You can admit it, it’s O.K., I’m not judging you.

If you’re like me, you remember growing up with your parents saying “Money doesn’t grow on trees!”

Well, it’s not money on trees but it’s automatic money deposited every month in my PayPal account that I enjoy. In fact, just today I dropped the kids at school, went for my morning walk to clear my head and get my focus for the day while getting my blood pumping, came home and sat down to find an email waiting for me telling me that $234.00 had been deposited into my PayPal account.

Now, that’s not a lot of money but it’s better then nothing and the best part is, it’s for something I spent 30 minutes on about a year ago. So, there is my inspiration for my blog post of the day- how YOU can use your blog for passive income.

First, let me tell you what my personal definition is of passive income. I consider it something I set up once, I spend a little chunk of time on it at the beginning and then it keeps earning money without any additional work from me.

Passive Income Strategy #1 – Build Your Email List

There really is truth to what you hear all the time “The Money Is In The List”. I also admit, I stretch the “set up once” with this one but because it’s so crucial to any business, I’ll explain. It takes you once to set up an optin box, a place to collect email addresses, and you can set up your autoresponder emails once and this part is done. But, the important part is building a relationship with your list so you do need to give it some ongoing TLC, but the set up can be done once. The best part of this passive income strategy is it’s cheap to start (like $20.00 cheap), you don’t need to know any techy stuff and there are plenty of quality resources like Magnetic Listbuilding, that walk you through every step of the process.

Passive Income Strategy #2 – Affiliate Products and Promotions

If you complete the Passive Income Strategy #1 you are in the prime position to start earning money by promoting affiliate products or services either to your mail list or blog. Again, write one email or blog post promoting that product and you will earn a commission when anyone buys. Blogging and affiliate marketing go hand in hand but you will need to decide on your overall strategy. For example, do you want to have lots of little blogs promoting various niche affiliate products or do you want one main authority style blog within one niche. My favorite place to talk to people about blogging and affiliate marketing is at the Elite Forum where I mastermind with other blogging affiliate marketers.

Passive Income Strategy #3 – Advertising

If you are getting good traffic to your blog or newsletter, offer complimentary businesses the option to pay you to advertise. As long as they are services or products your readers will find useful and on topic, it’s a win win for everyone. You get monthly income from their advertisements, the advertiser gets exposure to their target market and your readers don’t have to spend their time searching for. Do some simple Google searches in your niche and send an email to the website owners that appear in the search results.

Passive Income Strategy #4 – Your Own Informational Products

Everyone is an expert in something, even if it’s just the best way you found to wash your cat without having your arms shredded. If you aren’t a writer, create a video, interview someone and record it, just look around you and see all the various ways people are selling what they know. Do you crochet? Sell a pattern you created. You set it up once, put a backend system in place to take payments and deliver the product and it’s done. Sell while you sleep!

Passive Income Strategy #5 – Publish Your Blog To Amazon

This one I think is quite cool and I just read a great blog post on how to earn passive income by publishing your blog to Amazon Kindle. I personally have not done this yet, but I can assure you, I will be looking into it!

There you go, 5 Passive Income Strategies. Did you notice that I used Passive Income Strategy #2 by recommending a few of my favorite resources? If you take my advice and purchase any of those products I do get a little milk money but they are all products that I personally use so that’s why I can recommend them!

Now, take action by looking at your business, blog, newsletter and evaluate if you can add any of the above to get a little extra milk money for you too!

Regards,

p.s. If you have a passive income strategy that you use, leave a comment below.

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

5 Ways To Create Passive Income With Your Blog

I’ll have a full review of my experience coming soon.. but for now… I’m playing with the new add-ons to my AskMrVideo membership area and trying out the picture viewer. I’ll be adding in new pictures soon!

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Niche Affiliate Marketing System Workshop Pictures

This is an older video clip I found recently (making me yearn for the summer sun again) and decided now is a perfect time to share it. Mostly, because I just finished two school science projects with my kids so the topic is so fresh!

I had just returned from vacation and was excited to find a box of books waiting from Janice of Science Project Ideas for Kids. We love the books so much that they have been sitting on a shelf in my kitchen since. I have an eight year old that loves the science books.. after all he keeps flipping back and forth between being a career Army man or a scientist (I told him he can do both and be a scientist for the US Army).

