Well, what I have been doing is focusing on my niche sites and a few client based design projects and while I had thought about posting here, the truth is I didn’t have anything unique to say and the ‘make money blogging’ niche is already over-crowded with the same regurgitated trash – so I figured the best thing for me to do was keep my mouth shut and focus on what I was doing.

How Are My Niche Sites Going?

You may have noticed that I ditched the niche site income amounts from my sidebar – no, that doesn’t mean I have stopped the challenge, I just wasn’t making the time to update the figures and there is no point having out of date numbers showing.

My last update which was January, saw me at $207.11 for the month.

I am happy to say that this number is still increasing and I am progressing nicely towards my $1,000 mark, but will need to pull out something special to hit the target by the end of July (but I got some plans).

Here is a breakdown of May To Date (1st-18th):

INCOME: $477.75

• $360.50 – Adsense
• $114.55 – CheckMyStats
• $2.70 – Clickbank

TRAFFIC: 5,950 Visitors

That is almost 6,000 visitors in 18 days between 8 sites – so I am very happy with that.

However, that being said, I would say that 90% of that is from 3 of my sites, but either way the numbers are promising.

What Have I Got Planned For Them?

Looking at those numbers it seems that I am on track for about $600 in profit from my ‘niche challenge’ sites in May. That gives me two months to increase the figure by another $400. Here are a couple of ideas that I have to do this:

• Continue Doing What I’m Doing

  What I am doing seems to be working, so I will continue to focus on creating quality content, building backlinks and monetizing the traffic. This should be the continual focus on anyone building websites.

• Keep Tweaking Adsense Placement

  As you will notice that the biggest jump in earnings has come from Adsense and this has been a result of testing a lot of different placements to work out which ones convert the best. So I will keep testing new placements to find the ‘perfect’ Adsense layout.

• Sell Private Ads (Media Kit)

  I am currently working on creating a media kit for one of my sites, in an effort to attract private ad sales. The site is getting a couple of thousand visitors a month in an industry that has a lot of money – so hopefully I can convert that into a couple of nice paying, monthly ad slots.

If I really get stuck into it, I think I can easily hit my target and then double that by the end of the year.

What Are You Doing?

I am about to get stuck back into working on my sites, but before I do that I just want to challenge you with something quickly.
As I mentioned earlier, there is a lot of regurgitated rubbish floating around the internet, and I think this is fueled by a lot of people looking for a ‘miracle pill’ that will help them make a lot of money online. I like to remember the following quote by Thomas Jefferson:

“I’m a firm believer in luck, and I’ve found that the harder I work, the luckier I get.”

I would spend hours each day reading about the different ways to make money online, but it wasn’t until I blocked all the ‘noise’ out, stopped reading all the ‘guru blogs’ and just knuckled down and started putting in a lot of work, that I started to see growth in my sites.

So quit reading and just start working – and see how ‘lucky’ you get.

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Unfortunately, when many of us think about making money from home, we think about scam artists. We think of ads that proclaim you can make a million dollars every week just by doing nothing all day, and equally fantastical claims. Almost every one of us has fallen for that kind of thing at least once, clicking on the link before realizing it’s just another con.

Experiences like that breed skepticism, and rightly so. You wouldn’t want to fall for every single ad you come across. But don’t let the skepticism keep you from seeing the real opportunities that the Internet has made possible. There are some real, honest-to-goodness ways to make money from home. All of them involve real work, but you get to do it from your own home, and that’s worth putting a little effort into it, right? Here are a few suggestions.

1.Freelance writing

If you are a good writer, you can make a living with your pen, I mean, keyboard. There are lots of words on the Internet, in your mail, in the books and newspapers and newsletters you read, and someone has to write that stuff. Freelance writing isn’t all fame and glory, however. Most likely you aren’t going to make a living writing novels. Instead, many work-from-home freelance writers make money writing marketing materials for businesses. Web copy, advertising copy, direct mail, press releases, articles — these are a few of the things you might find yourself writing as a freelance writer.

2.Virtual assistant

A virtual assistant does many of the things a traditional secretary or executive assistant would do, but of course (as you may have guessed), he or she does it all virtually. As a virtual assistant, you might find yourself answering and screening phone calls, setting up appointments, managing client email, or performing research. A virtual assistant, or a VA as they are often called, may specialize in working with clients in just one industry, which is an advantage if there are industry-specific technical skills you can therefore offer your clients. Just as with freelance writing, a virtual assistant is a contractor and not an employee, which means that you will probably work with multiple clients on a regular basis. Since there are no advanced skills you have to know in order to be a VA, this can be an excellent way to earn money from home.

3.eBay seller

Many people have discovered that an eBay store is an excellent way to earn money from home. eBay sellers typically search for items that they can resell on eBay, whether they get them from overstock, garage sales and thrift sales, or make the items themselves. If you are an antiques or collectibles dealer on eBay, in truth only about half of your job will be done from home, as you will have to scour local sales for resellable items, as well ship them to their new owners. Other sellers make their products by hand, or buy overstock and other lots online and resell the goods when they receive them, which means only the shipping must be done away from home.

