Should I delete a Lens? How can I help a Failing web page....

Never, ever delete a lens and this is why...


So now you want to know how to help your failing web Page.

I cannot take credit for this, I learned how to work out how to SEO optimise my pages, from a great on line friend @Thrivingmom on squidoo and I love to share her fantastic tips of how to check HOW does Google See your Page?
and then we can start to work out why our lens is failing and how we can fix it.

Keyword Research
Good Quality original content
Backlinks

all contribute towards a great page.

but if your lens is failing then we need to know how to fix it

I am going to send you over to Thriving moms post,
STEP 1: why is my lens failing because it is so easy you will want to go straight away and check all your pages!


and have a great look around as you will also find Thrivingmom shares her tips freely and great advice especially the post about STEP 2: Using your Keywords throughout your post, and how to do it easily!

Use the Step 1, Step 2 process on a failing lens/ web/ blog / post
your keywords more focused= your page being more focused.

Good SEO does not need to be complicated.

You can see more of thrivingmoms work on squidoo

Wow Traffic, how to get lots of visitors to your pages....

My Top Tips to get more Visitors to your Webpages - There are no secrets here.

Sorry I have not posted in a while however I have not been very well, glad to say on the mend, just taking it slowly.
I wanted to share with you some exciting news, My Squidoo Account broke 10,000 in November 2011  Visitors
Someone said something about it being thanks to Halloween lenses,

(March 2012 23,000 smashed one of my New Year Goals so will need to set another one!)

Just a side note: I have NOT made any Halloween niche specific lenses this year, these are all last years Halloween lenses. That have matured with age. and a little bit of tweaking.

Even though I have been away for some time from the computer, that does not mean that the hard work that you do when you start working online in the beginning, does not pay out in the end.

YES hard Work! good old fashioned work.
People are always wanting to know the inside secrets. How are you doing it?  they must know something I don't?
Well I can tell you there really are none. Focus on 1 project at a time  Work, are you honestly "working" are you doing every step you have been told to do?
Religiously, everyday are you "working" or are you kidding yourself on, and moaning when payday doesn't happen.

Are you focused, or do you go off on a tangent, and spread yourself to thin that your pages all crumble, as you have not spent the time or effort required for every page to survive online. 
My biggest hurdle to overcome, was getting "niche" on my subjects, and creating a niche that I owned. basically focusing on a certain subject and building good pages.

I help a lot of people online, they ask me for help, later I will pass them and ask how its going, "its not working" so I feel bad, I go and check out their pages, and instantly, see that they have not done ALL the steps I told them they need to do.
My biggest thing is to keep adding value to your pages, nurture and tend to those pages, like this blog post, I first wrote it when I had 10,000 visitors to my pages, then 15,000, then 20,000 see what I mean fresh updated content google loves it,

 How committed are you to making it work, do you think you should write a page and then move on to the next one?  What is holding up your structure, spread thinly it Will collapse, building building and securing your pages future is what works.

So If it is not working, work out what You are not doing to make it work.

That's what really does annoy me. People saying this does not work, yes it does, but what are you doing to make it work.

 Do you complain you are not making anything when you have been told give it time, nurture those lenses/pages

giving it time? how long is "Give it Time?" Well guys for me it took around just under a year to break that 10,000 visitors mark.
Yep you heard me, but all that hard work paid off as I told you I was very unwell and my pages were "working for me" giving me the best payout yet, ever.

A recent life event meant I had to take 2 months off  and I still made increase in earnings proving Squidoo and other online platforms can provide a passive income.

General Advice to getting more visitors to your pages -
Write about what you know  Write and publish even more. Create even more pages than you have already. Nurture and cherish and care for those pages, let Google see you care about them and so should they! Google is smart real smart, they are like big brother they  are watching you! Add in your own perspective.

Top tip 1: Learn SEO, inside outside upside down, type into google SEO and just work your way through it to be honest Google webmaster Central taught me everything I wanted and ever need to know! Get a google account!  they are the masters learn from them.

Top Tip 2: Be careful who you follow/take advice from/listen to online.
 Are they cleaner than a whistle, do they give good information, or do they suggest you do things that are unethical?  Take Shortcuts.....are you a sheep and follow the crowd, or are you your own person.....see this post about Who really is in charge of Your Online Business.

Yes using these techniques may give you an initial boost, but fly very close or does in fact break sites Terms of Service? And getting kicked off, all your hard work down the drain.
 but in the same turn if someone tells you hey you should be doing this, and you DO NOT do it, then you complain saying it did not work.

