Should you have Ads on your blog?

If so, what should they be?

What are your opinions on ads? How do you feel about affiliate links where the blogger makes money recommending a product? What do you think is an appropriate ad or form of monetization for a blog. Do you feel a make money online blog should be treated the same as another niche? I’d like to know how you feel about these questions.

Courtney Tuttle asked the question in a recent post "Is selling ads evil?"

This is in response to some bloggers who do not have ads on their blogs and do not plan to. The comments on the post also go into not only having ads, but what is really appropriate for a blog, especially in the make money online blogging niche. I really suggest you read his post and the comments as the bloggers in question made comments also.

Is Selling Ads Evil? | Internet Marketing | Strategy & Services To me, in a perfect world, we would all only make money through affiliate offers of products and services we have tried and endorse ourselves on all of our sites. I would like to hope that people trust me even though I sell ads, I certainly would never point you guys in a post toward a product that I didn’t use

Do you think running ads on a blog is appropriate?

I would like to say that I agree with Court’s point that having ads is not evil. I also agree that I would much rather see ads than see a blog end because the owner loses interest. If you can make a good income from ads, I would think the interest would last more.

So many of us have been taught that "Money is the root of all evil."

That statement is actually a misquote of the Bible. The truthful term is "The love of money is the root of all evil." Misquoting God is another source of evil. It worked on Eve and seems have continued working on many people today. We pay heavily for listening to those misquotes.

I find that people without money seem to love it more than those who have what they need and want.

They are focused on what they do not have that others have. It can become an obsession. Where am I going to get the rent for next week? How am I going to pay that bill? I deserve that new car as much as he does. Or even worse, "The rich are not paying their fair share." It becomes covetousness. Beware when you start hearing the phrase "It’s not fair!"

So what ads should you have?

One problem with a blog is there is a given endorsement by you just for showing an ad. It can affect the respect people will give you. Take online dating services for example. There are a lot of  sleazy ads and services. I have seen some ads on blogs that make me wonder what kind of ethics the blogger has.

It is worse for the make money online blogging niche.

There are a lot of products out there that are overpriced and over-hyped. There are some outright scams. There are shady practices. This can really have an impact on your name or brand. I think there was a bit of embarrassment from those who promoted the $9.95 Joel Comm product that found their readers felt tricked. This can happen real easy and it may even be out of your control once you have promoted it. Even if it seem like a good product to you.

Should you promote something you have not tried?

This is really the sticky question. If you run AdSense, it would be difficult for you to even try the products (you would even get penalized clicking your links to see what the product was). Yet, for many niches, AdSense on of the best ways to monetize and no one thinks there is anything wrong with using it. There are lots of products that could be advertised that you might not be able to try for several reasons.

Sometimes, you’ll still have problems without making money from a product.

Some people want advice just so they can argue with your suggestions.

I saw this a lot in the photography business.

I hated when someone would ask for advice. It was almost always the same thing. I would be told someone at the counter wanted advice on what camera to buy. I was very busy. We did not sell cameras so there was no financial gain for me (other than being able to show them better pictures when they came in for processing).

I would give the advice asked for, and they would literally argue with me.

My advice was based on what I used. It was bases on seeing millions of photos and finding out what ones were taken with what cameras. Still, these idiots would tell me that this camera had such and such features and so and so said it was good. They wanted to by a camera make I knew was junk (most of those camera makers still make junk). Why, did they ask me then? They asked me, I did not come to them. I had work to do instead of stand there arguing.

I see this happen with bloggers.

They offer advice or help, much of it very good. You will see a comment on how this post was not up to the bloggers normal standards and they are going to unsubscribe, never return, or hack the blog. At least I have not had to face that here yet, I am no expert yet. I have seen it though. I bet a lot more of these types of comments are deleted before we see them.

You may face the same problem of your credibility if you have ads or not.

Anytime you give advice, you put yourself up to criticism. It does not matter if you make money from it or not. I think you might as well make money from your advise. I say put the ad or affiliate link up.

