Tag Archives | Email Marketing

Blogging: Let’s Get You Started!

By David Bazhaw on July 21, 2024 in Blog

So what is blogging really all about? First off, let me tell you that it’s a lucrative business to blog and that blogs are easy to set up and manage. Imagine getting paid to write about subjects that interest you, whenever you want, wherever you are! The flexibility involved allows you to maintain your blog at your own pace, and with Internet cafés easily accessible all over the globe, even your vacation won’t get in the way of your blogging… Or should I say: even your blogging won’t get in the way of your vacation?

In this article, let’s take a look at the profitability of a blog and set up one of our own, free of charge! Interested? Read on!

First, you need to get yourself a blog. There are several options – host a blog on your own domain or get a free one. For starters, let’s talk about the free blogs. You can obtain one at http://www.blogger.com or the newer (and better!) http://www.wordpress.com. WordPress is a free blog engine that is robust and infinitely expandable.

Blogger is actually owned by Google, so it will be detected by Google’s radar faster and you will be indexed more quickly. WordPress.com, however, is a relatively new option so I have no comparison on the speed of getting indexed by search engines. However, WordPress is better in the sense that it has more advanced features such as Trackbacks and Categories. You can also manage your sidebar links more efficiently (more about this later).

Get a free blog at either Blogger or WordPress. Then, familiarize yourself by publishing your first post on your blog and tinkering around with the options and templates.

Here are some words to start expanding your blogging vocabulary:

Permalink – Permalink stands for permanent link, which is a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) that leads to an individual post that you make in your blog.

Trackback – When you post about someone else’s blog post elsewhere, your post will show up in their “trackback” section. This feature, however, is not available with a Blogger account.

Pinging – Blogging seems to be paired with pinging almost every time either one is mentioned nowadays. Pinging is actually the action where a certain aggregator is notified whenever your blog is updated, so that the aggregator may show the newest post of your blog on their website. This is a useful way to gain traffic, which I’ll discuss in a future article.

Content

Next, let’s look at the type of content that’s suitable for your blog in order to make it profitable. You need to understand that there is no fixed scope that your blog should have, which means you can write about whatever you’re interested in. Mind you, the difference between a profitable blog and a non-profitable one is the way you write. What would you prefer: reading your university professor’s lecture notes or the latest novel by your favorite author? People prefer to read “light” items most of the time. When they check out your blog, they are not only looking for information, but they are also looking for information that they can access easily.

So, to attract more visitors as well as to keep your current readers coming back for more, it’s very important to add a personal touch to your blog posts. This can be done by simply imagining that you’re talking with your personal friend. An extra bonus for your readers would be a great sense of humor, so try to add funny comments in your articles where relevant.

Another important point is to avoid addressing your reader as a plural unit. Don’t write as if you’re preparing a speech. Instead, write as if you’re having a conversation with a single person, an equal friend, because this will make your reader relate to you more easily.

Besides that, it’s also very useful to establish your own personality through your words. We’re very curious creatures, so naturally your visitors would want to know as much about you as the information you’re offering them.

Having a distinctive personality in your blog will make a world of difference between your blog about gadgets and all the other blogs about gadgets out there. This is a lot like creating your own brand name, where people immediately remember your blog’s name when they need information about gadgets, just like how people immediately think of McDonald’s for fastfood or Nike for sportswear.

There will be more on the subject of content the next time.

When word gets around about your command of blogging, others who need to know about blogging will start to actively seek you out!

Starting Your Home Based Business on a Shoestring Budget

By David Bazhaw on July 7, 2024 in Blog

Starting Your Home Based Business on a Shoestring Budget
Copyright © Stone Evans, The Home Biz Guy
http://www.PlugInProfitSite.com/main-47722

Whether seeking a supplemental income or a full-time income,
many folks have undertaken the task to discover a viable home
based business solution to meet their personal needs.

For most folks who contemplate a home business, a low-cost or
no-cost solution is not only nice, but also very necessary. Many
also seek to find a home business that will permit them to
maintain their regular day job in order to protect their base
income.

Taking the cautious approach to a home based business and
keeping one’s job during the start-up period is often a very
good decision. By maintaining one’s job, one can maintain the
health of their personal finances while permitting their home
business grow healthy and strong.

