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How to Add Landing Pages to Your WordPress Website or Blog

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If you read my post earlier this week on Landing Pages 101, you already know how important landing pages are to winning sales, increasing email subscribers, etc. You also have a good idea of how to write an effecting landing page. However, how do you go about generating the actual landing page on your WordPress (WP) website or blog?

Traditionally, landing pages were (and still are) generated on their own subdomain within a website. For example, if your website is http://www.mywebsite.com, then your landing page is parked at http://landingpage.website.com. This is done so that a visitor does not simply locate the landing page by visiting the website, but only by clicking on a designated ad, web page or email link.

Landing pages also usually required graphic design skills so that they’d have templates that looked professional and helped maintain consistency across multiple campaigns.

Both of these requirements made landing pages a bit of a challenge for beginner website owners and bloggers. Luckily, if the website or blog is hosted on a WP platform, there are many different WP plugins that can be used to install landing page generators and make the process easier. Here are some of the best free or affordably priced WP landing page plugins:

1. WordPress Landing Pages

This free plugin, created by David Wells and the Inbound Now team, offers a very comprehensive collection of features including unlimited landing pages, conversion rate tracking, A/B and multivariate split testing, email list integration, and contact form generation. When you download the plugin, you are instantly prompted to install two additional and free plugins: WordPress Leads and Calls to Action. These two plugins enable you to better organize and track your leads and create unique call-to-action (CTAs), respectively.

Wordpress landing pages plugin

WordPress Landing Pages also comes with a visual editor, allowing you to make changes to your landing page and see how they appear in real time. A/B and multivariate testing is made easy with multiple WordPress-like page/post tabs that can be filled in and changed at will.

Wordpress A B testing

Finally, WordPress Landing Pages allows you to generate and insert marketing shortcodes; in essence, these are snippets of code that the plugin creates for social sharing buttons, check marks, or other icons. Best of all, you don’t need to do any coding to generate these icons.

The only drawback to WordPress Landing Pages is that integrating it with an existing email list is not free and costs $25-$35 (depending on the actual service).

2. Parallax Gravity

This free WordPress plugin enables you to create landing pages that use parallax sections; in other words, page text sections move while the images and background stay put. You can add as many sections and section materials as you wish and see the changes in real time via the plugin’s VisualEditor. Additional features can be added using shortcodes, including shortcodes from other plugins.

gravityparallax

The two big drawbacks with this free plugin are the inability to set your landing page as the homepage and the lack of an autoresponder. However, because the plugin is very open to incorporating shortcodes, you could probably even create an autoresponder using your own shortcode.

3. WP Lead Plus Free Squeeze Page Creator

This free plugin also offers lots of parallax-enabled page sections, logo and video integration, and font control. It features a VisualEditor, enabling easy changes on-the-fly. And because your pages are created as basic WP pages, you can embed your own background and/or WP template(s).

Additionally, unlike Parallax Gravity, WP Lead Plus offers an autoresponder option as well as the ability to set your landing page as the homepage.

wpleadfree
Being able to use your own website background and/or templates is actually crucial because this plugin doesn’t offer too many of its own templates- at least not in its free version. Another common complaint about this plugin is that it’s not very intuitive, and you need to carefully watch the video tutorials in order to create a decent landing page.

4. InstaBuilder

This fairly inexpensive plugin runs $47 for a single user license and enables you to create landing pages that contain high level graphics, one time offers, delayed pop-up messages with CTAs, Facebook opt-ins, autoresponders, offer timers, and videos. You also gain access to 70 pre-built templates and a huge range of images like buttons, guarantee symbols, boxes, etc. And you can still create your own images using the plugin’s marketing shortcodes.

instabuilder plugin

Instabuilder landing pages can look quite slick, given that you’re able to add videos and pre-built graphics rather easily. Instabuilder pages can also be connected to Facebook using Facebook Connect, enabling users to click on those pages via their Facebook accounts.

instabuilder plugin

Finally, Instabuilder-created pages are instantly formatted to fit on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

5. OptimizePress 2.0

This WordPress plugin, created by James Dyson, helps you not only generate professional-looking landing pages but also secure membership portals, online courses, webinar registration pages, product launch funnels and blogs. The plugin costs a $97 flat fee for three licenses, which is a bit more money than the other plugins described here, but the fee may well be worth it. Here’s an example sales page portion (with the CTA located at the end of a long scroll) that was generated using OptimizePress 2.0:

optimizepress 2.0

OptimizePress 2.0 comes with LiveEditor, meaning that your edits occur in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get format, allowing you to build a page in just minutes and know exactly how it’s going to look in real time. Email integration is included in your $97 fee.

The plugin offers numerous page layouts, with you selecting how many rows and columns you wish for your page to have. Theoretically, because there is no limit on numbers, you could have an infinite amount of rows/columns. There is also a ton of elements you can add into your pages, from buttons and content toggles to audio players and Facebook comments.

Landing pages…they’re the future (of your sales)!

If you are on the fence about buying a WP landing page plugin, try one of the freebies listed above. Even a rudimentary WP landing page plugin can help increase your product/service sales and draw in new customers. As time goes on, you may want to do more with your sales and/or better track your customers- and end up purchasing a paid plugin.

Diamond Engagement Rings: Biggest Scam Ever…or Best Marketing Strategy?

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Diamonds are intrinsically worthless, except for the deep psychological need they fill.

-De Beers chairman Nicky Oppenheimer

Roughly five months ago, your TV, radio and compubox were flooded with ads for those expensive and tiny baubles known as diamond engagement rings. You were told outright that, if you as a man had any kind of girlfriend worth proposing to, it had better happen with at least two months’ salary compressed into a diamond engagement ring…or else.

As a woman, you were told to live in joyous expectation of a (no less than) one carat diamond on your finger come Christmas or New Year’s.

Now, at five months’ post-engagementocalypse, it looks like the male income tax season has finished strong. As the both of you now look forward to married bliss, let me lightly suggest the following:

You may have been scammed.

The most brilliant marketing strategy…ever

Back in the late 1930’s, a regional diamond trading company named De Beers was in trouble. Diamond prices were falling and only the rich opted to purchase those sparkly things. Furthermore, a huge cache of diamonds had been discovered by the company in a South African mine, threatening to devalue the once rare gem.

Desperate to boost diamond sales, Ernest Oppenheimer sent his son Harry to brainstorm about marketing strategy with the newly hired N. W. Ayer & Son ad agency.

The rest is marketing history.

The Ayer agency ran five campaigns. Some of the campaigns, targeted at men, equated buying an engagement diamond as proof of masculinity, accomplishment and financial prowess.

Other ads, targeted at women, associated diamonds with sacred places like cathedrals to link the occasion of marriage with diamonds. Female-targeted ads also featured paintings by famous artists alongside diamond rings, equating the diamond with high culture and refined taste.

In today’s marketing lingo, such strategy is termed establishing brand association.

Ayer’s tactics worked: By 1941, sales of diamonds had increased 55%.

A diamond is forever a scam

There was just one fly in the ointment…what about couples who hit upon hard financial times and wanted to sell back their diamond engagement ring? This was an issue in more ways than one.

To begin with, diamonds are actually not scarce but rather plentiful. However, De Beers is a diamond monopoly and controls the production and release of diamonds. In this way, it sets the price of diamonds. It also operates the Central Selling Organization, which coordinates all diamond marketing efforts.

One message, one price.

Thus, a couple trying to obtain a refund on their ring would be shocked to discover that the diamond’s value is not at all what was originally advertised. In fact, that diamond’s value might be only half of its original purchase price. In some cases, diamonds are refunded at just 1/3 of their original purchase price.

You’re talking about a really lousy investment here.

In light of this sobering reality, the Ayer agency had to somehow stop people from wanting to trade-in or sell back their sham goods. But how?

Enter Frances Gerety, a copywriter for Ayer. One night in 1947, in need of a catchy slogan for an ad, she hurriedly wrote the following line, “A diamond is forever.”

This slogan cleverly exemplified the ideal of marriage alongside the travesty of selling the very symbol of that ideal. And De Beers has been using that slogan ever since.

