Top 9 Best Affiliate Programs for 2015

Even though the old days when Amazon reigned supreme, and affiliate marketing was all the rage, are past, affiliate marketing is still a multi-billion dollar industry which many online entrepreneurs utilize as a primary source of earning.

The number of merchants who have adopted affiliate marketing techniques has gone up, which has led to fresh opportunities for affiliate bloggers and web publishers to develop an audience and promote offers.

The most popular method of promoting affiliate offers, for publishers, is to join an affiliate network and implement the available offers on their website. This does mean that a certain amount is deducted from their earnings, but the gains often outweigh this token fee.

If you don’t feel like scrolling all they way down… just click on the one you’re interested in below:
Best Affiliate Programs

•     Google Adsense
•     Amazon Associates
•     Commission Junction
•     Clickbank
•     LinkShare
•     ShareASale
•     Neverblue
•     eBay Partner Network
•     PeerFly

Here are some of the top affiliate marketing programs running on the internet today:

PeerFly

With over 1500 active affiliates, this network offers lucrative forms of commissions such as CPL, CPS and CPA. A customized, made from scratch, software is used to sign up publishers from around the globe. They have eliminated third party hosting in favour of streamlining their operations due to their click per action nature.

Pros

    Reliable custom software: You will not experience problems such as downtime.

    Global acceptance of affiliates: All types of traffic, and affiliates from around the world are accepted.

    Multiple payment methods: Wire services, Check, PayPal and Payoneer can all be utilized to get your earnings. US publishers may also opt for ACH.

    Diverse offer range: Diversity in offers means that you’ll definitely be able to find one relevant to your website.

    Flexible payment: You can get your payment any day, provided you have the minimum balance of $50 in your account.

Cons

    Tough approval system: Getting into this network can be challenging, but this is done to ensure that only genuine, reliable parties are allowed in.


    Private affiliate programs: A considerable number of product owners run their own affiliate networks which comprise of products on which is available monthly as well as lifetime commission, whenever your referral leads to a purchase of the said product. A popular affiliate software for such vendors is InfusionSoft.

Click here for more information on PeerFly.

eBay Partner Network

This program also stands in a light comparable to Amazon’s program, since it is run by a website that is a household name around the world. Moreover, eBay awards handsome commissions. Run by Commission Junction in the UK and US, and by Afflinet in Germany, this program operates in the following manner:

    You’ll get paid if someone registers on eBay (through your link) and places a bid within 30 days of having clicked on your affiliate link.

    You’ll get paid if a user registered in this way bids at a live auction on eBay.

The buttons and banners are nicely designed, and make no attempt at concealing the fact that you’re a fan of eBay.

Pros

    Diversity of products: There are millions of products that you can choose to promote, all grouped under several dozens of categories.

    Seasonal discounts: These are offered on brand new products and allow you to acquire more sales during the holiday season.

    Swifter payment: The payment is made through PayPal, and is much faster than that of Amazon – you don’t have to wait for 60 days to get your cash.

Cons

    Cumbersome approval: You’ll need a working website with a requisite amount of traffic or your application will get rejected. Getting accepted without a website is next to impossible, and your chances with a website that has low traffic aren’t very good either.

    Earnings aren’t predictable: Based on the earnings-per-click mechanism, the earning depends on traffic quality, which means earning big will require you to attract high quality visitors to your site.



Find out how the Ebay Partner Network works.

Neverblue

A well-known affiliate network, Neverblue has matured and established its reputation of delivering personal services as well as quality offers in order to keep its affiliates relevant. Its competitive pay-outs and diversity of offers have ensured its popularity among affiliates.

Pros

    Simple sign up: Signing up for the program is quick and easy, with only a few questions asked from you.

    Excellent UI: The user interface is one of the most streamlined ones around, and offers optimum navigation and search filtering capabilities.

    Wide selection: Affiliates can choose from a very diverse collection of offers in order to maximize their campaign’s effectiveness.

    Personalized tracking system: Organizing things is simplified thanks to the personalized tracking system integrated into the platform.

    Affiliate manager follow up: Affiliates are followed up by managers to make sure that everything is in order.

Cons

    Difficult to get accepted: Getting yourself approved after signing up can be difficult at first. This is deliberate – so as to prevent the prevalence of black hat marketing techniques.



Sign-up here.

ShareASale

This is yet another one of the biggest affiliate programs operating on the internet, with some 3800 merchants on its list. Around a thousand of these merchants are ShareASale exclusives, and you’ve got the option to focus on these merchants, whose offers aren’t available on any other platform.

ShareASale offers plenty of statistics for the offers an affiliate is running – Average Commission, Average Sale Amount, Reversal Rates and Earnings per Click are all there. Even though these numbers aren’t express guarantees of what you’ll get paid, they definitely will give you a helpful illustration of your campaign’s attractiveness.

Pros

    Expansive network: The ShareASale network comprises of more than 3800 merchants, among whom, around 1000 are not operating on competitor platforms.

    Easy to compare offers: When you have to choose between various offers made available to you, ShareASale will allow you to evaluate the best one on the basis of key metrics.

    Rapid payment: You’ll get paid on the 20th of every month, if you have a minimal balance of $50 in your account.

Cons

    Reporting isn’t very streamlined: The reporting interface of this platform seems aged, and isn’t as intuitive as the ones offered by competitors. While definitely not a deal breaker, it does take some time to get used to.

Read more on ShareASale Click Here.

LinkShare

Now a part of the Rakuten affiliate network, LinkShare been around since the early days of the industry. In recent years, however, it has seen its role get dwarfed compared to some of the other players such as CJ Affiliate. Keep in mind that a larger playing field is highly recommended when starting out with affiliate marketing.

LinkShare has a couple of distinct features which set it apart from the crew though. One, it automatically rotates through the various banner ads for a specific product, which makes your website easier to administer and optimize in the long run. Instead of having you manually choose the 300×250 ads that should be run, LinkShare allows the rotation of multiple versions with just one code snippet.

It also has a greater degree of flexibility when it comes to ‘deep linking’ to particular merchant landing pages, which translates into greater customization potential for your campaign.

Pros

    Rotation of ads: Even though it may appear to be a minor feature, it can prove instrumental in streamlining the consumption of your time and efforts in optimization / management.

    Flexible deep linking: You’re able to select the page of the merchant’s site that the click is directed to, which enables you to better determine the best way to funnel affiliate purchases.

Cons

    Small network: This network is much smaller than competitors such as ShareASale and CJ Affiliate, which means you’ll have fewer opportunities of landing a profitable program.

    Payments aren’t predictable: You get your cut only after the commission has been collected from the merchant, which can lead to delayed/erratic payments. This is bothersome when compared with the reliable net-20 system employed by Commission Junction.

Read more on LinkShare Click Here.

Clickbank

If you’re a vendor of digital products, this affiliate network should definitely be a consideration for your affiliate program setup. With its 12 thousand vendors and one hundred thousand affiliates, coupled with a perfect history of timely payment, it is a strong contender for the top affiliate program. It isn’t an affiliate software; rather, it plays the role of a payment processor with a significant affiliate marketing element. This makes it easy to configure both your payments, and affiliate programs, which doesn’t take more than a few minutes.

Pros                                                                                                      

    Promote as much as six thousand products on your website: As soon as you get your affiliate ID, you’ll be able to do this without having to register each product separately.

    Higher commission rates: The majority of products sold via ClickBank are digital in nature, which means their commission rates are higher as compared to other marketplaces. You’ll be able to make between 50 and 75 percent for every sale.

    Timely payments: The impressive payment system disburses cash to affiliates through direct check deposits every one or two weeks. Even if your merchant’s business goes bankrupt, you’ll still get your payment through ClickBank.