Top Tip 3: recognise who is working hard, follow THEM! Who is walking the talk...there is a lot of smoke and mirrors online, look for the hardworking producing results, follow them, be supportive of them and always encourage others, I have built up a fantastic network of online working friends!
 If someone is to say, hey try this Shortcut, its a bit dodgy might get your account locked but it brings in good visitors, hey you might even be infringing every law under the sun, but you can get some visitors!

Would you really?

I love my Digg pals, I read, follow and Digg their stuff and they Digg my stuff! I facebook like just about every lens I come across that I like, I google+1
...Ask yourself do you shamelessly self promote or do you promote and encourage others?

Google is counting "interest" in your page in their calculations! If others are talking about your page, then Google will be impressed and send lots more people to it too.
Social networking is going to be the way forward in ranking - watch this space. 

We may be in competition with each other, but the information I have learned from joining Places where lensmasters hang out has been priceless. But more importantly the connections I have made are invaluable

Top Tip 4: Stay away from anything that smells too good to be true! It always is.

Top  Tip 5: Make a daily plan! Make yourself accountable, stick to it and execute it, until I do this (and sometimes I forget to too!) I wander aimlessly around.

I now switch the computer off at dinner time, and after eating together,  will sit down with my husband, talking about his work day....boring but I have to give him time too..lol, and then I get to talk about my day, what have I done, making myself accountable.
My husband has a very renewed interest in my online work,  since we worked out over the last year, I average 20% increase in "wages" a month.  And notifications daily on my squidoo points stream.

We then discuss what I could put on my to-do-list for the next day - This works, working at home is difficult enough, the phone goes, people pop in for coffee, people think you skive on the computer and Facebook all day, trying to get them to take me working at home seriously was a nightmare!!!

webpages, to promoting them.  I will then write a post around YOUR Questions. I will answer as I can, based on MY personal knowledge, based on MY working practice. Based on what I have been doing and has been working for me.

Now someone asked me a question on here before, however forgot to say who they were, they knew me, and my work but I just answered on the comment, so PLEASE if you are a lensmaster (squidoo) add in your lensmaster name, so I can properly accredit you!
 Add in your Question, or wondering how to.....I will try my very hardest to answer as best I can to my ability however if not I will try to direct you in the best direction.

Remember Question, NAME, contact (or where I can find you online)

So If you are wanting to see these kind of notification daily on your pages, what have you got to do.....
Do the Work!

NOTE: Google Penguin 2.0 and what it means for Affiliate Marketers

How do you make money online?

How Do you make money online?

Recently so many people have asked me this Question, and after thinking about it. I wonder sometimes if they believe me,
A. that I work online
B. I make money from doing it.
C. Is it really as easy as I find it.

Someone also asked recently about how much traffic/visitors to my pages I get in a week.
If I told you as of time of writing to 125 pages nearly topping 5,000 people (update October 2011 10,2500 and rising daily!!!!) - what would you say to that?
And that is only my work on Squidoo @LisaAuch, this does not count any individual Blogs, or any other online publishing platforms I use

.....i also want to try to encourage you to take the leap, to start exploring working online, because I truly believe if I can do it any body can.
So the easiest way I can explain what I do is this....

I create individual web pages, I provide information, tutorials or just write about things that interest me....I know if I am searching online about something then so must other people.

....then I was asked: But how does that make you money?
Well I use an online publishing platform, like Squidoo which is FREE to join, and who give me a percentage of their AdSense earnings, (they display adverts on my pages i write on)
... depending on various aspects, that Squidoo take into account, and the more popular my pages the better it is for me making money.

Internally on Squidoo we call it lensrank.
A higher "lensrank" will yield a higher payout.

So is that the only way you can make money?

No, I also can recommend products to people. Who may or may not decide to buy them.

How do you know what people want to buy online? (creating a Sales Page that Sells)

This is a hard one, because you dont really know what people want to buy....it can be like a guessing game. But there are tools online that can help me find items to suggest that may be popular and people are buying. They may then go onto buy it and I get a percentage of the sale, as a thank you for sending that customer to them - In online work we call that "affiliate marketing"

That sounds too technical for me?

This frustrates me when I hear people say this, if you can use GOOGLE search then you can find what people are looking for, billions of people all day type things into google, Google has got that good at it it even suggests (tries to guess) What you are actually looking for in fact it will give you other suggestions to try too - In our writing online we call these "KeyWords"

keywords are what we want to focus on when writing our pages, as they will draw in our visitors.