4.Handmade crafts

There is a growing interest in supporting local artisans who produce handmade goods, often more creative or better quality than the commercial products available in stores. There are often many local resources, such as craft sales, flea markets, and booths in larger stores, to support artisans by helping them to sell their crafts. In addition, you can sell the things you make on websites.

5.Websites and blogs

I am putting this in a different category than freelance writing, because while most freelance writers write for someone, many bloggers write for themselves or with the intention of selling advertising space and affiliate marketing space on their websites. In addition, this category includes small online retailers that make an entire business out of selling products to niche markets through affiliate marketing. For instance, an entrepreneur might build a website specifically for horse owners, and list a variety of horse books, tack, and other products from Amazon and other affiliates. With a website or blog like this, every time a product sells, you earn a commission. Ads, on the other hand, may pay you every time someone clicks on them, or simply pay you a flat fee every month to host the ad.

As you can see, there are quite a few ways to make money from home if you are so inclined — and these are only five of the most common types of jobs that work-at-homers take. Do you make money from home, and if so, how?

About the Author

Vern Marker is a freelance writer on a variety of topics including entrepreneurship using the Internet. She’s helped design Ebay store pages and is well-versed in online marketplaces.

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These niche selection question really had me thinking, and I hope that you are able to get some great tips and ideas from my answers.

Questions My Readers Had About Niche Selection:

How Do I Find Experts In A Niche?

Alex from the Allergy & Asthma blog asked:

How can I find experts in a particular niche so that I gain ideas and experience from them?

My Response:

This is a really tough dilemma that a lot of people looking at creating niche blogs face – because a lot of times you will find that the niche that has the right keywords and competition is usually the one that you know least about.

When I don’t know anything about a niche I am about to enter – I usually just turn to Google as my expert and spend a couple of hours researching the topic to start with – and I find that I can learn enough from their to create the content for my niche site.

HOWEVER, if you are looking to find experts in your particular niche the Pat from SmartPassiveIncome has a great idea, that he personally used on one of his niche sites.

He was creating a niche site on security guard training, so what he did, was call up a few training organisations and asked them what was required and for some information. If you seem genuinely interested, then most people will be willing to give you some information – or point you in the right direction.

Should I Build An Information or Product Based Niche Site?

Natalie from Turkish Travel Blog asked:

My main question is about the kind of niche. It’s all very well using criteria of search numbers and competing pages but the type of niche is crucial. Being a bit of a know it all I have built several info type blogs and suspect that a much better way to go is to build sites on consumer products.

My Response:

I know exactly what you mean Natalie!

I have created both information and product based niche blogs and I always find that the products ones seem to convert better (especially if you find a few perfect keywords).

That being said, I don’t think that you necessarily have to focus your niche blog on one particular product, I like to focus on a broader niche (as I have done with my niche blog camper trailers for sale – which allows me to target a much broader range of buyer keywords!)

So I would definitely tend towards product based niche sites – but try and find a broader niche that will give you a large range of long tail keywords.

How Do I Convert Niche Traffic Into Subscribers?

Hariesh from Shipping in South Africa asked:

I have a very niche blog.. Currently it is sort of a community service blog that i am running.. Its a free to subscribe blog and although there are more than 120k unique hits, there are only about 200 subscribers.. I have searched the web high and low but failed to turn up a single blog that is like mine or displays similar content.. Yet i don’t understand the reason why there are so less subscribers when there are so many visitors.. The content is good and unique and useful to all.. Any ideas..??

My Response:

First of all, congratulations on your traffic success so far! Having the traffic is the hardest part – now you just need to work out how to convert it.

I noticed that you are using a ‘post to email’ form of email list, which is something that I (personally) have found to not work that effectively.

The first thing I would do is grab an Aweber account (you can get started for just $1 for your first month), and start building an email list that you can actually email to (not just send blog posts).

But back to your original question, about why so few of your visitors are subscribing – this could be for a couple of reasons:

1. You Have To Give Them An Incentive

   The majority of people are not going to sign up to a blog to receive emails of the latest posts. What you need to do is give them a reason to sign up.

   My favourite option here is to create an ebook or e-course related to the industry that will solve a problem that people who are visiting your blog are looking to answer.

   As an example, for my online paid survey blog, I am currently in the process of writing a 7 day e-course called ‘How To Increase Your Survey Income’. Now, time will tell if it will convert a fair share of my readers – but I am confident that I will get close to a 10% conversion based on the fact that visitors are coming to my blog to learn how to make money from surveys – and this course shows them how to do it.

   Find out why people are visiting your blog and create a free product that answer their question (with a few affiliate links in the middle).

2. You Have To Get Your Incentive In Front Of Their Face

   Once you have creating your subscriber incentive, you have to get your offer in the front of their eyeballs.

