Another great thing about blogs like Blogger Unleashed, Court’s Internet Marketing School, and Grizz’s Making Money Online for Beginners is the real community that exist, who all try their best to help each other out and learn together. I have had many questions answered by the bloggers there, and many useful ideas have sprung from their discussions and ideas.

I have put the stuff he taught on his blog into practice and they certainly work. Now, Vic has a contest at Blogger Unleashed where he will guide 100 bloggers on a step by step basis to making money online with a local niche blog. I will be joining and if you truly want to learn how to do so in a legit manner, I would advise you to join in too and learn. There is the added bonus of prizes in the form of an all expenses paid trip (well, for the airfare and additional $500 bill) to September’s BlogWorld Expo in Vegas, but for me, it is what I could possibly learn and then apply it to other niches that would be the most valuable. Do not waste your time on crap like Problogger and John Chow. Learn from honest and sincere guys like Vic, Court and Grizz.

Learn more about the contest and sign up here.

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Since then, they have stopped releasing automatic video feeds due to abuse by a number of publishers and subsequent complaints by advertisers. I thought that was a great move as abuse by a few black sheep would never be good news for the rest of the field who played by the rules. However, those who had previously been using these feeds were still allowed to do so as long as they stayed off the blacklist. If you missed the boat, it is unfortunate, but Voxant Newsroom has loads of quality videos, text and pictures for you to publish on your site, and with decent CPM, you should check out what they have to offer in terms of making some extra cash online while providing relevant content for your readers.

For example, if you have been blogging about the Presidential race in the U.S., they have numerous videos every day. If you are providing highlights of the daily NBA games, they have all the necessary reports and pictures which you can use. There are also timely updates on many celebrity news bits such as news on American Idol finalists such as the popular Asia’H Epperson and David Archuleta, and all sports from ice hockey to soccer. Various other niches are also available including health topics to even women interests such as fashion and beauty. Take your pick from their varied offering and surely you can monetize your site in one way or another with the Voxant Newsroom.

The only negative point so far has been their lowering of CPM rates about a month back. While I never probed further, I could only contribute it to lower advertising demand due to the U.S. recession.

But when it comes to making money online through CPM programs, this program definitely provides one of the best payouts that I have come across. Many other advertising networks have low CPM rates, and while the market for CPM advertising has dramatically decreased in recent years, using this program has been one of the better paying options.

On top of this, I have had very pleasant service correspondence with their staff. They have even started some impromptu rewards for publishers this week. 3 Ipod Shuffles are up for grabs for the top three publishers next week who manage the highest number of advertising impressions and % increase in impressions over the last week. It is the first time, in my experience with them, that such a contest has been held, and hopefully with more to follow in the near future. So, if your blog has a need for fresh content in various media, why not find out if the Voxant Newsroom would be a good fit?

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Another common worry that a lot of people looking to expand into niche marketing often have is that they are not sure if writing on a niche alien to them would be possible. I was not born a Casanova nor grew up a natural with women, but writing romance short stories and about dating was never too much of a difficulty after I turned 12. All that happened was reading a few epic Chinese romance novels and using a little imagination, even my female teachers developed crushes on me. Although I cannot reveal what transpired since it would have been incredibly scandalous, the main gist is that nobody was born knowing or having interest in anything. Your passions would have been developed from the time you left your mother’s womb and if life was not a continuous journey of learning, then yes, you would be someone who would not be able to succeed making money online.

A better suggestion would be to learn how to write about topics or niches that have the demand or where the money is. You do not need to be enthralled by something to be able to produce articles or content. There is not even a need to produce a piece of art for people to pay you what a real art piece would command. There is so much on the Internet nowadays on just about every topic available, all that is required is some research and practice rewriting. There are even automated content creation software that you could use, although I tend not to use them as my personal writing output tends to be more productive. The age old method of rewriting PLR articles still hold true if you want something quick as well, and they free you from having to think up of new content every now and then.

