Below you will find a guest article from Jimmy D. Brown, developer of the Mutiple Streams Theme wordpress blog theme.

For more information on turning on ten “built-in” ways to make money from your blog, visit http://marluckmarketing.com/mst

The Easiest Way To Outsell Other Affiliates

If you’re an affiliate marketer, then you’re always looking over your shoulder to see if the competition – your fellow affiliates – are catching up to you.  Or, worse than that, you’re looking up ahead trying to catch up with them!

At times any market can be crowded, so selling the same thing to the same group of people means you’re lucky to get just a small share of the market.  Imagine having thirty-five Wal-Mart stores in one small town, all competing with each other to get the local business.  You get the idea.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.  The easiest way to outsell other affiliates is this…

Turn your AFFILIATE offer into a UNIQUE offer!

You see, most affiliates try to sell the product as is. If your prospects are shopping around, they’re going to skip all the “buy from me” offers.

Instead, they’re going to focus on those offers that give them an incentive to buy. And that means you can outsell the other affiliates simply by offering a bonus product to anyone who buys through your affiliate link.

I’ve been teaching this concept since 2001 and, all things being equal, those affiliates who put this into practice will outsell those who don’t virtually 100% of the time.

It’s a very simple strategy.  Let’s break it down into three steps…

Step 1: CHOOSE Your Incentive

Your goal is to make your offer stand out from the crowd by offering an incentive to buy from your link, thereby boosting your conversion rate. And that means you need to offer a bonus that enhances or otherwise complements the affiliate product.

Did you catch that?  Your bonus should “enhance” or “complement” the product you are promoting as an affiliate.  That’s what makes for the best incentive.

————- Case Study ———–

Let me give you a “real” case study (not made up … actually done by one of my customers).

A customer – who is also one of my affiliates – recently purchased my Multiple Streams Theme wordpress blog theme.  He loaded it to his site.  Then, he invested a little time writing a small report that teaches how to customize and tweak the theme.  He offered this small report, filled with insider shortcuts and tips for enhancing the theme, as an incentive to anyone who ordered the Multiple Streams Theme through his affiliate link.

Brilliant.

I’m just guessing, but I bet the report didn’t take him half an hour to write.  He just logged his own personal experiences.  And yet it has high value to anyone who has plans to order the theme.

That’s how you outsell other affiliates.  You turn your AFFILIATE offer into a UNIQUE OFFER.

————- Case Study ———–

One way to do this is by reading the sales letter for the product and choosing one particularly enticing bullet point.

Example #1: If the sales letter tells prospects they can learn how to get traffic from social media sites, then you can create a report called “27 Ways to Use Social Media to Drive Traffic to Any Website!”

Example #2: If the sales page for a diet book promises a month of low calorie recipes to customers, you can create a supplementary low calorie recipe book and give it away to those who buy from your link.

Example #3: If you’re promoting a dog training book and you see a bullet point about eliminating bad behaviors such as jumping, incessant barking, digging in the gardening, etc. You can create a report or even a video called, “The Secrets of Training the Perfect Dog: How to Keep Your Dog’s Paws Off Your Guests, Off Your Counters and Out of Your Garden!”

The point is, your freebie should be directly related to the affiliate offer. You want your prospects to buy through your link just because the incentive is so enticing.

What kind of incentive?  You can do videos, software, coaching, advertising, installations, services, etc.

But, “pound for pound”, the best and easiest incentive to create is a small report.

Step 2: CREATE Your Incentive

Once you decide on the topic, your next step is to create the bonus product. If you’re creating a short report or video, you can probably finish it in one day. Otherwise, you can hire a trusted freelancer to do it, which frees your time to focus on marketing the offer!

Tip: You find ghostwriters on sites like WarriorForum.com, Elance.com, and GetAFreelancer.com. You can also ask for recommendations from your colleagues via your social networks or on business forums.

Step 3: CIRCULATE Your Incentive.

Finally, your last step is to promote your offer by letting prospects know that anyone who buys the affiliate product using your link will get the bonus product.