But how do I get visitors to my pages?

....If you write about what people want - choose keywords

So I can just choose these keywords and write about them?...


I personally dont recommend this however I know of people who do, this, they may pick a product the feel they want to sell and write their page around that.

I prefer to pick my keywords another way.

I love Fashion, fashion is a huge industry and I would be writing up against the likes of Vogue, Burberry cosmopolitan...I would have NO CHANCE, none whats so ever. I could try, but it just would be too much work, for me.

So "Fashion" as a keyword I would not go for. However I love my Maxi Dress, my Fair Isle Sweater, My leather Aviator Jacket, my Polka Dot Dress, which I had personally all bought online, so I did indeed write pages about these items. This is called Niche Marketing. Being more specific about what you are talking about.

....Ahhh.....So I can just write about what I know make it specific and I will make money online?....

Well, I wish it was that easy, I know lots of people who are fantastic writer, have excellent material, who are talented artists, and who cannot get more than a few visits a day. (visit 5 mistake most people working online should avoid making)

To work online you need to understand the nature of the beast we are working with, The Internet. Mostly we talk about Google and ranking on google, as the big G dominates the market place.
You need to understand and implement SEO - Search Engine Optimisation this is the bit that frustrate and confuses people, and in fact most will give up because they think it far too complicated. I recently helped someone, who has fabulous work, all around the web, but going nowhere, getting no traffic at all, Now their work is of high standard and deserves to be recognised, I soon spotted the fault, and with helping them to understand HOW to optimize their pages, for the SEARCH engines, and understanding what and how people search the internet The people typing into the search bar kind of have an idea what they are looking for, so you need to think like people searching. That when they type in that search related to your page, what is going to make Your page be the one picked by them to visit?

...and is it...complicated.

If everyone knew the "secret" formula we would all be millionaires, but there are steps we can take to helping our page, look good for the search engines.

Many claim to know these secrets, many charge you for these secrets...however there really is no secret!
Just a bit of work required, in learning it. In fact I have a great guide as published by Google itself here on another post FREE about understanding and implementing good SEO HERE
....

so now I have an answer to the question of how do you make money online?

I create niche specific pages, publishing Search Engine Optimised Pages on the web, that earn me affiliate commissions by recommending products to my readers.


If you already make pages like I do and are wanting places to promote.
Join in over at Wizzley.com - where you can write articles and earn from adsenses and your affiliate programmes, great for creating backlinks to your articles

***please note  the internet has changed Penguin 2.0 rolled out Read here how it affects affiliate marketers

FREE- Squidoo Help eBook

If you are looking for a FREE how to Squidoo Guide, then this little gem is just what you need.
I have always had this Guide on my computer Learn Squidoo - Step by Step and I am so happy to tell you a group of lensmasters have been working hard to re-vamp it!

I would like to point you to the new updated Step-by-step Guide to Squidoo, that will give you resources, such as the best keyword research tools, and of course what to do with your pages once you have published them.
Includes a fantastic current list of directories as used by most of us and proven to help, your articles.

It is written by a very well established group of lensmasters, known around the community for creating quality pages. And most of all achieving success on Squidoo.

Learn Squidoo - Step by Step
Written by : Lakeerieartist, BevsPaper Aj2008

Understanding SEO - Free

Image via WikipediaI got a lovely Freebie for you! How about Googles very own Search engine Optimization Starter Guide PDF
I can continue to give you all the tips in the world however if you do not understand how Google likes us to present out web pages, yes the Dos and donts! then there is no point in me going on.
apologies for not giving this earlier, I just happened to find this after an online associate sent me to a site for something else, and after clicking a few links I came accross the actual document that Google gives to its staff. To explain how they want to see SEO on a webpage, or rather their bots do when they crawl it!

I wish I had this earlier in my online career, so easy to understand, and we all get so blinded by following other sites, we forget that google itself provides us with great tools to help us in our quest to get onto Google pages, and recieve traffic.

So do not hesitate, download your free Google SEO TIPS-

Read it and read it again, and make sure the red bits are noted in the back of your mind, and try it out the next time youwrite your web page!

Google loves your images using Alternative Text.

