Q. So what made you get started with AdSense?

A. I was looking for a way to monetize some of my websites. AdSense is such an easy thing to get started with the eye for it would be a great way to start earning more money without actually putting into much more effort. I think as soon as you see the first earnings coming into your account you get addicted to AdSense. I know is what happened to me and since then I’ve just spent time working out how to earn more and more each day.

Q. How much do you make with AdSense?

A. Some days I can earn close to $1000 and others it’s less than that. But it all comes down to how much time and effort you devote to creating a quality site that people like visiting. AdSense is not what my business is based on by any means – but it is a great way to earn revenue almost on autopilot.

Q. What is the biggest mistake people making with AdSense?

A. Probably the biggest mistake people make is thinking the AdSense earnings are easy to achieve. It is very easy to get started but as I learned it takes a lot of effort to increase your earnings. I got really downhearted whenever I would log in to my account to see that I had only made a few dollars. And that’s when I decided to spend months and months of my time learning everything I could about AdSense.

I basically buried myself away and devoured every single piece of AdSense information I could find. I ran thousands of AdSense tests and started to see a dramatic effect on my click through ratio and therefore on my earnings.

This is why I’d decided to record the videos – because I knew that it would help people who were in my position to also increase their earnings. I’ve read an absolute ton of AdSense e-book’s but they take so long to go through and always seem to keep information back.

With AdSense Videos I knew that I had to tell the story exactly as it is and actually show people and lead them by the hand through the exact techniques that I use to generate large earnings from AdSense.

Q. In your videos you show people how to increase their AdSense earnings – can you give us a taster of this advice?

A. I don’t want to give away my biggest secrets as you can understand! But some of the more basic things that you can do to increase your revenues include using ads that blend in rather than stand out from your content. Flat out the worst thing you can do with an AdSense ad is make it look like the standard Google ad. What you need to realise is that you will get more clicks if your ad actually appears part of your site rather than something that’s just been dropped into the page.

Q. What would you recommend that someone do right now to increase their AdSense earnings?

A. I’ve created a totally free AdSense minicourse that people can go through to learn some of my techniques. It takes you through the four cornerstone principles that I’ve used to build up my AdSense empire. You can check it out, as well as all the AdSense Videos, here:

AdSense Videos

Ever wondered how you could harness the power of Twitter to drive massive amounts of traffic to your Wordpress blogs – and how to convert that traffic into cash?

A couple of fellow internet marketers whose list I am on, John Merrick and Soren Jordansen, have just come up with the perfect solution for us, with their new product called Tweet My Blog.

It’s a Wordpress plugin that makes it super easy to combine the powers of Wordpress and Twitter – driving massive amounts of traffic to your blog.

And the best part… It’s 100% free! I know, right… unbelievable!

=> http://www.tweetmyblog.com

TweetMyBlog will automatically

1. Post a tweet whenever you update you blog. The tweet will link back to your blog, driving a ton of interested readers your way.
2. Highlight your latest Tweets on your blogs sidebar. This increases your Twitter following.
3. Promote your affiliate link on auto-pilot, whenever you use the plugin and sidebar widget. Earn commissions just for posting to your blog.

=> http://www.tweetmyblog.com

This is far more than just another Wordpress plugin – This is a fully fleshed out marketing plan that will put the power of Twitter at your finger tips.

And… Even though they are giving this plugin away for free, you should take a close look at the special offer they have in store for you when you join. I instantly grabbed my own copy, and I know it will skyrocket my marketing power when using Twitter and Wordpress.

=> http://www.tweetmyblog.com

To your success,

Kathi

P.S. I don’t know if John and Soren are going to keep this free forever, I certainly feel they could start charging big bucks for it.

So, grab your copy today, while it’s still free – and start using it before your competition does!

=> http://www.tweetmyblog.com

I haven’t written in this blog as often as I’d hoped… or as I should. There are many reasons for that, of course… too many websites and other irons in the fire, family chaos, poor work environment. But the bottom line is, I probably don’t have all the positive homepreneur habits I should have.

