Viral Marketing — Popular Viral Marketing Techniques

Viral marketing is all about creating a 'buzz' about a free product or service that you can offer people and in which your ad copy (URL, contact information, link, etc) can be embedded. When they download your product, they can then freely pass it on to other people. This is a very effective means of multiplying your marketing efforts at no additional expense or effort on your part.

Below are some popular marketing techniques that you can employ to begin a viral marketing campaign.

1. eBooks — Write an ebook about a topic that you know well. Share this free with your website visitors. Make certain that you include a nice, full colour, advertisement inside with links to your most popular product lines. Include links to your website and eMail. Allow all recipients of the eBook to share it with their own site visitors and contacts. Encourage it to be given away with eZines.

2. Software — If you sell software, then share a trial or 'lite' version of your software with website visitors for free. Remember to include your ads and links in the software's splash page. Also tell people to freely share the software themselves. The latest trend here is to write widgets for websites (these are pieces of JavaScript code that perform functions like unit conversions etc). They can be added to websites free and have a link back to your site. There are also apps for mobile phones. If you are not a coder yourself, you can hire someone to write software or widgets for you on sites like eLance.com.

3. Web Hosting — Become a web hosting reseller or offer free hosting. Offer to host small business websites on your server at no charge. In exchange for this service, ensure that you place banner ads for your own products at the top of every site for viral marketing. Basically you are offering to set up a folder for other peoples' sites on your server. They then pick their own domain name and you redirect that the the folder you set up for them.

4. Templates — Design website templates. Add your links and contact information in the footer, then give them away as free downloads. Ensure you grant permissions for any recipients to pass them along for free.

5. Articles — Write articles about your industry, or about things that interest you or will attract visitors. Include the URL to your website and contact information in the byline (resource box) and grant permission for others to copy and republish the article, as long as they keep the byline intact. This way your article, and with it, your byline spread virally as it's republished from site to site.

6. Forums — Set up a forum on your website and place your banner ad on the header. Create a lively discussion area and invite others to link to posts.

7. Begin a campaign — Using hashtags (#hashtag) in twitter and Google+ posts allows you to create an on-line buzz about a topic quickly. Ensure that you include the appropriate hashtags in any marketing materials you prepare.

8. eZines — Yes, I know they may be old had, but they still work. When people download your freebies, get them to give you their eMail address as long as you can send them your eZine. Use this to provide useful information, but also provide links to your products and services.

Viral marketing strategies allow you to easily and quickly multiply your marketing efforts by using the power of the internet to spread messages. Using freebie giveaways and creating marketing campaigns remain the most effective strategies for achieving this.

Marketing to Women, Don't Ignore the Female Dollar

Research has shown that today, women often earn as much as men and in families, they frequently control the finances. This means that women have a lot of purchasing power and cannot be ignored.

This is especially true in the areas of home furnishings, health, weight loss and domestic appliances. Research clearly shows that these areas women's purchasing power is much higher than that of men.

As a result, if you target these areas for your on-line marketing campaigns you must write your copy and design your site to appeal much more to women than to men.

Women as Buyers

Overall, women are less decisive than men when it comes to making purchasing decisions. Men, typically, will make a quicker, more 'on impulse' decision and take a far more linear route towards making a decision. Women, in contrast will tend to go into lots of detail about their purchasing decision and will check and re-check any information that they are presented, particularly if they are uncertain about something.

As women feel more satisfaction in caring for others, they tend to go into high levels of detail when making a purchase, and they are always on the lookout for where best to spend their money. They also want the best and most suitable product on the market to suit their needs.

As a result of this, women take a more spiral type of decision path and require more reassurance that their purchase is going to be the right choice.

For women you need to create empathy with your website as women are more person-orientated. Women take longer to make a decision, so ensure that your website covers all the levels of detail that they will require to make a purchase.

Factors when Marketing to Women:

When aiming your content towards women, here are some of the factors to consider:

1. Ensure that your website has a more personal approach. As a minimum, ensure that you have a profile section about you on the site.
2. Write the website in the first and second person.
3. Use emotional advertising
4. Focus on human benefits rather than just the plain facts and figures. Think of the emotional impact.
5. Make sure that all the details of the product you are promoting are on your website and no more than one click away from where the user is now.
6. If there are any details supporting the product (medical backing and clinical studies for example) ensure that these are available on the site.
7. Make certain that you have a personal touch. Liberally use testimonials, have review sections and figures on how many people have visited the site recently. A forum is a good idea to get user feedback. Allow discussions on the 'hot topics'.

