EWAHR Newsletter and choosing a blog topic

Welcome back! I will begin today with the EWAHR newsletter. For those of you who have already signed up, Thank You. The newsletter will be emailed in the first week of each month..

The news letter will include: a review not posted at the EWAHR blog, upcoming topics, special coupons and discounts from my affiliate marketing partners and links to affiliate marketing partners not advertised at the blog.

I would also like to invite followers of the blog to submit a short article (200-400 words) on how you are building your home based business. I will feature 1 submitted article each month in the newsletter. I will also add a link to your website or e-mail. Articles may be submitted at ewahr2011@yahoo.com

Selecting a blog topic can be the toughest task of all when starting a home based online business. There are so many factors going into the equation. Subject, content, webpage, traffic, SEO, audience, advertising, affiliate marketing and the list goes on.

Subject matter to me, is the most important concept. The idea is to create a blog that will have some longevity. If you have been doing this (building an online business) for any length of time, you know it doesn't happen overnight. So, pick a subject that will keep your interest for the next few years.

You will need to add fresh content to your blog at regular intervals. I update my blog daily. This is the only way to keep traffic coming back to your webpage. People won't return to read the same thing they read a month ago.

You don't need to be the world's leading expert on a given subject to write about it in a blog, you just need to relay your perspective.

Subjects literally range from A to Z. It can be animal, mineral or vegetable. For every subject, there is an audience out there dying for more information. You have an opportunity to provide that information.

Hobbies, work experience, musical or artistic talents, opinions, poetry, children's stories, life experiences, relationship advice or just about anything else you can imagine can be used as a blog subject. If you have been employed as a Doctor. Lawyer, Indian chief, Butcher, Baker or Candlestick maker you have blogging material.

Like I have said before, I spent a number of years in manufacturing. I have met 100's of “Experts” (degreed persons) and even more, useful non-experts (those of us with out degrees, who have been doing the same job for 10 years or more) who had more practical knowledge than the “Experts”.

Do not sell yourself short 99ers!! We worked hard for many, many years. The knowledge we have collected over those years is valuable and needed. Whether you know the best cleaning products for mopping tile floors or you can re-build a diesel engine with your eyes closed. You have information other people can use.

Make a list of 10 things you could talk about with your friends or neighbors. Put the items you like the best at the top. Now look at the top 3.

Any of them look like something people would want to read about? Are you passionette about any of them? Could you have a conversation with a friend or neighbor about the subject?

Well then my friend, you have a blog topic.

Like always, join and follow the blog, click the banners and text links to start making money. You can use the EWAHR Forum to post questions or request a review of a site or, you can e-mail me directly at ewahr2011@ yahoo.com

Peace.

The EWAHR forum

When I started this blog it was my intent to provide a journal (road map) of my efforts to create a profitable home based internet marketing business. This business would produce the same income as a part time job.

I intentionally set the bar low. I do not have expectations of making thousands of dollars a day on the internet. I figured if I create an online business that creates $600 a month, then this project is a success.

I can then pass on the information free of charge to help fellow 99ers. I suppose I could put it in an e-book and leave out all the important details so you will buy the next book, but that's not how I roll.

The advertising at the site serves 2 purposes. First to give you exposure to quality affiliate marketing partners. 

And secondly to create income. I am counting on people reading the blog to click the links I provide when they need need a product or service. I am counting on my reputation as someone who provides you with good information to convince you to use the links, when making a purchase.

Within this blog I have also created a forum section. I added it to provide readers a place to ask questions, seek advice, share ideas, share opportunities, rant, rave and otherwise create a community of budding small internet business owners.

Unlike other forums, I encourage you to submit a link to a business opportunity that actually works.

But in doing so, keep in mind the mission of this blog. Post only genuine business opportunities that you are using. Links to business opportunities must be in text link format only. Please post each opportunity only once. Repeat submissions will be removed. I will also monitor the links and if they go nowhere and offer nothing they will be removed. Do unto others......

Sorry, for all the negatives in one module. Deep breath.., Moving on!!

Now we have an open forum to discuss success and or failures. This is all part of the plan. This blog will quite literally “hold your hand” as you begin to develop a profitable home based business.

I know this sounds cliché' but, there truly is no such thing as a “stupid question”. I have had many, many employees ask me a question who's answer was completelty obvious to me, yet completely alien to them. I have also seen so-called “stupid questions” save time, money and injury.

If you have a question about anything I post (or have posted) let me know and I will do my best to find you the answer you are looking for. All the programs I share or review are driven by the indivdual using the program. Different users will produce different results.

