The Niche Think Tank » Amazon Affiliates

How To Form An LLC and Get your Amazon Associates Account Reinstated

Larry C. — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 01:11:09 +0000

On June 29th I got the dreaded Amazon letter that told all California Associates they were canceled in the Amazon Associates Program. Many people were devastated and didn’t know what to do, some where scrambling to get a P.O. Box and try to get their accounts reinstated, but you can’t use a P.O. Boxes for some business needs such as getting a bank account.

Amazon Associates Cancellation Letter

I used a company called InCorp to get my LLC set up so I could get my Amazon Associates account reinstated.

This is how you can form an LLC and get your Amazon Associates account reinstated and this is how I did it. It’s super easy, it takes just 1-2 days to set up. The best part about it is the money you should have made while your account was non-active, you will see it as soon as you are reinstated. That’s a nice bonus.

The company I used is InCorp and the cost to start an LLC through them was only $360. It took only 2 business days to get my LLC started and by the beginning of the 4th business day I had my Amazon Associates account reinstated. The money I should have made while my account was inactive was in the account when it was reinstated.

Some other reasons to form an LLC are to protect yourself from debt and being sued:

Like a corporation, a limited liability company or an LLC, is a separate and distinct legal entity. This means that an LLC can obtain a tax identification number, open a bank account and do business, all under its own name. The primary advantage of an LLC is that its owners, known as members, are not personally liable for the debts and liabilities of the LLC. For example, if an LLC is forced into bankruptcy, the members will not be required to make up the difference with their own money. If the assets of the LLC are not enough to cover the debts and liabilities, the creditors cannot look to the members, managers or officers for recovery.

So what happens when you start an LLC using InCorp is this:

You get a Registered Agent, which is a business address and entity that is authorized to receive mail for your company, and they forward any mail to you at an address you specify. A registered agent is also recommended when starting an LLC for legal purposes and the state may require it depending on which state you are doing business in. I chose Nevada and wanted all mail to be forwarded to me.
The next thing is they prepare and file your Articles of Organizations to the state, pay the fee and you are good to go. This and the previous step took about 2 hours, all I did was wait for emails to come in with the attached documents.
The next thing you do is have them prepare and file for my EIN or Employer Identification Number, which if you are a sole proprietor you would normally use your Social Security Number. This also distinguishes you as a company doing business and is better in the long run for legal purposes, such as if someone were to sue you. This will also give you the ability to open a business banking account and it also opens up a lot of other doors for you such as corporate financing capabilities. Because I got started late on a Friday afternoon, this was completed Monday morning.
As soon as you have your LLC you are able to change the address in your Amazon Associates account. Once that is done send the associates help line an email and ask to have your account reinstated. Give then a couple days they are most likely bombarded with email right now.
The next thing they did was give me the contact info of a man who worked with Bank of America that works closely with them so I could open a Nevada bases bank account. Your business is in Nevada( or whatever state you live in) so you’ll need a bank account in that state. Just a simple basic one will do.
If you have a Godaddy or other registrar account with many hundreds of websites and domain names like I do, you can easily change the “Ownership” of the account and the domains by changing the account info and the domains contacts in the control panels of your Godaddy or other registrar account. I’m not a lawyer but this should help to put your sites under the LLC umbrella.

It took 2 days to have my Amazon Associates account reinstated because the email assistance is most likely overwhelmed right now. I was getting impatient and actually called them on the direct line and had the person look up my account. She stated that it looked like someone was just in there and reactivated my account just 5 minutes before I called her.

When I got off the phone I looked and to my pleasant surprise, there was money in there that I would have normally made had this not happen. I say Kudos to Amazon for keeping track of those purchases and giving me the commission for the money I made for them.

It’s a very simple process and you can do this all in one afternoon. The staff at InCorp is very helpful and knowledgeable and quelled any fears or concerns I had. I also used the expedited service to have the office prep all my stuff and send it through the system and get it all back in just a few hours of giving my credit card.

Once you have an account with InCorp you’ll have a dashboard with a few important tools, such as a calendar which is automatically populated with important dates, such as filing annual reports (or you can order their service that does it for you), contact info with direct contact to your manager, a virtual documents folder and many other items that will be of help to the newly established LLC in the state you do business in.

InCorp LLC Management Dashboard

InCorp was very helpful, especially when I forgot to ask questions and called them back several times for just one or two questions. It was so painless and easy to form the LLC I couldn’t believe it. Many people will probably not even try because it may sound big and scary, but it’s super easy. With InCorp, they are like having a Virtual Assistant to take care of forming your LLC.

