This week is a discussion about dealing with feelings of desperation and how to overcome them to make money at home.



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Resources Mentioned On the Show

Marketing Moms University
Tracy Repchuk

This week I interview Angela Wills of MarketersMojo on how to keep from being overwhelmed in running your online business.



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Resources Mentioned On the Show

Marketers Mojo

Aweber

WordPress

RoboForm

This week is ask the Pajama Mama where I answer your questions about working at home.



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Resources Mentioned On the Show

SuperAffiliates.com - There are many good affiliate marketing resources, but I like Ewen Chia’s SuperAffiliates.com membership because its tons and tons of information, monthly resources and a business-in-a-box, and easy to follow video and written tutorials. Super Affiliate Handbook

Make Money Giving Away FREE Satellite TV Especially in today’s economy with people wanting to save money, and satellite being less expensive than cable, giving away the system plus offering special deals, is a great way to earn an affiliate income from home. VMC pays $120 for each system install you give away (see site for complete details). Click on “Affiliate Program”.

Blogger.com- Free hosted blogging.

WordPress.com- Free hosted blogging.

WordPress.org – Self hosted blogging platform.

Hostgator – Webhosting service that I host all my sites on.

I get email frequently asking about specific “Google” programs or if it’s possible to make money from Google in general. While it is possible to make money from Google, many of the “Google Money” systems are deceptive.  Here are some of the deceptions and truths about making money with Google.

Deception 1: Google is hiring people to place ads.

Truth: Google simply offers tools that allow you to advertise (Adwords) or make money placing ads (Adsense) on your website.  It’s not a job.

Deception 2: Top name companies are hiring people to place ads on Google.

Truth: Top companies aren’t hiring people to place ads. Instead these “top” companies have affiliate programs and will pay you if you help them sell their goods and services. Google Adwords is a tool you can use to help sell your affiliate items. However, it’s not the only way. I don’t use Adwords and I still make money with affiliate programs.

Deception 3: All you need to do is “data entry” or “type” ads into Google to make money.

Truth: This is my biggest pet peeve when it comes to offers about Google money. Done incorrectly, using Adwords can cost you a fortune with no return on investment. Adwords is an advertising tool in which you can Google to run your offer (they show up on the right hand side of a search page) and you pay only when people click. Sounds simple but if you don’t understand keywords you can be paying for clicks made by people who don’t meet your target market and that’s wasted money. If you pay 10 cents a click and get 100 clicks a day, you’ll be paying $300 a month in Adword advertising. You need to know keywords, your market and how to write an ad that has buyers clicking otherwise its wasted money.

It is possible to make money using Google’s programs. But you aren’t simply going to sign up and type ads. Like any other work-at-home venture, you need to study and understand how it works and how to market. You need to develop a plan and stick to it.

So how do people make money using these programs? Here’s an example I just started. This month I launched a blog/site called BusyMamaWeightLoss.com. In a keyword search I knew that weight loss was a popular search term. Because it’s important to niche and I know moms struggle to find the time and energy to work on weight loss, I focused on the mom target market. The site offers free information about weight loss and is monetized using Adsense (banner at the top of the first post and within the post itself). I use Clickbank affiliate products in the box under “More Resources” and rotate other affiliate offers under “Great Offers. Right now the site is marketed using SEO (search engine optimization), articles, and social networking. Because it’s new, the traffic and income is low. These things take time to build up. Adword advertising could speed things up, but the best keywords are expensive and since the site is free I’m not sure that is the best use of advertising money. One exception is that in the past I have used Adwords not to sell stuff but to help build my email list.

WorkAtHomeSuccess.com is also supported by affiliate programs and paid ads. I used to run Adsense but recently removed it because so many scams and questionnable programs were being offered, which brings up another point. It is important to choose your affiliate partners carefully. I screen all ads and have personally used the affiliate products I offer so I can be sure they are safe and viable work-at-home tools and resources.

Do people make LOTS of money using Google resources and affiliate programs? Some make obscene amounts of money. Most hardly make any at all. The success of such a venture is up to you and how well you understand and implement what’s required. If you think you can just post a site or blog and make money, then you’ll likely fail. But if you take time to research your keywords, set up a good marketing plan, implement and maintain your site, then you can make good even great money.

If you’re interested in learning the details on how to make money using Google Adsense and affiliate programs, there are a couple of resources I can recommend. I have used all of them so I know they are good.

Super Affiliate Handbook – This is a great resource on all the aspects of finding a topic, picking keywords and getting online. Plus it offers tips on using Adwords if you’d like to take a try at that. I bought this eBook several years ago and saw a big increase in my affiliate commissions once I implemented a few of its ideas.