As a Quality Manager your worth is measured in how much money you save a company. With that being said, I was responsible for ensuring each process ran at optimal levels. For the most part our processes didn't change much. The only consistant variable was the operator (the person running the machine). So, if a process wasn't “producing”, the first thing I looked at who was “pushing the button”.

I had a round peg, square hole rant a while back so I will spare you the rhetoric. Everybody processes information differently. Some people need support where others consistantly work “without a net”. My point is, just because someone tells you “anyone can do it”, don't feel bad (or alone) if you need support. I am here to offer you that support.

Like always, join and follow the blog, click the banners and text links to start making money. You can use the EWAHR Forum to post questions or request a review of a site or, you can e-mail me directly at ewahr2011@ yahoo.com

Peace.

More non web based work at home opprtunities

The last direct selling opportunity I want to discuss is Procard International. Procard International offers customers a program of doctors, dentist and eyecare specialist who have a greed to offer a discount to holders of the card sold by Procard International.

They also offer three other marketing programs available to registered users. One is a Local Discounts card. I had a friend involved in one of these in the 80's it is a very hard sell. U.S. Junk mail as an active associate, you can activate consumers in this program that helps protect both the environment and your personal identity. And PizzaDelivery.com with this you set up a website that provides customers with a pizza restaruant search engine.

I got invovled with Procard because of the large number of unemployed without health insurance. The card itself is priced reasonably and provides the basic needs. For as low as $26.95/month you can save 10%-60% on Dental, Optical, Rx and Physician services at over 350,000 providers nationwide. No limits on yearly visits, no paperwork, no age limits, and no health restrictions.

If you do not have access to health insurance or use it rarely like my wife and I, this is worth a look.
You can market the card or you can market the program as a work at home opportunity. Emails scripts, telemarketing scripts, business to business scripts, HTML banners, business cards, and brochures are all available for you to download free of charge.

You can become an active member by purchasing a website ($23.90/month) or by enrolling another individual in the plan. There are no membership or monthly fees (except the optional website). I haven't spent a lot of time working through all the details, but I am very interested in getting this program off the ground.

Another popular work at home opportunity is data entry. I do not touch type, so it not an option for me.

But for those of you who have decent typing skills or are multi lingual it is, an option. Amazon Mechanical Turk has work for transcription and translation. Of the many, many hits available transcription and translation pay the most.

There are also a number of other companies that offer data entry postions. These range from simple data entry to medical transcription. Again execeptional typing skills are required. Medical transcription was a big deal in the 90's. My wife even looked into opportunities. Schooling is required (you must know medical coding) and you have to find work yourself.

There is also work from home opportunities in customer service.Alpine Access and Arise offer a virtual help desk to customers. They then contract or hire people to work from their homes answering calls. Companies like

I had read Alpine Access was a very good prospect. They actually hire employees full or part time and offer benefits. Pay is $9.00/hr. But the advantages of working out of your home speak for themselves.

I had also read thousands of people apply and very few get a chance to interview.

Well, my wife decided to take time and check it out. She was commuting an hour one way, six days per week. With gas at near $4/gal. and rising, She was spending nearly half her bring home pay in fuel. She did the math and figured it was worth the time it took to apply.

Within two days she received a call to set up a telephone interview. The interview went well and she was offered a postion. She was also told there are many opportunities for advancement within the company.

She is not degreed (although she does have a 1yr certificate in accounting) and has been employed as an office and retail store manager. Her resume even reflects the years she took off to be a mom.

I think with any CSR position phone skills mean a lot in the initial interviews. My point being her background is not specific to customer service, yet they offered her a position. She plans to accept the position. If you are interested in customer service positions visit their site.

Another popular option is Mystery Shopping. You are paid to review customer service at various retail outlets and shops. You shop without the employees knowing you are documenting your shopping experience. You may be asked to shop for a certain item and you are then reimbuirsed for the cost.

I have contacted a couple of them and have not so much as received a return e-mail. So I can't speak for myself of their worth as a money making opportunity. You can find a review here at Work at Home No Scams.com

Hopefully that give you some options when looking at non web based work at home opportunities.

There are of course, a thousands more out there and more being created daily.

If you have found one that works for you let us know by using the forum. I will discuss my intent for the forum section in tomorrows blog.

Like always, join and follow the blog, click the banners and text links to start making money. You can use the EWAHR Forum to post questions or request a review of a site or, you can e-mail me directly at ewahr2011@ yahoo.com

Peace.

Non web-based home business opportunities

I hope everyone had a joyuos holiday. Now back to work. I chose affiliate marketing due to the fact you have numerous options for marketing products and services without investing any capitol.

But, what about other home based business opportunities? There are hundreds of them available from Amway to Yard clean-up. Here is a great master list of 130 different options for a home based business. The issue, if you remember is, I have little to no start up capitol.