How to Write for Women

Women make decisions in groups and are more people oriented. Women value relationships with other people and believe that nothing is too mundane or profound in a relationship.

Women's aspirations are more family and benefit oriented. Not immediate personal benefit, but broader benefits. Your site should reflect this. Women crave detail, richness and depth and your site must reflect this. But the site still needs to be logically organised and easily navigable. Women do not like a messy site either.

Do not make the common mistake of putting the product centre stage. It is not the 'product as hero' for women, but how the product can be beneficial to the problems women face.

Use case studies focussing on normal women. It's not the aspirational that women latch onto, they want to see other women like themselves.

Use everyday language and focus on the human benefits. Use emotional styled ads to create lots of empathy.

When using images, feature women prominently and think about the right kind of image.

Women are good at giving feedback and online surveys and quizzes are an excellent way to glean more information from your target audience.

If you are targeting both women and men, then have separate landing pages for both sexes and separate navigation through your site.

Twenty of the Very Best Affiliate Networks

Affiliate networks are an excellent source for monetizing your websites. You sign up to them, pick products to promote then write articles or even mini sites around those products to promote them.

Each time someone buys a product based on one of your links, you get a commission payment.

The main problem is where to find the products to promote. As a result, I have collected together a list of twenty of my favourite affiliate networks to share with you.

Twenty of the Very Best Affiliate Networks:

1. Commission Junction: Commission Junction (CJ) is one of the leading affiliate networks in the world. The network has been providing its services since the last few years. The products that you want so sell have been sorted according to categories and there are a number of popular brands that you can endorse.

2. ClickBank: This is another popular alternative that pays you attractive commission. You can be assured of commissions in the range of 40 to 75 per cent for every product you sell. There are more than 10000 products that belong to various categories like technology, health, fitness, sports, etc.

3. Amazon: This network belongs to one of the most popular names in the IT industry. The network will be best suited for those running eCommerce sites and applications. You can directly pick up any product from the main store of Amazon and place its context links on your blog. For every sale you make you can earn a commission of 10 to 30 per cent. You can place the links just like the Google Ads.

4. E-Junkie: This affiliate is one of the best in the market. The network deals in products across multiple categories. You can buy, sell or simply put the process on autopilot so that you can be assured of guaranteed income. The network will provide in suitable inputs and other technical support so that you can sell better. The system uses PayPal as its primary payment gateway.

5. ShareASale: This is another decade old network that has proved its mettle in the field of affiliate marketing. There are more than 2600 dealers to choose from which varies from sports to travelling and technology. The network is number one in United States.

6. Google: The Google runs its affiliate program via the AdSense service. The options are limited but the commissions can be attractive. This program also requires professional commitment from your side.

7. Affiliate Window: This is a UK based network that mainly deals in shoes, perfumes, cosmetics, chocolates and other commodities. The network has some of the best brands in UK and the commission rates are also high. It pays only once in a month and has excellent statistics.

8. LinkConnector: This is a relatively new network that is rapidly catching up with the other major networks of the world. The network was launched in 2004 and uses Pay Per Click, Pay Per Lead and Pay Per Sale models. The network also considers the PageRank of your site before sending some quality traffic.

9. CPA Empire: CPA stands for Cost Per Action. This network is suitable for those who can do a lot of email marketing and promotions. The empire is all set to expand its base and has several acquisitions under its belt.

10. Nitro Marketing: This network offers a vast collection of technology products. There are a number of educational products also. The mode of payment is monthly and has a high commission to offer for every product you sell. Best Affiliate Networks

11. Affiliate Future: AffiliateFuture is an international company with headquarters in London. It also has offices in New York and Spain. Most of the programs offered are UK companies targetting UK buyers, but there are a small number of merchants who are based outside the UK. Affiliate Future is owned by TMN Group plc. This is one of the top UK affiliate networks offering a range of well known and niche products and companies that you can market on your website. Some of the well known companies that you can partner with through Affiliate Future include: PC World Business, Kuoni, Virgin Atlantic, Vernons and Curry's Entertainment. There are also a wide range of sites covering niches such as fishing, Distance Learning, cat flaps, plastic fascias (for construction and DIY), gentlemen's shaving products and adult toys. ver 65,000 websites currently act as publishers for Affiliate Future, and they offer about 900 different merchants for you to partner with.

