Morning all,

I have just realized a very sad fact of life – because I’ve been neglecting my exercise, I’ve gained about 7 pounds back.  Wah!

Happiness this does NOT cause!

So today….I’m going to return to exercising/eating better and the like.  NOTE! 

I’m NOT going on a diet, so to say, because that implies some year I’ll go OFF it and gain all that weight back!

And that reminded me today’s make money tip.  It’s this:

Always put some effort into the evergreen market.

In other words, some of your money-making endeavors should focus on things that NEVER go out to style!

People will ALWAYS be interested in:

• looking good
• losing weight
• getting fit
• getting sex
• being confident
• raising kids
• taking care of their parents
• buying a home
• entertainment
• gadgets
• etc.etc.etc.

Thus, you should create a mini-site for these topics that give visitors what they crave – quick answers or solutions to their problems.

For myself, I think I’m going to ensure these sites contain:

• Optin autoresponder for future marketing
• Amazon.com links
• eBay links
• Quality resource links

I did something similar to this back in 2005 (you can get my entire details about that over at the Rich Hermit series) and methinks…it’s time to consider folding that information back INTO my current operations.

Remember, you can make money from a multitude of resources….ensuring you have some evergreen material out there will definitely help your bottom line.

Here’s some more ideas about evergreen niches:

• 3 Evergreen Niches: Always a Safe Bet

• Uncovering Evergreen Ideas

• An Evergreen Online Business Model

A great way to monetize evergreen products, of course, is to use Amazon and eBay links.  And if you choose to focus simply on a PRODUCT in and of itself, you can build an entire evergreen site around it as well.

One resource for that is Infoproduct Killer – a product based upon the premise that you do NOT have to create your OWN product to make money online…simply take advantage of the affiliate commissions of other big-name enterprises instead.  If you’re new to the idea of evergreen marketing and site building, definitely check it out – it could save you big huge bleeploads of time.

Enjoy,

Barbara LIng

ps – speaking of niches, did you know the following was available?

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Morning!

Brief, pithy and to the point – the gentlemen over at Ninja Wordpress Affiliate are offering a HUUUUUGE sale of their 4 best-selling products (to the tune of 75% off!).

Click below to grab:

• Product #1 -
  
• MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate [sells for $97]
  

• Product #2 -
  
• Wordpress Wizard 2.0 [sells for $97]

• Product #3 -
  
• $365K Blog Traffic Formula [sells for $37]

• Product #4 -
  
• Daily Traffic Blueprint [sells for $97]

all together….at 75% OFF!

The Ninja Affiliate Wordpress plugin especially is a no-brainer if you’re into affiliate marketing with your website/blog – it lets you automatically add affiliate links to past, present and future posts WITHOUT touching those posts again.

I wrote about the Ninja Affiliate plugin over at

The One Tool All Affiliates MUST Own – past and present and future links, one-step additions and more

and invite you to check it out but do NOT buy from the link on that page – you instead want to get the full 75% OFF!

Click HERE to grab your savings – sale ends on the 15th!

Enjoy,

Barbara Ling

Morning!

Today I received a fascinating email from a rather big name Internet marketer, who wrote about his nifty neat coaching program that, and I quote:

"…I want you to get to where you want to be in
online business.

And our team of experts will hold your hand and
guide you at every step…

… However, MOST PEOPLE HAVE BEEN TURNED DOWN. If
you get accepted into the program, here’s what
you’ll get:…"

Love the copy!  But anyways, the problem was….the email included an invalid link.

So, figuring the individual would want to know about it, I responded to the message with a "Headsup, your link was incorrect!".

And received back:

"Hello – IMPORTANT – Your email was not seen.

The email you sent to ………
will not be seen by a human.  It is a "no reply"
address we use when sending out our newsletters.

Unfortunately this email receives in excess
of 20,000 spam messages a day.

However we are here to support you."

My immediate reaction was, okay, ummmm, NO.  I am NOT going to write out a support ticket to let you know you goofed on your email blast.

Now, on second examination, a followup email was generated with more information…but I chose to ignore that until I decided I’d write this post.  That’s the only reason why that email got opened.

Which brings me back to the main point!

Whenever you send email to your lists, ALWAYS check your outgoing links…and ALWAYS make it EASY for people to drop you a line.  That might mean including a direct link to your contact form if you get too much spam, but hey….at least it will help YOU in the future with your customer relationships.

And that, of course, is a Very Good Thing indeed. 

Enjoy,

Barbara Ling

Today’s Make Money Online Tip – Use COOL Free Buy Now Buttons

Quick!  Lookie here!

Doesn’t that look purty-like?

Would you believe, you can make such things for free?

It’s easy over at Cool Text Button Generator!

Is that COOL or what?

And the best news is….I wrote a great explanation on just HOW to make it so for YOU.

Enjoy it here!

