The Smart Passive Income Blog » guest post

The Simplest Way to Create Unique Content

Pat — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 08:26:38 +0000

This is a guest post from @ChrisGuthrie from Make Money on the Internet.

If you’ve ever heard the phrase “Content is King” before, then you should know by now that the quality of the writing on your blog, website, ebook etc. is important.

Duh right?

In fact, you’ve probably heard it so often you almost hit the back button on your browser, but before you slam your head through your monitor or do something else drastic I suggest you hear me out. Instead I’d like to suggest the simplest way to write content that is both unique and worthy of being called king – case studies.

Why Case Studies?

In almost every niche on the web, readers can appreciate a good case study or in depth analysis on a subject because they’re designed to tell a story based on fact. They aren’t filled with regurgitated ideas based on someone’s feelings about a topic (like most of the blogs that clutter the web). Instead, case studies are a factual representation of a real life event.

On my own blog, for example, I wrote a post about earning $41,438.42 with Amazon Associates. Sure enough, that blog post has been one of the most popular posts every month because it’s based on data I collected over an entire year of trying various ideas to make the most money on Amazon. This is the same reason why I enjoy reading Pat’s blog. Most of his posts are based on actual experience that document how he earns an income online or teach lessons based on experience like how to earn money creating iPhone apps, for example.

Case studies can be very interesting and eye opening for readers because you can share information in a way so that people learn a lot about a topic they knew nothing about or were unable to find enough information on elsewhere around the web. The fact that you’re sharing a case study based on your own real life experiences already makes it a story they can’t get anywhere else and they can also do wonders for your credibility. If you claim you’re a Social Media Guru (just saying that makes me want to throw up) then show me who you are. What specifically have you done for your blog or a client that improved their ROI, number of Facebook ~~fans~~ Likes, Twitter followers etc., and how did you do it?

If you spend some time putting together a unique story based on facts from your own personal experiences, you’ll reap the benefits of grateful readers and improved credibility.

Chris is the owner of Make Money on the Internet where he shares the successes and failures that come from being a full time internet entrepreneur.

Pat Chiming In:

Hey – this is Pat just putting in a word after Chris’ post about just how important case studies are for the success of your blog or articles. Case studies BY FAR have been the most successful types of blog posts that I’ve written here on SPI. My monthly reports, keyword research experiments and Facebook studies (just to name a few) are all top traffic and comment generating posts. And the cool thing is…they’re really easy to write, since most of the information is factual or data that you’d already have in hand.

Can you think of any case studies you can do for your blog? If you don’t have any real life events or experiments to blog about, it’s about time you make ‘em happen for yourself.

Cheers!

---------------------
As always, I just wanted to thank you for subscribing. This blog is a success because of you and your support. Here's to your online success!

Become a Fan of the Smart Passive Income Blog on Facebook and join the conversation!

Thank you so much!

The Simplest Way to Create Unique Content

How to Retain Your Subscribers Like a Pro

Pat — Fri, 21 May 2010 08:05:53 +0000

This is a guest post from Jonathan Beebe from MMO Work.

You’ve learned the benefits of starting an email newsletter and how to get started in “The Beginner’s Guide to Staring a Newsletter“, so today I’m going to share with you even more strategies to literally supercharge your subscriber opt-in rate, as well as some techniques—or “best practices”—on what to do after you’ve gotten their email address—because getting them to subscribe is only the first step.

Why Focus on Retaining Your Subscribers?

No matter what your goal is for your website, repeat traffic (those who have been to your website before) will always be more valuable than your first-time visitors—especially the “one-hit-wonders” who are bouncing around.

And here’s why…

If your goal is to produce more sales (or affiliate commissions), it has been said that on average, a visitor needs to see your offer about seven times before making a purchase. So with that being said, repeat visitors are essential when it comes to producing as many sales as you possibly can.
If your goal is more ad-clicks, it’s obvious why repeat visitors would benefit you: the more opportunities they have to see your ads, the more likely they’ll click on them.
If your goal is more blog comments and community interaction, repeat visitors who are your loyal fans are much more likely to post a comment than someone who’s getting their first impression. Think about it, on the blogs you’ve commented on, how many of them have you visited in the past? (probably most of them)
Even if your goal has nothing to do with money and it is only to HELP as many people as you can in your niche, then YES, repeat visitors are still a better fit for you. The more times someone sees you, the more likely they will trust you and actually take your advice. Would you be more likely to take advice from someone you know and trust, or from a complete stranger you’ve never seen/heard of before?

And in case you haven’t figured it out yet, the BEST way to get repeat visitors is to get them to subscribe; the most responsive method being your permission-based email list.

How to Boost Your Subscriber Rate Ten Fold

Breaking News: “Most Internet Surfers Are Downright LAZY!”

Oh wait, that’s old news! But it’s the truth, so therefore, a simple reminder to “Subscribe to Email Updates” or “Subscribe to my RSS Feed” (if they even know what that is) usually isn’t enough of a push to get them to go through the HASSLE of entering their name and email address (I know, it’s hard isn’t it? Especially for us lazy folks).

So if you want to “squeeze” as many subscribers as you can out of your daily visitor total, you need to offer some kind of incentive to subscribe. As you can see, Pat does it here on Smart Passive Income with his eBooks the $mart Way guide, and I guarantee it has increased his opt-in rate (as opposed to just offering “Email Updates”).

And the easiest way to offer an incentive is to once again, do exactly what Pat does: offer an informative report. Many people get overwhelmed at the prospect of this, but it’s really nothing to be afraid of. You’re already providing value on your blog, so simply come up with something useful and create a short PDF report. It doesn’t matter how long it is, as long as it is both useful and convenient.

You can use OpenOffice.org to write your report and export it to PDF at absolutely no cost.

Another tip to boost your subscriber-rate is by using an eCover (aka “Boxshot”) to grab your visitors’ attention and increase your report’s “shiny” factor.

Where to “Advertise” Your Free Report?

I recommend putting your free offer (in exchange for their name and email address) in your blog’s sidebar, at the bottom of each post (see the Add Post Footer Plugin), and also on a separate “squeeze page”.

Pat’s article I mentioned earlier goes over how to add your opt-in form to your sidebar using Aweber, and you can also apply that advice to putting it at the bottom of each post (using the plugin I mentioned).

Another technique I recommend is to create a separate page on your domain that is dedicated solely to outlining the main benefits (not features, but benefits) of your free report, and then ask them for their name and email address. This is otherwise known as a “squeeze page”.

To get traffic to your squeeze page, you can go through your past posts and whenever you see a sentence that matches any of the benefits of your free report, link that text to your squeeze page. Be sure to keep this in mind for future posts as well.

For example, if you wrote a free report on “How to Change Your Motor Oil”, and you had a blog post describing the things to check for before a long road trip, you can then take the sentence from that article that reads, “Be sure to check your oil before leaving home.” and link the words “check your oil” to your squeeze page.

You can also use article marketing as an effective way to drive traffic to your squeeze page to get more email subscribers. If you feel guilty for driving traffic to your squeeze page over your blog, just remember that the responsive folks who join your email list will always end up on your blog eventually, which takes me to my next point…

“I’ve Got Their Email, Now What?”

As I mentioned earlier, getting your visitors to subscribe is only the first step. Just because they entered their name and email address doesn’t automatically mean Presto! You’ve got a repeat visitor! You have to actually get them to come back to your website.

The good news is, there’s an easy way of accomplishing just that.

The best way to do this is to offer a simple newsletter subscription, but it’s not as hard as you think. You can leverage the existing, high quality content already on your blog and the work is done for you!

Here’s my simple strategy for running a hassle-free newsletter subscription that produces repeat visitors, loyal subscribers, and SALES:

Every six days I send an email to my list.
Two out of every three emails, I send send them a link to a high-quality article that I posted to my blog. I simply provide a short description of the article, and give them the link. Or, I might give them another free report I found that I think they could benefit from—the point is, I give them something that’s not only valuable, but free.
Every THIRD email I send to my list is some kind of promotion in the form of a product recommendation, or a review. However, it is ALWAYS a high quality product that is sure to deliver (it’s best to test the product out for yourself).

Simple as that! I’m never scraping to find information for my newsletter, because I simply leverage the high quality articles that I’m already posting to my blog on a regular basis. Following a six-day mailing schedule will keep your name in the forefront of your subscribers’ minds, but it’s not too often that they’re going to get annoyed at you. It’s perfect.

The reason why I send a promotion every third mailer is to not only make sales on my “promotion days”, but to keep my list “conditioned” so I that a good percentage of my list remain buyers. The fact that two out of every three emails is providing them pure value (and no offers) let’s them know that you’ve got their best interest in mind, and will get them used to clicking the links in YOUR emails.

In fact, do things that way and your subscribers will actually look forward to your periodic emails. It’s a sure-fire strategy for building trust and producing RESULTS.

But Don’t Take My Word For It…

I could keep explaining the benefits of retaining your visitors, and even more reasons why you should be building your list, but the best way to find out is to see for yourself. After all, testing is important to incorporate into ANY business (be it online or offline), so I encourage you to do your own testing (you won’t be sorry, trust me).

Create a free report, advertise it on your blog (as well as a “squeeze” page), and follow an effective (but very “do-able”) mailing schedule like I described above and see what it does for your online business in a very short amount of time.

I guarantee that after a few months of putting more effort towards retaining your visitors, the only thing you’ll regret is not doing it sooner.

Jonathan Beebe is an online entrepreneur who writes at MMO Work. Visit his blog for more information on how to make money online, and to download a FREE report that takes you step-by-step through the exact method he used to liberate himself from his day job FOR GOOD. He also has a great Online Income Formula eBook you should also check out.

The Realization That Enabled Me to Make a Living Online

Pat — Wed, 05 May 2010 07:05:53 +0000

This is a guest post from Glen Allsopp of ViperChill.com. If you’ve been around on my blog for a while, you may notice that I refer to Glen and his blog quite a bit. Why? Because his content is just that good, and this guest post is no exception.

When I built my first website at 15, I honestly didn’t know too much about what I was doing. I used a free site builder so didn’t have my own domain, used the built in templates so I didn’t have to mess around with HTML and used image generators online so I had no need for Photoshop. When I started looking at how to make money online and everyone I spoke to recommended that I should get my own domain, I felt totally lost.

For the next year I tweaked my MySpace pages as a way to help me learn HTML (and impress my friends. Sad, I know), I purchased domains as people had recommended and used a friends hosting company to get my website online. After struggling with databases and FTP software for a few months, I started to get a hang of what I was doing.

Though I had some initial success when one of my websites was featured in a popular book and I built and sold some websites for a few hundred dollars, I really wasn’t making that much money online. I was even building websites around the things that I loved, but just didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

After much frustration, I went…

In Search of the Magic Bullet

If you’ve been trying to make an income online for a decent amount of time then you’ve probably came across the thousands of guides offering you tips on how to get rich overnight. The “secrets nobody is telling you about” in the form of an instant download or how one man “went from nothing to working from a beach in Thailand in just six weeks”. These are just some examples, but I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.

Lured in by these promises, I spent what little money I had trying to gain knowledge in the area of making money online. I had built my skillset in terms of creating websites and getting them hosted online, but I thought there must be something missing that nobody is telling me if I couldn’t seem to get further than a few hundred dollars per month.