12. Clixgalore: Clixgalore is a multinational affiliate network with over 7500 merchants that you can promote on your website, including many from the UK. Clixgalore is made up of five main networks based in the US, UK, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. The company's head office is based in Australia. Affiliates can join merchant programs either one at a time or in bulk. Some applications are automatically approved, whereas others are approved manually (the merchant has a look at your website and decides whether or not to approve you.) The Affiliate Tookkit allows you to create additional user logins, view any special offers that the merchants may be running, allows you to email merchants and check those merchants that have a "low balance".

13. LinkShare: LinkShare is a US corporation currently offering affiliate programs and marketing to users based in the US, Canada and the UK. They also specialise in other online marketing services for advertisers such as search engine marketing and lead generation. The company has been in existence since 1996, and has advertisers which include Avon, Napster, British Airways, Lego and House of Fraser. Once you have been approved by an advertiser, their links will be made available to you. You can in general choose from a range of text links and banners, or set up your own deep links to individual pages if you would like to. Some of the merchants also offer rotating banners or "Storefronts", where you can paste some code into your site and feature a range of products that are automatically updated. LinkShare also offer the Lead Advantage Network, which enables publishers to high commission programs not available in the rest of the LinkShare network. You will be paid for providing leads and new customers to companies, as opposed to direct sales. For example, if you are promoting a company selling conservatories, you could be rewarded with a commission every time a prospective customer applies to receive a catalogue.

14. Paid on Results: Paid on Results are an UK company based in Glasgow that have been operating sine 2002. Payment is made via BACS once a month once your balance has reached £25 or more. Note that you have to request a payment through the payment centre in order to be paid. Paid On Results currently offer about 120 merchants that you can promote on your website, including many niche markets. Some of the websites that you can promote include Dr Nirdosh (skin doctor to the rich and famous), Genie Gadgets, Schultz Jeans, Surewin Racing Club and Handbags and Gladrags. One of the better known merchants featured on the Paid on Results Network is Grattan, the catalogue company.

15. TradeDoubler: The company is international, but payment to UK affiliates is made in £ sterling via BACS once a month once your balance has reached £30 or more. Tradedoubler is an international company with headquarters in Sweden. It boasts 18 offices throughout Europe and recently launched its technology in Japan. It has a network of in excess of 125,00 publishers across the globe and over 1,600 advertisers use the Tradedoubler network for affiliate marketing. The larger companies that use Tradedoubler include Apple, Carphone Warehouse, Dell and Kelkoo. However, they are also used by a number of smaller companies including World of Linens and Travelbag.

16. Webgains: Webgains is an UK based company, but in addition has offices in Spain, Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden and The Netherlands. The company was established in 2004. It is owned by Adpepper, an independent online marketing company based across Europe. Webgains offer an impressive array of linking options and reporting tools in a user friendly website setting. At the time of writing there are 257 merchants to choose from, with lots of niche sites that you can create targeted websites to promote. Webgains have recently introduced "Page Peel" technology. This provides affiliates with a unique way of making the most of the advertising space on their websites. "Page Peel" encourages the site visitors to "peel" back the page by hovering over the peel back area that is situated in a top corner of the page. Once peeled back, an advert is revealed. This is a great technology for the affiliate - he can keep his website full of content, but entice the visitor into viewing ads in an unobtrusive way.

17. eBay: Like Amazon eBay also have their own affiliate program. The eBay affiliate program used to be managed by Commission Junction, but since April 2008 eBay have moved to handling their affiliate program in house. The eBay affiliate umbrella includes the following affiliate programs - eBay UK, eBay US, eBay Belgium, eBay Canada, eBay Singapore, eBay India, eBay Honk Kong, eBay France, eBay Spain, eBay Italy, eBay NL and eBay Australia. It also includes the US based half.com program. The program is well thought out with lots of options. The Dashboard allows you to see at a glance which programs are working for your site, and reports can be itemised by day, campaign, tool / creative and program. You can also download the raw transaction data for use in your own data analysis or spreadsheet program. As the range of products is so broad, it's easy to build a list of "campaigns". In essence, these are different areas of the eBay site that you are accessing. This makes it very easy to integrate eBay products with a whole range of websites. Using the tools provided, you can provide links and creatives. Access to the API also allows you to incorporate eBay feeds into your site.


18. MoreNiche: MoreNiche was founded in 2002 and they specialize in the health and beauty, anti-ageing, weight loss and skin care markets. They offer good affiliate payments, bay bi-weekly, have excellent support and pay twice a month. If you are in the health and beauty niche, then this has to be on your list of affiliate networks. They also pride themselves on being the most transparent and ethical affiliate program available today.