Help Google find your Pictures using the alt= tag (alternative text) The alt attribute is not actually a tag but it is referred to as the "alt tag"

I am going to show you today how I rank page 1 Google for images the easy way. How to use the alt= to add a SEO boost to your pictures on your webpages.The alt attribution tag allows you to provide text for the object or picture you are inserting. Think along the lines of search engines cannot see (look at) your picture and know what it is, so tell them. Or if a visually imparied reader was using a programme that reads the text, how would they know what your picture was of?
So we are gong to make sure every single imagehas an alternative text explanation.(alt=)

Do you panic at the site of HTML? Don't worry this is so easy, it will become second nature to find it every time you insert a picture using HTML code. I just want you to spot 1 piece of code.

Did you know that most people searching online search via the images search? And we all know that a picture tells a thousand words. So use Pictures wisely , and legally! Remember just because it is on google does not mean it is not copyrighted, so always check the terms of use.
I was helping someone with their online store, and saw immediately that they were not optimising their images for search engines.
Their images were all named. Project 1.jpg and  project 2.jpg  Google did not know that they were purple, wedding invitations, that could be customized.  So we had to make sure google and the other search engines knew this.So we gave each card the relevant color, that they were customizable and it was a wedding invitation. this also can bring in targeted visitors ready to spend, as they will find exactly what they are looking for.

 I have had great success from the technique and have found my pictures ranking Page 1 Google for image search, and indeed this is where most of my traffic comes from.
Using pictures and images for your writing is an important factor in creating your pages.
I like to use Allposters.com and Art.com   and for keeping within copyright law, would suggest anyone using images on their pages sign up to them.
They provide good affiliate programmes, and recording stats,  so you can earn  if someone buys a picture via your website.
They are both very easy to use, and provide all the links for you to place the pictures on your sites. I use both.
I am going to use this pretty picture to show you how to optimise your images for SEO.

Field of Purple Flowers
Buy This Allposters.com

To make an image visible on your page you will paste firt the Html code provided for the picture, which will include the destination URL and the IMAGE url, and description of image to search engines ( alt=)  and the text to be shown I will use art.com as an example.

<a class="APCTitleAnchor" href="http://affiliates.allposters.com/link/redirect.asp?item=3722856&AID=651977733&PSTID=1&LTID=1&lang=1" target="_blank" title="Field of Purple Flowers"><img src="http://imagecache6.allposters.com/SML/27/2740/22PND00Z.jpg" alt="Field of Purple Flowers" border="0" height="86" width="115"></a>

<BR>

<span style="font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica;font-size:10;" >

<a class="APCTitleAnchor" href="http://affiliates.allposters.com/link/redirect.asp?item=3722856&AID=651977733&PSTID=1&LTID=1&lang=1" target="_blank" title="Field of Purple Flowers">Buy This Allposters.com</a><BR>

</span>

You will copy and pate the whole html code into your page, and will stay as is the highlighted RED section is what we are interested in for today

You want your picture to explain to search engines what your page is about, using your keywords. Now say I was using this picture for my page titles "Lavender Health Benefits" actually the name "field of purple flowers" is okay as it does explain what this picture is about,  but what kind of flowers? Lavender....our page is about Lavanders health benefits

so we are going to change the alt= to tell search engines what this picture is about.

so the replacement text will look like this
alt="field of purple flowers- lavander-health benefits"
when you are saving a picture to your harddrive to use, Save it using your keywords here too.
Instead of save as "003.jpg" change the name to what the picture is "child holding a rabbit.jpg"If you are using more than one word divide by a hypen,(-)  do not keyword stuff, search engines are too smart now.

I have a download pdf available for easy reference and shows how I hold Page 1 rank 1,3,4 for images for my products!
Download here - How to Get on Page 1 Google with images 

 Just for your information I highlighted the Height and width, part of the codes,  you can manipulate this to suit your preferred size, always keep in ration, if you take 100 off the height, take 100 off the width etc.


Did you know to do this, will you be trying it now? anything else you are unsure of? and I can help with, let me know what your thoughts are....
  
Lisa 

5 Mistakes People make trying to Earn Money Online.

Of course we all want to know How to work on the internet, and make millions....When starting out writing articles, creating a blog or even working on your own webpage.
You will come across many programmes that claim to make money fast online. They are going to show you how to do it, my advice is run in the opposite direction.
I was so excited to achieve my goal of making money online, and being able to have the choice to continue working at home, or going back to a JOB, I wanted to go and shout it from the rooftops, and tell people how I did it.  To show them how they could do it.
Was it easy, no it was a very rollercoaster journey. And if you ask anyone who works online, is it easy, what do you think their answer will be? Do you know most people who work online will make no money, as they can easily fall into several traps.