One product turned into the next, and that one led me to another, until I ended up with piles of useless eBooks that had left me in a worse financial situation than I was in before. I was supposed to be learning how to make money, not getting other people rich by buying their products.

If it wasn’t for my successful stint as a freelancer and my sheer determination to “get this down,” I think I would have given up my internet income dreams a long time ago. Product after product and promise after promise left me nowhere.

The magic bullet was nowhere to be found.

Today, I’m making a very healthy living online building websites around things I love and helping thousands of people around the world do the same. I don’t make a living by teaching other people how to make a living online but I do try my best to help.

The last two years have been very instrumental for me, and they also helped me find the magic bullet. That’s right, there is one. And it’s much closer to home than you think.

My Realization

My realization is fairly simple, but once you grasp and internalize it, the results from your internet endeavors are sure to skyrocket. The realization was simply this: You are the magic bullet. Instead of looking for some genius idea or a secret that it seemed everyone was keeping away from me, it finally clicked that maybe, just maybe, it was the actions I took rather than the knowledge I seeked that would allow me to finally make money online.

Instead of buying another product, I bought a domain. Instead of looking for instant results in an eBook, I looked for a niche I could target. Instead of wondering why so many people besides me where making money, I decided to focus on one thing until I was the person making money.

And guess what? Things actually started to happen.

I built one affiliate site and a few months later it started making a great income. I used the same steps in another industry, and did well in that one too. I then went on to build a blog as I love writing and having an audience, and through nothing more than right action and a lot of determination, that also became very successful.

I will now say that it is very, very difficult to get out of the groove of looking for the secrets of the magic pill if you’re already entangled in buying make money online products. I have a friend who is doing exactly that right now, and no matter how much advice I give him, he’s still clicking the ‘add to cart’ buttons on the next “can’t miss” product launch.

For some people, the only way this lesson will click is when they go through the spiral themselves and realize it isn’t taking them anywhere. Fortunately, you do have the opportunity to see that everything you really need to make money online is out there; you just have to start putting that knowledge into action.

What To Do Now

If you’re still looking for some hidden information that you think I might have missed from this post, then you’re still in the mindset that someone else has the knowledge you need to succeed. Sure, there’s great advice out there (especially on Pat’s blog, here) but it isn’t going to take you anywhere unless your main focus is not that of a seeker, but one of a doer.

With whatever web properties you have right now, or the ones you’re planning to build, commit to actually seeing them through until you start to see a return on your time investment. Decide that you wont buy another internet secrets guide until you’ve actually made the money to afford it via your income online.

The process may be slow, and it may be tough, and you might even fail.

But I guarantee you’ll learn far more from the process and your mistakes than anything I, Pat, or any course online can teach you.

You are the magic bullet. You just have to put yourself to good use.

Glen Allsopp is the writer behind ViperChill, a blog on Viral Marketing. If you run a blog, he’s also written an extensive guide to WordPress SEO that you may find useful.

How to Utilize Virtual Staff to Create Multiple Streams of Passive Income

Pat — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 08:02:05 +0000

This is a guest post from Chris Ducker from VirtualBusinessLifestyle.com. Chris has quite an impressive resume, with 19 years in sales, marketing and PR. He’s a CEO of a total business outsourcing company with a staff of approximately 165 full-time employees. I’ve gotten to know Chris fairly well recently since our recent interview, and he’s got some really exciting stuff planned in regards to generating passive income streams and truly living a super-mobile lifestyle. Enjoy!

As someone that has been involved in the outsourcing industry for almost 10 years, I’ve seen it change a lot over that period of time. It used to be something only the big boys would get involved with, outsourcing scores of customer service and technical support staff over to countries such as India and the Philippines – but, it’s become a whole different animal in the last 3-5 years.

No longer is outsourcing, or utilizing virtual, offshore staff something just for the large companies and corporations of North America. Nowadays scores of entrepreneurs and small to medium-sized business owners from all around the world are catching up by working with virtual employees to be able to grow their businesses, or simply have one-off projects completed quickly and with cost saving benefits in mind, too!

There are fundamentally two ways to be able to engage and start working with virtual staff – and which avenue you decide to go with depends solely and completely on your needs and requirements. To give you a quick idea, I’ll go over them real fast for you, because this is a post on how to work with virtual assistants to create passive income, not a lesson on the outsourcing world!

Working with Freelance Virtual Staff

This is for the entrepreneur. The one-man-band type of business person. Potentially even someone just starting out, and wanting to ‘see what can be achieved’ by hiring some virtual staff. Very often these types of people are really boot-strapping it, so the lower cost affiliated with working with freelance virtual employees (meaning they work from home or a web café, etc.) is a slam dunk of a decision to make.

It does come with some pitfalls however, such as the fact that they are not dedicated to you, and a lot of the countries where you can find good people, at a low cost, are still ‘developing’ countries so to speak, and internet connections are sometimes not as stable as you might like them to be. So, from time to time communication can be a bit of an issue.

Working with Virtual Staff from a Solutions Provider

This is something that larger companies will get involved with, or entrepreneurs happy to pay the slightly more premium dollar required to work with this type of set-up.

Historically speaking, the infrastructure in regards to this solution is a better, more professional one and usually has a better track record, in terms of performance and production. But, you must be sure to do your due diligence and get involved with the right company. Make sure that these types outsourcing providers can provide client references for you to talk to, etc.

Now, based on the podcast interview I did with Pat for my own blog, and the insights that came from it, I am going to assume that the large majority of you reading this drop into the ‘entrepreneur’ category, or perhaps the ‘aspiring internet marketer’ group, which is great, because there are a TON of things you can work on with virtual staff to be able to be more effective, productive and to create more streams of passive income for yourself and your family.

Let’s take a look at some of the ways you can create passive income, which I’ll grab directly from Pat’s awesome video post (the first filmed in his new office, I believe) entitled How to Earn More Money Working 9 to 5 Versus Working For Yourself Online. I’ll focus on just a few in the spirit of space saving and quick reading time, plus give you some tips to leverage working with virtual staff to get these ideas together, set-up, online and making you money in no time at all..!

Creating an eBook

A lot or people nowadays are using eBook’s to build up their subscriber and newsletter numbers (both Pat and myself included!), and it really does work if you have great content and great, professional design. This is even more true when it comes to actually charging something for the eBook (just as a side comment here, if you are thinking of creating an eBook to giveaway or sell online and you haven’t already downloaded Pat’s eBook on this exact subject – do it right now!).

There are several ways to utilize a virtual employee when creating an eBook. Let’s say you’re a huge rock climbing enthusiast, and you’ve traveled the world scaling the highest mountains and rocks known to man. People are going to want to read about your experiences if they are also into the same stuff. However, although you have all the experiences and lots of knowledge to share, you’re not a great writer. You can hire a virtual copy writer to help put your words into a strong, informative format for your potential readers (customers).

Finding a copy writer is simply as easy as visiting an outsourcing resource such as www.Freelancer.com and posting a job description requirement. Believe me, I’ve searched on this exact thing before and there are literally hundreds of great writers ready and waiting to work with you. The same can be said for a reliable, experienced graphic designer, to be able to professionally layout your work into a nice presentation, so people really feel as if they have gotten more bang for that buck.

I also know several online marketers that have done their research, found a number of excellent niches that are really untapped in terms of information products and have hired writers offshore to basically write eBooks for them, from scratch, and then launched the product as their own – they make several thousands of dollars a month on products that took them very little time to work on and put together.

Online Marketing and SEO Work

The majority of the entrepreneurs I know, including myself, are simply far too busy to sit at their desks promoting their company reputation, website, blog and online presence in general to would-be customers and clients. And let’s face it, almost all of us don’t really know how to do it all, anyway!

Social networking / media management (getting more and more important with every passing month right now!), blogging, search engine optimization and pay-per-click management are just a few things that virtual assistants can do for you to help increase traffic to your online homes and to generate more sales of your information products.

I have personally worked with virtual assistants who have been able to get my own company to the top of the SERP’s in a very short period of time, on pretty much every keyword I have thrown at them (and on several different vertical websites) – and my industry is an extremely competitive one, even more so in regards to its online space. We all know the power of the internet nowadays is huge. And if you are wanting to create even just a single stream of passive income online, you must make sure that your online marketing strategy is second to none.

Joint Ventures for Passive Income Brilliance (Real Life, Recent Case Study!)

Since I launched the Virtual Business Lifestyle blog in January this year a lot of different opportunities have come my way that are, mostly, unrelated to my core business. Because of this, within the last four weeks, I have teamed up with two completely different, relatively well-known bloggers to put together two completely separate projects online – both of which will be launched initially as ‘knowledge centers’, but will quickly turn into passive income streams for all involved.

One is based on personal outsourcing and another is being put together for wannabe entrepreneurs that are foaming at the mouth to be able to ‘stick it to the man’, and quit the rat-race to become their own boss.

Throughout the last two weeks, I have had virtual staff do the following, with clear instructions, with absolutely no screw-up’s at all:

Huge amounts of keyword research.
Domain registration for a whole bunch of domains.
Tracking down, sizing up, comparing and choosing a hosting company.
Looking for premium blog themes, collating data, presenting these findings to me, and then purchasing the themes for me.
Searching for, testing, negotiating (that took me off guard as I thought I’d have to do it myself!) with graphic designers and web developers.
Setting up social networking accounts for both projects.
Installing WordPress on servers and also installing the chosen themes, too. As well as creating administrator accounts for myself and my partners on these projects.
Emailing respected bloggers on the subject matters, asking for their buy-in on running posts in regards to the launch of both these two new ventures.
Massive amounts of research for content to be produced for the ventures, and even beginning to produce certain parts of the content that will be used in the launch of the projects in the next month or so.

Quite an impressive list, I’m sure you’ll agree – and the whole thing, by the time everything goes live, would have cost no more than $800, all in. That’s BOTH projects, so slice that in two for just one potential passive income stream to go ‘live’, so to speak.

The important thing to mention here more than anything else is that, myself and my partners on these projects could have done ALL of this ourselves. However, we chose to outsourcing the work to highly skilled virtual staff instead, so that we could spend more time on strategizing and working on finalizing concepts for the respective web presences, and planning their launches with more focus.

As Pat commented in our aforementioned interview, the most important thing is that you simply get it done, make sure its full of top quality content and get it out there. it doesn’t matter if it’s not perfect – there will be time to create perfection.

The bottom line here is that, the way I see it, passive income is not just about making money in an easy way, with little requirement of effort from our part as marketers. It’s also about creating a lifestyle that enables us to spend more time with our children and family. To be able to travel more frequently and enjoy a more mobile and varied life. However, most importantly it’s about being able to get stuck in, try new things out and see how they work – with very little investment. And that is the key here, more than anything else.

So, if you’re thinking of setting up any number of streams of passive income, get SMART, and look at utilizing virtual staff to get the brunt of the work done, so you can spend more time on making sure that when you do launch, it’s a home run all the way!