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The Real Life Struggles Of An Online Entrepreneur

Larry C. — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 18:35:36 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, and there are several reasons why, which I will go into. Let me first explain a little about this post and the reason for posting it.

I’ve been blogging on here for a while now relating my successes and struggles. I also read many other blogs on success, making money online, personal improvement and the location independent lifestyle. One thing I have noticed about most, if not all, is the lack of struggles that happen. I don’t read much about the struggles and hardships they go through and many write about how everything seems peachy and rosy.

I’m not here to bitch and complain, but I think people should see or hear what some of us go through, because it isn’t all peaches and cream in the life of a successful blogger/online entrepreneur. There have been things that have happened that make me question why I am doing this, why I continue to try to make it big like others, and do I want to press the Publish button when I am done writing this post.

Everyone talks about being authentic or being transparent but I never hear about the bad shit. Show me you’re a real person and tell me what’s really going on in your life once in a while. I want to know you are for real.

I have this blog and things have been a little rough the past few months, and I need to write about it.

Business Stuff

Back in December things were really looking good, I mean really good! Income was going through the roof thanks to Christmas, the niche sites were really working well and I felt like I had finally made it to the big time.

Then Google hit with the Panda Update.

Some of my main money makers took a hit, a huge hit. My Adsense income went from $20-$30 a day to $2-$8 a day and my Amazon Associate sales feel quite a bit too because of the lowered traffic my sites had. You can read This Thread at the Google Webmasters Forum and see all the others who have been hit. People who have good sites with original content, yet are losing traffic and income because of the Panda Update, all in one fell swoop.

On June 16th Google pushed out Panda 2.2 and many people, including myself, have seen some recovery from the initial Panda update. This is the latest and just one of several updates done to Panda since it’s release back on February 24th.

My Adsense income has gone back up to $20-$30+ a day again and it’s been a much needed change and recovery. But it’s guarded. What I mean is that I can’t and won’t put much trust in Google again. Well let me say this that I never really trusted Google to begin with anyway. Having a monopoly on search engine traffic and customizing peoples search results isn’t being quite honest in my opinion. This is why I diversified my online income, so my eggs weren’t all in one basket, but it was a good part of my arsenal. I am further diversifying my arsenal for the next time something like this happens. And it will happen, trust me.

Family Stuff

One thing that has had me way distracted and very angry was the lead test that came back positive for my daughter Sarah. The landlord had done some renovations which weren’t conducted properly, nor was the clean up done properly, and my daughter was exposed to lead dust.

This house was built in 1927 and it is covered in lead paint. Most of the time, if the paint isn’t disturbed things are ok, but the lead laws in San Diego make it mandatory that a lead certified construction company do the lead abatement whenever there are renovations going on. This was not done.

Consequently my daughter tested positive for lead and when I asked the landlord to pay for testing to find the source, he refused. Further investigation lead me to the Lead Safe Neighborhood Program of San Diego. After telling them my story they opened a case on this house, came and tested the painted surfaces, took dust samples and cited the owner. The owner had 45 days to comply or be hit with heavy fines for violating health and safety codes.

New renovations have been done by a Lead Certified company and removed even more lead paint from this house in the safety of containment containers. However the owner and the rental agency have made us feel as if we were the bad guys for calling the city on them. It still really bothers me they did this, actually it makes me so damn angry, it’s not even funny. We still have yet to get an apology from the owner.

We’ve been looking for a new place to live and we don’t need their attitude. I am also sure after the “No Retaliation” period of 6 months is over, they will give us the boot. Either way, moving sucks but we need a place to live that is attitude and lead paint free.

In doing my homework I found what removes lead from the body: vegetables high in Iron like greens and Apple juice to name a few. Three months after the initial lead test we had her tested again and the lead has been eradicated from her body. Thankfully she didn’t have to go through chelation therapy. We are relieved and happy to have this lead removed from her tiny body, yet we still have to take her to get evaluations for her growth and learning progress to see if there are any long lasting effects from the lead poisoning.

It’s been almost 6 months since her initial lead test came back positive, the lead is gone but we are still dealing with the after effects of this situation. Doctor and therapist appointments, feelings of anger and helplessness, and wondering if her IQ has been affected or not. It’s not something a parent wants to hear has happened to their child knowing it could have been prevented.