Well I didn't when I started this project in February. By using M-turk, MySurvey and Vindale Research to create income, I now have a small amount money to I can use, to invest in other home based business opportunities.

Being a child of the 70's I was exposed to many different home based business ideas over the years. The problem I have with most is the direct selling/closing aspect of them. If I had any ambitions of being a sales person it was crushed when I was in my early twenties.

I was going to Community College and looking for part time work. I saw a classified ad for a entry level sales person. I interviewed and was offered a job selling blown in cellulose insulation. At that time this was a new process and it was springtime.

Next to selling life insurance, insulation for the home has to be the most difficult intangible to sell. “You want me to pay you $2300.00 for something I will never see and I won't see any financial benefit for a year? After about a month's worth of no's I gave up. The bad thing is, it kind of stuck with me over the years.

A lot of it had to do with the people marketing the product as well as lack training they offered me. But I never (until recently) really got good at excepting no for an answer.

After 30 years in manufacturing, QA and customer service, I have now learned (in business) the word no sometimes means “You didn't convince me.”

At that point you have to become a closer, you have to convince them they can't live without your product. I am no good at that. I assume it is because I hate (yes, I said hate) “the hard sell”. If you try to “hard sell” me, I am out the door. Which makes it hard for me to “hard sell” someone else.

If you are a good closer, then there are hundreds of direct sales opportunities available.

Companies like Amway have been in the business of direct selling door to door since 1959. I grew up in Michigan as a youth. Amway's manufacturing facitlity in Ada, MI was about an 90 minutes north of my hometown. Everybody had some sort of Amway cleaning product under their sink.

The product line has grown, but they still have (in my opinion) the highest quality products available for purchase. They have a great sales program, high quality products and extensive training available to anyone who wants to take advantage of it.

I have two close friends who started in Amway in the late 80's and have since retired. They were both working professionals (he a broker, she a nurse) and they were able to quit those jobs and retire with Amway.

The issue I have is the fact you really have to “drink the kool-aid” when it comes to being really successful with Amway. You have to “live and breathe” the product line, attend functions, listen to recorded lectures etc.

It is not a negeative by any means, They preach good moral values, honest hard work, respect, dignity and a lifestyle few can achieve. If you can devote your life to a home based business Amway is an excellent choice.

Another very common home based business opportunity is Avon Products. The company was founded in 1886 by then 28-year-old David H. McConnell who sold books door-to-door and gave out perfume to entice women to buy his books.

I am sure most people living in the USA have sampled or used an Avon product in their lifetime. I remember my mother selling Avon in the seventies and making money.

Avon is just as marketable in this economy as it was back then. I read a statistic that stated there are thousands of abandoned Avon customers looking for a new representative. Avon customers are very loyal to the brand name. The intial investment is $20.

The program is very impressive. Well designed, easy to understand and use. They even offer a you a website to use for promoting products. The program is much too complicated to explain in a blog. If you click this link you will go to my wife's Avon Website. Click on the banner (see even Avon uses banners) to get details on becoming a representative.

After reviewing the opportunity, my wife and I decided to add the program. We will mainly be using the my website, Facebook, Twitter and email to market the program. Of course we will hand deliver brochures and products to friends, neighbors and relatives who live near by, but most of the sales will be direct shipped from Avon to the customer.

After reviewing the program (and this is my opinion) if you don't make money with Avon it is your lack of effort. Everything is layed out in front of you, with a stellar reputation backing it up. All you have to do is hand people the brochure or direct them to your website. The products truly sell themselves. Of course, you can help sell them too. Big bang for very few bucks.

My next blog will cover more non web-based home business opportunities.

Like always, join and follow the blog, click the banners and text links to start making money. You can use the EWAHR Forum to post questions or request a review of a site or, you can e-mail me directly at ewahr2011@ yahoo.com

Peace.

Happy Holiday Re-post of definitions of words or phrases used in Internet marketing

Since it Easter Sunday and a beautiful day here in Southern Wisconsin, I will not be posting a new blog today. 

This is a re-post of definitions for words or phrases used in internet marketing. I wish you all a safe and happy holiday.

It has been brought to my attention that I may be assuming everyone understands the Internet marketing lingo I have been using daily. I would like to take today to provide definitions of some commonly used words in Internet marketing.

Blog - A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links.

Forum- an online community where visitors may read and post topics of common interest.

Internet Marketing - is an all-inclusive term for marketing products and/or services online – and like many all-inclusive terms, Internet marketing means different things to different people.