What about products you do not have experience with?

I am planning a post about hosting. While I can speak from experience about the hosts I use, what about hosts others I trust recommend? Should I not even mention or link to them? If I mention them, is it wrong to give an affiliate link and make money from it even though I do not have experience with them? They are going to pay the same if they choose the host from my link or not. What if things change at a host I do recommend from experience and things go bad?

What about generic text ads like AdSense?

Do you feel that there is endorsement by the site they are on? Besides the question of are they ugly or do they disturb the reader or site layout. Do you feel they are dishonest in any way. Do you think the average Internet surfer feels they are part of the site?

I think that there are some differences.

I think there can be a difference between endorsing a product and showing an ad for it. I also think that the blogger or Internet marketer also needs to look at each situation and make sure that he is not misleading readers into thinking an ad or link is an endorsement when it is not. I think an endorsement is something that takes even more care than an ad. It is a personal recommendation. It should be treated like advice to a friend.

What are your opinions?

No arguments please.:)

Choose the right domain name for your online business!

How do you know you have chosen the right domain name for your blog or website?

There are a few good rules you should always follow. There are also lots of examples of successful blogs or websites that break those rules. Still, following the rules will help make things easier for you to get your site to rank well in the search engines. Keep in mind that even when I give examples of rule breaking domains, these are the exceptions and you will be better off following the rules.

Let’s get started.

Always, always get a .com domain!

This is probably the single most important rule I can think of. Chances are, if you try to work on a non .com domain, all you are doing is advertising for the owner of the .com. You may be tempted to save money with a .info (I was) but after talking to those who have done some research, .info’s seem to rank lower in the SE’s (search engines) than .com’s.

Darren at problogger.net spent years trying to get the .com domain for Problogger. Now that he finally has it, it is not easy to switch the domain over to the .com without taking a hit from the search engines. At least now Darren can redirect the traffic from the .com that he was losing back to his original domain.

An example of another successful non .com domain would be del.icio.us.

del.icio.us is a popular social bookmarking site. Probably one of the few well known .us domains. Of course, if you have the option of a .edu or .gov domain those might make an exception, but most people will automatically put a .com on the end of a domain if they try to type it in. Avoid the chance and stick with a .com over any local or other type of domain.

Try to have a niche related keyword in the domain.

While not as important to SEO anymore, it may still help you rank a bit better if you have a popular keyword for your niche in your title. Also, Google bold faces the keyword if it is in the domain. Also, when someone sees the keyword in the domain itself, they know that site is likely to be about the subject they are searching for. Every little bit helps.

Keep is short and simple.

Shorter will be easier to remember, write down, and spell. Avoid too many words. Avoid words that are easy to misspell. We all want success, but can everyone spell it? Is that with one or two C’s and S’s?

Check your spelling.

I remember a demonstration video where the author did a search for possible domains and purchased a domain before realizing it was misspelled. Double check your spelling before you click the purchase button (triple check if you spell like me). Google is a play on the word googol. Sometimes spelling may not be that important.

Don’t use hyphens or dashes.

These are nearly impossible to tell someone unless they read the domain name. Maybe you will run a radio advertisement or be on a podcast someday. It is really inconvenient to explain dashes by voice. While the dashes or hyphens can make it easier to read the domain in a listing, you are better off just avoiding them.

Avoid trademarked names in your domain.

Even if you are planning to do an affiliate program for a company, avoid using and trademarked names in your domain. Nearly all affiliates will have a list of words that you cannot use in a domain if you wish to advertise their product. Even if you do get permission from someone at the company remember the person that replaces him or her may not feel the same. Don’t become lawyer bait. Find a related generic term. That way if the Zune never takes off your mp3 player site can still talk about iPods.

Avoid using free domain name search tools.