You can find Janice’s books here:

I hope you check them out and put them on your list! You can also find more tips and project ideas at Science Project Ideas For Kids.

p.s. I need to put my disclaimer here: I did not purchase the books I mentioned in the video above, but Janice sent them to my kids as gifts and they are enjoyed all the time and I would not review any product that I do not feel fit my expectations or high standards. Just the amount of work Janice has put into her materials baffles my mind. The links to Amazon, are my affiliate links and I will earn a few pennies if you purchase one of Janices books but more important, I hope you show your support to an amazing “Moms Business”.

p.p.s.s. These books would make a great birthday present, especially for younger kids that don’t need more plastic “stuff” – a great way to give families fun, educational, non-t.v related projects to do for family time together.

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Moms Business Spotlight- Janice VanCleave

I physically was manufacturing all of my own products, learning how to put up a website, trying to balance two kids under the age of three, and packing boxes for shipment every night.  Ohhh how I came to resent those boxes.

I then moved from selling direct on my website to offering wholesale.. then to dropship and wholesale.  I did close this business down (with a very rough transition that warrants another blog post on it’s own) but, the other day I found a friend of mine, Tracy wrote an excellent forum post to explain dropshipping to those that are new to the idea of dropshipping.

After all, dropshipping is the EASIEST way to get started in eCommerce because there is little to no money investment.

So here is her post below.. and this is a BIG moment for Moms Business Coach because it’s the first time I’ve had a “Guest Post” here….

How To Find a Good Dropshipper

1. Ask for recommendations. I would put out an inquiry on Twitter, Facebook, other social media networking sites specific (especially those specific to the niche you’re interested in) and also ask here in the Elite forum of SSWT
2. Web search. Put in your main niche keyword followed by dropshipper. i.e. Elvis Bobblehead dropshipper

Setting Up Your Dropship eCommerce Site

1. Obviously you need a domain name and hosting.  Check out my free tutorials on how to register a domain name and how to setup HostGator hosting.
2. WordPress or static site? Either would work, but for ease in updating the site, I would choose WordPress, or another shopping cart system that allows for database storage of your product & content and thus usually always has a way to easily update your site. Static html sites are simply not efficient for larger ecommerce sites.
3. Decide on your shopping cart system. The WordPress ecommerce plugin would work, there’s also the eShop plugin. However, there are many other shopping cart systems that would also work that are outside of WordPress. It depends on how many products you will have, as to which would work best. Once I get all the technical kinks worked out of integrating the system I use into WordPress, I’ll post info on how you can get this system. Until then, here’s is one of my client’s web sites where I integrated this system into their existing design (this is the same system I will be using, but with WordPress): http://inboardhelmetlights.com/catalog.php. I also have a full ecommerce system that’s the next step up for this; you can view samples here: http://theleadingedgepublishing.com/ and here: http://artofeloquence.com/catalog.php and here: http://www.candlesgiftsandmore.com/ [note: these sites are maintained by my clients, not me. So current look/design may or may not reflect my original work, but they are still using the ecommerce system I setup]
4. Payment processing. PayPal is an obvious choice, but you also need a merchant account to accept straight credit card payments outside of PayPal. There are a few online merchant account options, such at 2CheckOut and ProPay. Or you can go a more traditional merchant account option that requires contacting your local bank, or you can also find more traditional merchant account options by searching online.
5. Read the terms of service with the dropship company you’ve chosen, in order to comply with their guidelines. However, in most cases, the dropship company will provide you with product images and descriptions, as well as any pricing guidelines you need to adhere to.
6. Do keyword research for your niche to find the keywords you wish to target. Make a long list, include long-tail product specific keyword phrases.
7. Select the products you wish to add to your store, use the specific long-tail phrase you found in your keyword research when adding the product to your store as the title for that product and also within the description. Don’t forget to read Lynn’s post on How to Optimize an Ecommerce Site

Marketing Your Site
Blogs are an obvious first choice. Write keyword optimized articles on your site about your niche and/or about a specific problem or issue within that niche and direct the reader to a product in your ecommerce store that meets that need.