This is Pat again. I really have to say that if I could go back and start all over again, I would have utilized virtual assistants much earlier. I probably would have been in the market much faster and probably earn a lot more money too. Unfortunately for me, I was totally new to the online world, so I didn’t even know such things existed. Luckily for you, Chris laid out most of your options quite nicely.

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave them below. I’m sure Chris will come by to respond. Also, if you want to learn more about Chris and what he’s up to, you can visit him on his blog at Virtual Business Lifestyle.

Cheers!

Benefits Sell, Features Don’t, And Here is Why

Pat — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 07:48:31 +0000

This is a guest post from Daniel from Daily Blog Tips.

If you are interested in Internet marketing, copywriting or even marketing in general, you’ve probably already heard the saying “benefits sell, features don’t”, right? It basically states that if you want to sell something, your marketing messages should focus on the benefits of your product to potential customers, and not on its features.

Not everyone understands this concept, however, and that is probably the reason why people forget to apply it to their copy or marketing material.

So let’s explain how it all works.

The main reason why features don’t sell is because customers don’t care about them. Sure, they might use a list of features to decide between two similar products, but the features per se won’t make the customer want to buy the product.

We could go a step further and say that customers don’t even care about the product itself. They don’t want to buy it because it is a cool product, because it is the latest model or anything like that. They don’t want to own it. They just want to use the product to accomplish a certain task or result. In other words, the product is not the end but the means to an end.

Theodore Levitt was a very famous professor at the Harvard Business School, and he used to summarize this concept to his classes with the following example:

“People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!”

We can extrapolate this notion to as many products as we want.

People don’t want to buy web hosting, they want their websites online and accessible to web visitors.

People don’t want to buy cooking ebooks, they want to invite their friends and relatives to dinner and have a good time.

People don’t want to buy light bulbs. They want to be able to work or read at night.

That is why benefits sell and features don’t. The feature, or the product itself, is the first part of the examples we used above. The benefit is the second part.

As we mentioned before, in a sense customers don’t even want to own the product. They just want to “hire” it to accomplish a certain task or solve a certain problem. If you focus your marketing on that task or problem – instead of focusing on the product – your message will resonate very strongly in the customer’s head, and that is what will trigger the sale.

Want a practical example? Suppose that you are a bit over-weight, and that you are shopping around the web for a good weight-loss ebook. You then come across ebook A, with the following list of points describing it:

156 pages of pure content!
Images and illustrations to illustrate the concepts.
Many diets you can choose from.
A complete list of cardio and strength exercises.

After a while you then come across ebook B, with the following list of points describing it:

Start losing weight in the next 30 minutes!
20 exercises that will melt that abdominal fat away.
Discover how to lose 4 pounds every week with proper nutrition.
Tone your muscles while losing all that fat.

Which ebook would you be more likely to purchase? Probably the second one because its description is focused on the benefits you’ll get from it, while the first ebook focused on the features.

The next time you are writing your sales copy or working on a marketing campaign, remember to focus on the hole and not on the drill, because that is what your customers are looking for!

Daniel is the owner of Daily Blog Tips. He is also the author of the Make Money Blogging ebook, which you can download for free by signing up to his newsletter.

5 Little Known Ways to Grow Your Blog

Pat — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 07:05:12 +0000

This is a guest post by Kim Roach of BuzzBlogger.com. She provides us with some novel ideas for growing our blogs, some of which I’ll be trying out very soon. Enjoy!

I just finished off a large Starbucks Doubleshot and have now settled into my favorite chair to share with you some of my favorite (largely untapped) traffic strategies.

These aren’t your traditional, run-of-the-mill traffic tactics that you hear all over the web… article marketing, guest blogging, forum marketing, Twitter, etc…

All of those are fine and good, but in this article, I’d like to go outside the box a bit and show you 5 little-known traffic strategies that I’ve been using to grow my blog.

So, without further ado, let’s dive in…

1. Convert Your Content into Ebooks

This one little strategy is bringing me thousands of extra visitors with very little extra work on my part.

You simply convert one of your articles (or a collection of related articles) into a PDF. You can do this for free at http://www.youconvertit.com or http://www.pdfonline.com/convert-pdf.

You then submit your newly created ebook to:

There are hundreds of ebook directories online, but these are the most popular one’s that will send you 99% of your traffic.

If you’re a blogger, you could easily be driving thousands of extra visitors to your website simply by converting your existing content into ebooks.

Important Note: You MUST make sure that you have links pointing back to your blog within the report. I also highly recommend that you include a promo at the end of your report that sends people to your squeeze page where you can grow your list of subscribers.

If you have paid ebooks, you can submit them to http://e-library.net/add.html.

You can also submit your ebook to a few document sharing sites like Scribd.com, DocStoc.com, eSnips.com, Calameo.com, Issuu.com, and Yudu.com.

There are so many ways that you can re-purpose your content for extra exposure. You could easily be getting 10x more traffic from every article you write simply by reformatting it into ebooks, videos, podcasts, forum posts, etc…

2. Build Your Tribe

Social media seems to be all the rage nowadays.

However, there are very few people really teaching how to take full advantage of this worldwide phenomenon.

But as a blogger you have a very unique opportunity to create exponential growth using the power of social media. But to do that, you must first build your tribe.

With a blog you’re able to create a small cult-like community of raving fans. However, very few people are building and fostering their tribe appropriately.

Because to build a real community, you’ve got to be in the trenches… replying to every comment, engaging in every Twitter conversation that touches your sphere of influence, reading and replying to ALL of your emails, offering special chat times, and most importantly – adding value at every point of contact.

Once you have a tribal community, you will have created an invaluable asset – an ARMY of people who will comment on your posts, Tweet your content, engage in conversation, and become your very best social evangelists.

Everyone on the Web has now become a content creator or buzz facilitator using tools like email, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Wikis, and instant messaging.

It is now easier than ever to create rapid growth in your company using the buzz factor of your existing audience.

Create remarkable content and then allow your readers to promote your content for you. Your readers are now the center of any successful marketing.

3. Content Integration

I’m sure you’ve heard about the power of article marketing and guest blogging, but you can take this a step further with the use of content integration marketing.

Content integration is basically where you integrate your content into other people’s traffic funnels. So this could be blogs, membership sites, products, emails, etc…

But the one’s I’d like us to look at further are products and membership sites.

Most of you are probably very familiar with creating content for other people’s websites, but we rarely think about creating exclusive content for other people’s products or membership sites.

These are HUGE, largely untapped traffic sources.

Membership site owners are constantly looking for great content that they can put inside their member’s area. In fact, that’s one of the hardest parts of owning a membership site (continuously updating it with new content).

But it represents a huge opportunity for you to come in and provide exclusive, high-quality content in return for massive exposure to a large group of buyers.

I’ve done this myself with other Internet Marketing membership sites and it has sent me thousands of extremely high-quality visitors and hundreds of subscribers.

You can also integrate your content with other people’s products. Simply find a popular product in your market and then create some extremely high-quality complementary content that they could offer as a bonus.

This is a win-win for both of you because they get to delight their customers with even more premium content and you get exposure to a large base of buyers.

By pairing your products and content with other products within your market you are going to create an instant, perpetual flow of traffic to your website.

4. Ad Swaps

One of the biggest mistakes bloggers make is not building a list of subscribers. Bloggers could dramatically increase their income if they focused on building their list of subscribers rather than their RSS readers.

(This is Pat stepping in really quick. I just have to reiterate what Kim just said, because the list is hugely important! For those of you who do not yet have your own lists setup, you can check out my Beginner’s Guide to Starting a List Here.)

So, why is a list of subscribers so powerful? Well, essentially it allows you to create traffic on demand. With a list, you can send thousands of visitors to the page of your choice with the push of a button.

So you instantly have a built-in community of readers that will read all of your future posts, comment, tweet, and drive sales 10x higher than you would be able to produce with your blog alone.

With a mailing list, you have now built extreme leverage into your business. It doesn’t matter how Google changes their algorithm, because you’ll always have a fan base that you can tap into at will.

Plus, once you’ve built an initial “seed” list of 500-1,000 subscribers, you can then start building your list exponentially using the power of ad swaps to add hundreds of new subscribers in a single day.

Essentially, an ad swap occurs when two list owners each agree to mail their list about the OTHER person’s free offer. This is usually a free offer placed on a squeeze page in exchange for someone’s name and email address. As a result, they both add hundreds of subscribers to their lists in a single day.

Some of the best places to look for ad swap partners include:

Matt Garrett’s Internet Marketing AdSwaps
Warrior Joint Ventures
Adswap Finder
ListSwapper.com
JV Notify Pro Joint Venture Community (You Must be Registered to View this Section)
JvMe.com
The IM Joint Venture Social Network

5. Bonus Strategy

Now, before I end this article (and the caffeine high wears off), I’d like to share my all-time secret traffic strategy.

You can generate all the traffic you could ever want by using this one little secret…

Are you ready?

Come a little close so I can whisper it in your ear…

*** At the end of the day, it’s really all about VALUE.

If you deliver truly remarkable content on an ongoing basis, then no one can hold you back. You’ll be surprised how quickly you start to build up a group of raving fans when you put out truly great content.

And when I say truly great content, I’m not talking about good content or even great content. I’m talking about producing remarkable content on an ongoing basis.

I need to crave your content more than I do my daily Starbucks.

It’s got to be that good.

Turn your marketing into an experience that your readers look forward to each and every day.

If you’d like to discover ALL 24 of Kim’s hidden traffic sources, go to http://www.buzzblogger.com/freetraffic to claim your FREE Underground Traffic Report.

Smart Active Income – With Maren Kate

Pat — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 07:05:09 +0000

This is a Guest Post by Maren Kate from Escapingthe9to5.com, a friend of mine from the Internet Business Mastery Academy. Maren Kate was recently featured in a success story interview on the Internet Business Mastery Podcast.

Passive income is my goal.

Right now I work entirely too much, though still less than if I had a “real” job, but when I dream, it’s of sugar plum fairies and passive income streams.

When I first escaped the 9 to 5 I did so by starting a social media marketing firm to help brick and mortar businesses get launched into the online realm. I’m glad I did it, but it’s not exactly passive. I have two employees who work for me full time (VAs really) and with that comes writing schedules, checking up, wooing clients…the list goes on. The point is, passive income is the goal, but I’m implementing smart active income to get there… The awesome thing is you can do the exact same thing by following some simple steps to getting smart about your passive and active income goals!

What is Smart Active Income?

Active income can come from a variety of sources, anything from flipping burgers to being the CFO of a major corporation, but I believe truly smart active income consists of not trading hours for dollars. You can escape this vicious cycle by creating systems and organizational charts that allow you to work X hours for anything between 10-200 units of product, then if your business grows beyond that you can hire someone to replace you completely and the systems you’ve set up will scale to put out more and more product with the aid of more workers.

Where does this leave you?

Possibly not sipping margaritas in Cabo, but at least you aren’t working from 6 am to 6 pm doing everything yourself. Instead you’ve learned to delegate, which is something they never teach you in business school and possibly the most important part of entrepreneurship ever.

How Can I Create Smart Active Income?

Just like with passive income, it’s best to create a business model that is centric with your passions and skills.