Cons

    Before you get your first pay-out, you’ll have to be patient due to the fact that you have to meet two requirements: Customer distrubution and your payment threshold

    Product scams: Sometimes, you may be promoting a product that fails to meet your expected returns. This is likely due to the product being a scam, something that certainly exists on ClickBank. If the rate of product returns is 10-20%, stay well clear of it.

For more information on Clickbank Click here.

Commission Junction

Now known as CJ Affiliate, this is one of the most expansive networks around, and all those who have dabbled in affiliate marketing, even briefly, will have likely come across it. Nearly all major merchants have offers listed on Commission Junction, which makes it something of a one-stop shop in the industry. Multiple creative sizes are available from the majority of advertisers, which means publishers have a greater control on performance. With such an extensive network, its no wonder this is one of the most popular and best affiliate networks around.

Keep in mind that this affiliate program requires constant management/monitoring, unlike the set and forget systems of AdSense and others.

Pros

    Vast network: With over three thousand merchant partners, and plenty of flexibility in terms of affiliate links and creative sizes, this program will find an ad suitable for your site regardless of the niche it covers.

    Payment reliability: The net-20 payment system ensures timely reception of commission each month.

    Robust reporting: Impressive reporting capabilities enable performance optimization tweakers to play with their site’s ad configuration as much as they want.

Cons

    Difficult to familiarize with: The powerful reporting abilities mentioned above aren’t easy to come to grips with for beginners.

    Little customer support: The only way to acquire support is to fill a contact form, which can be quite frustrating at times. However, it is impossible to provide full scale support due to the very large number of merchants and affiliates who are part of the program.

For more information visit Commission Junctions Sign up page.

Amazon Associates

In some regards, Amazon has the most vast affiliate program of them all, containing products from over 1.6 million vendors (i.e. anyone selling products on their site), as well as thousands and thousands of affiliates. Amazon’s affiliate program mechanism is the most user friendly and easy to grasp, which makes it ideal for non-tech business minded people looking to earn money on the internet. It also provides advanced features such as APIs for sophisticated developers. Many think of Amazon as just a small ticket network but a little searching and you will realize that this can be one of the best high ticket affiliate programs out there. Many internet marketers would tell you that this is the best affiliate program they have ever worked with. And who can blame them when you can earn a living solely on being an amazon associate.

Pros
    Easy to use: The interface is intuitive and uncluttered, ideal for beginners and pros alike.

    Greatest flexibility: The millions of products sold on Amazon mean that you can choose from a very large number of ads / affiliate links to put on your website.

Cons

    Smaller commissions: The starting point for commissions is a measly 4 percent, which means you’ll have to gather quite a large number of sales before the affiliation becomes sustainable.

    Extended pay cycle: The net-60 model of payments employed by Amazon means you won’t get money for a sale until two months after it has occurred.

For more information check out Amazons Associates Guidelines.

Google AdSense

Google AdSense, also known simply as AdSense, is a high paying affiliate program network owned and run by the search engine giant Google. It provides advertisement units to publishers, who have to sign up for the program network which enables them to use their publisher account to earn money through the ads posted by Google on their website / blog. Each publisher gets a unique ID upon signing up, which is used to generate ad codes for their website so they can start earning cash. You can see why adsense is on of the top affiliate networks for website and blog owners alike just by looking at our pros and cons list.
Pros

    Low traffic requirements: If your website contains unique content of good quality, you will have no trouble getting approved, since it requires very little traffic – 100 or more unique visitors each day, regardless of whether your blog/site has a sub level domain or a top level domain.
    Multiple monetization options: As a publisher, you will not be restricted to earning cash through posting ads directly on your website – you can monetize through search, feed, videos, mobile site, and online games etc.
   
   Multiple language support: Google AdSense is the sole publisher network to allow posting ads in languages other than English. In fact, over thirty different languages are supported!

    No waiting time for ads to show up: Because of the very long list of advertisers present in Google AdWords, ads will start showing up in your Ads space the moment you supply the ad code on your blog.
  
   Multiple ad formats: Text ads, display ads, link ads, rich media ads and video ads are all the various formats in which you can post ads on your website to earn money.

    Highest revenue share for publishers: As compared to other publisher networks, you’ll earn a greater cut of the revenue if you employ Google AdSense. For content, the revenue share is 68 percent, whereas for search, the revenue share is 51 percent!

    Country specific payment methods: Depending on the country you reside in, Google AdSense will let you receive your payments using options which are readily available in your country.

Cons

    Strict uniqueness restriction: If even a single article on your website gets flagged as plagiarized, you won’t be able to get your AdSense application approved. This also includes the content which was originally yours, and was copied by another party.

    Payment threshold: You won’t be able to withdraw earnings under $100, which can be a bother for smaller businesses.

For more information on one of the best affiliate programs check out Googles Adsense policies.

Methods to Make On the web Cash flow

The web features caused it to be possible to build more varieties of unaggressive on the web earnings. Unaggressive earnings is one of several varieties of earnings, while classified from the IRS. 

The most common method to obtain unaggressive earnings is via on the web advertisements.

Promoting types

On the web marketers offer many different promotion types where promotion online marketers can be found repayment in return regarding mouse clicks, impacts or for every single percentage. For instance, a great e-commerce internet site may well provide a percent from the profits earned through income after having a user arrives on the affiliate';s hyperlink.

Creating unaggressive earnings

The dimensions of the unaggressive earnings earned from the promotion online marketers comes from the quantity of end users which see the hyperlink and are also forced from the advert or context the hyperlink is embedded in. As a way to bring in visitors and also take full advantage of mouse clicks, promotion online marketers need to generate content which is interesting towards end users which enables it to in addition bring in visitors that is likely to click on the back links and buy the goods conversely.

The need regarding content

For this reason, many sites that are promotion online marketers will need content, which can be most often word. Even so, this content also can include images, downloads, application, online video media and also other sorts of apps and also varieties of multimedia system. Online marketers earn a unaggressive earnings via advertisements either by making this content on their own or by subcontracting the creation with this content away to help various other content creators.

Unaggressive and also energetic payment

This can be covered either via unaggressive or energetic installments. A number of site owners choose to write about a percentage from the internet site cash flow using the content creators, whilst various other sites choose to spend content creators a set payment, that symbolizes a lively type of earnings. Toned expenses present content creators by having an quick gratification for your content founder, although content together with a large amount of opinions can earn considerably more unaggressive earnings.

E-commerce and also auctions

Advertisements are just a single manner in which earnings is earned on the web. One more solution to earn money is through the promoting connected with services and products. A lot of products are traded about e-commerce sites and also sell sites. E-commerce sites generally sell a choose type of items, together with products sold commonly with a arranged value. Sell sites allow customers and also retailers in order to meet on the web. Customers can bet about products, using the maximum buyers getting the piece available for sale.

Private agreements

The putting in a bid principle can be employed to sell providers about many different putting in a bid sites. In this type, consumers can post projects and also specialists can bet within the venture. However, the bet symbolizes the payment the specialist needs being covered the venture. The customer can pick buyers in line with the recommended payment, the professional';s recommendations and also examples that are introduced towards buyer.

Even so, this specific just symbolizes one of many methods consumers and also independent companies may appear in concert. A lot of consumers may advertise the importance regarding providers about on the web classified sites, content mills and also community forums. With regard to far more high-profile projects, natural talent is generally found via word-of-mouth or from the independent company promotion her or his providers with a personalized internet site. While consumers may well spend a set payment regarding providers, a number of consumers and also independent companies figure out a great constant rate or maybe a profits write about program.

How to Earn Money from Home with Your Writing Skills

Want to make money from home? Use your writing skills to start your own at-home freelance writing career.

Writing is something that many people love and probably more people hate. Not everyone is good at it, but if you're a decent writer, you can earn extra income from it or even make a career at it. Use these steps to get started.