The Niche Blogger – This program was put together by a mom who paid of over $70,000 in debt using blogs and affiliate programs. Many online entrepreneurs, myself including, have starting using blogging platforms (WordPress) to run their sites because it’s so easy and search engines love them. Niche Blogger is an online course that takes you step-by-step through the entire process of picking a topic, searching for quality keywords, knowing the competition and more. I also like that it uses videos to show you how to set up a WordPress blog…for the technically challenged, the videos are great! Plus she sets up in a day-by-day fashion so you can pace yourself and not get overwhelmed. Plus there is a forum to ask questions, get feedback, and read about the success of others.

Super Affiliates This is a huge program that also takes you step-by-step through the process of choosing topics and keywords, and getting online. But there is so much more. Almost too much. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by how much there is… eBooks, videos and more.  What I like most about this program is that each month it offers a “Business in a Box” that includes everything you need to get a site online including the squeeze page, keyword rich articles to use in marketing, PPC ads, autoreponder emails and more. It’s basically all the prep work done for you. You just need to implement.

Affiliate programs and Google Adsense are two of my favorite ways to make money online. But as I said before, there is nothing automatic about it. Like any good business you need to know what you’re doing and do the work. But it can be fun (you can have a site on any topic of your choice) and it’s so flexible that you can do it around any schedule.

I know I’ve warned you against rebate processing in the past, but I got another piece of spam telling me I could make $390 a day from home. The offer took me to a site that said:

Positions Available: Companies like Home-Depot, Blockbuster, Amazon.Com, and thousands more, need your help…

Get Affiliated Immediately And You Can Begin Making $390 A Day From The Comfort Of Your Home

You must be willing to work at least one hour per day and you must have a computer with internet access!

You don’t need any experience, special skills, or education. All training will be provided. And you can receive your first payment in as soon as 15-days!

Limited number of positions, check availability below…

I love how it says “get affiliated” because that’s basically what these programs do. You don’t process rebates, you promote other companies and get affiliate income. Most these programs indicate you have type or do data entry which translates into using a program like AdWords. And getting paid in 15 days? That indicates to me that the program will teach you to use ClickBank which pays its affiliates every two weeks.

If affiliate marketing is a legitiamte opportunity then why do I say this is a scam? I don’t like rebate processing offers because they use deception to make you think you’ll have a job process rebates. Further they make it sound as if all you do is type a little bit for an hour a day and reap in the big bucks. It just doesn’t work like that. In fact, done incorrectly, you can lose a great deal of money especially if you use a program like AdWords to promote your affiliate links.

If you want to do affiliate marketing, pick up Rosalind Gardner’s or Ewen Chia’s books or materials. They are reliable esources that provide you with the real deal and step-by-step help to make a living in affiliate marketing.

The NicheDemon Niche Marketing System

The NicheDemon Niche Marketing System describes itself as the “stripped down, no-nonsense, step by step version of niche marketing at it’s best” and its pretty accurate.  While there are lots and lots of resources teaching you how to make a living on the Internet, many get complicated and teach potentially costly methods (ie PPC marketing) that are usually better utilized later when there is a better understanding of keywords and copywriting. The Niche Demon Niche Marketing System essentially eliminates all the “noise” that comes with many other Internet marketing resources, offer just the very basics to get started.

The NicheDemon Niche Marketing System goes through all the basics of identifying a niche, choosing keywords, determining if there is a market, assessing the competition, and finding products. It takes you step-by-step in getting online including choosing a web host, buying a domain name and installing Word Press, tasks that can be overwhelming to the newbie.

One of the best features is the five day traffic building tips that give you specific marketing tasks, most of which are free or low cost, to start making money from your niche site asap. It then offers more advance tips once you’ve mastered the basics. It also provides warning on what not to do.

The Niche Demon Niche Marketing System is a good beginner resource. Its designed for the person who  knows nothing about affiliate marketing, setting up a website, or making money online. It’s straight forward and very easy to read.  If you follow the steps, you should have a good start to a money-making niche website.

The Niche Demon Niche Marketing System is a new product by Suzanne Welsh who is offering a significant discount as an introductory offer. The system is regularly $47 but through the NicheDemon Special offer its only $27.

Join me at Work-At-Home Success Connect where work-at-home wannabes and experts can connect.
One of the biggest challenges work-at-home wannabes face is finding legitimate and viable work-at-home options. They hear that people are successfully working at home, but what do they do? How can they learn from them?