FREE! Make Shiny Glorious Web 2.0 Download Buttons for eBooks IMMEDIATELY!

Amazing how simple things can be…once you know where to look for ‘em, eh? 

Enjoy,

Barbara Ling

Today’s Make Money Online Tip

Why hello there!  QUICK!  TELL ME NOW!

Do you use Affiliate Marketing?

If so, tell me this!  QUICK!

Do you know where to find the HIGHEST payout within your niche?

If not, here’s how!Mosey on now over to

Offer Vault

This neat site will let you enter in a niche/phrase etc., and find out what affiliate networks are offering you to promote, as well as how much commission you will make upon sales.

For example, here’s the results for ‘career’.

			Job.com	$50.00	$0.50	Careers > Employment	CommissionJunction	10-26-09
			HotResumes.com – Free Resume Posting	$50.00	$0.50	Careers > Employment	CommissionJunction	10-26-09
			Massage Therapy Success.	$49.77	$0.00	Business to Business	ClickBank	10-15-09
			How To Build Your Own Online Insurance Agency.	$38.22	$0.00	Marketing & Ads	ClickBank	10-15-09
			BadAss Affiliate Dominator Report.	$31.85	$0.00	Business to Business	ClickBank	10-15-09
			Get Hired! Cover Letters That Work!	$29.73	$0.00	Money & Employment	ClickBank	10-15-09
			Sell Your Digital Photos – Freelance Photography – CameraCareer.com.	$26.72	$0.00	Society & Culture	ClickBank	10-15-09
			Vault.com	25%	$2.50	Careers > Employment	CommissionJunction	10-26-09
			AnalyzeMyCareer	25%	$1.00	Careers > Employment	CommissionJunction	10-26-09
			How To Become A Dog Trainer.	$21.58	$0.00	Home & Family	ClickBank	10-15-09
			How To Become A Rising Star In Your Career In 60 Days Or Less!	$21.24	$0.00	Business to Business	ClickBank	10-15-09
			ResumeRabbit.com – Resume Posting to 75+ Job Sites	$20.00	$60.00	Careers > Employment	CommissionJunction	10-26-09

Depending upon the niche you serve, you might get better results from CPA (ie, getting paid for providing leads) compared to actually selling products (ie, Clickbank).

You can sort your results in many different ways – it can be quite a useful tool indeed for your online business.

Enjoy,

Barbara Ling

NOTE – I wrote this post over half a year ago…and I’m thrilled that I actually put my plan back then into action!  How have the past 6 months….changed YOU?  — Barbara Ling

Morning all,

You know, I’ve come to the conclusion….I really hate selling. 

I can do it, mind you, I can write superb books about it, I can design copy that makes the angels sing….but personally speaking, I just hate selling.  It’s my shyness, I expect. 

This is probably why back in 2006, I developed the Rich Hermit book series – it outlines exactly how to build portal sites, network with affiliate programs and the like.  Raising 4 kids, 12 Twitter Budgies, 2 Mooses and a husband just really doesn’t give me lots of hours to spend with customers as well!

So.  Over the weekend, I’ve been thinking about where to focus my energies and I’ve come up with several ideas:

1.)  Virtual Coach

I’ve had the domain now ever since I started making money online, and recently built the free Income Fitness Forums too!    If there’s one thing about which I know….it’s how to teach anything to anyone.

2.)  Recession Proof Niches

Fact is, no matter how lousy the economy is, people will always still want to:

• Eat OR diet
• Lose weight
• Have better sex
• Feel good about themselves
• Go to the doctor
• Make money
• Get one up on their competitors

Out of the above, I’m a master at:

• Eating/dieting (lost 50+ pounds and kept it over, wrote a book about it as well)
• Great sex (The Sensuous Woman could have been written by me)
• Make money (Mastered Adsense, affiliate programs, selling on eBay, etc.)
• Feel good about oneself (and wow, did I earn every bit of knowledge there through the school of hard knocks!).

True, I’m also a master at finding people to hire online (ie, Internet recruiting) but chances are, that’s NOT the most logical industry in which to specialize right now! 

So I’m looking at one of the 4 above, which brings me to the next point.

To make money in such niches, there are at least 3 things you NEED, including:

1.) Your own autoresponder (so you can build up a list – pet peeve following, btw – if you do NOT have your own autoresponder, you’re simply not serious about making a business online.  It’s like swimming in the Atlantic Ocean – if you do not have at the very least a life-preserver, or a boat, or a yacht, or a … you’re shark bait, plain and simple).  I’ve been using aWeber myself now for almost 8 years; it’s an excellent service.

2.)  Affiliate products (so you can market related items to your visitors).  You can use Clickbank items, e-Junkie products, Amazon products, eBay items…..tons of good stuff indeed.

3.)  Your own domain name (this is just common sense folks.  And if you scour about on the Internet for coupon discounts, you can get domains from GoDaddy at $7.45). 