If you actually want to be a writer, then go ahead and stick to writing what you are passionate about. If you want to make money online, then ask yourself what your primary objective really is before whining about how hard it is to make an article about telescopes when you do even know what a pair of binoculars are.

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The New England Patriots had looked vulnerable in the preceding weeks of the regular and post season leading up to the Superbowl. The moment they secured the division, the only thing that was constantly mentioned in the media was the possibility of them finishing the season unbeaten, thereby not only matching the Miami Dolphins’ feat in 1972, but to eclipse it. Despite Belichek and the team’s insistence that it would not detract from their focus of winning the Superbowl, it would no doubt have weighed heavily on the players’ minds each time they took to the gridiron in subsequent games. The way they scrambled to each victory showed that while this team had the ability to go all the way, they had an unbalanced makeup with uncharacteristically weak defensive lines. Fortunately or unfortunately, no team could take full advantage of this up till the final game of the season.

It was the New York Giants who had shown earlier how you could rattle Tom Brady, a quarterback often regarded as one of the coolest to grace the NFL. Strangely, Belichek could not come up with an answer to this in the Superbowl despite the warning signs. The Giants might have played above themselves again on Sunday in sacking Brady 5 times, but it was shocking to see the man increasingly unsettled with each play. Perhaps mentally, Tom Brady was not at his peak compared to previous seasons when he got to the Superbowl, as he was seen more often basking in the celebrity limelight with supermodel girlfriend Gisele Bundchen. It was Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson all over again, and look where the Dallas Cowboys ended up.

Sometimes you take risks to win, sometimes you do not. Bill Belichek has been known to constantly throw his hat in the ring in any situation, but despite having only 35 seconds after New York took a last gasp lead, there was enough time left to go for better field position and 3 points to bring the Superbowl into overtime. After all, the Patriots have been gunning for records all season, why not another one by making it the first Superbowl to go to overtime?

While the Giants bask in their moment of glory, do not discount the New England Patriots from bouncing back next season. Bill Belichek would make use of this extremely disappointing result to separate the men from boys. And that might eventually cement the standing of this team as a true dynasty in the history of the NFL. In the meantime though, they would be remembered as the biggest chokers.

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Let’s say we have made work plans for today and then along comes someone from your family that asks for a favor. Unfortunately, the favor requires your time and requires it now. Even worse, it will cause great disruption in your planned schedule to make money. But you go ahead and do it anyway. Later when you fail to meet your work objectives, the blame starts being pinned on having to help others and them getting in your way. The fact is you allow things to get in the way and then press the fault on them, not on the fact that you made a choice to sacrifice your time.

Now that might be an extreme example. A milder and more common one, but no less damaging, is that of checking your emails before the start of your day, and tending to the 101 tasks that come to you from that. Yes, there will be things that need to get done when you receive them via emails, but if you have had something planned ahead, then concentrate on what was planned first. By choosing to go the other way, you are allowing things to get in your path when it was just as simple to tell them “Wait, let me work on my scheduled tasks first.” Consider a circumstance that if it happened to someone else. If you were an advocate of living with zero resistance, you might not have tolerated the excuses given that obliterated their daily planned schedules which make money. Sure enough, there would always be urgent issues that require dropping everything on hand immediately (e.g. death in the family, emergencies). But if I were to find myself now going, “I could have done this already if not for this incident getting in my way”, I would slap myself silly.

By not allowing things to get in my way, I also eliminate the unnecessary frustration that comes with blaming others for my own failures. At the risk of sounding selfish, understand what your priorities are in life. If you really want success, some sacrifices have to be made. If it is to make money online from home, that can put you in a situation with many distractions. Everything you do is a conscious decision made by yourself. Of course, some choices you will live to regret, some you would be glad you made when reflecting 50 years down the road. But life also loves throwing curveballs in your way just as much as Roger Clemens wants to do with his legacy now, so oftentimes you just have to do what is most important at that point in time. If you need to veer away from your intended path temporarily, make the necessary arrangements to still meet the preset goals. For me, that is what it really means to let nothing get in my way of achieving what I aim for and zero resistance living.

