Work at home parent

Make Money Online with Affiliate Programs: Step Five – Set up a Way to Bring them Back for More.

Welcome back to Day Five of the “How to Make Money Online with Affiliate Programs” series. I’m Nicole Dean and in the last four days, I’ve showed you a quick and basic run down of the following … 

1. How to get a blog set up for $10 plus the cost of hosting.
2. Where to find cool affiliate programs to promote.
3. How to get content for your blog without wearing your fingers to the bone.
4. How to promote your blog without going crazy.

Pshew. All that in four days.

Now, this goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. I’m no Superwoman, and I don’t expect you to be Super-Human either. These are steps in the process, and step 2-5 are ongoing, so I don’t expect to get them all done today. You’ll work on those as long as you keep your blog.

So, please don’t get overwhelmed and go nuts trying to do everything in one week. That’s certainly not my goal. Take your time, reread the last few days worth of posts and just soak it in. Then get started.

On to the final step in having a MONEY-MAKING blog. It’s time to talk about setting up a mailing list/ecourse/ezine/online newsletter. Whatever you want to call it – you need one.

Why? Because having the ability to email your visitors enables you to bring them back to your website again and again and again. The more they come back to see you, the more they can get to KNOW, LIKE, and TRUST you and buy the products and services that you recommend. Otherwise, they’re like Vanilla Ice and are a one-hit wonder.

I know it’s a bit overwhelming, but consider this…

Sally comes to your blog, reads a bit, clicks through a link and then disappears forever.

OR

Mary comes to your blog, reads a bit, likes what she reads, signs up for your newsletter, comes back week after week, and forwards your newsletter to friends, tweets about your newest blog posts, and becomes your #1 fan.

I choose option #2! I want all my blog visitors to be “Mary”, don’t you?

ok. We’ve established that you need a list, but … ecourse vs. newsletter. Which to choose?

Personally, I really dislike tedium and commitment (so why on earth did I commit to three months of posting daily on blogs?) So, rather than setting up a newsletter that runs forever, I tend to lean towards an ecourse.

What’s the difference?

Well, an ezine or newsletter is normally sent weekly to your readers, and is full of information. (For an example of a great newsletter, check out www.hillbillyhousewife.com )

An ecourse, on the other hand is a series of messages that are sent via autoresponder starting with #1 and ending with the last one. For instance, I mentioned yesterday about my ecourse www.webtrafficbasics.com – well, that’s a series of about 30 messages that are already written. If you signed up yesterday, you’ll receive message #1. Those who signed up six months ago are probably receiving message number 20 about now, and those who signed up last year have gone through the entire course. See the difference?

You can choose whichever you’d prefer.

BUT… (here’s the big BUT) – make the list very very (did I mention VERY) targeted. Do not set up an ecourse entitled “Tips for Moms” please, because that spans way too large of a crowd and you’ll never quite know who you’re talking to. Is it the mom with the newborn who needs sleep or is it the mom needs to know how to talk with her teens about touchy topics like drugs and sex? There’s no possible way you can keep them both happy by sending “Tips to Moms”. If you try to make them both happy, neither will be. Trust me. Been there. Done that.

In fact, the more targeted you can make your list (or lists) – the better. If you’ve got a cooking site, are you talking to college students, new moms, large families, or even grandparents? Are the people looking for fast, frugal, gourmet, or diabetic recipes? Unless you’re very specific before you set up your ecourse or ezine, again, you’ll end up missing the mark.

So, what next? Geesh. This is kind of a hard topic to cover in one puny blog post. Let me point you to some resources that will help you to learn more.

Sign up for this really good free ecourse on the topic www.ListProfitSystem.com by my mentor Jimmy D. Brown. He’ll ask you to buy his full list course and I do recommend it, but either way, grab the free report and read it and reread it. It’s quite good.

I also have a very basic free ecourse about newsletters, that’s pretty sorely neglected, but has good info for beginners here: www.ShowMomtheNewsletter.com You’ll get a better picture of list-building basics by starting there.

ok, guys. That’s really the steps to starting a money-making blog. It just comes down to doing it and doing it again… and again… and again.

Add content. Promote. Build your list. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Then, after you’ve done that awhile, take a break to assess. See what’s working. Adjust. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

And, most importantly, take everything that you’re doing now and consider that you’re learning ON THE JOB. This one website does not need to be your be-all, end-all saving grace, and it may not be. But, everything that you do is teaching you internet marketing skills, and also helping you to realize that you can do this!

