Blog Contest

Hey,


I was thinking of holding a blog contest, and seeing that I have not held one before, I hope you guys can give input on how to select the winner.


I've decided on the prizes and its something Im very very very certain anyone would love. But anyway, some creative inputs would be appreciated. If possible, not looking for the kinds that people have to make a post linking back to this one etc etc.


Anyone with creative ideas for a contest, just comment away! :)


If anyone wants to make a joint contest or whatsoever, comment away, I can supply the prizes.


Creative ideas for blog contest are hard to come by nowadays so.. The creator of the best/creative idea that I end up using would win for themselves a free domain for a year :)


PS : Yes, I'm in a giving mood :D

SEO Careers

If you're a newbie in internet marketing, or simply making money online, there are two BIG NO NO niches that you should ever join. (A newbie in internet marketing would constitute to less than a year of doing so :) )



One of them is SEO, or search engine optimization. Unless you work at Google, Yahoo or know your shit, you should NEVER think of entering this niche. Or even anything related to it. Why? Well simply put, there is a reason why the sites appearing at the top, appear there when you type in the search term SEO. Get my point?



They know their shit. They know what in the hell search engines are all about and they have no problems getting to number one even with a new site. But you dont. Why? Coz you're a newbie. Even if you have read up on TONS of seo tips, techniques or search engine material, you're still nowhere near these people. Not to bring you down but that's the reality.




Experience beats theory anytime hands down. So yes, stop trying to rank well for SEO if you're still doing so. ;)



Sidetracking abit. Try and do a search for SEO on google. At point of writing, there are a few sites on google adsense at the top providing 'seo' services or services providing people with top placement on search engines. Rather ironic that they're calling themselves experts when they have to rely on adwords to get that top placement. =.= No offense to those guys, but maybe call yourselves ADWORDS expert by all means.



And if you're actually considering a career in SEO, then jolly well TEST, LEARN, TEST again and learn your stuff.

What is a Consumer Report?

I have mentioned in an earlier post about Free Consumer Reports and I started to think that there maybe some people out there who have the faintest idea what a Consumer Report is. Well if you do a search on Google for Consumer Reports, you'd most likely be greeted with a certain consumer reports site.



Well, apparently, what can be found on google regarding consumer reports is reports FOR consumers, not reports OF consumers. Obviously, what I was talking about was in fact reports OF consumers. So I did a search for the correct term to use and its in fact
market research. In fact, I've found a good site for you : http://www.forrester.com/rb/research It has basically what I intended for you to obtain, reports of consumers and the market.



It contains some elements of free market research but there are those paid ones which involves money and it makes sense to pay for such information because research aint easy and more if its research of consumers within certain markets :)



Why is that important? Well, it really makes much sense to know a market before entering it and like I've mentioned it before, market research is of utmost importance. Remember that.



So I apologize if those who have been looking for Free Consumer Reports and reach here knowing that you did not get what you want, on the other hand, thank you for reading through several pages of this make easy money online blog while you were at it :) Hope you hadnt wasted your time.



Though it really made me scratched my head when there were some who actually came here by the keyword : "Make money online consumer reports". If you're still here reading this, do make a note of your presence :)

Find a Niche Easily

If you're in the make money online scene, you'd probably have read how "important" it is to find a niche with which to market. And if you typed in "ways to select a niche" you'd probably have found my previous post being ways to select a niche. :) And you'd probably have read that I'll be releasing a feed only post on simplified methods of finding a niche.



Well, some of you might think that its just a lame old ploy to get more readers / subscribers for this blog but hey, it isnt difficult really to just click on the RSS feed button to subscribe. Why? Because this post is exactly what lazy asses have been waiting for (yeah right. =.=). But nevertheless, like I said, the rest of this post is going to the feeds only. This is to reward my "loyal" subscribers and readers with some useful information.

To my subscribers, here's the information you have been waiting for since I see a DRAMATIC increase in my subscribership from 3 to 6! :) Not something to whoah about, but hey, its the little things that one has to "celebrate" about, otherwise, all motivation would be lost. ;)



So lets get started!