Amazon Associates Program Gets the Ax in California

Here’s a screen shot of the letter I received from Amazon:

Amazon Associates Cancellation Letter

I had waited a week before hitting the publish button just to make sure I really wanted to publish this post. I guess there was another reason I waited and now I know why. Another blow has hit online entrepreneurs who reside in California. This blow comes in the form of the cancellation of the Amazon Associates program in California. This is because Amazon and other companies like OverStock.com are taking a stand on what they feel is unconstitutional and counter-productive.

Many, many people in California, and other states(California isn’t the only state who did this) who’ve been axed, depended on the income that Amazon Associated Program gave them. Many people have been ruined and some have probably lost their homes and livelihoods or worse. I counted on the income from Amazon too, but it wasn’t my sole source of income, as I said previously I diversified my income and it was only a part of my income. While it is making things interesting, it is not the devastating blow many people have felt.

Amazon isn’t the only affiliate program that has given Californians the boot. I’ve been kicked out of no less than 5 other affiliate programs due to the new law. Mainly companies who have no physical presence in California. I’ve had to search for comparable affiliate programs, but the biggest blow for me, is that many of my niche sites are dependent on Amazon for the products in the niche. Amazon has a HUGE, no, THE HUGEST inventory of just about anything you can think of. I looked at Barnes & Noble and Borders, and neither of those giants have the selection of the books or products I need to make money with my niche sites.

So what am I doing?

Some of my sites are being sold on Flippa, such as this site: Kindle Covers and Cases which brought in $1,649.10 in December of 2010 and it continues to bring in sales each month. I could get an LLC in another state to continue to work with Amazon, but I don’t really want to go through the hassle of getting an LLC in another state to continue to operate with Amazon Associates. At least not yet. I am hoping the tax law will be over turned and we will get our associates program back. For now I am selling it on Flippa, as well as some of my other sites.

Another thing I am doing…

Another thing I have been doing is focusing on niche sites that I have an active interest in and selling eBooks, such as my Boudoir Photography Poses website. This site, on average right now, has an average of 46 daily visitors, and it sells between $25-$50 worth affiliate sales in eBooks each day on the subject of Boudoir photography Tips.I started this site after the Google panda update hit the first time, in an effort to supplement the lose of the Adsense income I had. This along with the recovery of my Adsense income has helped to offset the lose of the Amazon Affiliates Program.

Dealing with stress and remembering what’s important…

In May of this year we had a family wedding to attend in Ohio. We stayed at my sister-in-laws in Kentucky which is right across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, Ohio. I decided that I wasn’t going to do ANY work at all. I had at first thought I would do some posts and get caught up on this blog, but decided not to. I did however have to review and approve personal profiles for the dating sites I run. This is about 10 minutes per day just before bed and that was all I did.

Taking time for the family…The Attitude of Gratitude

First, I spent lot’s of time with my girls: my wife and my two daughters.

My daughter and I on a quiet Kentucky dirt road

The next thing I did was not worry about business, knowing that whatever is supposed to happen, is going to happen no matter what I do. I just tried to do the next indicated step. Knowing that no matter what happens, everything will be OK. I’m an entrepreneur and entrepreneurs are survivors. I’m a survivor. If one thing fails I go to another thing or way of making money.

The next thing I did was spend some time with my parents who came down just to baby site and see the girls. That was nice. My dad hadn’t met the younger one, Hannah, and my mom hadn’t seen her since she was born. We went to the zoo with my parents and the kids and spent the day feeding the goats in the childrens zoo, riding the miniature train(Sarah loves trains) and just enjoying the free time of not having to work.

Worrying about what’s going to happen, does nothing but make you sick and paralyzed. There’s nothing that worrying has ever solved for me, so I just went with the flow. I just turned 47 last month and I’m not getting any younger so spending time with my daughters is paramount in my daily life. Who knows what the future holds for us, but I remember an old saying, ” Yesterday is gone, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift.”

Another saying is “If you have one foot in the past, and one foot in the future, you’re pissing on the present”.

Things do happen in the lives of successful people and their not always pleasant. Staying grounded and keeping what’s really important close to your heart, will help you get through anything. My grandfather used to say ” If you have a shovel you can always dig ditches”. My head is the shovel, life is the ditch. I dig life, it’s an adventure worth living.

So what Amazon is gone for me now, maybe it will come back, maybe it won’t. I’ll do other things that help to support the family and my lifestyle of working at home, close to the family. So what Google made my traffic almost nil for some sites and my income go down a bit, I’ll just do something else like sell eBooks and do photography. So what all this is happening around me, what really matters is what’s important and close to my heart, my family. That is what’s truly important.

Without the bad we wouldn’t be able to gauge the good or know true happiness.