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I am going to turn some readers away I suppose by re-directing them to other bloggers. But better they learn the real shit then beginner’s bollocks. They are better and can teach more about making money online while I am still learning. I admit reading the Probloggers and John Chows and even pointed them out but hell, most people start from there and it’s what effort you make to find the really effective methods. After I found Garry Conn and now Vic’s own make money online blog Blogger Unleashed, they have taught me more and better stuff in a few short weeks than what anyone can learn in a few years from the other A-Listers’ rubbish. The two of them shoot from the hip but as always READ BETWEEN THE LINES and learn. Now many JC and PB fanboys are gonna shit on me and laugh at my struggles, but screw that, if you wanna waste time watching another idiotic video about watching grass grow, go waste your time with them. If you really want to make money online, enough of that PR crap - time to make your time profitable. So go check out Garry Conn and Blogger Unleashed, and learn something useful about making money online.

If you want inspiration, self-development articles or just a pep-talk once in a while, yes you can come back here and read some. The methods are there and can bring you results when you put in your best effort but sometimes it may not come as fast as you hope. So during those down periods when you feel like returning to your day job like I have a few times, you can come visit me and share a laugh at each other’s struggles before stepping on the accelerator again. And if I find some more real deals online I’ll make sure to tell you - there’re a few more actually but I’ll spread them out over a few posts so you can still actually learn from my mistakes, and come back here actually.

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So my problems were: 2 large writing assignments (few 700 word or more articles) on topics I was clueless about, with not much monetary reward in relation to the amount of thinking I might have to do in the beginning.

Like I said, screw the money and do the work first.

So there I was, wondering how to start. Honestly, I was not quite sure how to. Of course, the best place to begin with, was to do the due research on the Internet. Which I did. Lots of facts, and some personal opinions from various comments later, I had a decent pile of information available to build my words on.

But wait, how would I know to separate fact from fiction? I was entering uncharted territory, and you don’t get paid to write nonsense. Again, I decided to hang my concerns behind the back door and get my hands dirty.

I went through the usual article writing procedures and got the drafts out. At this point in time, you might ask. If the topics are outside of your comfort zone, how do you make sense of the information and produce articles which, well, make sense?

You gather facts from the Internet, but even more important is to obtain personal opinions of others on these facts. Craft your angles by mixing these opinions in. If you have problems figuring which are more dependable, then cater to the common expectations by blending the majority opinions into your articles. In most cases, it provides a platform for acceptable articles. Why? Because you have to write for the majority’s reality. Is this cheating? No. You know nothing about the subject matter - just create stories from what others say or think.

In fact, I got lucky. I had 2 friends whom I remembered having keen interest in either topic. Needless to say, their insights were requested and they kindly obliged. Some verification of facts was even squeezed in on my part. Thanks guys, you know who you are!

Opinions are unique, yet they aren’t. I have used them widely for fuel in my freelance writing, especially in cases where I have had to deal with foreign topics.

The sweet thing was, I was rewarded with continued assignments and better rewards. If you are trying to make some money online from freelance writing, do not be afraid of writing about topics alien to you. It becomes easier after the first article, and sometimes, stuff that others don’t touch can often provide the better payoff.

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“I blog about something the best I can, slap on some ads and hope someone will click on them.”

Now, I don’t mean to be harsh, but if anyone has the same mentality and still expects to get any results, it’s certainly time to shape up or ship out.

Unless you only blog for a closed community of friends and family, you would certainly be blogging for attention. It can be anything - readership, money, even if it contains your opinions, you really desire for someone to read them. Otherwise you could always open up a Word document, do the same writing, and then save it on your PC for later private viewing.

And because you are blogging for attention, you do not sit there hoping for someone to uncover the next biggest thing, or that one click that pays you $0.03 that you hope for. Go out there and make it happen.

Decide on what you want to achieve. Break down on your goals into definable and actionable plans. Then work on them systematically. If you use a scattergun approach, you will receive results on which you cannot derive any insight on. This prevents you from developing strategies that should improve following each stage, so that you can witness incremental results or feedback for increasing performance.