I'll basically outline the steps that I take to finding a niche. As you would know, there are thousand maybe more different ways of finding a profitable niche to market to. But here, I outline my very lazy way, that somehow, should find you your desired niche.



Step 1


Open up WordTracker's free keyword tool. STOP. Now many would be going to this popularly referred to link : http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/ as told by many make money online bloggers. But I just found out from somewhere (sorry I really forgot where so I cant credit you :( ) that there's an easier tool to use that eliminates some important steps.



Go to http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/gtrends Notice that you just have to add the "gtrends" at the back? For those who are having a clue, yes it is. Its Google Trends! So what is it doing over here at wordtracker? Well, apparently the owners of wordtracker have realised that people usually search for a certain keyword from wordtracker then go over to Google Trends to find out the search trends for Google.



So basically, whats important about this step is, you can search for your keyword on wordtracker(which uses overture if im not wrong) and get traffic estimation on both Wordtracker AND Google. Not only that, they would also provide you with the number of competitors currently present in Google for that certain keyword and advise you on whether that keyword is a good niche for you.



So do you understand? Well if you dont, let me summarise this step for you.

Summary

1. Go to http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/gtrends

Yes that step is as simple as that! :) Now on to the next step.



Step 2


Enter a keyword. And when I say keyword, I dont mean keywords like "make easy money online". I mean keywords like "bikes". Just one word. Trust me.



GTrends Tool from WordTracker would then generate a list of other keywords related to yours, showing the daily amount of searches on Overture. Now, you'll notice there's a small bar graph icon to the right of your keyword? Yes, click on it.



Now, what's on screen is basically it. Your niche. What you're looking for is 2 ticks. One from the "Google Competition" and one from "Actual Visitors From #1 in Google/day". However, here's a tip. If you have like hundreds of searches from google but like 30 000 - 35 000, then go for the niche, that is, if you think the number of searches on google can make up for more competition.



You'll notice that they have links at the bottom of the graph with "your keyword" on google and also "your keyword" + affiliate on google. Now what more could one ask for? If its the right niche, then go ahead and start searching for affiliate products to market with! ;)


So do you understand? If not, lets recap on this step.


Summary

1. Type in a keyword you'd like (1 word)
2. Click on the bar graph icon to the right of your keyword to see the keyword's details on Google
3. The keywords with 20 - 120 searches on Overture tend to make nice niches so take a lookout on those
4. Pick your niche based on having both criterias ticked advisably, but if not, at least have the competition on Google low and the actual visits on Google to be high
   

Step 3

There IS NO step 3! Now now, isnt finding yourself a niche to market into easier now? Of course, other marketers might urge you to do more research like whether a certain keyword is just a fad, trend or a long term keyword.


You can combine what's been taught here with what you have learnt elsewhere and get highly likely profitable niches quickly and easily.



If you're not satisfied with the simplicity of this post, please do provide me some feedback. Thank you.

There is something here that is not publicly published.

Subscribe to my RSS Feed



For those of you who wish to read what's above, you can go ahead and subscribe to my feed. :) You might already have heard of the information on finding a niche easily, you might not. You might think its not the best information available, but nevertheless it is useful. And take note that this information is basically to help you find a niche with simplified methods that I have found (read : found = im not the originator). So have fun reading about finding a niche easily!


If you like my post or posts, do subscribe to my feed, thank you. :)

Ways to select a niche

In accordance with the objective of this blog, which is to release what information I have, (pathetic or not), for free, and make sure they're easy to understand so that readers are able to make easy money online for free. :) Share the wealth!

Anyway, I've been blog hopping for the past few days particularly reading up on topics regarding ways to select a niche. Some are good while some are just pure bullshit you can just wish the blogger would shut the fuck up. But anyways, I've discovered some new tools (yes, they're free) and they're what I'd call, sure-fire tools that can let you select a niche that WILL work.


Yes, and the best part is its free! How's that? You have a way to select a niche, that will work, and its free! All you gotta do is just put in some work. Well I said, easy, not lazy. ;)


Anyway, I'd like to touch on the common things that these blogs have about ways to select a niche and I'd try and post up some different stuff, if i have any.