   I personally use two tools to do this for my blogs:

   • eCover Creator 3D

     The majority of people are visual decision makers, so giving your book or e-course a physical appearance definitely helps with the conversion. To create an ebook cover, I either use oDesk and outsource the job for about $10, or do it myself using eCover Creator 3D.

     >> eCover Creator 3D
     >> oDesk

   • Pop Up Domination

     Popups, love them or hate them, really work! Pop Up Domination allows you to create fantastic looking pop ups (that easily add your ebook cover) and is a product that I personally recommend for niche blogs if you are looking to build an email list.

     You can read my personal opinion and results in my Pop Up Domination review.

How Do You Handle Running Multiple Niche Blogs?

Rolando from Written Means asked:

I was also thinking about starting a new blog in the weight loss niche, but I’m not really sure how to get things moving. I know that I don’t necessarily have to be an expert in a particular market to get started, so I am thinking about hiring a few people to spin PLR articles to create NEW content for the site.

I’m so used to doing things myself, but I would hate to spend countless hours writing and creating content for a 2nd site, especially since I’m still working on my primary ( http://www.writtenmeans.com ) …just seems like a lot of work that can be easily outsourced.

My Response:

That is definitely possible I have written a couple of articles on how I outsource different parts of my niche sites like:

• Outsourcing Link Building

• Cheap Article Writers

In fact I even have a product that I have created called Outsourcing Link Building (that I have never released) and am willing to give a copy to anyone who emails me.

In regards to spinning articles, this is never a job I have outsourced personally. I usually just do that myself at the moment (as I am still testing it out), and I use a website called Spinz.me (Free) that is a great way to quickly spin articles and then I syndicate them using either Free Traffic System or ArticleRanks.

With the tools and people at our disposal, it is no longer necessary to base niche selection on topics that we are knowledgeable about – which means we can target more niches (and do less work with outsourcing).

Add Your Questions Below:

I didn’t want this article to become to long – so I have left out a couple of questions that I wanted to answer.

This means, that I will be writing a second post soon on other niche selection FAQ’s.

So if you have anything that you would like to know that is specifically related to niche selection, then leave a comment below and I will make sure I answer it for you!

Further Resources:

• Is oDesk A Scam? – My look at the outsourcing marketplace business model.
• Market Samurai Promo Code – Why you don’t need one to get a discount on the best keyword research program.
• SEO Article Writers – How to get content for your niche blogs for under $2 per article.

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I am a massive fan of Market Samurai and with my new niche blogs, as I work on ranking them on the first page of Google, I will daily check my ranking for a range of keywords using the ‘Rank Tracker’ feature of the program.

On the 25th of October I got the biggest shocked when I was checking my ranks only to find that all the keywords I had ranking on the first or second page of Google where now well below the first 10 pages (some even dropped off the top 500!!!)

Here is what one of my target keywords did:

Let Me Give You The Back Story…

Well to start with, I have already given you the domain of my niche blog.

It was the result of quite a lot of keyword research and my goal was to target 6 ‘main keywords’ (the one above is one of those keywords) and then using blog posts to aim for a lot of long-tail keywords.

Everything started off dandy, with some quick ranking (good keywords choice, expertise, or lucky – your choice) and about 15-30 unique visits a day. And to top that off, it even made me about $40 last month.

But The Honeymoon Ended Abruptly!

Just when I was starting to celebrate my success, everything started to come crashing to the ground as Google dumped my site like a over priced tech stock in the middle of the ‘dot com’ boom.

Here are just some of the drops:

• Homepage Stopped Ranking For Any Keyword!
• From 10 down to 300
• From 5 to 500
• 15 down to 105

And this was what happened to almost ALL my keyword rankings.

This is about the time that I started to run around the room with my hands in the air, screaming that the end of the world had come!

Oh, and if you were wondering about my traffic…

And this obviously affected my earnings in a similar fashion.

What I want to share with you is the steps that I took next and how it all came together…

How To Handle A Google Dump In 5 Simple Steps

1. Stop Freaking Out!

Going crazy is not going to help (it will just annoy the people you live with), so find a way to clear your head. It is not the end of the world, so don’t act like it is.

2. Did You Do Something Wrong?

Now that you are almost back to normal, it is time for a bit of analysis. There are a lot of things that Google frowns upon – so the first thing to do is make sure that you didn’t upset the ‘big G’.

A couple of things to consider are:

• Quick Link Building To A New Site
• Poor Or ‘Lack Of’ Content
• Over Optimisation

If you are happy that you are not doing anything to upset Google then move on to the next step. If you think you may have done something wrong – rectify your mistakes before you do anything else.

3. Don’t Stop Working

The most important thing is to keep working on your niche blog. Google loves content, so if you haven’t one anything wrong and you continue to push out great content, then chances are that Google will want you back!