Fortunately, most home based businesses can be started with
little or no cash, can be maintained on a shoestring budget, and
can be operated successfully with only a part-time investment.

One day, the business will be strong enough to support itself
and its owner. When that time comes, it will make good sense for
the business owner to leave his or her outside job to dedicate
more time to growing and maintaining their new thriving home
based business. You will know when that time has finally arrived.

The nature of a home based business makes it easy and very
realistic for most folks to take the plunge into home business
ownership.

Yet, many folks put off starting their own home based business,
because they have the misconception that they will have to risk
thousands of their own hard-earned dollars at start-up. Then
later, if their business fails, they fear they may be forced to
take out a second mortgage on their house just to stay out of
bankruptcy.

Are you one of these folks? Do you let your fears of failure
keep you from reaching for your dreams?

If so, then allow me to introduce you to a few home business
ideas that you can start for less than $100 and can be started
and operated very profitably as a part-time business.

THE LIFEBLOOD OF ALL SUCCESSFUL BUSINESSES

First of all, let me advise you to search out a business model
that will deliver steady and repeat business. It is the one
thing — above all others — that will assure that your
company can survive the test of time.

HOME-BASED MAIL ORDER:
Home-based mail order is a good example of how one can quickly
grow a home business income. Mail order is a low cost start-up
business that can be launched for around $100 USD.

With proper planning, your home-based mail order business will
not require up-front inventory purchases. In the mail order
business, it is not uncommon to rely upon drop-shippers for
product fulfillment services.

By utilizing drop-shippers, we can sell the products, collect
the money and then purchase the products from the wholesale
outlet. The wholesale outlet will then put a return address for
your company on the product packaging and deliver the product
directly to your customer.

Your primary expense in the mail-order business is advertising.
Classified advertising tends to be a relatively inexpensive form
of advertising with thousands of outlets available to the small
business owner.

WHOLESALE BUSINESS:
Buy low — sell high. You can acquire high quality,
top-of-the-line merchandise for a fraction of the retail cost.
Starting a wholesale business would require a Wholesale Dealers
Directory as your source for merchandise, such as the one above.

AUCTIONS:
Auctions can be an excellent source for buying cheap and selling
high. Both government auctions and Internet auctions can lead to
some excellent profit opportunities. Auctions are an excellent
tool for both acquiring and selling merchandise.

MAKE AND SELL YOUR CRAFTS:
Crafts are a hot seller at country fairs, swap meets or anyplace
where people gather. Make your own crafts and sell them for a
tidy profit!

SELLING INFORMATION:
Selling information by mail is another good example of an
inexpensive home based business start-up. One can gain the
resale rights to information for usually about $50 USD. Other
costs will include printer cartridges, paper and postage. There
are plenty of free classifieds sites on the Internet, in which
to successfully advertise your information.

WRITE INFORMATIONAL BOOKLETS:
Write and publish your own informational booklets; sell them at
a high price! All you need is a little know-how, a printer,
paper and stamps. This is a GREAT home business idea! You can
also sell the resale rights to others, for extra profits. In
this age of the Internet, you may also take advantage of the
fact that selling information is one of the most profitable
endeavors one can pursue online.

OFFICE SERVICES:
Offer office services for hire in your local paper. You’ll be
surprised at the amount of regular office business that can be
gleaned from one little classified ad. Word processing, typing,
accounting, data entry, proofreading, transcription, promotional
letters and newsletters. All these tasks can be accomplished
right from your own home office.

AVON REPRESENTATIVE:
Yes, Avon’s been around for eternity, hasn’t it? Then it’s not
such a bad prospect as a home based business, is it? I once knew
a woman who did so much business as an Avon rep. that she had
people calling her and knocking at her door wanting to order
products at all hours of the day and night! Once you are an
established Avon representative, you, too, will turn a good
profit.

CONCLUSION:
On your search for the ideal home based business, try not to get
caught up in any scams that will run off with your money. There
are thousands of scam artists out there just waiting for the
next sucker to come along. Remember, if it sounds too good to be
true, then it probably is. Just use your good judgement and
invest wisely in proven methods of earning extra income.

Resource Box:
—————————————————————–
Stone Evans, The Home Biz Guy can help you launch your very own
money making website today that’s 100% ready to take orders and
pull in massive profits for you right now … guaranteed! Visit:
http://www.PlugInProfitSite.com/main-47722

2 Tier Affiliate Programs Explained

By David Bazhaw on August 8, 2023 in Blog

How will referring new affiliates to an affiliate program make me money in the future? Thats where a 2-tier affiliate program works like magic!