The net widens

De Beers originally targeted the U.S. market with its excess diamonds because, even before the propaganda took hold, Americans already correlated the diamond with romance and love. However, now that the American market was saturated with these flashy gee-gaws, it was time to look elsewhere for consumers.

That place was Japan.

For this effort, De Beers contracted the J. Walter Thompson ad agency, which already had established offices in Europe and Asia.

Instead of equating the diamond engagement ring with romance and love, the Thompson agency portrayed it as something that is part of the yuinohin, or betrothal gift given from the groom to the bride’s family. Because the gift is for an entire family, Thompson emphasized that it should be three or even four months’ worth a groom’s salary.

When Thompson began using this particular strategy in 1968, diamonds were given at only 5% of Japanese engagements. By 1981, diamonds were being presented at a whopping 66%.

Germany was also a successful target, once the agency learned that some Germans liked to have their wedding bands studded with diamonds.

What this means for you

Marketing is a fascinating science that can be used to generate billions of dollars in revenue, and even from product that is inherently worth very little. Here are four “take-home” lessons from the diamond marketing industry that you can insert into your own campaigns:

1. Create a need

Steve Jobs famously said, “Customers don’t know what they want until we have shown them.” You need to convince your buyers that they haven’t lived, or succeeded, or experienced until they’ve purchased product X. And also, that their life, or success, or experience gets even better with product add-on Y. 

2. Create an illusion of scarcity

There’s a reason why TV and radio commercials usually end with the quip “Supplies are limited” or “We can’t keep our inventory in stock.” People (just like cheetahs and fish) chase after what may soon become unavailable. It’s a simple law of the wild.

3. Hike up the price

One of my favorite marketing sayings is, “Unless you’re Wal-Mart, you can’t win on price.” You simply cannot create enough cheap inventory to compete on price in most cases. Furthermore, even if you could, there is a point where market saturation will occur and you’ll be out of luck.

In most cases, consumers will happily assume an item is of better quality if its price is higher. This example is clearly seen when consumers taste-test more and less expensive wines that are actually derived from the same stock wine.

4. Provide quality information

“An educated consumer is our best customer,” said Sy Syms. Selling expensive items becomes much easier when you back the purchase with a lot of credible information. Thus, there’s good reason why diamond stores emphasize “the 4 C’s” of diamond buying and even encourage buyers to look at the diamonds through 10X loupe magnifiers.

In some cases, you may even get the consumer to purchase a more expensive item once you assuage his/her insecurity about making the wrong decision based on insufficient information.

So, is a diamond forever?

Unfortunately, the chemists say no: Check out this video of Nobel-Prize winner Sir Harry Kroto watching his wife’s engagement diamond get burned to a crisp by Dr. Peter Wothers of The Royal Institution of Great Britain. That’s one expensive flame!

Is Social Media Marketing a Waste of Time?

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I don’t know why everyone keeps complaining about being broke- all you have to do is get involved in social media marketing. Cameron Hughes explains how to make piles of money as a social media consultant in this brilliant and inspiring “TED” talk.

Unfortunately, many businesses just haven’t seen the light when it comes to social media. In fact, some businesses and websites are moving away from certain social media platforms altogether. For example, Jeff Gibbard explained why Social Media Today decided to stop wasting time on Facebook. Then there was the rather well-publicized example of GM pulling their advertising dollars from Facebook in 2012.

It’s little wonder that companies are pulling away from social media considering that it’s not the easiest thing to make a profit there. In fact, back in 2012, an IBM study noted that social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube contributed almost zilch (OK, it was actually 0.34%) to Black Friday sales. Twitter accounted for 0% of Black Friday sales revenue.

What’s the problem?

For businesses or bloggers trying to do social media marketing via Facebook, the difficulty lies in the fact that Facebook Page updates reach only a small percentage of their intended audience. Increasing reach requires obtaining either lots of Likes and Shares on the part of the audience members or purchasing promoted posts.

Naturally, most Facebook Page owners balk at paying money to promote to an audience that they helped build in the first place. However, in defense of Facebook and other platforms, no one said that marketing was free. In fact, it could be argued that the whole problem started when every small business and its brother jumped on the social media bandwagon because it was the “hip” thing to do, or because social media was erroneously believed to equal free marketing/advertising.

Drives to get 1 million Likes or 10,000 tweets work well…and then fizzle as businesses or bloggers wonder what to do with all these new followers. Ironically, unfollows often occur when the same entities now post or tweet a promotion to their “fans”. Meanwhile, those followers that stay do little to boost product sales or business revenues. So, what’s the point of it all?

A goal without a plan is just a “Like”

Before you start asking everyone to Like you for a free Squishee(tm) or post more cute photos of your cat, ask yourself, what goals are you trying to achieve with social media marketing? There can be quite a number of goals, including the following:

  • Brand awareness
  • Website traffic
  • Product sales
  • Customer information
  • Upsells/cross-sells
  • Product reviews/testimonials
  • Customer engagement
  • Influencers

Let’s say you pick two or three of the above goals, which is really the most that you can hope to accomplish in a single campaign. Will driving Likes/Shares/retweets/comments accomplish your goals? If yes, that’s great! But if not, then you need to step back and look at how exactly you’ll accomplish what you wish to see, as well as how you’ll measure your progress.

Harvest while you can

As wonderful as social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest are, they do not belong to you. In fact, you are actually a digital sharecropper. And just like any sharecropper, your fortunes are intimately tied to the whims of your landlord. Should your landlord choose to close the social media platform tomorrow, the online audience you worked so hard to build is gone.

This is why, given every opportunity, you need to “harvest” your audience members by finding out their contact information and other particulars and getting them onto your own platform (i.e., your website). Typically, this goal is accomplished through email subscription signups or opt-in forms. Once you have such information at hand, you can move towards fulfilling your other goals like increasing sales or obtaining customer testimonials.

Get everyone involved

Social media can be a big driver of conversions if used correctly as a kind of portal to your more permanent fixtures, including your sales pages and website. For example, if people are complaining about the never-ending cold weather on Twitter, you might create a special code or coupon that enables them to purchase hot cocoa at 20% off on your website.

There’s also no reason why your subscribers can’t be part of the sales conversation or even help decide the outcome of your campaigns. For example, having your customers provide feedback on something you’re working on, such as your website update or a new affiliate product, makes them feel more involved (and invested) with you. Such engaged consumers are more likely to travel to your website and convert.

Leverage your efforts

You can multiply your social media efforts at increasing brand awareness and/or customer engagement by tapping top influencers who already know and understand your products or brand. In most cases, these influencers will consist of top commentors or other bloggers that have large followings. Influencers can also consist of those individuals who are able to build up excitement around the product or promotion.

Twitter parties, Facebook giveaways, Pinterest postathons, etc. all exist to raise awareness and even create a little hype around a particular product. Use these tools judiciously to get customers to go back to your website and complete some action there- or better yet, sign up for your newsletter.

Social media…a waste of time?

With social media, it’s not so much how much work you put into it but rather, how much forethought. If you have no set goals in mind and no idea of how to measure your efforts, yeah, you won’t see much result from all your Likes or tweets or Pins.

But if you set out with the intention of driving more traffic to your website or growing your email list by some percentage, then social media can help you accomplish that. Like any other marketing tool, social media just needs to be used properly to achieve your intended results.

Now go and Like this post. Or Google Plus it. Or tweet it.

7 Websites that pay $50 or More for Guest Blog Posts

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Writing content for others can be discouraging in terms of appreciation (i.e., pay). You pour your heart and soul into a 500-word article for Yahoo! Voices, let’s say, and make a measly $4.50 for your efforts. Or you keep finding the following type of insane job offer:

I need efficient writers to write articles for me
I have plenty of work for only dedicated writers
Articles are simple; 300, 500, 750 and 1000 words
I will pay $1 for 300 word articles, $2 for 500 word article, $3.50 for 750 word article and $5 for 1000 word article (emphasis mine)
No milestones please, so if your bid has milestone I will not select you
Bid for $50 and I will be paying after submission of 5 articles, meaning that if you manage 5 articles within 24 hours then you get paid.
Waiting for bids. Thank you.

