Archive for October, 2009

Red e-booksAn eBook is a great way of making money on the internet and you don’t need to have a website to do it. Nor do you need to actually sell the eBook to make money from it.  So how do you do it…well in a nutshell, it involves you writing a short ebook preferably about a topic you know about and distributing it for free around the internet.  It doesn’t have to be long – 10-15 pages is enough. In order to make money from it, you add multiple affiliate links to different products within the ebook.

Here’s how it works…

Step 1: Choose a topic that you have an interest in

The best eBooks are written by those who know what they are talking about. It will also make it easier to write if you have an interest in the topic. Having said that however, there is no rule that says that you need to know the subject to write about it but it will take longer because you will need to do the research for it first.

Step 2: Find products to promote in your ebook

There is no point spending hours writing an eBook only to find that there are no products to add to it. So before you start writing, you need to find products that you can ‘sell’ in your eBook that relate to your topic. You can choose products from Clickbank, CJ.com, Linkshare.com, ShareaSale.com, Amazon.com or any of the other affiliate networks. These companies are all free to join and offer thousands of different products and services that you can promote. Clickbank is a good one to start with as they don’t care whether you have a website or not.

Once you know that there are plenty of products you can start writing.

Step 3: Start Writing

This is not as scary as it sounds. If you have a flair for writing then you will probably have no problem getting started but if the last thing you wrote was a report in high school then you might find it hard to get going.

The easiest way to write an ebook is to break it up into sections first. For instance, say we decide to write an eBook on dog training. We might break it up into the following sections:

1. Introduction
2. How to train your dog to sit
3. How to train your dog to come when called
4. How to train your dog to shake hands
5. etc, etc

Once you have the main sections you can then provide the content. Always leave the introduction till last as it will be a lot easier to write.

Here is a really good tip. Start out with dot points. Don’t worry about making it read right at this point. Just jot down as many things as you can think of for each of the sections of your ebook.

Once you have the dot points then just expand on each dot point with sub-dot points. Before you know it you will have lots of content.

Now you just need to structure those dot points into coherent sentences.

If you really don’t want to write it yourself then pay a professional. Elance is a great place for this – it is full of writers willing to work on your projects and you would be surprised at how little it costs.

Step 4: Add Affiliate Links

Once you have completed your ebook you will need to add affiliate links. You can add them within the content itself where appropriate or add them at the end as a list of recommended products – or both if you like.

Step 5: Convert to PDF

Before you distribute your eBook you will need to convert it to PDF. There are a number of free versions available on the internet that are simple and easy to use. Ensure that once the document has been converted that you check to ensure that it has formatted the content correctly and that any links within the document work correctly. Some converters work better than others but we recommend one of the following:

  • http://www.freepdfconvert.com/default.asp
  • http://www.doc2pdf.net/

Step 6: Proofread Your eBook

There is nothing worse than reading a document with multiple spelling errors or bad grammar. Make sure you run a spell checker over it and read it through thoroughly yourself. Better yet, get someone else to do it for you. The more people that look at it the better so get your family or friends to help out.

Step 7: Distribute Your eBook

The next step is to distribute your ebook. Here are some ideas:

- email websites that relate to your ebook topic and tell them they can send out your ebook to their email list if they have one or they can use it as a free giveaway to encourage people to sign up to their newsletter.
– submit your ebook to ebook directories – there are plenty of them…just do a search in Google
– create a Squidoo lens, Hubpage (hubpage.com) and attach your ebook to the page so people can download it.
– submit to forums

And if you found that your ebook turns out better than you expected and you  might just be able to sell it rather than distribute it free them sign up with Clickbank.

8 Ways to Put Some Life Back into Your Blog

Colorful BlogIs your blog looking a little tired and worn out? Just like people, blogs can start to get a bit dull and lifeless…sounds a bit like a shampoo commercial doesn’t it? When we get to this point we generally do something about it…we might have a make over, eat better foods, go on a holiday, meditate, buy a new wardrobe or maybe even change that brand of shampoo. But what do you do when your blog has reached this point?

The look of your blog can make a huge difference to its overall success. First impressions really do count. When a first time reader finds your blog they want to see something pleasing to the eye and if they don’t find it they will quickly click that ever present back button.

So if you think your blog is ready for a makeover then try some of the following to spruce it up:

#1 Change Your Theme

There are so many free themes available today for most blogging platforms that there really is no excuse for having an old outdated theme on your blog. There are literally thousands to choose from and almost as many premium themes if you have some dollars to spare.