19. OneNetworkDirect: OneNetworkDirect is DigitalRiver's affiliate marketing network for software products. It features the largest selection of digital products offered online today, including some of the world's most recognized titles. Founded in 1994, Digital River (NASDAQ: DRIV) is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with offices located across the United States, Europe and the Asia Pacific.

20. Maxbounty: Established in 2004, MaxBounty is a large network with over 14 000 affiliates and hundreds of advertisers. They are an international company that offers payouts in a number of currencies and methods. This CPA advertising network is unusual in that you have to undergo a telephone interview before you can join. They are renowned for their customer service and the support from their affiliate managers.

Sign up to these networks and you will have more than enough products to promote on your websites,

Why Websites are the Best Investment in Today's Market

If you have a lump sum and you want to invest for growth, then how this is done has suddenly become a big problem in today's market. With interest rates falling globally, and stock markets suffering almost daily jitters, is there anywhere you can invest your money to get a decent rate of return?

Let's say you have $10 000 to invest. Even if you found a very generous interest rate of 5%, and you invested your money in a savings account. After a year you would have $10 500 only. In fact, because of taxes you would have less than that and inflation would also diminish the value of your earnings and your capital. Of course, your initial lump sum is safe — but your earnings are pitiful.

What about the stock market? If you are good at your research then you might make a 30% return on your investment, if you are good. But if you invest in stocks yourself, you are just as likely to make a loss. It might be safer to put your money in a fund that will manage the buying and selling for you. But, still, it's a long-term investment and the stocks purchased by a fund may not increase that much. But say, on average, you make 20% then you would have $12 000 at the end of the year. Of course, you would have to pay taxes and brokerage fees, so you would have less than this. Also your capital and earnings are tied-up in stocks which you would have to liquidate to access your earnings.

Need an Investment, Think Websites

Websites? I hear you ask. Well, let's take a look at how you would invest in a website and what earnings you could make. I will take you through a site that I invested in last year. It was a small blog earning about $40 per month from adsense. It cost me $450 and I paid another $150 to get some new articles (30 new articles). Almost all the on-page SEO, was done by myself, though I outsourced link-building for $100. Let's say that total SEO costs were $300.

I also added Amazon ads on the site. I made a total investment of $900 in this website, increased its traffic and its earnings to $60 per month. The site is making me $720 a year. Hold, on, you're thinking to yourself, isn't that a loss? Actually, no, I still have the website itself as my initial investment. Even being conservative and saying that the website is worth 10 months' income, that's $600, so my total for the website is $1320. I paid $900 in all, so that's $420 profit — 47% increase on my initial stake. I've tried to be very conservative here. I kept adding content and by the end of the first year the website actually made $90 per month. I kept it for two years and sold it on in the third year. During the first year it earned me $2050 in income. Because the site had matured and I could show steady and increasing income for over a year I sold it for the value of 18 months' average income, so when I sold the site on I got $1600 for it. So, in two years the site earned me $3670. Based on the initial spend of $900 and $5 per month hosting costs, that's a total profit of $2650, or over 100% per year! 

Not all websites are like this, of course. Small site and blogs have lots of potential, but you need to know what you're doing. If you're a beginner, then you are more likely to go for a bigger site with a larger and more stable earnings potential. I have a couple of established sites that I have grown for years and I once bought a similar site just to see what I could do with it. The site cost me $20 750 and its stated earnings were an average of $2500 per month for the previous year. I outsourced a blend of lightweight on-page SEO and offsite SEO costing $200 per month. So my total investment over a year was $20 750 + $2400 = $23 150. Even if earnings drop a little to $2000 per month, my income is still $24 000. If the price of the website remains stable, my earnings are $24 000 - £2 400 = $21 600 (the SEO costs being the overhead). This is a 93% profit compared to my total outlay! Even if the site tanked and income dropped to $1000 per month, over 1 year, factoring in the decrease in the site's overall worth I would break even and after two years I would make a profit.

But it's not just monthly income that affects a website's overall worth. Websites are like fine wine, the older they are, the more they are worth. This is for three main reasons. Older websites are more trusted by the search engines, older websites tend to have more backlinks and more quality backlinks and older websites can also show consistent earnings over a long period of time. All these factor drive the selling price of the website up. Expect to pay between 12 and 18 times the average monthly income for a mature website.

The Pitfalls

Large profits can be made from websites. But you do need to know what you are doing. Websites can tank, because websites are dependent on search traffic driven by the major search engines. If there is something wrong with the website or it's contravening Google's terms of service in a way you have not seen will earn you a ban on Google. Get banned and you have no traffic and no income.