Similarities on ways to select a niche

1. You have to think of a something that has connection to you (for those who do not know where to start)
2. If you're a good marketer, then you'd have read the news and found out what's the rising trend
3. You're then required to find out if there's a market for your niche
4. You do so by using tools that gives off estimated search volume on google, yahoo etc etc.
5. If there is indeed a market for your niche, you go on ahead to google, type in your niche with quotes "your niche"
6. If the number of competitors are below a certain amount, then you've found yourself a marketable niche
7. You then set up a site/blog around that niche, and use affiliate marketing, adsense and what nots to help you earn money

Now, what would happen if you found a HUGE GOLDMINE waiting to be tapped. The only problem, you know nuts about the niche. Uh-oh. Well, no problem, you can always research on the niche and pick out the best stuff. Well, I've (well, not really me, i just found it :p) made doing things like this easier for you. :)


If that's what you currently know and have been doing, welll i have to tell you, great! You're doing a good job and that's what you should be doing in one of the steps to making money online.

And by far any means, you can go ahead doing so, because hey, its only a matter of clicks before you can find what you need. Then why am I making this post about ways to select a niche then?

Well, I have a set of sure-fire methods, that are EASY(read : not lazy), and you can find numerous amounts of niche easily, hopefully more effectively, and.. What else do you want? That's quite a hefty amount of benefits.


Now, since this is free, I would like to see if this way of selecting a niche is really indeed easy and of course, I would like for it to be beneficial to me. How? Since I'm not charging anything, I just ask that you subscribe to my feed. Simple? I'll be making a feed only post on this information. It might probably get indexed but I don't care, as long as its not easily available to many.


I assure you, this information is too simple, too dumb but why should you or anyone care? It works! :)

I'll be looking forward to your subscribing. ;) Look out for the post in my feed. ;) This way of selecting a niche is only my opinionated version as with many others, but I feel its the best, because its the easiest ;)

Free Consumer Reports

Make easy money online by selling products - Overview
Make easy money online by selling products - Lesson 1


Make easy money online by selling products - Lesson 2
Free Consumer Reports


The 2nd installment in my lessons on making easy money online selling products be it affiliate products, your own info products or otherwise. In the first lesson, I mentioned that market research is very important. Now, after researching your market, your consumers, what do you do?


You have to get to know your audience. Why are consumer reports so important? Well, in my post regarding what's the most important thing in making money, I mentioned that it is the ability to find prospects, or potential customers/consumers. So if you dont have a clue regarding your audience or prospects, how do you actually even find them?



Knowing your audience can be related to a teacher getting to know his students. As simple as that. If a teacher knows what time the students study, where the students study etc2, dont you think its easy for the teacher to plan his lessons to maximise effective learning?


Now, enough rant about how important consumer reports is. I'm going to touch on a few things as to how to actually get to know your audience.

As usual, there be many ways to do so, but here's a short list that some or many of you might be familiar with.

1. Forums


2. Social Networks


3. Niche Sites


4. Blogs


5. Consumer Research

Now, if you were to add your primary keyword + any of the ways mentioned above, you'd have gotten an abundance ways with which to knowing your audience. For example, if you were selling golf gloves, you'd wanna type in "golf gloves forum" or "golf gloves consumer research". Google it and you'd have a list of sites with which to conduct further consumer research on.

Before you say that I am insulting your intelligence by stating the obvious like how to search for stuff, I'd like to mention that despite it being obvious, people dont think about it or refuse to. Doing the above like I mentioned gives you an insight into how your audience buys, how your audience surfs and whatnots needed to be able to know how to convert your prospects.

Now I emphasise the thing that we want to obtain here is your audience's buying patterns, whether or not your audience buys stuff online, the mindset of your audience, their ages etc2.

When you've found out all the above stated, the "free consumer reports" step is complete. You have all you need to know about your audience and you can easily manipulate, manage sales pitches/sales letters to make prospects into customers.


