Elijah, Author at The At Home Couple

9 Things You Need To Be Successful At Bum Marketing

For those of you who don’t know, I’m a huge fan of bum marketing – the art of making money online using completely free resources – and I’ve successfully used these techniques on TheAtHomeCouple.com and every other blog that I own and operate. One of my favorite methods of free traffic generation and link building is article marketing because not only is it possible to write 20 articles in 20 days, like WAHM Tara’s latest challenge, it’s also amazing for developing your writing speed and research skills.

Over my 8 months of trial and error with utilizing free resources online, I’ve definitely learned a thing or two about what’s absolutely needed to be a successful bum marketer so I figured I would share some of my best tips with all you sexy people.

A good house coat or robe is essential to your productivity. Make sure it has at least two pockets for storing vital tools like the remote control and extreme cheddar flavored Gold Fish.
Always have Google open in a browser window off to the side. One of the key factors to successfully finding free resources online is your ability to research and grab those hidden gems such as free plug ins and cute little tools like SocialMarker.
I always make sure I have my Spaceballs dvd ready to be played at a moments notice – taking your mind off work for 15 minutes will do wonders whenever you become overwhelmed or hit a road block.
Having your peers available for brainstorming or questions always helps. Keep 3-5 buddies on your Skype contacts list that you go to if you want a second opinion.
The ability to go several days without showering or shaving will really get you into the “bum” mode. If you can grow a beard like me, or not shave your legs for a week or two, you’ll be on your way to bum marketing super stardom in no time!
You can’t expect to build your arsenal of free resources on an empty stomach. Being able to make a grilled cheese sandwich with one hand while submitting articles with the other is the sign of a true marketing master.
Practice getting things for free like pizza and beer when you’re out with your friends. They’ll eventually assume you’re always broke and start to give you free shit without you having to ask.
Make a folder in your Firefox bookmarks to store all your hardcore bum marketing tools and sites. This will help you develop a system when you’re launching a new site or product.
Purchase a handful of “generic” domain names to use for redirecting to related affiliate products from the author/resource box of your articles. If you find a hot offer, the last thing you want to do is build a site just to test it out – write a kick ass article and load up the redirect straight to the affiliate product.

Cheers,

Elijah

Elijah Sings The Blues

A short post here to end off a pretty crazy, but productive week. I really don’t feel like talking about Internet Marketing or the newest micro-blogging network, but I did wake up today feeling music in the air – which is a feeling I’m beginning to miss. I decided that I would do something completely out of the ordinary for this type of site/community and play a song for you guys.

The track is called “Enough” and I wrote it 3 or 4 years ago. I’ve also included, for you music heads out there, the mp3 download of the track – which is mixed and mastered with drums and all (by myself of course). I really hope you guys enjoy it as it’s one of my favorite songs.

Download “Enough”

Have a great weekend, and feel free to distribute the download to whomever you’d like.

Cheers,

Elijah

Building Your Team Of Criminal Masterminds

There are two types of people in any work industry, whether it be online or in a cubicle: Those who work better alone, and those who work better as part of a team, and when it comes to blogging there’s really no choice for the earlier option – providing you want to be successful. Building a team of collaborators and joint venture partners is vital to the systematic survival of your brand and motion within the blogosphere. You need people to bounce ideas off of. You need a people to fill your weak spots and promote growth. You need to become part of something much bigger that your little blog.

Little blog?

Yes, little blog. I don’t care if you’re John Chow or Shoe-frickin-money, on the greater scale of all things Internet, we’re the equivalent to a gnat on a donkey’s ass. Pay very close attention to what I’m about to say: You cannot be alone in this vast domain.

I’ve read countless ebooks, hard and soft covers, journals, reports and manifestos in my year or so pursuing business online, and teamwork is the one element that 99% of them forget to include in their “Top 37 ways to make money online” or “secret formulas” and frankly I think it’s all a load of bullshit. If you remember my post on how the rich stay rich and why there will always be that divider between the top dogs and everyone else, it is their network that keeps them all on top. Everyone has a role to play in order to keep that network tightly knit and circulating. The bigger the network is, the stronger it becomes and the more influence it will have.

Let’s go back to the donkey’s ass for a second…

Imagine that across the donkey’s entire body there are one million gnats spread out individually, and in small groups. You could stand two feet from that donkey and not see a single one of them. You might even go right up to this ass with a magnifying glass and be lucky if you notice one or two of these little buggers minding their business. Now let’s imagine that a movement was spawned, and the gnats realized that the only way for them to be noticed was if they huddled closely together in large groups while screaming as loud as possible. What do you think would happen? I can imagine three possible reactions:

You would begin to think “what are those screaming dark spots on my donkey?”
Word would spread and the gnats would join forces to form even bigger groups.
Gnats on other donkey’s would notice as they pass, and incorporate this concept to continue the cycle.

I don’t know what just happened, but it made sense five minutes ago.