There are black sheep amongst sellers. One of the classic tricks is to have a small site with only few visitors. The owner then drives lots of traffic to the site for 2 months and there is a spike in income. The webmaster then tries to sell the site, but only shows income data for 1 or 2 months. If you buy a site like this, the traffic dries up to nothing, there is no income and you are stuck with a lemon.

Buying a website is like buying a property. You need to nose around the site, look at the code and see what the webmaster was doing. Look at the backlinks coming to the site and look at Google and Alexa rankings. See what the average income was for at least 6 months and make sure that this was steady and that there are no strange spikes. I actually think a site with traffic that's falling slightly towards sale time is much better than one with a huge spike just before it's sold.

Conclusion

Like all investments, websites are not the best opportunity for everyone. You definitely need some knowledge in the field and you need to know what to pick and what to avoid. Of course, content and SEO can be outsourced, so improving the site once you've bought it is not such a big problem.

Typically I move the sites I buy to hosting that I know is reliable and does not have traffic caps. I always do this kind of thing myself (but, of course you can outsource this kind of work — but it will cost you money). 

To get you going, here are a couple of resources: The site flippa.com is one of the best known marketplaces that sells web properties and you get the whole range of sites here. The Digital Point Forum is also a good place to find web properties. You do get fewer stats and information about sites (but the prices are lower). eBay and Sedo also sell sites, but these tend to be good sites with lots of traffic that sell for high ticket prices.

Of course, you always need to do your due diligence and most websites are a long-term investment. However, it is possible to buy a site cheap on Digital Point, perform intensive improvements and SEO on it for 1 month, then sell it more expensively on Flippa. This is called 'website flipping'.

If you know what you are doing, then there is real money to be made in website investments.

Fifteen ways to Make Quick Cash on the Internet

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This is probably one of the most discussed topics on the internet, often from people who have fallen for some 'get rich quick' scheme. They are completely disillusioned and are seeking the truth of whether it's actually, really, possible to make any money on the internet or not.

The truth is that working for yourself over the internet is extremely exciting and rewarding. However, no one will or even can become successful over night. It takes time to build a website, build content, build products and services or to build a reputation. During the first few years there will be shortfalls and you will be looking for other sources of income as you build your real on-line career.

During these times you will need to make extra money elsewhere, often in a hurry. Below are fifteen things you can do to earn emergency income. I have done most of these myself, so I know they work.

1. Freelancing.
This is by far the quickest and best way of making money in a hurry. For internet entrepreneurs this is also often the best method, as the income you make will be entirely dependent on your personal skills. And the more skills you have, the better your prospects. You can go all the way from data entry at one end of the scale through article writing, blog posting, eBook ghostwriting to graphic design, web design and programming. The broader your skills base, the better your earnings potential.

The more experience you have, the more you will make, so whilst working on your other jobs build up your portfolio so that if you need to fall back on freelancing you can earn top dollar. But a job is a job. You may even find that you enjoy freelancing.

2. Online Auctions and/or Drop-shipping
There is probably something that you have hanging around that you can sell on an on-line auction (eBay, craigslits etc). Turn around can be a few days and you can have the money quickly. Items could include books, electronics, computer parts (good if you have old laptops or even dead laptops you can break into parts). You can even turn this into an income stream by selling products from third parties who will even distribute the products for you (dropshipping).

3. Start a Home-based Business
Do you have a marketable skill or product that you can create a home-based business around? If you do then you can use this to work either full time or part time.

Here when I am talking about a home-based business I'm not referring to an on-line job. Rather, this is a business you can do from home. Maybe you are a web designer and programmer. You could go round local businesses and offer to improve their website, or if they do not have a website offer to make them one and maybe even host it yourself.

What you an do depends on your skill. But you need a clear knowledge of what you can do and what you can't and how you can offer this to prospective clients.


4. Teach English Online
If you are a writer then you should have good English skills. There are lots of clients, particularly in Asia who want to learn English one-on-one. You can either do this through and agency as a freelance or through you own site. Typically you will need a text to follow and lessons can be taught via skype. All you need is a good headset and a good quality video camera.


5. Coaching or Consulting Services
If you have an expertise in a specific area then you can consult and coach people about it. Internet marketing, blogging and websites are an excellent area here. Often, the people who hire you for consulting purposes know what they want already. They just need an 'expert' to validate their choices or to do a bit of handholding.

You can do this virtually, but you can also offer your services to local businesses. Let them know that you are highly knowledgeable about what you’re saying and make sure you have enough proof to back it up. For example, if I want to be giving small businesses advice on building a blog and using it for their business I can easily back myself up with some points such as having a successful blog, being featured on some of the best blogs in the world etc. things like these boost your credibility, makes your clients give you more respect and trust and helps make sure you stay out of trouble.


