I have about a dozen websites, some make good money, some make a little money, and some don’t make any money at all. Not all sites are designed to make money online though. Some sites are designed for other purposes. For instance, I have a website about asparagus harvesters that was not intended to make money online, but rather get some interest in my experimental harvesting machine, and maybe find a backer.

The site, asparagusharvester.com, fulfilled its function. Washington State University became aware of my machine through the site, and ended up funding the development of the machine for a number of years.

The first site I built, in 1998, after teaching myself HTML online, was to market an invention I had come up with, the Chilipepper appliance. It’s a pump that pumps hot water from the water heater to the fixture very quickly, and without running water down the drain. You get your hot water quicker and save quite a bit of water.

But how do you market something online that no one has ever heard of? No one would be searching for it because they did not know anything like it existed. When I first built the site, I optimized it for the keyword phrase “Hot Water”. I got very good rankings for the phrase and zero traffic. It turns out no one searches for the key words “hot water” and why would you?

I thought about it and decided that I would build into the site a section about water heaters. It would cover how they work, and how to maintain and repair them. I know a lot about water heaters since I worked with them quite a bit while inventing the Chilipepper hot water circulating pump.

Eventually the site obtained very good rankings and I was getting about 1,000 unique visitors a day. I had been reading about this new affiliate stuff and decided to try putting some advertising on my site. I joined Commission Junction and selected some affiliate programs, placing the ads on the water heating related pages. I don’t put ads on the main pages of the Chilipepper demand system since I want them to stay and buy a Chilipepper. Pretty soon I started getting checks for commissions I earned. People were actually clicking the ads on my site, going to the advertiser’s site, and making purchases. And guess what they were buying…tankless water heaters. I still can’t believe people buy tankless water heaters on line, but they do.

So there I was, making about $200.00 a month on commissions from affiliate programs. Then I read about a new program called adsense. I put adsense ads on my Chilipepper site, and on a website that I built while on cruise ship vacations. My wife and I cruise quite a bit, and while on the cruise we update the site. We review all of our cruises. I put adsense ads on the site, cruisesrfun.com, on a site I built about inventing, inventionspatents.com, and a few others. Instantly I was making quite a bit more money from these sites than with the affiliate programs.

Recently I’ve started receiving requests from advertisers to place their ads on the pages of some of my sites. Sometimes they want to put an ad up permanently for a one time fee…I always say no. They offer usually around $75 to $150 per ad. It just doesn’t click with me for some reason. Just a couple of months ago I got an offer from an ad outfit offering me 50 cents per 1,000 ad views on one of my sites. No clicking necessary!

For some of my sites the $/1000 page views is in the tens of dollars, while for other sites its just a few cents. They let me put two ads per page, and they had to both be above the fold. So I get $1.00 for every 1,000 page views. I have two more ads below those, and they are adsense ads. I still make money from the adsense ads, not as much as before, but when you ad the two together it is substantially more money than with just the adsense ads alone. I also like the idea of not having all of my eggs in one basket. I’m not totally dependent on Adsense.

Another new thing I am trying is 5 second audio ads. It’s a new program that has some very nice features. When a visitor lands on one of my pages, a 5 second audio ad plays. I get paid for that ad. My visitor doesn’t have to click on anything. My visitor does not leave my page. The ad is short enough it doesn’t bother my visitor, and it won’t play another ad to the visitor for at least 3 minutes. It doesn’t affect any of my other advertising, no problems with Adsense, and doesn’t take up any room on my page. It also does not cost anything to join so there is no risk.

The audio ads program is in beta right now, and is slowly ramping up, but I am already making money, and I expect the audio ads to nearly double the income from the advertising on my sites once it is in full swing.

My sites are informational sites, and so my visitors are looking for information, not fancy graphics and whatnot. So I build simple sites with simple navigation. No search engine spider has trouble finding any of my pages. I write with humans in mind…I’m probably not always successful in that endeavor but I try. I keep my ads to a minimum. When I land on a page that is cluttered with ads and banners I usually leave quickly.

I make sure my Title meta tag has an appropriate and effective title, incorporating my most important key words whenever possible. I make sure the meta description tag has a well written description meaningful to humans. I try to have my main key words worked into the text in a few places on the page, but not too many. If my pages have images I use the alt text to describe the image and work in a keyword or two. Do not overdo it though.

If you trade links with other sites try to make sure you trade with other quality sites that have some kind of connection that a search engine would recognize.

And finally, I have patience. It just takes a long time to reach the point where you get significant traffic from the search engines. I figure at least one year and possibly two before I’m getting thousands of visitors on a particular site. You can opt for paid traffic and get those numbers quickly, but I am not willing to buy traffic, and I doubt it would be profitable, at least for the sites I have.

So there you have it. Build quality websites with information people are looking for. Monetize your sites with a variety of advertising, but don’t overdo the ads. And while you are waiting for the income to develop get on to your next site.

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William Lund is a successful inventor and webmaster. Learn more about website development, SEO, and promotion at his website Lund One

Read more about the new audio ads at

Popularity: 56% [?]

An Internet home business is one of the easiest ways to start a business if you know what you are doing. However, many fail at internet home businesses. Here are four mistakes to avoid in an Internet home business that will help you succeed.

Lack of planning

Most internet marketers just decide they want to start internet base business. Many have no particular plan of how they are going to make it happen. It is very important to have a specific plan that can help you from beginning to end. Here are some topics your plan should cover for you internet home business. You should know what you are going to sell, how you are going to get traffic to the product? How exactly are you going to sell the product or service? You should decide on specific hours you are going to work in order to separate your life from your business.

Not working hard at it

Before even, starting an internet home business you must decide firsthand that you are going to work hard toward success, even if you don’t see any sign of it. You must continue to work hard on your internet business day in and day out. This is the only true way to find true success at it.

