The At Home Couple

Are You Ready For Christmas Traffic?

I’m not feeling 100 % sexy today as I seemed to have picked up some flu-like hitchhiker while driving carelessly through the blogosphere this week. I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’m going to bank as an affiliate with the gravy boats full of hungry, credit card ninjas that will be shopping online this Christmas – and I’ve also been thinking about what market I’m going to focus my efforts in.

I’m excited because this will be my first Christmas “online” as an imitation money maker, and I really do want to provide some genuine resources for the shopping traffic, rather than setting up a bunch of mistletoe-domains cranked with Adsense and scraped content. I haven’t started a list of possible avenues yet, so why not start my brainstorm right now as I’m typing this prize-winning post:

Where To Find Christmas Ideas

eBay’s Hot Brands section
Google Trends
Amazon
Your nearest shopping mall
Ikea
Your affiliate managers
Your kids

I’m sure you guys could have filled in the bullet points I just listed, but I don’t like assuming that everyone reading this blog already knows how to search for profitable niche markets and products. Personally I prefer studying Amazon’s marketplace over Ebay, simply because the prices are not auctioned off and it gives me a better idea of what people are willing to spend for something “brand new” online. You’d be surprised how much you could learn about the marketplace from your kids and the young children in your family. If anyone has a handle on what is going to be hot this Christmas, it’s them!

Once we’ve got some sort of list going on regarding products/markets, it’s time to think about how we are going to enter this market, our advertising budget (if any) and what mediums we plan to use for traffic generation. Here are a few proven methods:

Promotion Methods

Pay Per Click (most profitable/risky)
Article Marketing
Classified Ads (Craigslist, USFreeAds)
Squidoo, Hub Pages
Forum Marketing
Myspace Groups/Facebook
Link exchanges

I’m confident that most people within my inner circle of collaborators will be utilizing as many free methods as humanly possible, and keeping away from PPC due to lack of experience. ***Warning – If you have never made consistent profit using Pay Per Click marketing to drive traffic to an offer, you will get eaten alive if you try to jump in during the Christmas rush! Christmas is when all the big dogs make their big money, and if you’ve only dreamed of big money, stay away from the big dogs and let them do their thing. I really hate hearing horror stories of how somebody lost their kids college fund on PPC during Christmas… I can see it now “Merry Christmas Johnny! I got your McDonalds application framed for you!”

Go play in traffic dad…

I’m sure you get my point. There are TONS of free ways to generate traffic to your Christmas offers, just be unique and find those niche markets before hand – and don’t forget to make money off your friends and people you work with! It will get more and more difficult to locate profitable keywords, or find good domain names the closer it gets to Christmas, so start to think about what you’d like to do now – and take your time to use the tactics that work for YOU, and make some money to pay for all the wonderful gifts you plan to buy for your friends and family – and if you do super well, you can even grab something indulgent for yourself!

Cheers,

Elijah

Blog Report For September 2008

Another month, another stats report to add to the blogosphere! September was a weird month from several different stand points for TheAtHomeCouple.com – weird not being a bad thing, as growing up my mother always told me weird was good. The first thing that really caught me off guard was that the original 25 subscribers from our August blog report decided to stick around for another month despite my several attempts to be as inappropriate as humanly possible. Secondly, I’m still trying to grip the fact that I built and sold my first website in September.

Website flipping is talked about quite frequently on the Internet, and when I decided I needed to stop being afraid and start making money I had no idea that selling a website would be how that money was made – but it was! Lastly, in September I realized after hours and hours of sleepless nights that more work doesn’t always mean better work. When I heard my man Joe say that he’s thinking about taking weekends off and only posting on his site Monday through Friday, it was on! What a great idea…

September was also a big month for Veronica in the sense that she finally admitted to the fact that I’m not loosing my mind, and I actually know a thing or two about making money online. She has also taken on learning about blogging and WordPress into her own hands and came home one day with a “Blogging For Dummies” book! I’m not going to lie and say that I wasn’t turned on slightly – because I was.

Stats & Screenshots

Once again, I’m not going to report how much money I made online because this blog is about our adventure trying to quit our jobs, not our wallets. I will let you guys know that I did have a record month with Adsense and made almost $12, with TheAtHomeCouple.com contributing $4.44 to that total! Time to get me a movie ticket.

As I’m typing out this blog report, and infomercial popped on the television titled “Internet Shortcut Millions” with two busty young ladies talking about how if you can send an email you can make millions on the Internet using Jeff Paul’s 3-click system. I really wish you guys could see this… I’ve written down the number and plan to call and start asking the representatives about click through ratio and bounce rate – who the hell is Jeff Paul? lol.

As you can see in the screenshot above, there was a sexy increase in unique visitors to our blog in September. According to AWStats we had 2175 unique visitors with 16, 049 page views and an average of 3.49 pages per visit. That’s 805 more unique visitors than August!!! Sweet victory… The downside is that the page views and pages per visit had a slight decrease – but that could mean several things, and having a more established regular flow of readers probably contributed to that decline.

This is really blowing my mind right now – the above screenshot shows an average of 153.23 visits per day, with the most traffic on September 16th which brought in 519 visits! Who the heck are you people, and where do you come from? I know one of my strengths regarding website development is traffic generation, but 3 months ago I couldn’t even tell you what technorati does (I’m still not 100% sure, lol). Blogging rules, and that’s the end of that!

Here is my favorite number, and what ties everything together in the blogosphere – Our subscribers! We haven’t held a single contest, or posted anything insanely ground-breaking or controversial, and yet we’ve somehow increased our subscribers from 25 at the end of August to 67 at the end of September! I really don’t know what to say except thank you. I can only imagine what the response would be once Veronica has the time to get her crazy, beautiful, insanely smart ass up on here more often to mix it up with you guys and gals – I can’t wait!

Elijah, how did you get these numbers in 2 months?

I stopped caring about what the Guru’s are doing
I stopped reading and commenting on blogs where the favor is not returned
I stopped reading 37 ebooks a month
I stopped worrying about what to write
I started swearing in my blog posts
I started leaving demented comments on all of your blogs
I started linking to anybody or anything that I thought was cool
I won a Rastafarian plush doll at a carnival and made a dance video with it
I started sending questionable emails to Alan LeStourgeon, Paul Piotrowski and Mark Hansen regarding brown paper bags and dog poo
The most important factor that contributed to the quick success of this blog is that I stopped being afraid and started kicking ass. I stopped thinking about how I’m going to accomplish things and started to take action based on what I already know, and what I’m good at

We love you guys and can’t wait to have dinner with each and every one of you sometime within the next 25 years. I’m sure we will see some of you sooner, but that’s besides the point. I strongly believe that there’s a new wave of uber-talented, top-bloggers that are about to take over and kick some of these gassy Guru’s off their comfortable ladders. I can take a look at my blogroll and say, with confidence, that you’re all going to be big in your own way and we will all be around 12 months from now – whether it’s launching products together, or building a selling businesses online together. The future is being molded as we speak, and Veronica and I feel privileged to have the chance to be a part of this.

Cheers,

Elijah

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