Start a Career in Writing
 
Hone your Skills

If you want to start a career in writing, your first step is to hone your writing skills. The best way to do this is to write. That could mean practicing with articles you don't get paid for, but I recommend writing low-paying articles to start if your quality isn't to the standard yet of higher paying work. From then on, everything you write will help you be a better writer.

You can also be a better writer by reading more and reading about how to write. Reading in general will help a lot, especially if you read what you're writing about. For example, if you're going to focus on writing about gardening, read everything you can about the subject. Read books, magazines, articles online, etc. Also, watch videos and practice gardening. This will improve your skills and your knowledge.

You can also be a better writer by reading books about writing such as the ones below. They will help you improve your skills.


How to Make Money from Writing

When you're looking for money making ideas online, you'll notice that writing is a popular one because there are so many opportunities. Click here for other ideas. I suggest starting small with your writing and as you improve your skills and build up your portfolio, you can begin to search for better paying work and more advanced articles.

There are several sites available that allow you to join and do a practice article which places you on a level. Then, you can choose from article requests that are posted in your level and get the corresponding pay. Here are a few sites like this:

•     TheContentAuthority.com
•     Textbroker.com
•     MediaPiston.com
•     WriterAccess.com
•     Scripted.com

These are fast, easy ways to start earning money from your writing. Even as you progress, you can advance to more difficult, better-paying assignments, but these are great to fill in your time and supplement your income until you get better work.


What to Write About

Essentially, you could write about absolutely anything you want. However, narrowing down your topics will allow you to become an expert in your niche. The more you write in one area, the more extensive and catered your writing portfolio will be to that industry or area. People will choose you to write because you're the expert in that field.

What do you enjoy, know a lot about, and have experience in? It's best to start with your education and career. If you're a teacher with a degree in teaching, you can write about all things teaching. If you're an engineer, you can write about that.

You can also think about your hobbies if your career isn't interesting enough to write about, you don't want to write about it, or there isn't much demand for articles in that field. Here are just a few hobbies that could be good ideas that are in demand:

•     Finance - Investing and saving money
•     Gardening
•     Getting healthy and eating write
•     Exercising
•     Hiking
•     Arts and Crafts
•     Home Improvement
•     Collecting
•     Video Games

Think about what you like to do in your spare time, learn as much as you can about it, and start writing.

Advancing in Your Writing Career

As you write more and more, begin to look for freelance writing opportunities above and beyond content mills. Wizzley.com is a great opportunity. You can write and create your own pages and make money for them. If you like article promotion, this adds a great opportunity. The more you promote your page, the more earning potential there is.

You can also try working directly with clients. Look on freelance writing job boards and look for job postings. Some clients are looking for one-time assignments while others are looking for columnists or regular workers. You could write for blogs, newspapers, magazines, or internet publications.

Don't be picky about where you write. Even the small blogs and beginning sites are a great way to flesh out your portfolio. Set up a website about yourself and post links to all your existing work. You can use this as a part of your resume for future assignments.

If you want to ensure that your writing career flourishes and is successful, just keep writing. Even if you have to work for a few pennies per word for several months or you can't live off your earnings in the beginning, the more you practice and the more you get your name out there, the more in demand you will be.

How to Earn Money on Wizzley with Chitika

Many online writers don't have an Adsense account. But Chitika offers an alternative, so you can still earn advertising revenue.

I've decided to use Chitika on Wizzley because I want a diverse income stream. But if you are able to use Adsense here, that is a better option.

However, if you don't already have an Adsense account, you won't be able to apply for one using your Wizzley pages.

In that case, the decision to instead use Chitika is an easy one. Fortunately, it's not difficult to get your own Chitika account, and this is how many writers are able to participate in Wizzley's ad-share revenue program. For instance, I was able to join Chitika without first proving myself, such as creating pages that immediately generated a lot of traffic.

Flickr photo by 401(K) 2013
 
Signing Up Was Really Simple

Getting a Chitika account was really easy. I just provided the company with a little bit of information, such as my email address, the platform I was writing for (Wizzley) and my selected username. This the the name I entered in my settings, in order to earn from the ads displayed on my articles.

Unfortunately, though, I made the mistake of putting my Chitika ID in the wrong spot on the Wizzley settings page. It took me a couple weeks to realize this error, after logging into my Chitika account and noticing no activity, such as impressions or clicks. Everything was a line of zeros. This was in no way the fault of the company. Just my own. If you do decide to join Chitika, make sure you enter your information on Wizzley correctly, in the Chitika Username box, instead of the Chitika Channel box.

Once I fixed this, I then began to see impressions. My earnings still registered zeros for a couple of months, but this is beginning to change. Partly because I'm learning how to optimize my Wizzley pages for Chitika ads.

I must be honest though. You're very unlikely to earn as much with Chitika as you are with using Adsense on your pages. This is also complicated by the fact that you can no longer turn on your Chitika text link ads, which appear as bright blue hyperlinks in the body of your articles. Nor can I use the hover feature, in which ads pop up. However, I wasn't entirely sold on the hover feature anyway.

Since I've turned the hyperlinks off, my revenue has fallen. I'm not sure quite what to do about this, which, unfortunately, has contributed to my decision not to add as many pages here, and to focus more on my own blogs.

Chitika has Good Support

Chitika was founded in 2003 by Venkat Kolluri and Alden Do Rosario, two former Lycos employees. The company now based in Westborough, Massachusetts. The name "Chitika" is an East Indian word that means "in a snap." That about sums up the process of signing up, as well as contacting customer support.

After signing up I've had to email customer support with questions. Within a very short amount of time my queries were answered, and it's always been by the same representative. He's been very patient, because I've had a lot of questions.

I've had even more since I've decided to use Chitika on four of my blogs. Even though the blogs are new, I'm starting to see a little spare change.
Chitika Gives You the Ability to Diversify Your Income

It's a bad idea for anyone who's trying to earn a living online to have just one income stream. You need a number of earning channels, such as Chitika, which, if you have your own website, can be used along with Adsense.

At Wizzley, however, you must choose between Chitika and Adsense. But it's a good alternative for publishers who can't use Adsense. This is a lifesaver for people who've signed up here, or would like to write here, but don't have an Adsense account.

I Immediately Monetized My Blogs With Chitika

I'd already had my Chitika account for a few months before I decided to start a blog. There was no separate approval process that I needed to undergo before adding Chitika. I simply logged into my Chitika account, and copied an HTML code for the style and color of the ads I wanted to display. Then I pasted the code into an HTML capsule on my blog. You can see one of my blogs and the Chitika ads by clicking here. Notice the blue hyperlinks? Those are Chitika ads.

Then I decided to monetize three additional blogs with Chitika and it was just as easy to do.

Most of the Chitika ads we see on Wizzley are lines of text. So I was pleasantly surprised to look at my blogs one day and notice some attractive display ads. Chitika support told me the company planned to use more of these in the future. I think this is a positive move that will help both Chitika and its publishers.

Earn Money by Referring Others to Sign Up for Chitika

You can earn money on Chitika by displaying its ads on your Wizzley pages, as well as your other sites. You also receive 10 percent of the earnings, for 10 months, from each publisher you refer to Chitika.

If you'd like to use Chitika to monetize your Wizzley articles, please feel free to click on the banner below and sign up.

How Can You Earn More Money Online

Learn these easy steps to maximizing your online income whether you are an affiliate or are selling your own products.

The secret to earning money online isn't selling, it's solving problems. Learn how to take your knowledge and experience and use it to increase your online income. There are 4 basic ways to earn money online:

1. Sell other peoples products
2. Sell your own products
3. Provide services for others (freelance writing is one example)
4. Provide Advertising space

The most common way for beginners to make money is advertising. They create a website and put some Adsense Google Ads then sit back and wait for the money to roll in. Of course it frequently doesn't work that well so they start to ask, "How can I earn more money?"