Website - A website, or Web site, is not the same thing as a Web page. Though the two terms are often used interchangeably, they should not be. So what's the difference? To put it simply, a Web site is a collection of Web pages.

Web page - A Web page is an individual HTML document. Web pages can either be static or dynamic. Static pages show the same content each time they are viewed. Dynamic pages have content that can change each time they are accessed.

Web Hosting - the business of providing the storage, connectivity, and services necessary to serve files for a website.

Link - a link (text or banner) to a site outside of your site

URL - stands for Uniform Resource Locator. The location of a resource on the Internet.

Hit - request of a file from a Web server.

Page view - request to load a single HTML page.

Impression - An impression is counted each time a Web page is shown to a visitor. Impressions are counted each time a page is visited by a user, so a single user can rack up numerous impressions for one website.

Unique Impressions - Unique impressions, which count only the number of unique visits to a website. For example, if one person views 3 pages on a website, while another person views 4 and and a third person views 10, their visits would total 17 impressions, but only 3 unique impressions.

Clicks - the process of clicking through an online advertisement to the advertiser's destination.

Click through rate (CTR) - The average number of click-throughs per hundred ad impressions, expressed as a percentage.

Conversion Rate - The percentage of visitors who take a desired action.The desired action can take many forms, varying from site to site. Examples include sales of products, membership registrations, newsletter subscriptions, software downloads, or just about any activity beyond simple page browsing.

Pay per click (PPC) - online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying click-throughs.

Pay per Lead (PPL) - online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely based on qualifying leads.

Pay per Sale (PPS) - online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely based on qualifying sales.

Banner - A graphical web advertising unit, typically measuring 468 pixels wide and 60 pixels tall.

Banner Exchange – A network where participating sites display banner ads in exchange for credits which are converted (using a predetermined exchange rate) into ads to be displayed on other sites.

Affiliate - the publisher/salesperson in an affiliate marketing relationship.

Affiliate marketing - revenue sharing between online advertisers/merchants and online publishers/salespeople, whereby compensation is based on performance measures, typically in the form of sales, clicks, registrations, or a hybrid model.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - the process of choosing targeted keyword phrases related to a site, and ensuring that the site places well when those keyword phrases are part of a Web search.

Keyword - a word used in a performing a search.

Keyword Density – the number of keywords as a percentage of indexable text words.

Whew, and that is only some of the basic vocabulary you will need while Internet marketing. I will try to be more mindful of definitions as we move forward. If I missed anything, please let me know.

Like always, join and follow the blog, click the banners and text links to start making money. You can use the EWAHR forum to post questions or request a review of a site.

Peace.

Why Affiliate Marketing?

Why Affiliate marketing? With so many opportunities for a home based business available why would I choose Affiliate marketing? One word- Options.

Affiliate marketing offers me the option to represent brand name products from well established companies of my choosing. They will in turn pay me an advertising fee or sales commision for transactions originating from my websites.

I can now offer followers of my blog hundreds of products from top companies. Unlike some sites I am very particular about relevence and value of the companies I represent at my websites.

I know I keep saying this but, this is a long term venture. I am not looking to take the money and run.

Reputation goes a long way in any type of marketing, the companies I have chosen have a solid reputation for quality and value. I want happy, satisfied customers who, not only come back but also refer friends and relatives.

The best advertisement you can recieve is a personal recommendation from a happy customer.

And I am able to do this without contacting all these companies directly and working out a deal. How is this done? I use Commission Junction and ClickBank as my affiliate networks.

Commission Junction is an online advertising company owned by ValueClick and operates in the affiliate marketing industry. The company is the largest affiliate network in North America and operates worldwide. Of the top 500 retailers using 3rd party affiliate marketing software, 62% are powered by Commission Junction.

Basically, Commission Junction acts as a “broker”. They are contracted to develop a relationship with 3^rd party marketers (like you and I) to advertise their products and services. CJ handles the interaction with the 3^rd party marketers and keeps track of all the statistics and distributes payments.

Here is another great example of networking and leveraging. A company such as AVG Technologies now has thousands of people advertising their product, and it does not cost them a dime until a transaction is completed on their end. Brilliant!!

ClickBank was founded in 1998, ClickBank is a secure online retail outlet for more than 50,000 digital products and 100,000 active affiliate marketers. They offer the same type of service as CJ but sell only digital products (software, CDs,DVDs). They offer products in 23 different catagories from Arts and Entertainment to Travel.

Commission can be very high 80% or more, this is due the fact the products and the companies that supply them are relatively unkown. When choosing affiliate marketing partners from ClickBank I look at product closely. No disrespect to ClickBank, I just do not want anyone to not get what they paid for.