Luckily, I stumbled upon this article from Jimmy Brown, one of the internet marketing “gurus” I respect much. Jimmy puts out high quality, but super easy to implement, manuals and step-by-step guides on all aspects of home business. I think you’re going to enjoy this article…

How To Run A Successful Home Business

by Jimmy D. Brown

We were all sold initially on the idea of working from home. Sounded, great, didn’t it – work when you want, in your pjs  with the kids playing under your desk, or wearing your swimsuit while you’re staring at the ocean on your latest vacation. Yes, working from home gives you a huge amount of flexibility, but there are also quite a few pitfalls that you don’t really hear about until you’re knee deep in it already. Here are some of them. Let me know if any of this sounds familiar…

You’re constantly interrupted by your spouse, kids or friends who just want to ask you something quickly. (Really, it won’t take a minute!)  I can definitely relate to this one!!!

Your “office” also happens to be the living room, so you end up trying to focus while the television is going, and people are running all around the house.

You spend almost every waking hour either actively working on your websites or thinking about marketing strategies, product ideas and such when you should be spending quality time with your loved ones.

You waste hours each day surfing the net (and call it research), checking your stats or answering email.

The point is, we all develop these bad habits that don’t make us very productive. I bet that almost everything you’re doing in  your usual 10 hours plus workday right now, you could accomplish in under 3 hours provided you set yourself up to be really productive during that time.

And that’s exactly what you will learn in this new report called “Homepreneur Habits: How To Run A Successful Home Business”.

Find out how to set up your workspace, structure your day and most importantly, structure your business for maximum productivity and results. This report wasn’t created by just anyone, either. It was written by Jimmy D. Brown, one of the most successful Internet Marketers who fell into all the traps you’ve been falling into and then turned it around to a point where he is running and growing a huge home business spending just 3 hours a day working.

To your success,
Kathi

P.S. This isn’t just some dry theoretical report. Jimmy shares exactly what he does and how he has is office set up (with plenty of pictures) so you have plenty of “real life” examples. Grab the report here. You even get to see Jimmy in his PJ’s.

Have you been thinking about trying Site Build It?

If you have, Ken Evoy is offering his annual holiday special. Until midnight, January 4th, you can get 2 for the price of 1.

That is a super bargain.

But what will I do with 2 sites you ask?

You can buy one for now and build the second one later. Most people making a full-time living online have more than one site. You can start building one and wait up to nine months to start the second site.

Or you can…

Buy one for yourself and give the second one as a New Year’s gift to a friend. Do you know anyone who would like to quit their day job or needs extra money. Perhaps your husband, wife, son, daughter, mom, dad, friend, business associate, or anyone who is considering an online business that has the power to “change a life”.

And the best part is Ken guarantees your success. He’ll give you your money back if you decide you can’t do it (actually for any reason). What have you got to lose?

Get your new SBI website business started today!

Wow! It’s been a while since I wrote another installment of this series. But that’s a function of my coaching student’s busy life schedule. He was finishing up a masters in education and then had a bit of a career path crisis. But, he’s back on track now and chugging along on his first website.

I am a little behind, though, even so in reporting Jim’s progress. When I last left you, he was brainstorming the structure/outline of his site. It’s an important step, so you need to take your time. You want your site to be organized in a logical fashion that is user-friendly. At the same time, you need to organize it so that it maximizes the search engine potential. Jim chose to do it by getting a large piece of poster board and laying out his structure in an organizational chart fashion.

He used post it notes to label each page and the associated keywords, so that he can make changes if he needs to. He’s a visual person, and this seems to work for him.

After that, Jim got started on building his site. Every site needs to start with a design, or template. In SBI, this is fairly easy. You just go to the Look & Feel Selector, and you can choose from over 100 different designs. And among those, you can do further customization, even if you have no graphic skills. Jim has me, though, and I took one of the SBI designs & overlaid a photograph and logo text on it to make it uniquely his.