Are you a writer? Create a copywriting service online where at first you write everything but as the business grows you hire other writers at X and charge the client XX, making a profit without much additional work. Do you love to bake? Create a specialty dessert business run completely online, you’ll bake the goodies in your home and then ship them out upon each order placed.

As you grow you’ll document everything, planning as if you’ll franchise the deal down the road. Then if you must move to a physical location because of expanding sales you can hire on a few people, have them read your detailed systems and begin duplicating your processes as you ease yourself out of the mix (baker humor!).

Also if you’ve been planning as if you would franchise your business someday what holds you from just doing it? If it works you can become the next Nothing Bundt Cake and with every new franchise license sold you create a real stream of passive income that can grow exponentially. So assess your skills, measure what drives you the most, and then look at the active income opportunities that exist around you. You can always find ways to turn active income into passive income and often the more active path produces results faster as you focus on escaping the rat race to build up your passive income streams the smart way.

How To Turn Active Income Into Passive Profits

At the beginning I worked like a dog (or maybe a mule?) to get my active business off the ground, then slowly but surely I created systems and brought on other people. Once it was actually profitable I started to look for little ways to tweak the business model so I was actively involved less, thus the business was still being ‘active’ but the income appeared more passive to me.

Additionally, I began to create mini-products within my site that were completely automated, whether I sold 1 or 100 it still took the same effort – that is pressing a few buttons every morning to run a program. This is my example of turning an active income stream into a more passive one and a thousand more examples exist.

Worst case scenario you can use smart active income to allow you to escape your current job (where you most definitely work hours for dollars) and with your spare time develop and test additional passive income streams. I have begun to do this on my blog as well as testing out the idea of mini sites and affiliate income.

There are tons of ways to make an income on and offline, the best thing is to do your research and then jump in head on. If the business model is too active for you, tweak it as you go so it becomes a source of more passive income… if you find you love the active lifestyle, keep it up, just be sure to delegate all the things you don’t cherish to others.

Regardless of which path you chose be sure to keep an open mind on your entrepreneurial journey, never allow someone else to pick your path for you and focus above all on loving what you do by trading passion for profit.

For more from Maren Kate, you can visit her superstar business blog at Escapingthe9to5.com.

How to Boost Blog and Website Traffic with Article Marketing

Pat — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:19:51 +0000

I know a lot of you have been asking me about Article Marketing and what exactly it can be used for. Well, since I only do minimal amounts of Article Marketing, I’ve found someone who has much more experience to write about it for you today. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments below if you still have questions unanswered. Enjoy!

This is a guest post by Henri Junttila from Wake Up Cloud.

Do you want to generate more traffic to your blog or website? Do you want to increase your subscribers, sales and fans?

It can be done, but only if you’re prepared to work hard. You’ve probably heard people say that article marketing is dead. I’m here to tell you it’s not, because I’m currently using it successfully.

There will always be people that proclaim that everything’s dead. Google Adsense is dead, blogging is dead and whatever else.

These are the people that have failed and want something to blame. Increasing traffic to your blog and website is extremely simple with article marketing, so let’s get started, shall we?

What is Article Marketing?

For me, article marketing simply means writing short 300-400 word article and submitting them to EzineArticles. Why EzineArticles you might ask? Because they are the biggest article directory on the internet.

I think I’ve heard Chris Knight, the CEO of EzineArticles say that they receive over one million unique visitors per day, which means lots of exposure for your articles.

You can probably find as many article marketing strategies as you find people. Okay, maybe not that many, but it can be used in so many different ways. The main benefit of doing article marketing is getting targeted traffic to your website.

My Background

I’ve been involved in trying to make money online since 2007, but it took me until 2009 until I really figured it out and got my first profitable niche website off the ground. In July of 2009 I fell in love with article marketing.

I like article marketing to so much because of the simplicity. All you have to do is write articles and submit them and you will get traffic. There are of course other factors, such as using the right keywords and converting your visitors, but I think you get my point.

Finding the right keywords is fairly easy though and I only use Wordtracker and the Google Adwords Keyword Tool for that. I have primarily used article marketing to drive traffic to my affiliate websites, which has allowed me to build an income large enough for my girlfriend and me to live on.

I even taught article marketing to my girlfriend. She’s not making a lot, she just crossed $300/month in passive income, but she is slowly building up. Making anything happen online takes time and hard work.

My Traffic Stats

Here you can see my traffic stats for one of my presell sites. I don’t want to reveal what it is for obvious reasons, but you can check out my girlfriend’s site further down below in this post.

This website has only one page and it educates visitors, which is what you want a pre-sell to do. Leave the selling for the vendor.

Now, just to make things clear, I’ve submitted articles to EzineArticles for almost 9 months now pointing to this website. I have practically left this website alone now, and it is continually earning me money.

As you can see, the traffic goes in cycles. Sometimes it is up, and sometimes it is down. This is hard work, but once you get things rolling, it gets a lot easier. I think Pat would agree with that.

Why Should You Use Article Marketing?

I personally think it’s an extremely effective way of driving traffic to any part of your website that you want. Specifically your own products, services or affiliate reviews.

Imagine if you had a review on your blog or website about, let’s say, Hostgator and you know you convert 1 in 100 visitors. That means that if you can write and submit enough articles, you can start making one daily sale.

Then you have other companies who offer recurring commissions, which simply means that you will get a commission for the rest of that customer’s life.

It’s not always easy to guest post or build traffic to your website when you’re new to all of this, which is why I think article marketing is the perfect fit.

It allows you to practice your writing, while at the same time drive traffic to your website and make some extra cash, if you are able to convert your visitors, but that is a whole other topic.

My 4-Step Process to Making It All Work

The way I use article marketing is extremely simple. I’ve noticed that the simpler I can keep things, the more I get done and the more money I make.

Now, I want to throw out this disclaimer: this is not an overnight process. I have worked extremely hard for almost a year until my income started to grow to four figures and beyond.

I have no doubt that this process works, if you’re ready to work hard. I have taught it to a handful of people. Those that follow the instructions and work hard, succeed. Those that don’t, well, I think you know the answer.

1. Write. I start by writing a short article around 300-400 words. I have submitted a lot of articles during the year I’ve been serious about this, so I’ve learned to write very fast. When teaching others, I’ve noticed that the main thing keeping them from writing more articles are their mental blocks. When you’re writing, avoid being a perfectionist and just get the article out there. As long as it gets approved and is of good quality, you’re doing fine!

2. Submit. After I’ve written my article, I submit it to EzineArticles. I’ve tested submitting to many article directories, but my results have showed that the most effective way for me is to just use EzineArticles. I get the most amount of traffic by doing this. I could waste time submitting to other directories, but I choose not to. The very small increase in traffic is not worth it to me.

3. Traffic. All of the articles are approved by human editors on EzineArticles and they are constantly increasing their standards, so Google loves them. Once your article goes live, you will start receiving traffic to your website or blog. It isn’t a huge amount of traffic, which is why I recommend you keep writing each and every single day. As you keep writing, you will get better and faster, which will lead to more traffic.

4. Convert. Last, but definitely not least comes the part where you have to convert your traffic. This could be anything, such as converting them to buying an affiliate product, your product, becoming a subscriber or even buying consulting from you. This process is all trial and error, because you have to figure out what your visitors like and don’t like. You can see an example of a landing page that my girlfriend uses on her natural flawless skin site.

The best thing you can do is look at how the site is set-up. It starts by identifying a problem, then goes on to educate the visitor on what works and what doesn’t, and finally makes a recommendation.

If you decide to go down the affiliate route, I highly recommend that you only promote products that you have personally used and really like. For example, my girlfriend uses the products that she promotes every single day, and would recommend them to any of her friends and family.

I have tried promoting products that give a big commission that I’ve never tried, but in the end it just doesn’t feel right. I want to improve people’s lives with the recommendations I make, and that is where I’ve found the most success. Pick a product you really like and be honest.

How to Get Started Right Now!

Once you know what you want to do with your traffic, it’s easy to get started. All you have to do is sign-up to EzineArticles and start writing articles.

Remember, this isn’t an overnight process. Shoot for being consistent and having a routine. If you can write 3-5 short articles a day consistently, you will see excellent results within a year.

Yes, I said a year. Of course it depends on how hard you work. You could write more articles and get the momentum going faster. You could then start outsourcing your articles and leverage the income you’re making. This is what I did and still do.

So many people fail online because they expect rapid results, but the results only come when you put in the work and the only way you’re going to work hard is if you love what you do. I recommend you find your passion, or at least something you’re semi-passionate about before you start!

With all that said, here are 4 steps you can take right now to get going:

1. Review. I’m going to take an affiliate review as an example. Before you start submitting articles, put up a blog post where you review something you really like and include an affiliate link or two in the text. Make it an honest review. Add video if possible!

2. Sign-Up. Go ahead and sign-up for EzineArticles. It’s completely free and your account will available almost immediately. You get 10 article submissions when you first start out then your account gets reviewed and they usually give you 15 more and if you’re really awesome, you get to platinum status, which means that you get unlimited article submissions and they review your articles within 24-48 hours.

3. Keywords. I know you’re probably anxious to get started, but remember to do some keyword research so you can see what people are searching for. If you’re reviewing a hosting service, you should write articles that are closely related to hosting, such as “how to find the best web host”, “where to host my website?” and so on.

4. Write & Submit. When you’ve got a list of keywords, you can start writing and submitting. This is the part where most people fail. You have to keep submitting and being consistent with your article marketing if you want to see results.

5. Test. When you’ve got everything rolling, I recommend you keep testing your review page to make it convert better. You may even want to try different affiliate promotions and products and see what people resonate with. It’s all trial and error, so just get started!

About the Author: Henri Junttila is a lifestyle superhero, who writes about financial freedom and self improvement for conscious people over at his blog: the Wake Up Cloud. Make sure you check out his free e-course on how to find your passion.

From Acting to Blogging – Consistency is the Key

Pat — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:13:47 +0000

This is a guest post from Michael-John Wolfe, an actor turned blogger who shares with us a very inspiring story about his journey towards legitimate, residual income sources. You can read more about Michael-John Wolfe on his blog at Residuals and Royalties. Enjoy!

The year was 2003 and I was living in my hometown of Wallingford, Connecticut. I was working full time for my cousin’s janitorial company. This job pretty much consisted of cleaning toilets and mopping floors at local medical facilities. Needless to say, I was not where I wanted to be in life at age 31. My one bright spot in life was a girl that I was dating, the only bad thing about dating her was the fact that I rarely had any cash to take her out. In fact, most of the time she was the one who wound up paying for the cost of our dates.

One day I stopped by her apartment and she told me it was over – she simply could not date someone who never had any money. Devastated, I called my friend to meet me for a beer. Over drinks, my best friend gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten. You see, for years I had been talking about moving to L.A. to try and become an actor. This always seemed like more of a dream than something that I would actually pursue. My friend said to me “Why don’t you go to L.A. to do acting? You are always talking about it. At this point, what have you got to lose?” He was right. I had a shitty job (literally!), no girl, no money and I was going nowhere fast. It was that night with my friend that I decided to “go for it” and pursue my long time dream of becoming a working actor.