More than once I have read complaints from someone who used one of these services only to find that the domain names they checked were suddenly taken. I understand that there are some sites that apparently use the searches people do to find potential domains to purchase for themselves. Stick with the domain search tools provided by your registrar.

If you have the time and money, a used domain can have advantages.

A domain that has already been used can give your site or blog some advantages from the start. It may already have some page rank associated with it. It may have links pointing to it. It may still have some traffic coming to it. This can help your site hit the ground already running. It could also have been banned or delisted considered spam or associated with bad subject material that will prevent the domain from becoming successful at any level. If you go this route, be careful and check everything you can about the domain first.

Stick with well-known reliable domain registrars.

It will do you no good to save a few dollars on your domain if you cannot renew it because the registrar is messed up. This has happened to me. I also know someone who lost hundreds of domains and thousands of dollars in monthly income after a registrar failed to renew domains that he had renewed.

There are 3 registrars that I trust.

GoDaddy.com , eNom, and NameCheap. GoDaddy is the best known. Avoid purchasing anything other than the domain and whois protection. They will try to sell you everything under the sun. Also, I rarely hear good things about their hosting. I find eNom expensive. I do recommend NameCheap. They have been reliable and very affordable. The GoDaddy link is an affiliate link. This site is registered with GoDaddy, I have one or two with eNom and the rest are now with NameCheap. Personally, I find NameCheap to be much easier to buy from than GoDaddy.

The most important rule is to get your own domain.

Any domain is better than no domain. Use your name (unless your last name is difficult to spell like mine). If you are putting your traditional business online, using the company’s name would be good, or using part of the company’s name.

There are lots of examples of very successful blogs and sites that do not necessarily follow the rules I have given. Many popular blogs are on domain names of the author’s name. There is whatever.com that has become a million dollar business for a teenage girl. However, these recommendations should help your site get more traffic from the SE’s.

Google Introduced AdSense For Conversation Today.

This could be a fantastic way to profit and shorten even those unwanted conversations.

Imagine, you see that dweeb approaching and think:

"Not him again! I wasted my lunch break yesterday while he told be all about his 10 year old’s potty training from the weekend."

Well, now you can simple click the ad that appears and go on to some more interesting but related topic. Or, maybe he will see the ad for that potty training for 10 year olds and leave you alone.

Think of the possibilities for AdSense for Conversation arbitrage.

You can now use and advertisement close at hand to start a money making conversation. You don’t even need to own the other advertisment, just stand near a sign and start a conversation with a passer-by. Once the conversation starts, Google’s algorithms will find ads matching the conversation for your mark to click on.

My only fear is that all the above will really create made for AdSense conversations of low quality.

I am sure Google will insure this does not happen. Probably penalizing speakers that do not use proper grammar or are paid speakers. One question is how this will affect political speakers and conversation. With the coming elections, this is sure to be a hot niche that will be abused.

AdSense for conversation looks to be one of the most profitable and easy to use AdSense programs.

For more information, check the post at the AdSense blog below.

Inside AdSense: Introducing AdSense for conversations

Introducing AdSense for conversations We’re happy to announce the launch of AdSense for conversations, a new type of monetization solution that "puts the ‘context’ in contextual advertising". Now, in just a few simple steps, you can begin displaying ads that are relevant to the topics you’re discussing — in an unobtrusive screen above your head.

I thought this was a  much better announcement than the Gmail announcement today.

The single most important investment in your blog or website is your domain name.

While it will not be the first decision you make about your blog or Internet marketing business, it will be the basis for your business. Obviously, one of the decisions you need to make before the domain name is the subject or niche the blog or site will be in. That will affect your choice of domain name. Still, the domain name is the most important part of your internet business that you will have to invest money in, even though the money is extremely small.

Here are three reasons your domain name is important to your online income.

It can give your internet business equity, first of all.

Your domain name is your property. Just like a brick and mortar business that owns it’s own land and building. Even if the business closes or fails, the property can still be sold. Without the domain name, you really do not have any online business that is yours and yours alone to sell.