6. Product Creation
If you have been writing a blog online maybe you could convert some of the content into an eBook to sell. Maybe you have an expertise in something else: gardening or DIY. Maybe you are a coder who can make website templates or skins or maybe you have a collection of code snippets. All these can be turned into saleable products that will make you money.

For example, I create fonts on my main website to allow me to show historic recipes on my website exactly as the original publishers wanted them to be displayed. I ended up with ten fonts overing almost 1000 years of writing and publishing in Britain and I packaged these into a font collection for sale.


7. Write eBooks
The rise and rise of eBook readers means that there is now a huge market for electronic books on platforms like the Kindle and iPad. If you sell eBooks on Amazon and elsewhere it can take time for your to be paid your earnings. But some places like smashwords pay you monthly. You can also sell these eBooks on your own blogs and websites. For more information about this, see my guide to writing kindle ebooks that sell.


8. Writing Paid Tutorials.
If you want instant money then this is one of the very best ways of making cash. If you are good at Photoshop or Indesign or your are a web designer or programmer then there are lots of sites that will pay you for high-quality tutorials. They're usually quite quick to write and you can make between $50 and $250 for each one accepted.


9. Look for a Niche or an Unique Product to Sell
This can take a lot of imagination, but if you look around you and spot a gap in the market, or an unique way of marketing something you can really make a lot of money. The classic example of this being the guy who wrote the 'million dollar website' where he had just a single page and sold pixels on it for people to attach their website URLs to.



10. Affiliate Marketing
Basically this is selling other peoples' products and getting paid for it. As long as you can write, you can market products. You can write general information and embed product links in this for the areas you are discussing or you can directly write reviews to sell products. There are loads of sites out there that help put affiliates together with product providers. For each product sold you will be paid a percentage of the product sale price. How much you get depends on the product and the program.

Payments range from 60 days after the end of the month (Amazon) to 30 days (the most common) to 15 days (ClickBank). There are programs for electronic products, physical products and services. Another feature of affiliate marketing is that it depends on you, it can take you months to make a single sale and it can take you days. It can be a great way to make quick cash if you’re ready to give it your all. The more and better you write, the more you will make.


11. Sell your Photos Online
This is a source of income that many people who are online ignore. You can make quick cash by selling your photographs (if they are good enough) on stock photo websites. Shutterstock is the big image website and they pay people to upload photographs. Other sites allow you to price your own photographs and you get a commission on each sale.


12. Sell Web Hosting (Web Hosting Reselling)
Becoming a web hosting reseller is very easy, anyone can do it and if you have an established site or blog you can easily begin selling hosting to other people. This is particularly good if you can support this by selling website templates and skins (or even enticing customers by giving them away free) and code snippets.


13. Act as an Agent
This is becoming a more and more common method of making money on the web. Act as an agent or middleman. Bid for jobs on freelancing sites, or offer services on your own website. Then, rather than doing the work yourself, subcontract to others at a lower rate then pocket the difference. This can be a good method of making money from some jobs, particularly programming tasks.


14. Ask for Donations
Yes, I know, it can feel like begging. But if you have a site where you can provide an useful service for free this can be a very quick method of making some spare cash. Tell people what your aims are, and what you hope to achieve, then slap on a PayPal donation button. For the right kind of website this can be golden.


15. Get a Part-time Job
For many this is an option of last resort only. But sometimes just making it online can be extremely, ridiculously, tough. In these cases, you need to accept reality and take a part-time job just to get you through the hard times. Part-time jobs are plentiful and if it gets you through the real hard times so that you can still keep your dream, then swallow your pride and do it (and, yes, I have been there).

If you find yourself cash-strapped on your quest to be financially independent from the web, then hopefully these ideas can help. Even if you just want to make extra money in the evenings or at weekends, there should be ideas here that will help.

Leveraging Hashtags for Campaigns and Traffic

Put simply, a hashtag is a word or phrase that's prefixed with the hash (#) symbol. It derives from the early days of Unix where the '#' symbol was used to mark comments or metadata in code.

Today, however (unless you are a programmer), the hashtag is used more commonly to mark short messages in microblogging and social networks (like twitter and Google+) to denote discussion topics. For example, #Wikipedia is the hashtag for Wikipedia discussions, and searching for the string #Wikipedia using search engines or on Twitter will cause that word to appear in search results.