Part of the reason I made Moms work at home Blog, is to indeed share with you my tips that I have found helped me go from zero earnings to a steady income online. Including what I have learned to do (= make money )and what not to do, (= make absoloutely no money) working online. 

How I make money online:   I use affiliate marketing, reviewing products, blogging, building unique Free webpages like on my favourite place Squidoo.I now have earnings on a spreadsheet to help me keep track of what is working what is not. (this could be a tip in itself, as if maybe I had kept track of what works and did not work in the beginning, I could have fixed the errors of my ways!)
But there were many mistakes I made in the beginning, probably making my journey a little harder, but hey you learn.
Working online does not come with a job desription, you dont turn up one day and have someone to hold your hand walking you through the steps. No-body to be acountable when the figures or money does not come in but yourself.
I am going to give my 5 top Tips that I learned that did NOT make me any money, before you fall into the

1. Do not buy! I made $1,0000 in 10 minutes or Signing up for the programmes that claim to make you money online. For a FREE

Why? It is never FREE, or that easy, they make money from your buying their products, then the guy who buys the product realises he has been conned, so takes on the same strategy used when he was conned into buying it and sells you it, and so the cycle continues.

Solution: You can get all the information you need for free on the net, it takes a bit of looking, but its all there. Join forums, there are hundreds of great forums that will have the answers tucked away in their threads, pure golden nuggets of information. So use the searh facility for your query, Type in the keywords you are looking for such as "backlinks" I bet you get exactly what you are lookng for, and for FREE. 
If you come accross someone who makes claims that cause you to raise your eyebrow, put their user name through Google, see what does come up. Do they have good articles, where else can you see their work online? What do others say about them on profile pages etc. Look at the comments section, what are others saying about them. (this is my main online Bio)

 2. Do not join all affiliate programmes just because you think it will make you money, it won't. Joining every affiliate programme you can sign up for, promoting it, seeing no return and moving on to the next hot product to hit the market...waste of your time.

 Come on admit it, the first thing you do on a page is look for the affiliate sign up. I lost count how many affiliate programmes I was a member of.  I now have built and established a good working relationship with a core of trusted reliable affiliate programmes that I will use and fully endorse. And that am satisfied will only give exactly what is being promoted and value for money


Solution: Research your niche market, sometimes hidden in the depths of the ebook seas,  there are absoloutes gems, out ranked by the Gurus who have pushed their products with SEO, hype and rubbish to the top of the pile. Choose 1 produt, research it, buy it love it and stick with it, if you dont then your readers won't either. It is so much easier to give your honest testomony of why this is a great product. It is easier to write your artile when you know what you are talking about.

3.  Annoying your Visitors to your web page.
Being sent to a page after reading your review and then realising it is not what you were really looking for and then you try to leave, and some smart alec thought hey lets add  pop up ads that annoy your visitors when you try to leave the page, and then another pop up saying "are you really sure"Of course I am sure!  This will make you lose any visitors and creditbility you already have, and I just want to leave this page, I am not interested in what discount you have to offer me, and I would not return to the page that sent me there. So thoroughly chek out your affiliate programmes, capture pages etc.

4. Flashing Banner adverts.
Do you ever click them? I know I don't. i hate them, and the majority of people online do too, we know it is going to lead to our email addresses being used in all sorts of scam and emails.
So think about it will your visitors. they take up space they look nasty to the eye, slapped in the middle of your text. 
Solution: It has been proven that text links convert, in fact I make more money and get more clickthroughs  using text links than I do with product pictures.


5. Copying someone elses work
I spend a lot of time online, and I can spot a copycat straight away. And anybody else who works online starts to work out the authentic from the re-gurgetated sraped material. In fact I could direct you to around 10-20 pages off the top of my head that "scrapes" ideas and even layouts, and then I would direct you to the original page. Don't do it, its cheap and its nasty, and once people start to work it out. You are finished.

Solution: Be Unique, provide Useful Content, and be honest. If you are that impressed by someones work, say that, link to themm  let them know you are a fan. Heck you can still make your page, but let them know and credit their idea within your work. Send a quick mail to the original author saying thanks you inspired me. Its amazing the power of that.
But do not steal their content.

If you have not started a blog, then I really suggest you do, many free places, to start with ( I have always taken the Free options)
See why having a blog is a great way to compliment your online work. I made a page about how to make money Blogging  which I share ideas, stats and traffic insights, how I used hot Topics, and hard to find items,  and why you should consider selling more expensive items too. Check out the huge sale I made.  these are still live, and although I do not spend as much time as I should they all serve a purpose, in my online adventures.