Thanks you again, to Melissa, of FrugalWAHMsTalkRadio.com for inviting me to guest blog here. I invite you to follow the rest of my Rock Star Blog Tour this summer, because YOU are a Rock Star, too!

Warmly,
Nicole Dean

PS.  CONGRATULATIONS to the following ladies. They won just by commenting on my tour blog posts the last week.

The winners from this week chosen from all commenters by Random.org are…

Sonya Smith – Choose the report from www.SRZone.com that will best help your online business. ($15 value)

Mary Blackburn – A copy of www.EasyArticleMarketing.com – a course that I co-created with Kelly McCausey to teach you how to promote your online business with articles.  ($27 value)

Email my amazing assistant, Tracy, at tracy@getawayvirtualservices.com for download info.

Work at home parent

Make Money Online with Affiliate Programs: Step Three – Content Makes the World Go Round: Reviews, Interviews, Quality Content.

Welcome back to Day Three in the “How to Make Money Online with Affiliate Programs”. If you’re just joining us, you can catch up on the first two days at the link above.

On Day One I showed you how to get a blog set up and running for $10 – plus the cost of the domain and only $5/month hosting. So, basically less than ordering pizza for your family, even with good coupons!

On Day Two, I showed you how to figure out which categories to set up and where to look for targeted products with great affiliate programs to promote.

Well, I’m back with Day Three. And, this is the part that people tend to get stuck with.

What Do I do Now? What should I write about?

Well, my friends, let me start by saying this is not nearly as difficult as you’d think.

You can write your blog posts yourself of course. Or you can borrow or even buy blog posts from other places.

Let’s Start with Ways to Borrow or Brainstorm Content

Guest Columnists

Right here, right now. Who’s writing this blog post? Not Melissa, even though she’s a fine writer. It’s me, Nicole Dean. Know what she’s paying me to do this? Nada.

So, why am I doing it?

She’s posting about these blog posts on Twitter, telling her newsletter about it and announcing the Blog Tour on her podcast – all of which is super cool. I’m doing the same.

It’s a win-win situation.

I get to reach an entirely new audience as does she, while she gets the benefit of having a Guest Expert on her blog.

All without any sweat or tears on her part.

Melissa also has other contributors on this site. Look around and you’ll see her panel of experts. And, you want to know what a small world it is? Melissa has been a guest expert on my site www.ShowMOMtheMoney.com for quite some time, too.

See? http://showmomthemoney.com/author/multitasking-mama/  Told you she was a good writer!

So, one way of getting content on your website is to get guest experts. Now, before you start thinking that there’s no way someone would want to contribute to your brand new blog, there are a few ways around that issue. They don’t call me a ‘content expert’ for nothing.

Free Reprint Articles & Audios.

Go to places like LadyPens.com and you’ll find articles written by experts on a variety of topics. The authors are screened prior to being accepted so there is no junk allowed. You may grab any of the articles on the site and post them on your blog, just as long as you include the author bio/resource at the end. It would say something like…

Nicole Dean is the mostly-sane online business coach and mom of two. Are you a Work at Home Mom looking for ways to get more traffic? Take Nicole’s Web Traffic School tutorial – Free! www.webtrafficbasics.com

I always recommend that, when you use articles from places like LadyPens.com or EzineArticles.com that you add an intro to the beginning of the article so that your page is a little different than the one posted at the article directory.

So, basically, if you can copy & paste, you can have guest experts from LadyPens on your blog.

If you notice, at LadyPens, you can also grab free reprint audios that you can post on your blog. Where else do you see that going on?

Free Affiliate Articles

Similar to LadyPens.com, there are experts who will allow you to use their articles on your blog, but there’s a cool twist.

In the author bio, instead of linking to the website like you normally would, you can sometimes link to the author’s website using your affiliate link for their product or service.

Cool, isn’t it? Now, to do that, you can search through article directories and ask the authors if it’s ok for you to use their articles as an affiliate. Some will say “yes” and others will not understand and will say “no”.

Or, you can go to FreeAffiliateArticles.com and find a bunch of authors who have already agreed to allow you to reprint their articles with your affiliate link inside.

Interviews

I do interviews all the time. In fact, I normally do 1-5 per week – a combination of written and audio interviews. Why? Because, again, I get to reach a new crowd of people who may like me and want to learn more from me.

If I do interviews, you know that other people do, too. In fact, just go to www.BlogTalkRadio.com and you’ll find a whole slew of people who are being interviewed day in and day out.