As you build on your domain, you will actually be improving its value, just like improving any property. Sometimes, just buying a domain name can increase its value. There are domain for sale that have not even been used but have value now that they have been discovered.

Location, location, location is the second reason.

Just as the right location can make or break a traditional business, a good domain can help your online business. Your domain is your address on the internet. It is how people will get to your blog or site. Without it your business is homeless.

Unlike a bad traditional business location, a bad domain name can be overcome with work. You still need to have the location in the first place.

Third, it gives your internet business or blog Independence.

If you are using a Blogger domain, you are at the mercy of Blogger. If for some reason they decide to close your account, your business is dead. You have nothing. Even if you have backups of all the content, no one has a place to find it anymore.

With your own domain, you are free from interference and problems with your host. If you have a dispute, you can move your content and business to another host and still have the address and URL that all the links point to. In effect, you are free from censorship. If you run a spam site, all you need is to find hosting that does not mind. You can always move if you discover they in fact, do. While most of us (myself included) have no plans on anything that would need to be censored, it is nice to know you can voice your own thought without losing your business.

Let’s face it, we do not always agree with Google.

Why would you also let them decide if what you want to do with your site should even be online? Post too regularly and resemble automatic content? Your blogger account could be suspended. Along with your income from it. I know, it has happened to me. No big deal, I asked for them to recheck it, and after looking at it, they agreed it was not spam. Still, had I relied on that site for income, I would have been out the income for the several days it took to go through the process. Avoid at least this risk with a domain that will allow you to move and keep your blog or site up.

The cost of a domain name is small.

As little as $10 can get you an online property that can increase in value. It is a small risk to pay for the advantages. Even if you want to keep Blogger for your hosting and blog platform, your own domain can increase the potential for your income. Yes, you can be successful without a domain name, but you can be more successful with one.

Coming soon, how to choose the right domain name.

Get it right the first time.

Do you know of any other advantages to your own domain name I haven’t given?

Comment and share it with others.

What is the advice you would give to a friend that wants to make money online?

For me, the advice would be simple, and non-expensive. Advice that anyone could use to make money online. It would be make money online advice that would not cause them to lose money online.

For starters, I would recommend they start with a blog or two.

There are many advantages to blogging to make money online. It is cheap, so there is little money to lose and anyone can afford it. No expensive software, and very short learning curve. The only real cost is time.

I would recommend starting with two blogs. Start with a personal blog and a niche blog. The personal blog you can talk about anything, even your success at making money online. You can talk about your car or what you had for dinner. Whatever.

The niche blog should be based on a subject that you are nearly an expert on. A sport, hobby, or some aspect of business may be what you niche is. It could be about some disease you are especially familiar with (although something like this could also be the basis of your personal blog). I truly believe everyone is an expert at something. The niche blog will need to be focused on that subject and that alone.

The first investment should be the domian name.

This is the most important part of your blog. Your domain name makes you independent. It gives you something to own and sell at a later time. With your own domain name, you can move your blog to another host if there is a problem with your current one.

After you have a domain name, you need a host for your blog.

I would recommend HostGator. This blog is currently on XXXXX and I have not had too much trouble, nor do I plan to move it off, but I have a HostGator account for other sites and that is what I would recommend. Other than a domain name or two, hosting is the only thing you should spend money on till you see real regular income. ***This site was moved to HostGator and the name of the above host is now removed for various reasons.

This is where every Internet marketer eventually falls into the trap.

There is no ebook or magic program that is going to make you instant money online. We all claim to not believe in the get rich quick scheme, but we all try to cheat. You spend money on some ebook, or program that is going to make it easier or faster or more profitable. It will never happen. Not that they do not work, some do. Prove you can get the blog to work first before you even think about anything else. If you cannot stick with the blog long enough, you will not stick to the other methods long enough either. You will just waste your money. That is what I am trying to save you.

Use WordPress for your blogging platform.