So, once he had a design, it was time to build the home page. Here are some essential points about a home page on a content site like Jim’s:

• It needs to have a strong “voice”, meaning basically… personality, your personality. Don’t be impersonal or standoffish… people won’t connect with you that way.
• It needs to communicate what your site is about and what’s in it for the reader… why should they click through to the rest of your site?
• It needs to not have advertising. People don’t want to be hit with ads as soon as they enter a content site. They want information. Nor do you want to give them an opportunity to click off your site before you’ve fully drawn them in.
• It doesn’t need to be more than 350 to 500 words… just enough to get your Most Wanted Response (MWR), which should be to click through, or maybe to subscribe to your ezine or mailing list.

Your home page should set the tone for the whole rest of your site, and you DO want to connect with your readers. Revealing at least a bit of your personal background helps, especially if you can show that you truly understand where the reader is coming from. Talk from your heart, and write like you talk. This is not Wikipedia and you are not lecturing.

After you build your home page, it’s a good idea to get the Contact page up fairly soon, so that if you DO happen to get any visitors (it doesn’t usually happen right away, but you never know), they can communicate with you if they want. NOTE: Don’t ever post your actual email address on a page, or you WILL get spammed. Trust me; I know. Put a form up on the page. Again, SBI makes this easy as pie with their FormBuildIt module.

Another great page to start out with is your About Me page. Here’s your chance to reveal a bit more about yourself. Really allow your readers to get to know you. This is a powerful technique that will contribute to your eventual success with your site. The Web is an impersonal place. Make yourself real.

And once you lay that foundation for your site, then get busy writing your actual content! This is where Jim is now. He’s so in love with his site, he’s having trouble actually buckling down and writing the meat. But he’ll get there…

To your success,

When you start to get interested in starting an online home business, it is tremendously easy to lose focus. There are so many ways to go about it, so many models, a ton of “gurus” hawking this or that method “guaranteed” to bring you fame and fortune… it’s hard to know which way to turn.

And, in fact, this distraction and overwhelm is probably THE main reason why people fail at home business. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You CAN succeed. But focus… laser focus… is the key to success.

One of the best ways I know to stay focused is with a free program called Simpleology. It’s from one of the original internet marketing gurus, Mark Joyner. Mark’s a great visionary on the Internet, but he’s also just an all-around great guy who truly seems to have a mission to help people succeed.

What is Simpleology? Well, it’s kind of a goal-setting program, but that’s not really an adequate explanation. The best way to understand it is to sign up for a free account and just experience it:

Get your free Simpleology account here

But, in a nutshell, it’s a 15-minute daily program for focusing on what’s most important to you and then marching in a straight line towards those goals. There’s a manual to help you, but there are also animated videos that are quick to watch (most are under 3 or 4 minutes long), but that really bring the messages home. It’s also a learning program, I guess you’d say, that teaches you how to succeed.

As I said, it doesn’t cost anything to become a basic Simpleology member. You get full access from the get go to everything Simpleology 101 has to offer, and it’s a lot. Once you graduate from that course (which does take a while), you have the option of buying into the more advanced courses, but if you don’t want to do that, you don’t have to. You can continue to use the free Simpleology tools and system forever.

The system comes with downloadable software. I have to say, I haven’t really found that to be particularly useful and I don’t like it cluttering up my task bar. But you might feel differently. It’s optional and the system still works well even if you just stick with the web-based tools as I have.

So, if you’ve ever felt frustrated by your inability to get things done, whether in a home business or in any other area of your life, I really encourage you to check out Simpleology. It offers huge value for a free program, trust me. You’d be foolish to pass up such a valuable learning and focusing system.

Check out Simpleology NOW – For Free!

To your success,

NOTE: This product I reviewed is no longer available as of 4/10/09. Sorry about that.