Affiliates are getting cleverer by the day. So these days, affiliates know the difference between the different types of traffic they can get paid for. There are a lot of definitions though CPM, CPC, CPA, CPL, CPD and many more.

CPM is impressions, when the publisher (the website owner) gets paid every time a banner is shown.

CPC is clicks, where the publisher (or email marketer and other marketers) gets paid every time a banner or text link is clicked upon.

The other ways of getting paid are grouped together under the term performance marketing and this is where the term affiliate is most commonly used as well.

An affiliate is a marketer who sends visitors to another site using a variety of methods (such as placing banners or text links on their own site, buying sponsored listings on search engines, email marketing and many other different methods) and gets paid when an action happens. This action can be a lead (CPL stands for Cost per Lead), a Sale (CPS stands for Cost per Sale), a download (CPD stands for Cost per download) and many other variations.

Some in the Internet industry refer to performance-based marketing as CPA (cost per acquisition), although the term is also sometimes used for specific types of campaigns such as leads or sales.

Now that we’ve got over the hard part, the rest is easy to understand.

The affiliate gets paid for sending visitors to a specific landing page where an action happens either a lead, a sale, a download or some other sort of action that the advertiser requires. As an example, some advertisers are looking to build up their databases, so they pay for each opt in email address they receive, others want leads from specific locations, so they pay for zip codes, and then try convincing the visitors after they fill in their zip code, to fill in a more detailed lead form.

The common denominator is that the affiliate gets paid when an action happens.

A 2 Tier affiliate program is simply finding new marketers to sign up under you to do EXACTLY what you are doing sending visitors to different offers and getting paid when the visitors perform some sort of action. So why would you want other marketers to sign up under you to promote the same offers? Simple you get paid a percentage of the amount the affiliate you refer gets paid? Sounds complicated?

Dont worry, its not hard to understand. As an example, say John promotes 5 different offers on a single affiliate network. He gets paid for every lead, sale, email and zip code he generates from these different offers. John now tells Mark about the Network and gets Mark to sign up using a banner or text link that has John’s referral code built into it. Mark now signs up to the Affiliate Network under John and starts promoting various offers and advertisers from the Affiliate Network. These offers DONT have to be the same offers that John is promoting. Mark can promote ANY of the offers on the Affiliate Network.

And this is the best part.

For any amounts that Mark gets paid, John receives a percentage of the amount over and above what Mark gets paid. So, if Mark gets paid $1000 in Month 1, and the 2 Tier Affiliate program is paying 5%, then John would receive $50 just for referring Mark.

But it gets even better.

Some 2 Tier Affiliate Networks pay LIFETIME commissions. So, John wouldn’t get a referral commission just for a month or a year he receives it FOR ALL TIME.

If Mark becomes a super affiliate and starts generating HUGE commissions every month, John can just sit back and collect the checks as he referred him.

There are 3 important things to know when finding affiliates to sign up under you on 2 Tier Affiliate Programs:

Is the affiliate program or affiliate network credible, has proper tracking so your referrals are correctly tracked, has good campaigns and offers for the affiliates to promote so they actually do make money, and do they pay timeously? Assuming that the affiliate program or network is good, what percentage do they pay you on amounts that your referrals get paid? All programs vary so compare different programs to see what the industry standard is.

How long do you continue receiving referral commissions for? Some pay for a month, some for the lifetime, and of course there are many variations in between.

So do your homework and find a 2 Tier program that can make you money long in the future for the work you’re doing today.

Four Steps To Success!

By David Bazhaw on July 22, 2023 in Blog

Here is a four-step process that anyone can follow to become successful online:

Find a skill

The easiest way to make money online is to „sell‟ a skill. This skill could be any form of service that you can provide to help other marketers save time, save money and save effort.

Here are a few examples:
 Writing – you can become a ghostwriter, copywriter or blogger and sell your skills to other marketers.

 Graphics Design – you can create powerful E-covers for E-books or graphic banners for mini-sites.

 Technical – you can help people if you are good with programming (e.g., script installation, testing and website setup)

 Networking – help other people to recruit affiliates for their product launches.