Did these mistakes ring true for you? Or do you have your own list of what does not work, when working online. Would you like to know about something specific, Drop me a comment.

Using Social Media to Get traffic and Visitors your Web Pages & Build your Pages Backlinks

Are you making the most of all the places you can get the word out about your pages, and websites?

Many of us who create web pages, find the hardest part is finding traffic, and getting visitors to our pages, now take Squidoo as an example, where you can create web pages for FREE and publish them, but what use are they to people if they cannot find them.



I do not belive in spending money when I am trying to earn it. Internal traffic that the structure of Squidoo (where I do the majority of my writing online) provides is great, however no matter where you page is published on the web it is useless unless you get the word out.
The best way for me was by joining several Social media sites.  Now depending on your interests or "niche" I find it best to join the networking sites that will suit you best, many though have all the catagories you would need. If you intend to just drop your links in, and leave, then you will soon find your followers dropping off, you want to build followers, give them useful, information, create quality posts, In the beginning make the extra effort, go and see what your followes are doing, check them out, if you like it share it, to share their work.  The author knows when it has been shared, and will make a mental note, to check out your work, and perhaps share yours.
Lets look at

Twitter

the most obvious and my favourite, it is so easy to use,  and I like to see that visitors do indeed click on those tweets.  My tweet for this blog showed up within 50 minutes of publishing. Page 1 Google

 I love that you can just tweet short and sweet. and most webpages have built in facilities to tweet things of interest.  It is also being debated just now about how tweeting your newly published page is indeed getting your page indexed super fast! (see picture below)
But how do you get followers? This is a question many ask, and it applys for all social bookmarking and and media sites.
Make sure you have a link to where people can find you online on all your pages, have a search for like minded people within your interests, follow them and you will start to see you following building up.

You will be amazed at how this start to build up as you go along, but a word of caution, post your links too many times, you will be seen as a spammer, posting not enough people will lose interest in what you have to say.
Posting Unique, Useful content will bring in traffic, and posting rubbish will see you page end up in the dump.

Give a little too, if someone gives you a vote, make sure to check out their work too, if you are just seen as taking then people won't give either, so remember if there is a community have a look around, join in, make new associates, even if its for 10 minutes, it all is in the benefit of your online work. Yes there are peole who just spam, or giving useless information or just want to sell you something, you soon work out who they are, and just move on.

Other Social Places you can find me at and connet, come on over and join, you will be pleased to see some familiar faces from Squidoo, and If you are not a member of Squidoo, they are a fantastic community of people all sharing the same goals, Working online making extra money from home.

• Facebook- do you have a facebook page  for your business?  set one up today for free, FB will give you all the tools you need to help you promote your page.

• DIGG- Submit links to your favourite pages

• Stumble Upon - fun site  (once you are set up find me there LisaAuch)

• Reddit - They do have a maximum submission amount within the day (once your set up find me - LisaAuch)

• Tumblr 
• Pinterest

How about Social sites that you can earn some money from?

A brand new site, ran by a very successful Squidoo lensmaster and his online partners, earn money here with sharing adsense and sales modules.

•  Join Wizzley Now write articles on Wizzley, has strict policies in place, brand new website, and rising fast up the page ranks - Moderated and great for backlinks

• She Told Me - a fun site with adsense sharing

• Best Reviewer - another 100% adsense sharing site, make a top 10 best of list! So much fun

And last but not least, if you  have a blog, who knows about it, even if you use that blog to just write about your articles to get backlinks, follow others who have similar blogs,  If you are asked to leave a comment, leave a comment, people like to see what others are saying and you will be surprised how many people may click on your profile picture or name, I
If they are interested in what you are saying. It may not be my blog your interested in, but I bet some of my readers would be interested in YOUR work.

there is a whole world wide web out there for you to explore, so go and explore it, and if you bump into me, remember and say Hi, I love meeting fellow marketers out and about.

NEW Google Update Penguin 2.0 - Must Read the Future of The Affiliate Marketer
 

How to cash in on Hot Topics - Creating a great "sales" page

I did indeed tell you I am going to share secrets with you, but I dont think I can share secrets with you, unless I explain how these "secrets" work. It does wind me up those wonderful tutorials that say do this this and this, and you will be sucessful, But maybe they only give you how to find keywords, okay so once you have your keywords what then do you do.