Forum & Blog Marketing: comment within niche specific forums and blogs, with a link back to a specific product page on your site.

Social Media: Twitter and Facebook are the obvious top two; but don’t forget YouTube, LinkedIn and even groups within Facebook, LinkedIn and yes – even Yahoo Groups & Google Groups. There are still people using email groups.

Traci Knoppe, is the owner of Managed Web Tech Support Services and you can read more from Traci and her insights on the Pro’s and Con’s of Outsourcing.

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Guest Post: How To Start A Dropship eCommerce Site

PLR, Private Label Rights, is what some people use in their business to quickly create content. After all, it’s content that makes the big wide world go around, but content does take time.. sooo using Private Label Rights can be thought of like a short cut. Someone else writes it and allows you to purchase the content and do with it what you want. Of course, there can be limitations depending on the purchase but overall, Private Label Rights means you can put your name on the material as the author.

So..I hope that video opens your eyes to the potential of using PLR in your business.

Do you have an Ecommerce business and not sure how you would use it?

I have a friend that is a distributor for a home party company. She told me about the trouble she has selling to the same people over and over in her small town and she has tried using social media but people don’t buy when they are just going to the same company owned website as 3000 other distributors.

Here is the exact recommendation I gave to her..

1. Start a blog and brand HERSELF.. after all people buy from who they like and trust, let yourself shine through.
2. To combat her first objection, “What do I blog about?” I pointed her to some good quality articles that can be easily related to her ideal target customers. You can easily find PLR content for dieting, healthy living, family, holidays, business, pets, parenting and much more.
3. Use those articles for each blog post and add a picture, customize with a personal story, add your own voice to the content- subtract a paragraph here, add a paragraph there.
4. Most important- build in a lead to one of your products that compliments the story and link to that product. When all is said and done, from start to finish you spent 30 minutes and now have a new webpage, with fresh content, and a link to a money making product.
5. Link it up- now you have fresh content to send out on Twitter, Facebook and Blog Readers.

Don’t make business complicated, think smart.. think Easy PLR.

Here is to your success!

p.s. The links to Easy PLR are affiliate links… if you choose to purchase the awesome content provided by Nicole I will get a wee bit of milk money. However, like always, I only talk about products and services I have personally bought and used and stand behind.

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What Is PLR?

That means, study it, learn it and start building your own list if you have not already. And, if you are saying that you have a list of customers sitting in your invoice system, that does not count. However, it is only as complicated as you choose to make it so don’t get overwhelmed. Let’s start with some basic concepts….

From your list, you will get your targeted customer, this is a good list since they already have shown interest in what you have to show and sell since they have willingly signed in for your list. These are the people who have liked what they have visited your site and have decided they want to see more and maybe even purchase what ever product or service your site has to offer.

Many people would think that building their lists would take hard work and a lot of time to build and collect names and addresses. This is not so, it takes a bit of patience and some strategies but in creating this list, you open your site and your business to new revenue streams that can be run on autopilot. Put in some extra effort and it will take your business to a new level, if traffic increase and good profits are what you want, an opt-in list will do wonders for your business venture.

There are many sources and articles in the internet available for everyone to read and follow in building a list. Sometimes they may be confusing because there are so many and there different ways. Different groups of people would have different approaches in building an opt-in list, I personally prefer Aweber, as my email list builder after trying several different companies, but no matter how diverse many methods are, there are always some crucial things to do to build your list. Here are four of them.

1) Put up a good opt-in form in a prominent spot on your site. While some may say this is too soon to subscribe for a website visitors application, try to remember that your homepage should provide a quick good impression. If somehow a website visitor finds something that he or she doesn’t like and turns them off, they may just forget about signing up.

A good web form for subscribing to an opt-in list is not hard to do and Aweber walks you through the point and click steps and even provides you videos to follow. I always believe that you need to give them a great reason to join your list, people are becoming skeptical, just signing up for your “newsletter” isn’t enough anymore. As more people sign in, your list will be growing.

2) As mentioned in the first tip, make your homepage very, very impressive. You need to have well written articles and descriptions of your site. Depending on what your site is all about, you need to capture your website visitor’s interest. Make your site useful and very easy to use. Do not expect everyone to be tech savvy. Invest in having good programming in your site, make your graphics beautiful but don’t over do it.