This post goes out to my mentor and teacher Yaro Starak. My thoughts are with you and your Mum.

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Income Report for September 2010

Larry C. — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 06:35:19 +0000

Hey folks, sorry for the total and complete lag on my monthly income reports, lot’s of things been happening. So this is September 2010′s income report, 5 months late, but I guess better late then never. So the past few months I’ve been perfecting a system of how I build niche sites, how I place content on them, and how I get them ranking with back linking strategies and such. I’ve been working hard at this as I am putting together a membership course for niche site’s and niche marketing. I’ve been using ReviewAzon for getting some content up really quickly and highly suggest it. See my review HERE.

I’m sure there’s a few people out there who have a little extra time and would like to know how to do these little niche sites that build recurring monthly passive income. How’s about an extra $1000-$2000 a month sound to you? I’m sure for some of you it might make all the difference in the world to have a little more income than you have now. Especially in this economy, right? I know every cent counts for me, seeing as how this economy had tore my day time business apart. Which is why I turned to the internet to supplant that income.

This months(September) Amazon was way down, and in my August report it had come up from the previous month, but then went down again. This is all catch up from the past months of figuring out how I was going to make the Amazon Associates thing work for me, as it had started to actually make some income, and got me thinking. You’ll see from this month out, the Amazon income will be going up, and way up in December, but that’s another report.

So even though my Amazon was down many other things were up and going up steadily as I somewhat predicted a few income reports ago.You’ll see somethings fluctuating from this report forward but you should also see things going up. Way up.

So enough of my yakking, I’m getting ready to do a podcast with a special guest which will be released next week, so stay tuned. I’ll be catching up over the next two weeks on my income reports so stay tuned for those as well.

Thanks for stopping by.

September 2010

Amazon – 36.17

Dating Sites – 676.33

eBook Sales(Mine) – 29.94

Affiliate Sales – 223.48

Clickbank Sales – 49.21

Text Link Ads – 39.19

Google – 459.48

Side Jobs (Hosting, WordPress Installs) – 1067.00

Total September $2580.80

Last month (August) $2168.72

Increase of $412.08

September 2010 Income Report

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Amazon Trademark Infringement, Ooopsss…

Larry C. — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 04:24:25 +0000

It’s been a little over 2 months since I posted last, in fact December 6th was the last post. I had been busy making sites and getting them indexed for the rush of Christmas traffic, and just got caught up in the whirl wind of excitement. LOTS of things happenin’g and happened since then, one of which I am not too happy about, Trademark Infringement.

Yep, that’s right, I infringed on someone’s trademark, Amazon.Com. Ooopsss…

Basically it’s been a while since I had read the Amazon OA(Operating Agreement), and didn’t realize that I built a website that would eventually have them contacting me about. Thou Shalt Not use any of Amazon’s trademarked names(Amazon, Kindle,Etc.) in a domain name/URL. Two that I had and were running were www.kindlecoversandcases.com and www.thekindleboard.com.

Kindle covers and cases was a niche site that made a good deal of money over the course of the past year with December being a really great month. Then I sorta sandboxed myself a little with over zealous back linking. But that’s for another post, which I will tell the whole story and how I got out of the Google sandbox. The other site, thekindleboard.com was a forum for discussion of Kindles, eBooks and eBook authors, as well as other eBook readers.

I received an email, founding it in my spam folder, and read it:

We recently contacted you about our concerns with your domain names, and we have not received a response. Please know that we value your participation in Amazon’s Associates program. By requesting that you use alternate domain names, we are attempting to make sure that there is always a clear distinction between the official “Amazon” site and other third party sites. Your current use of the (insert domain name), (insert domain name) and (insert domain name) domains is a violation of the Associates Program Operating Agreement. The registration of these domain names also violates Amazon.com’s trademark, proprietary and other rights. Please review the Associates Program Operating Agreement for more details.

Please choose new domain names and transfer your content to those names. Amazon will purchase your domains (insert domain name), (insert domain name) and (insert domain name) for the initial registration prices, provided that you agree to not register any domains containing Amazon brands, or a misspelling of those brands, in the future.

If we do not hear from you regarding the above within two weeks from the date of this email, we will have no alternative but to close your Associates account and withhold payment of all advertising fees in accordance with the Agreement.