Another tip is to know which search engine your audience frequents. For example, hip hop related teenagers who are music driven naturally tend to use Yahoo for their searches whereas technology geeks go to Google. Knowing this in your audience would help the fact that you can know which search engine to optimise for at the start of your campaign.


To summarise up this lesson, the following are what we are hoping to achieve to be able to complete the "free consumer reports" process :

• Their buying patterns


• Their surfing patterns


• Their generation


• Their age


• Their gender


• Their mindset

Now if you're sharp, (or maybe not :p) you'd have known I was trying to optimise this post for the term "Free Consumer Reports". Why? Well, it does have a connection with the post doesnt it? ;) Though, I dont actually provide the free consumer reports. You'd have to SEARCH them yourself :D

Now when I list these, Im practically referring to the majority of your audience so that you can claim you know your market's audience. That's all for this lesson and stay tuned. :)

Disclaimer : If in any way, this lesson series does not signify that making money online is easy or if its not easy to understand how to make money online, do feedback to me. Thank you. :)

Market Research Methodology

Making easy money online selling products - Lesson 1

Market Research Methodology

Are you asking what connection is there in market research to making easy money online through the internet? Well, making money is the same, be it offline and online. Thus, as with offline money making methods, anyone wishing to do so has to conduct market research of some form at least. Shall I say now, that the great marketers and the good marketers are only separated by but their abilities to conduct market research. ;)

There is no definite way to research the market you are going to enter into but I am going to list some simple ways that you can do market research online.

1. Firstly, select a niche. (Ok doesn’t everyone know that? =.=) Fine, how do you select one? Let me say this. Do not be afraid of entering a niche that you absolutely have no idea on. Its possible but just harder. ;) So anyway, just pick a few random niches and we’ll see which is a good market to enter.

2. After having the list of niches, think like a consumer. Then write down beside those niches, the first thing you’d think of if you were to be interested in buying a product related to that niche.

3. Next, you’d want to find out which niche has a demand or in other words, which niche has people willing or wanting to buy products from. So how do you do that? You can either conduct consumer market research by getting real people data from survey companies on consumers or you can just research the demand for that niche online through keywords.

Remember the fist thing I told you to write down in step 2? Yes, that shall be the keyword. Now, go to these sites and look up the demand for the keyword :

http://www.inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

http://www.google.com/trends

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordTool

Basically, you’re wanting to find a keyword that has people searching for. Why? Because that’ll show that there is actually a market, a demand for that niche. Don’t be afraid of competition. Competition is good. Why? Because they help to create the awareness among your prospects in a niche. Your prospects are going to do a lot of searching (or probably would have done) and your job is pretty much simple. Provide them a solution!

How to provide them that solution would be explained in another day. But I would really like to emphasise before this post ends, that the internet and our ability to conduct market research is what actually defines the good marketers from the greats. So if you have no confidence in your ability to conduct market research , post up a comment and I'll explain further in another post on simple beginner steps to doing it.

But for now, this is the first lesson in selling products to make easy money online. Enjoy!

Disclaimer : If in any way, this lesson series does not signify that making money online is easy or if its not easy to understand how to make money online, do feedback to me. Thank you. :)

EntreCard Sucks?

Ok this post is in response to the latest traffic trend , Entrecard. There has been rises in the traffic from Entrecard and like I mentioned in my previous post, A free traffic Goldmine, which tells of how EntreCard has helped to boost my traffic a little. Who says Entrecard sucks?

Like all things in the world, one can please not everyone. So as expected there are those that swore by not using such a service lest it dies soon enough, being a fad, and so on and so forth.


I just stumbled upon vic's blog of blogger unleashed and I must say, I respect him. Why? Because he has his own mindset and actually dares to be different. From what I have gathered, he seems to be a veteran in the internet world and veterans have the most experience. And by that, he gives his opinion of Entrecard and how it will die soon.

True even that everyone are entitled to their own opinion and I am just referring to his opinions and evaluating them and how Entrecard might suck and might not.