Study others’ methods within your niche. Whether it is on marketing their work, increasing ad revenue or widening their network, analyze the different approaches and incorporate them into your own. Keep track of results and performance, as it is essential to know what you are doing and which methods work best for you.

Too often, we’ve been conditioned to spin a few and mask it as effort, then hope for the best. Remember, hope only comes into play when you’re down to your dying breath. Don’t let that happen to you.

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What would the common reaction be after that from you, and many others after reading the same report?

Confidence might be shaken, trust lost, and belief in the method would dissipate, no doubt.

Often enough in these circumstances, we might lose some, or all, rationality. If we were to weigh this one case against the many other positive ones, do a re-analysis, the odds might still favor the method making money. Chances are, however, that the one negative example will weigh heavy on our minds and we end up treating it as the norm, not the exception. So you end up not trying and miss opportunities to make some cash. Even if you did take the plunge, your mind would be tuned to the little failures and end up not going the distance to achieve its fullest potential. A common example is that of using Adsense.

Here are some situations that will lead to bias when you try to process information. It is good for us to understand how our minds can sometimes be duped into dodgy reasoning despite all the facts, and help protect us against repeating the same mistakes.

1. Authority
We love to listen to authority figures, and their word can often represent the law. This means they can get away with murder sometimes, easily convincing you that right is wrong, and vice versa. If an authority starts to argue based on his credentials, rather than the issue and specific reasons, it should be enough to arouse suspicions. Question authority, for the genuine ones will be able to explain and substantiate their arguments.

2. Love is worth its weight in gold
You are given to listen to and trust your family and friends, because it is unfathomable they would say or do anything to put you at risk. That is true - but it does not exclude unintentional misinformation. Always survey the general body of data that you have and how it relates to several cases. Weigh each special instance against the mountain of evidence before jumping the gun.

3. What works for me will work for you
Apart from the fact that we are all different and unique in our own little ways, there are also factors influencing every outcome such as how one does things, effort and discipline, and the kind of luck we enjoy. If someone is kind enough to show you his methods, be grateful, study his ways and learn from it, but do not necessarily deem it the way of the world until you have explored other possibilities. Keep your mind open to different ways of doing things.

4. What you believe in, may not be right
The mind works in strange little ways. Just as well we are often led the other by a single negative occurrence, our eyes and minds also gravitate towards ideas and data that support what we already believe in. Once you become a fan of Manchester United, you only note the pretty football they sometimes play, but not the cheeky dives some of their players indulge in.

Nobody likes to make mistakes, and everybody loves to be right. Humans have a subliminal tendency to look for evidence that supports the wisdom of our choices. So always be mindful of the different scenarios you can find yourself in, and evaluate wisely. Avoid leaky logic and new doors might open up for you.

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I am sometimes surprised to hear of difficulties in getting conversions, especially when the person then tells me he does not practice this simple method. The reason often given is that they simply could not believe it would work.

I cannot blame them, because it was on my mind too in the beginning. In fact, I thought it was too cheesy.

Until I implemented it in a time of desperation.

The method is very simple. In fact, you would have heard of it from many other online marketers. And that is to use call-to-action’s.

Before I used it to try to get people to visit my property site, I averaged about 600 daily unique visitors. After I added a simple call-to-action in the tag line, it went up to about 800. All just from adding a ‘cheesy’ “Click here to check Now!”.

Add to it some factual or statistical indication and it might even provide a stronger backing to your claim. This can lead to a stronger inclination for that click through that you so desire for conversions: “Click here to find homes at 40% lower rent!”

That and some other permutations now provide me with over 1000 daily visitors to the site. Of course, my suggestion is that you should have the material to substantiate your claims on the landing pages, otherwise it will only drive visitors away and that is NOT what you want.

Look at your product or service. Determine what benefits it provides, and then highlight these in the call-to-action as a further incentive for people to want to visit.

So there you have it - something which is really well-known, but are you practicing it enough? I made sure I did, and am reaping the rewards.

Good luck!

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