you are too scared to drop $10 on a domain and $5 per month on hosting. No problem! There are plenty of free solutions to that predicament, although not optimal, it's possible to make money through affiliate marketing without even owning your own website. Let's look at 3 ways you can start generating income today, without all the tedious money spending part.

Blogger

Of course, this is the format and blogging back end that DMB uses. It's free to sign up, free to start blogging, and offers plenty of customization options to start monetizing immediately.

Adsense is the big ad network currently in bed with Blogger, but that's just because Google owns Blogger. However, it's easy to add text and javascript widgets onto any blog template currently on Blogger. This means you can add snippets from networks like PepperJam, Commission Junction, or even eBay to start monetizing.
Squidoo

It's the ultimate in one page publishing, where you put all the information you can about a niche on a single page. This single page consists of videos, links, content information, etc along with Adsense and options for Amazon and eBay products. It's free to sign up, publish, and very user friendly with setting up affiliate accounts.

The bonus with Squidoo is that Google loves new pages on their website, which means more times than not a Squidoo page will rank almost immediately. Furthermore, some of my Squidoo pages get great attention from long tail keywords.

Hub Pages

This is another Squidooesque type website that allows single page publishing on any topic you want. Again, super newbie friendly when setting up affiliate accounts like Amazon and eBay so that you can monetize the page you just created.

Hub Pages seems a little bit more social than Squidoo, at least in my opinion. There are published rankings of pages, automatic links to other similar pages, and comment system. The entire process of setting up a page is a snap and takes less than 10 minutes.

Total Benefit

These are just a few short ways to get started in affiliate marketing, today! The long term benefit is that you can interlink all of these sites, since you retain creative control, so that they all rank well in the search engines. This will provide residual traffic for potentially years to come, always producing a small affiliate ad income.

Friday

Contest Sponsorship

Just some brain storming going on in this post, nothing more, nothing less. I think I want to start sponsoring some big contests on other websites. Considering with simple prizes thrown up for grabs, it's possible to earn some decent back links and brand recognition that would cost a fortune in Adword campaigns.

Here's the problem, I'm having issues finding blogs and websites that are actively looking for sponsorships. Granted I'm not a big player, so generally I don't have people coming to me, but surely there are places out there will the smaller guys need help for prizes. Yes, I've looked at the general webmaster forums, but there just doesn't seem to be a lot of action going on in that realm. Perhaps everyone is slowing down.

No, I'm not interested in sponsoring a contest that only has 5 people competing. I'm mainly looking for a contest with no less than 100 entrants, but doesn't have to be huge. I'm thinking this kind of promotion and prize giveaway can help with link and brand building. Anyone have any experience with searching out contests and helping sponsorships?

Tuesday

Find Out Working PPC Keywords For $9.99

I know I've already reviewed the Affiliate Espionage Fire Fox plugin before, but I just can't stop praising this PPC tool. There is no question it's already saved me money and most importantly has showed me who my main competitors are or will be shortly. It's an evolution and Affiliate Espionage indicates what may be trouble for me later. Well worth the paltry $9.99 entry fee.

For example, I'm watching a few sets of keywords and how the Adwords campaigns are sizing up. These are the same keywords I'm currently bidding on and the plugin allows me to track who is spending money on those money making words. Now, I've enjoyed some non-competition in the past, but it looks like others are starting to spend thriftly in my neighborhood of keywords.

By watching them start ramping up their campaigns and seeing how long they focus on my same keywords, I can better manage my own campaigns. By increasing my CPC, I can help ensure that I'm at the top of the search results. This doesn't help out too much with Adwords content placement, but it will give me a slight edge over those looking to steal some of my business.

Wednesday

Affiliate Programs For Easter


Looking to make a few extra bucks by cashing in on the Easter Holiday? Well, join the ranks and help what the Affiliate Networks will hopefully be a successful holiday. But what sells well for Easter, obviously it's a religious holiday, but what could an affiliate sell online that they normally wouldn't.

Think Candy!

Yes, people order candy online all the time, but really start placing online munchy orders during the Easter season. Thankfully, many popular and brand recognizable programs offer promotions this time of year to get people to buy candy online, rather than at the local dollar store.

Easter Affiliate Promotions:

JellyBelly - 10% Commission on all orders, plus they have plenty of Easter creatives.
Gertrude Hawk Chocolates - 12% base commission on all orders, along with a tiered incentive that goes all the way up to 15% with referred sales of over $5000.
iGourmet - 8% tiered commission that can be raised to 10% if you refer over $5000 in sales.

How To Join These Programs

Joining these Easter affiliate programs is easy, since all are under one affiliate network at Pepper Jam. Simply sign up to the PepperJam Network and apply to the individual online candy merchants. Then, just start earning that extra holiday affiliate income.

Happy Easter everyone and don't forget to brush!

How I Spark Creative Juices


Just like anyone else I'll get in a slump, where creating content feels like an exercise in futility. However, I have found a tried and true method that gets me going every time and I've put into practice over the years. To spark my own creative juices I simply change my sites template or theme.

That's right, after a little font changing, few graphics here, more whitespace there, my creative bubble is bursting all over the web page. I've never noticed it to upset my regular readers and a new face keeps things looking fresh. Consider it some spring cleaning, any time of the year you need a battery recharge.

Although I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about new fonts just make me want to create content. Generally speaking I may go on a blog post writing binge for a few weeks, before I realize I need to slow down and schedule some of these posts out to fill in the dead spots. But, without fail, this little trick has kept me writing online content for over 3 years now.

Please, use this advice responsibly. ;)