Now is not the time to stop link building either. Don’t go crazy, just focus on quality link building and act like you nothing ever happened.

4. Bolster Your Content

One other thing that I did was go back to my pillar content (the ones targeting my main keywords) and added extra content and did a little optimising. Not only was the idea to better the content, but also to give Google another reason to re-crawl my content.

5. Remember Why You Are Doing This!

I will freely admit that this drop really did rock me and made me start doubting my $1,000/month goal by July. However, over the last last week I have been working crazy hours building (houses not websites) and severely lacked time with my ‘growing much to quick’ 4 month old daughter, and it made me remember why I was making the shift to focus on passive income websites.

So if you are feeling the urge to give up when Google kicks you off the ladder just before you reach the top, remember your reason (or find one) and get back up and start climbing with even more resilience!

A Fairy Tale Ending…

I am happy announce that I am now ranking better than before for all my keywords.

Here is how the keyword at the start bounced back…

A lot of you were asking for transparency…

So, here is a preview of some of my better performing keywords:

All these came back yesterday, so I thought I would share with you my traffic up until today.

So What Happened?

To be honest, I completely have no idea what went wrong.

Maybe Google did a re-shuffle, or maybe they wanted to see if I was really committed to my goal (we all know Google knows everything).

I don’t know and I don’t really care.

The thing I learnt from this experience is that whatever happens to keep pushing forward. If you haven’t done anything wrong, then chances are things will bounce back.

Have you ever had a massive drop in your Google rankings? What did you do? Comment below!

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As well as that I have been working on a new niche site (focusing on getting a foot hole on some seo traffic for that)and also finalising WebsiteBuildr which is a free ‘DIY website builder video course’ that is especially targeted towards small business owners.

Yesterday I finally finished WebsiteBuilder and this post is an overview of what it is, what to expect and why I created it!

What Is WebsiteBuildr?

WebsiteBuildr is a free video course targeted towards the DIY website builder!

As I am sure a lot of you are, I am constantly asked by friends and family with small businesses to design their websites. The problem is, that most small businesses don’t have big budgets (actually when it comes to websites – their budgets are usually quite small). And whether they cannot afford it, or just can’t justify spending the thousands of dollars that a professional website design firm will quote – there are a lot of small businesses that never get a web presence!

That is why I decided to create an easy to follow video course that would give small business owners a road map so that they are able to become a DIY website builder and create a fantastic website for their business for under $100 (with no technical proficiency!)

Can Anyone Be A DIY Website Builder?

I can see a lot of people saying,

I could never build a website!

I honestly believe that with the WebsiteBuildr system, that if you can send an email and can follow instructions, then you will have no problems following this course and creating your own website.

The reason that I made the decision to turn this system into a video course was to make it as simple as possible for those watching. You can build your website, while you watch me make one myself!

AND… I have set up a great support system to help anyone that is having any problems while creating their website.

WebsiteBuildr Course Structure:

To make this DIY website builder course as simple as I could, I broke the content down into 4 smaller modules:

• Hosting & Domain Setup

• The Website Framework

• Website Design

• Add-Ons & Extras

Each module has multiple videos and any websites or products that I discuss in a video are linked to directly underneath.

So if you are looking to create a website for yourself, or know a small business owner that does not have a website, why not have a look at my DIY website builder video course!

>>WebsiteBuildr: FREE Video Course <<

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Just recently I have seen a great example of this around the blogosphere.

I received an email through my contact form asking me to review their product in exchange for a copy of their product. Now, if you know me very well, you will know that I usually will only review products that I personally use – and it’s not because I’ve been asked to review, it because they are great products!

But I looked at their website and it looked solid, so I decided to agree.

Now, I was extremely busy so I decided to hit up my friend Corey Freeman from SneakyHeathen.com who had offered to review the product for me – she loves to offer her opinion, so I knew she would do a great job.

The next day, I got a message from Corey saying she had written the review but warned me that it was quite negative. I said ‘No problem’, send it through and I will have a read.

After reading Corey’s review, I realised that this was not a product that I would recommend (and I also did not think that it was a review that the product owner would want me to publish). So what I did was email the review through the the product creator, and let him know that we had reviewed his product and our initial thoughts where not entirely positive and asked him to read the review and let me know if he wanted me to publish it.

I got his reply the next day saying, ‘scrap it’ – and left it at that.

Then I Started Seeing Reviews Pop Up In My Reader…

Over the next couple of days some of the bigger bloggers started posting reviews of this product with none of them being negative – and it got me thinking:

Are bloggers more interested in making money than protecting their readers?

Now I am not saying that bloggers shouldn’t accept paid reviews, and also I’m not saying that this product is terrible. Corey and I both thought that it was targeted towards a strategy that we do not personally agree with – but others might.

What I would more bloggers to do is put their readers first! Promote products that they personally believe in (not just because they are getting paid).

What Are Your Thoughts On Paid Or Incentive Based Reviews?