Luckily, there are websites out there that do take you seriously by paying good money for your guest blog posts. I’ve listed at least 7 websites that pay $50 or more for your writing. Keep in mind that all of these sites require high quality, novel content that is 500+ words in length and provides value to its readers. Some sites will edit or ask that you edit your content, while others might require an attached photo.

1. The Motley Fool Blog Network

Started at 1:58 PM in November 2011, The Motley Fool Blog Network lets the individual investor discuss stock, ETF and index investment ideas and receive critical feedback in the form of member comments. Furthermore, each syndicated (i.e, posted to Yahoo! Finance, MSN Money, Daily Finance) blog post is paid $50. If your 10 most recent blog posts average 2,500 page views or higher and the staff views your content as top-notch, your compensation goes up to $100/post. The best bloggers may even be offered a writing contract by The Motley Fool. To see an example of my own work, please click here for Fool blog posts by halina23.

2. The Krazy Coupon Lady

Heather Wheeler and Joanie Demer (who have also been featured on TLC’s Extreme Couponing) of The Krazy Coupon Lady accept guest posts on personal finance, saving money, finding coupon deals, etc. and pay $50 for each accepted post. I worked with the KCL team a month ago and was paid $50 by Paypal within 3 days of article acceptance. The site is rather busy, however, so my article has yet to be published.

3. Freelance Switch

If you’re a freelancer and wish to share your advice on the freelance life, helpful resources, ways to make your job easier, employer reviews, etc., then you’ve come to the right place. Freelance Switch will pay you $50 for your content the month after it is accepted on the site. You may also republish your submitted content to your own blog and to offline publications like magazines or books.

4. One Spoon At A Time

Paul Wolfe, the webmaster of OneSpoonAtATime, started paying $50 for guest blog posts back in September of last year. He explains why he pays this amount of money in a post entitled Guest Posts Wanted – $50 Per Post! Paul looks for unique content relating to online businesses- starting and marketing the business, streamlining workload, attracting customers, using unusual sales tactics, etc. He prefers content pitches and asks that the guest blogger actively follow and reply to comments. Incidentally, Paul’s explanation of why he’s paying $50 per guest post provides a link to a writer’s blog that’s also paying $50 per post: MakeALivingWriting.com.

5. Writers Weekly

Do you earn a high income from freelance writing, self-publishing, ghost writing, etc.? Share your tips on writing success with the ezine Writers Weekly and you could receive $60 for your guest blog post. The site asks for query emails first along with examples of your published content.

6. TheTechLabs and Pxl Eyes

Are you so adept at 3D rendition software and applications that others often look to you for help? The Tech Labs is requesting in-depth tutorials on programs such as Adobe Flash, Flex and Air and ActionScript 3. If your tutorial is published, you receive $50-$75. Pxl Eyes is requesting tutorials on all kinds of drawing and 3D rendition programs like Photoshop, Coreldraw and AutoCAD. Payment for an accepted PxlEyes tutorial can be up to $200.

7. The Change Agent

Teachers and students involved in social justice adult education can submit their content to The Change Agent which pays $50 upon acceptance. Additionally, students can submit articles, stories, essays, illustrations and activities to The Change Agent paper and be paid $50 upon content acceptance.

Bonus!

8. Leaving Work Behind

As of March 3, 2014, Tom Ewer has opened up his blog, Leaving Work Behind, to $50 guest posts (upon acceptance). If you’ve recently launched a new business or are simply trying to, Tom wants to hear about it.

Honorable Mentions:

The following sites do not pay $50 per guest blog post, but the writing standards for them are a bit more open and relaxed:

1. Social Moms

Social Moms accepts queries on the subjects of saving money, working at home, health and parenting. I was recently approved to write about MSG as well as super couponing for this site. The compensation is 5,000 points per published post, which equates to $25. You can request payout at 8,000 points via Paypal (i.e., $40) or at 10,000 points via Amazon gift card (i.e., $50).

2. Spark People

This fitness and nutrition website accepts content related to health, weight loss, personal wellness and motivation and pays from $25-$75 per accepted post. Articles submitted to Spark People are expected to be between 800 and 1,800 words in length. Full-time freelance writing gigs may be offered to top-notch writers. Additional writing and freelance writer opportunities can be found at Spark People Writers Guidelines.

3. Rock Solid Finance

If you have some great ideas on making and/or saving money as an entrepreneur, pitch these ideas to David Worrell at RockSolidFinance.com. If your article is accepted, David will pay you $25 or give your website/business up to 2 backlinks- the choice is yours. Be sure to read his guest blog post instructions first, though.

SEO is dead. SEO is not dead. Is SEO…undead?

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Has SEO become the undead?

Ever since Google’s Hummingbird update back in late 2013, many bloggers have announced that SEO is dead (627,000 according to my search query). They’ve also pointed to ensuing announcements from Google, such as Matt Cutts’ declaration that link building is done, as further proof that there is no more need for SEO-building strategies.

In fact, SEO has become a dirty word of sorts, so dirty that SEOMoz recently changed its URL to just Moz.com.

“Build awesome content,” is the mantra of these SEO naysayers…but awesome content for whom? What’s the point of creating and publishing awesome content that no one can find?

In another and much smaller camp are the “SEO is not dead” proponents, who emphasize that SEO has simply changed, not disappeared. Members of this camp publish “helpful hints” lists on how to be compliant with the new SEO, such as by inserting rel=”nofollow” tags on guest post and press release links. Or removing all self-promotional content and ads.

“Keep a low profile and let Google find you,” is their quip.

However, any blogger who writes a killer guest post on Copyblogger or Tech Crunch is not going to be satisfied with simply being mentioned by name. It would be the equivalent of quoting a great source and writing, “Yeah, this person wrote the following stuff somewhere…” Nope, that’s not even proper journalistic form.

Nevertheless, the debate over SEO continues, as evidenced from Google itself:

Google SEO is dead

So, what’s a webmaster, blogger or affiliate marketer to do?

Nothing.

Reports of SEO being dead have been greatly exaggerated- many times.

That’s right. Apparently, the “SEO is dead” card has been played for a long time. Even before the age of Google, Richard Hoy of Tenagra said that “search engines are a dead-end technology.” Then Google came on the scene, and with every search algorithm update it made, the same “SEO is dead” outcry was sounded.

Historically, this has happened during every one of the following updates:

  • 2003, Florida. This update countered keyword stuffing and caused many sites to lose top ranking. It led to many business websites virtually disappearing overnight. Webmasters figured SEO was over.
  • 2004, Austin. Invisible keyword-stuffed sites were penalized and disappeared from the SERP. Again, another major outcry against Google erupted and the end of SEO was declared.
  • 2005, Jagger. Spam linking was derailed, resulting in many link-heavy sites losing position. Entire websites were now dead, as far as their SEO was concerned.
  • 2007, Universal Search. Rich media was integrated into the SERPs, causing some position #1 sites to move to position #2 while larger rich media files populated the results pages. Images and videos, not content, had won the SEO battle, apparently.
  • 2010, May Day. Changes were made to long-tail keyword ranks, effectively lowering the positions of niche websites that stuffed longer search terms. Many affiliate marketers considered their SEO efforts to have been in vain.
  • 2010, Social Triggers. Social media activity was added to the ranking algorithm, leading to many pundits denouncing the need for SEO.
  • 2011, Panda. This update took a swipe at content farms and lowered their rank. Again, SEO, viewed solely as the practice of keyword-stuffing, was noted as being dead.
  • 2012, Penguin. Google’s numerous Penguin updates penalized link farms, paid link and over-advertised websites. Linking for SEO was declared dead, as was pretty much any SEO effort.

Back in 2009, Matt Cutts was even asked if SEO would still exist come 2014. Cutts’ in-depth reply noted that SEO should be just one of a webmaster’s tools, not the end-all and be-all of website operation and improvement. In line with this advice, I’ve compiled a list of SEO strategies that webmasters should consider implementing when setting up or improving their websites:

1. Use Google’s Keyword Planner to get keyword ideas.

Google’s newly introduced Keyword Planner Tool enables webmasters to brainstorm for keyword and ad group ideas. Incidentally, you will need to create an AdWords account to access this tool. Once in this tool, simply describe what your website or blog post is all about.

keyword planner

After you’ve added your text, the tool will display a list of keyword ideas. You should go after those keywords that have low to medium level search volume traffic. In most cases, these keywords will be the long-tail keywords.

seo is dead

These long-tail keywords can be inserted into your website meta tags and/or blog post titles and content.