That’s the bare minimum for creating an online business.  With your own autoresponder, you can run a:

• Newsletter
• eClass
• 7 Day Followup
• Contest
• Reminder Service

You can even invest in Instant Niche eMails to help you devise 52 weeks of solid content and put your newsletter on autopilot if you choose!

For me, the fact is…I have realized that my shyness really does inhibit a lot of money-making potential for me….so I’m going to focus on creating businesses that become destination sites themselves.  And of course, I’ll share all the goodies I find here as well.

What about you?  What’s your ideas for making your current business recession-proof?

Enjoy,

Barbara

Morning!

Even though it’s the weekend, lots of goodies were shared at our Income Fitness forums!  They include:

• What’s YOUR tagline?
• WARNING – Wordpress blog hack – eval(base64_decode($_SERVER[HTTP_REFERER]
• What makes people want to buy?
• How do you promote yourself online?
• First post
• Granny the Marketers Journal
• Ulla Hennig’s Journal
• Saturday Grand Marnier waffle-iron toast with mandarin orange slices and maple-cream

Definitely check out the journals – I’ll be highlighting them sometime soon on my blog!  And remember, they’re free to make!  It’s a great way to be accountable for your own online success – check out

Purpose of this forum

to learn how.

Enjoy,

Barbara Ling

I need a help desk software.

Which one should I use?

This is what I’m considering right now….

First off, there’s Ticket Desk Pro by Frank Haywood.   

The folks at Ultimate Footer Ad use this – I liked the ease of use on the customer side. 

I wonder how configurable it is for my own look and feel?

Then there’s

Three Pillars Help Desk Software by Willie Crawford.  PotPieGirl uses this and it’s very simple as well.

Personally, I’d just like to hack together myself a helpdesk out of Wordpress – theoretically, it shouldn’t be that difficult but hey, I’ve actually (get this!) learned wisdom! 

Time is money…and getting this done asap makes far more sense than trying to build something from scratch.

 So….what should I use?  I’m still in major research mode.  I did luck out, however, Granny the Marketer provided a link to 16 OTHER (read, non-IM) help desks too!  I suppose we’ll see. 

And such are the profundities for Saturday night,

Barbara

ps – I just saw – there’s Help Desk stuff on eBay too!  See for yourself:

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Check it out:

• See what the world is searching for
• Excellent Mother’s Day guide, kudos to the creator!
• Save on your paypal fees – Mass Pay
• How do I prevent people from stealing my product downloads?
• How can I make good Twitter Backgrounds?
• What’s the best way to make money with Twitter?

Plus a good breakfast of

French Toast Monday Breakfast

Besides work, today was quite enjoyable – walked the mooses in the downtown and also in the bay water.  Moose Minor LOVES biting the waves!  And after the kids came home, we all ran the mooses in the local park, resulting in huge sopping wet soggy moosies. 

But hey, they’re happy. 

I’m getting closer and closer to fine-tuning my Income Fitness book as well; I’m debating if I want to make it HUGE or make it as condensed as possible to save readers time.  Do let me know if you have any preferences!

And that was me Monday,

Barbara Ling

ps – speaking about making money, have you seen:

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Okay, it’s evening.  And wow, am I tired!!

Let’s see what today gave us.  Hmmmm….first off, business!  I updated the copy to the Virtual Coach Make Money Forum Benefits and already generated new signups as well! 

This is good.  It’s always a never-ending tweakie…you test and try and see what copy works best.

And the posts are the forums are getting better and better!  Check out:

• Need coffee? Have some fresh morning inspiration here!
• I now have 18 free-flying parakeets – Empathy, please!
• How can I tell where visitors are coming from?
• Bringing in money with anime?
• Affiliate Marketing – can moms do it?
• Where to find people who want to buy?

 So it’s going really really well.  I also managed to carve out the time to write:

8 Mouth-Watering Ways You Can Profitably Repackage Your Past Content

and folks think I cannot write hype.  HAH! 

But in Ling Land news, we now have 7 new Twitter Budgies!

A friend of mine called me today and said because her husband was sick, she had to move her 7 parakeets and would I take them? 

How could I refuse?

Their cage is next to the original TB’s cage but they have yet to venture outside of it.  Understandable mind you, as they’ve been caged their entire lives….but I’m hopefully they’ll be more comfortable by tomorrow.

And in other news, today I walked the moosies in our downtown (that’s next to the bay).  Moose Minor, otherwise know as the Moose With Zero Dignity, took one look at the marsh/bay and dove right in.  He spent gleeful minutes trying to bite the waves (with little success) and frolicked about while Moose Major, the Kingly Regal Moose, looked pitingly at him. 

Oh, and one more thing – my washing machine is debating about dying an agonizing death which really would frost my petunias…I just don’t need that opportunity for increased stress right about now.  Okay? 

And that was me Monday,

Barbara Ling