October 9th, 2009 | Posted in General, Personal | by Michael Hobach
My entire life I have worked hard and done more than my share. In 1995, as I've mentioned before, I started my own ISP business. I have never worked so hard – and I've promised myself that I wouldn't do that again! It wasn't the hard work so much as the commitment of my time.
In 2001 I moved away from the office – I used to live within 10 minutes of the office and datacenter. My time was always being eaten up by the business. I moved to more than 30 minutes from the office and started to pull back – my son was now in charge… well he had the responsibility at least.
I slowly pulled away from the day to day business and started looking at some things that would give me some freedom. You see working for yourself doesn't always mean that you have freedom to do a lot of fun things!
I did take a lot of vacations during the early 2000's – mostly to Florida where I bought a timeshare. BTW – don't ever do this! If you have cash to pay for one of these things like I did then put the money into a condo or some other property. My opinion at this point of course.
In 2004 I dove head first into something that has always been an interest of mine – Real Estate! Yep – I figured out how to flip properties with a single back-to-back closing. I was encouraged to write an e-book and all I will say is that the rest is history!
I've written a number of e-books for the Real Estate niche – and between 2004 and 2007 I made a really good living on these books and marketing to this niche. I also went through a divorce at the same time and my energy was not focused at all from time to time. I did enjoy the automatic income and the easy life.
You see, there are a lot of ways to make money online. The main point and something you need to really realize – you must set a course and never look back. My books, training, and other online services made me a good chunk of change – actually, I was enjoying online sales in excess of $100k per year just from the sales of my books. In 2008 that dropped to about $30k per year because of the economy and the Real Estate market. Most 'wannabes' just couldn't see how this could work.
Well I can tell you that I've flipped a number of properties for myself and I've overseen a bunch more. On average I would pocket about $19k per transaction. Not too bad considering I just did all of the leg work and thinking…
That's all gone now – I've pretty much pulled out of the Real Estate market niche. I still work on simple projects and maintain several web sites. Actually you can see the part of my collection of my books that still applies to the market today at http://ShortSaleBooks.com – the sales keep coming in, but I can't pay the bills with sales from this one niche.
Over the last couple of years I've worked to get my life back together and to get a better focus on what I was doing – I still earn a good living online, but I'm working to diversify. You see while Real Estate and the RE niche provided a good income for a number of years, it wasn't my real passion. And because the RE niche was a really hot niche at the time – a lot of 'buyers' – it made me a lot of money… I ignored my first rule – diversification.
So what is my real passion? The technology that runs the Internet of course!
I've been involved in technology my entire life – I love to see web sites come to life and I love to see them rise to the top of the search engines. This is where I live…
Now I'm finding a lot of little niches where I can apply what I know – it's working. And I'm going to share some of this with you here on this site so stay tuned.
Here's something interesting – did you know that the tattoo niche is hot but not many marketers are participating… hmmm… I see an opportunity. Let me do some research!
No I don't have any tattoos and I don't know anything about tattoos… although I have dated several women with tattoos…
To your continued success…
Michael Hobach
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October 1st, 2009 | Posted in General | by Michael Hobach
I better get to this sooner rather than later…
I'm going to present the condensed version of what it takes to make money online – there are a lot of options, and you can choose what works best for you. For now lets just keep this simple…
The Product or Service
What you sell is more important than how you sell it.
Understand that the most profitable product or service is one that you have created and you have control over. Until you get to that point – where you can create your own product or service, consider the roll of affiliate. Being an affiliate just means that you market someone else's product or service and get paid for your efforts.
As an affiliate you can choose products from many sites including the best known Clickbank. There are other networks where you can earn your commission from promoting real-world products like Dish Network, Direct TV, and more.
Here are just a few of the places to look… Clickbank, Commission Junction, Link Share, Google, Amazon.com, eBay, and others. In fact, almost every product or service is available someplace online through an affiliate program.
What To Sell
I think the 'What to sell' topic is the place that most people stumble…
The best way to state this is to say that you want to pick something that people are buying! I don't mean that it's something that people just like – I'm talking about something that is so hot that once you put it out there you can't stop the people from hitting your site and buying what you are selling.
Here is an example – it's the beginning of October and within a couple of weeks people (adults – who have money to buy) will be participating in Halloween. So what you say… have you looked at the sexy adult costumes that are out there? Now if you knew how all of this works what do you think would happen if you became an affiliate to the Playboy Sexy Costume site – yes this does exist… and what if you did your research and created a site to showcase these sexy costumes?