Between the two, I have plenty of options for affiliate marketing partners. All my affiliate partners offer a wide variety of advertising links and banners.

Placing them at your site is as easy as choosing the ad, copying the HTML or Java script code and pasting it at your site. The code contains your member code number to ensure transactions are credited to your account. And once again, and this is the best part, is all offered for you use free of charge.

The two websites, advertising from 16 affiliate marketing partners and I am not spending one single dime. Even, if I was to get an offer for my dream job (drummer for Lynyrd Skynyrd) I would continue to keep the websites in a position to be profitable.

This may be why some people claim running a online home based business is so easy to do. They just neglect to tell you about the six weeks it takes to get the ball rolling!!

All my affiliate partners are seeing impressions everyday of the week. Time will tell who will bCommission Junction, Clcikbanke the most profitable.

Like always, join and follow the blog, click the banners and text links to start making money. You can use the EWAHR Forum to post questions or request a review of a site or, you can e-mail me directly at ewahr2011@ yahoo.com

Peace.

Adding another website

Now the blog site is up and running smoothly I can spend some time working on other sites to market my affiliate markting partners. Even though this site is showing signs of steady growth, I still want to be as diverse as possible.

Diversity- differing from one another. Keep in mind we are trying to find a niche market for each site. Besides narrowing focus, a niche market also lowers the number of interested parties. Multiple websites allows reaching more than one niche market.

The second format I chose to use is the forum style site. Over the past couple of years I have spent some time in a half dozen or so forums. For the most part the posters are friendly and helpful while other sites are full of elitests who are never wrong and belittle those who disagree.

Regardless of the mood of the site, every one I have visited sees a fair amount of traffic. They are also a good place to sell. Many of the postings are from people looking for advice to make a purchase. This is a great opportunity to get your products in front of a ready to buy audience.

Since I am a musician, I built a music related forum. I also have a love for inexpensive equipment that does the job. Most budding musicians start out on entry level equipment. But, when you visit some of these forums the elite do nothing but tell you you have a piece of junk and you should buy something else.

My site Poppy's Cheap Gear Forum and Review caters to the entry level musician and their budget. Musicians can discuss their equipment and ask questions from other members. I also review a different piece of equipment each month and invite members to post reviews.

It will also be used to market products. Some of the affiliate marketing partners I have, were chosen specifically for the the forum. While partners like AVG, Yahoo Affiliates, GoDaddy.com and Vision Premier Prepaid Visa are affiliate partners offering products to home based business owners.

Rock.com Store, Nerdy Shirts, Fretlight Guitars, Riff Master Pro, Jamorama and Poppy's Guitar Zone are all music or musician related.

I am targeting the niche market made up of musicians, young and old, who buy entry level equipment. Like any good affiliate marketer I will promote those partners in my blog articles.

Now onto the construction of the new site. I had such good luck with Yola as my webhost for the blog. It made sense to build other sites there as well.

It wasn't obvious to me at first, that you could use Yola to create a forum. I contacted Customer Service and I got an answer the next day. Every time I have sent a message to C.S. I have received a response back very quickly.

Yola makes it very easy with a widget (a small application that can be installed and executed within a web page by an end user) from Tal.ki. The widget does all the work. You simply drag it where you want it, drop it and Tal.ki does the rest.

I added other pages for banner links and reviews, but it took me no more than an hour to complete the site. I actually spent more time findning the picture I used on the home page, than any other function in setting up the site.

Now the site is up and I have affiliate marketing partners to advertise at the site, I will need to drive traffic to the site. I have already started posting the site on Craigslist and received a few visitors and 2 members. Next, I will start to visit other forums to spread the word.

I wrote another guest blog at 99ers.net. It is about making the decision to blog. Make sure you visit Dan's site. He is working very hard to provide help and information for those who have been out of work for 99 weeks or more.

Like always, join and follow the blog, click the banners and text links to start making money. You can use the EWAHR Forum to post questions or request a review of a site or, you can e-mail me directly at ewahr2011@ yahoo.com

Peace.

Avoiding Scams

Avoiding scams is not as hard as you might think.. First let's discuss the definition of a scam.

Scam: a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation <an insurance scam> /Merriam-Webster. A true scam is designed to take money from an individual and give little or nothing in return.

So, as long as the second party receives something it's not a scam. Maybe not, but it is still wrong. I have 2 main rules that govern my life. Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you and What goes around comes around.

I would have a very hard time taking peoples money and giving them little or nothing in return. That is not the case for many. Rather than try to explain how to identify a scam, I will show you examples from real website advertisments.

  

I used a program called Jing. It is a free program that allows you to capture and manipulate computer screen images among other things. I have placed a red box around the area I want to focus on.