WordPress is easy to use. Easy to set up. Easy to modify. There is a plugin to do almost anything in WordPress. There are lots of free themes. You can use it for nearly any make money online purpose. It is also free to use.

Use free social networking to build your traffic.

Not just Digg. Use MyBlogLog and Blogcatalog. Blogging Zoom has the potential to be a major factor in helping your blog get good traffic and ranking. Use it. Use StumbleUpon on other Blogging Zoomed posts. You’ll find someone will eventually start to Stumble your sites too. With social bookmarking sites, it is better to give than to receive. That means you’ll find they work better when someone else bookmarks your site than when you do it yourself. Also, commenting on other blogs is an effective way to gain links and traffic. *Update-Blogging Zoom is dead while the domain is still in use.*

Plan for the long term.

Try to stay on the good side of the search engines. Avoid the paid links situation and penalties. Don’t trade the future of your site for quick income with TLA, ReviewMe, and Paid Posts. You can make an income without damaging the potential PR of your site. It may not be as fast or easy, but in the long term, your site will be stronger and more profitable.

Also, don’t expect real results until you have given serious effort for several months. Dedicated Effort+Persistence=Eventual profit. Lackluster effort+Inconsistency=Nothing and you will be wasting your time. Yes, it is possible to still not be successful after working hard, but that is a rare problem. Usually, the problem is dedication in some form.

Read good resources on making money online.

I recommend Vic at Blogger Unleashed and Courtney Tuttle’s blog. These two are behind Blogging Zoom and they have excellent information for making money with your blog. Read about using keywords in your posts. Learn about niche blogs and sites. They have good advice.

Above all, post!

Don’t spend more time reading on how to post than posting.

John Chow has always posted 3-4 times or more a day. So does Problogger. Now they can hire someone else to make posts, but they did it to start with. A lot of people (me included) want to blog but do not post enough. Even one post a day is really not enough. How did these guys start making money with a blog? They actually blogged! While your niche blog may not need that many posts (depends on the type of niche) your personal blog can use it. Once a day is the minimum. Why Twitter when you can post? There’s a thought.

OK, now I am going to spend some time this week posting.

Maybe not everyday, but I am going to post! Expect to see some posts with more details about hosting, domain names, and WordPress. I have some other posts that I have been too lazy to make that I need to work on.

Now, what advice would you give to a friend who wanted to make money online?

Internet marking constantly changing and Keyword Avalanch has changed to NicheRockets.

Why should you care? Keep reading for something really cool (and free) if you are trying to make money online.

What is NicheRockets?

At it’s core, NicheRockets is the same paid forum just like Keyword Avalanche was. In addition to the forum, Keyword Avalanche featured keyword lists that were useful to build niche sites around. However, the Internet marketing world is changing and AdSense does not pay what is used to and keyword lists are not as effective. So to add and keep real value to the forum they increased value of the benefits of being a member.

NicheRockets gives you five businesses in a box on a monthly basis.

More than just five niche sites ready for you to build, they are actually 5 businesses. You get a complete site. Graphics and template plus articles for content. You also get a complete Nichebot keyword search so you can change the content for your articles and know what keywords are hot. The real kicker is the product. A quality ebook for the niche site with sales page. That is not just one, but five per month. All you need is a domain, hosting, and to set it up.

Why not just sites and articles?

The fact is, Adsense is not as great as it used to be. Having a product to sell can really help create a true income from the sites. Let’s face it, if 10 out of 100 visitors click an Adsense ad, you are lucky to make $10 from all of them and in most cases you will make less than $1 from those 10 clicks. Now, if just 2 visitors buy your product, you’ve made over $20 instead. Plus, you can run your own AdWords campaign (or even set up your own affiliate system) to send more traffic.

Curious about NicheRockets’ business in a box? A free offer!