Within two weeks I made the trip to Los Angeles. I had only $1,600 to my name and most of this money was basically a line of credit on a Visa card. I subletted an apartment the size of a large closet and I hit the pavement running. I was going to get acting work. I had to get acting work, because if I didn’t – I would soon be on the street.

Day after day I had the same routine. Get up, submit myself to the Breakdowns (casting calls), mail twenty headshot mailers to agents, register with the background casting agencies, spend two hours on my acting skills, read every acting book I could, go out and knock on doors. My routine was like clockwork. Day in and day out I did everything possible to try and get paid acting work.

At first, I was booking roles as a non-union background actor and I was earning a nominal $54 for 8 hours of work. After a while, I started to get commercial non-union background work that paid $125 for 10 hours of work. One night, while on the set of the Tom Cruise movie Collateral, I caught the break I was looking for. Michael Mann instructed me to say a line and I was literally standing across from Tom Cruise. I mustered up the confidence, said my line and before I knew it I was being whisked away to a production trailer to sign my first SAG day player contract. Although my line did not make the final cut of the movie, I did make the final credits and I earned a good day’s pay and some great residual income.

This was the big break that I needed. From this small role I was able to join the Screen Actor’s Guild, I got signed with a Hollywood agent and the work just started to flow. I went on to work on tons of commercials, films and television shows. I never landed any huge roles, but I became a full time working actor. My goal was never to become a “movie star” – I just wanted to be a working actor and I loved spending my days on set. Even when things were going great, I never stopped my consistent pursuit of acting work. Like always, I spent each day submitting myself to the casting directors and honing my craft. Things started looking up, I began dating a girl who would soon become my wife and I was able to support the two of us from my acting earnings alone.

I caught another break when I booked a principal role on a Barclay’s bank commercial and this was to be my first SAG national commercial. I was on set for only one day and my scene in the commercial is literally about 3 seconds long. The commercial is called “Invisible Building” and you can see it here. (I am one of the businessmen sitting in the boardroom while the lady looks at the helicopter.)

A few months after the Barclay’s Bank shoot, my wife and I were heading out to dinner one night and I stopped at my mailbox to get the mail. I was surprised to find 17 checks awaiting me in the mailbox. I came back out to the car and my wife and I took turns opening up these checks. We were hysterical with laughter as we opened each check for random amounts. One check would be for $2,000 and the next would be for $600 – these were the residuals from my Barclay’s commercial. All in all, we opened about $6,000 worth of checks that day. This commercial ran for two years and every three months I would go to my mailbox and come home with another batch of checks. I was amazed that I was getting paid over and over again for a day of work that I completed months ago. This was when I fell in love with the idea of residual income.

Flash forward to 2010 – my wife and I have since moved to suburban Colorado to provide a better place than L.A. to raise our two sons. I still pursue acting, but it is more of a hobby than a career. During my time in L.A. I was able to earn between $80,000 and $110,000 a year from my acting earnings alone for five years straight. The fact is, my unwavering determination and the continuous pursuit of acting work is what made me a success.

Before we left L.A., I decided to start a blog called Residuals and Royalties. I am still addicted to finding legitimate ways to create residual income, just like the money I made from acting. I wanted to blog about all of the possible ways to create residual income or earn royalties. But my blog started out very different than my acting career. At first, I had good intentions – I was posting almost daily and eager to watch my blog grow. Most of the time I was too busy checking my Google analytics numbers and looking at my measly Adsense earnings to even bother focusing on making my blog better. Needless to say, after a few months my initial eagerness had worn off. I started posting much less often and the blog soon sat stagnant collecting dust. For months I gave my blog very little attention and I even considered taking it offline.

Then one day, I was online looking at all of the successful bloggers – Darren Rowse, John Chow, Shoemoney and of course Pat Flynn – I realized that I too could get to this level of success. I just needed one thing – consistency. Why hadn’t I put the same amount of time and effort into my blog as I did my pursuit of paid acting work? Surely, becoming a successful blogger can’t be as hard as becoming a working actor. I read on Yahoo last week that almost 500,000 bloggers are now making their primary living from their blogs!

Why couldn’t this be me? From that moment forward – it was ON! I have begun posting 5 to 7 times a week, I am researching my blog postings in greater depth, I am responding in a timely manner to every comment I receive, I am writing monthly earnings reports and I am consistently coming up with new ideas to help my blog succeed. In one month my blog’s Alexa ranking climbed from 860,000 to 169,000. I even had 1,012 unique visitors in one day this month. I learned that just like becoming a working actor, becoming a successful blogger is all about consistency, quality and determination. So let it be said – my blog WILL succeed and I will become one of the top bloggers. If it takes me one year or five years, I will be unwavering in my goal.

If you have started a blog, project, business, class or any new endeavor – consider learning from my mistakes. Persistence and commitment almost always payoff no matter what you are pursuing. I wish I had someone to teach me this lesson when I first started my blog – who knows, I may have already reached my goal of having one of the top blogs in my niche. I think deep down, each and everyone knows what it takes to succeed – we just have to apply what we already know to our everyday lives.

I’d like to thank Micheal-John once again for this awesome, inspiring story. For more information about Michael-John Wolfe, I recommend visiting his blog at Residuals and Royalties. Cheers!

Why I Closed My Service Business to Start an Internet-Based Business

Pat — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 08:55:55 +0000

This is a guest post from Jackie Beck, an entrepreneur who started her first “business” in the 2nd grade. Jackie writes about learning to love your financial life and reaching your goals at MoneyCrush.

A few years ago I started a wedding photography business. It felt like a natural thing to pursue — I loved photographing people, loved weddings, and wanted to be my own boss. It seemed to have the potential to morph into a full time business that would free me from the 9 to 5.

So for a little more than 2 years, I had a wedding photography business on the side while I worked a full time job. Here’s why I closed the business, and how I decided that an internet-based business was everything I wanted instead.

The Facts

In some respects wedding photography was everything I had expected: fun, creative, and exhausting. But I quickly realized that the only part of it that I actually enjoyed was shooting the photos. That was the easy part.

The hard parts?

Getting customers and making money.

I barely shot any weddings. The ones I did shoot were nice, but there just weren’t very many of them. For 2006, my gross receipts were $16,942. After expenses and costs of goods sold (wedding albums and prints), my profit was $3,108.

That profit of $3,108 was my entire pre-tax payfrom the business. I wasn’t taking a salary, despite working an average of 12-18 hours shooting each wedding, and spending 30-40 hours color-correcting photos and designing an album after each wedding. My husband helped me out too at the weddings themselves, so there was also his time to consider.

In addition to those hours, I spent a significant amount of time meeting with potential and existing clients, participating in bridal shows, following up on leads, creating sample albums to display at the bridal shows, filling out sales tax forms, picking up albums from UPS, getting prints made, taking continuing education classes, attending association events, updating the web site I’d created for the business, etc.

I figured it up one day and discovered that I was making less than $3 an hour. I’d give you an exact figure here, but I was so depressed at the number that I blocked it out.

The next year was even worse. My gross receipts for 2007 were $6,120. My before-tax profit for 2007 was $234. (No, there isn’t a zero missing.) I spent part of 2007 winding down the business, and closed it in 2008.

Lack of Customers

I had no idea just how hard getting customers was going to be for me. Naively, I thought people would look at my photos, like them, and hire me. What really happened though was that people would look at my photos, like them, meet with me, and…not hire me.

I was not a good salesperson, probably due to the fact that I had social anxiety. Thankfully, I got treated and am now completely over it. But trying to run a business that is dependent on a constant stream of new clients when you’re afraid to make phone calls or talk to people you don’t know was hard. It was also a bit off-putting for the potential clients, because I was a nervous wreck. The ones who hired me probably just focused on my photos.

Plenty of Expenses

There was also the matter of overhead. Luckily, I didn’t even consider renting out a space to meet clients in. I was bootstrapping the business, so I met clients at our home and shot bridal portraits, engagement photos, and the wedding photos on location. But expenses were still extremely high. Advertising is key when you’re just getting started in that kind of business, and it’s not cheap. There are ads in bridal magazines, mailers, and bridal shows to pay for, at the bare minimum. Advertising is especially important when you are in a saturated market like I was. I also used Google Adwords, submitted my business to every directory I could think of, and optimized my web site.

Other expenses included web hosting, my cell phone, international calls & shipping costs (one of the album companies was in Italy), errors & omissions insurance, dues to professional organizations, the prints and albums themselves, equipment rentals, a new higher-resolution camera, software, etc.

Misconceptions

The worst part for me (other than the ridiculously low pay and the lack of clients) was that people have this idea that wedding photography is an easy job, and that you get paid a small fortune for just a few hours of work. They couldn’t be more wrong. It’s physically exhausting work, takes long hours, and you don’t make a fortune unless you are one of the top people in the world.

You CAN make a decent living, but you have to really love what you’re doing and be very good at getting clients. One or the other is not enough. You also need to outsource parts of the business, or become much faster than I was at things like creating albums.

Even then, you’re committed to a schedule that is pretty much set in stone. After all, people aren’t usually flexible about the dates and times of their weddings. This means things like taking a vacation must be planned out anywhere from 6 months to a year in advance — and every time you’re gone, you’re potentially losing money.

Coming to My Senses

Around the same time I was getting my wedding photography business off the ground, I started a blog for fun. I wanted to get focused on my finances and practice writing something every single day, and I thought a personal finance blog would accomplish both goals.

A funny thing happened with that blog. People started contacting me out of the blue and buying advertising. I made about $3,000 from blogging in 2006 without even trying to make money. Let me repeat that: I literally did not try to make money with the blog at all. The only costs I had for blogging were the domain name and hosting. (Less than $80 total for the entire year.)

So, let’s see…I could work insane hours and have a ridiculous schedule for about $3,000 before taxes, or I could spend a little time each day writing an article on a money-related topic and earn that same $3,000.

What would you do?

Yeah, it was a no-brainer. Freedom + money + helping others + improving my own personal finances + plus having a life won hands down.

I’ve seen the light, and internet-based businesses are it.

The Present

Since then, in addition to continuing to blog, I’ve designed a debt snowball app called Pay Off Debt for the iPhone and Android. I did some of the work on the app myself (writing the spec, creating some graphics & testing the app) and paid to have the programming done.

For the first time, the money that arrived (and stayed!) in my bank account last month was more than the take-home pay from my job. Admittedly, the take-home pay from my job is very low because I have so much taxes and retirement taken out, but this is absolutely a step in the right direction. I’m excited about the future, because I believe the rewards will increase exponentially – especially now that I’m actually putting in the time to work at making money with an internet-based business.

It’s a toss up as to what my favorite thing is about internet-based business. I’m not sure whether it’s waking up and seeing money just appear in my account, being able to work from ANYWHERE there’s an internet connection, or interacting with readers, customers and other entrepreneurs. I guess I don’t have to pick a favorite.

The Takeaway

What can you learn from my experience? No matter what type of business you may have or be interested in, it’s critical to do your homework. Get a good idea of exactly what will be required to be successful in the business, and make sure that you have (or can get or pay others for) the necessary skills to make that happen. Don’t let excitement and a desire to make things work blind you to clear warning signs that the business might not be right for you.

