Free Sites For Royalty Free Stock Images

I am no graphics guru by any means, but can hold my own in Photoshop. I do all of my own graphic work and often times I am on the hunt for the perfect royalty free image to use in a logo or header design. Over the years I have collected quite a few bookmarks to great sites that offer these royalty free images, but today I came across a post that boast 180+ such sites. Wow! Now I must admit I have not heard of or visited well over half of these sites, but the list is quite impressive. One is bound to find what they are looking for in one of these many sites. Most of these sites do require you to register as well. I would bookmark this post and even copy the URLS into your bookmark folder for image sources for future reference. Happy image hunting.

Domain & Page Authority Metrics Explained

I am a little under the weather today thanks to this great warm one day, wet and cold the next we are having in Florida. I spent most of the day catching up on some video watching I am way behind on and it helps me learn and get at least something accomplished instead of doing nothing and having my work day wasted. Last week Rand Fishkin from SEO Moz and Will Critchlow discussed domain authority and page authority metrics. The video will help you understand what they are, what goes into them, how to use them, and why SEOMoz created them in the Open Site Explorer tool.

BANS Cloaking Redirect Fix

Tao has come up with a re-direct fix for US stores for BANS since a few feed parameters changed. You will want to edit both the index.php file and the FrontControl.php file in BANS for this fix to work correctly.

Make sure you back up both these files before making any changes. You can open these up in notepad, but I highly suggest using a code editor like PSPad, I think it is still free and very easy to use. The FrontControl.php file is in the cont folder of your install while the index.php is likely in the root directory unless you installed BANS in a sub directory.

Open both files and scan for this block of code below:

if(($siteType == "US") && ($cloak == "1")){
$front->sid = str_replace("%2B", "+", $front->sid);
$link[$counter] = str_replace("http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?", "".URL_PATH."/item/", $link[$counter]);
$link[$counter] = str_replace("&mpre=http%3A%2F%2Fcgi.ebay.com%2F", "", $link[$counter]);
$link[$counter] = str_replace("QQcmdZViewItemQQssPageNameZRSS%3AB%3ASRCH%3AUS%3A101", "", $link[$counter]);
$link[$counter] = str_replace("campid=".CJID."", "", $link[$counter]);
$link[$counter] = str_replace("&customid=".$front->sid."", "", $link[$counter]);
$link[$counter] = str_replace("&toolid=10005", "", $link[$counter]);
}

Replace that code with this block of code:

if(($siteType == "US") && ($cloak == "1")){
$itempos = strpos($link[$counter],"item=");
$cloakeditem = substr($link[$counter],$itempos+5,12);
$cloakedtitle = preg_replace("/[^a-zA-Z0-9\s]/", "", $title[$counter]);
$link[$counter] = URL_PATH.'/item/'.str_replace(" ","-",$cloakedtitle)."_W0QQitemZ".$cloakeditem;
}

Save both files back to your hard drive and FTP them back to their appropriate places. You may be prompted to over write the existing files, just say Yes.

Log into your BANS admin and go to settings. Check the cloak option in box 4 and hit save. Reload your BANS site home page and check that an eBay listing URL is indeed cloaked and click it to make sure it redirects properly to the matching listing on eBay.

EPN RSS Feed Link Structure Change

I promised to update my findings from yesterdays post. Casey has responded on the EPN forum about the changes to the feed structure. Once again EPN has dropped the ball on this as all developers I have talked to did not see this coming. If you plan on cloaking BANS links, you better hold off still. I also doubt you will see a fix provided by A&K on this as well. The fix will likely come from a forum member like Sonjay or Tao. The good news if you own PHPBay, is that Wade is on the case and has a call set up in the coming days with EPN to make sure PHPBay is handling things right. As of right now it appears PHPBay is handling the changes fine and the links are tracking properly. As much as I love BANS and supported it in the past, you need to take my advice from previous post on learning Wordpress and work towards switching BANS sites over to Wordpress and PHPBay. Unless you are well versed in PHP and coding, you are holding a gun to your mouth in a Russian Roulette type scenario. A&K have made it clear they are no longer tied to the development of BANS, so you will be at the mercy of others soon. Remember my earlier statement. BANS works until it no longer works. It is getting closer and closer to not working.