It doesn’t matter how wonderful you are or how pretty your website is. If you aren’t solving a problem or providing value you aren’t going to make any money.

•     Step 1 is to figure out a problem.
•     Step 2 is to find or create a solution.
•     Step 3 is to market that solution
•     Step 4 is to make money.

Step 1 - Find a Problem to Solve

It really isn’t that hard to find a problem that needs a solution. Take a look at your life, your hobbies, your work and the people you enjoy being with. Make a list of complaints you hear or that you make yourself over the course of a week and review them. Chances are you will find some simple problems that already have solutions available. All you have to do is market the solutions to the right people.

It doesn’t have to be a big problem and you don’t have to create the solution yourself, though this is the most profitable way to make money. One example of a simple problem is one common to long distance runners. Clothes rub and chafe and it is very painful. There is a product called Body Glide that eliminates this problem. If you happen to be a runner and already have a group of friends who also run you could create a website that compares body glide to other similar products, makes a recommendation and then sells the product you recommend.

Make sure that you have actually used the product you are selling. People may have questions before they buy and if you can't answer them, they won't make the purchase. It is also easy to write about products or services you have actually used. People appreciate some 'insider' info and will be more likely to purchase.


Step 2 - Find the Solution

In the example of the Body Glide the solution already exists. This is true for many common problems, but people don't have the time to do the research to find a solution.When you take the time to find a quality solution for their problem you are already on your way to earning more money.

However there may be a problem that doesn’t have an existing solution. This is often true with processes that are difficult. One example is homework. I have never met a parent yet who didn’t complain about helping their kids with homework. I happen to have a degree in Elementary Education as well as 2 children  so I felt qualified to write an Ebook with tips and techniques for parents to get their kids to do homework. I created a website for the book and started selling. Because I am active in my children's classroom I was able to persuade the teacher to include a link to my book in her weekly email home to the parents. I was able to combine my personal knowledge with my life and provide a solution directly to the market that needs it most.

If you have some expertise or knowledge you can create your own solution. It doesn't have to be an ebook.  You could create a video tutorial or a podcast. Whatever method you are most comfortable with.

If you don’t want to create your own product you can check for solutions at places like Click Bank and JVZoo where there are many ebooks and other electronic solutions available. Make sure you are selling quality items though or you won’t earn more money, just a bad reputation.


Step 3 - Market the Solution

In order to earn more money you need to market effectively. This is where your existing relationships are so important. Don’t try to solve a problem for a group of people you don’t know. This is also the reason I suggested you listen to the people around you - they are your natural market. If you participate in a hobby, are a member in a club, volunteer or participate in a regular activity these are connections you can use to market. Start close to home, even before you have your website available. If you start talking about the solution without selling it, people will listen to you a lot more. Once you are ready to sell you can simply tell people that you are ready and can they please check out your site to give you feedback. You don't have to ask them to buy anything. If you have a good solution they will buy it because you recommend it as the right product.

Use your existing online social media as well as your offline relationships to market your solution. If you are active on Facebook or Twitter and talk about your product without selling it you will be better off in the long run. Social media is for being social, not selling. But it is an excellent place to get your name out to the public. People who have built a relationship with you are far more likely to purchase something you have recommended.

Step 4 - Earn More Money

Earning more money is the result of these steps. It is always a good idea to have more than one form of income, even on the same website. You may not always make sales through advertising or even through product sales, but if you combine these options you will definitely make more money overall.

Online marketing is always changing and it is important to keep up with the latest trends. Once you have marketed to your existing circle of influence you can expand on that by experimenting with advertising yourself. Use the increased income to try new things and so earn even more money online.

10 Smart Strategies to Create a Website That Wows

Developing a website that's worthy of the blood, sweat and tears you're putting into your business isn't as easy as it sounds. These 10 tips can help guide you through the process.


Developing an effective website is one of the biggest investments a company can make. Regardless of whether you sell products and services online or operate strictly in brick-and-mortar storefronts, establishing and maintaining an online presence will go a long way toward cementing your long-term success.

Unfortunately, many people perpetuate the myth that developing a website requires no experience or skill. While the flow of easy-to-use Web design tools and platforms has certainly given the average Internet user the ability to build, run and maintain a website, that doesn’t mean everyone is qualified to build, run and maintain a high-quality site.

To create a website that’s engaging, effective and authoritative, you’ll need to identify and manage the issues that really matter. Let's take a look at 10 critical decisions you’ll have to make during the design process.

1. Choosing a Hosting Service

Before you do anything else, you’ll need to select a service to host your website. There are plenty to choose from, and each has a similar—yet unique—value offering. Doing your due diligence in this area will save you time, effort and frustration in the long run.

2. Deciding on Existing Template Versus Custom Site

One of the first decisions you’ll have to make is whether to use a predesigned template or create a custom website. For large corporations, a custom website is probably the best way to go. That ensures everything is tailored to your unique needs. Smaller companies can get away with using predesigned template files and may find them a more feasible and affordable alternative to the more expensive custom solutions.

3. Hiring Help

Designing a website isn’t quite as simple as ads and short guide videos make it look. To fully unlock your site’s potential, you may need the assistance of a graphic designer or Web developer. By collaborating with qualified professionals, you can convey your brand’s identity and message to customers and site visitors much more effectively.

4. Determining Content, Design and Structure

The key components of any website are content, design and structure. Content needs to be valuable, informative and pleasing to the search engines. Design should attract your visitor’s eye but not distract from essential calls to action and conversion goals. According to Web host iPage, “The right font and colors can dress up your site and make your pages pop.” Pages should be structured so they flow effortlessly from one to the next.

5. Choosing Images and Photos

Nobody likes a site full of large, uninterrupted blocks of text. An aesthetically pleasing website contains integrated photos and images to keep viewers engaged and interested. The big decision here is whether to harvest existing images or have unique photos taken. Many sites take advantage of free, pre-existing images in certain areas but also use unique photos of specific products and company features.

6. Optimizing Landing Pages

While your site’s home page is the most important part of your website, landing pages are a close second. It’s best to focus your efforts on developing two or three high-quality landing pages and optimizing your ads and inbound links to feed into them. By creating top-notch landing pages, you can lower bounce rates and keep traffic moving through your site.

7. Keeping SEO in Mind

Don’t assume that if SEO algorithms and rules keep changing, that must mean they’re not that important. You need to pay attention to best SEO practices and follow them wherever possible. A well-developed site is completely useless if it isn’t readily visible.

8. Making Content Shareable

Your biggest ally in Internet marketing is your consumer base. To fully capitalize on your site’s potential, you’ll need to let your customers do some of the heavy lifting. You can encourage this by creating content that's engaging and shareable.

9. Creating Responsive Web Design

The new standard for website development is responsive Web design. This means creating a website that can be viewed the same way on a mobile device as it is in a desktop browser. Search engines are starting to reward websites for investing in responsive design. While older sites are slowly transitioning to responsive design, all new sites should invest in it from the start.

10. Making It Easy to Change

Anyone who sets their website in stone is committing a major error. Your site should be designed with flexibility in mind. As commercial trends, customer tastes and products change, your site should evolve with them.

When you’re developing your company's website, it’s important to stay both focused and realistic. There are certain things you can do on your own, but other tasks are better left to someone with the expertise and time to get it done—after all, you have a business to grow.

The New Approach to SEO: Traffic Instead of Rankings

As the rules of SEO change yet again, you need to consider new ways of determining how your site is performing.


Whenever Google releases a new algorithm or an update to an algorithm, as it did last month, people everywhere begin to worry and speculate that current SEO practices may become obsolete. Fortunately for Internet marketers, this isn't the case.