2. Generate link-worthy and link-containing content.

Create an infographic or SlideShare program that incorporates useful statistics or information about your website and its subject matter. Piktochart and Visual.ly are two sites that enable the creation of free infographics. Make sure that the infographic or Slideshare file links back to your website by using an embed code generator, such as this one that’s available through WordPress:

embedcode

Incidentally, you can create embed codes for your amazing blog posts too.

3. Continue to guest post.

No matter what the SEO rumor mill says, continue to seek out and pitch your guest blog post ideas to top blogs and websites. In your author section, jazz up your description by mentioning a particular benefit that your readers will gain if they visit your website; for example, you might state, “10 Ways You Can Exploit Google’s Hummingbird Update” and link that title back to a blog post or page on your website. This sure beats the usual author descriptor, such as, “Bob is a blogger at IHateSEO.com…”

4. Don’t forget about social media.

Pick one or two social media platforms and take advantage of their syndication properties to publicize your latest article, blog post or graphic. Engage in discussions through sites like LinkedIn or Facebook and, if the conversation warrants it, mention and link to your content.

Redirecting your followers or fans to your own website not only increases your social media mentions, a critical factor in what is now termed social SEO, it also enables you to obtain visitor information (i.e., emails) and increase your subscriber base in exchange for offering some free item like an infographic.

The continuing SEO evolution and you

SEO is an evolving beast and, while you should stay up-to-date on its changing nature, you also shouldn’t let its metamorphoses keep you up at night (assuming you’re not engaging in black hat SEO). If you’re publishing quality content, staying active on social media, and adding value to other websites, then SEO is just one facet of your overall strategy to gain traffic and conversions.

The bottom line here: Don’t sweat the SEO stuff.

7 Lede Ideas for Your Email Headlines

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If you’re an affiliate marketer, blogger or online entrepreneur, you’re probably using email marketing to keep in touch with your subscribers, promote your products and services, and grow your audience. And little wonder: For every $1 spent, email marketing gives a whopping $40 return on investment (ROI) according to the Direct Marketing Association.

Given these kind of data, it is in your best interest to spend some time writing the most eye-catching and finger-clicking email ledes you can think of. What exactly is a lede? It’s a journalistic term used to describe a story opener that grabs a scanner’s attention and entices her to keep reading. A lede typically answers one or more of the five W’s (who, what, where, when and why) in as few words as possible. Consider the following lede examples:

Animal the Muppet was hurt during last night’s rock concert when the stage collapsed.

Pope Francis celebrates Mass while parachuting over the Tiber.

Eating carrots can actually harm your eyesight, a new research study claims.

In the above examples, a minimum number of words were used to generate these ledes and entice readers to learn more. Each of the ledes also answered at least one of the five W’s. However, it’s not only news stories that can take advantage of the power of the lede.

How ledes increase email opens and clicks

Emails are either opened or discarded- and all within a matter of seconds- based largely on their headlines. If you write an overtly spammy or non-descriptive headline for your email, you can almost bet that it will be deleted- or even blocked. But if you write an email that uses a good headline -or lede -you’ll get far more than the average number of opens and clicks.

In many instances, email ledes also employ so-called “trigger” words that grab -and maintain -the attention of the scanner.  Trigger words, if used, are most effective when placed within the first five words of the lede. Here are seven lede ideas, and their bolded triggers, that you can use to increase the likelihood of people opening your emails and performing the requested action.

1. Ask a question.

Using a question as your lede is a great way to pique the interest of your scanner and get him to learn more by opening the email. For example, if you own a work-at-home website and are writing to an audience of cubicle-dwelling employees, you might wish to title your email with either of the two following questions:

Are you tired of butting your head against the corporate glass ceiling?

How many hours do you waste during your weekly work commute? 

These email openers not only ask some pertinent questions of their audience, but they also attempt to evoke an emotion- frustration- to encourage action. Finally, the emails use the trigger word “you” to make their messages personal.

2. Ask for help.

Let me help you help me (as I like to say). People, as a general rule, love to feel needed and to feel that their advice is valuable. Also, you may already know this, but people love to give their personal opinions on matters. Here are some ledes that, ahem, take advantage of people’s good nature:

Help save retired greyhounds from slaughter.

Help design our new office by filling out this short survey.

Your opinions matter to us.

Notice how the trigger word help is used fairly often; this trigger is also the first word in two of the provided sentences. In the last sentence, the words your and matter strive to evoke a sense of importance within the email recipient.

3. Evoke empathy/sympathy.

Getting your reader to think of you as “just like me” is a great way to build rapport early on and increase the likelihood of your email being read. Do this enough times and your reader will start thinking of you as a colleague or even a friend. Here are some email ledes that help generate a sense of affinity:

If you’re like me, you hate your alarm clock.

Thank you for your donation to our Help Animal Heal Fund.

The phrase thank you may not seem like a trigger, but it’s amazing how a little gratitude can go a long way towards turning an audience in your favor. Don’t hold back from appreciating your email recipients and thanking them for their response to email ledes from point #2 (i.e., their advice, help, opinions, etc.).

4. Send a unique invitation.

Department stores and restaurants have mastered the art of making their email subscribers feel like part of an exclusive audience by periodically sending them special offers and coupons. You may not have a free sweater or pizza party up your sleeve, but you can certainly craft your own unique opportunity and present it to your subscribers. In this case, you might consider an email header similar to the ones provided below:

You’re invited to our private, members-only event.

Shop our exclusive premier club collection now. 

Your personal 50% discount is ready to use.

5. Create a sense of urgency.

Discounts and private sales are great; however, most subscribers don’t take advantage of them because they assume that these offers will be around forever. This is one reason why manufacturer coupons carry an expiry. For your own audience, try out the following types of headlines in order to get people to act now rather than later:

Two days only! All our ebooks are 25% off.

Don’t delay- our prices go up in just two days.

Bad news: Our exclusive sale is almost over. Now for the good news…

6. Tell a story.

Everyone loves a good, engaging story. Stories help us remember the advertised product or service, and they also make us want to come back to hear more. You can preface a story with the following email titles:

This man bought an abandoned factory and built an empire.

The doctors told her she’d never walk again. What did she do?

 I caught him in the act with my best friend. 

Alternately, there may be a memorable moment in your own blogging or day-to-day activities that you can share with your readers. For example, if you just discovered a nifty WordPress plug-in, write about it and how it helped solve a problem for you. Or write about your business partner and why he’s decided to go back to school. Jon Morrow does personal storytelling quite beautifully in his post On Dying, Mothers, and Fighting for Your Ideas.

7. Give a warning.

Gloom-and-doom email headlines actually work because of the economic phenomenon called loss aversion or, as the statement goes, “losses loom larger than corresponding gains.” People actually become more unhappy from losing $1,000 than winning the same amount of money. As a result, if you write a lede that warns of an impending loss or economic catastrophe, you can easily get your audience to click on and read your email. Here are some doomsday email ledes for your consideration:

$5,000/ounce? You bet. Don’t miss out on the coming gold rush. 

What your real estate agent won’t tell you about your home could hurt you.

Yes, credit card companies are out to get you. Here’s how to protect yourself.

In Summary

Generating emails with high open rates is hard; however, by using the above trigger-filled ledes, you’ll increase the chance of transforming your email scanners into actual readers. And getting an email read is the first step towards achieving the desired reader response, be it a click-through, a survey completion, or a conversion (i.e., sale).

B2B or B2C: Which one works best for affiliate marketing?

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This past weekend I made my homemade line of deodorants affectionately called People Stink! While cooking up a batch of lavendar or cedarwood-scented deodorant, I started thinking about the empty deodorant containers I’d purchased online. The online ads for those containers had been pretty dry, providing just a lot of information about the size, shape and physical resiliency of the plastic that was being used to house the deodorant. The pictures weren’t much better and simply featured container specifications like dimensions.