I will quote from his site :

Back in the early 90’s, when the first banner exchanges came out, not only did I jump in but I also started one and, in a given moment, I had over 50k users. At the time people where still amazed at the internet and something like an animated gif would make people’s jaw drop, makes me smile thinking if we could travel back in time and place a flash advertising on the same page. What would people think lol. Anyway, sorry my ADD, back then it was a new and good form of advertising. Then came Microsoft and took it to the next level. In less than 5 years the fad was gone and it was just not as effective. Now people would join an exchange but would not buy additional impressions because it was cost effective for free but not if you had to pay, so as the Microsoft banner exchange disappeared so did mine.

Its a pretty big quote, but simply to say, he mentions that banner exchange services have been around for a long time and they've risen and fallen but never maintained a regular traffic source.
That's a new information for me as Im rather new to the net so to speak and I have not experienced such trafffic systems. Lest, if this veteran is saying that EntreCard is dying, Im not arguing with him at all.


So why am I contradicting myself with my earlier post on how good EntreCard is? Well for me its really simple. This blog is not a monetized blog nor do I intend it to be. Thus, any traffic is good for me. Any traffic bursts are good bursts. Get where I am getting at? Hope you do because I am simply saying that although EntreCard might not last and that Entrecard sucks is the new fad, I am just riding on the fad bandwagon that can benefit the blog and me which in other words, increases my traffic.


No one can tell for sure how long a certain system would last but they can predict. Blogging zoom has been great too and though I have confidence in it lasting, like i said, one can never tell. Entrecard may suck for the veterans, but lets just ride the wave and absorb the traffic bursts for now. :)


This post is in reference to these 2 posts :
Entrecard sucks and there is no doubt
Entrecard another loser

Money Making is still alive

Sorry for the late update. Had an not-in-town experience the past 5 days. But anyways, this is just a temporary post to inform people of how alive this blog still is. :) Stay tuned for lesson 2 and more. ;)

Make money online selling products - Overview

Ok I just realized that despite this being a blog about easy ways to make money online, there is barely much posts touching on that. So therefore, this post will touch specifically on that J

I’ve always believed making money was easy, be it online or offline. Its keeping it that is the difficult part. But anyways, here are some ways that I’m sure many of you know can make money online :

1. Doing surveys / emails
2. Selling a product
3. Selling someone’s product
4. Creating a site with traffic that can benefit advertisers

So basically that’s the main idea. This post henceforth would be touching on ways #2 and #3, ie. Selling products.

So first up, what do you sell? What are you supposed to sell? That’s where you have to first do research. Listed below are some steps that you are advised to go through to ensure a smooth marketing strategy.

1. Research your market
2. Know your target audience
3. Research your competition
4. Know your competition’s products
5. Create a new product or find one that has sellable quality.

Go to the links given above to go through the lessons outlined. Remember that these tips are only useful if you are going to sell products to make money online.

A Free Traffic GoldMine

Well in relation to my previous post regarding prospects being the most important aspect of making money, its common sense to know that without traffic comes no prospects. Thus, in a way, you actually have to have decent amounts of traffic to attract these prospects.



And with my theme of making money online for free, I've scoured around for ways to increase your traffic for free, which in fact I have mentioned in another previous post regarding free internet advertising.


Well, for those not in the now, I'd like to present a new find I had a couple of days back. Its a new program/site for increasing your network as well as traffic. Without further ado :


EntreCard


You'd have noticed the small widget in my sidebar with the capital E at the corner? Yeah, that is it. Im not going to blabber on about what its about (you can find that out by clicking on that link) but I am going to tell you about what I've experienced with it over the last couple of days testing it.



I have gotten an increase in traffic. Simple enough? Not quite. I wouldnt really call it increase? More of a spike. Ok maybe an increase if you'd like. By how much you'd ask? I cant screen at the moment but trust my words when I tell you that it increased by more than 500% over a night. :) Yeah I am happy for that moment. There was a doubt about that traffic, which I thought were the kinds that just came by to drop their entrecards for a credit and leave (read more about the entrecard NOW :D) but I was so wrong.