And before you ask, I will not be releasing the name of the product, so please do not ask.

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Online marketers often want to offer something tangible to visitors and potential customers that offers value, establishes credibility, and makes them want to come back for more. Often an eBook meets those criteria. If you want to offer an eBook as a free incentive or as a product for sale, you should first recognize that creating an eBook does not guarantee success.

To give the eBook you write its best chance for success, learn from the following eight characteristics of a successful eBook.

1. Write About Something You Know

Writing about topics unfamiliar to you does nothing to help your readers and hurts you in the long run if readers complain to the online world. Readers usually want to learn something from an eBook they have downloaded and possibly purchased, so do not disappoint them.

2. Get Unique Material

Let’s face it: anyone can scour the net and get commonly available information. Go the extra mile to make your eBook successful by getting original sources and uncovering new facts. Doing this can be as easy as visiting your local library or contacting a highly respected expert in your field for an interview. Often, libraries have a wealth of material online that you can use, and many experts will gladly be interviewed via email, so you can improve the quality of your work without even leaving your desk.

3. Make An Effort

If you go to the trouble to get unique material, you probably will be willing to make an effort to produce a quality product. Even when writing an eBook that you will give away free, take the time and do the work to do it right. Simple things like logical organization and a table of contents will set your eBook apart.

4. Cite Sources

Some writers avoid disclosing their sources because they fear readers will abandon them for those more knowledgeable. Although that might happen, you gain a lot more because you give readers a chance to delve further into your subject if you want. Furthermore, it really looks bad when a writer resorts to plagiarism to create an eBook. Citing sources also boosts your credibility in that you can prove that other experts support the things you say.

5. Offer A Sample

Rather than rushing to trap readers into buying your eBook, let them read a chapter or two for free. This puts pressure on you to produce a quality product and it assures the buyer that they will get a worthwhile product.

6. Build Up Anticipation

Learn from the big companies that hype up their product weeks or months before they become available. Apple, for example, announces its new iPhone versions months in advance and let the news and anticipation snowball to the point where it cannot satisfy the demand for the product. Do the same thing for your eBook. Use your blog, social networking sites, and forums to let people know about your eBook project. By whetting the appetite of your friends, customers, and visitors, you will have a whole customer base ready to buy as soon as the eBook is released.

7. Encourage Comments On Your Download Site

Successful eBooks will have a lot of positive feedback from those who have read it. When prospective buyers see the number of people who are happy with your product, they are even more likely to buy it.

8. Get Third Party Reviews

Find a well respected Web site in your niche and get the owner to review your eBook. This not only creates a new back link, but it lets people know that someone else has read your eBook and likes it. Readers can also learn why the reviewer likes your book, an opinion that may play a part in the purchasing decision.

Online marketers love eBooks because they attract people to a Web site, increase revenue and contribute to a lot to the lives of others. Go get started on your eBook now, keeping these 8 characteristics of a successful eBook in mind.

This is a guest post from James Adams, a product analyst and tech writer for a leading UK-based online ink supplies specialist. His days are spent covering tech news, analysing and reviewing products such as the T0715 and, if he finds a spare minute, posting from time to time on their blog.

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(Tom) Hey Dan, I have been seeing your name around quite a bit lately, so thanks for taking the time to do this little Q&A with me. Can you give my readers a bit of an overview of who you are, what you do, and some of the things that you are working on?

(Dan) Hi Tom, to begin with thanks for the opportunity to post on your blog, first and foremost I breathe the internet and particularly have a huge passion for marketing which I found I had early back in 1993 when the first Power Macintosh was introduced. Ever since then I have been developing and making a living from the industry.

In the past 5 years I have focused all my energy on Search engine optimisation building a global presence with my company GSEO.net with over 50 major clients, but more recently changed the order of services to more of a community so that income will be generated automatively through a community style site, and in the past year and a half I have been very focused on blogging and affiliate marketing through my own personal website DanLew.com, and am now able to live the lifestyle I dreamed of, making money while I sleep, having an automated income!

(Tom) Awesome! We love that automated income. You recently made a post on your blog about how you make $2,000 a month blogging. I know this is a figure that a lot of my readers would like to reach themselves, but see it as an almost impossible task. Can you share a little bit about you were able to grow your blogging income to the point that it is now – and how you are planning on increasing it (because I know you are aiming much higher).

(Dan) The thing is I see loads of bloggers or affiliate marketers get into the industry and after like 6 months they think why am I still not making money and give up, the real reason is because you can see they are writing about things out of desperation to make money and hype which is really not the case, readers can see this. The main reason you should blog is because you love it, you want your community to know what it is you have passion about and what you like posting, then the money will follow. It should never be the other way around!

The earnings I recently stated I make in DanLew.com was to give my readers hope and to make them stick with it and for them to believe that it really is possible. This figure is divided up into around 8 affiliate networks, 3 major ones such as CJ and Clickbank and other smaller one-off affiliate networks I have joined and promoted. I really am determined to reach an average income of $5000 a month from blogging by the end of the year, I don’t think it is that unrealistic but I will need to fully focused in order to achieve this!