Don’t waste your time making the homepage too graphic heavy or it will take long to load. Not all people have fast connections, the faster your site gets loaded, the better. Go for a look that borders between simplicity and sophisticated knowledge.

3) Provide good service and products. A return customer is more likely to bring in more business. Even then and now, a satisfied customer will recommend a business always. Word of mouth and recommendations alone can rake in more business than an expensive ad. As your clientele roster grows so shall your list. With more members on the list, the more people will get to know about what you have new to offer.

4) Keep a clean and private list. Never lose the trust your customers have entrusted you. If you provide e-mails to others and they get spammed, many will probably unsubscribe to you. Remember, a good reputation will drive in more traffic and subscribers as well as strengthen the loyalty of your customers.

For help to build your email list, layer your revenue streams and tips on how to leverage your email list to work less and make more money visit List Building Mom

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

List Building For Business Success

Membership sites are built by providing access to specific information that consumers are in need of.   The function of membership sites offers a wide variety, I still remember the good ole “CD of the month” membership club that I was part of in High School and now I’m part of an online community focused purely on the creation and running of membership sites as well as other monthly fee based forums.

When I first started online I focused purely on “free membership areas and forums” but soon realized after joining my first “Elite” paid forum that the quality of members- that’s regular, helpful and “masterminding” members in a paid membership area, was well worth the small monthly fee because it provided so much more value. Many free forums and membership areas lack the commitment of participation and you never know who to trust or or who is just trying to scam the system.

I’ve also learned the value of providing a membership area to customers and clients, this is truly how so many people earn “passive” income  online. Just think of the math- if you can provide ongoing value to your customers or clients and charge a small (or large depending on what you are offering them) month after month that number will continue to grow.

Successful sites provide convenient, sought-after information in an accessible manner. Content is king, and finding and distributing much-needed content on your site will make it both successful and profitable.

To bring potential subscribers into your membership site, focus on their needs. Information consumers have a need for useful content on their topic of choice, a need to know the newest information, and a need for a sense of belonging. By meeting each of these needs, and demonstrating how you plan to do so in your sales letter, you are on your way to increasing your membership.

First, you’ll need to consider which topics are profitable. What content is highly in demand at the moment? What do people need information about? What do people want to know how to do? If you are answering a frequently asked question, you just may have the right topic for your membership site. Spend some time on forums, and notice what questions pop up repeatedly. Find answers to those questions. Find products that teach skills people want to know. Market to this need for useful content, and you’ve got a great start!

Next, consider that some potential subscribers may already know the information you found in your above search. Each market will have subscribers with basic, intermediate, and advanced knowledge – you want to sell your memberships to all three types. Research the newest, hottest information on your topic of choice. Did a new method of organizing widgets just hit the media? Be sure you have updates on this information for your widgets membership site. Provide your members with hot new products and information, to ensure they keep coming back for more.

Last, cater to your members need to belong to a group. Potential subscribers, like most people, want be part of successful groups of like-minded people. Market your site as just the group they want to join. Check in with your members often through forums and email newsletters, and be sure that new members know they can ask you for help if needed. Provide a sense of community, and pride in that community. This will help ensure that your new subscribers become steady subscribers.

When building your membership site, focus on profitable topics. Be sure to include new, up to date information for subscribers with an intermediate to advanced knowledge of your topic. Work hard to build a community of like-minded individuals. This will ensure your continued success in your site-building efforts.

For more information on how you can set up your own membership site, here is where I learn about creating, building, and running membership sites  Membership Academy.  It’s an amazing group of people that have experience across many membership platforms and are beyond helpful. At Membership Academy there are comparisons, reviews, forums and videos on membership software and payment systems. You can also discover how to start-up and run your own profitable membership site and there is an amazing number of video tutorials to help you along.

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Three Ways to Build a Successful Membership Site

But let’s face it.. those 140 characters can be distracting and time consuming. There are great tools, like TweetDeck, or Hootsuite to help you manage your tweets but you have to enter those 140 characters and push send.

Here is a little tool that I found to help me manage my tweets while I’ve been neck deep in work… so that my Twitter stream doesn’t dribble away without me

It’s a free wordpress plugin called Related Tweets by the Blog Traffic Exchange. I love it!