I love writing and especially creative writing, however as yourselves and I know, these do not make big sales, So I try to have a balance, my more serious pages, and then there are my product review pages "sales pages" and I dont mind having them mixed in with my work, as I believe it helps build a good solid reputable foundation, and readers like that. i only ever do product reviews about things that I can or have used, and have indeed found useful, or suggest products that help me. I have found these more successful when I put in a personal recommendation . 

So you make product review pages, and still cant sell a thing. Sometimes we can even over complicate things....and make it more difficult than we should.

So I am going to take you through the full process, from starting with an idea. To publishing, and to maximising publicity.
Many of people online want to know how to make sales, what is the secret? We all strive to make that sale. We get so worked up about keyword research and where to post our pages for marketing so the search engines find us that sometimes we just look past eactly what people are looking for and end up makeing it "too technical" that our page focus disappears. We end up with no sales, and wonder why our customer who is looking for that item get bored and clicks to another page.
What about the "I will not bother doing that as there are already pages out there" ....how many timesw have you thought, "wish I had done that" and moved onto find your next topic? Well the page I am going to share with you today, is indeed one that I was actually reluctant to make, due to the amount of other related pages out there, however a chance day out made me change my mind as I spotted something, stopped to take a picture, and then I spoke to the owner, who had come out to ask why I was taking a picture? and they told me how hard a job they had "finding" the Decorations.

So I am going to reveal a page, that made sales in 2weeks, and actually still makes the odd sale today, even though the event is over.

So what hot topic did I jump on? The Royal Wedding of Course.
Now this was a local pub of ours, and when we passed it I could not resist stopping and taking a photo. It was so over the Top for a little country pub, we thought it hysterical. I knew the owner who came out to chat with me, and told me how hard it had been to eventually find the decorations online.

 As I went on my way home I saw many signs out for Royal Wedding Garden parties. I went onto Amazon who I am an affiliate from. And yes there indeed after a bit of searching I found the most outragous banners flags, party masks.
So
I created a page, now these were indeed ofr the UK market, however I also knew Amazon.com US had these items, so I also put a "text" link onto this page, for my US customers. (this is very important to note, as you will find out why later!)

I knew this was going to be a hot topic, and all the available URLS were already snapped up, and I decided NOT to look at my competition, as this can put pressure on your sometimes, (this is okay to do this for a hot Topic, but not recommended for a longer term page that you will work on and tweak)
So I grabbed the best URL, which was Garden Party Decorations....

This was more for fun. I wrote my introduction, with no keyword investigation, no traffic analysis, nothing....I was just writing a page about my mum having a Garden Party for the Royal wedding and I was in charge of finding the Garden decoration. This was indeed true.

I included silly Face Masks of the Royal couple,  Cake toppers, flags, banners....totally over the top.
i published this, posted in the SquidU forum to give the community a laugh, and left it.

So lets re-cap, No keyword research, No promotion, No backlinks apart from SquidU. Google traffic started within 12 hours, and never stopped, over 2 weeks you can see nearly 1,000 visitors.

 
This is a screen shot of my monthly traffic for April/May, this is what i would accept as fantastic results for a "hot topic" considering it was a page that just is made to cover a significant event.

  So how did I get traffic, what "marketing did i do to get traffic to my lens. To see this

Google Traffic 1st week 456

Now I did not post the lens on FB, or twitter, what I did was posted the picture of my local pub, as my friends all socialise there, and just said "have you seen what they have done to the local pub?" and put a link to my lens on the end, and just said, check out the cardboard cutouts of Wills and Kate,  this caught like wild fire, and even ended up being printed out by my brothers friend in australia for their office picture board!

but what was even more exciting to see was what happened over at amazon, I had used a "TEXT" link only for US customers.  And this is what I saw from April 1 to May

 Here is Amazon US Affiliates which I set up tracking individual tracking IDs useful for seeing what on page does sell and what does not, so I could monitor, I did not expect this at all considering everything on the page was for UK. Bearing in mind I only included a TET link to the US I sold $528.41 making $31.07, and I dont particularly like boasting and I do not see the point in it, or i would have included the stats for UK...I am sure you can imagine yourself that this was indeed a very worthwhile, hour, and the promotion side of it was fun, or so which I took out of my day to put this page together in. ...lol...because we were talking about a picture, not a "sales" page. My friend did indeed Buy her garden decorations from my page, but I never knew that until after the event, when she uploaded her garden picture onto FB too, saying it was my fault, I made her do it.    With no research, just a photo of something that was funny, and thought it would make a good page, but this photo I took, was what brought in my traffic, I posted on several sites that you could upload funny pictures, like redgage and included my link. (by the way sign up to redgage, and post interesting photos and links and you can make some extra money, may not be a lot but just let it mount up!