In contrast, the ads that I create for my own finished deodorants are quite flowery and contain lots of nice pictures with backdrops of trees, herbs and candles.

Is my advertising method better?

While I’d love to brag about my marketing prowess, the real answer here is that neither the deodorant container nor the finished deodorant advertising is any better, just different. And the reason it’s different is because each type of advertising is targeting a different market: B2B or B2C.

B2B (business-to-business) marketing involves selling goods and services to businesses that either use these products in their daily operations or generate other goods and services from them. B2C (business-to-consumer) marketing involves selling goods and services to end-point consumers who utilize them for household or personal use. So, regarding deodorant containers, the B2B market is being targeted; regarding the finished deodorant, the B2C  market is the target.

B2B vs. B2C markets are different at the following levels:

1. Small vs. big.

The B2B market is typically composed of a few and very specific customers. The B2C usually has a large and rather undefined audience.

2. Relationship vs. product.

B2B customers focus on the business relationship and how it will improve their bottom line through product support (e.g., tech support), longevity (how long will the product line “live” before being discontinued) and distribution (the availability of this product on a national or international level). B2C customers emphasize the product itself, the transaction (i.e., coupons/discounts) and the product’s perceived value vs. money spent.

3. Sales cycle.

B2B customers must be “courted” for a long time before the sale occurs; B2C customers have a shorter or even a “rush” time frame (e.g., midnight madness sale).

4. Rational vs. emotional.

B2B marketing takes a more rational and information-heavy approach (e.g., white papers and case studies) and target customers who must eventually purchase products for their businesses; B2C marketing benefits from emotional appeals (e.g., “you deserve a delicious candy bar”) and relies on impulse purchasing.

5. Ad styles.

Unique and infrequent ads that help educate the customer are the preferred marketing strategy for B2B advertising; frequent and repetitive ads that are low on content and high in memorable images or humorous punchlines are typically used in B2C advertising.

For the affiliate marketer who is trying to target a B2B market, general marketing strategy should include finding out who the customers are, what specific items they sell to their own customers, and how that particular business model could take advantage of the products you are trying to sell. For example, if you are trying to market high-end tools to B2Bs, you’ll want to know which specific companies employ contractors and what types of jobs these contractors do for their customers. Based on this information, you can write content directed at those businesses and state how your tools will help them generate more revenue, cut total purchase costs, have fewer workplace accidents, etc.

You B2B ads would be heavy on content and statistical information and light on flashy pop-ups and graphics. Your marketing campaigns would take a long time to complete, meaning that some of your target customers would not buy any product from you for months. However, when you finally did “land” one of your target clients, the generated revenue would be huge and likely ongoing.

Alternately, if your objective is to market to B2Cs, you’d want to gather customer demographic information like disposable income, age and employment status. Going back to the high-end tools example, you’d also want to know how many of your B2C customers are homeowners and/or own vehicles. Your advertising strategy would consist of lots of product photos and emphasize limited time only discounts or other offers. The ads would also be season and/or holiday-specific (e.g., buy Dad these tools for Christmas).

While your marketing campaigns would not need to last long before a sale occurred, the revenue generated per sale would be much smaller. Also, you would need to have recurring campaigns and offer different promotions on an ongoing basis. Coupons and “today only” offers would have to be heavily emphasized. You would also need to devote some resources to product returns and/or complaints.

B2B vs. B2C social media strategy

There are many social media platforms out there and each one is best used for a certain market. For B2B customers, you can use the following platforms:

Twitter: With its emphasis on promoting links, Twitter can be used to direct B2B customer to information-rich content pieces like white papers, articles and product reports.

LinkedIn: Heavily used by businesses, LinkedIn is a great place to network with other businesses while promoting your products and providing information on product history and features, customer testimonials and stories, infographics, customer/technical support, etc.

Blog: Creating and maintaining a blog on your product website allows you to advertise your products in a more approachable manner and share personal stories with your customers. This turns potential customers into loyal readers who are bound to return.

For B2C marketing, the following platforms work better:

Facebook: This platform is ideal for showing off product photos and generating customer enthusiam. Facebook is also able to handle product coupons and special offers.

Pinterest: A newer social media platform than Facebook, Pinterest is growing in popularity and use. It is heavily graphics-focused and offers significant opportunity to generate excitement about a product. Photos are easily shared and promoted on this platform, enabling novel and/or unique products to go viral.

Blogs: Recruiting brand ambassadors who have their own blogs and large followings is a great and low-cost way to generate product interest and sales. These bloggers can sponsor free product giveaways, host Twitter parties, and solicit product reviews from their followers.

YouTube: Showing off your products in creative ways through video can generate significant B2C customer enthusiasm and have your marketing message go viral.

Is B2B or B2C better for affiliate marketers?

Each market, whether it be B2B or B2C, comes with its own advantages and disadvantages. With B2B, you must provide a lot of rich and informative content to customers who may not buy anything from your website for months or even years. However, when that critical sale occurs, it’s going to be big and probably recurrent.

On the other hand, B2C customers will be easier to win over with low-information content that might only take a few days to generate several immediate sales. Unfortunately, such sales are more likely to be a one-time deal and low revenue; constant marketing is necessary to get repeat customers.

In the end, which type of market you choose to target will be dependent on your personal style and preferences. If you are patient, don’t mind generating high-information content and like to play with facts and figures, B2B marketing is the way to go. However, if you’d rather see some immediate rewards for your work and prefer getting people excited about a novel product or service, then B2C marketing may be more your thing.

Why Giving Away Free Stuff Actually Helps Your Business

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Perhaps you’ve noticed the following online trend: Many websites offer a lot of good stuff completely free to their readers. To begin with, there’s I’ve Tried That and its 7-Day Intro to Success email course. Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income currently offers an ebook on how to publish and market your own ebook. And to poor graduate students trying to make some extra money on the side, UW-Madison’s own Ryan Raver offers a free second income ebook.

How can these online entrepreneurs afford to give away so much of their stuff for free, and especially when many of their readers would gladly pay for this material?

A tale of two social experiments

To answer this question, let me tell you a little story about some behavioral research scientists who had a little (too much) time on their hands and decided to run some human experiments (incidentally, human experimentation can be quite lucrative). These researchers offered their subjects two types of chocolate for purchase: Hershey’s Kisses and Lindt truffles. While both items are made of chocolate and are certainly a treat, Lindt truffles are hands-down a better quality chocolate and far more expensive than Kisses.

The Kisses and truffles were priced at 1 cent and 15 cents, respectively. Normally, Lindt truffles cost about 30 cents per piece, so the 15 cent price tag of these truffles was a good value for the money. Naturally, about 75% of the subjects chose to buy the truffles over the Kisses.

Then, these researchers altered the pricing structure of the chocolates by a single penny; the Hershey’s Kisses were reduced from 1 cent to free and the Lindt truffles from 15 cents to 14 cents per piece. Again, both chocolates were offered to the test subjects. What happened?

In this situation, 69% of the subjects chose the free Kiss over the value-priced truffle.

The results and analysis of this intriguing human experiment are discussed by one of the researchers, Dan Ariely, in his book “Predictably Irrational”. Suffice it to say, people go nuts when something free is offered, even if that free item isn’t that great.

However, people will still go nuts over a free item even if that entails buying more. When Amazon ran a global “Buy a Second Book, Get Free Shipping” promotion, every country jumped on the offer…every country except France, that is. When Amazon marketing execs examined why France wasn’t taking the bait, they found out that the promotion had been slightly altered in that country: Instead of being offered free shipping, the French were being offered shipping for only 5 francs (our equivalent of 20 cents).

It was still a fantastic deal…but it wasn’t free.

Once Amazon execs restored the free shipping promotion to France, the French also jumped on the bandwagon and started buying books galore.

What the emerging field of neuromarketing is showing us is the following: Consumer psychology is messed up. Furthermore, it’s not just messed up- it’s predictably messed up.

This means that you can use the concept of free to your advantage.