Let your list know.  Tell your blog readers.  Tweet about it.  Purchase advertising.  Distribute free marketing materials such as ezine articles.  Mention it in sig files at forums.  You know the drill.

Now, there are a few ways to deliver the product:

1.  On the download page. If you’ve developed a relationship with the product vendor, he may agree to set up a special sales page that promotes the bonus plus a special download page so that customers can download it instantly after purchasing.

2.  Manually. You can have customers forward their receipts and then you send them the link to the bonus.

3.  Automatically. You can also set up a special email address with an autoresponder, so that anyone who sends you a receipt gets the download link automatically. (Naturally, some people will try to “cheat” this system.)

And there you have it – the simple three-step strategy you can use to outsell your competitors and put more money in your pocket.

It’s so easy you could be making more money by tomorrow… if you get started today!

Speaking of “making more money”.  If you have a blog, how would you like to have ten “built-in” ways to increase your affiliate commissions from your blog?  Visit http://marluckmarketing.com/mst to learn more. 

NOTE:  The offer mentioned at the website will no longer be available after Friday, March 19, 2010 at 10PM.  Jimmy is “retiring” it then and discontinuing all sales.

To learn seven more ways to profit from PLR content, download my free report here

Even if you’re new to the world of Internet marketing, you’ve no doubt heard of private label rights, or PLR. PLR is just another kind of usage license that some providers grant with their content. Usually the buyers of PLR have the right to edit, modify, or rework the content in any way they choose. About the only restriction you’ll ever see on PLR is that you can’t sell it as PLR to another buyer. Other than that, the ideas are limitless.

Here are five things you can do today to begin making money with PLR.

1. Publish an eBook. Take a bundle of articles about a topic and compile them into an eBook. You can – and probably should – edit the articles, then organize them into chapters. Craft an introduction and a conclusion, add a cover, and viola! You’ve got an ebook that you can now offer for sale.

2. Create a special report. A special report is similar to an ebook, but it’s generally shorter. Typically, marketers use special reports as a give-away to help build up a mailing list. Since you’re going to be giving the report away rather than selling it, it makes sense to use PLR. It will take a lot less of your valuable time than will creating something from scratch. This is a longer term plan than selling an ebook, but building a responsive list is the first step to profiting on the Internet.

3. Write an autoresponder series. Much like a special report, an autoresponder series is designed to help build your mailing list. The advantage of an email series is that it trains your subscribers to both expect email from you, and to open it. In the future, when you are presenting offers to your list, getting them to look forward to your emails and to open them will greatly increase your profits.

4. Build a niche blog. Blogs are hot. Google loves them, readers love them, and the profit potential is amazing. The reason both Google and readers love them is that they are constantly updated with new content. The trouble is, keeping up with a demanding posting schedule can be a real bear. Enter PLR. One 50 page ebook will give you enough posts to keep your blog rolling for months. You can monetize a blog with Adsense, affiliate links, or paid advertising.

5. Craft a viral ebook. A viral ebook is an ebook that is designed to be given away. You write it and grant any reader the right to distribute it for free. They can send it to their friends, mail it to their list, post it on their website for download. You can post it in a number of ebook directories, where people looking for information can find it when they search on your topic. At first glance this seems like a money losing proposition, but the secret lies in the embedded affiliate links. A viral ebook acts as a salesman for you where ever it goes. Whenever someone buys through any of your links, you’ll get paid.

These are just a few of the ways you can earn money with PLR content. To learn more about these methods and get seven more ways to profit from PLR, I invite you to download my free special report on using PLR content.

photo credit: [ RoCKeT ReDuCeR No 62 - RaMa LaMa Fa Fa Fa ]

By Alice Seba & Annette Elton

Content – content – content, everyone is looking for fresh content. Many website owners simply post content on their sites, slap on some Google ads and hope for the best. Did you know that you can sell your content as a way to bring in an income? Here are some ideas on what types of content you can use to bring in money.

Writing for Pay

A great place to start earning an income from home is through writing for pay. Do you have a knack for writing articles, web copy or newsletters? If so, you can easily set up shop as a writer specializing in that area.