The number of people staying in my site and browsing around increased by 1000%. Yes you saw it right. 1000%. :) Its a good service and business model. The best part is it contains a whole lot of categories from which you can advertise your site FOR FREE from. What else can one ask for?



No one is forcing you, but I do encourage you to take advantage of this free traffic goldmine that is only going to get bigger soon. As Im sure you would know, free traffic doesnt come by that easily, more so free quality traffic. So why wait? ;)



PS : Do interest yourself in clicking on the widget mentioned on your right as itll help me and it might help you as well! :) Get your free quality traffic today!

The One and Only SEO tip is..

Despite the plethora of information out on the web today, there remains a few hidden tricks and secrets behind most subjects and SEO, or search engine optimization is no exception. There is but only ONE main trick that EVERYONE interested in SEO should know of.



Some already do and are already implementing the trick in their timetable. Some know, but have no idea of how to implement it, while the rest probably dont know. (Though I doubt that there is anyone who is totally clueless :p)



So what is this one trick of seo then?


Well, its none other than personal testing.


Satisfied with the answer? Yes? No? Maybe?


Nevertheless, I shall explain to you why its very important or why its the only skill you should ever have for SEO.


As all of you would have known, SEO is optimizing your site so that it Googlebots are able to crawl it better and faster. Nowadays, its basically marketing. SEO = Marketing. Why? Because its the act of getting to the target audience ahead of your competitor with which to sell your products. BUT THAT, is a whole diferrent story and we shall dwelve into that.


Anyway, so lets start with some basic questions to answer :



Personal Testing for SEO

1. What is personal testing for SEO?
2. Why is personal testing so important for SEO?
3. Why is personal testing the only thing important for SEO?
4. Who is eligible to implement personal testing for SEO?
5. When should one implement personal testing for SEO?
   
6. How can personal testing be done for SEO?

PS : If you guys think I'm trying to optimize this post for the keyword "Personal Testing for SEO", I'm not. =.= Really.


Answers

• Personal Testing is basically testing or using trial and error to find out what works and what doesnt for SEO. There are many tools available online, some free some not, but most of them are what they're worth.

• Personal Testing is very important for SEO because very similar to the subject on weight loss, every site, or page is different. They very much so require a different strategy to being optimized for search engines. As much as every individual require a different weight loss strategy, the same goes for every site. Why is that so? Because every site has a different topic, niche that they cover and what strategy works for one site may not work for another. I'll explain in a moment why all these is happening.

• Like I said at the start of the post, there is just too much information on the web. To make it worse, the web is evolving at too fast a pace for you to rely on the information on the web. Some of the information that are at the top spots for SEO are outdated and do not really apply in this age more or less in the future. Therfore, to ensure that you stay ahead of the pack, or at least with them, you have to do personal testing for your sites.

• EVERYONE is eligible for personal testing for SEO. All you need is a shallow knowledge of what currently works and what doesnt.

• EVERYONE should start implementing personal testing SEO before the site even goes live! Ok maybe not, but at the moment the site goes live. Its very important that you do that to ensure greater accuracy in your tests.

• There are many ways that personal testing for SEO can be done, not to mention the tools available. I'll just mention the tools available for you guys' benefit :D. Basically, the core concept is as follows :
  

1. Take what knowledge you have of the current SEO tactics and apply it to your site.
   
2. Make sure its at least a fair amount of knowledge.
   
3. Dont care whether they are reliable or not for now.
4. Write down and track the progress of your site after applying tactic A (eg. your heading).
5. Write down what works and what doesnt.
6. Wait around 3 days before seeing whether a certain tactic works.
7. Once you've found what works, go full force and optimize your site using those tactics.
   

• The tools that you can use are :

1. Google Analytics
2. Google Website Optimizer
3. SEO Elite
4. A keyword research engine like WordTracker
5. Keyword Elite

You can read up on how the softwares work at their respective sites. If you have any queries you can always drop me a mail.

You can read up on why all these is happening in another post of mine that will come soon. :P The post is getting long anyway. So thats it! For the Main SEO tip. ;)