If you want to develop the winning mindset, make sure you work hard by serving others first even if the pay is low or you are required to sacrifice time (and sometimes, money) in order to develop your skill and build your clientele.

Create Your Own Product

After you develop enough expertise with your skills, you can turn your skills into a product.
The most important thing to remember is that your skill must be something that brings value to others. If you can bring value to others and monetize it, others will most probably want to learn from you as well.
Once you teach others how to monetize their skill, you will have a product that will impart your expertise to others. For example: a product that teaches people “how to make money with copywriting.”

Create A Business
Once you are able to combine all your products together and develop your very own system, you have a business running already.
The important thing to remember about a business is that you must have a holistic approach when it comes to business building.

Don’t just focus on your primary skill alone. Try and outsource other tasks to other people. For example, if your strength is in writing, your business must not only include writing but many other aspects such as graphics, tutorials and even a helpdesk to help you answer questions.

At the end of the day, you need a complete system to market your business.

Automating Your Business

If your business is taking up too much of your time, the best thing you can do is to try and automate your business by letting others run it for you.

Basically, you still maintain ownership of your business (and revenue, of course). But what you must do is to train up people who are capable of running the business for you. By the time your business is successful enough to be automated, you can hire people who are smarter than you to run it for you.

The tradeoff is that you have to pay them a lot of money, but the best thing you have is more free time. When you buy people’s time with your money, you effectively remove the shackles that your business has on your time and you can use that time to invest into another business.

Remember the golden rule: Think BIG and think long term.

Develop the winning Mindset

By David Bazhaw on July 6, 2023 in Blog

Every major plan or big business has a birthplace – that is from the mind (the source where every action flows out from).
Before you jump into the Internet marketing scene, one of the first things that you must fine-tune is your mindset.
But what does it mean to develop the right mindset? Here are a few suggestions:
* Making money online is NOT a get rich quick scheme. You don’t just „dump money‟ into some marketing scheme hoping to get money in return.
* You must invest time into your education. Depending on your aptitude, you don’t just read an E-book or two and expect to become an Internet marketing expert. After all, how long did it take you to get your university degree?
* You must invest time for trial and error. No one gets it „right‟ on the first try. You must be prepared for failures and mistakes. Learn from them and make sure you get up and fight again!
* You must be prepared to put up with negative people. There are many in the world out there who do not believe that it is possible to make money online. When you put your plans into action, you will face resistance from your beer-drinking buddies, your family members or even your BOSS! If you don’t have the endurance, you will succumb to the pressure.
* You must be prepared to go all the way. An Internet marketing business is just like any other business in the „offline‟ world. If you are not prepared to go all the way, you will give up halfway because you have put in a half-hearted attitude into your business. Remember the golden rule: how badly do you want success?

Choosing The Right Vehicle

Another thing that you must remember is that it is not enough to have the winning mindset alone. You must have the right vehicle to take you there.
For example: if you are wanted to get from one state in the U.S. to another, you will need to have the right vehicle to take you there. You can choose to ride a plane, drive a car or walk.
Of course, it would be absurd to walk. But that is what people do in their Internet marketing business! They do not choose the best (or cost effective) vehicle to get them there!
They have the right mindset alright. And they are probably so fired up and positive that they don’t care how long it takes them to arrive at their destination.
It is also no different from natives who are all riled up about defending their homeland against invaders, but if they don’t have guns, their axes, spears and shields are not going to save them no matter how valiantly they fight (against the enemy’s gunpowder)!
Make no mistake about this. Taking too long to reach the destination is no different from failing. We must not delude ourselves into thinking that it takes time to build a business when we should be making money after a couple of months.
Some people spent years reading „make money online‟ E-books without making a single cent from the Internet. They convince themselves that they are still in the learning and education phase, but they don’t take action!
Sure, it takes time to build a solid business, but any money that you are not making means you’ve „lost‟ money because that is the money that you SHOULD be earning instead of wasting your time with things that don’t work.

7 Tips for Working at Home Successfully

By David Bazhaw on April 30, 2023 in Blog

So, you’ve decided to start a home-based business. Congratulations, and welcome to the fast-paced world of entrepreneurship. While there is a lot to learn, your effort will be worth it. The thrill of growing your business, the freedom and flexibility to set your own hours, and the possibilities of ever-increasing financial rewards are all wonderful reasons to start a home based business.