NicheRockets has a free business in a box for you to check out. Yep, a free site with content, graphic, product, and sales page and even a Nichebot keyword search done for you. You can even create the site and sell it. It is also not a ebook on making money online!  NicheRockets places the value of this gift at $1000 and it could very well make you more than that if you know what to do. I would suggest you download it right now before they remove it. Use the following link:

Free Business In a Box

What if you do not know how to set up a niche site?

That is where the NicheRockets forum comes in. With NicheRockets you can get complete training. They have videos to guide you each step of the way, including both a more basic system to get you started and guides for a more robust system when you are ready. If you find that you have questions after the videos and instructions, you also can ask in the forum.

The Nichebot forum is a real value by itself.

There is real advice there from people that really make money online. Tim Gorman (who is one of Ezine Articles top authors) shares his advice and experience. You cannot get more practical than a full time Air Force recruiter who makes the kind of money he does online. What he does works! There are other members that give great advice too. While there are not any real "secrets" in internet marketing, there is also advice that cannot be shared "out in the open" that some members feel safe to share in a closed forum like NicheRockets. There are also other products made available to members on the forum including resale rights products to sell that others are paying just to read (and members get them free). Great products, great education and great advice all in one place. What more could you ask for?

How about a $1-7 day NicheRockets trial?

Check it out for 7 days. If you do not like it, $1 is nothing to worry about it. If you do decide to stay (they wouldn’t make this kind of offer if they did not think you would be impressed) you get $50 off the normal monthly subscription. Give the $1 trial a trial and save the $50 on the subscription using the link below:

NicheRockets $1 trial

If you are interested in making money online, NicheRockets may be a good investment for you.

I am not going to tell you it will make you thousands per month. Most people buy the guru ebooks and never make a dime. Sometimes, it is because the information is useless and everyone is already using it. Other times, it is simply because they do not use the information. Ether way, they have wasted the money they spent. Sometimes that can be hundreds or thousands of dollars. You can see the what the NicheRockets product will look like for free and test the forum for just $1. I feel safe recommending that to anyone.

Once more here are the links:

Free NicheRockets business in a box

NicheRockets $1 trial and $50 off monthly subscription

I have been with NicheRockets nearly 2 years.

It is one of the two paid forums/products on internet marketing that I can really recommend. If you just want to run a blog, it may not be for you. If you are looking at eBay, it may not be worth the monthly expense. If you are interested in affiliate income, Adsense, and niche sites, I would think it definitely would be worth it. In any situation though, I would recommend you see for yourself because $1 is nothing that will set you back financially and it may be just what you need.

Courtney Tuttle’s fantastic idea is a great resource.

It was a challenge to join Courtney Tuttle’s Internet Marketers Group Writing project.

This was a fantastic idea. I believe he has created an excellent resource for anyone interested in making money online. I have not even been to all the articles yet, and I have added many of the blogs to my reader.

If you are new to Internet marketing or blogging, check these articles first.

You will learn nearly everything you need to know. More than you would find in any guru ebook. It is knowledge given to you for free. Many of the contributors spent extra time to make sure they contributed quality articles. Courtney has a very good resource in just his own blog. I suggest you ad his site to your RSS feeds if you don’t have it already.

Court has already organized the articles into groups so I decided to just quote his list.

There is also a link to his site and the original post at the bottom. There are now 45 articles in the project (the page is titled 44). Courtney has a very good resource in just his own blog. I suggest you ad him to your RSS reads.

Getting Traffic To Your Website

• The Smart Way To Get Traffic And Links: Creating A Prospect List For Bloggers by Maki at DoshDosh.com
• Finding Blog Topics That Will Bring You Traffic by Sean at WarriorBlog
• The 25 Best Ways To Increase Traffic To Your Blog by Marco at MarcoRichter.net
• How To Increase Traffic To Your Website by Frederick at SEO.Geekz.us
• How To Get Instant Free Traffic To Your Blog by Bruce at DayJobNuker.com
• How To Stay Visible Inside Of 70 Million Blogs by Ken at Blogs.MySites-Advisor.com
• Blogging In Real Life by Theda at CrayonWriter.com
• Why Back Links Work by Paul at LocalRef.com
• How To Optimize Your Blog Images For Google Image Search by Etienne at EtienneTeo.com