People like love go krazy for free stuff

It’s no secret that people will spend an inordinate amount of time- a resource that, like money, is limited- to obtain something for free. Just look at The Krazy Coupon Lady, a super-couponing website that often advertises small items that can be obtained for free if the correct alignment of coupons is used. These coupons take time and effort to acquire. Some super-couponers spend 20+ hours or more per week obtaining and matching coupons to store sales. Such time would be better spent at a part-time job. However, no “sane” super-couponer will listen to you if you try to point out that fact.

Because people are innately attracted to free stuff, you can offer free ebooks, software, courses, etc. as a way to build traffic to and interest in your business. However, you might be wondering how these interested parties won’t just leave your business page as soon as they collect their freebies. After all, once the free item has been obtained, what’s there to keep your audience interested and loyal?

Give away the store- for a price

Savvy Internet marketers know that there’s no such thing as free and even items advertised as free come with a price. In many cases, that price is the consumer’s name and email. Thus, the actual price of “free” stuff is usually information.

Once a potential customer’s information is known, he or she can be placed on an email newsletter and contacted directly with promotional materials, programs and offers. The email list is where most business is done and where the real sales are made. In fact, there’s even a saying: “The money’s in the list”.

Additionally, an email list is forever. If you lost your business website or blog or were otherwise forced to close up shop, you could still take your email list with you and use it.

Give away the store- but make sure your customers return

There are several ways you can help ensure that your audience takes your free items, uses these items, and then comes back for more.

1. Give away the highest quality. The first way to ensure audience return is by giving away only your highest quality items for free. Yes, this tactic may seem odd, but hear me out: If your audience downloads an ebook or other item from you that is filled with blatantly obvious or general information, it will assume that you have nothing of value to offer. That audience will never return to you.

However, let’s say your audience downloads something from you that is just packed with useful and even unexpected information. Not only will your audience be impressed with what it received for free, it will automatically assume that what you are selling must be even better. After all, if even your most useful advice is free, imagine how good your paid stuff must be. In this case, your freebie has served as a great promotional item by establishing your credibility and expertise in the field. But wait- there’s more…

2. Go viral. A quality freebie is invariably shared with others. Your audience members may find your free content so useful that they end up passing it on to other people that they know. These people are also wowed by your freebie, visit your website and even sign up for your email newsletter.

You can help initiate and perpetuate a viral share trend by announcing your free content on social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook, or making social media syndication a requirement of content download.

3. Provide payback opportunities. If you consistently impress people with your high quality freebies, many will look for ways to pay you back for your gesture(s) of goodwill. Don’t pass up on these opportunities! Create areas in your free content where readers/users can actually buy a product that relates to your freebie item and helps them become more adept at whatever they’re learning or doing. Likewise, be sure to mention that you have more in-depth versions of the same content, software, etc….for a price. Don’t be shy about tooting your own horn and discussing all the benefits of the paid-for item. If possible, give your audience the best sample of the touted item so they understand why you’re charging for it.

The Bottom Line

The concept of free, especially in the hot and emerging field of neuromarketing, works best with consumers because it is an emotional trigger. Roger Dooley, the primary blogger at Neuromarketing, aptly explains how free works to not only make us buy, but buy even more than we originally intended. Thus, if you’re worried about putting out high quality, free stuff on your website or blog, don’t be. By offering “something for nothing”, you’ll not only be establishing a sense of goodwill and credibility with your audience, but you’ll also be helping your business grow and generate revenue.

Should You Form an LLC?

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Let’s say you’re running a small business from your home or in-town office. Maybe you’re a freelance worker, self-employed or just making money in your spare time. Many small business owners and other individuals eventually form LLCs (limited liability corporations); however, is such a move right for you?  Sure, having the LLC distinction on your business may look snazzy, but is it worth the trouble? To answer this question, let’s first consider what an LLC actually is (and isn’t).

A really brief history of the LLC

Way back in ancient 1977, Wyoming businesses petitioned the state to create a commercial enterprise system similar to the German Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung (GmbH or, in essence, a company with limited liability), which itself had been around since 1892. In response, Wyoming passed the LLC Act, which was modeled on the GmbH. What did the German GmbH and the American LLC have in common? Both enterprises allowed businesses to be taxed and run like partnerships while being protected from personal liability like corporations. This new corporate model quickly spread and was enacted across all states. In 1997, the IRS allowed the LLC distinction to be applied not only to partnerships but also sole proprietorships, further validating this business model.

How does the LLC fit into the corporate world?

There are four main types of business entities: sole proprietorship/partnership, LLC, S-corporation and corporation. Here are their distinguishing features:

Sole proprietorship/partnership: You and your partners are the business and are personally responsible for all of its debts and liabilities. Business profits are “passed-through” to you and taxed as your personal income.

LLC: You have limited personal liability for your business’s financial and legal liabilities. Business profits are still “passed-through” to you and taxed as personal income.

S-corporation: This more formal business entity can include you and your partners (also known as shareholders) as well as investors (e.g., venture capitalists). As with an LLC, you are not held personally responsible for business debts and liabilities. Also as with an LLC, profits are subject to Medicare and Social Security taxes unless they are paid out in the form of salaries.

Corporation: This entity is akin to the S-corporation except that profits are taxed twice: once under the corporation, then again when paid out in the form of a salary to you and other corporate shareholders.

Why is the LLC so popular with businesses?

Imagine that, in your spare time, you make rechargeable hand warmer mittens (a personal invention idea of mine). These mittens sell like hot cakes (no pun intended) during the football and hunting seasons, when lots of people are out in the cold for long periods of time. You’re making a handsome profit on these mittens when one of your customers reports that your product shorted his house circuits and set the place on fire. Now that customer is going to sue you over the loss of his house plus hospitalization costs. You end up losing the lawsuit and have to pay damages totaling half a million dollars. Suddenly, your business has cost you everything, including your personal savings and possessions.

How could this situation have been avoided? Had you created an LLC for your hand warmer business, the LLC would’ve been sued, not you. After losing the court case, the cash and assets of only your LLC would’ve been used to pay off the court’s award to your customer. Your own savings and possessions would’ve remained untouched.

Because many businesses have a high risk of being sued, the LLC has become rather popular in recent years. Likewise, businesses that have multiple partners also form LLCs because this insulates members from the possible bad business decisions of the other members. Other LLC advantages include the following:

Credibility: People and businesses are more likely to treat you as a real business when you carry the LLC designation than when you are only a sole proprietor/partnership. It’s also easier to obtain business loans from banks, credit unions and associations.

Less formality: With corporations, there is an excessive amount of legal and accounting paperwork and record-keeping. The LLC, meanwhile, is more of a “safe haven”, simply protecting you from personal liability.

Separate entity: The LLC is regarded as a separate entity and can be sold, transferred or inherited. When you die, the business does not die with you but lives on.

Different profit/loss structure: You and/or your partners can receive different portions of the company’s profits or losses regardless of how much actual company you or they own. This option is not available to shareholders of an S corporation, for example.

Lower tax liability: Business losses can be deducted from your personal income taxes, lowering your tax liability.

Some disadvantages of the LLC include:

Costs: A yearly state fee must be paid in order to maintain the LLC status. Forming the LLC can cost up to $1,000, especially in states like California which charge $800 to submit the business’s Articles of Organization.

Taxes: If you have employees, you must pay unemployment compensation on all those employees, including yourself. Business profits that are retained in the LLC (as opposed to being paid out as salaries) are subject to Social Security and Medicare taxes. You must also file a tax return for the LLC itself.

IRS scrutiny: Because the IRS may wish to audit your business, separate bank and credit card accounts for the LLC are a must. Creating monthly/yearly fiscal statements for your LLC is also a good idea.

The LLC: To form or not to form?

If your business carries a lot of debt because of capital expenditures and investments, you can best protect yourself by forming an LLC. Likewise, if your business has many partners, an LLC distinction shields you from legal repercussions on account of bad business decisions or even fraud by your partners.

You should also consider how much “dollar-cost-averaged” tax you will pay for the LLC. Since this type of business is treated as a “pass-through” tax entity, business earnings are taxed as your personal earned income. Social Security tax on the first $90,000 is subject to a 15.3% tax. A Medicare tax of 2.9% kicks in for all income above $90,000. This means that, if your LLC is earning under $100,000/year, you’re paying a higher tax rate. However, if the LLC is earning over $100,000/year, your “dollar-cost averaged” tax rate is lower.