Hmmm…
BTW – if you wanted to be an affiliate for the Playboy Sexy Costume site you would need to have a Commission Junction account and apply to be an affiliate… http://cj.com to get to the Commission Junction web site.
How To Sell Whatever You Are Going To Sell
There are a couple of ways to actually present and promote the item(s) that you have chosen to sell. Ignore the fact that you will have to get people to a web site or web page for now…
In the beginning, people who have limited financial means might choose to use a free Blog like http://wordpress.com where you would have a shared environment to create your WordPress Blog. There are limitations, but this is someplace to start.
The beginner could also use Squidoo – http://www.squidoo.com – which is like a Blog in the way that the world sees it, but on Squidoo they call these pages or posts "a Lens". Don't worry – I didn't get it at first either.
So what would you write about?
You might be an expert or appear to be an expert on the subject at hand.
Maybe you are simply reviewing several products/services in a specific niche. Regardless of what you right about, you are not selling on these pages – you are pre-selling or suggesting a product/service – a big difference. The more you write the better your chances of course.
Now I'm not going to go into details here as there are so many programs that do an excellent gob of explaining how this part works.
Now keep in mind that you initially will be doing this for a specific niche or a specific product/service. As you grow your business you will just be replicating this to other products/services.
Initially the free sites will work, but at some point you will want to switch to your own web site(s) and your own hosting account – you will have total control over how this works.
Simple re-direct to the product web site
In some cases it is permitable or desirable to simply redirect a specific URL that you control to the product/service web site through your very own affiliate link – so that you get credit for the sale. Keep in mind that this isn't always possible – in many cases like coming off of Google or Yahoo, you won't be allowed to redirect.
Visit Squidoo and the WordPress site I showed you above – you will see how people are using these FREE services to make affiliate $$$.
Driving Traffic To Your Squidoo Lens or Blog
The only thing left to do is to get people to your pre-sales or review pages. There are several ways to do this…
The FREE method
If you are on a really tight budget you can just wait for your buyers to find you – they will eventually!
Seriously – there are several ways to get buyers to your sales pages. IF you are using Squidoo or a Blog to promote a product or service, you will know that these two generate a lot of traffic on their own… people will find you!
Keep in mind that generating 'Organic' traffic means FREE traffic! This means that your pages are showing up high on the results page when someone searches for what you are selling.
To get your ad or review or whatever you have created high in the search results. This is accomplished through careful writing and using the key word/phrase that you are trying to rank high on creatively in the title and throughout what you write.
Articles - some promote writing articles and submitting them to article sites like ezinarticles.com. Articles work, but may take some time to start generating traffic to your web site.
Forum & Blog Posts – some promote plastering your opinions on other people's Blog sites, or adding your site URL to your signature on Forums. These work too – but again, you will need to do a lot of work to get these to register and actually drive traffic to your site.
Social Networking – you can certainly use MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and others to promote what you are doing and get traffic to your sites. This is very easy to do and it shouldn't cost you a cent. The time thing comes into play again, and of course it depends on how many people you have following you on these sites.
Other means – there are a whole lot of other options too. You need to be aware that just about anything that comes in contact with other people both online and off can be used to promote your site(s). Don't pass up opportunities…
The Pay method
This is what everyone is trying to avoid – paying to promote their affiliate products and services…
Google PPC – or Pay Per Click text ads – this is where you create campaigns on Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engine sites – your ads are displayed as you define in the search results of people looking for things online. While some avoid this as a means to get buyers to your offer, it is one of the most effective ways to accomplish your marketing.
Google banner ads on specific web sites (content network) – Google has an option that I don't think many beginners use – they should! Create standard banner ads and through Googles network have them appear on specific site. This is usually used to have your ads appear on those sites who are using Google Adsense to monitize their web sites. More about this later!
I've had very good success using simple banner ads on competing web sites and even MySpace – yes MySpace does support Google adsense.
MySpace Ads – This is new and very inexpensive. You have access to the whole MySpace community. You can easily create graphic ads using their tools. Ads will only appear on MySpace pages when you use their advertising.
Advertising Networks and PPV/PPC – There are advertising networks out there that sell advertising space on very popular web sites. Usually these sites have a graphic or link with a lable like "Advertise Here". These networks also provide Pay per view and pay per click billing models. If your ads are sharp and attract a lot of clicks, the pay per view model might be very cost effective. One network to check out is http://etology.com .