Analyze how the business will fit into your lifestyle. Whether or not you’re into “lifestyle design” a la the Four Hour Work Week, you still have a life, and it should be the style of life that suits you. Lifestyle design doesn’t have to mean planning mini-retirements and learning foreign languages. It can mean having the freedom to spend time with your family or to do other things that you enjoy on a regular basis. Think about how your business will impact your life. (If you love to travel on a whim, don’t start a business that requires you to have a schedule that’s set in stone.)

Pay attention to the numbers. Track your expenses and your income. It might be nice to have $2700 or $3500 pay days, but if you’re constantly paying a steady stream of smaller expenses out at the same time, you might not actually be making any money. (Or worse, you might be losing money). Keeping track of the totals on a regular (and frequent) basis will help to avoid that. Tracking and analyzing any other relevant metrics is important too. Make sure to charge enough for your time and effort.

Since your time is valuable, fail fast. I believe that most entrepreneurs are serial entrepreneurs for two reasons: our brains are constantly coming up with new ideas, and not all of the ideas are workable. In fact, many of them are not. Focus on one idea at a time. Persist in the idea you choose to implement long enough to really give it a chance to work, but move on to the next thing if it becomes apparent that they aren’t.

Not every business will be a success, but you can learn something from each one. Analyze what worked and what didn’t work, and use that knowledge to improve the next one.

The ones that are successful will be worth it.

I’d like to thank Jackie once again for sharing her valuable and motivational story, and I encourage you to visit her website, MoneyCrush, for more about loving your financial life and reaching your goals.

Why Are You Really Here?

Pat — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:00:27 +0000

This is a guest post by Glen Allsopp

Why are you really here?

The obvious answer would be to read Pat’s excellent content, but I want you to dig a little deeper. Why is it that you spend so much time reading blogs each day looking for new nuggets of knowledge that you can hopefully apply to your online ventures?

The reason I ask is because introspection is the one of the most important things you can do to build a profitable business. Online or offline. I know that many of you will run successful projects online already and are here to take things to the next level, but I know others use resources like this as a way to procrastinate and try to have everything perfect before you actually start taking action.

I know, as I used to do the same thing.

My Own Mission

It took me three years to make a living online. Three whole years before I could quit my day job and work for myself. Yet, in the 10 months since leaving my job, I’ve built new properties that could have replaced my job income alone. Doing the same thing in 10 months that I could only achieve in three years is quite a difference.

Of course, I’ve learned what works and what doesn’t along the way and I can now really streamline the process to building successful websites. But there’s more to it than that. You see, in the first three years that I was building websites, only around 25% of my time was actually taking action.

The rest of my time would be spent doing things like:

Reading blogs looking for more nuggets of knowledge
Buying ebooks that promised to teach me the secrets
Signing up for services like Aweber even though I had no use for them at the time
Watching videos of those who had made it and seeing how they did things
Following different trends and constantly starting new websites

Instead of just focusing on what I knew and continue to take consistent, quality action, I kept searching and searching and searching. It was until I had this realization and went from 25% action to 85% action that I started making money.

Can you relate to that? I hope so.

Log Down Every Single Thing You Do Tomorrow

Or whenever your next “typical” day is. You don’t have to write down what you had for breakfast – this is not a food journal. Instead, I want you to record your activities. So that might be chatting on Facebook, spending 9-5 at work, leaving comments on blogs and being active on Twitter.

Whatever actions you take tomorrow, I want you to record them. If you’re anything like me, when you look back over this sheet, you’ll be disappointed. You’ll see that you somehow managed to keep busy throughout the entire day, but you didn’t actually get anything done.

Nothing that is going to take your business further forward, anyways. If you don’t like the results, the worst thing to do is worry about it. The best thing to do is be happy because unlike hundreds of thousands of people out there, you’ve probably realized where you can improve and you’ll now want to take action.

That’s powerful.

Working With The Results

If you spend most of your day taking solid action that will provide results for you, then congratulations. You’re one of the few. On the other hand, if you’re like I was and see that actual work only takes up a small portion of your day, you can improve upon that.

One key thing I realized is that I was working on things that didn’t interest me. A good example is when I started a celebrity blog just because it was easy to drive traffic to them. I had no interest in celebrities, but I was writing 3-4 articles about them every single day just to try and make money. It wasn’t long before I slipped down to 1 article per day then nothing at all.

It’s so easy to follow the trends online and work on things that you can see are making money for other people, but that’s hard. Your work online does not have to be difficult, it should just be in a direction that you enjoy. I love writing articles about marketing and what seems like minutes can actually end up with hours passing by. That’s a real passion.

If you’re not working on things you love, change that, right now. If you don’t, then don’t be surprised if you’re in exactly the same position next year as you are in right now.

You should also find in your log areas that are completely pointless to your day. If you’re building up a Twitter profile but don’t even have a website, you’re probably wasting time. If you’re wondering why your blog isn’t making money and you haven’t tried selling ads or creating your own product, you’re wasting time.

Look at your log and give yourself an honest assessment. Only then can you start to make headway.

I’m Not Saying Learning Is Bad

I’m consistently making a five-figure income online every month but you’ll still see me leaving blog comments and reading websites like this one. Reading blogs or buying eBooks is never a bad thing, but you must put into practice what you learn instead of becoming an information junkie.

I recently picked up a copy of Tribes by Seth Godin and sat down to read it with a pen and paper by my side. Within a third of the book I had already taken 3 pages of notes. I could not get enough of the great information in there.

I continued to read the book at night, with no form of note taking available, and didn’t get anything from the next third. Not one note to take away. It’s not that I don’t think they were there, it’s just that the way I was prepared to take in the content and was reading for the sake of reading.

If you’re going to buy eBook after eBook or read blog after blog, actually apply what you learn from them and make sure you test things for yourself rather than blindly following ‘leaders’. You’ll probably get to the point where you realize most eBooks are rehashed junk and blogs with quality information like this one are rare to find.

In fact, I went from having 136 blogs in my feed reader, to just 15.

So why are you here?

Glen is the author of a blog called ViperChill which covers the topic of Viral Marketing. He helps people build remarkable websites that people naturally want to talk about.

Using Content Sites to Build Residual Income

Pat — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:00:57 +0000

This is the last guest post in queue before I start writing again. I’m happy to say that this is a guest post from Maria, founder of the Residual Income Web Blog. She is also the author of the infamous eHow eBook which I personally used to drastically increase my ehow earnings, and she has a lot more projects underway as well. Here is a wonderful article from Maria about increasing your residual income with content sites.

I began my passive income adventure by writing content articles for a large website that had recently started a user-driven content section. When I started writing these short SEO (search engine optimized) articles, I had no idea what – if anything – they would earn. I certainly didn’t image they would be the start of something big and even lead to a paradigm shift in my freelance writing career.

For many established online writers and Internet marketers, writing content for other sites is something that simply doesn’t occur to them; and for new online writers starting out, going for a sure thing – selling content for a flat rate – is more attractive than the unknowns of writing for residuals.

However, it is my experience that revenue-sharing content sites can be a significant income generator for virtually all online writers and marketers, whether newbies and seasoned professionals. In most cases, the income is truly passive once the articles are written – the page rank and internal linking system on the sites is often all that’s needed to get content indexed by search engines and found by those searching for the information you’ve shared.

Content sites are a great way to explore many different niches at ones, without having to set up a hundred mini niche sites or dilute the topics of your current sites and blogs. I use content sites to get a feel for what I enjoy writing about and what is most profitable for me. This information has been invaluable in starting my own content sites.

They can also be quite lucrative, as I have discovered. Over a dozen individual articles I wrote on eHow have earned over $100 each … a number I have trouble matching on my own sites thus far. For content writers selling their articles for $10 or even $20 or more, experiment with revenue-sharing sites to see if you can earn a better rate writing for yourself.

Choosing Content Sites

Potential earnings are often the main criteria for writers when considering a content site. If earnings potential is not available, for example if the site is new or current writers aren’t broadcasting their earnings, look at the pay structure if published. For example, some sites pay a portion of Adsense or per 1,000 views. There are other factors that should not be overlooked. One of the main things to consider is whether writers retain rights to their content. If so, you can always remove and republish your work if earnings aren’t what you expected. In addition to earnings, look for the site’s Alexa ranking, traffic statistics, age, popularity and number of active users. Spend some time on the site and check out the article input tool. I find the best thing to do is write a few articles on any decent revenue-sharing or user-driven content site you come across and write more – or not – based on your own experiences.

Writing Content Site Articles

Read through each site’s terms of use or user agreement. Some allow only original content, some allow duplicate material as long as you are the author. Some sites are okay with inconspicuous, related affiliate links; others ban them and repeat violators.
Learn basic search engine optimization and do basic keyword research for each article you write. Your main traffic is via search engines, on site and off, and your articles have to be written with this in mind.
Maintain high quality standards. No only is your reputation at stake; your earnings are too. Well written articles perform better overall.
Keep most article between 300 and 700 words. Length is lethal online, but too-short articles may be ignored by the search engines.

Hidden Benefits of Content Sites

With a profile and library of articles on several content sites, you will find that in addition to article earnings, you can:

Gain backlinks to your own sites and blogs through your profile and articles (if the site allows do-follow links).
Drive traffic to your niche sites, information product or affiliate sales pages.
Increase affiliate earnings.
Build an online presence, gain brand/ name recognition.

Do you write for online content sites? Do you do it primarily for the earnings, or traffic and backlinks?

Again, for more from Maria, you can visit her website at the Residual Income Web Blog.

Passive Income – Making It Real (Estate)

Pat — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 08:00:36 +0000

So, I’m back from my Honeymoon! Yay! But, there are still two more guests posts lined up that I would like to share with you before I write my February Income Report. I’m in the middle of moving into a new apartment, so by the time I finish, I will have time to come back full strength to The Smart Passive Income Blog.

This is a guest post from Michael, who is president of Prosperity Real Estate Investments, a real estate investment company that mainly does business in Canada, but his information can be used throughout the entire world. Feel free to visit his website at www.prosperityinvestments.ca, or signup for his newsletter if you’re interested in real estate investing.

I’ve been a subscriber to Pat’s Blog for only a few months and my interest to his blog is looking at other sources/opportunities of creating passive income probably not much different then many of you. I am not an online marketing guru but I’m absolutely interested in learning how I can integrate some of Pat’s suggestions into my Real Estate Investment business.

When Pat offered the opportunity to write on his blog,I thought I’d share some of my experiences of creating passive income hoping that it may benefit you in your business or venture.

My Experience to Passive Income

I started my passive income journey about four years ago not much different than the way many people start ….by investing in Real Estate. I had tenants renting out a town home I purchased in Edmonton, Alberta and every month was generating a small revenue stream or positive cash flow. This was my first eye opening experience to passive income and when the light bulb came on, I was hungry to look for other opportunities.

Four years later, I now own over 27 properties and have started a Real Estate Investment Company called PROSPERITY REAL ESTATE INVESTMENTS where our company’s focus is to help people invest in cash flowing Residential and Commercial Real Estate. We only purchase properties that are incurring a positive cash flow (Rent – All Expenses = Positive Cash Flow) and thanks to our tenants they also pay down the mortgage all the while the property is showing equity appreciation.