Don’t get stuck in a rut of using the same theme because it is easy to work with. Some of the latest themes are fantastic and so user friendly you will be surprised.

#2 Rethink Those Ads

We all want to make money with our blogs but there is a limit to how many ads you should display. Once you’ve hit that limit you will start to see evidence of people not hanging around on your site.

Even some of the big name internet marketers, not mentioning any names here, are guilty of this. There is one site in particular that I can no longer go to because my computer just freezes up as it tries to load the page. There are so many scripts and pop-ups and flashing ads that it has become almost ridiculous…but hey, he can get away with it because he is a celebrity in the internet marketing game. For the rest of us, we need to be a little more conservative and keep the ads to a minimum AND most importantly make them blend in with your site so it looks professional and not spammy.

#3 Rework Your Sidebar

Take a look at your sidebar and think about whether any of it is actually relevant. Some sidebars are full of widgets that may look cool but are they really helpful to your readers? Remember too that each widget or plugin that you add to your blog is only going to slow it down which will annoy readers on a slow connection. They won’t bother waiting for your page to load and will just click away.

#4 Hold a Blog Contest

Consider holding a contest on your blog to get some excitement back into it. You can generate a lot of new readers with a contest and get regular readers enthusiastic about revisiting. Simply write up a blog post announcing the contest and get readers to leave a comment to enter.

Your giveaway doesn’t have to be expensive – an Amazon Gift Card is always well received but you can even have a look around your house for an unwanted gift or something you’ve never used that you can giveaway.

#5 Use Images

Use images wherever possible. This tends to attract people to the blog post and gets them to start reading. It also just makes your blog look good. You can get images for as low as a $1 at iStockphoto.com.

#6 Interact With Your Readers

Start interacting with your readers a little more. People love to be acknowledged so try and answer every comment that is left on your site. This is not always possible but do your best. People will tend to come back if they know that their comments are going to be answered.

#7 Tell Us About Yourself

 Your visitors will be more likely to leave a comment if they know who they are talking to you. So add a photo of yourself and a few lines about what you and your blog are all about. And don’t hide it away on an About Us page – put it in your sidebar so it shows up on every page.

#8 Add Regular Content

Adding regular content can vastly improve your blog particularly if you add a new article every day. Google loves content and particularly likes content from blogs. It is not uncommon for a blog post to be ranked in Google within 10 minutes of publishing it. And Google will revisit your blog more regularly once it knows you are adding content on a daily basis.

So there you have it – 8 ways to improve your blog. Can you think of any others I may have missed?

Blogging Using the WordPress iPhone Application

iPhoneToday I was reading a blog post where one of the commenters mentioned a WordPress application for the iPhone/iPod Touch. This immediately caught my attention as not only do I love to blog but I also love using my iPod Touch. Just combine the two and I am in heaven…well maybe not in heaven but you get the point.

So of course as soon as I read that comment I went searching for the WordPress app on my iPod Touch. It wasn’t hard to find, simply type in WordPress and it is at the top of the list.

The application is free of course and simple to set up. Just type in your blog URL and password. You can also add more than one blog.

I love the clear interface on this. It is very intuitive so you won’t need to read a how-to to start writing up a blog post. In fact, I am writing this post using my iPod Touch and I have only been using this app for the past 5 minutes.

You can view and edit posts, pages and comments quite easily with this app. And images can be easily added.

Once you have finished your post you have the option of previewing it to make sure it all looks pretty and neat.

I have to say that I’m actually finding this a whole lot easier to use than my desktop computer.

This is a big winner for me. Highly recommended!

Today I finally got around to uploading a traffic generating ebook that I have been wanting to finish for a while now. It wasn’t that I was procrastinating…well maybe I was a little…but my main reason for not getting this finished earlier was that I was starting to think that I was really putting too much into it. 

I wanted this to be an ebook with solid content on how to generate traffic to your blog or website.  My only problem was that I was getting up to around 50 different methods and although they were workable I really felt that in the long run you really only need a little more than a handful of methods to really get good solid traffic.

We only use a few traffic generating techniques ourselves so I wasn’t really sure why I was recommending that many methods to others.

So as you can see from the title, the ebook got whittled away to only 7 methods…but don’t be fooled by this small amount – these are truly some of the best methods for getting traffic quickly.

Of course there is a catch…don’t you hate that? To get this ebook you need to sign up for our newsletter. The sign -up is in the sidebar to the right – you can’t miss it. And we suggest that you stay signed up once you download your ebook as we have a lot of other goodies to giveaway plus plenty of tips and helpful advice.

We hope you enjoy the ebook and we would love to hear your comments on this blog post.



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