Audio interviews are great, but, text interviews are even easier. Just write up a few questions and email it to someone who your readers would enjoy learning more about. (If that person has a product or service that you can recommend with your affiliate link – even better!)

Authors, experts, speakers – everywhere you look, you’ll find people who want exposure. Since you’re now a blogger, you can help them to get it, while building up your blog as a valuable resource for others.

Excerpts

I’m an Affiliate Manager. What that means is that I Recruit, Train, Motivate and Manage affiliate programs for others. Well, I’m not taking clients anymore, because I’ve found my perfect job. I’ve been the affiliate manager for Jimmy D. Brown who is an amazing mentor and friend for several years.

Well.. where this is going is that we offer excerpts of his most popular courses in our affiliate center at www.InfoProfitShare.com for affiliates to use to promote his programs. So, I’m sure you can find other affiliate sites in your niche that might do the same.

Videos

Oh, how I love YouTube.com. It’s full of fresh content for the taking. You can embed most of the videos on YourTube.com and other video sites into YOUR blog.

See? You can even grab mine here: Nicole Dean Videos! (So sorry about the scarceness of them… I’m working on that.)

Heck, if you want to talk about your favorite products and services and post the video on your blog with a link, you can certainly do well with affiliate marketing.

And, those ideas are just off the top of my head! You think you can work with that for awhile?

Let’s Move On to Ways to Buy Content

Now, I’m kind of flying through this since I don’t want the blog post to be so long that no one reads through it. So, here are two ways to buy blog posts…

Ghostwriters

A ghostwriter is someone who writes for you, as you. They take no credit for the work and you keep it forever.

The benefits of this are obvious. Less work for you!

The drawbacks are – money out of your pocket and finding a great ghostwriter.

Where can you look? Your first stop should be Shelancers.com. Of course you can also ask around and post on eLance.com, too.

PLR Content

This is one of my most favorite inventions. This is similar to hiring a ghostwriter, except that the articles are sold to multiple people.

Here’s what I mean. I could find PLR articles about just about any niche, and buy them affordably. The owner of the PLR site sells the same articles to anywhere from 25-2000 other people, so you can get them pretty affordably. (Less expensive than hiring a ghostwriter to write them for you.)

Once you have the articles, you then use them as drafts for your blog. I always encourage you to edit them to make them your own. Change the title, add your thoughts, add examples that are specific to your niche.

The only real drawback to PLR is finding articles on the correct topic that are quality. Luckily I have a good source for you: www.EasyPLR.com (or learn more at www.EasyPrivateLabelArticles.com )

Well, I’d better run so that you actually have time to choose a few of these ideas and implement them.

I’ll be back tomorrow with the next step.

Warmly,
Nicole Dean on her Rock Star Blog Summer Tour

Work at home parent

NEW Site Frugal WAHMs Magazine

We are please to announce our latest site to our family of Frugal WAHMs Sites! Our newest site is Frugal WAHMs Magazine! This is an ONLINE magazine dedicated to Moms and Work At Home Moms! Not only will have a Monthly version you can download but we will update our site daily with the latest in

Pets
Heatlh & Beauty
Going Green
Guilt Free Pleasures
Ask Angie
WAHM Business Articles
Coupons & Freebies
Home & Garden
Leap of Faith

And more columns coming! We are also hiring a couple more editors you can contact us for more information! Please grab our button and add to your site and we will add your link to ur NEW site! Link it to http://frugalwahmsmagazine.com/

Work at home parent

Welcome Lanae

Work at home parent

Frugal WAHM Talk Radio Feb 24 Show

On today’s show we discussed the Oscars the ups and the downs and all the great speeches. We also announced the launch of our new FREE WAHM Magazine called Frugal WAHM Magazine, this is a FREE PDF form magazine that everyone is FREE download. It is filled with recipes, wahm articles, parenting articles, business articles, freebies, coupons and more! Also on our show today we discussed our lovely procrasting husbands and ways we can get them to finish their HONEY DO lists.

Work at home parent

Frugal WAHM Talk Radio Feb 20th Show

On today’s show we talked alot about HOT TOPICS that are in the news right now from the famous Octumom Nayda to Rhianna and more! We are also discussed how it is so easy as a WAHM to neglect our health. And unfortuantly start to pack on the pounds especially when we spend alot of time eating and sitting in front of our computer! Today we talked about we could start to make small steps to start taking off those pounds and to start getting healthier!