There are others – you just need to find them!
How To Pick Something To Promote or Sell
Sometimes picking just one thing to promote is really difficult. So don't just promote or sell one thing! Choose a niche – like health, or relationships, or pets, or ???
I can tell you that what continues to be really hot online are the 3 that I just mentioned….
Health
- Losing weight
- Six-pack Abs
- Improving your health
- Dealing with some specific illness
Relationships
- Picking up women
- Getting your ex back
- Improving your sex life
Pets
- Dog Training
- Getting your dog to stop bitting/barking
- Dog Grooming
Finances
- Setting up a budget
- Making money
- Saving money
- Getting out of debt
- Job loss or Job protection tips
Usually topics where there is a change happening are good choices. We will cover more topics over time, but this is the beginning.
Start with one Niche and one product. Then add more products to that Niche and then expand to multiple Niches!
To Your Continued Success…
Michael Hobach
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September 14th, 2009 | Posted in General | by Michael Hobach
I’ve been trying to figure out just how to convey all of this information to you. If you’ve been following me for any length of time you know that I just write – what I feel and I really don’t hold much back!
So let me start with the obvious stuff you’ve been bombarded with and why you might be skeptical of the whole concept of making money online…
What’s being beat into our heads
I’m sure that you have heard a lot about affiliate marketing, or article marketing or a number of other concepts for making money online. I’m sure you have seen these new malls that are springing up online supposedly to sell things that everyone is buying anyway… and I’m sure you have seen the Internet version of so many MLM / NM companies…. Right?!
I’m here to tell you in simple terms how to make money on the Internet…
Are you ready to know the simple truth about making money?
I bet you are!
Before I come right out and say it I’m going to attempt to get you to think… I do believe that too many people are stuck – they can’t seem to think outside of what they already know to be true. In other words, if you talk to friends and family you will probably hear them talk about getting a raise… or getting a new job… or maybe a second or third job! That is because that is how they were raised to think – maybe you think the same way.
Ok – first let me tell you that anything and everything that YOU buy or pay for is available at a wholesale price – or it is available from someone / someplace (on the Internet) where they pay you a commission through their affiliate program when someone buys their product or service through your efforts.
You are thinking right now – yeah Mike I know that and next you are going to suggest that I buy something at wholesale or through an affiliate link and then try to sell it on my own web site… Nope! Not what I’m suggesting at all.
Actually I just want you to understand that pretty much anything you can think of has some way of making money from it’s sale.
Someone has to buy something before anyone makes money!
Here is a concept –
You can only make money when someone buys something…
Simple concept right?
So now I’m going to throw something at you again…
If you can only make money when someone buys something then wouldn’t you want to be involved in promoting something that a whole lot of people are spending their money on?
Ok – now you are thinking that I’m about to push to you some specific product that is in high demand…
The truth is that there is no one product or service that by itself can fulfill this need!
I’m confused Mike – what are we going to sell or promote? How are we going to make money online?
Well not so fast – we have a lot of things to talk about first…
For now I want you to think about something that you bought recently that you just had to have! Something that others are buying as well – maybe family or friends suggested this item or service – but the point is that you got online and did some research and then bought one.
Think about the process of finding it…
- How did you look for it?
- Where did you go?
- Did you use a search engine? Which one?
- Is it only available from one company or do many have it?
Start a journal of what you are doing – log search phrases, vendors, where they show up in the search results, etc.
Remember that there is no one product or service that is better than another to make money online.
Remember that there are trends – could you have made money selling rocks when Pet Rocks were the craze? You bet – without even trying!
Remember that what you have to sell may not be what people are buying – to make money on the Internet you must find a product that has people already looking for it – and in mass!
Remember that everything that people are buying has the possibility to make YOU money.
Ok – give me your thoughts on this – don’t ask me to explain this any more than I already have here! Please!
This site is setup to give you, or anyone, the opportunity to find something or some way to make money online.
IMPORTANT NOTE!
I am receiving Emails from those on my list here who think that they have the ultimate way to make money online. To be honest – I don’t want to hear about them. Most are MLM or Network Marketing um… schemes – been there, tried that – doesn’t… I’ll explain next time! Just don’t send these URL’s to me!
To your continued success,
Michael Hobach
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