Many SEO methods continue to apply. However, they must be employed with a different intent. For example, instead of striving for higher search engine rankings, webmasters, business owners and marketers have shifted their focus to increasing website traffic from organic search.

The State of the SEO Industry

How many times have you heard that “SEO is dead"? If Internet marketers had a nickel for every time they heard this declaration over the past two years, they could fund the world’s greatest marketing campaign.

The prediction that SEO is dying has been a favorite topic of the SEO industry for years now. Supposedly, SEO died in the summer of 2013. It also died in April 2012. It's died at least a dozen other deaths, too, according to nervous marketers uncomfortable with change.

In the spring of this year, Internet bloggers posed the perennial question: Is Google Hummingbird going to kill SEO? Predictions claimed that everything SEO specialists had spent years working for—link building, keyword rankings and the like—would become irrelevant. Months later, and on the heels of October's Google Penguin 3.0 release and Google’s recent announcement that Google PageRank will cease to be updated, the industry is more alive than ever.

Yet once again, bloggers are calling for a funeral march. How founded in reality are these claims?
The Death of PageRank

As Google’s John Mueller put it in a recent Google Webmaster Hangout video, “We are probably not going to be updating [PageRank] going forward, at least in the Toolbar PageRank.” While the popular viewpoint following the release of this statement consisted of a mixture of confusion, curiosity and fear of the unknown, it wasn’t a total surprise—PageRank hasn't been updated since December 2013, and Matt Cutts, the head of Google's Webspam team, had already announced it was on its way out months before.

After the idea that PageRank would officially shut down sank in, most realistic SEO professionals and Internet marketers realized that in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t really matter. That's because the reality is, SEO isn't dying at all; it’s simply transitioning and evolving.

The death of PageRank is only worrisome to those with an improper understanding of how SEO really works. While PageRank certainly plays a part in ranking success, it’s not everything, and it’s misguided to place all your focus on rankings instead of traffic. Honestly, rankings are only numbers, while traffic represents actual value. You can have the greatest PageRank, but unless you’re getting traffic, it really doesn’t matter.

Industry expert Jonathan Long offers a clear example in a recent article. He tells readers to compare two very different sites. One has a No. 1 keyword ranking and gets 50 visitors each month, while the second has a keyword ranking of No. 6 and attracts 900 visitors each month. Long then directs readers to the obvious conclusion: “Traffic numbers are much more valuable than rankings alone.”

“Your SEO efforts should be focused on driving quality traffic to your website, " says Tim Kelsey, director of client marketing services at Pronto, a digital marketing agency for small businesses. "After all, it’s traffic that drives new leads and sales.”

 Quality Control

So is SEO changing? Certainly. Is it dying? Absolutely not. A better terms for it would be "transitioning" or "changing." The “new SEO” places the emphasis where it deserves to be—on high-quality content.

As PageRank disappears, a natural cleansing process will take place in Google’s search engine. Black-hat SEO professionals who thrive on link farming, keyword stuffing and other manipulative, frowned-upon practices will see their pages disappear from search results, along with their PageRanks.

Meanwhile, those who follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and have worked hard to develop high-quality content that answers questions and sparks valuable conversation will see their pages rise in the rankings. That’s why some SEO professionals are excited about all the recent changes within the industry.

So instead of frowning over the loss of PageRank, start learning how to analyze better metrics, such as:
   

• Organic search traffic. Google isn’t keeping secret the fact that search engines are moving toward a local focus. Take a look at your organic search numbers in your Google analytics account, and identify where the traffic is coming from.
      
• Average time on site. You’ll also find the average-time-on-site metric valuable. Once visitors arrive, you need to determine how long they're staying and why they're leaving.
     
•  Goal conversions. If you have a high average time on site, odds are pretty good you’re getting some goal conversions. Since traffic is designed to drive new leads and sales, you need to make sure conversions are following.

In a world where SEO practices and Internet marketing techniques are constantly changing, are you prepared to shift your focus to new challenges? If so, it's time to start looking at traffic, not rankings.

6 Reasons Why Your Website Should Have a Blog

Should you create a blog for your small business? It may be worth the time and effort if you want to increase leads and customer engagement.

As a busy small-business owner, you’re probably wondering if it's worth the time and effort to maintain a blog on your website. Considering a 2014-2015 study by HubSpot found that companies which blog are 13 times more likely to generate a positive marketing ROI, the short answer is yes.

If you want to increase the visibility and credibility of your company to consumers, you should consider regularly posting quality content on your website that will be interesting and useful to them. A blog is where this content should be housed, whether or not you call this section of your website a blog. On many sites, the “blog” has a different label, such as News, Press or Articles

Here are six reasons why your small business website should have a blog.

1. Drive Traffic to Your Website

In addition to the ROI a website with a blog can generate, websites with blogs may be able to get more traffic than websites without blogs. So how do blogs drive all this additional traffic?

Good SEO results are largely driven by new content and relevant keywords, so not only do you need fresh content, you also need a place to house it. Blogs provide you with the platform to do just that: adding fresh content to your website gets it placed higher in search engine results than other websites, which makes it more likely to get clicked.

2. Convert Traffic Into Leads

Now that your website is getting more traffic, you have the opportunity to convert that traffic into leads. Each new piece of content gives you the opportunity to generate leads, and the way to do that may be by adding a call-to-action to each blog post. Try offering something that consumers will give up their contact information for, such as a free e-book, free webinar, free consultation or quote. Once you have their contact information, your sales team can follow up with those leads.

3. Become an Authority in Your Industry

The best small-business blogs can answer potential customers' common questions and discuss industry trends. If potential customers view your blog as one that can provide helpful information about relevant topics, they may be more likely to do business with you than with your competitors. Interesting and unique content can also give you the opportunity to drive traffic to your website through inbound links. In fact, the Hubspot report found that websites with blogs have 434 percent more indexed pages than websites without blogs.

4. Build Relationships With Potential Customers

The comments section on your blog is the place on a website where you can have a two-way discussion with consumers. Encouraging engagement on your blog can be as simple as asking questions at the end of a post to get the conversation going, waiting for readers to leave comments and then interacting with those readers. By responding to your readers’ comments, you have the opportunity to build trust and gain insight into what your customers are looking for.

5. Give Your Social Media Efforts an Added Boost

Blog content can be perfect for sharing on social media. When you create original content that's valuable, interesting and entertaining to your target demographic, you can be more likely to get social shares. An added benefit: Unlike posting curated content on your social channels, content that's shared from your blog will point directly back to your website.

You can also add social sharing buttons to your blog so visitors can easily share your content—turning your readers into your own grassroots marketing team.

6. Drive Long-Term Results

So you write a post on your blog, promote it on your social channels and hopefully get some shares. After that initial flurry of activity, the traffic driven by that post will slow to a trickle. And that’s the end of that, right?

Not by a long shot. That page is now ranked in search engines. Just like the rest of the static pages on your website, this blog may continue to be visited as long as it's on the Web. In fact, a website with a substantial amount of blog content can continue to boost total traffic from old blog posts, providing the potential of a pretty substantial return on the few hours you invested in writing a post.

From a practical standpoint, adding a blog to your small-business website may just make sense. With minimal expense and effort, you can boost search engine rankings, build credibility, increase website traffic and foster relationships with customers. This, in turn, can make your readers more likely to hire you or purchase products from your company, in addition to recommending your business to others.

Seth Rand (@sethrand) is the founder and CEO of Rand Internet Marketing. He is an Internet marketing speaker and author and consultant specializing in Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Marketing. He is also a member of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC).

20 Ways To Drive More Traffic To Your Blog

Increasing readership of your blog is both art and science. Take a look at these 20 quick ways you can drive traffic and attract the audience you want.