Below is the post from Casey:

Hi everyone,

We’d like to thank you for your patience through the recent change made to the RSS Feed links that has impacted some of you, and apologize for the delayed response on the boards as well as the lack of a proactive message to announce this change. There was some miscommunication here on when this change was planned to roll out. Essentially we updated the links in the RSS Feeds to reflect the new link generator structure which we implemented a while back. This new link structure includes added parameters that we plan to use for some optimization initiatives to further enhance our tools and most importantly help generate higher earnings for our partners.

We believe the third party tools being used to publish content from the ePN RSS Feeds will update as necessary, if not already, to account for this new link structure and direct users to the correct pages on eBay. Also, as recommended by others in this thread it’s a good idea to consult the resources available through these third parties for further assistance. Please note that there are no issues with the RSS Feed URLs and links when taken directly from the publisher interface.

Thanks again for your patience,

Casey

Happy Data Privacy Day

I guess you are asking what the hell is data privacy day. If you are indeed that curious, here is a website dedicated to Data Privacy Day. On another note, this is a great time to ask when the last time you changed passwords for your servers, website admins and other accounts like bank accounts. It certainly is a pain in the ass and quite an undertaking for sure. You can break it up into chunks over the next few days and get it all done. Start with your servers and FTP access one day, then move to Wordpress admins and on and on from there. If you break it up into groups you should be able to get everything done in a week. If you need a password generator, you can use this one here that I am using. You can set the length and include special characters, numbers and randomly capitalize letters as well. Security and privacy should not be ignored and it is good to see a day dedicated to this. Enjoy the rest of your privacy day.

Check Your BANS Sites That Cloak URLs

This is a public service announcement if you are using BANS and have set the Cloak Affiliate Links in box #4. Your links may not be redirecting correctly and you surfers may be going to a "Page Not Responding" on eBay. I suggest you set these links to not cloaking and double check that your links are going through to eBay correctly. You can see an example of the fail on the Game Improvement Irons site. I am not sure what is causing this problem, but EPN may have changed its feeds in one way or another. If I hear anything, I will update you.

Free Viral Submitter

Michelle MacPhearson recently reviewed the Free Viral Submitter and while not overly fancy, it is a great free tool. The best thing in my opinion is it's press release submission capabilities. In addition to the press release submissions you can also submit your videos to a few of the video sites and articles to the a few article sites as well with one push of a button. This is a time saver more than anything in my opinion and a great free one at that. You will have to enter your email, but you will get access to the free download of Viral Submitter and a 11 plus minute video explaining it and how to use it. Once again, it is not that earth shattering, but more of a time saver tool in submitting to these types sites.

Free Video Clip Embeder

Every now and again, I run across an instance where I have a link to a video or audio clip and want to embed it on a web page. If the site is Wordpress, I just use a Wordpress plugin, but I also have a few non Wordpress sites built with BANS or even Blogger blogs that I need to embed videos or audio on. I came across a free video code maker that makes embedding video a breeze on sites not built with Wordpress. You can choose the size of the video, whether it auto starts and if you want to show controls as well. Just fill in the details and click the Make HTML button and copy the code it spits out at the bottom. Very simple. Make sure to bookmark this site, as you never know when you might need it.

ReviewAzon Wordpress Plugin Webinar

Brian Johnson from Commission Ritual hosted a webinar with ReviewAzon creator Brad Hanson on Friday and they went over in depth the use of the ReviewAzon Wordpress plugin together. The webinar went about 2 hours and they took several questions from viewers as well. The webinar has now been archived and posted online. If you have been on the fence about this great plugin, the webinar should kick you off of it so to speak. Brad also talks about a new version of ReviewAzon that could be ready in March with even MORE features and he quite possibly could be raising the price in the future. I use the plugin and absolutely love it. It has MORE than paid for itself many times over. You have a ton of flexibility to use the provided templates or create your own for layouts as well. Make sure to watch it when you get a chance.