The passive income that I make with Real Estate has been able to let me quit my 9 -5 job and let me focus on my Real Estate Investing business fulltime. Now when I say fulltime, I mean I work my own hours and what I really do fulltime time is look for additional opportunities that produce additional passive income.

My goal this year is to look at ways of making an additional $5,000 a month in my real estate business either by Real Estate Investing, looking for advertisers for my newsletter or website, Ad sense and creating exclusivity income with my existing business relationships.

You probably went back and re -read that last sentence and yes I said creating a passive income with your existing business relationships.

Passive Income through Relationships

Not many people are aware of these types of relationships as they aren’t usually public knowledge but they exist in almost every business industry and by looking a little outside of the box you may be able to create this type of passive income with your existing relationships.

As I’m investing in cash flowing Real Estate I also earn income from my Real Estate Agents, Property Managers, Property Inspectors, and believe it or not even the banks. So how?

They pay me for EXCLUSIVITY.

I have several relationships when investing in Real Estate and usually use the same people for most of my property purchases so when I approached them about possibly working out an exclusivity arrangement they were very open to offering an incentive every time we used their service.

Making It A Win/Win Relationship

The way this works is I would commit that I would only use their service when I purchase a property and they would give me a rebate or an incentive for exclusivity.

Here’s an example: I would speak with my Real Estate Agent and tell him/her that I was looking at buying 3 investment properties for my clients this year and would they be willing to offer an incentive if I bought all the properties through them. It’s amazing how positive and quickly the response was when I approached them with this.

This approach ensures they get repeat business from me and in turn I make money for purchasing investment properties which also provides me positive cash flow. Really it’s a WIN/WIN relationship and in addition, I’m creating additional income streams for each property I purchase/sell.

To give you an idea of the type of money I’m talking about our company buys roughly 2 properties every single month and our exclusivity relationship incentives create an income of roughly $3,000 per month.
Not bad of an additional revenue stream just by asking.

My intention here is not to gloat but to possibly open your eyes to this opportunity and think about your existing business relationships that may be able to provide you additional income. At the end of the day, the goal is to create passive income with several income streams with very little or no additional work.

I saw this as an opportunity as I learned this strategy from a company that I worked for in the past and wanted to see if this could be integrated with my Real Estate business. Bringing this discussion up with your existing business relationships can make you nervous but if presented well you’ll be surprised with the reaction that you get as most people do see the benefit to exclusivity relationships especially during an economic downturn.

Our exclusivity agreements that we have committed to have truly been Win, Win and this is something we continue to offer to most of our business relationships which at the end benefits everyone.

Putting these types of agreements should always be put in writing to ensure everyone understands the expectations from all parties. So draft an agreement up even if it’s a simple one page document which clearly outlines the details of your agreement to avoid possible confusion or conflict.

Keeping Your Eyes Open for Opportunities

There are so many opportunities that can provide you with additional income that sometimes we forget to stop and take step back and look at the opportunities that may be in front of our faces. This really is the intention of my message today. Re-examine your passive income model and consider are there opportunities that I am missing. You may be surprised.

I’d like to thank Pat for the opportunity to write and share one of the ways I’ve been able to create passive income and I hope that this strategy can help benefit you in your business.

Here’s wishing you all a successful journey in your business ventures.

To learn more about creating passive income through Real Estate Investing please register to receive our free monthly newsletter.

Michael Ponte
President
Prosperity Real Estate Investments Ltd.

Developing a Raging River of Online Income Towards Financial Independence

Pat — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 08:00:08 +0000

Here is a guest post from Steve at Personal Finance Startup. As a writer of this relatively newer blog on the blogosphere, Steve presents some really wonderful articles about all apsects of personal finance that I thoroughly enjoy.

Pat was the first person to bring to my attention the ability to generate streams of passive income from online ventures. His LEED ebook success and informational blog has inspired me to brainstorm numerous online ventures of my own with the hope of replicating his success. Pat’s LEED ebook generates the majority of his income, however, his pursuit of eHow earnings, iphone apps and affiliate marketing shows his desire to diversify his passive income. He’s fortunate enough to have an income stream that most likely won’t dry up in the near future as green architecture is a growing field.

The only way to feel completely comfortable relying on passive online income is to have numerous income streams. Through Pat’s examples and Yanik Silver’s book, “Moonlighting on the Internet“, I’ve been filled with the necessary inspiration and optimism to create numerous online income streams. I’d like to share with you my potential online ventures to further inspire you towards generating online income streams that will add up to a raging river towards financial independence.

Blogs

Currently, I host The Personal Finance Start-Up Blog that I started as a way to detail my journey from an entry-level engineer towards financial independence. I hoped to provide unique personal finance information for young adults and self-employed individuals. The problem with this blog is I don’t see it generating a large amount of income. I do think I can generate a stream of income from this blog through affiliate and PPC advertising, but only a very small one.

In the very near future, I want to start a fantasy sports blog. Not only is fantasy sports a passion of mine, but the fantasy sports blogosphere is much less developed than the personal finance one. Additionally, the popularity of fantasy sports is definitely increasing. I already spend a significant amount of time following fantasy sports, so I’m always up-to-date in the fantasy sports realm. All I have to do is put my opinions on a website and generate a following. I intend to generate income through advertising and potentially annual draft kits, or premium content, which would require a membership. There is also the potential to become an authority in the field, which might open doors for writing articles for local newspapers or other larger fantasy sports websites.

eBooks

Pat’s LEED ebook inspired my own test prep ebook ideas. I have been tutoring high school students for over a year. I tutor high level math and science topics and have excelled at teaching test prep. This tutoring experience has provided me with the necessary experience to teach the same content in numerous ways, which will hopefully help high school students succeed in these challenging and stressful courses. Through searching the web, I have not found very good online resources for high school students. I should be able to put together ebooks similar to Pat’s that will hopefully be just as successful.

Informational Products

Informational products are Yanik’s specialty. I consider ebooks to be informational products, but they are only the tip of the iceberg. I’m thinking about developing an informational product with my Dad that might contain an ebook, templates, how-tos, marketing advice, etc. My Dad has a plethora of information on turning ideas into products. He knows all of the steps that are needed to turn a Eureka moment into a product on the shelf at your local Target. My plan is to form a partnership with my Dad where he provides the content for the informational product and I do the online formatting, sales and marketing. This is a great example of how you don’t even need to be the expert in order to develop an online income stream.

Get Started Now

There are so many different ways to generate online income streams. The first step is to brainstorm. It only took me about an hour to generate this list of ideas that will keep me busy moonlighting for at least a year. For brainstorming I recommend writing down all of your passions, all of your skills and all of your friends’ and families’ skills. Even if this list isn’t exhaustive it should contain enough ideas to get you started.

After you generate your list of ideas, the next step is to get something on the internet. The first product doesn’t have to be the final/polished product. Pat generates nearly $20,000 a month from his LEED sales. He didn’t start out with the ebook and audio book, but he had to start somewhere. Put something up on the internet and find out if you have a market. If you begin generating some sales, then refine your product and add bonus material. This will make your product more appealing and allow you to increase the price.

Final Thoughts

I hope my post helped kick start your creative juices. If you’re not sure there is a product you can sell, just remember that there are numerous ways to earn income online, you just have to keep an open mind. You can blog, write ebooks, open yahoo stores, sell second hand treasures on ebay, create informational products and create membership websites just to name a few. You don’t even have to be an expert to generate streams of income online. The two keys are getting started as soon as possible and don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Develop as many online income streams as possible to create your raging river towards financial independence.

Oh yeah, and in the end I want my raging river to turn into a lazy river. I mean, who doesn’t love a lazy river?

For more from Steve, check out The Personal Finance Start-Up Blog when you have the time.

Increase eHow Income with Referral Links

Pat — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:00:37 +0000

Here is a quick guest post by Andy from Tight Fisted Miser. He is just starting his eHow empire, but has come across a technique that you may find helpful as well.

I started writing for eHow shortly after I started reading Smart Passive Income. I’ve just dabbled in it so far but the last two months have convinced me that eHow is a great way to make passive income and that I need to devote more time to writing eHow articles.

I’ve written a total of five articles for eHow. My eHow earnings have been $0.31 for November 2008, $3.08 for December 2008, and $2.47 for January 2009. Those results are not too impressive and you’re probably wondering why I am convinced that eHow could be a great way for me to make passive income.

The reason I’m happy with my eHow results is because I also made $50 dollars from a referral link. I wrote an eHow article titled “How to Receive the Wachovia Bank $25 Referral Bonus” and two people have signed up for the bonus through my referral link. This is a win-win because they receive a $25 bonus and I receive a $25 bonus.

It seems obvious to me now that including referral or affilliate links in your eHow articles, where appropriate, is a good way to increase your earnings but it wasn’t really something I thought about when writing my articles. I still have a lot to learn about eHow and it is encouraging to see that even while I’m learning and improving I’m already receiving a decent return on my time invested.

Great advice. I’m also very interested in Andy’s article about Living on $10k a Year!

Turning Dreams into Passive Income

Pat — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 08:00:39 +0000

Again, I’m still in Hawaii on my Honeymoon! Here is a guest post by Craig from The Movie Banter. He is a young man who is a Dreamer – which I believe is one of the most important elements of succeeding online. Dream big, and good things have a chance of happening. Craig is on his way.

When Pat graciously allowed me the opportunity to write a guest post for his blog, I wasn’t sure how I could help out at first. I have learned a lot from him, but am no where at the point of my life where I could really offer useful tips to anyone, whether it be about passive income or in general. I am only 23 and first getting a taste of work experience, haven’t worked on passive income. But then it struck me like Marv being hit by a bunch of blocks from Kevin McCallister in Home Alone 2. If I could choose my dream way of gaining passive income, what would it be?

My dream method would be to write a best seller novel, and then sell it off to Hollywood. This of course is easier said than done, but if I’m dreaming, why not reach for the stars, right? I know writing a book is a goal of a lot of people, but I have thought about my process in detail about getting it from idea to DVD’s. This is my quick adventure to turn passive income into reality.

The book would be called “The Boys Court” a coming of age tail of a group of boys enjoying one last summer adventure together before they head off to college, then tragedy strikes changing one of the boy’s lives forever. I’ve even written the first chapter, but have not had the patience to get any more done. Can’t give away more though, just in case I get on myself to get to it.

Anyways, I have a friend who was signed by an agent from his personal essays he’s written, who could help me sign. Once published, would utilize my own social media marketing skills to help push the book to slowly build viral buzz. Hopefully it grows to best seller point and I sit back and collect fat paychecks every month for doing nothing afterwards. I could stop there, but my passive income dream goes further.

I want a movie deal. My friend also interned years back to an alum of our high school that you may recognize as Judd Apatow. I involve my friend in on the project, he uses pull for a once in a lifetime meeting, and we go down and pitch and close the deal. From there the movie is released, followed by DVD’s. Now collecting book checks as well as income from movie and DVD’s sales. Residual income at its finest, while I sit back and enjoy.

Of course this is all one huge pipe dream, but this would be my dream if I could choose how to make passive income.

I bet a lot of you have thought of unique and exciting ways to sit back and earn passive income. What are some of your dreams?

Please feel free to check out Craig’s website at themoviebanter.com.