How to Build Your Own Revenue Share Site

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Do you currently generate content for revenue share sites such as HubPages, Examiner, Infobarrel, Helium or Yahoo! Voices? Do you envy the money that these sites make and how little of that cash goes to you (via page views)? If you’ve dreamed about collecting all the revenue that a site like Yahoo! Voices makes or even selling such a site one day (Yahoo! paid $100 million for Associated Content), then read on. Here are the steps that you will need to take to build your own revenue share site:

1. Buy a domain name and web hosting.

Obviously, you need to have your own website before you can generate any income from it. Fortunately, the cost of doing this is rather minimal with sites like HostGator and GoDaddy charging you roughly $10/year for a domain name and another 10-$15/month for web hosting expenses.

2. Create a Google AdSense account.

Google AdSense is probably the most ubiquitous adshare program around, offering instant platforms through which publishers can generate income via posted content including articles, blog posts, photos, videos, etc. Google AdSense also offers a range of useful tools to track page views and ad clicks and generate ad campaigns. For the purposes of a revenue share site, Google AdSense offers a software tool called the AdSense Host API; this tool offers the opportunity for a pool of publishers to each earn his/her own separate income from one publishing site.

3. Install Google AdSense on your website.

Before you can install the AdSense Host API, you should first install Google AdSense on your website. AdSense will report how many visitors your website is getting, where these visitors are coming from (both geographically and online), what keywords are being used to locate your site, etc. Having such information is critical for increasing your site traffic and recruiting other publishers. It’s also imperative because, as step 3 notes, you won’t be able to implement the AdSense Host API without a certain level of traffic.

4. Install or build your revenue share infrastructure.

Google releases the AdSense Host API only to those websites that generate at least 100,000 page views a day. Yes, Google’s page view requirement does make things difficult for publishers who are just starting out with a revenue share site. If your site is hovering a just a few 100 page views/day, you may want to take these alternative approaches to AdSense revenue share:

a. Create your own revenue share infrastructure. If you have any programming knowledge, you can generate code that will allow you to incorporate different Adsense codes and payment percentages into a single revenue share site.

b. Hire a programmer. With sites like oDesk and eLance, your outsourced programming costs could be rather minimal; i.e., a few hundred dollars should have you set up with your own personalized AdSense revenue share site.

c. Find and install a clone script. Sites like HotScripts offer scripts that can be used to implement a revenue share model onto your website. Likewise, you can look up and copy the coding of revenue share sites like HubPages, then make some edits to that code and use it on your own site. However, unless you’re familiar with coding programs and what they are capable of, your best bet is to go with option b and work with a programmer.

5. Decide how you will pay your publishers.

Now that you have your revenue share model up and running, decide how you will compensate your fellow publishers via Google AdSense earnings. Some sites initially give publishers 100% of their generated earnings in order to inspire more and better content. However, if you are concerned about covering your investment costs, you could set up a 60/40 earning model where publishers receive 60% of all earnings and you receive the remaining 40%. You might even wish to pay certain publishers up-front for selected pieces of content that you request. Such up-front payment could go a long way towards promoting your site and attracting a higher caliber of publishers.

6. Promote your site.

The hardest part of owning a revenue share site is driving traffic to it. Traffic is the lifeblood of your business because it generates AdSense income, thus keeping you and your publishers happy. Traffic can also lead to lucrative ad offers from outside advertisers, lessening your reliance on just Google for your income. Finally, traffic works through a positive feedback loop: more traffic equals more publishers signing up to your site, which equals more content, which equals more traffic and more publishers producing more content, ad infinitum. Of course, once your traffic levels reach 100,000 page views/day, you can implement the AdSense Host API and receive account help and information from Google itself. How can you best promote your site? Here are some time-tested methods:

a. Create a referral program. Provide your current publishers with a strong incentive for bringing other publishers on board. Those incentives can include a share of the new publisher’s earnings, a referral bonus or a prize.

b. Use social media. Use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to talk about your revenue share site and what it offers to publishers. Encourage content submission by posting a contest or some other buzzworthy event.

c. Go local. Consider setting up a booth at your city’s or town’s next career fair and advertising your website. Place an ad in your local paper. Put up flyers on college campuses and in town (with permission, of course). Don’t forget to talk about your revenue share site with everyone you meet; oftentimes, you might recruit publishers simply by the fact that they know you.

7. Create incentives for star publishers.

How do you motivate your current publishers to stay with your revenue share site and keep publishing good content? By providing them with various incentives. For example, you could create publisher levels based on a certain number of page views; with each page view level surpassed, that publisher earns a higher AdSense income. Alternately, you could target certain assignments and payments to a select group of “emeritus” publishers.

What else can you do with your revenue share site once it’s generating page views and money? In some cases, you may receive a buyout offer from a major online player such as Yahoo! or even Google itself and thus ensure a very comfortable retirement for yourself. You might also team up with another revenue share website or two and create an online network such as Demand Media has done. In short, the sky is the limit and you will definitely be surprised by where your revenue share experiment takes you.

Funding Your Invention (Without Going Bankrupt)

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If you are a creative individual at heart, you may already have an invention idea or two up your sleeve. However, realizing your invention requires a more entrepreneurial spirit. Even if you never intend to start a business based on your invention, there are still the matters of finding a market for your invention and filing for a patent. Once these preliminaries are complete, you might consider licensing your patent and collecting royalties. Alternately, you may wish to sell your invention idea outright.

However, before any of these actions can take place, there is usually the matter of locating interested parties who will provide up-front capital for you to build and market your prototype. Where do you find these interested parties? There are actually many different sites and approaches. Listed below are the most common ways in which inventors can obtain funding for their invention idea.

1. Venture capitalists/angel investors

Traditionally, inventors looked for venture capitalists and/or angel investors to pitch their invention ideas and receive funding. This is still the path that many inventors take; however, such funding has its pitfalls. For starters, venture capitalists, or VCs, are typically looking for big-time inventions that can net $100 million in a year. VCs will also “take the reins” of your idea and hire their own business executives, manufacturing company, etc. As a result, you and your invention might be completely written out of the picture.

Angel investors are more of the mind to simply provide you with your requested funds and leave you alone; however, angels are also looking to make a good return on their investment. Thus, angels will want to know if you have a product development team and if the group has any business experience. As a result, securing the typical angel sum of $50K-$2 million is very unlikely- or it might simply be more money than you’ll ever need.

2. Invention “realization” sites

There are online invention sites like Davison Inventing that will build and pitch your prototype for you. In exchange, you are asked to pay for prototype creation and any associated marketing fees. While some of these invention sites may be completely legitimate and helpful to budding inventors, my experience with Davison was not ideal: while the site does have a self-publicized track record of bringing some inventions to the marketplace, there is also a lot of criticism from burned inventors who shelled out $10K+ and never saw anything result from their investments.

Personally, I became suspicious of Davison’s business practices when any invention idea that I pitched to the company was immediately accepted as brilliant and marketable. I also did not hear of any inventor receiving his/her rejected prototype back after spending the money to have it built.

3. Crowdsourcing

For about three months, I participated in an invention crowdsourcing site called GeniusCrowds. This site solicits invention ideas from an online community in the categories of children’s toys, tools, hobbies, etc. Community members vote for their favorite invention ideas and those ideas with the largest number of votes are supposed to receive special consideration by the participating companies (which are never named). These companies also perform their own evaluations of the invention submissions.

Some community members were in fact selected for “the next step”, but no one was really informed what that step entailed. There was also a lot of community controversy concerning idea theft, since most of the product ideas presented on the platform had not been patented. In the end, I quit GeniusCrowds because I found it to be a waste of my time; furthermore, I preferred to keep my bigger ideas under wraps until I received at least a provisional patent for them.

4. Invention contests

There are quite a large number of invention contests out there with the prizes being rather hefty: for example, Walmart sponsored an invention contest that offered contestants the possibility of having their inventions stocked on Walmart store shelves. Other invention contests include the Rubber Band Contest, Collegiate Inventors Competition, Wood Stove Design Challenge and Proto Labs Cool Idea contest. There are also invention sites, such as Invent Help, that aggregate invention contests.