I have around 50 other sites I personally own and also need to keep working on as well, so it’s just a matter of balancing my time. One of my other newly launched sites I am currently spending time on is HotelORes.com

(Tom) 50 sites! So blogging is just a side project for you isn’t it? One of your main roles is the CEO of an SEO company, how much does search traffic play a role in your blogging income?

(Dan) I used to have my own SEO company in Thailand with around 12 staff, so I know how to manage a business. I more or less combined my knowledge in SEO which I have obtained through having my own SEO Company to stretch these skills so to speak into my own sites and get good rankings for those sites, social media also works well for me and other online marketing tactics.

The time I spend physically blogging is around 30 minutes per day, I do of course have some days I need to think and prepare for interesting topics in which my readers will enjoy. But apart from that, I spend quite a bit of time on other projects, particularly with clients and in meetings and other sites that also generate income on autopilot, some other money making ideas I wish to get going in the near future is having more products in Clickbank and having my own WordPress plugin.

(Tom) Looks like you have quite a lot going on and I can’t wait to see what you are up to in the next 6 months! Do you have a few keys that you can share that will help us target our seo and improve our blog traffic?

(Dan) I have been recently using a tool called SEOPressor which is bringing my blog posts to the first pages of Google. This for me is a really important aspect of blogging and particularly SEO.

On the other hand, there are tools like Market Samurai which I also see you use and as a serious website owner these tools are really essential. There should be no sacrifice to say that anyone out there does not need to spend money on tools to help them achieve success. You need to spend money to make money, but for the few dollars that it costs, it is really going to help you make that much more, so it is really worth it for the long term, both time saving and money saving.

Apart from that I always encourage to never stop learning, always read the latest news about Google and other search engines changes in the algorithms and what works best and what doesn’t . In order to be successful in this industry you must be on top of what is going on in the industry.

(Tom) Great tools! Away from blogging for a minute, I thought that since the both of us are from Australia, you in Melbourne, and myself on the Sunshine Coast, maybe you could give my readers a bit of an insight into your favourite local travel destination.

(Dan) I always have a soft spot for places like Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast, although I was born on the Gold Coast and spent a few years in Melbourne, I always love going back and spending a few good months there. Noosa is also one of my favourite spots, so you are lucky to be living there!

But as for the most part I travel a lot to Thailand and in fact have a house there, my wife is also from Thailand so last year for example we traveled back and forth to Australia from Thailand 3 times, just for weddings and family visits!

(Tom) A bit of a traveler I see, and a nice local pick with Noosa! I really appreciate you taking the time to share a bit about yourself and what you have going on. Just to finish things off, if you could share the one thing that you believe is the key to a successful and profitable blog?

(Dan) Being a blogger and affiliate marketer is really about being able to handle lots of different ideas and bringing them together and funneling it to one big community, you need to always have your eye out on what others are doing, and how you can also do it, posting regularly and being active and commenting on other blogs is also a key aspect in driving quality readers to your site. So you have to be active on all areas, create a Facebook page, have your own Twitter page, create your own video channel for Youtube is also another important part of branding and gaining peoples trust. The more you are out there the better!

Good Luck!

DanLew.com

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My gorgeous daughter Isabelle Rose was born and Mum (Fiona) and Bubby (Isabelle) and doing well.

I have just come back from the hospital and wanted to update you all with some of the details and a photo (plus let you know when some comments are not getting replied to and posts are not being written (no internet at the hospital).

Name: Isabelle Rose

Born: 30th June, 3:38pm

Weight: 6 Pound 8 Ounces

Where Did The Name Come From?

We absolutely loved the name Isabelle (which means God’s Promise) and it has a good range of options for nicknames (like Belle, Bella and Izzy) – and Rose is my wife’s middle name.

So forgive me if there are no posts over the next couple of days as I spend some quality time with my two beautiful girls!

PS. Wonder how many years until I can get her blogging? :D

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2 Types Of People Who Won’t Benefit From Dreamweaver CMS Framework

1. Blogger’s Who Don’t Want To Design WordPress Themes

A lot of bloggers are quite happy with their free or premium theme, and that is totally fine. If you have no interest in designing WordPress themes then it goes without saying that the new Dreamweaver CMS Framework will be of no benefit.

2. Bloggers Who Don’t Have Moderate Coding Knowledge

One of the reasons I was so excited about the new CMS framework feature of Dreamweaver was because while I have moderate knowledge of CSS styling – I really can only edit code and create basic code. By allowing me to see the changes I make in real time I knew this would improve my coding skills and help me create much better themes in a shorter time period than in previous versions of Dreamweaver.

If you have no CSS coding knowledge then I think you will really struggle doing anything more than changing colours as you are still working with the CSS stylesheet. So I would recommend that you do a bit of CSS studying before you spend the money to buy Dreamweaver.