You install the plugin as you would any of your other WordPress plugins. Related Tweets plugin uses the powerful Blog Traffic Exchange search engine to find content and lets the user choose what to publish it on his Twitter account.

Once you activate your plugin, set your options in the control panel, choose what blog categories you do not want to include and add your Twitter account. You select how often you want to post related tweets then continue to tweet as you normally do while the Blog Trafic Exchange publishes content on topics related to your blog.

I confess, I am a strong believer in non-automated social networking tools, but this one is different. It’s providing quality content, related to my topic, not spammy affiliate links, AND my followers enjoy it! That’s the most important point here- I will jump on Twitter and find that five or 10 people of Re-Tweeted a post that was made by plugin.

This means, my overall exposure on Twitter has grown as well and I have personally Tweeted far less then I ever have due to my focus on work projects.

Go ahead, check it out- see if fits your style and helps you grow your exposure both on Twitter and in your blog.

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Twitter Secret: Related Tweets Plugin

Why use a Premium WordPress Theme verses a Free WordPress Theme?

1. My first answer is bells and whistles- you want professional- go premium. You aren’t getting a free site made by Joe Shmoe that has hacked up code that is going to make a mess of your site and they have lots of extras built in that make customization easy.

2. Support- The large majority of premium WordPress themes will offer a support forum and this is crucial for those that are beginners and may run into a snaffu here or there.

There are millions of free WordPress themes that are very good and may work for your needs, but the below themes will cut down on your time tinkering with making things layout the right way or look how you want it and allow you to spend more time on your content and promoting.. you know.. the parts that MAKE you money!

Here are my recommendations:

Affiliate Theme by Unique Blog Designs

While this is an easy install and setup for affiliate bloggers, this premium WordPress theme can easily be used to promote and highlight your own services or products and services.

This theme comes with a wide range of page layout selections, colors and tons of options in the dashboard. I love this theme for the simplicity that anyone, even the most non-techy person, can create a very personalized blog without knowing a spec of html code.

Thesis Theme

This theme is a clean and crisp design that is well search engine optimized. This theme focuses the theme around how the search engines will see your blog.

I also love that this has an easy option panel from the dashboard that allows you add your feed details, tracking code, and even the ability to customize the fonts and styles of your blog postings with only a few clicks.

You can easily add media such as rotating images or video all from the control panel.

StudioPress Themes

The StudioPress offers a wide selection of Premium WordPress Themes is one of the first themes I bought. You may hear this style of theme referred to as a “magazine” theme because of the flexibility in the overall design layout. You can add a little YouTube video, you can modify the psd files that are included for an extra unique boost, you can leverage the auto-thumbnail management or change options from the drop down panel in the dashboard.. simple simple stuff but powerful enough to let you “grow” with your blog theme.

Last but not least is the…. Elegant Wordpress Theme

This theme does not offer as many customization options as some of the above, but for one low yearly price you have lots of themes to choose from. Their support forum is helpful and prompt in their responses.

Do you have a favorite Premium Wordpress them you like? Add it below, I’m always on the look out!

Until next time,

Happy Blogging

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

My Favorite Premium WordPress Themes

The only secret is that you need to drive that traffic by taking action.

Website Traffic will linger on it’s own, but if you set up a solid foundation of traffic tactics, the snowball effect will mean less work for you down the line.

Five things you can do today for more website traffic:

1. Find a Joint Venture- partner with a complimentary business and email their list with a special promotion.

2. Create a series of informative and entertaining videos and blast them out to the video networks.

3. Sit down and write a couple articles and submit to article directories

4. Take your online website offline by posting rip away cards around your town that offer free goodies if they visit your site.

5. Leverage Social Networking- make a killer Facebook Fan Page, Twitter link love, create a Squidoo or Hubpage

There are a few quick tactics you could do today that would help kick start more website traffic to your site today.

For more tips or step by step tutorials for the above actions plus more check out my ebook  Beginners Guide To Traffic Tactics

Need a product to kick start your affiliate marketing? Go ahead and promote the Beginners Guide To Traffic Tactics and earn while you learn!

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

5 Strategies For More Website Traffic