Generating Passive Income from Passive Income

Pat — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 08:00:36 +0000

This is a Guest Post from RJ Weiss. RJ is an aspiring financial planner, who runs his own website, Our Financial Planner.

Passive income doesn’t have to stop once the money is earned. Wouldn’t it be nice to earn passive income, off passive income?

This step isn’t for beginners. If your passive income isn’t enough to cover your bills, continue using this website for guidance to get you there.

Since the title of this blog is Smart Passive Income, this post will show you the most efficient way of turning passive income into more passive income.

The probable structure of your business, being that you’re a “solopreneur,” allows you to receive an extraordinary tax break, plus a great investment opportunity. Due to your structure, you’re allowed to create and design your own retirement plan, known as an Individual or Solo 401K.

Eligibility

Individual 401K’s are for individuals, partners, and their spouses only. If you’re just starting your business, and plan to grow it with employees, don’t start a Solo 401K.

Businesses whom are likely to take advantage of this opportunity are freelancers, solo proprietors, owners of S Corps, partnerships, and LLC’s.

The Benefits

You create your own retirement plan. Everything from picking the provider, to “employer” contributions, you have complete control over everything.

The biggest benefit an Individual 401K has is very high contribution limits. The amount you can contribute to an Individual 401K trumps other options your business has for retirement savings like SIMPLE and SEP IRA’s.

In 2009, if you’re under 50, the maximum contributed to an Individual 401K isn’t to exceed $49,000. This consists of your salary deferral plus the business’s contribution. You’re salary deferral is maximized at $16,500. The business can then contribute any amount, but not to exceed $49,000 including your salary contributions or 25% of W-2 earnings.

To sort all this out, let’s look at a real life example of someone who owns their own corporation making $40,000 a year.

	No Plan	Solo 401K
Net Income	$40,000	$40,000
Less Salary Deferral	0	16,500
Less Company Match	0	$10,000
= Taxable Income	$40,000	$13,500

Your $25,500 investment is then able to grow tax deferred. Meaning in 15 years, at 8%, $25,500 turns into $808,903 before tax. Imagine the results if you’re able to do this year after year.

Where to Set One Up

Use a low cost investment provider like Vanguard or Fidelity. The benefits of having a tax savings vehicle can quickly be washed away by paying extraordinary fees. These two companies provide plenty of investment options, with minimal account fees.

What to Invest In

Just like passive income, passive investing also has its benefits. Using a passive strategy for investing equates to picking a well diversified portfolio of index funds. Over the long term-term, you’re able to minimize costs, and most importantly, take your irrational behavior out of the equation.

The true passive option, when it comes to investing is selecting a target retirement fund. All you need to do is pick a date. The rebalancing and asset allocation is done for you automatically.

My Experience

Most of this information was obtained from a course I’m taking to get my CFP certification. Before you make any changes, check with your CPA. This is a great example of how a good CPA, can easily pay for its services with one decision.

There is a lot more to know when it comes to taxes and investing. The purpose of this post, was to introduce you to something new, that you might be able to take advantage of. For more information visit:

Feel free to read more from RJ at his website, Our Financial Planner

A Geektastic Guest Post

Pat — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 08:00:28 +0000

I’m away on my honeymoon in Hawaii! I’d like to thank Jen from The Green Ninja for the following guest post. Jen is a freelance writer who writes creative and unique material about writing online and always provides interesting reads. Check it out!

I am a geek. I know this about myself. I am passionate about all aspects of being a total and complete nerd. Science, astronomy, physics – you name it and I want to read/talk/play a board game about it.

When another geek is spotted within a hundred foot range, tractor beams activate somewhere and suddenly there we are, talking excitedly in high pitched voices about the Large Hadron Collider or the new science related bill that has reached Congress. My eyes light up and my arms wave around quite a bit. This is called passion.

There is a small electronic device on my desk that I purchased several years ago from ThinkGeek. Most people pass right by it without even paying attention. Some, though, will pause and ask what it does.

I decided that if I ever brought home a date who automatically knew that the device was a Binary Code Clock, I would marry them on the spot. I met said individual and the wedding is in April.

As an entrepreneur (or as a person), you must have passion if you want to succeed. You have to know enough about yourself to realize what it is that turns you on and gets your voice all revved up and your hands flailing about. If you use your passion, the money will follow.

If you can talk for hours about science, golf or romance novels, there are ways to make money online. If your passion is knitting or even dog grooming, you can earn a passive income by being exactly who it is that you are.

Whether itís writing articles for eHow, creating a Niche Blog or starting up your very own business online, if you follow your passion, you will make money.

Think about the last time you recommended a restaurant, hair dresser or other business to a friend. You probably told them how awesome it was and why you liked it and then encouraged them to try it out.

Talking excitedly about something you enjoy and spreading the word around is called selling. Youíre probably very good at it and you didnít even know it. Give it a try. You might be surprised at the affiliate sales and blog traffic you receive simply by talking about your passion.

Again, feel free to read more from Jen at The Green Ninja.

Passive Income Creation – It’s Like Growing a New Lawn

Pat — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 08:00:22 +0000

This is a guest post from passiveincomefamily.com. I’ve been following this blog for a while now, and I really enjoy reading every new post. Feel free to check out to visit PFI’s website and subscribe to the RSS feed.

Are you one of those people who are curious about creating passive income, but are still unsure of the potential it can provide to you? Springtime is right around the corner, so what better time to talk about how creating passive income is just like growing a new lawn. That may seem like a strange comparison, but one that is very similar when you break down the steps.

About a year ago, I was one of those people who were curious about passive income creation. I had always been fascinated reading about people making a career out of building this form of income without relying on a 9 to 5 job. I finally decided to dive into it head first. While I have been successful along the way, there are a few things I wish I had done differently during the last 12 months. If I had the steps identified below in front of me last year – I would probably be a lot further along than I am today. Hopefully some people can use these steps to build a successful passive income portfolio – or a healthy lawn!

1 – Prepare the Soil

Any good lawn care professional can tell you that the first step when growing in a new lawn is to prepare the soil. Whether you decide to sod or seed your yard, you first must rake and cleanup the area where you want your grass to grow. Whether you are using landscape designs to map out your yard or you use some wooden stakes to mark out your area – you have a plan in mind before starting.

The same can be said about creating passive income. You must first prepare the soil or in this case your plan for passive income generation. If you jump in head first without a solid plan or idea – you will wind up becoming frustrated and more than likely will give up. Any successful startup company will have a business plan that they build and grow from. If you are going to create passive income – you need to create a plan before starting. While you may not need a professionally written business plan to start, it is important to write down your ideas and goals. These goals will help to provide you direction and force you to stay focused.

2 – Plant Grass Seed vs. Sod

Once you have prepared the soil for planting, the next step in growing a new lawn is to plant the new grass seed. You could also opt for a more expensive alternative and sod your yard. While this is a viable option, you need to consider the cost of the sod which is always more expensive than seeding. Another thing to keep in mind is that sod can be grown in a different soil at a sod farm than what you have in your yard. This could make for a difficult transition. On the other hand, sod is quicker to establish than seeding your yard so the choice is yours.

After you have documented your plan and goals for passive income generation, it is time to plant your new passive income stream. You could opt for the cheaper route and plant your passive income seed instead of sod. Planting passive income seeds could include writing online articles for sites like eHow, starting up a low-cost niche blog, or purchasing secure certificates of deposit that earn you guaranteed interest. The opportunities for seeding your passive income are endless!

You could also look to purchase (or sod) your passive income streams instead of creating them on your own. This is a viable option for passive income generation but one that is much more expensive and comes at a higher risk. If you purchase a passive income stream and it takes to your soil, then great – you have saved a lot of time and are on your way to making money. Some examples of purchasing your passive income streams include buying existing websites or blogs that are already earning ad revenue, lending out cash to borrowers through peer-to-peer lending, or purchasing dividend-producing stocks. All of these options cost upfront money, but could produce passive income in the future.

3 – Water and Fertilize

After the seed has been planted or the sod has been laid in your yard, the hard part is over. Anyone who has ever laid a piece of sod on a 90 degree day can tell you that it is not a lot of fun. However, it is something that is very rewarding in the end. The next step in growing your new lawn is to devote your time to growing in your seed or helping your sod to establish roots into the soil. Either option requires dedication and some tender loving care. You should routinely water your seedlings or sod and give them some nutrients (or fertilizers) to help them grow strong.

Once all of your passive income streams have been planted, it is time to take care of them and help them grow. If you purchased a dividend-producing stock, then you need to setup a plan to reinvest your dividend payments back into the stock. This helps your passive income stream to grow big and strong. If you started a niche blog to generate passive income, then you need to constantly monitor and maintain your site at the beginning, until it can take off on its own. I could go on and on but I think you get the picture!

4 – Plant More Grass Seed

Before your lawn becomes fully established, you may need to plant some new seed or lay another piece of sod in areas that don’t take. Often times a weak seedling or piece of sod may not take to your soil. You need to patch some areas after the rest of your lawn has grown in. Planting additional grass seed could occur for years depending on the quality of your soil and the care you put into it.

Some of your passive income streams may also need to be replanted. Don’t be surprised if some of them don’t take off like you expected. Hopefully the passive income streams that don’t take off for you were seedlings that you didn’t spend a lot of money to create. Regardless, either type of passive income stream has the potential to fail based on environmental factors outside of your control. If you purchased a bank stock that produced a high dividend in boom economic times, that same stock may have completely cut that same dividend during bust times. The point is that you need to identify these areas that need patching and create new passive income streams for your overall portfolio (or lawn).

5 – Ongoing Maintenance

A year or two has gone by now and your new lawn is thriving. You have given it the proper care needed to grow strong and healthy. There is very little manual effort involved at this point in growing the yard, as it is mostly self-sufficient. Notice that I said – mostly? Anyone who has a home with a lawn knows that there is always ongoing maintenance of the yard. There is the weekly summer maintenance of cutting and watering. Then there is the annual maintenance of your lawn that includes aeration and fertilizer applications. The point is that even though you have spent your hard work and created a beautiful lawn, you still need to maintain it periodically – or at least hire someone to do it.

So you have built your passive income portfolio into a strong and healthy cash-producing machine. While the hard work is over, you still need to monitor your passive income streams to ensure they are still viable and healthy forms of income. This step may include reviewing the quarterly financial statements of your dividend producing stocks, following up on new advertisers for your niche blogs, or even rolling over an expired certificate of deposit into a new one. The point here is that even though I use the term ‘passive’ – it can never be 100% passive. Even if you hire someone to manage your passive income portfolio, you wouldn’t be protecting your assets if you didn’t follow up from time to time on your manager.

Final Thought

If you are like most people these days, you are probably discouraged about the economy. Things are difficult out there and are expected to get worse. Why sit there and let the economy and businesses dictate your financial future? Creating passive income streams puts you in charge of your finances. Provided you build healthy and strong streams of income, you will outlast any recession or difficult economic environment. Let’s face it – we have droughts from time to time. Remember that beautiful lawn you created? If it is healthy and strong, it will bounce back from any drought. It may look rough and rugged during the bad times but will come out of it in the end.

Are you ready to start growing your new passive income streams?