When you view internet ads for money or credits you get to see the best of the best and the worst of the worst. I am goin to share some of the worst and one of the best. First, let me say I found all these examples viewing only 18 ads. Click the hyperlink at the beginning of each module to view the example.

Nonsensical titles- These are ads who's title make no sense at all. It is so packed with keywords it loses all meaning. I also like the absence of a photo. I wouldn't want to be identified with this site either.

Bad Math- This one brags about payout, but if you take time to do the math you see the payout is $11 a month. Nothing to brag about. This one probably should have stuck with the generic Avatar.

Rankings- I see this all the time, ads claiming a #1 rating by some unknown ranking site. This one is great because the rating comes from themselves. Active Safelist was rated #1 by Safelist Rankings. 10 bucks says they are one in the same.

Just Silly- Some ads are just silly. This one claims even a homeless person can make money using their system. They even give the homeless person a place to enter their e-mail address.

The Devil in the details- this one gives you all the details. The problem is one of the details says the have 229 members and have paid out nothing to them. You can probably expect the same.

Money for nothing- If you have lived in America for very long you know there is no such thing. My favorite line is “All with-out telling, selling or explaining anything to anybody!”.

How will anybody know you are selling anything, if you don't tell anybody? Even after you pay them $70, I'll bet they don't know how to do it either.

No spam please- One thing you probably should have, if you don't already, is an email address just for your online business. Gmail and Yahoo will issue multiple email addresses for free.

Get one, because no matter what they say, you will get spammed. I am pretty sure if a site makes it a point to say they won't spam you, they probably will.

Sadly, this is just the tip of the iceberg and they keep coming up with new things everyday. Next I will share a site that is not a scam.

Although it is a hard way to make a lot of money, ClickSense delivers exactly what they sell. All the details are clearly defined and do not change from month to month.

You watch a 30 second ad and you get paid for viewing (normally a penny) that ad. They also have hot buttons on their page that lead where it says they will lead, not to some other site.

The next shot shows the details of how the program works. I know for a fact all the statements are true. They even provide numbers that back up what they say. 

If you divide the amount paid out ($1,233,136.20) by the number of members (1,140,196) you get an average pay-out of $1.08 per member. Don't be fooled by big numbers. If you want to know the answer, do the math.

This is inline with what really happens when you join. Since I joined I have made $1.44.

One of the goals of this site is to help you identify the scams and find the real opportunities to develop income online with your home based business. I hope this helps.

Like always, join and follow the blog, click the banners and text links to start making money. You can use the EWAHR Forum to post questions or request a review of a site or, you can e-mail me directly at ewahr2011@ yahoo.com

Peace.

Work at home success

As of today, I am completely satisfied with this webpage and my daily blog. Getting to this point took approximately 6 weeks. I like the look of the page , the length and style of the blog, I am happy with my affiliate marketing partners and I am very happy (and thankful) for the traffic.

The traffic being all of you who read this blog. The fact that the banner and text link ads are getting impressions means people are visiting the site. People visiting the sites means my efforts to drive traffic to the sites are working. I consider it a success. Now the job is to steadily increase traffic and sales.

The site has not created income to this point, but it is also has not cost me a dime to operate other than the electricity to run my PC and my time. I will continue to update the blog daily and review as many home based business opportunities as I can. Like I stated yesterday, I fully believe I will see income from my affiliate marketing efforts yet this quarter.

So, instead of talking about this blog everyday I will start to share the other sites progress. But, before I do that I want to share some of the changes and tips I learned in the last 6 weeks.

First of all, If you want to start a home based online business using no start up capitol, you need start by working online. Sign up with Amazon M-Turk and a good survey provider or two like MySurvey or Vindale Research and start getting paid for working online. The extra $20-$30 a month will pay for business cards or any monthly fees you have accuired.

This should provide you with plenty of income to get the ball rolling. Take advantage of free services. Google, Yahoo, Yola, Blogger all are excellent places to get these free resources.

You can even practice blogging at Squidoo and get critiques and tips from other bloggers. One of the best tips was to use smaller paragraphs or modules when writing a blog. Here is a paragraph from my second blog at Blogger.

Hello again,

  I spent some time last night going through the sites where I am registered to earn money viewing e-mails ads. The first thing I realized was, I do not like the "sales pitch" in general. Having spent a number of years in manufacturing I have heard "the pitch" a thousand times! Be it from supervisors looking for more resources to foreman trying to get parts or processes approved. "The pitch" always comes with quantifiers, all the reasons the part or process isn't perfect and never will be.
  Most of the ads I reviewed were merely a re-hash of the same tired cliches. It's like they are not even trying a full 50% of the time, just throw some text into the template and sit back and let the money roll in! They give little to no reason to even view the entire page. And the cars and women, come on ladies and gentleman, haven't we moved past using these two things to portray  happiness. It's getting insulting. I can see why some people are buying up these sites, re-working them and "flipping" them, they must be totally useless to the people who purchased them. Just because anyone "can build a website of their own" doesn't mean they should.  More on that later, it is something I am going to pursue later this month.