Lack of consistency

It is a must you are consistent in performing specific duties for your internet home business. You should be consistent regardless if you are seeing dramatic results right away. Just be sure that you are seeing some results to show you are making some progress with what you are doing. For example: if you are selling an ebook and you advertise fiercely and you are not seeing at least one sale a week then try something new or a different approach.

No patience

The reason why many of us fail in our Internet home business is because we are not patient enough to see success. Sometimes it may take you 3, 4, 7, months to a year to see any real results in your business. It all depends on what you are doing. The Internet doesn’t take years to build a successful Internet home business. All you need in most circumstances is 6 months to a year. You will be surprise how much success you can find with just a little patience.

We all have what it takes to make money in our internet home business. We must plan for it in order to keep us on track. It is very crucial we work hard at it. In my opinion you can’t make any money in your internet home business if you don’t work at it. You must be patient to work at it to get results. Sometimes we don’t know how long it’s going to take. With the many tools offered online today it’s so easy to start a business.

If you want to avoid, research and building a site. I would suggest selling a universal product. A universal product is one anyone would buy or sell. An internet marketer should have multiple streams of income in order to make the millions the internet rewards to those who work hard.

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Claude Laloi is an entrepreneur online and offline. To find out more about out money making business opportunities and universal products check out: http://www.StarSpangledBaboon.com

Popularity: 57% [?]

I’m one of those who just love getting quality and colorful stuff in my mailbox. In fact, I think I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t. Just think of all those full color postcards with the equally colorful wishes from your friends and lovedones. I think I was able to keep most of my postcards along with every endearing message inscribed.

But if you think that these cards are for sweet messages only, then you don’t know anything at all about the strength of these cards to help you promote your business. Indeed, your postcard marketing campaign may just be your most effective marketing campaign in your arsenal. Even with their small size, they pack a big punch that easily gets your message across to your target customers. Your postcard marketing provides you with the answers to questions that would make your print ad an effective tool to reach out to your target market.

First of all, postcards are not just greeting cards with those fancy pictures of places around the world. This is actually a narrow and conventional thinking for your postcards. Instead of places, you can always use your print ad to show your new product, your newly acquired equipment, or even your professional and impressive customer service.

They can also be a personal means of letting your clients know of your business. Let your team make it more special by letting them sign their messages to their prospects and customers with their very own signature. Or better yet, a handwritten message even. And if you want to be more effective then you have to provide your card with a definite purpose – such as to remind of a forthcoming sale or special event, or even to follow up on a potential customer.

Second point to consider – your print cards are probably among the most cost effective print ad that you can produce for your business. Their size and shape are made as such to provide you with less costs and easier means to reach out to your target audiences. They’re in fact, very easy to handle, classify, and distribute. Not to mention that your prospects will be able to read your message right away because it doesn’t need an envelope to mail it to your recipients.

So how do you create an effective postcard marketing tool? By planning carefully how to establish your objective and strategy. You can either use what one expert marketer suggests – a shotgun approach. It’s running your ad for several times in a publication and hoping that someone out there would be interested enough to contact you.

The other approach is to identify your target market and then printing a series of postcards that would highlight the advantages and benefits of doing business with you. You can then post these postcards every month until you’ve completed your series.

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For more information, you can visit this page on postcard marketing

Popularity: 56% [?]

How To Get Passive Income With Affiliate Marketing

There’s yet another source of income with affiliate marketing that’s been overlooked by many people. Besides paying commission for selling their products and services many affiliate programs
also offer the opportunity to earn income through their referral programs.

In this article I will explain the benefits of these referral programs and how you can utilize this.

However before you start with it you’ll first want to make yourself familiar with the terms and conditions of the referral programs you want to promote so you’ll know how to properly receive your commissions.

The benefits of having referral partners

1. Receiving commissions with small effort.

By referring affiliates to partner programs you will receive commissions based on the sales that your referred affiliates make. Being the referring affiliate you’ll receive some nice extra income without too much hard work on your part. Hence the term passive income.

2. Income stability and security.

When you’re working on other projects or when you don’t have much time for doing promotions you’ll always have a secondary stream of income available that’s been provided by the affiliates you’ve referred.

3. Multiple streams of income.

Every time you refer a new affiliate to a partner program it adds a new stream of income to your business. Imagine the potential when you build up a whole network of referral partners in time.

How can you get referral partners ?

1. Making postings on affiliate marketing forums.

One of the most easy ways to get referral partners is by making postings on affiliate marketing forums. Most forums allow their members to add signatures to their messages and with it you can attract other forum members to sign up through your referral links. Another benefit of making postings is that they can be found by the search engines. This means that long after you’ve made a forum posting search engines will keep sending visitors to your messages with your embedded referral codes.

2. Using your current websites.

Another way to get referral partners is by using your current websites. When you add pages to your websites with descriptions of your favourite partner programs, chances are that people who are not interested in buying your products may be interested in making money on line, and sign up through your referral code. When properly done the search engines will also index these pages and keep sending visitors to your links.

3. Creating webmaster sites and blogs.
With little effort you can start your own webmaster site or ‘online money’ blog where you can write about affiliate programs that are profitable to you. Chances are that other affiliates find your blog and sign up through your referral links.

Another tip to consider is to refer webmasters to products and services that provide in their business needs. As every internet entrepreneur needs hosting, software, scripts and information you can add this to your product portfolio to build your affiliate marketing’s passive income stream.

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Abigail is an online researcher, entrepreneur and  co-creator of AffiliateBidding.com, a marketplace for <a href=”http://www.affiliatebidding.com”>Affiliate Marketing Partnerships</a> where people can find affiliate referrals and negotiate about affiliate marketing partnerships and cooperation.

Popularity: 99% [?]