Private Label Content

Sell private label content memberships, bundles and/or packets. You can start out writing them yourself or make it a more hands-off operation and hire writers to compile the content for you. Just be sure you’re giving your customers fresh, quality content on a consistent basis.

First Rights

Selling first rights to your content gives the person who purchases the content the right to publish it before anyone else. For example, a magazine may pay to be the first to publish your article. After a certain amount of time, you are free to publish it elsewhere. You don’t usually get paid as much as for “exclusive rights”, but this means you can use your content again elsewhere.

Info Products

Create your own information products. Good examples include eBooks, video tutorials, interviews and teleseminars. These are all content that you can create for your market, but once you’ve established your expertise in an area, keep going with it. Don’t just create one eBook and leave it at that.

Pre-written Coaching

Take what you’ve learned on a particular topic and turn it into pre-written information to help others. Give them homework you check each week as they work through the course. They get extra help and you can charge a premium price.

Be creative, keep the focus on your target reader and the information they are looking for and you’ll see just how powerful a tool content can be in your business.

Editor’s Note: If you’d like to take the hassle out of content creation and get back to running your business, let All Custom Content take care of all the little details. For professionally researched and prepared content, visit Annette & Alice at All Custom Content.

photo credit: gollygforce

Nicole Dean has yet another video in which she discusses more on PLR content. In this quick video she answers the question: How to Avoid Bad PLR Content.

Anyone that plans on or is using PLR content should take a peek at this video. There are great tips on what to look for when purchasing PLR content.

Nicole Dean has yet another video in which she discusses more on PLR content. In this quick video she answers the questions ” Is it Ethical to Use PLR Content in Your Online Business?

In this quick video for online business owners and Bloggers, Nicole Dean of EasyPLR answers the question of “What is PLR Content?“.

Protect your family from PC-related injury

(ARA) – After a summer full of skinned knees, sunburn and sports-strained muscles, you might expect your family to experience fewer injuries as autumn approaches. But fall likely means you’ll be putting in more hours at the office in front of a desktop, and your kids will deal with mountains of homework by firing up their laptops.

That extra computer time could add up to some painful injuries for computer users of all ages, experts say. Long periods of working at a computer – especially if your hands, wrists, arms and back are not properly positioned – can cause injuries that range from carpal tunnel syndrome to tailbone discomfort and even loss of vision.

Giving up your desktop or laptop is out of the question, and many of us find reducing our time online is nearly impossible. If you can’t cut back on computer time, how can you avoid computer-related injuries? Prevention is the key, says Aurelia Koby, president of Imak Corp. and an expert on ergonomically designed computer accessories.

“It’s important to achieve and sustain an ergonomic, body-friendly position whenever you use a computer,” Koby says. “Computer users who find themselves stuck in front of the screen for long hours should also practice simple exercises to help relieve the stress placed on their bodies by repetitive motion and prolonged sitting.”

Here are some simple ways to practice healthy computer use this fall.

Sit up straight

The immortal chant of many a mother to her slouching teen is actually healthful advice when you’re sitting in front of a computer. Slouching, slumping or allowing your shoulders to roll forward place strain on a number of body parts, including the back, shoulders, arms, neck and even the muscles in your posterior.

Keep your back as straight as possible and your shoulders back and squared when using the PC. Pick a seating situation that facilitates this posture – such as an ergonomically designed chair adjusted to the appropriate level, paired with a comfortable desk. Your keyboard should be positioned at a height that allows you to comfortably rest your elbows at your side, and sets your forearms parallel with the floor at the level of your keyboard.

If your teen or “tween” sits on the floor, bed or beanbag chair when using her laptop, encourage her to sit at a comfortable desk and practice proper posture.

It’s all in the wrist

Carpal tunnel syndrome is one of the most common ailments associated with computer use. Improper positioning of the wrist and arm while typing is a leading cause of computer-related pain. If you use a laptop a lot, you’re even more likely to experience improper positioning since the closeness of the keyboard to the computer screen and the touchpad make it nearly impossible to achieve healthful hand, wrist and arm position.