Developing A Website

• How To Choose A Topic For A Blog by Vic at Bu.Bulicio.Us
• Here’s How To Get MORE Subscribers To Your Dazzling Blog! by Mark at ProBloggersMatrix.com
• How To Gain And Lose RSS Subscribers by Simon at Pingable.org
• Blogging Burnout: How To Avoid It To Achieve Blogging Success by YC at InternetMarketingMind.com
• Eight Ways To Write A Successful Newsletter by Carlo at CarloSelorio.com
• How To Decide How Often To Post On Your Blog by Derek at DerekSemmler.com
• Finding Good Keywords For Your Niche by Caroline at Caroline-Middlebrook.com
• The Anatomy Of A Link by Sutoco at Blog.YourWebsiteProfit.info
• How To Use Google Webmaster Tools – And 5 Reasons Why You Should by James at DigitalKeyTo.info
• How To Secure Your WordPress Blog by Fab at FabNetRevenue.com
• Common Internet Marketing Mistakes by Bryan at UtahSEOServices.com
• Ultimate List Of Free Blogging Platforms by Fred at NewestOnTheNet.com
• How Do You Build Relationships With Your Blog Visitors? by Pearl at Fresh-Perspectives.net
• The One Thing To Know When Writing With Keywords by Simonne at AllTipsAndTricks.com
• Upgrading Your Theme For WordPress 2.3 by Karthik at IAmKarthik.com

Making Money With A Website

• Start Making More Money And Sell Your Own Ads by Tay at SuperBloggingTips.com
• Methods To Make Money With A Website by Genesis at AtHomeMomBlog.com
• Balancing Affiliate Marketing And Relationship With Your Readers by Meg at CenterOfMuse.com
• How To Sell Ads On Your Blog Despite Its Size Part 1 by Casey at NewsNotion.com
• How To Sell Ads On Your Blog Despite Its Size Part 2 by Casey at NewsNotion.com
• How To Sell Ads On Your Blog Despite Its Size Part 3 by Casey at NewsNotion.com
• Day One: Affiliate Marketing by Roberta at RobertaFerguson.com
• Throwing Away Visitors For Fun: Wrath Of Advertising by Fabien at SmallFishBigMoney.com
• Why People Don’t Make Money Online by Adebola Oni
• Effective Email Marketing by Matthew at BlogAboutYourBlog

Writing Copy

• How To Write Content That Makes A Difference For People by Bobby at Revellian.com
• How To Become A Better Writer by Pat at PatBDoyle.com
• Why Bloggers Should Be Better Writers by Nate at GrateMedia.com
• 12 Reasons Why Bloggers Need To Become Better Writers by Karen at KarenZara.WordPress.com

Getting Better Website Rankings

• How To Increase Your Alexa Rank And Why You Should by Don at AffiliateWatcher.com
• Case Study: Ajax Edit Comments and Technorati by Ronald at RaProject.com

Improving Yourself

• How To Increase Personal Creativity by Sara at PajamaProfessional.com
• How To Find Answers To Your Marketing Questions by Justin at BlendWorx.com
• Finding The Commitment To Climb Your Private Everest by Nick at BeautifulSummerMorning.com
• How To Increase Productivity While Working From Home by Neena at BlogResourcesOnline.com
• Choose Your Attitude Choose Your Success by Don at MakingSalesMakingMoney.com

44 Internet Marketing Articles That Everyone Should Read: Internet Marketers Group Writing Project | Internet Marketing | Make Money Online | Strategy | Services

I’d like to thank all those that have posted the links on their own sites.

I have gotten many trackbacks to my post and they are appreciated. I feel it is the least I can do to show the posts here also.