This picture is what got shared, not my page.

So what have we learned, sometimes capatilizing on a "Hot Topic" is very worth while. I hear so many times, "oh I didn't do that as someone else has", well do it differently, 

Sometimes taking an alternative route to promotion, finding a funny photo and sharing it, works better than "promoting" yourlink, I must admit I hate promoting my links or my work via FB or twitter to my friends and family, but this was different and fun. 

I do recommend keywords research, and never normally make a page without it, but sometimes just writing about it can work too.

Don't be held back, if you have an idea write about it, I was going to write about the Royal Wedding but put it off as I saw so many wonderful pages dedicated to it already, wonder how much I would have made if I had just made the page when I first thought about it. 

Hot Topics is a great way to cash in on the here and now, and I do like these pages, usually easy to put together, and okay won't last long but work alongside your other pages as you build them up. And you are Making money online. This is the disheartning part of working online, you are making Quality pages, but people who are going to "buy" want to find what they are specifically looking for there and then, and have their credit card in their hands, waiting to "find" their product. We just need to Show them where it is and how they can buy it. 

Do you know how to find hot topics?

The best way for keeping your finger on the pulse is Google Hot Trends

Some I would not touch with a barge pole, however you can watch and see how things start to appear, especially films, realitly TV shows, (you will get a few weekes out of them!) and up and coming pop stars/actors....who will have a continuing career. 

If you read this and found it interesting I would appreciate your feedback, Did this post help you through some frustrations of not making sales, or is there anything else I can explain to you about making sales with  "Hot Topics"

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I do belive there is always someone to thank for my knowledge, and have played a part in my success, now...a lot of to and fro about PotpieGirl but I did indeed buy her One Week Marketing, and this is where I got a "foundation" to niche marketing, I am a learner, I need to learn all the ins and out, yes there was information that I found useless, and there was information I found priceless. I belive in learning the knowledge, and in fact I still to this day recieve her emails, so people find it irritating, I don't I read every one of them, this lady is a successful online marketer doing eactly what you and I want to  do too, so Of course I read them , I may not click on her links, but if it interests me then I will. There may just be something that clicks for me, like jumping on the "Hot Topic Trends" Yes these guys make money from selling their secrets, but sometimes, they give you that little nugget of information that makes it click.

Introduction to A Work at home Mom

When I decided to try my hand at working online to make additional income for my family. I had no former computer knowledge, I could switch it on and that was about it.

I have now been "working online" for over 2 years, and looking back there are many things I wish I had known when I started writing online.
Keywords
SEO
Backlinks
Images and how to use them properly.
How to Pick a niche
How to make Sales
Writing Article to Drive Traffic to your site.

Nobody tells you that information...in fact many want to charge for secrets for their ebook that tells you how to indeed make millions overnight, my view is run as fast as you can from these. I have included links to some of my best and most popular articles about these subjects, for your information, just remember to come back.

I have indeed learned my craft from many successful online marketers, and followed their findings closely. the Internet is not confusing, it is all the confusing information out there that's the trouble.

Over the years, I have been luck and built up a successful reputation for article writing, product reviews, and creative writing.  Taking part in online communities, and writing Guest Blog posts.

The purpose of this blog moms Work at home blog, is to give share that success and give you the same opportunity I have had, to take your interests, passions and ideas, and be able to write about them, any one can do that,  so how do you make money from your writing?

There are many ways, from Article writing to having your own website, or freelance writing.

I hope not to only inspire you to try working from home, but also to help motivate, as it can indeed be a lonely journey at times, until you start to build up your online network.


Please note, all comments on this Blog will allow 1 "Nofollowdofollow" from the Authors link. So I encourage you to leave a message, and a link back to your site. Tell me who you are, how you got here, what is it you are planing to do working online...etc All comments are moderated
I like to help support and encourage my fellow work at home moms and dads.
Don't worry about understanding dofollow links just now, but bear in mind creating links to your site is very worthwhile, just post an introduction to yourself and include your blog or website URL. I will also like to feature other networkers examples of how they have found success online too. So if I come accross something I find useful you have written about I shall let you know and write a review for you.

this post has been edited to ADD THIS -PAGE 1 of GOOGLE  Within 50 minutes, using my all ethical, (no Blackhat) Marketing Techniques.

What do you think of that, I can't believe it!
Lisa