Moving Wordpress From A Subdirectory To The Root Of A Domain

It has been a long time since I have needed to move Wordpress from a subdirectory to the root of a domain, but recently had to do one of larger sites this way because of certain needs the site had. It is not a fun thing to do, but can be painless if you take your time and do things right. Now you can do things the way Wordpress suggest or you can do it a little less painlessly by following the video below made by Free Technology Tutorials. I have done it both ways and like the second way shown in the video much better. I recently moved one using this method and it went flawless except for a few extra 301 re-directs that I needed done that my buddy Hank from Money Code helped me with.



Before you tackle moving Wordpress in any direction, I highly suggest you take a few precautions before doing so.

1. Do you really need to move it? Do you know exactly why you want to move it? Make sure you know the purpose of moving it.

2. Plan out all the layout, template design, widgets and any URL structure you may need to do before starting. Make a check list of things to do after the move to limit your down time.

3. Decide if you will block out all surfers and search engines while moving the site and set up an appropriate robots.txt file before starting. You may want to allow only your own IP address to view changes before going back live again.

4. Make sure you have backups of all databases and files to keep as originals should anything go wrong. This way you can restore the original should you mess something up and need to attack it another day.

5. Did I mention backing up you files and databases? Just making sure you understand how important this is.

6. Understand completely all the steps of moving before attempting.

7. Will you be needing Big Dump to import a large database? It is a great free script if you are moving a site that has a ton of content or post.

8. After the move look at everything. Go through the site with a fine tooth comb and check links and redirects. Try not to abandon or over look anything before letting surfers and spyders back in.

Researching Your Google Competition

The fine people from Market Samurai released a video and instructions on How To Unmask Your Google Competition using the Market Samurai software. Now if you do not own Market Samurai, that is OK. You will just have a little more leg work to do, but you can at least look at the process and sites they use to get a good clean picture of how your competition looks for any keyword. If you do not own Market Samurai, I have included links to the sites that they reference below. I use both the MS software and Micro Niche Finder in my site research, but the key thing you should learn here is the process of looking at your competition.

http://www.google.com/trends
http://whois.domaintools.com/
http://www.quantcast.com/
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo

The video is below:

Google Offers Limited Time Free Webmaster Test

I came across a free webmaster test that Google is offering until January 27. Google will be revealing the answers shortly after that date, so make sure you save or print out your answers when you are done. I feel I did pretty good on the test myself, but did have to rack my brain on a few of the questions. Read the questions and answers slowly as they can trip you up if you try to fly through them. You will also notice that the quiz is done with Google Docs as well. I have played around with it recently and you can really do some amazing things with it. I plan on using it on an upcoming project myself. OK! Pencils ready? Good luck and go!!!

Yet Another Clean Wordpress Theme

A reader of mine knows how much I like clean Wordpress template themes with tons of white space and emailed me one that I had yet to see. The name of the theme is Plain Scape and you can see a screenshot below. The color is easy to change in the CSS file as well and with a clean logo, makes for a great theme for a niche site. Looks really sharp in maroon or dark red as well. If you know of a clean Wordpress theme with tons of whitespace that I might like, feel free to send it to me and I will post it in the future.

EDITED TO ADD: Seems his hosting is none to good. You can also get the template here I believe. http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/plainscape

Leverage Twitter In Just 10 Minutes A Day

I have become a big fan of Laura Roeder. She knows her stuff when it comes to Twitter and how to leverage Twitter properly to promote your niche or website. Laura pointed out to me that by "driving blind" on Twitter you will not only see zero results but can actually damage your reputation as well. Used strategically, Twitter is a shortcut to placing yourself at the top of your field. But if you're just stumbling through the dark, your Twitter account could be the public embarrassment that sends you straight to the bottom of your niche. Laura has a video training system is called "Your Backstage Pass to Twitter" - once you know the insider's secrets to how Twitter is REALLY used, it becomes effortless to tap into Twitter's existing stream of customers, prospects, and business partners. Laura actually goes into her OWN private twitter account to show you exactly how she manages her settings, followers and messages so that you can do exactly the same. Her methods are not a get-rich-quick scheme or script to get a million followers overnight. It's just the real-deal strategies and techniques for twitter results for both online AND offline businesses. To grab her free video on how to fully Leverage Twitter In Just 10 Minutes and learn more about Your Backstage Pass to Twitter, click here now.

