Mr Beach Bum.com

I found an interesting article on Yahoo News this morning that has some excellent advice on getting bloggers to link to your website, images, etc. The advice I tend to agree with most is in regards to copyright notices on your site. Don’t take the approach of “This is my content and nobody esle can use it without my permission” if you intend to have other bloggers even give you the time of day. They’ll simply move on to another site that is more open in nature. Instead, make it easy for them to use your content, but also make it easy for your web link, and your credit for the work, to be included with the content. This is a win-win situation for you.

 Read the entire article here.

This may be considered a bit old school by today’s “web 2.0 ” standards, but the good old fashioned method of swapping links with other websites in your niche (blogs included) is still one of the best ways for you to get your site “out there” in front of people.

A lot of people set up their blog or website and immediately go to town on setting up Adwords and other pay-per-click type solutions and spend a lot of money trying to get the word out. I am not saying you shouldn’t do some of that but you really need to think about how the web really works. Why do we call it a web anyway? The reason is because it is a mesh of links between sites and your true goal should be to become somewhat of a “hub site” that people will come to in order to find not only your wonderful content or service but even more information and services from your niche.

Even if you don’t ever become a true “hub site” you will still benefit greatly by achieving a high number of incoming links from other sites and this should be one of your primary focuses, especially early on in the start of your site.

 The challenge you will have is that there are a lot of big time sites out there that make it very hard to get a link from. They may let you link to them but you might have to pay to get a link back. Don’t just pay every time. Try to be creative instead. What could you offer them now that might be of value. Perhaps a free review or something in exchange for a link to your article?

You will need to have a links section on your site and this will quickly become one of the ugliest pages on your entire site, but it is also one of the most important if done properly.

Also, don’t be afraid to check out your competition from time to time. Look at their Alexa site info. Especially under “sites linking in”. If those sites linking into your competitor have high rankings then you may consider contacting them to do reciprocals with you as well because most of the time these same sites will be somewhat related to your niche just as they are your competitor. Don’t reinvent the wheel here people, there is no shame in using some of the same methods to reach success as those who have come before you. It will be up to you to differentiate yourself in the long run but when you are just starting out, all bets are off.

We will look at this in more detail in a future post but for now, think about who your #1 competitor is and go straight to alexa.com and check them out. See who helped them get where they are now and then you can start sending link exchange requests like mad! Good luck!

I hope everyone had a great holiday season. It gets pretty busy for affiliate marketers around the holidays, but now you can have a bit of a break. Not for long though, it’s never too early to start preparing for the next holiday. Why do you think the stores are already putting up Valentine’s Day displays?

So is this the year that you start your online business?

Some of you out there with blogs may already be using BlogRush. But I am sure there are a few who may have held off for a bit potentially because there was a lack of customization options. Well your wait is over. Blogrush introduced “flavors” which allow you to choose from a surprisingly diverse palette of colors that are sure to match any theme you can throw at it. These just went live this week and all you have to do is choose your default color scheme in your Blogrush settings page under flavors and you’re done. It’s that simple. I really like the way it looks on my site and I hope you do too.

While we’re on the subject, I have to say that so far I am happy with the number of credits I’ve been getting on the Blogrush account. I have seen some fairly steady incoming traffic too so I can say that if you have a blog, you should definitely consider using it.

If you are already using it, how has your experience with it been up to this point?

There are a lot of people out there who don’t yet have a website or blog and always say something like “I should really do that, I could use the extra money” or “I would love to write about X, I bet I could do a blog about that”. My response is, what are you waiting for? No, really. What is it that is standing in your way?

I see so many people who sit on the sidelines and keep saying those same things about how they should do this or that but never lift a finger. I will admit that blogging and/or running a website isn’t for everyone. It is also not something you should take lightly, but if you have ever even considered starting an online business then what could possibly be holding you back?

Since I don’t know your answer - heck, you probably don’t even know it yet - I will just list a few of the “obstacles” that might be standing in your way. Who knows, maybe you’ll see your obstacle and realize how to overcome it.

• I don’t have the time
• It’s too much work
• I don’t know “computers” well enough to run a website
• What if people make negative comments about my articles
• I don’t want to risk all that money
• I’ve got nothing to write about
• There are already too many people doing that, too much competition

Do any of these sound familiar? Let’s take a look at that list again, only this time I will give you some answers.

Read the rest of this entry »

In part 1 of this series we looked at some of the basics of getting your blog started. We opted for Wordpress but of course you have many other blog platforms to choose from, Wordpress just happens to be my personal favorite so I tend to stick with what I know and like.

Once you have your blog all set up and maybe even if you have a few posts up already then you should have a pretty good idea as to how easy it really is to get new posts up and yet how powerful the blogging process can be. Getting the blog up and running is a major goal that is behind you now, so what’s next?

Readership! Just like a magazine in many ways, your main goal is to get readers to visit your blog as often as possible. It used to be that if you started up a web page you would submit your URL to all the search engines and, aside from doing some advertising on your own and maybe building some link partnerships, hope for the best.  That has changed tremendously with blogging and it’s primarily because of RSS.

Read the rest of this entry »

Part 2 in our series of Getting Started with Blogging is coming soon, like really soon. But in the mean time I would like to see some comments from anyone who has started up a blog recently. Go ahead, put your blog links in the comments and let us check out what you’ve done so far!

Just a quick update to let everyone know how things are going for me in regards to the ReviewMe.com program. It’s been about 2 weeks since I joined up with them and added 2 of my numerous blogs to the site. The blogs I added have relatively low rankings but I’ve still managed to make money on them and with very little effort - as a matter of fact, I have found it to be quite enjoyable to select an offer and research a new website or blog - only to get paid, albeit a small amount (for now) for the privilege.

At this point I am just making about $5 per review for the 2 sites that I submitted. These sites are fairly new and have a low Alexa ranking and Google Pagerank scores for both are under 2. As they increase, I know their value on ReviewMe will as well. But the point here is that even if you are just starting out, ReviewMe is a great way to give you some content to write about and guarantee that you make some money. I wish I had options like this back when I first started - but you do!

Check out ReviewMe.com for yourself. I am very happy with what I see so far. My only real complaint is that I am not getting as many offers as I would like. But that too will come with time and as my sites grow in rank.

Oh, and one other thing. ReviewMe.com is also a great way for you to buy advertising for your site. You can get a reveiw from lower ranked sites for as little as $10 and this is a great way to generate some buzz and get linkbacks to your site. It’s free to join as an advertiser or a publisher so definitely join today and get started.

Get Reviewed At ReviewMe!