So does this David fight the Goliath Amazon and take a chance on losing all my earnings for the past 3 months? Hell no! Are you kidding? Would you throw away $4000 in affiliate sales? Yeah, I didn’t think so. I actually had 9 domain names in total with the word “Kindle” in it, but only using 4 of them. Rather than give Amazon only the 3 they listed, and still use the other 6 domain names and take a chance on losing my Associate income and my Associate account, I decided to hand over all 9 domains. They promptly paid me $10 each for a total of $90.

Another interesting thing with Amazon is they don’t want you using other peoples trademarked names either. So names like Revlon, such as in a domain name RevlonMascaraReviews.com would be a no-no. I know many people who DO use trademarked names in their URLs, and don’t get caught, but is it really worth losing your income, house or other because of it? Not in my book.

So what am I going to do with the traffic from those sites? or what am I going to do with the brand I had built up? I could just let it go or I could get another domain name and do a permanent redirect to the new site. So what did I do with those sites I built up? I moved them each to a new domain: eBook Covers and Cases and eReader Forum.

I’m happy that Amazon.com was cordial enough to work with me and just take the domains off my hands and not my income I had acquired. Lesson learned.

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Making Money on Christmas with Affiliate Sales Through Amazon

Larry C. — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 19:59:26 +0000

I haven’t posted in 2 weeks, and I apologize, I’ve been busy making sites and making money through Amazon affiliate sales. Ever since I posted about Niche Profit Course and ReviewAzon, I’ve been very busy building new sites, article marketing, posting reviews, and making LOTS of money. Well, lot’s of money to me, considering what I was making before.

I started using ReviewAzon, and streamlined my WordPress Installations(I’ll talk about this in another post), I’ve been able to build and post to about 2-3 new sites per week. This means I upload my WordPress files and theme files to the web server, configure it, and then start posting to the site for content, and completing a site in just under 1.5 days each.

It takes about 3 days to 7 days to get a site indexed in Google for me, which some people may say that’s impossible, but it’s not. If you start with a new site, and go social bookmark it in StumbleUpon, Digg, Mixx, FriendFeed and a few others, then do some comment marketing, you’re site will get indexed in less than a week and I’ve seen as fast as one hour. Really!

The ReviewAzon plugin has really made posting product posts and reviews so much easier and faster, that it only takes me about 1/4 of the time to do 4 posts in the time it took to do 1 post manually. I still like to customize my posts to a degree with ReviewAzon, but it’s still so much faster than before. Before I would hand post or code my reviews, and then add images manually that I edited and then make a cool looking post image for the front page. Sometimes that in itself took almost an hour at times. Depending ont he product.

With ReviewAzon, it’s already configured to make a pretty post. I make a custom image for the front page every other post or so now, instead of every one. Partly because I am trying to get content up to be indexed in Google, but also so I can hit as many keywords as possible in a short amount of time. Remember, these are new sites so they need a bit of content before being hit my the search engines. More keywords mean more chances of someone needing what I have. Chris Guthrie has also been a great help with a few questions I’ve had about his course.

The next few days I will post more about my past income reports which I am backlogged on, but I will tell you about what’s happening this month, and last month since Black Friday. So far this month I’ve been making a steady average of 51$ a day with my Amazon affiliate sales, which if, in the long run will be about $1,550 per month. That’s if the sales don’t go up, or down and if I don’t build anymore sites.

This week I have had several sites start to get traffic, and growing, as they were indexed by Google over the weekend, and are now getting traffic daily and making sales. I also have to say that there are many items that still haven’t shipped yet that were ordered through Amazon, so there is going to be commission coming in from that stuff too, on top of the sales made daily. I expect the average daily sale will go up soon, and that figure of $51 will go up along with it.

Ever since Black Friday, this is the way it’s been, sales, sales and more sales. many people don’t want to venture out into the crowd and get frustrated. Many people also know they can find whatever they want on Amazon, and will avoid the crowds this way. No need to get trampled at your local Walmart, just shop on line and avoid the crowds, confusion and frustration.

I know that after Christmas, sales will drop off a bit, but I also know that with all the traffic from successful searches to my sites will help keep my sites high in the index in Google. I also know I will have returning customers. I still make sales from other affiliate programs, and those have grown as well. This month will be a great month, and I expect by the end of the month I will have a small army of Amazon Affiliate sites to draw from.

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Choose Your Topic Wisely When Doing A Niche Affiliate Site

Larry C. — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 14:58:09 +0000

I was researching a topic last week for a few new niches and stumbled upon something that’s quickly becoming the next cool thing to have, an Android Smart Phone. With Googles new Droid, HTC’s Droid and Motorola’s Droid, there’s going to be a bunch of new cases and skins for the new smartphone craze.