At Work-At-Home Success Connect, work-at-home wannabes can connect with work-at-home experts who volunteer to share their knowledge and resources. Wannabes can get ideas, discover news resources and tools, ask questions, and more. Experts get the opportunity to promote their businesses and let the world know they are experts in their niches.

Membership at Work-At-Home Success Connect is FREE for both wannabes and experts. So stop by, sign up, and start connecting!

Affiliate marketing is one of the fastest, easiest and affordable ways to start earning an income online. However there is much more to affiliate marketing than signing up and posting your affiliate link. Just like any other work-at-home venture, starting and running an affiliate marketing business requires research and planning. One of the most important aspects of that research is determining which affiliate programs to promote.

When evaluating an affiliate program, consider the following:

1)      Does the affiliate company provide products or services that you are interested in or knowledgeable about? It’s much easier to promote programs with authority when they involve products and services in your skill or knowledge base. So if you love gardening, choose an affiliate with gardening products. If you know a lot about money matters, choose companies with quality financial products and services.

2)      Are people buying the types of products and services the affiliate company offers? Use a good keyword search tool to find out if people are searching for the information or products the company is selling. You’re looking for products and services that are in demand, so if there aren’t many searches on the keywords of a particular company then it’s not likely that you’ll have much success with its affiliate program.

3)      Is the company reputable? The company’s reputation will reflect on you, so make sure you’re promoting good company with quality products and services.

4)      Is the product or service priced right? Would you pay the price?

5)      Can you attest to the quality? You’ll need to buy or test the product or service to be sure. In fact, a testimonial from you can increase sales.

6)      Does the company offer quality customer service? Poor customer service will negatively impact your credibility as the person who recommended the affiliate company, so make sure the company treats its customers well.

7)      Does it have a clear and professional website? It doesn’t need bells and whistles, but it should be organized and easy to use.

8)      What does the affiliate agreement say and are the terms acceptable? Make sure you understand any limitations such as whether or not you can advertise in email or through pay-per-click services.

9)      How and when do you get paid? Is this a pay-per-sale or a pay-per-lead? Does it pay monthly? Do you need to have earned a specific amount before you get paid?

10)   How does it track your commissions? Some questionable affiliate merchants can hijack your commission by offer alternative payment processors that don’t track your referrals.  So that all payment methods on the affiliate merchant’s site track your affiliate ID.

11)   Does it have marketing tools to help you promote its products and services? Marketing is the key to affiliate success, so choose programs that have tools to help you.

There are hundreds of thousands of affiliate programs that will pay you to promote its items, but not all are worth the time and effort. Before signing up for any affiliate program, make sure that you evaluate it using the eleven items above. By doing so you’ll insure that your reputation and credibility stay intact and that you make money.

What do you think of when you hear “job” or “position”? If you’re like me, you think of employment and that’s just what the “processor” schemes want you to think. The latest processor scam is Affiliate Order Processor. Like the other processor “jobs” before it (data entry, rebate processor, etc), it suggests that big name companies such as Blockbuster, Home Depot, Gap and Expedia are hiring home based workers to process orders.

This latest one has a video that says, “you don’t have a boss and don’t have to manage a business…” but if its not a job or business…then what is it? It also says

That if you process 1 order a day you could make $150.00.

What are they selling at Blockbuster or the Gap that you can make $150 on one sale?

This particular “program” does indicate that you can be your own boss (a clue that its not a job), but the video uses the term “position” which to me suggests a job. At the very least the program indicates that you can log in and find companies that will hire you to process orders.

The real deal is that like its predecessors, Affiliate Order Processor is another schemed to get people involved in affiliate marketing. Of course affiliate marketing is a viable way to make money from home. I make money from affiliate programs. But these “processing” programs use deception giving the impression that members will be “certified” processors hired by companies and can simply log in from home an make money. It doesn’t work that way.

If there was only one thing I could teach someone about working at home, its that you can’t simply sign up and make money. Working at home is work. Even something as great as affiliate marketing takes work.

If you want to learn about affiliate marketing, pick up Rosalind Gardner’s SuperAffiliate Handbook or her Make a Fortune Promoting Other People’s Stuff Online they are both detailed and more affordable.

This week’s Work-At-Home Success News and Reviews Podcast includes the secret to work-at-home success, answers to a question about landing pages, and great blogging tool.

You can listen online here:

Or Download here:

You can also subscribe through iTunes.

Resources provided in the podcast:

The Work-At-Home Success Bible at Amazon
Work-At-Home Success Bible website
Scribefire

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