Notice how everything is bunched together, bland and difficult to read. Even though it has a few keywords, it is not optimized.

This is from a blog I posted last week.

I want the reader comfortable as they read. I also want the reader to come back. So I have an RSS link (Really Simple Syndication) so you don’t have to go to the site every day, it comes to you. I know in my case, if I have to “work for” or wait to view a website, I am moving on.

If you keep these things in the foreground, you can save yourself some time. Of course a blog based site is not your only option. Though, I think it is a very good solid option.

I also have a forum style site. This is a site designed to allow musicians to post questions and comments about musical equipment. It is in fact another “Tool” I am using for affiliate marketing. I use the site to post advertising for my affiliate partners. I chose the affiliate partners specifically aimed at the musician demographic (a specific group of customers). Visit the site and you can review this option.

Nice short modules, space between the modules and lots of keywords (I still higlight them for your benefit). These tips and many more I will share are secrets the System Sellers don't want you to know.

For the most part the System Sellers don't want to see you again after you have paid for the system unless you signed on to pay a monthly fee then they want to hear from you once a month. The sad fact is 80% of them don't have anything to sell. They are just sending you to another site and getting an advertising or referral fee.

The best example I ever saw was during my first year of community college. The local paper had a classified ad which stated; Send me $5 and I will send you a fool proof way to make money at home.

Since I was a fool at the time, I sent him 5 bucks (which is like 30 bucks today) and he sent me a letter.

The letter stated I should place a classified ad in the local newspaper telling people to; Send me $5 and I will send you a fool proof way to make money at home. And they should do the same. He sold me a system.

I am pretty sure in constituted mail fraud and didn't get invovled, but getting someone to send you $5 and all it cost you is a piece of paper, an envelope and a stamp is a great scam.

Next time I will discuss how to identify a scam.

Like always, join and follow the blog, click the banners and text links to start making money. You can use the EWAHR Forum to post questions or request a review of a site or, you can e-mail me directly at ewahr2011@ yahoo.com

Peace.

Simply SEO

Keywords (a word used in a performing a search) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO, the process of choosing targeted keyword phrases related to a site, and ensuring that the site places well when those keyword phrases are part of a web search) are tools that must be used to create and maintain a profitable website.

“choosing targeted keyword phrases related to a site, and ensuring that the site places well when those keyword phrases are part of a web search”. That's about as clear as mud!! Let's break it down and I will show you examples of each.

Keywords, a word used in performing a search. The majority of people searching for a product or service on the internet, will enter a complete or partial sentence as their search criteria. If someone is looking for a purse, they may enter the query “purses”. If they do they will get millions of hits relating to purses.

The search engine spiders (A spider is a program that a search engine uses to seek out information on the internet, as well as to index the information that it finds so that actual search results appear when a search query for a keyword is entered. ) will comb the web looking for any webpage with the word “Purse” in the content. More specifically the keywords in the header (a line or lines of text serving to indicate what the passage below it is about). Purse is the keyword. 

 

Here is what a search for Purses looks like. Purses search results 42,500,000 results returned .

If you have a couple of weeks you could sort through the list and find the purse you want. Or, you could be more specific. This time you search for Liz Claiborne Purses (that's what my wife buys) you get this.Liz Claiborne purses search results 728,000 results returned .

Still a lot more choices than you will want to go through. And those who have used the internet for shopping for any length of time know to be as specific as possible to narrow search results.

So, know we search for Liz Claiborne silver beaded evening clutches for less than $35 you get this.Liz Claiborne silver beaded evening clutches for less than $35 search results 30,600 results returned.

Notice how the amount of results gets smaller and smaller as the search query is more clearly defined.

But know the keyword issue becomes more complex.

 

Let's look at the query, Liz Claiborne silver beaded evening clutches for less than $35. 

 

Now, the spiders are looking for the keywords; Liz Claiborne, silver, beaded, evening, clutches and less than $35. And here is what they found in the first site listed. Cached results

The content of the page is Keyword rich. It has been optimized using those keywords in the body of the page. If you look at that page at the top you will see, Keyword results.

If you scroll down you can see where the keywords are highlighted in the text.

This section defines the keywords used in the search. You can access that information by clicking the Cached link in the search results. Link example .