Work at home parent

NEW Feb Edition of Frugal WAHM Magazine is HERE!

Our New Magazine is OUT!! You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader which is a FREE software program to view it!
http://get.adobe.com/reader/ Click here to download for FREE

Inside this issue you will find

• Yummy Recipes
• WAHM related Articles
• Business Articles
• WAHM Site Reviews
• Product Reviews
• and so much more!

This will be a MONTHLY Free WAHM Magazine! Tell your friends and have them download today!

Click here to download latest issue

Work at home parent

Great WAHM Affiliate Programs you can join!

If you have been looking for great WAHM Affiliate programs to join here is a few I recommend

Frugal WAHMs Talk Radio

Frugal WAHMs E-Books

Moms Talk Network

Moms Masterminds

The Couponizer

Coupon Master

Yummy PLR

Prim Web Designs

Heartland Graphics

Mom Web Hosting

The Household Helper

Free WAHM Affiliate Programs

Work at home parent

Guest Speaker- Genesis Davis

On our show today we had a great chance to meet another fellow Work At Home Mom, today we chatted with Genesis Davis. Genesis is from Guatemala and is a stay at home Mom to two lovely boys Dante and Dorian the loves of her life!

One of the challenges that Genesis mentioned in her interview was having to remind herself that the reason she decided to stay at home was to make sure she spent time with her kids. Not letting work rob  her of that time which I think is something that effects all of us as work at home moms is doing the constant juggling act.

Through the years, I have had a number of businesses, some successful, others not so much! Every single one was a learning experience. In December 2005, my son Dorian was born and I began to do freelance writing in earnest. Since then, we´ve added a baby brother to the mix, Dante. At Home Mom Blog was begun in March, 2007 as a way to connect and help other women who want to work from home or who are already doing so.

Genesis has a great blog called At Home Mom Blog this is a very warm and inviting blog with the warm tones and graphics it welcomes you right in. On her blog you are going to find interviews she has done with fellow WAHM’s, Advertising, Earn Money, Getting organized, Home Business information, Outsourcing, Motivation and so much more!

Here is an example of posts you will find on her site:

• Come Listen to Me on Frugal WAHM
• Homeschooling Work at Home Moms: Are You Insane?
• Where`s Your Home Office?
• Have a B.A.D. Day on Tuesday, Jan. 20th
• Motivational Monday: Interview with Teresa Hall

We were so blessed to have had a moment to chat with Genesis and we encouarge all of ours listners and readers to be sure to stop by her site and please tell Genesis that Frugal WAHMs Talk Radio sent you!

Work at home parent

Frugal WAHM Talk Radio starts Movies for Our Military Project

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact Person: Angie Wenke
Company Name: Frugal WAHMs Talk Radio
Email Address AngelaWenke@aol.com
Web site address http://frugalwahmstalkradio.com

Frugal WAHM Talk Radio starts Movies for Our Military Project

Belleville, IL, January 16, 2009 — Frugal WAHMS Talk Radio (FWTR) launches campaign to help bring previously viewed DVD movies to our soldiers deployed in Iraq and overseas. After receiving a letter from a deployed soldier in Iraq, Frugal WAHMs Talk Radio decided to do their part to help bring a little bit of laughter and relaxation to our troops by encouraging their members to simply send in previously viewed DVD movies.

The Editors of Frugal WAHMs Talk Radio have been advertising on the internet in social media outlets like message boards, fellow work at home mom blogs, and twitter to help get a large amount of previously viewed DVD movies collected for our troops. Along with collecting these movies the ladies at Frugal WAHMs Talk Radio are encouraging their listeners of their pod cast to also send in letters to soldiers who might not get letters from loved ones back home.

Angie Wenke, the host and owner of Frugal WAHMs Talk Radio shared her own story on the air on Thursday January 15^th show about how her brother a fellow Marine was injured in Fallujah, Iraq. This special project has significant meaning to her and her family, knowing what her brother and his fellow Marines had to go through in the middle of battle while serving over seas. Rest and Relaxation for our fellow soldiers is often a once in a month or couple week treat where they can relax and watch DVD movies or socialize with their fellow soldiers.

As part of their “Movies for Our Military” they are also donating a handmade purse made out of soldier’s uniforms to one lucky winner. The winner will be announced on February 15, 2009 out of random from all the entries who have submitted that they will donate DVD’s to their cause. To learn more about Frugal WAHMs Talk Radio or how to become a guest on the show, contact Angie Wenke by email at AngelaWenke@aol.com

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