I did my research, looked for a good domain and was amazed there weren’t more domains snatched up. I decided to get a couple different domains, ranging from $9-$12 at Godaddy.Com, and started building the sites. Things are going great, one site is already on the first page of Google within 2 days! Awesome!

The site looks great, cool Android type font, color is great, it’s going to be a great money maker. So I start to add products and after adding several from Amazon.Com I realize the price is so low, I’m not going to make anything. Well, at least not like I want.

A typical Android Phone Case or Cover is anywhere fro .02¢ to $20.00, with the majority being under $10.00. Wow, what a waste, sorta. I spent all this money on domains, then the time to build the sites, and then I realize the price of each item at Amazon.Com is so small, I’m going to be working hard to drive traffic to make any kind of money at all, if any.

The one saving grace is if there’s a lot of traffic it will drive my product count up, which will in turn drive the percentage I make from Amazon.Com up too. At Amazon.Com you make 4% to start. Then sell a certain number of items, and the percent goes up to 6% and then up to 6.5% and on up to 8.5% I believe. So if you have a site that sells larger, more expensive items that people are on the hunt for, like cameras, Kindles or Baby Car Seats, then you will make a nice chunk. At .02¢ a pop for an Android Case, I won’t be making squat, I mean what’s 6% of .02¢? Get my point? I will probably do a minimal of build up on these sites and then just get rid of them at Flippa.

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Niche Market Blogging or Streetfighting for Bloggers – Part 1

Larry C. — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 01:03:35 +0000

I’ve come up with a little philosophy about internet marketing, niche marketing, finding a good niche and making money online. I am sure I’m not the only person to take this approach, but it all stems from Bruce Lee’s philosophy of Jeet Kune Do. Take what works, discard what doesn’t.

With this philosophy in mind, take what works, discard what doesn’t, I formulated my own “Style” or philosophy of Blogging and Marketing. Comprised of things that work and get the job done the way that works for me, in the most efficient way possible. I call it Street Fighting for Bloggers. As I am sure you know, Street Fighting is Quick, Down and Dirty. Street Fighting for Bloggers is also Quick, Down and Dirty. It is the most efficient, fastest, easiest way to monetize a blog and start pulling income in within the first month of blogging or putting up a site, that I have found to date.

This philosophy I came up with for my own style of Niche Marketing Kung Fu, came from a need of money. I have my own company in which I do I.T. Consulting, and manage small and medium sized businesses. While I watched as my list of clientele slowly started to drop like flies, or were unable to pay me for services already rendered, I also saw my income take a scary downturn. I started seeing a bleak future for my company and my family if I didn’t start to supplement my income somehow.

I started out over a year ago selling old computers parts on eBay, for extra cash, there’s a surprising number of people who buy old computer parts on eBay and build computers with them. I supplemented my Christmas spending money with that one year. Then the economy started to take that downturn and people weren’t buying things like they used to. Instead of buying things they wanted, they ONLY bought things they Needed.

Need before want, was the message of the day and the stuff I had to sell wasn’t selling anymore. No money for luxuries, only for necessities. I had to figure something out and quick, my annual income was quickly going from 70+K a year down to under 30K, in under one year.

I started looking around and while I had a semi lucrative Dating Service I ran for people with a certain medical issue, and thought I knew about making money online, I started to see things that opened my eyes to things I hadn’t thought about before. I came across sites like Problogger, Entreprenuers-Journey with Yaro Starak and Copyblogger. I started to see that I really didn’t know all there was to know about Niche Marketing or even just making some money online.

I started reading Problogger, Copyblogger, and Yaro Staraks Blog. I also bought Darren Rowse’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, joined Yaro Staraks Blog Mastermind and joined Niche Profit Classroom and started my education of Online and Niche Marketing.

Blogging was cool and looked like it could make a nice lucrative, even “full time” income, Eventually, but that wasn’t fast enough. I needed money to support my family and quicker than the minimum year it sometimes took for a blog to start generating income. Niche Profit Classroom, was interesting, I learned about Niche Marketing and small niches, but the way they taught about websites, to me looked spammy, and in the 3-6 months I tried their method, I made exactly $0.00.

I did buy a product I really believe in and that’s Alexis Dawes “Give me Desperate Buyers Only”. With that I was able to make my first Niche Site that actually started making money, 14 days after putting the website up. I’ll talk about that in a few minutes.