The Best Spinner Download Version Available

A new content spinner that is still in beta testing is now available for download. Currently it is free, but I do not know if there are future plans to charge people that download in the beta version. Regardless, I have played around with it and it does exactly what it says it does. It takes a little playing around with it and I must warn once again that if you use a content spinner, use it responsibly and try to spin very thoroughly. If the starting piece of content is crap, the output will be crap as well. Remember that you should be keeping the surfer in mind as well as the search engines when creating ANY piece of content. I still stand behind the notion that original unique content is the best way to go, but this tool does have it's place in the giant scheme of things. Especially if you are using it for article sites.

Donate To Red Cross If You Can

I admittedly live my life with my head buried in the sand. It is not hard to do when you work full time from home and try to eliminate every ounce of distraction from your life. I have the excellent ability of shutting off the outside world and focusing on only what I need to work on. It is a good quality and a bad one at the same time. I spent some time today and yesterday, catching up with the happenings in Haiti. I knew it was bad, but didn't really realize it was THAT bad. I could not imagine what those people are going through. It is also disheartening to see all of the scam charities that rise to the surface in times like these. It is horrible that they play off of other peoples tragedy and sympathy. The one charity you can trust is the Red Cross. If in doubt, make a donation to them. If you find another charity, please research thoroughly before donating. Seeing things like what has happened in Haiti, lets me know how extremely blessed I am. I do not take it for granted, I assure you. If you can donate ANYTHING to help in the relief effort, please do so.

Shoemoney System Coming Very Soon

The great Shoemoney is putting the final touches on his soon to be released Shoemoney System. Jeremy Schoemaker has spent years perfecting his brand and puts out superior tools and training items. This Shoemoney System should be no different. After you watch this video, signup under the video, for 3 pure content videos where Jeremy explains the 6 ways to make money online, shares how he's killing it on Twitter and walks a newbie through advertising on Facebook. The Facebook video actually opened my eyes to a few things myself. The release is scheduled for the end of January, but if you sign up, you will be notified immediately. He also is offering his 100% money back guarantee. I can't wait for the release myself. Just watch the earlyrelease videos for yourself. He has been working on this project for nearly a year and it shows.

Apps, Apps, Every There's Apps

Apps are the hottest thing going right now to stand out above the crowd. It does not matter what the app is for, be it Facebook, iPhone or whatever you can build one for. More and more sites are cropping up to give the code challenged webmasters a chance to create free apps of their own. Below are two such sites. The first link is a script for making a Facebook app and the second link is for making an iPhone app. While they both have limitations, it is a great place to start. The iPhone app creator is free for one more week I do believe. I will tell you it is very limited, but you can at least design something to get your RSS feeds out there. I would suggest giving away the apps for free until you learn more about getting more thorough apps created and how to effectively use them to drive more traffic to your sites. Have a look around in Google for other such sites as well. Feel free to post what you deem are good ones in the comments.


iPhone App Creator
Facebook App Creator

Michael Gray Breaks Down Types Of Content

If you have been in the business for quite a while, you undoubtedly have come across the Graywolf SEO Blog run by Michael Gray. Today Michael posted about how he creates and manages a Wordpress website. The thing I like best about his post is how he breaks down the different categories of content. He calls them evergreen content, primary content, secondary content, head & tail content, current events, and linkbait/social media content. I have to admit that this is the first time I have heard the term evergreen content though. Michael goes on to point out some plugins he uses along with talking about logos and design. I even picked up the Insights plugin which was new to me. The plugin allows you do searches and create links from the post page without opening a second tab. Very useful indeed. It is a good post and hopefully you get something out of it.

Link Building 101 Chart

Today in my web travels I came across ProspectMX which is a company that specializes in internet marketing strategies and link building amongst other things. One of the great on site pieces of content they have is a printable link building chart in PDF format with a break down of each section. Nicely laid out and very accurate. Not anything earth shattering by any means, but a great reference point for those new to building backlinks. While I haven't had a chance to read many of the blog post, you can view their blog here. One post that caught my eye was one that included a video on How To Find Keyword Conversion Percentage By Landing Page Using Google Analytics. Lots of great info buried in there.