To minimize the risk of injury, connect an external mouse to your laptop and use wrist-positioning accessories, like the le Petit Cushion. The small, easily portable mouse cushion is filled with trademarked ergoBeads that provide a gentle, soothing massage to your wrist as you rest your arm on the cushion. Shaped for easy mouse maneuvering, the cushion travels well with your laptop and comfortably supports your wrist and forearm to eliminate stress. At your home PC, you can use a larger cushion, like the Wrist Cushion for Mouse, also with ergoBeads, to provide wrist and arm support.

Those are the breaks

Be sure to take regular breaks, whether you’re working on a PC or laptop. Stand up, stretch and go for a walk. If you can’t spare the time to leave your desk, swivel your chair away from the computer screen and practice a few simple stretching exercises in your seat.

To minimize eye strain — another common computer-related ailment — frequently look away from the screen and focus on faraway objects. Make sure your primary light source never shines directly in your face or on the computer screen. Eliminate reflections or glare by tilting the monitor or using a glare-reducing filter. The screen should never be too close to your face and should be positioned at eye level or slightly lower.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

photo credit: Giulio Menna

Scheduling our weekly tasks for our online business can sometimes put a halt to everything. The post over at Self Starters Weekly Tips had me thinking about this today.

I use to write things down on tons of sticky notes and stick them all over my desk, which was not a very productive way to handle my time since I would have to weed through them to find what I had planned and more times than not my youngest son would run off with some of them – I wouldn’t discover them until I would clean his room and find them in his toy box. LOL

After a couple of months of the sticky note thing I realized I needed to have a better system in place to help me schedule and organize everything. I now use this planner, which is not only attractive but helps me out tremendously with my weekly, monthly and daily tasks. This has been the best thing for me personally.

There are other options out there, however, that doesn’t require you to spend a dime – free printables that you can print out as needed and staple together to create your own planner or mind map software for those that like visual representations. Alice Seba has a free planning calendar that can be downloaded here as well.

Here is another printable that I used before I purchased my planner that I found on my hard drive that you can feel free to download as well.

Download this free PDF printout to help you schedule your online business’s weekly tasks.

What kind of systems to you have in place to help you keep your tasks scheduled?

A great way to market your online business is through article marketing. Not only is it effective, it’s also free. However, every article you write actually has many more potential uses than you may realize. With every single article you write, you can actually take advantage of many more marketing opportunities and create a lot more content. You can boost your article marketing in the following three ways.

1. Building a social networking page around your article is a great way to boost your article marketing. There are numerous social networking sites that are very popular. You can choose a social networking page and plug your article into it. Depending on which site you go with, there will be several other elements you can easily add to your page to instantly generate new, exciting Internet content. It’s so simple that you can do it in less than 30 minutes!

2. Making a blog entry out of every article you write is another fantastic way to boost your article marketing. In every niche you use to earn money, you should have at least one blog. Of course, having numerous blogs is even better. Just bear in mind that you need to post a new entry to your blog every time you write an article. Changing the title, however, is a must. Furthermore, you should definitely consider modifying the body of the article, if only a few sentences. All that’s really needed is a few subtle changes. It is simple for you to turn your article into a blog entry in a matter of minutes.

3. Turning your article into a video is the last way we will examine to boost your article marketing. Though this might sound a little complicated, it is actually fairly simple. To quickly and easily make your video, you can use some of the free software available online, or easier still, you can simply post the video directly on YouTube using your web cam. All that is required is for you to calmly and clearly read your article – there is no need to make a complex video. You’ll be surprised how many views you will get and how much it can help your business’s online marketing.

You can see that it is easy to boost your article marketing with any of the ways mentioned. Just forgetting about your article after writing it and posting online is not very effective marketing. Creating social networking pages, making blog entries and creating videos are much more effective uses for your articles. The great result of content across the Internet for you and your business is more than worth the little time it will take to do these three things.

Want more free article marketing tips? Click Here

photo credit: bigpresh