I hope this helps to explain SEO. Another tool for SEO is Google AdWords Keyword Finder Click here.

The keyword finder does exactly what is says it does. You enter a search query and it tells you what keywords are most likely to be used in a search. You must be registeredwith AdWords to use this tool. Registration is free.

So, if we enter Liz Clairborne silver beaded evening clutches for less than $35 into the word or phrase box at the top we get this, Google AdWords. If you scroll down it will show how many results were returned for each keyword or phrase. Keyword count. 

 

I have a red box drawn around the highest counts. These are the keywords you want "sprinkled" throughout your header and content if you are marketing that particular purse.

For some reason this was the hardest thing for me to get my head around. It is like this is some deep dark secret only shared among internet marketing gurus. 

So now if you look at the search for my site you see. Simple Search.

Here is what is in the cache, Cache Results. 

 

Notice the highlighted keywords. Now go back and take a look at yesterdays blog looking only at the bold and or italicised words. How many keywords do you see?

Hopefully, the light bulb turned on at this point just like it did for me. Sorry we didn't get to a review today. I think this is a very important tool and I wanted to discuss it with a little more detail.

Like always, join and follow the blog, click the banners and text links to start making money. You can use the EWAHR Forum to post questions or request a review of a site or, you can e-mail me directly at ewahr2011@ yahoo.com

Peace.

Traffic and a review of Fretlight Guitars

Traffic has been my “Lex Luther” since I started this project. And even with the other sites I set-up traffic was minimal. This time I want traffic, I want impressions, clicks and most of all sales.

I am happy to say I have had more traffic in the first couple of months, as I had in years with the other sites. To date the affiliate marketing partners advertising at the sites, on Craigslist and about one hundred emails have received 6,917 impressions and 167 clicks. Click here for data table  No sales yet.

For me, at this point the blog itself is just as important as the sales. Numbers keep trending upward at a very steady pace. Click for Impression trend chart, Click here for click trend chart.

Trends are made up of peaks and valleys. The peaks are great, but I want you to see how the bottom of the valleys are moving upward as time goes on Click here for highlighted impression trend chart.

People are following the blog, I am getting hits from all kinds of different sources. And most importantly, I am showing up in the search engines Click here for search results.

I have now been in business about 6 weeks. I couldn't be happier. I am a realist, this is truly more than I expected when I started.

If you are a 99er and you are considering starting a home based business without any start-up capitol, I will testify it can be done.

I firmly believe I will see sales from some of my affiliate marketing partners websites by the end of this quarter (June).

Next, I want to discuss PPC advertsing. I have banners up at this site for ClickSense ClickSense website, FushionCash FushionCash website Hits4Pay Hits4Pay website , NeoBux NeoBux website and EasyHits4U EasyHits4U website .

I have used them all and found they are not scams. All of them deliver exactly what they offer. Feel free to click the links provided check them out and if it looks good to you sign up and start clicking. By using the links provided, if you sign on you would be my direct downline. And I will offer you any help you need to be succsesful.

The issue is, what they offer. As I explained in the reviews you can't make a profit without producing substantial downline. The other issue is the advertising option. I bought 1000 views using credits from viewing ads. Of those 1000 views I received 1 impression per 100 views. Zero clicks at any of the advertisers.

The root cause is your ad or spalsh page is not viewed by a targeted, sales ready audience. This type of advertising is seemingly inexpensive, but I don't see it being a worthwhile endeavor for my business. At this point I intend to set PPC advertising off to the side and work on more ways to drive traffic organically.

Today's review is for FretLight Guitars Fretlight website.

Fretlight Guitars is my newest affiliate marketing partner. They have been in business since 1991. If you play guitar or want to learn to play guitar, you have to check this out.

The Fretlight guitar is an intelligent learning system inside a real, state-of-the-art guitar. Connected via a computer’s USB port, the heart of the Fretlight is a series of LED lights embedded in the guitar’s fretboard that signify finger placement.

These lights are triggered by video-based lessons and software, illuminating chords, scales, songs, tablature and riffs that enable users to learn and play a variety of rhythm and lead guitar parts. It enables beginner to advanced players to learn new skills over 10X faster than the familiar, frustrating exchange between guitar and book. The information is right on the neck, where you need it most.

They offer over 700 different products ranging from $2.99 songs to $900 guitar packages. An average order value is $150. Commission is from 8% to 15%. I will market this affiliate marketing partner using Craigslist and banners at Poppy's Cheap Gear Forum and Review.

Like always, join and follow the blog, click the banners and text links to start making money. You can use the EWAHR Forum to post questions or request a review of a site or, you can e-mail me directly at ewahr2011@ yahoo.com

Peace.