Sure, contests can be a long shot and require a lot of preparation, but most do offer honest feedback about your invention idea if you are not selected as a winner or finalist. Such critique can be invaluable for your future work. Furthermore, most contests make the utmost effort to protect your intellectual property rights. Of course, winning an invention contest is even better and offers you the opportunity to build your prototype, show off your invention in magazines and/or trade shows, work with a company to commercially develop your product, etc.

5. Crowdfunding

Lately, the best resource for budding inventors has been the rise of crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter an Indiegogo. These sites allow inventors to post their invention ideas along with funding goals (e.g., $5,000) and have the online community “back” those ideas with pledges. In many cases, backers have funded invention prototypes that have then gone on to attract attention from outside manufacturing companies. Backers are usually rewarded for their pledges with the actual invented item; for example, Pebble Technology Company raised over $10 million on Kickstarter by promising to ship a Pebble watch to any backer pledging $99 and above.

While there has been some worry over publicly disclosing invention ideas through crowdfunding sites, these ideas should be reasonably protected from being scooped if they have at least a provisional patent filed with them. Also, the inventor is not obligated to form a partnership with or otherwise hand over control of the invention to his/her backers. Due to these advantages, crowdfunding may be the best and fastest way to fund your invention.

Drop Shipping: A Viable Business Model if You Can Avoid the Scams

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You’ve probably seen eBay PowerSellers offering discounted brand name items through dozens of posted auctions at a time. Alternately, you may have noticed how some Amazon sellers never offer fewer than 100 items on their featured sites. Perhaps you’ve wondered where and how these sellers get their merchandise and then are able to sell it so cheaply. Additionally, how much money do they make in such a business? More often than not, such sellers obtain their bulk merchandise through drop shipping intermediates.

What is Drop Shipping?

Drop shipping is a special type of retailing technique where the retailer keeps no merchandise in stock but instead transfers the responsibilities for holding product and fulfilling customer orders to a wholesaler or distributor. The retailer typically makes his/her profit from the difference in retail versus wholesale product price. The wholesaler or distributor, meanwhile, saves money by not operating a retail store and by having a salesperson that can sell product quickly.

Almost anyone can get started with drop shipping and make money from it. There is no government oversight of drop shippers and you do not need a special license to start listing wholesale items on your website or an auction site like eBay. However, it may be a good idea to obtain a general business license from your home state or municipality, since you are running a legitimate business and need to operate legally. Your state or city government small business office or the SBA (U.S. Small Business Administration) can help you out.

There is also the matter of sales tax; most states require sales tax collection if the company that sells the products is located in the same state as the customer. With drop shipping, however, this situation gets complicated since the question arises of who actually sold the product to the customer. While you, the drop shipper, advertised the product and collected payment on it, you never actually owned or possessed the product itself. In such a case, it doesn’t hurt to enlist the services of a business accountant in your state.

Beware of drop shipping scams!

Before you can start drop shipping, you need to find wholesalers and distributors. Many online sites claim that they will get you in contact with lots of wholesalers and/or distributors whose products you can easily click and drag to your online store. These sites are called drop shipping aggregators (or drop ship warehouse companies) and are essentially middlemen between you and the wholesaler/distributor. The problem with using aggregators is that there isn’t much of a price difference between the merchandise offered to you versus what’s being offered on eBay or Amazon. Thus, it’s very difficult to achieve any significant profit margin on what you end up selling (since most of the price difference has been claimed by the aggregator). Oh, and did I mention that you will also need to pay a membership fee to establish your store and sell products under the aggregator?

What really shocked me was finding out just how ingenious these aggregators are. Some aggregator sites like WorldWideBrands, Salehoo and Doba charge you a membership fee on the premise that they find the wholesalers for you, thus cutting out a significant portion of your workload. Other sites, however, know that you are looking for the “Holy Grail” of wholesaler/distributor information and will pretend to be the actual wholesalers/distributors. For example, an “objective” article on Yahoo! Voices claimed to provide a first person account of how the author used three wholesale sites to find and sell discounted products. When I clicked on these three different links, all of them directed me to the same squeeze page that wanted $200 for a list of wholesalers. Um…no!

I’m not saying that there aren’t legitimate aggregator sites that provide actual contact information for wholesalers. However, after perusing various online scam reports, I found out that most of the provided wholesaler/distributor lists are horribly outdated. Furthermore, since many hapless individuals have already purchased the advertised lists, those wholesalers are probably working with a number of retailers and don’t need you. In summary, it’s unlikely that you’re going to get anywhere by searching online for wholesalers/distributors.

So, how do you find wholesalers and distributors?

Arguably, finding your first two or three wholesalers/distributors is going to be the hardest part of the entire drop shipping business. However, here are some steps you can take to get started:

  • Direct inquiries
    Email and/or call given manufacturers to find out if they do drop shipping and, if so, do they deal with retailers directly or through a distributor. Doing this will entail that you know the business first-hand; for example, if you wish to sell Bath & Body Works products, you should know that it operates under the parent company Limited Brands in Columbus, Ohio. On the company’s online FAQs site, it does appear that Limited Brands works with suppliers and subcontractors. Going on this information, you could contact Limited Brands and inquire about whether or not it participates in drop shipping.
  • Trade publications
    Many business-to-business (B2B) publications are available for free through sites like Free Trade Magazine Source. You might consider subscribing to a few magazines that are within your desired selling niche. These publications frequently list product manufacturers as well as who should be contacted directly.
  • Basic legwork
    If you know of a factory or manufacturer in your geographic area, don’t hesitate to go over there (after first making an appointment) and find out if it would be interested in a drop shipping arrangement. Making personal contacts could be the best way to get you in the drop shipping door.

What’s next?

Once you have a few direct product lines set up, highly consider obtaining a domain name for your business and creating a website. Also, establish a merchant account with Paypal so that you can start accepting larger sums of money and not have customers leaving your site while paying for an item. Look into shopping cart platforms while you’re at it; Magento, OSCommerce, and 3DCart all work well with Paypal and give your website a professional retail look.

Of course, you can just sell your products through places like eBay and Amazon; however, the commissions on your sales may eat into a significant portion of your profits. Furthermore, many customers will want to see what other products you are offering through your website. It’s a lot less work to have a sales page posted on a web page than to always be listing new auctions on eBay and Amazon.

Advantages and disadvantages of drop shipping

There are several big advantages with having a drop shipping business:

No inventory. You don’t have to rent space to hold inventory or fill your house with merchandise that might be damaged or stolen.

No need to ship. The wholesaler/distributor packs and ships your sold merchandise, saving you the time and hassle of weighing packages and going to the post office.

There are also some disadvantages:

Little control over merchandise. You’re going to have some issues with accurately describing your items to potential customers, especially if they want additional information like product measurements or material composition. In most cases, obtaining such information will require that you contact the supplier on the customer’s behalf.

Little control over shipment. If the wholesaler/distributors ships something and it gets lost or breaks, this is going to reflect badly on you and not the shipper. Again, you will need to work with your wholesaler/distributor to rectify the situation.

Retailer responsibility. No matter whose fault it is, you are ultimately responsible for making things right with the customer. You must never give out your wholesaler’s/distributor’s information and ask your customer to contact the company directly; not only is this highly unprofessional, it also negates the customer’s need to deal with you (i.e., the customer can now get the wholesale discount on his/her own).

The Bottom Line

If you can do your homework and make the necessary contacts with several wholesalers/distributors, drop shipping may be a good source of income for you. Some people even do drop shipping as their full-time business, making a good profit from the hundreds or even thousands of products sold every month. For example, Chris Guillebeau of The $100 Startup writes in his book section “Stumbling onto Freedom” how he “…started by importing coffee from Jamaica, selling it online because I saw other people making money from it; I didn’t have any special skills in importing, roasting, or selling.”

Beware of any shortcut methods when obtaining wholesaler/distributor lists, however; most list sites are scams and sell irrelevant lists that get you nowhere or put you in direct competition with a hundred other retailers. In short, don’t take shortcuts.