Every business owner who's ever hosted a blog has experienced the frustration of trying to gain readership. Though we’d all like it if readers just magically came to us, the reality is, it takes some work to build an audience.

It’s easy to get frustrated and just give up on blogging, but once you experience the benefits, you'll understand that your blog can have a tremendous impact on your business by attracting traffic to your site, helping you build a social media audience and making an impression on prospects and clients alike.

Following are 20 proven strategies that can help you boost readership and increase traffic to your blog.

Contributors will also share with their networks and may ask you to write for them, opening up new readership avenues for you.

1. Write more. Studies show that the more often you update your blog, the more traffic it will receive. Google gives higher priority to websites with fresh content, so if you want to get more attention from the search engines, update your blog at least twice a week.

2. Promote with social media. Share each new blog post across your social media networks, including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest. If you spend time cultivating your networks and share great content, social media sites can become some of your top traffic sources.

3. Write better titles. The titles for your blog posts are almost more important than the content itself. That's because titles help potential readers decide whether they should click and read more. Pay attention to the article titles you see on magazine covers. They entice readers with promises and solutions. When you do the same, your readership will increase.

4. Know your niche. While you may be interested in sea life, exotic travel destinations, Little League baseball and weight loss, you'll confuse your audience if your content doesn’t follow a clear theme. Decide who your target audience is, what they want to read and what specific messages you want to convey.

5. Include photos. Studies have shown that photos in blog posts boost readership. Not only does a photo make the post more visually appealing, but you can also include keywords in the Alt Image tag on the photo, boosting search engine optimization (SEO) for your site. Keep in mind that you can’t just pull any photo from Google because you risk violating copyright laws. Instead, locate royalty-free images from a site like Clipart.com.

6. Incorporate keywords. Speaking of SEO, keywords are at the heart of SEO. One of the easiest ways to generate more traffic to your website is to ensure that every page on your site has a keyword strategy. So for each blog post you write, choose one key phrase that you believe readers would use to find that post. Next, incorporate that phrase into the title of the post, the headline on the page, within the content on the page at least two times, in a featured image on the page and also as part of the page link. Keyword concentration helps Google understand what that page is about, which can ultimately lead to more traffic from the search engines.

7. Incorporate links. When you mention another company’s product or service in a blog post, include a link to that company’s page. Not only does Google like to see outbound links on your site, the company you mention may also notice your post and link back to you. Plus, readers appreciate it when you provide resources to make it easier for them to find the things they're looking for.

8. Add social sharing buttons. At the top and bottom of your blog posts, make sure you include social sharing buttons for Twitter, LinkedIn and the other major social networks. Make it easy for readers to spread the word.

9. Retweet past content. We aren’t all looking at Twitter at the same time, so when you share a new blog post link, the majority of your fan base won’t see it the first time. Repeat your tweets, and don’t be afraid to share past content. Readers don’t care when it was written as long as it’s still relevant.

10. Invite guest contributors. When others write for your blog, you add more content that you didn’t have to write yourself. As a bonus, those contributors will also share with their networks and may ask you to write for them, opening up new readership avenues for you.

11. Add video. Google owns YouTube, which is one of the many reasons that videos can drive more traffic to your site. Supplement the written content on your blog with short videos that are informative and entertaining.

12. Invest in promotion. If you believe your audience is spending time on Facebook, occasionally invest in sponsored posts. For as little as $10, you can “Boost” a post and increase its reach significantly.

13. Conduct give-away events. Create fun theme days such as “Free Book Fridays” where your readers can win a prize by submitting a comment or sharing your link via social media. You can provide prizes yourself or invite companies to donate or sponsor these promotions.

14. Write guest posts. Locate other blogs that reach your target audience, and offer to contribute guest blog posts. If the site has a substantial audience, you can bet that readers will in turn want to engage with more of your content.

15. Cross-promote to your mailing list. Instead of writing all new content for your electronic newsletter, share the first paragraph from several recent blog posts and include a link to continue reading on the site. Not everyone is taking the time to read your blog each week, so this will help get your subscribers invested in your blog.

In addition to the tips above, the following smart strategies will also help increase readership:

16. Make your content easy to read by using plenty of subheads, bullets and numbered lists.

17. Promote your blog in your email signature and your bio in any online profiles.

18. Make it easy for blog visitors to subscribe to your RSS feed.

19. Invite readers to leave a comment, then respond and let them know you’re engaged.

20. Finally, have fun with your blog. If it feels like drudgery, your readers will notice. But if you enjoy producing the content, that will come across and have a tremendous impact on your success.

Should You Start a Blog for Your Business?

Starting a blog can be one of the most beneficial things you do for your business. But just because you have a blog doesn't mean you have a good blog. And therein lies the problem: Your blog should exist to improve your business, not detract from it.

Is a Blog Right for You?

The main reason to start a blog is because you want to move your business ahead. Blogs can be excellent vehicles for driving search traffic, expanding your market reach and establishing your authority in your industry.

Blogs are also great for adding complementary content to your online business. Often, business websites don’t allow for content that isn’t absolutely critical to the bottom line. Blogs are a good bridge between core site content and content that's more loosely related to your business or industry.

A blog is also a good way to showcase your authority; building authority in your industry can give you an edge on your competition. One way to find content that showcases your authority is to repurpose content you’ve created elsewhere, such as presentations, videos, tutorials and so on, all of which can help you position your brand as the authority in your niche.

Starting a blog can be one of the most beneficial things you do for your business. 

But just because you have a blog doesn't mean you have a good blog. And therein lies the problem.

Next step is to ask yourself if you can properly commit to it. Successful blogs usually take money, manpower and time. Without that, then nobody wins—not the readers or your business—and your best move may be to look into other avenues to grow your business.
Building a Great Business Blog

If you’ve decided you can commit to building and maintaining a blog, try to create the kind of blog you’d subscribe to yourself.

Here are a few examples of great company blogs so you can see how successful blogs contribute to their businesses through the use of great content and design:

MailChimp. MailChimp’s blog is not only a fantastic example of seamless branding (the blog's design mimics MailChimp's website perfectly), it employs excellent writing and design. These aren’t copied-and-pasted press releases. They're well thought out, in-depth articles aimed at the company's target market.

Groove. Groove is a startup that grew to more than $100,000 in monthly revenue the first year, and the company attributes a large portion of that success to its blog. Its posts are honest and provide a behind-the-scenes look at the decisions the company's founders have made, the successes and the failures in starting an online help desk software company.

Patagonia. Patagonia is an excellent example of a retailer blog with The Cleanest Line, which highlights the company’s values without talking about the company itself. The blog covers such themes as adventure, travel, exploration and environmental activism—with a bit of company news sprinkled in here and there. The articles complement the Patagonia brand without overtly selling the company or its products.

This approach generates a lot of engagement, rarely fewer than 150 Facebook shares, per post. Since the blog only covers the company a fraction of the time, when it does talk about the business, those posts are shared just as much as the others. This is a great example of how a company has built a brand that people want to champion.

Essentially, the blogs are driven by businesses that have a plan and execute it as if it were a core part of your business and don’t skimp on resources. The good news is, if you can commit, blogging can be a powerful tool for your business.

Basic Elements for Website Success

When someone decides to sell their products or services on the internet, the first thing they usually do is set up a website. After that first step many people feel lost as to what to do next.

There’s pay per click, affiliate programs, social networking, search engine optimization, blogging and so much more.

How do you decide what to do first?

It might seem like the first thing to do is start bringing a steady stream of traffic to your website so you can start making those sales. Before you do that, the best thing to do is make sure your site is really ready to get traffic coming through the door.

If your website isn’t ready to sell, there’s no point in bringing a single visitor to it because they’ll just come and go without doing a thing for your business.

