How did I get "into" THIS? Beats me...

Wow, I keep using this page as back reference as I discover stuff. Here is what I have come up with. The very best working example of affiliate programs, use of clickbank, etc, seems to be Affiliate Cash Secrets. The reason is it is all laid out for you and you just cut and paste and learn by "doing". I'm about to try it myself as it is so darn organized. When you click on the link you will note that it goes to the "squeeze page" or "lead capture page". That is the first step in online marketing. From there, your autoresponder captures the lead, and you get thrown over to a sales page. The sales page attempts to sell you this very system, but then if you dont buy anything, the autoresponder takes over and keeps providing offers to the "list" that was developed from step one. This is a remarkable way to learn how people are making money on the internet.

Affiliates are really dominating the whole Internet money makers more than I originally realized. They are doing it through selling products available via CLICKBANK and are using mail lists, to capture and keep members interested and mesmerized. Such a mail list isAWEBER,one of my affiliates. It does appear to be the cream of the crop in terms of mail lists and autoresponders. The next post will be about JV partners, how they work together in a money making circle, and utilize teleconferencing.

If you look in the sidebar you will see an example of a really hot product slick..an alternative to Dreamweaver or Frontpage for making web pages, geared towards commercial interests! It is called Xsitepro and is becoming a standard.

I haven't really gotten into anything heavy yet on this page, but I can tell you this, it is an immediate overview of the Adsense program and shows how money can be made immediately by placing small ads on your page. I was at a career day lecture in Natick, Ma. on 3/7/06 and not ONE of the teenagers had any Adsense or similar programs on any of their pages, in fact, there were only around a dozen or so kids out of the entire Junior class that had their own web pages at all, if that. I'm so used to young weather whiz-kids at 11 and 12 putting together these economic ventures that it didn't occur to me that most kids just throw in the towel, use MYSPACE blogs if anything, and let the advertising revenue go somewhere else, instead of making small amounts of money that could have paid for their monthly car payment. More on this later..

By the way, if you have discovered this page independently, also see my other sites:
toddgross.com
weatherman.com
and
capecodweather.org

Web pages, blogs, what is the difference? Not much.

Blogs, are "Weblogs", generally referring to random running thoughts that millions are now placing on their web pages. It is a bit hard on a typical web page to let your posts run one after another after another, so several companies, including Google have gone about offering blogging platforms. Google's is free, but is only one blog. This blog, is through Type-Pad (from Sixapart) and runs 14.95/month but allows multiple blogs and authors. Blogs can also be supported on your own computer, one very popular platform for that is called Moveable Type.

I blogged on my weatherman.com page about telescopes for years without realizing I was blogging. Then when I wanted to do a running daily weather forecast with a discussion, someone suggested I do it in blog format, and perhaps look into Google's Adsense or a similar program. However, you can place those ads on blogs or web-pages, again the whole difference is blurred. Other ways to make money on either blogs or web pages to cover your costs is to use Affiliate programs which I will discuss separately.

Generally speaking, both are based on HTML platforms, but web pages are usually produced by consumers by programs such as Dream Weaver, or Front Page, while blogs are not, and are geared towards constant updating, rather than static information.

I love the blogging platform I am on (Typepad) because of the changes I can make on the page via a separate computer away from my home office, so in case anything happens here, like an outage, I still know I can update from anywhere worldwide. One of the best pages I have seen on blogging is www.problogger.net.

It took me awhile to figure out the big deal about "Keywords". It turns out, if you are starting from scratch, and do NOT already have a website, you should check out the value of the various searchwords, or keywords used by people when searching for sites. Advertisers pay more, a LOT more for some search terms than others. For instance, an advertiser who puts an ad on a site talking about the weather may pay only 50c per click for an ad, while an advertiser who is selling medical supplies may spend $5.00 or $10.00 or more for an ad on a site targeted to their particular focus. Even this page, probably will get more "per click" on an ad, than my weather pages due to the topic based on Keyword research. (I'm not positive of this, but I'm learning)

The lesson being: If you have multiple interests and want to get into making a website or blogging, AND want to cover the costs as well as you can, or even make a little bit of money, then check out which topic will end up making more in the end. Of course, getting the traffic to your site is essential too, so if you are REALLY knowledgeable in one area, more than another, that should be your prime consideration. A tool that I have been playing with to determine Keyword value is Wordtracker.

HERE ARE SOME EXAMPLES OF KEYWORDS THAT PEOPLE WOULD TYPE IN A BROWSER THAT WOULD LEAD TO HIGH PAYING ADS (So you could design a site based on these words):

Refinancing
Debt Consolidation
Web Hosting
Online Trading
Forex
Search Engine Optimization
VOIP

Those are just 6 that would attract high paying ads. There are numerous free sites that provide you with an idea of what high paying "keywords" are such as keywordsense.com and some pay sites which update you each week on the latest high paying kewords such as adsenseadwords.com.

A standard in the industry to determine how many "searches" a particular phrase or keyword will get in a given month is Yahoo's Keyword Selection Tool. While it is for Yahoo! and not Google Search, it still gives you a general idea. It is perfectly free, try it!