Here is an alternate Google AdSense training product:

Go here to read my blog post of an interview with Michael Cheney: http://blog.homesweetbiz.com/2009/04/11/an-interview-with-google-adsense-guru-michael-cheney/

Today, I thought I would talk about one of the easiest and most likely to succeed ways of making money online. Know what it is? It’s a “little” strategy called Google Adsense… Have you heard of it?

It seems every time I turn around, there’s a new Adsense product out that is supposed to be the one thing that makes you zillions of dollars tomorrow. Come on! We know that stuff isn’t true, but day after day, people get suckered in!

That’s why when Liz Tomey came out with her new Adsense videos site, I got all excited because I know Liz is the real deal. I’ve bought a number of her products, because she’s down to earth and truly seems to have a desire to help others succeed like she has. And her stuff is just great quality, bottom line. Liz has taught hundreds of people to make money online, and that’s where her true passion is, and her new site proves that to me once again!

Liz has put together an entire site, where she offers an entire step-by-step video course on how to start making money with Google Adsense. I’m talking about doing it the RIGHT way. Liz doesn’t advocate throwing up some ugly site meant only to get AdSense clicks. That’s not the way to make money, because sooner or later, the search engines WILL dump you. The sites Liz teaches you how to make are real sites, and she takes you by the hand and walks you through setting them up, getting the right content on them, and here’s the real kicker…

Most of her course is on getting traffic to your Adsense sites. So many people leave this vital step out, but Liz has dedicated a lot of time to showing you how to get traffic to your Adsense sites. I mean, if no one sees your sites, then how do you expect to get any clicks or make any money?

She’s even gone a step further, and is offering personal coaching videos for those that need extra help, continually updates where she’s giving you more videos all the time, critiqueing your sites, and more. I just couldn’t believe all that was being offered from this site at an amazingly low price.

If you’re not familiar with Liz Tomey, this is a wonderful chance to get hold of one of her best “learning products”. Liz doesn’t just talk the talk… she truly walks the walk. In fact, she also runs an Adsense coaching program that sells for $497.00 for 6 to 8 weeks and she sells out every time she opens the door. This is your chance not to have to pay that great big price to learn from one of the masters of Adsense, but you better act fast…

To your success!

Well, it’s been a while since I posted here, but that’s because this next step has been taking Jim quite a while to do. But it’s such an important one, I don’t want to rush him. Developing your keyword-supported site plan is essential to the future success of your site.

Here’s an overview of the steps involved:

• Brainstorm the topics and subtopics you want to cover in relation to your niche concept
• Organize these ideas into logical “chapters” and “subchapters”
• Find profitable in demand keywords (I recommend 3 per page) to match your planned content on each of the topic and subtopic pages

Sounds easy, doesn’t it? It’s not, though. So take your time with it.

When Jim’s finally ready to move on, I’ll post another installment here…

To you success,

Today, we’ll examine finalizing your niche and choosing a domain name. It’s important not to do this too quickly. In Jim’s initial keyword research, he proved his niche concept. In other words, he validated that there is sufficient demand in his topic. He also confirmed that, though there IS competition, it’s not so great that he has no chance of making his own mark in the niche. Those are important factors.

Next, we need to make sure the niche is robust enough to support the development of at least 50 pages of content on our website. I asked Jim to look at this in a couple of ways…

1. First, do a rough site plan to map out what topics and subtopics you want to cover.
2. Second, look at your keyword list. Can you pick out enough different keywords to support all your topics? If not, do some more research, using lateral searches, etc. to see if you can find enough potentially profitable keywords.

If, like Jim, your site plan and keyword analysis supports the viability of your chosen niche for a content website, you’re good to go. If not, you may need to either widen your focus a bit, or consider an altogether different niche. Conversely, you want to make sure your niche isn’t so broad that it will be hard to truly capture one target audience. You can’t be all things to all people. A tightly focused niche is always going to be your best bet.

So, once Jim had finally chosen a niche, confirmed it is a valid choice for him, and proved it’s robust enough to keep him occupied for some time writing content, I asked him to step back one last time before he leaps and ask himself… “Is this a niche I am excited enough about to stay motivated for a good long time in writing and developing the content?”