Here are four things you must make sure you have taken care of before you send anyone to your website:

1. Keyword Research – If you’re not doing keyword research then you are blindly guessing what people want. You need to find out what people are looking for and give it to them.

This is a very important step and it’s often overlooked. I can tell you for the longest time I thought keyword research was boring and not that important, so I ignored it. I spent a lot of time building websites that very few people came to visit.

Once I decided to actually research what people wanted and then used those keywords to optimize my site, I began to see traffic growing because people were searching for those terms.

Doing your keyword research doesn’t have to be hard. One of the best sites to find very targeted keywords is Wordtracker.

2. Copywriting – You don’t have to be a copywriting wizard to have great copy on your website. The words you use on your site determine what happens when those visitors stop by. Make sure you KNOW what you want them to do so you can tell them to do it.

Every page on your website should have a purpose.

There are really only two basic actions you want your visitors to take when they come to your product or service website:

– They can buy from you.

– They can look for more information.

If you keep these two actions in mind then everything you write can have a purpose. Of course you want to keep a good balance and not try to sell all the time, or not give away free information all the time.

3. Tracking – Once you start getting visitors, you’re going to want to know where they came from. If you know where your visitors are coming from then you can go ahead and do the same things to bring more traffic to your site.

Some hosting programs come with a statistics program, but not all of them give you the information you need.

Google offers a great program called Google Analytics that you can use to create very detailed reports and track details of where people come from and what they do on your site.

Here are some things you’ll want to track:

– what sites people visit from

– what pages they visit

– how long they stay

– what keywords they search to find you

4. Newsletter or Mailing List – The majority of people that come to your site won’t buy at first. So, you want them to take that second action of looking for more information.

You don’t have to do a big newsletter each week if you don’t have the time. Another option is to have a quick tips list each week. It’s just a quick way to keep in touch, give people some valuable information, and make an offer every now and then.

If you make sure you have these four things in place before you start looking for website traffic then you’ll be setting your site up for success!

What is Business Process and Why is it Important?

Starting a new business is exciting; but it can also be hectic and at times even a bit frustrating.  If you
can master five basic process management, systems and organization tools, it will make things a lot easier for you.  Remember that investing time and energy into developing and maintaining sustainable business processes and systems that keep your day-to-day activities organized sets you up for success.

Start by developing your Business Operations Manual.  Make a comprehensive list of your administrative and operational procedures; and then outline what is required to carry out each procedure.  Include tasks and information on topics such as client intake, marketing strategy (both traditional and social media activity), networking, billing, time keeping, systems,
backup (detail on this to follow), vendors and suppliers.  Ideally if you were to hand the manual to someone, he or she could select any process and carry it out from start to finish based on your documentation, so don’t leave anything out.

Once you have your systems and procedures documented, you need to formulate business documents and templates to support them.  For example, contracts/agreements, invoices, and time tracking forms should be ready before you have your first client
interaction.  As you take on clients, your documents should also include step-by-step guides for the support services
you provide those clients.  Having documented steps and templates to reference when it comes time to work on a task will ensure you don’t miss anything, which not only saves time but can help you to avoid errors.

Business resources are just as important as business documents.  Create and maintain a database to track your system access, memberships, affiliate programs and passwords.  Be sure to include the name of the system/organization, URL, login, password, costs and expiration date.  For security reasons it is a good idea to password protect this file.

Your business documents and templates are essential for managing your business; therefore you need to ensure that you back them up regularly.  The system for this does not need to be complicated – a disc with everything on it is an easy solution, but
does require you to set a schedule and hold yourself accountable for getting it done.  You also might want to look into
automatic backup software or cloud storage.  Regardless of what solution works best for you, just remember that
losing your important data means losing billable time for clients as you recreate those critical documents.

Lastly, be sure to re-visit and update your systems and processes regularly.  In the beginning, quarterly reviews are recommended but once your business is up and running smoothly, yearly reviews are sufficient.  Set a
reminder on your calendar if you need to.  With any luck you will create systems and processes from
the beginning that can sustain growth and only need tweaking as your business grows.

One final thought.  We all get caught up working “in” our business rather than working “on” it, but developing
tools to keep your business organized will not only eliminate some of that tendency, but serve as a skill to attract new clients.   Creating systems and processes that are easily repeatable and sustainable as business increases should become a top priority and a best practice.

Are you a virtual assistant needing to set up your business processes so your day-to-day operations are efficient and not overly time-consuming?  The VA Resource (http://www.thevaresource.com) is where you can find Professional, Customizable, and of course Affordable business templates, documents and tools that are exactly what you need in order
to dedicate your time to prospecting and managing billable client projects.  The clock is ticking so don’t
lose another minute!

4 Local SEO Predictions for 2016

There is never a shortage of articles about predictions for the new year, and the same holds true where SEO is concerned.

Here is my list of predictions for 2016 — four in all — that will affect local SEO. Review them and start making plans to address the upcoming changes.

1. Mobile Usage Will Continue to Grow

2015 saw the urgency that Google created around its move to a separate mobile algorithm, commonly referred to as “Mobilegeddon,” which let us know we had to make sure our websites were mobile-friendly.

Actually, we didn’t see any significant changes regarding traffic, so it was as if Google cried wolf. The mobile sky didn’t fall, and I didn’t hear any horror stories about websites losing tremendous amounts of traffic, including sites that weren’t completely mobile-friendly.

Even though Mobilegeddon didn’t affect a lot of websites, it did create awareness around the fact that consumers are using their mobile devices more and more, for almost everything, including looking up local business information such as the name, address, phone number, and hours of operation. That means, if yours is a local business, showing up in the mobile search results is critical and will become even more so in 2016.

What can you do now? Perform an audit of your business listings. It’s pretty simple to do and takes just a few minutes. My article, “N, A, P.: The Most Important Letters in Local Search,” provides details on how to conduct such an audit.

2. Google’s Organic Rankings Will Rely on Social Media

In 2009, Google instituted a 10-year plan — which it only admitted to publicly in 2012 — to integrate social media data into its organic search engine algorithm.

    As the inclusion of social media continues to grow, it is imperative that you integrate social into your marketing plans if you have not already done so.

We have three more years left until the plan is complete, so I estimate that Google relies on social media about 70 percent now. As the inclusion of social media continues to grow, it is imperative that you integrate social into your marketing plans if you have not already done so.

While, as a local business, you don’t have to spend all day on social media or hire a full-time social media marketing employee, you should post updates regularly and respond to those who contact you via social channels promptly. (Google considers activities such as social engagement, comments, and website visits to be ranking factors.)

3. Google’s Local Listings Will Become Paid Listings

This is probably the first time you’ve heard this prediction so it may sound very bold: During 2016, Google’s local listings — the Google My Business listings — will become a pay-to-play offering.

I’m not sure how Google will implement this or even if it will continue offering free listings, but I fully expect it will start monetizing Google My Business listings this year.

What can you do now? Start budgeting for this. Put some extra money into a “rainy-day fund” so that when it does happen you’ll be prepared and not lose traffic coming from your local listings.

4. Google Will Update Its Link Algorithm

I predict that Google will update the Google Penguin algorithm, which deals mainly with low quality, unnatural links from other websites to your site, during the first Quarter of 2016. (It’s been at least a year since we saw a major link update from Google.)

Previously, Google had to “turn a switch” to start the update manually. It has been a one-time process and either your links were deemed unnatural and low quality and your website’s rankings suffered, or you weren’t affected. This time, it will be different.

    Ideally, Google will turn the new Penguin link update into a “rolling update,” integrated into its main algorithm.

Ideally, Google will turn the new Penguin link update into a “rolling update,” integrated into its main algorithm. If that happens, you will be able to get any unnatural and low-quality links that point to your site updated or removed and then only have to wait a short while until Google reflects those changes.