I am also adding Courtney Tuttle’s blog to my blogroll. It is a great resource.

I would like to know what articles from the project you found most useful.

No fair saying your own. Although, I hope everyone else learned like I did when making their post.

Is how to make money on the Internet a bad subject?

Is it a good idea to start a blog with your main subject making money online? After all, it seems like everyone has a blog about making money online.  John Chow has a blog about making money online.  Kumiko has a blog about making money online.  Even blogs that are not about making money online, often end up having several posts about making money online.  It does sound kind of saturated.

I started thinking about this from one of the comments on this blog.  Thanks Jeremy!  I finally have comments again!  He has a good point, you would think that with everyone using the words "make money online" we all obviously can’t make the first page of Google.  At least, not for that keyword phrase.  I used it enough in the first paragraph to probably get this post banned for keyword spamming.

Perhaps the keyword phrase how to make money online is probably oversaturated.

At this point, John Chow is approaching nearly 500 blogs pointing to his site with the keyword phrase and he hasn’t quite taken first place yet.  He has a high-ranking blog to begin with, and he has had it for several years.  It would take an amazing amount of effort to equal his ranking for the keyword phrase.

Kumiko commented recently:

For some strange reason there seems to be an absolute plethora of blogs trying to start and record their own cash quest this month. I can judge this by the amount of link exchange requests that I’ve received recently – LOTS! I visit every blog that asks for a link exchange and it seems that most of them have been started in the month of March. Is there a reason for this?

Source:http://kumikosuzuki.blogspot.com/2007/03/5-tips-for-new-money-makers.html

 Actually, the reason is very simple.

I admire Kumiko’s success, but she is actually fairly new to niche.  The reason it seems there are so many new blogs talking about making money online, is that this is the way it has been for some time.  It’s not new.  I started this blog with pretty much the same subject in mine nearly a year ago, and the idea wasn’t new then.  Perhaps you just don’t realize how many people are in the niche until you are in it.

Please don’t take this as any criticism of Kumiko or that I think that she is a knave newcomer.  She is very modest about her relatively quick success.  She is very talented and I think that if she keeps at it she will be one of those A-list bloggers very soon.

So the niche is saturated and we should give up?

It seems like every Internet marketer tells you that the niche is saturated and if you want to make money online you should work in another niche.  It’s a good point.  There are a lot of other extremely well-paying niches to work in.  In fact, there is so much available to us, it would be easy to find a niche, even now, that has relatively little competition.  The idea of running a business on the Internet is still in its infancy.  As technology improves and changes, we have yet to see some of most innovative uses for Internet marketing.

Go find a niche with less competition?

One of the perks at the Keyword Avalanche forum are some of the guest moderators.  They’ve brought in some true industry experts that give some amazing advice.  I’m not talking about experts like Shoemoney or the Rich Jerk.  People that are just silently making a lot of money on the Internet that nobody knows about.

On these experts answered almost the same exact question.  His response was the opposite of what one would expect.  His suggestion was, competition is a good indication of a healthy market.  If there is no competition in the niche, there is a possibility it is that way because it is not a profitable niche.  If you find a niche with a lot of competition, such as Internet marketing, it’s probably worth the effort of going after it.

It was what he said next that really cleared my mind.

He pointed out that there are large numbers of people just getting on the Internet now with the idea of generating an income.  How to make money online is not only a competitive match but it is a growing niche.  Many of these people are coming with the idea that there’s a way to make quick easy money on the Internet, but have no idea how to make money online.

In other words, we have a wide open market that need needs our services.

Why do they need our services?  Because we already have the experience and knowledge on how to make money online.  We (anyone who’s already here) have the chance to help others reach their dreams.

While the keyword phrase make money online may be saturated, the niche and market are wide open to those who make the effort.

In fact, we have the opportunity as those that are interested in making an income online, to be every bit as successful as we would wish.  We hold the digital keys to information.  We have the opportunity to create nearly any kind of lifestyle you can imagine!

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