All of the things I learned about seemed logical, and feasible to make an income, but it just wasn’t fast enough, I needed to be making money asap. This is when I started to do my own experimenting in blogging and niche market design. I had listened to Podcasts on Yaro Staraks blog, and with the info I gleaned from “Give me Desperate Buyers Only“, I created a site to help people get off a certain painkiller. Being someone with experience in this area, I felt I knew enough of how to successfully get off of this painkiller to write an info product that would sell.

It sold, and sold and still sells today. People are Desperate to get off of painkillers, especially those addicted to them for a long period of time. Why did this sell? Because it’s something that people are Desperate for. Something that they Need, as well as want, but the Need is much stronger. So they buy it, several times a month, and the money goes straight into my Paypal account.

After my initiate success with that first website, I tried doing sites in a manner taught to me by one of the programs I joined, to no avail. After 3-6 months of sites that weren’t making money with that style of site they promoted, I decided to make my own layout based on premium WordPress themes I had.

Street Fighting for Bloggers, is a combination/blend of Amazon Affiliate marketing, Banner Ad Marketing, and Google Adsense, all combined with good content, the basis of all good blogs and websites. With this formula you have almost instant income, which will only grow over time, as you keep adding content to the site it draws more and more traffic. As we all know: Traffic=Money.

My first month of using this formula I pulled in:

Amazon: $51

Adsense: $104

2nd Month:

Amazon: $97

Adsense: $95

3rd Month:

Amazon: $60

Adsense: $60

4th Month:

Amazon: $139

Adsense: $89

The Google Dance

The third month I had a little setback, and I’ll tell you what that setback was in a moment, but just remember this income is from just 3 websites.

On the third month, Google started doing what I call the Google Dance. Once you are indexed by Google, you will enjoy a nice period of being at the top on Page One many times, some people refer to this as the Google Honey Moon Period.

Google will index new sites and give them a good SERP ranking, being high in the first page usually, sometimes even #1. After a few weeks or a month or two, you will disappear, almost completely. Although you will still be indexed, your site won’t pop up for any search whatsoever, at least not in the first 10,20 or hundred SERPs. People get a little nervous when this happens, thinking they may have been penalized for something they didn’t do. Not to worry.

If you have done your homework and picked a good niche, ranked your keywords and use good content, you will return to the high ranks in no time at all. For me it took one site almost a whole month before this happened, on another site it was back up within 2 weeks.

Once you are back on top you will start to see the clicks and book sales start to happen again and start to increase with each month, as long as you have a good niche, and are using good content and picked your keywords wisely.

In part 2 I will be going over how I pick good niches that will bring in income almost immediately.

Part 3 will be about Constructing a Niche Site like I use to bring in monthly Passive/Residual/Affiliate Income.

Part 4 will be about content creation or re-purposing content for adding good content to your niche site.

Part 5 will be about what to do after you get bored with the site,even though it’s making money, or Blog Flipping.

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What we can learn from Bruce Lee about Blogging

Larry C. — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:10:58 +0000

Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee, started a martial arts philosophy called Jeet Kune Do, The Way of the Intercepting Fist. Rather than a system or “Style” of fighting it was more philosophy than physical art. The premise is “keep what works, discaed the useless”. Having drawn from many styles of arts in his life, but the core being from the style called Wing Chun, his own growth in martial arts was very eclectic, taking what worked for him, and leaving what didn’t. In many ways, we as bloggers and niche marketers need to do the same thing for ourselves.

I for one have been through several “Schools of Blogging” and several “Schools of Marketing”, and have found that from each there were things that worked for me, and things that didn’t. The Darren Rowse School of Blogging, 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, was short and sweet, very to the point and inexpensive. Yaro Staraks, BlogMastermind, was 6 months long, and was a bit more from the wallet than Darren Rowses course, but worth every penny, as was Darrens.

From both schools of thought I took away many things that would work for me, and some things that didn’t work for me I just left alone. I then studied several schools of marketing in the Internet marketing world, one was the Micro Niche Adsense Masters Course, by John X-Factor, and the other was from CopyBlogger run by Brian Clark, learning writing techniques and traffic pulling concepts. Again both have their merits, both are good and both have things that didn’t work for me.

I also drew from several other courses, The Lazy Super Affiliate, Niche Profit Classroom and Alexis Dawes Give me Desperate Buyers Only, all of which had excellent points and things I took away with me and the rest I just left. Why carry it around if I’m not going to use it? Right?

With these philosophies I formed my own style of blogging and marketing, some are based on what I have learned from the “Masters“, and some I have developed myself. With these in mind, I would like all other bloggers reading this, especially Early Stage Bloggers, to realize that you don’t have to do everything perfectly by the book, or how the teacher explains, you should develop and find your own way of thinking and growing in the blogosphere.