What can you do now? Review all of the links to your website and decide if each is natural and of high quality, and then remove or disavow those that are not.

SEO: Do You Need More Than One Domain Name?

I recently spoke with a business owner who had purchased every possible version of his company’s domain name (including the “typos”) to protect his brand.

In fact, he bought the .com, .net, .org, .info, and .biz version of the company name and all of the names for each of the products he sold — more than 350 domain names in total!

Which begs the question: For search engine optimization or brand protection purposes, how many domain names is enough? Do you need more than one?
Multiple Domain Names: Asset and Liability

If yours is a local business, owning domain names that include your primary search keywords can be an asset, both from an SEO standpoint and the fact that you’ll be keeping them out of competitors’ hands.

But multiple domain names can also be a liability, for three reasons:

High cost. Owning multiple domain names could become rather expensive. On the cheap, domain names sell for about $10 a year, although some registrars charge as much at $35. Add in the cost of the new gTLD domain names and you may end up spending thousands per year in annually-renewable fees.

Low-quality links. Another reason owning multiple domains can be a liability is if they have low quality, unnatural spam links pointing to them from other websites. (Low-quality links happen to all websites, and you’ll get them just for registering the domain name.)

    Redirecting one domain name to another passes any links associated with it over to the domain name to which it’s redirected.

As a result, redirecting such domains could hurt your primary domain name’s search engine rankings. The reason: Redirecting one domain name to another passes any links associated with it over to the domain name to which it’s redirected.

To be safe, before redirecting, use tools such as Google Search Console or Majestic to manually review all links to any domain name you own, to ensure it’s “clean” of link spam. Generally speaking, if a domain name has no links from low-quality sites pointing to it, then it should be okay to redirect.

If you redirect a domain name that has a mix of high- and low-quality links, identify the culprits and “disavow” them using tools contained in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
Google and Bing have tools that allow you to disavow low-quality links.

Google and Bing have tools that allow you to disavow low-quality links.

Disavowing links require that you make a text file with the list of links or domain names and upload it to the search engines. This list tells search engines which ones to ignore when calculating your rankings.

(Read my article “2 Ways to Clean Up Low-quality Website Links” to learn more about how to deal with low-quality links.)

Redirecting multiple domains. If you own many domain names — let’s say 50, for the sake of example — redirecting all of them could be considered an attempt to spam the search engines, which could result in a ranking penalty.
Consolidate All Domains into One, for SEO

For search engine purposes, you don’t need more than one domain. It’s better to consolidate multiple domain names and associated websites and focus on building one strong domain name with a single site. Consolidation will make your primary domain name and website more powerful, allowing it to rank better in the search results.

    It’s better to consolidate multiple domain names and associated websites and focus on building one strong domain name with a single site.

To consolidate domains, you will need to set up 301 Permanent Redirects from the other domain names and point them to the principal domain. If you have a website associated with another domain name, you’ll want to redirect the old pages to the appropriate, corresponding page on the main site.

Most likely, your domain registrar has a way to redirect domain names. If not, then your webmaster or an SEO specialist will need to take care of this for you.

Suffice it to say, consolidating multiple websites and multiple domain names isn’t an easy task and should be done very strategically so that it doesn’t hurt your search engine rankings.

Why Purpose Matters

The day you start your business, you should place "Purpose" at its forefront. This is a critical issue that fails to get enough attention. Many business owners that are asked, "What is the purpose of your business?" will answer "to make money" (or something similar). You might be thinking, "Isn't that the purpose of being in a for-profit business?" I can confidently say "no." By serving a purpose well and doing it in a profitable manner, you will "make money." The greater, the more needed and more desired the purpose you choose to serve, the more money you can make.

If I met you at a party and asked you to tell me about your business, where would you start? Most people tell me about their role, title, function, or product or service. For example, one person might tell me they are the Managing Partner in an accounting firm, or a tax accountant, or an auditor. A CEO might tell me he owns a company that manufactures retail skincare products. However, if that is what they view as their purpose they are in trouble. If you look at the marketplace, there is an oversupply of just about every product and service you can name. Think about it. When was the last time you thought, "There isn't a tax accountant or auditor to be found anywhere?" When was the last time you heard someone say "I wish I had more choices of skincare products because there are just not enough of them?" It just isn't going to happen. Because there is oversupply, services and products are available everywhere you go, as well as online and over the phone, and can be delivered in 24 hours.

Now imagine those same people had a different view of what their purpose is. For example, I have an accounting firm client whose purpose is to increase the wealth of the firm's clients. They have built a set of practice areas in tax, audit, technology, wealth management, etc. For each client they create a team that uses the strengths of each team member to devise the best strategy each year to help maximize their clients' wealth. While you might point out that every sizable firm has the same practice areas, this firm's view of what they are doing and why they exist is the difference-maker. My client's view causes them forge a nontraditional client relationship structure. They build specialized tool kits, hire specialized resources, and act in a way towards their client that has specific intention. I can assure you that not every accounting firm is creating the kind of relationship with their clients that would allow for such positive outcomes to occur and thus they are failing to help their clients reach their fullest potential as a result.
Only after you have established your purpose are you in the position to answer the following questions:

1. What problem(s) does our business solve for our client?
2. What should our business do to achieve that purpose
3. What types of clients do we want to have, and what will our relationships look like?

visit saroproject site for a FREE consultation at http://saroproject.com to see how an executive business coach can help you run a more effective business or become a more effective leader..

Home Business Success Review - How To Avoid The Top Reasons Home Businesses Fail

A large portion of new businesses fail, and home-based party and direct sales businesses are especially susceptible to failure. It is because salespeople typically have to pay for their own products and might not have experience running a business. They may not even treat their businesses like money-making endeavors. While no single method can guarantee business achievement, a strong commitment to gaining new clients and managing your finances can increase your likelihood of succeeding.

Selling a Lifestyle

Home-based businesses such as Mary Kay encourage consultants to earn more money by recruiting new experts. Whether you need to recruit new salespeople or simply move some product, you need to sell a lifestyle, not just a product. If you're marketing organic makeup, for example, you can focus on being an ethical plan and consumer a party dedicated to instructing people about the environment. Concentrate on a romantic, sexually charged way of life by encouraging people to dress yourself in their sexiest attire for your party, if you're selling lingerie.

Not Just for Friends

When you start your business, you might depend on family and friends to buy your product, but you'll quickly exhaust your customer base if you only use individuals you know. Marketing is essential to a successful business. Start a social networking fan page and post regular updates. Search engine marketing and ads material in nearby newspapers, and magazines can also help attract customers. A website can help customers in distant locales make purchases without even leaving their homes.

Handling Your Finances

When you begin selling products, you might feel like you're making lots of money. But many home-based businesses require consultants to buy their own products, so you'll need to keep careful track of your expenditures and profits. Mileage to and from customers' homes, party supplies, marketing and other business expenses are tax-deductible, so keep meticulous track of them. Avoid buying new products before you sell the ones you have, and consider using a catalog rather than keeping all products in stock.

How To Avoid The Top Reasons Businesses Fail

Getting Help

You may need help to sponsor new sales associates, keep up with your Internet presence and take orders, as your business develops. Hiring an assistant can free you up to focus on the sales side of your business. Some home-based business companies encourage sales consultants to recruit new team members to help them sell products. When these team members market products, you'll get a discuss of the profits.

Learn the Most Innovative Way to Become Successful from Your Home and Avoid Failure, First Click Home Business Success Right Now, and Claim Your Free Report on the Secrets Most People Will Never Know

Marc Drouinaud is a trusted, professional home-business owner, and has participated in the generation of over $23 million dollars in the home business industry in the past 5 years alone.