Such tags have to be a single string of characters (no spaces) and are case insensitive, though they are often written in mixed case (known in programming circles as CamelCase) to make them more readable (eg #HelpCeltnetRecipes).

Use of hashtags has a long history. They began on internet relay chat (IRC) networks in the 1970s as a means to label groups and topics. They were also used to mark individual groups as being on a particular topic or of being of interest to a specific group.

       
 This inspired Chris Messina, the open source advocate, to propose that a similar system could be used for Twitter. Indeed, it was he who published the first Twitter feed to incorporate a hashtag in 2007. It was only in 2009 though that Twitter produced a search system for hashtags. This, of course, made them much more useful and began the explosion in their use that we see today.

Because the twitter search system is public, you can add hashtag searches in your own web pages. To add a hashtag search to your web page, simply use the url: http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23xxx (replace the xxx with the text of your hashtag, but do not add the hash sign '#' itself). For example #HelpCeltnetRecipes would be http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23HelpCeltnetRecipes. Because search is a navigation tool within the Twitter platform, this functionality became yet another way that people could discover new and interesting Tweets outside their immediate group of followers.

And, because adding the # at the beginning of a word flags it as a searchable string in both Twitter and Google+ feeds it means that you can start a new discussion yourself with a hashtag, or you can point users to a discussion topic based around that string. When a user clicks on this #hashtag keyword in a Tweet or searches for it in the Twitter searchbar they see a real-time stream of Tweets that include the phrase. As a result, hashtags allow users to watch threads and tweets that are discussion based.

You can even add multiple #-linked keywords in your tweets. It's best not to add no more than three, though, or it can start to look like spam. For optimal results it's best if you can fit the hashtags into the text of your tweets it saves space. For example: Follow #CeltnetRecipes and see how the #HelpCeltnetRecipes campaign is performing on #Twitter.

You can also search for multiple hashtags as well as single ones. This is an excellent marketing tool, as users who specifically search for your #hashtag keyword combination are guaranteed to be interested in your keyword subject. It also allows fine-tuning of hashtags down to a very specific discussion.

Given that tweets are basically free, you have room to experiment with keywords. Indeed, when using #hashtag keywords you’re likely to find it’s not easy to predict which words or phrases will attract your audience so try some out. Test broad keywords and also more specific words. You have nothing to lose. When you find one that works, stick with it.

When a hashtag becomes ropular it is 'trending' and is put on the front page of twitter and on Google+ pages. This potentially gives you lots of people. Of course, you never know which keywords will trend. Trending is a double-edged sword and if your hashtags are too general they will not be seen in a mass of other tweets and posts. But if your hashtag is too specific no-one will look for it.

Experimentation is key, but if you crack it, traffic will flood into your site.

If you want to see if your hashtag is original or not, then you can use hashtags.org.

This is a very valuable new marketing tools. Start using it now! Begin the discussion about your own blog or product.

Ninety-five Blogs Allowing 'dofollow' Comments

Thanks, in large part to Google attempting to squash the phenomenon of paid and spam links, links from one website to another now come in two flavours: 'nofollow' and 'dofollow'. If you add the tage rel="nofollow" to your link anchor text (eg <a href="http://www.celtnet.org.uk" rel="nofollow">) then that link does not pass any page rank to your site.

If you want to improve the visibility and ranking of your site then you must have links that pass 'link juice', links that actually improve your site. Nofollow links do not do this and are useless for any link-building campain. You need 'dofollow' links to improve the ranking and visibility of your blog or site.

As this Blog is completely new I need content (which, for the most part, I have pre-canned), so that's one half of the equation sorted. But I still need to get links and to get traffic. I will deal with this process in another post, but just because it's on my mind, here's a list of 95 blogs that allow you to add 'dofollow' comments so that you can easily get inbound links. And links means traffic, traffic means money.


Computers and Internet:
1. Blogs With Wings (http://blogswithwings.com/)
2. BizChickBlogs.com (http://www.bizchickblogs.com/)
3. Associate Blogger (http://www.associateblogger.com/)
4. Inzone Internet (http://inzoneinternet.com/)
5. New Media Bloggers (http://blog.newmediabloggers.com)
6. Internet-Business-Review.net (http://internet-business-review.net/)
7. Trusted Affiliate Marketer (http://www.trustedaffiliatemarketer.com/)
8. Make Money Online Beginners (http://internetwealthlab.com/blog/)
9. Make Money Blogging (http://www.brandonconnell.com/)
10. WebMaster Success (http://webmaster-success.com/)
11. Organic SEO Marketing (http://brandyorrange.com/)
12. Learn Google Adsense & SEO (http://adsenseurdu.com/)
13. Precise Internet Marketing (http://preciseinternetmarketing.com)
14. TechJaws (http://www.techjaws.com)
15. DoFollow Blog (http://dofollow.info/category/blog/)
16. Omega Web (http://www.omegaweb.com/)
17. Keep Up With The Web (http://keepupwiththeweb.com/)
18. Search Engine Optimization and Social Media News (http://blog.seooptimizers.com/)
19. Niche Marketing Blog (http://www.marketingsyndrome.com/)
20. Get the Best Free Web Traffic (http://getfreetraffic.co.cc/)