There is no absolute right or wrong, sure there are right and wrong ways of doing somethings but there are no absolutes. So don’t feel as though you are doing one thing wrong if you do it differently than you were taught, but it works the way you do it.

Just remember, the Masters or A-List Bloggers started exactly in the same spot we all are or have, with only one reader, ourselves.

Available at Amazon: Tao of Jeet Kune Do

Stay Tuned for My Next Article: Streetfighting for Bloggers.

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March Income Report – A Watched Pot Never Boils

Larry C. — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 05:02:24 +0000

I’ve finally had a better month at making some good online income, and have spent less time on the computer doing it too. I’ve made some huge leaps and bounds and while my income has only gone up about 100$ since my last income report, I’ve also spent less time doing it. WAY LESS.

First off, I’ll be giving another review of Niche Profit Classroom, as I have used it for over six months now, and not earned a single dime from it. At least not the way they teach it. But I will review that in another post. I recommend it for people needing or wanting to learn about selling ebooks or other info products, but the way they teach it and the products they sell with the program are… crap. But again that’s for another post.

So I’ve been very busy and away from the computer and this blog for WAY TOO LONG, and I need to post to this blog more frequently. So my total for this month right off the top of my head is $1,356.91. My last report was 1,294.78. The difference as I said before is I spent way less time on the computer and online doing it this month than ever.

I listen to blog talk radio sometimes and ran across this program: Adsense Masters Course, which I liked what I was hearing. I make some good money from Google AdSense but what this guy was talking is so simple and I am wondering why I didn’t think about doing this months ago, because I KNOW that Google AdSense does work.

Basically you make a site which a keyword phrase and pull traffic to the site and people click on the AdSense. It’s all White hat, no black hat crap. Otherwise I wouldn’t do it and risk losing my AdSense account. I’ve also implemented my own little twist to it too: Amazon Affiliate Sales. I will be putting out my own PDF document Product on how I do this now because I have had a steady growing stream of revenue from both the Adsense and Amazon stuff, that I feel I have finally figured it out and found the magic ingredients.

I’ve also re-discovered the real secret behind marketing and sales online: TRAFFIC. If you have no traffic, you have no one to sell to. I’ve also figured out that for me, I need to blog and work on sites that I have an interest in what I am writing or selling. For instance, my site www.rockabillylifestyle.com, or my photography Website on Hollywood Glamour Photography: Darkmans Darkroom. Oh and you should have seen the jump in traffic when I blogged about Michelle Bombshell McGee, Jesse James Mistress( I almost Photographed her once). That was a hot topic. So was the death of Peter Gowland, The Pinup Legend.

Traffic is a big part of those sites and there is a lot of interest in those topics. So I will be putting together an eBook for my own product here shortly and will be giving it away for a week and then I will be charging for it once I get some feedback.

Ok so here is the lesson with small streams of income and traffic kids, please do try this at home.

I have this money tree, it was given to me by a close friend who couldn’t take care of it any longer and it was not doing to good. I put it in a larger pot, and fresh dirt, with some fertilizer and it took off. I’ve had it about 3-4 years. I recently started trimming it just before spring of the past two years. I do this to keep it groomed and to train it to grow the way I want it to grow. I also have this idea that if I nurture this little tree, it will bring me luck and money.

So each spring I trim it and feed it and watch the new leaves sprout, but you never really see it grow by watching it. Just as you don’t see a pot of water boil if you stand there and watch it, or it takes just too damn long. So this year I took some pictures to illustrate how little streams and online marketing will frustrate the hell out of you if you start there and watch it try to grow. It will just be very frustrating, which I found out.

Each day I would look at it, and see no real change, but between photographs, which were taken only days apart from each other over a period of 2-3 weeks, you can see the difference. Little streams start to gather momentum, and then join with other little streams to start forming a larger stream of income and then the next thing you know you have a nice chunk of change coming in. See the pictures below.

The Money Tree

Little Buds Starting

Little BudsTurn into Leaves

Little Leaves Grow into Bigger Leaves

Over time things mature and really take form

The pictures were taken over a period of a couple of weeks(2), and this is how I have experienced the growth of my online presence and income slowly growing and gathering momentum. If you sit there and try to watch each click, visitor or payment that comes to your site instead of focusing on Good Content, Driving traffic and being patient, you will NEVER see any light at the end of the tunnel.

Still with something for at least 6 months to 1 year before giving up on it.

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