What I Love About The CMS Framework…

Live Code Navigator

I absolutely love how you can split your screen between a pages html or the Stylesheet and a live preview – and you can right-click on any section of the live preview and select ‘Code Navigator‘ and it will show you which section of the CSS to edit.

Live WordPress Theme Preview

After a bit of time struggling to set up XAMPP and install a test version of WordPress onto my computer I was happy to get it all runnning and this feature makes it feel like I am editing my theme live through Firefox!  It is amazing.

How Dreamweaver CS5 Is Working For Me

I took the opportunity to test out the new design features to see if I could design some new WordPress themes for a couple of my blogs and I though I would share the results.

**NOTE**
Both these designs are still a work in progress and I know there is still work to do on both. This is just an example to show what an average blogger, with average design and coding skills can accomplish with Dreamweaver.

WordPress Theme 1: DIY SEO Services

This design is for one of my local Australian blogs that’s focus is on teaching local small business how they can conduct their own SEO services and save money. It is still in it’s infancy but is starting to get some good search rankings and I think will do really well with the new design and an upcoming free e-course.

WordPress Theme 2: Secret Marketing Success

SecretMarketingSuccess.com is all about teaching people the art of outsourcing jobs overseas and is really starting to see an increase of in traffic, this is why I wanted to update the theme to put a much greater focus on the content above the fold.

I am really happy with where this new design is heading. With a major focus on the free ebook, I think this will dramatically increase conversion (I’ve already had my first subscriber through the header form). While the home page is still a bit messy, I think this theme should convert extremely well.

With both themes I now need to spend a bit of time nutting out the text css, especially the in post formatting – but I think you will agree that it is a pretty good start!

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Blog Security Info From An Expert I by no means can call myself a blog security expert. With This 90 Page Tutorial You’ll Systematically Be Walked Through Each Step It Takes To Lock Out The Bad Guys So You Can Protect Your Profits. WordPress Security Blog Lockdown

The last two days have been incredibly hectic for me after I found out that my reseller account with HostGatorhas been hacked by this annoying back phishing scam people!

It started off with an email from a company that Lloyds Bank had contracted to assist with anti fraud and security, which went something along the lines of this:

It appears that your website has been hacked by a fraudster. It is now hosting a phishing attack against Lloyds Banking Group plc
Please remove the fraudulent folders/files as soon as possible and secure your website as it has been compromised.
Please note that it is possible that the fraudulent content is embedded in your website’s legitimate files.

http://www.website.com/halifaxonline/halifaxonline/formslogin.asp.html

In addition, please send us any source files of the attack.
Please let us know if you have any questions or need further assistance. We appreciate your cooperation.

Best Regards,

RSA Anti-Fraud Command Center
RSA, The Security Division of EMC
US Phone: +1-866-408-7525
Email: afcc@rsa.com

As you can imagine my mind started going crazy trying to work out the ‘what, how and why’ or what was going on because I knew this was serious.

I was frantically checking my ftp to see if I could find the files that they mentioned when I started getting about 8 emails from HostGatorall saying the same thing (for my different domains).

Hello,

We have received complaints of a phishing site being hosted on your site as referenced above. Upon inspection, we found that a phishing site had been installed on your account. The vast majority of phishing sites are installed by malicious users who have found exploits in scripts previously (and legitimately) installed on the account. We have taken the above actions to prevent further malicious activities. Please make sure to update your password to something more secure at this point and to update all the scripts/plugins on your account to the latest version.

Your new account password is: (removed)

The following malicious scripts have been removed from your account:
./hsbc.zip
./hsbc
./hsbc/files
./hsbc/files/user-prefs.js
./hsbc/files/util.js
./hsbc/files/btn_view_demo_dgrey.gif
./hsbc/files/logging_data
./hsbc/files/logging_data/c
./hsbc/files/optimise.js
./hsbc/files/090615_btoffe_b_len_cre_sa_490.txt
./hsbc/files/btn_lgon_g_red.gif
./hsbc/files/default.js
./hsbc/files/header-base01.css
./hsbc/files/logo-on-white.gif
./hsbc/files/sidebar.css
./hsbc/files/header.js
./hsbc/files/print.css
./hsbc/files/top_section.js
./hsbc/files/continue.gif
./hsbc/files/idvFieldsValidation20071023.js
./hsbc/files/ExitPublicFusedSite.js
./hsbc/files/logging.js
./hsbc/files/p2g_piblogon.js
./hsbc/files/hw.js
./hsbc/files/nav_logon.gif
./hsbc/files/default_002.js
./hsbc/files/content.css
./hsbc/files/Styles.css
./hsbc/files/Styles_002.css
./hsbc/files/form_utils.js
./hsbc/files/btn_fom_dgrey.gif
./hsbc/files/pr.js
./hsbc/files/logging.htm
./hsbc/files/onlinesavings.css
./hsbc/files/logging-code.js
./hsbc/files/0510wealth_v8_240.gif
./hsbc/files/generic.css
./hsbc/files/ib.css
./hsbc/files/bottom_section.js
./hsbc/files/icon_help.gif
./hsbc/files/3103savings_obs_v1.gif
./hsbc/files/menu.css
./hsbc/files/mdghsb_personalinternetbankinglogonpage_10.gif
./hsbc/index.htm
./hsbc/details.php
./hsbc/confirm.php
./email
./email/wp-config.php
./email/error_log