Never Be Too Reliant On One Thing

The latest email from Adam & Kelvin has once again sent shock waves through the BANS community. If you have read my blog for a while, I noted that one should not be hinged on what Adam & Kelvin do in regards to the future of BANS. Is this a slam at A & K? No! It is smart business. BANS remains an excellent learning tool for those new to affiliate marketing and more specifically to niche store building. Until it just doesn't work anymore, it is still viable, especially with all the addons that developers like Tao has integrated in for Amazon and Commission Junction.

BANS is what it is and is what it has been for quite a while. That is not a secret. Several have asked my opinion in regards to the latest email sent today and my opinion has not changed. One should always be moving forward in regards to HOW they build niche sites and WHAT they use to build them with. Wordpress is VERY learn-able and the plugins that support it continue to be endless and innovative. Is Wordpress the end all do all? No! Wordpress however continues to evolve and supported. I use it, but I also use BANS still on several sites as well. I also use integrations of both BANS & Wordpress.

Much like income sources, you should never have all of your eggs in one basket. Whatever the situation. It just is not a good business decision. Sure I understand the frustration by previous emails painting a picture of a new platform by A & K, but I also warned about sitting back and waiting on it. If it comes to fruition, then great. If it doesn't, look at all the time you wasted.

If you are looking for a great Wordpress tutorial all in one place, you might check into the Wordpress Wizard. The videos and instruction is great and well worth the money. Also Wordpress.tv has great tutorial as well for those that do not need their info all in one place.

The Niche Site Building Network Will Go To New Owners

In case you missed the latest email from Adam and Kelvin, here it is below:

We've made our final decision.

1. The Niche Site Building Network Will Go To New Owners

As you know we added 3 programmers to our team during October and we've now expanded to include a general manager, marketing manager and a graphics designer forming a new company called In Colour.

After several sit down meetings in December we reached the following 2 conclusions.

1. We don't want to invest in the development of a website builder confined to the limits of affiliate marketing.

2. A website builder without such pre-defined restrictions is a bigger project than we want to take on at present.

Consequently, The Niche Site Building Network will now be sold and My Simple Site Builder as a development project will be shelved, passing the opportunity to develop the network further to a new owner.

We already have half a dozen leads and the offer will be listed in multiple places.

We expect to complete the transfer by the end of February at the latest.

2. In Colour - Our New Home

InColour.eu will now serve as the new home for all our future projects on which (under 'In Development') you can see the next in line.

The most significant of these - considering the work you've put in to develop networks of niche sites (power bases) is "My Digital Product Manager".

If you would like to learn how to use the niche sites you have built and are building to create new income streams via the selling of relevant information please subscribe to the newsletter list for this product.

Subscribe here: http://www.MyDigitalProductManager.com

We will be illustrating this during February.

-------------

As was evident, 2009 was a transitional year for us, during which we took stock of what we'd done and learnt over the previous 5 years, sorted through all our domains - developed and not, and ultimately decided on our business future.

For our part, we hope you are better off financially and in terms of knowledge than before you first purchased our products and that you continue to successfully use the internet to build your own future, irrespective of the paths you choose.

Best of luck moving forward,

Kelvin and Adam

Site Built With Commission Ritual Update

Back in November I did a review of the Commission Ritual program. I finished a site on December 10th that used this method and bookmarked it on 3 social bookmarking sites just to get the spiders rolling through it. Yesterday marked the month anniversary of the site and it totaled 567 unique surfers through it, with 521 surfers coming from Google. The site earned a total of $72.56. Now it is hard to judge a site by it's first 30 days. I have built sites in the past that have made much more than that in their first month and some that made much less.

Considering I only invested $75.00 of original content into the site, the site has nearly paid for itself. The methods discussed in Commission Ritual are not earth shattering, just another way to build sites. If you have any interest, just try the $4.95 trial to have a quick look at everything that is inside. You will be amazed at the amount of videos inside as well. Brian really has laid out a nice product.

Google Conversion Room Blog

Some how in my travels, I missed the Google Conversion Room Blog. If I didn't miss it, then I forgot about and did not bookmark it. I have been catching up on some Adwords post on the blog and there is some great stuff on there. In addition, there is a free ebook dedicated to increasing the number of website visitors you convert into buyers as well. Linked off of it as well is the AdWords webinar series. If you have thought about using Adwords to drive traffic, I highly suggest you go through everything here first before getting started.