Be brutally honest with yourself. If you’re at all lukewarm about your niche topic, then I guarantee you… sooner or later, it’s going to feel like torture to have to keep writing page after page. On the other hand, if you’re especially knowledgeable on the topic and/or filled with passion about it, it’s almost like a labor of love, as the words come flowing out, one page after another.

OK, so Jim assured me that he is indeed passionate about his topic. He has tons of ideas for the site and sees it as an opportunity to launch a sort of grass roots movement. Good for him! I feel excited just listening to him.

So now, we’re ready to start thinking about a domain name for his content site. The first step is to go back to the keyword list and choose a keyword that has great demand and solid profitability potential PLUS is general enough to represent the niche content theme. Once you have that, you’re ready to start thinking of a domain name. A domain should:

• contain your main keyword phrase (maybe even a couple for added strength)
• also say something about what your site offers
• not infringe on any trademarks or copyrighted names

The debate continues to rage over whether to separate words with dashes or underscores or to run them all together. I happen to prefer dashes, as I believe it makes it easier for search engines to pick out the individual words.

When you have some ideas in mind, then go to a domain registrar (GoDaddy.com is my all time favorite!) and find out if your domain name of choice is available. If not, amend it as needed and try again. Just be sure you keep your main keyword!

Jim was successful with his first choice, so he got it registered and was on to the next step… planning a detailed, keyword-supported site plan.

Today, I’ll start to explore Jim’s odyssey to Internet marketing success. As mentioned in my last post, Jim has chosen the online home business model of a content site. It’s one of the easiest methods for a newbie to use and it’s my specialty.

The first step in starting a content site is to select the niche you want to build it around. Content sites must be tightly focused. Too broad a topic will prevent you from getting the search engines to see you as an authority site, an essential designation for success in search engine listings. You’ve heard the adage, “Jack of all trades, master of none?” That applies to a content site too. For a content site to succeed, you have to be seen as a master of a specific topic.

So, the first step in selecting your niche is keyword research. This can serve a couple of purposes:

• If you have no idea what niche you want to use, keyword research can help you hone in on your areas of interest to find one that is shared by lots of other people.
• If you already know what niche you want to use, it can help you prove that you’re not the only one who is interested in the topic.

You MUST prove your concept BEFORE you start building your site. There’s nothing worse than having a passion for a topic, spending weeks or months building your content, and then finding out hardly anyone else on the Web is looking for that information. It doesn’t matter how strongly you feel about the topic; you HAVE to be sure others share your passion, or all your hard work will be for naught.

When you start to look at keywords, you need to keep in mind  3 factors:

1. How much demand is there for the topic? You’re looking for monthly search numbers in the thousands, if possible.
2. How much competition is there, i.e., existing content sites already established?
3. What is the potential profitability (which you can roughly calculate by comparing competition/supply to demand)?

Jim was fortunate… he already had a niche in mind, and his keyword research revealed that it’s viable… tons of demand and very little supply at the moment. So he proved his concept and is now ready to move forward.

By the way, a good keyword research tool is essential. The gold standard is WordTracker and they do have a great free keyword tool: Wordtracker Free Keyword Tool

I find their metrics a bit complex to understand, though. If you’re looking for free, here’s another great free tool, called SearchIt: http://www.searchit.sitesell.com/

But what I use most for my keyword research is also from the same folks who produced SearchIt. It’s part of a robust platform for building super successful content sites, called Site Build It, or SBI for short. One of the key features of SBI is their Brainstormer tool. It quickly provides tons of keyword research data, with easy to understand numbers and flexibility with analysis of the numbers. Check out SBI here.

In the coming installments of this case study, I’ll be talking a lot about the many features of SBI. It’s how I built my main site that this blog appears on, as well as 4 other sites. And it’s extremely newbie friendly, which makes it perfect for Jim too.

That’s it for today. Next time, we’ll look at narrowing down the niche, and selecting a domain name.

To your success,