Health and Wellness
21. Quest for Balance (http://www.questforbalance.com/)
22. What To Know About Things (http://whattoknow.org)
23. Creative Personal Development (http://www.wellbunny.com)
24. Healthy Diet Weight Loss (http://www.drkalsweightlosstips.com/)
25. MyDiet.org (http://mydiet.org)


Technology:
26. Mobilespace (http://www.mobilespace.in/)
27. Tech-Freak Stuff (http://techfreakstuff.com)

Business:
28. Successful Internet Marketing (http://nine95.com/)
29. Penny Seeds (http://pennyseeds.com/)
30. Green Home Blog (http://www.greenhomedesign.co.uk/)
31. VBS Insight – Small Business Information (http://vbsinsight.visionsbiz-online.com/)
32. Your Virtual Assistant (http://www.thevirtualasst.com/blog)

Recipes and Cooking:
33. Simple Malaysian Recipes (http://www.seleramalaysia.com/)
34. The Chef’s Cookbook (http://www.thechefscookbook.com/)
35. Daily Shot Of Coffee (http://www.dailyshotofcoffee.com/)

Writing:
36. University Eight (http://www.universityeight.info/)
37. Freelance Writers Club (http://freelancewritersclub.com/)
38. Corner Scribe: Write Well. Get Published (http://www.cornerscribe.com/wordpress)

General:
39. The Blog About Everything (http://theblogabouteverything.com/)
40. 113Tidbits Of Smack And More (http://113tidbits.com/)

Other Blogs:
41. http://newcritics.com
42. http://www.thebayrental.com/
43. http://www.thevirtualasst.com/
44. http://www.serradinho.com/
45. http://www.interviewquestionshq.com/
46. http://www.techatlast.com
47. http://www.smartbloggerz.com
48. http://www.theblog.ca
49. http://www.graphicdesignblog.co.uk
50. http://www.articlesnatch.com/blog
51. http://pixelheadonline.com/blog
52. http://www.howtowakeupearly.com
53. http://www.currybet.net
54. http://www.howtowakeupearly.com
55. http://www.communityspark.com
56. http://www.peterleehc.com/blog
57. http://www.ecommtips.com
58. http://tucsonseosolutions.com
59. http://www.memwg.com
60. http://www.howtospoter.com
61. http://www.seotops.com
62. http://www.organicseo.in
63. http://www.reviewerofsites.com
64. http://infodotnet.blogspot.com
65. http://www.tlmarketing.net
66. http://www.dollarsblog.com
67. http://www.affiliatebestprograms.com
68. http://www.yimto.com
69. http://dmiracle.com
70. http://www.voice-broadcast.com
71. http://www.extremejohn.com
72. http://www.bloggodown.com
73. http://tycoonblogger.com
74. http://techpatio.com
75. http://www.ruhanirabin.com
76. http://sighnetdollars.blogspot.com
77. http://zebida.com
78. http://followlist.com
79. http://www.blogengage.com
80. http://newcritics.com
81. http://blog.mofuse.com
82. http://www.bloggingjunction.com
83. http://weblogtoolscollection.com
84. http://www.netchunks.com
85. http://www.seobythesea.com
86. http://rumahabi.com
87. http://bytesizecss.com/blog
88. http://www.marketingblagger.com
89. http://www.bluehatseo.com
90. http://workathomemomrevolution.blogspot.com
91. http://www.powerdosh.com
92. http://niceblogger.com
93. http://www.dumblittleman.com
94. http://cashtactics.net
95. http://ez-onlinemoney.com

I am providing this list here, as these blogs will be useful in your link-building campaigns. But, please, use this information responsibly. Only post comments when you can add something to the general discussion and only add a single link to your comment. Blogs that allow dofollow links are getting rare, due, mainly, to people spamming them. Help keep these sites 'dofollow' by being nice, actually contributing, and following the rules.