Now that you’ve decided to start your business, you might be wondering “How can I get it off to the strongest possible start?” These 7 tips will help:

Set up a separate working space in your home. It doesn’t matter if this is a small bedroom, one part of the garage, or a corner of the living room. I used to work out of my closet. The important thing is to have some space that you can designate as your working area. This will give you the space and room you need to craft your dream.

Stock your working space with materials. This sounds basic, perhaps, but one underlying element of success is that you have easy access to the tools, materials, and other resources you need. Gathering everything close by also keeps you from wasting time searching for it, so this step can be considered a time management strategy, too.

Speaking of time management, your third step is to define the parameters of your business. What days and hours will you work? When will you do your marketing? When will you provide services or products to clients? How will you keep all of this straight?

Balance action with planning. One of the most common pitfalls to successful entrepreneurship is getting too caught up in action without enough planning. Stated another way, this means that you confuse “being busy” with “working on important projects.” The best approach is to plan your next couple of goals and then work backwards to create step-by-step action plans to reach them. Once you have the plan, then it’s time to take action.

Network like crazy. One of the fastest ways to grow any business is to make connections with other people. Be sure to share your passion and enthusiasm with others at every opportunity. Let people know who you are and what you offer. Remember, people can’t buy if they don’t know you’re selling.

Present a professional image. If you want to be treated professionally, present a professional image. Set up a separate bank account for your business. Install a separate phone and fax line. Create professional marketing materials. Be courteous and pleasant in all your customer-facing interactions. Basically, be someone people want to do business with.

Automate your business as much as possible. Granted, you are just one person (right now) and might have a lot of extra time to take care of all the details. This might work for now but won’t work into the future as you get busier and busier. It’s best to set up automatic systems and processes right from the start to free up your time to concentrate on the most profitable activities.

Working at home can be a dream come true for many people, and these days with computers and the internet, it’s more realistic than ever before. That said, building a business requires strong prioritizing skills and self discipline to take action toward your goals. If you have these qualities and are committed to doing whatever it takes to be successful, the dream of working from home can soon become your reality.

Stone Evans – Plug-In Profit Site

The Most Obvious Secret In Affiliate Marketing

By David Bazhaw on April 23, 2023 in Blog

Everyone wants to get ahead of the game, and its common that people have used unscrupulous methods, spam and scams to achieve those ends. I would like to suggest that you don’t have to do those, and all it takes is one thing, the best kept secret in affiliate marketing!

If you realize, affiliate marketing is a simple thing to do. You merely find a hot product in a market, and drive traffic that converts. Your cost of promotion will
turn up to be really a way to help you to make profits. Its just a business expense.

At the end of the day, people who forget the aim of affiliate marketing will get extremely frustrated and confused. Is it really just about putting up Google pay-per-click ads? Or is it about using search engine optimization?

In my opinion, the most obvious secret in affiliate marketing is really the idea of being an affiliate. What does it mean? Affiliating means you create some kind of
relationship with the people you connect with. It describes the closeness that you have with people. After all, if you are using affiliate marketing, isnt it important for you connect with people? So let me ask: do you call your affiliates?

Do you contact people to meet them up face to face?

Sure, there are constraints, but consider the possibilities.

As an affiliate marketer, there are three concrete ways to enhance your relationship with your affiliates.

First, give them a priority call on a regular basis. Once you feel that you have a good fit with your affiliates, call them to let them know how important it is for
you to have a connection with them. Often, teleseminars can be run to develop a positive learning atmosphere with your audience while allowing a guest to come on the call to contribute. If you want to learn about teleseminars, the best person in the industry is probably my friend, Alex Mandossian. You can find him at

Second, understanding what they are able to do, and write about them on a regular basis so as to beef up their credibility in the eyes of your audience. While you might think this is a complete waste of time, its a process known as edification. When you edify a person positively, they gain credibility. It also helps you foster a positive relationship with them. One person I know who talks about this a lot is Matt Morris, the founder and CEO of Success University. You can find out what his business is (hint it has got everything to do with affiliating) at

Third, help plug any gaps they might have. Its always useful to help other people to plug in their gaps, especially if there are problems with some area of their
business. Do it discreetly. Many times, however, a small gesture like this can bring you a very long way.

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