Checking Your Bit.ly Link Shortener Stats

Many of you might be new to using link shorteners. I like to use bit.ly when I can as I like the stats interface it has. Especially when I use it to post links on Twitter. If you use a Twitter application like TweetDeck, it gives you the ability to automatically shorten all of your links if you choose with bit.ly. You can quickly get a look at each links stats page by merely adding a + sign to the end of the link in a browser should you choose so. Here is a link I posted a few days ago with a plus sign added. http://bit.ly/66Joyj+

Using Ping.fm Instructions

Ping.fm is a simple and FREE service that makes updating your social network accounts a breeze. Before you just get on and start spamming away, I suggest you watch this video by Jim Morris. He gives you a bigger picture on just how to use the service and get the most from it and also how to build a social network presence easily without being perceived as spammer. I also suggest that you visit all of the social media sites that you do not belong to and see the rules, regulations and format that each uses. It will take you a bit of time to get everything researched and set up, but will help you get the word out about your niche articles and blog post. Well worth the time to use and learn.

How Dell Makes Money On Twitter

Jennifer Van Grove did an interview with Richard Binhammer from Dell and asked him about Dell's Twitter success. Dell's main strategy as she notes is to turn Twitter into an opportunity to build better relationships with customers. They use it as a platform to directly connect with the customer. She goes on to list the 3 principles that Dell applies when using Twitter.

Tons of big and small businesses are getting on Twitter. Most use it as a spamming tool first until they learn how to use it properly. If you are throwing up links to products on every tweet, do not expect to be successful with Twitter. Many think Twitter is just full of Spam and refuse to accept it as a legitimate tool.

On a final quick note, Jennifer has some excellent articles at Mashable. If you get a chance to browse her work, it is worth the time.

Are We Headed For An Entirely Spun Web?

I wanted to follow up on the post a few days ago on the The Future Of Web Content. I came across another article I missed on TechCrunch entitled, The End Of Hand Crafted Content. The article is both enlightening, yet disturbing. Now I admit to spinning content myself, mostly for article sites. This time of year it is normal to see more spun content start to resurface along with people asking about spinning content (or rewriting content) which to me is really the same thing.

Can a site full of well spun content survive and rank. If spun well enough to pass a Copyscape check and with enough QUALITY backlinks, no reason to think you can't according to the article. Does it mean it is right or legal? I guess you could get quite a few different opinions depending on who you ask. Don't we all really just do research and reformulate articles we find anyway? Especially if we are not very knowledgeable on the niche to begin with. I could write forever on fixing problems with Windows or PC's. I can't write forever on using a Mac. I know nothing about them. I could however read up and rewrite articles on it though or pay someone to.

All of this lends more credence though to charging for the content in niches that you know you can be an authority on. On the flip side you can see how spinning or rewriting articles THOROUGHLY could work as well. Just as a test, I will likely try a site in the near future of completely well spun articles that completely pass a Copyscape check, mainly because I want to see for myself if it works. You would have to think that some how Google would catch onto all of this in the near future. Perhaps though it could be the ultimate hole in Google and the one with the best SEO and backlinks would win. Isn't that what Google was trying to get away from in the first place? If everyone starts doing it, isn't that where we are headed? I, in no way endorse a site full of spun content, but it seems right now that it is totally acceptable.

Final question is, how long until your spun content is spun or rewritten by someone else though? Are we headed for an entirely spun web?

DISCLAIMER: This blog post was not spun. Not yet!

Under Construction Wordpress Plugins

Ever had to do some work on a Wordpress site, but wanted the surfers to get an under construction page? Yep there are Wordpress plugins for that and I have listed the 2 I use below, plus 3 more you may or may not find useful. A reader asked me about this via email today and instead of assuming everybody knew these were available, I wanted to post a quick blurb about it. Whatever you do, make sure you remember to let the surfers back in after doing maintenance. I forgot one for a few days before.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/maintenance-mode/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/underconstruction/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/custom-coming-soon-page/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/302-moved-temporarily/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wet-maintenance/

The Future Of Web Content - Will Surfers Pay For Good Content?