Warm regards,

Christopher D.
Level 2 Internet Security Division
866-964-2867 (General Support)
281-476-7801 (Abuse/Security Fax)

This made me freak out further, but also told me two things:

1. Obviously it was something to do with WordPress (because that is the only script I run on any of my websites.
2. HostGatoris brilliant.

Since HostGatorhad deleted all the infected files (and I went and checked to make sure), the first thing I did was go and change all my passwords (hosting and WordPress) then open up the big G (Google) and start searching for increasing security in WordPress.

My Tips For Beefing Up WordPress Security!

1. Make Sure You Have The Latest WordPress Install

   In my research I found that a lot of the upgrades have security fixes and hackers target websites that are using older versions of WordPress. Since a couple of my websites using WordPress are normal company websites – I never thought to update them!

2. Don’t Use The Default ‘Admin’ User

   This just makes it easier for hackers to guess a password. Probably not the most important thing, but something that will definitely make it harder for some hackers.

3. Install Some Security Plugins

   Like insurance, security is something that you never think about until you need it. And this is what happened to me. I had no idea there were so many great plugins that you could get that would beef up your WordPress and make it much harder for hackers.

   Here are a  few I recommend:
   Login Lockdown
   Secure WordPress
   WordPress Antivirus
   WordPress Firewall

This should go a good way to preventing successful hack attempts on your websites!

Why I Love Host Gator!

When I was doing some research on how to fix my problem I found countless website owners from other hosts who mentioned how the first thing they new about their website being hacked was a letter from their host canceling their account.

I am so glad that HostGatordidn’t cancel my hosting account, but instead HELP FIX MY PROBLEM and point me in the right direction of how to stop this from happening again.

This is the sign of why HostGatoris one if the best blog hosts!

The good news is that it seems to all be sorted out, and while I can’t guarantee that doing these things will prevent your WordPress blog from being hacked – the more you can do and the more security flaws you block up, the more you will deter people from trying!

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After reading  a post over on BuildThatList about the best affiliate products, I was reminded of the most important key when it comes finding that top affiliate product.

The products you use are the best affiliate products to sell!

I think that Tom has made a fantastic point that I recently had the pleasure of experiencing.

My Top Affiliate Product

I am not the type to go around sharing my online earnings, but I have set myself a goal to go full-time online by the end of the year with a minimum income of $3,000 a month.

While I am still quite a long way off this figure I have been taking the necessary steps to make sure that I find myself on top of the goal by the end of the year, and the first of those steps was to find my top affiliate product.

Now I know it is going to take a lot more than just one successful affiliate product for me to consistently make $3,000 a month, but I found my start when I downloaded a trial of a keyword research product called Market Samurai.

After purchasing the product, I seriously could not think of why every single affiliate marketer and blogger was not using this software – I believe it is that good!

The Problem was when I started looking for their affiliate program.

At the time they didn’t have an affiliate program and all I could do was email them my details asking them to let me know when they decide to set one up.

I got a reply saying that they were working on adding about 7-8 new affiliates a month, but there was a long waiting list  – so I was left in limbo until sometime near the end of January.

I was estatic.

Here I had a product that I love. That I seriously recommended to everyone who asked anyway and they offered to give me about half of every sale that I sent over to them. Sounded like a pretty good deal to me.

In the month of February, I sent an email to my mailing list and made a couple of blog posts, one about a Market Samurai Discount, one about a review of the software using a case study for my new large dog kennels niche site.

During the 28 days of the month I made 12 sales (which is almost one every 2 days)  and this month is on target to do even better.

Why Is Market Samurai My Top Affiliate Product?

If we go back to the way to find your top affiliate product,

The products you use are the best affiliate products to sell!

The reason I believe I made the sales that I did was a result of my review posts, where I showed my readers how I personally use the software to find the keywords for my websites.

So Where To Now?

Obviously I am going to continue to find ways to introduce bloggers and internet marketers to Market Samurai but now my focus is to finding my next top affiliate product.

Sure 10 x $50 commissions a month is nice, but that is not even 20% towards my monthly goal for the end of year. So now I am looking for my next top affiliate product – because we can either continue to improve our sales of one product, or introduce a new pipeline (I am trying to do both!)

So what is your top affiliate product, and why is it working for you?

Download a free trial of Market Samurai the product that I use to find and rank my niche sites!