Even though Veronica doesn’t post on here, or isn’t as visible as I am online, she is part of my team. Every post I publish and idea I stumble upon is filtered through her first. I also have been building a team of other ninja marketers whom I communicate with on a daily basis. We have a brainstorm forum that provides a common place for support, resources and creative development. All of these factors will greatly affect my success as an online businessman, and in turn the people around me because this cycle is self sustaining.

Take a moment to think of the people around you whom you admire and the blogs you are inspired by, as these are usually the prime candidates for future joint ventures and diving partners off the coast of Costa Rica. Find people who share a similar status and take that chance because you never know who else was thinking the same thing that you were.

The number one way to make money online is by building a team. Period.

Cheers,

Elijah

5 Easy Ways To Increase The Value Of Your Site Flip

Happy Monday to all. If you recall my first site flip experience 2 weeks ago, I was able to build a blog based around a targeted niche phrase/market, fill it with keyword driven posts and get it indexed on the first page of Google for the primary search phrase. I know some of you are thinking “First page of Google, I can’t do that!” and all I have to say is if I can do it with 3 hours of sleep per night, and collection agencies ringing my phone off the hook during the day time – you can do it too, and here’s how: Value.

What? Who? Yes my friends, we’re going back to sales 101 and the good ol’ concept of “value proposition” and what that means to you and your potential client/buyer. Value is everything when it comes to sales and it’s no different with selling online – whether it’s affiliate marketing or site flipping. When consumers are in the buying mode, and you’re attempting to sell them a service or product that they weren’t specifically looking for you need to be able to answer these four questions:

Who the hell are you?
What the hell are you selling?
How much is it?
What do I get?

I’m sure you’ve seen different questions displayed in various sales bibles and manifestos but I assure you they are all reaching for the same end result – the sale – and since we’re talking about website flipping, or selling websites for profit, I wanted to focus on ways that you can increase the value of your site within a couple hours and how you can easily build and sell your first website within a weekend. Before you go ahead and read my 5 steps to increasing value, I want you to visit SuiteJ.com and read his post titled 5 Simple Steps To Get Started Website Flipping This Weekend, make some notes and then come back and read the rest of my post.

The reason I’m asking you to do this in order is because SuiteJ provides the foundational steps to complete your first site flip – and I’m not going to be covering those steps, but rather elaborating on the core process to increase the value and help you get indexed faster, and sell your site for more money. So assuming that you have listened to me, instead of flipping me off in your head, here are 5 easy ways to increase the value of your site flip:

Keywords for categories – After you’ve found your key phrase that your niche site will be focused around, and you’ve purchased your keyword rich domain name, log into Wordtracker (or your keyword tool of choice) and expand on that key phrase compiling a list of 10-20 high search/low competition keywords which are niche related for naming your site categories – This is a process that I’ve practiced on every single one of my Build A Niche Store eBay affiliate sites and it helps greatly with the indexing and how much organic search traffic that I receive early on. Don’t forget to include your primary search term in every post title and at least once or twice in your content (don’t overdo it though) and remember that making a keyword bold or underlining it in your content let’s the search engine spiders know that you are putting emphasis on that phrase – and we want that! Also, use these keywords when submitting your site to social bookmarking services.
Design a custom logo – When you’ve decided on a WordPress theme for your site flip, and checked the license, take the time to go through the image files and make note of any changes you would like to make. At the very least, I would suggest creating a customized logo and favicon for your site. Yes some themes (like ours) have the generated “blog name” text appear fashionably enough that you can live with it for a while – but when increasing the value of your site flip a customized logo and favicon can go a really long way. For an easy tutorial on designing a quick logo visit SuiteJ.com, and for a brief outline on how to make your own favicon image visit FaviconGenerator.com. If your design skills are intermediate you can also go as far as rearranging and designing custom banners, ebook covers and RSS icons. Click here for the absolute best collection of free premium RSS icons available from ProBlogDesign.com.
Build a Squidoo Lens – Yes it might sound retarded to some people, but the value of Squidoo Lenses are increasing day by day. On my first website flip I created a keyword packed Squidoo Lens which linked to the site, and the next day I was in the first position for my main key phrase in Google. What does this tell us? Well to put it plainly Google loves Squidoo! And if this is the case we want to have one or many Lenses with links pointing to our site as this will greatly increase the importance in Google’s eyes, and improve the organic ranking. Having a site ranked number one in Google for it’s primary search term is value – and when flipping sites don’t forget that value is worth money! If you know squat about Squidoo you are going to visit my friend Wordvixen at TheNicher.com, subscribe to her blog and get reading her Squidtorials. Don’t forget to tell her Elijah sent you!
Create social networking accounts – At the very least you want to create a myspace page with your search term in the url like www.myspace.com/searchterm (if available). I’m pretty sure I don’t have to go into great deal explaining why social networking is important but for those of you who are new let me just say that having social networking accounts set up, and focused around a particular site is the equivalent to having several organic traffic funnels dumping hordes of targeted surfers to your desired location. Would’nt that be considered valuable? Heck yes! Set up an email address for your site like domainname@gmail.com and use that domain to set up your social networking profiles and when it comes time to put your site up for sale you will include the myspace account and corresponding email address with the auction or as a bonus if someone chooses the buy now option. P.S. don’t forget to take some time and join a few myspace groups and add some friends within your sites niche.
Write an article – I find it hard to understand why people don’t grip the importance and effectiveness of writing a good article. Not only will article directories provide one way links to your site, but if the article is good enough other webmasters will start to publish it and it will go viral. Most of the major article directories have a high page ranking, so write an article which contains your keyword in the title and throughout the content and submit that bad boy to 4 or 5 of the top directories. You will mention this in your auction, and could even go as far as including the article content in the zip file which you send the auction winner – just make sure you state what type of writes you are giving them in regards to the authorship of that article.