I ran across an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled Big Media Gambles That Content Will Rule. It is a look at how big media companies might be getting away from free content supported by advertising to a model more like pay to read or subscription. Now this will not only be written content as video should also be included in this as well along with other content forms.

I have seen this already in some newspaper sites I visit and with newspapers companies seeing their bottom line shrink daily, and you will see more of it in the near future. Further searching I came across an article on Tim Armstrong, the somewhat still new AOL CEO, on how he sees the game of content.

I am still researching more on this, but the one thing we know and have known, is there will always be a demand for great content. Not so much product reviews, but how to articles and more deep rooted informational articles related to whatever niche. If you can write this yourself or outsource at a good price, the only barrier then is making money from it. If you have a stronghold on a niche and are somewhat an authority on it, it could present an opportunity to start charging for it. Is that far off? Hard to say, because so many people offer great content for free. On the flip side, there are several memberships that I have related to making money online that I pay for. That market will always be around so it is fathomable that it could cross over to more mainstream as well and be accepted.

Bottom line is the content should be great. Not just spun for the search engines. Readers know good content when they see it and great content should be able to be monetized with supported ads or affiliate product links for the near future. I think major media outlets may be jumping the gun, but can visualize it being what most do in 10 years or so. Just keep making great content as their could be a shortage of free content soon and readers will be starved.

The Six Figure Blogging Income Flowchart

I came across a great post by Amit Bhawani. He shows the simple flow chart of Steps to Make Six Figure Blogging Income. While the chart is not earth shattering, it is a simple road map. Of course the getting links part is where most stumble, partly because the content is not very good and secondly the content is not put out there enough in the social media world in an attempt to attract backlinks. Sure, I highly suggest the regular article submissions to directories, spaced out link directory submissions, a few paid text links and such, but where most end up failing is the quality content. Spinning is making its annual rise back in popularity, but if I spin articles, I usually do so to go off site. I want the good stuff on my own sites. You can even see some of the sites Bhawani owns here. You can even research his backlinks as well. The road map is simple. Just add some creativity and consistency to it.

Using Twitter Hashtags Effectively

If you have used Twitter at all, you by all means have seen the hash tag used in Tweets. It is the # sign. Many people will follow a subject instead of following a certain Twitter user. It makes following certain tweets on certain subjects easier. I like to refer to them as using category tags or tags on Wordpress post. For example, if I were to make a tweet about a certain coffee creamer I am selling or want to tell the world about, my tweet might look like this:

Have you tried the Vanilla Caramel Sugar Free creamer from Nestle yet? Great product for weight loss. #coffee #diet http://bit.ly/66Joyj

As you can see, I am using coffee & diet as what I deem the master category of people I am trying to market to. Now other words of course like Vanilla, Caramel, weight loss and Sugar Free will show up in searches, but I want to appeal to a broader category and thus the hash tags. By using hash tags like you would a category tag, you will get more people reading your Tweets and perhaps more followers as well.

Finding Your New Year Hot Button

The new year is here and you can see the returning pilgrimage of several niche site owners back to make another run at developing a consistent income online. This business, like any other, takes hard work and dedication. It also requires you to be goal orientated as well. Everyone has a hot button, it is something that you desire that would make walk on hot coals or run through a wall if you knew you could have it. Some have multiple hot buttons, but I guarantee you that one ranks higher than the another.

My hot button is Las Vegas, more specific, the Sportsbook inside the Mirage Hotel and Casino. I keep pictures around my office and in front of my eyes all the time. It drives me. It keeps my finish line in front of my eyes at all times. The city of Las Vegas happens to be my wife's hot button as well. It is our destiny. We travel out there at least once a year and have done so for the last 10 years. We are very close to achieving this goal. In another year and half or so when the real estate market changes, we will sell all of our properties and be on our way.

As you get back into the business, you need to find your own hot button and keep it in front of you. It will drive you on days you feel like doing nothing. It should be in front of your eyes at all time. You should obsess about it. It will drive your subconscious and I promise it will make you a more productive person.

What is your hot button?