There you have it kids. I don’t think there is much more to say on increasing value, and I’m sure you get the point I’m trying to make. Going the extra mile on building your sites will not only entice potential buyers, but it will also set the standard for your future auctions and allow you to increase your “Buy Now” and reserve price points because people will know that they are getting their “money’s worth”. Value is a beautiful thing my friends… Don’t take it for granted.

Cheers,

Elijah

Friday Night Smack Talk – Special Guest

Damn. I just spent an hour trying to get a friggin video site that works. I don’t know if it was my area and the bandwidth was just flooded, but I couldn’t get anything working. Finally TubeMogul.com came through after the 18th time attempting to upload. I wanted to do a little video update for you guys since it’s been a while and there have been some new faces showing up on the comments. Mad link love, mad updates with the blogosphere and all the craziness that’s been going on – I also have a special guest at the end, someone who I know all you guys have been wanting to see! Is it Veronica? No, she fell asleep on the couch as I was recording this. Maybe I’ll film myself putting backing powder in her hair and post that up tomorrow.. I guess you’ll have to wait and see. Have a great weekend everyone!

Cheers,

Elijah

Real Social Networking

It’s funny, because when I think of social networking in 2008 and what it means to the web 2.0 crowd, all I see is a bunch of people hiding behind computers with a jpeg for a face, and a keyboard for a mouth. We all fall into that category of course, because our business is based on the computer – but does it have to remain there? I look at someone like Lynn Terry from ClickNewz.com who, whenever she’s attending an industry event, invites her readers to meet up with her for lunch if any of them are local to where the event is happening. Talk about extending yourself and increasing availability – Lynn is connected with some of the top dogs in Internet marketing and still makes it a priority to pow wow with her available readers whenever she’s on the road. I definitely encourage you to extend yourself to your regular blog readers and swap phone numbers. Get acquainted with each other because the relationships we build now are the most important, and going beyond the computer is something I practice as often as possible.

Let’s take a closer look at the term “social networking” a little closer: You have social, or socializing, which is an interaction between 2 or more people without any defined objective or purpose – you’re simply talking for the sake of the moment. On the other end you have networking, which can start off as socializing but eventually will lead to end-goals from that particular conversation. If you caught that last bit, then you will know that the core difference between socializing and networking is the objective or goal – why are you talking to this person? One can argue that every interaction has some sort of objective whether it be to prevent that greasy guy at the bar from approaching you, or to keep your wife occupied while your friend sneaks your golf clubs into his truck – because your wife thinks you have a doctors appointment and your friend is driving you.

Learn to balance the two…

With so many mediums of social networking available on the web, it can become quite challenging to find a healthy balance between the two. One thing I haven’t done yet is download some sort of third party Twitter application like TweetDeck, because I don’t see anything positive coming out of me having access to Twitter every minute of every day. Is it really that important that I respond to tweets or direct messages right away? No. Do I really need to have Skype open all day while I work online? No. If anything of dire importance needs my attention I will either be notified as soon as I log in (literally) or that individual whom I am waiting to hear from will contact me by other means, like phone or personal email. Choose when to be connected and when to skillfully disconnect in order to promote a more productive day.

The reality…

Unfortunately, most of what we do online in regards to social networking and communication is merely glorified socializing – and that my friends is the ultimate enemy of productivity. When you choose to engage in social interaction, be conscious of the goals and objectives behind that encounter. Why are you talking to this person? If there is a specific reason, make sure it gets addressed within the first 2 minutes of digital conversation and if someone wants to tell you about their trip to the petting zoo, let them know that you can’t chat right now and to send you a brief email telling you all about it. Knowing when you make your exit will greatly improve your online performance, but also set the guidelines for others to know what to expect from you.

Try to encourage more networking and less socializing, and you soon realize how much time you were wasting doing the later. I know it’s hard to not jump on every new micro-blogging platform that enters the market, because we’re all nerds for that type of shit! It’s what we look forward to! Just know when to bow out gracefully if you do happen to indulge on a daily basis. Having an addiction to social networking sites is a serious problem – not only will it potentially cripple your business, but your home life as well, so be careful!

Cheers,

Elijah