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Sorry I haven’t posted in a long time.  I have been VERY busy with my content writing business and it’s taken up most of my time.  Although the money is nice, it takes time away from working on my niche sites and my income there has slipped a bit.

Back to the point of this post…

Surf around the internet for just a few minutes looking for ways to make money and very quickly you will find plenty of people claiming that you can make tons of money in a very short time.  While there may be ways to do it, most aren’t sustainable over a long period of time.  If you want to jump in, make a few bucks and move on, then some of these schemes may work.

However if you want to build a good, long-term affiliate income you need to do 2 things:

Choose A Long Term Niche

Plenty of people jump on the bandwagon of building a site around a hot niche.  It seems right now that most affiliates that are doing CPA offers are building Acai diet sites and landing pages.  Just like most other diets, these are fads and the science hasn’t been completely proven so eventually they will be gone.  Lots of people were capitalizing on Obama’s victory and using his name and image in PPC ads for "free government money".  There were some guys making huge money promoting government grants that didn’t exist until of course the Federal Trade Commission stepped in and stopped it.  Needless to say, these types of sites will have a short life.

A long term site might be on a niche like shoes or lawnmowers.  Maybe not all that exciting, but most likley people will continue to cut their grass for many years and shoes seem to be pretty standard!  These are niches that you can build slowing over many years until you have a site that generates a lot of revenue.

Don’t Be Afraid of Hard Work for Zero Return Initially

You’re not likely going to make $1000 your first week in affiliate marketing, although it does happen on occasion.  You may have to put in 20 hours per week for a year before you see any decent return.  It could be more time, it could be less, but realize that in the beginning that time means nothing.  It’s not like a regular job since you could easily spend 100’s of hours on a project before you see 1 cent.  Hopefully that changes over time to the point where you are spending little time on a site (maybe 1-2 hours per week) and earning decent money (maybe 500 per week from one site).

I don’t think that affiliate marketing is rocket science.  You don’t need to be overly smart or even that technical.  I know very little about html, php or databases, but I know enough to get by.

One of the most handy features of wordpress is that each and every time you publish a post, Wordpress notifies the search engines and lets them know that there’s new content that needs to be indexed.  This notification system is otherwise known as "pinging" and it can be your best friend, or you worst enemy.

Unfortunately Wordpress can be a little bit "ping happy", especially if you have a tendency to create posts and then go back in and edit them after they have already been published.  Each and every time you do this, wordpress pings the search engines and lets them know about new content.  The trouble is, if you go in and edit a spelling mistake, there’s not actually any new content to index.  If you do this over and over, the search engines will soon get tired of your constant notifications and flag your blog as spam and you do not want this to happen!

One way to get around this is to download the MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer .  It has a handy features that allows you to change the frequency at which wordpress sends a ping, resulting in only sending pings when there is actually new content.

This is just one plugin of many that can help you to manage your blog more effectively.

After a few very busy weeks with my content writing business I finally decided to break down and spend some money on a new Wordpress plugin.  I’ve been wanting to purchase the phpBay Pro Wordpress Plugin for quite some time now, but was just too cheap to fork out the $79 to purchase it.  After using the free version for a couple of months and enjoying it, I decided it was time to make the purchase and see if I could successfully integrate it into my websites.

If you are not familiar with phpBay Pro, essentially it’s a plugin for Wordpress that allows the user to add eBay listings into blog posts.  If you are an eBay Partner Network affiliate, this is an easy way to build a website using Wordpress as your content manager.

As for setup, installation of phpBay Pro was as easy as installing any Wordpress plugin. There are a few files that get uploaded into the root directory of Wordpress and the rest go into the plugins directory just like any other plugin for Wordpress.  Once installed you go to "settings" and tweak it to your liking.  There’s an option to display listings in rows or columns and to display more pages so that the visitor can scroll through a number of eBay listings without having to leave your website until they find a product they wish to purchase.

This week alone I was able to build 2 new websites using phpBay Pro and it could not have been easier.

Overall, phpBay Pro is great plugin and a must for any eBay affiliate.  As most of us know, search engines seem to be in love with Wordpress so might as well take advantage of it while you can.

Building niche websites or blogs can be a great way to earn money and it attracts all different kinds of people who want to supplement their income by making money online.  While providing some extra income for you or your family is a noble endeavor, as a website owner you need to be brutally honest with yourself about the quality of your website.

While most people that dive into building niche websites have little or no experience at building websites,there’s a steep learning curve. If you have no experience at all with building a website, you might be proud of yourself just for figuring out how to install BANS or Wordpress - Even a basic installation.

While building a site for the first time and seeing it actually online is rewarding, do your visitors know that it’s your first website?  Not likely.  There’s a big difference between a website that looks good to the public and one that you are proud of because you figured out how to actually build it.  While you may be thrilled with your growing technical skill, you need to be honest about the actual quality of the website.  Ask yourself this:  If I found this website in a web search, would I buy something here?  Does it look attractive and professional?

For all those building out of the box BANS stores, this is for you.  Just because you are happy that you figured out how to edit the color or add a logo, it still doesn’t mean that you have a nice website that visitors will love.

Here’s 2 ideas that can help you deal with your website in an honest nature.

1.  Log onto a forum - BANS, Digital Point or another forum and ask for a review.  People will usually be quite honest and at times, quite brutal.  It’s a good wake-p call.

2.  Type in the keyphrase you are trying to rank for.  Compare your website to the top 10 websites for the niche.  Does your website look as nearly as good, or at least somewhat visually appealing compared to your competitors?

For those that read this blog and may not know, I run an article and content writing service in addition to my niche websites and blogs.

For many webmasters, providing unique, quality content on a fairly regular basis is a bit of a chore.  If you enjoy the building and maintaining process but hate writing content, why not contact me so we can discuss the content needs for your website.

Maybe you aren’t the greatest writer, and just prefer to hire someone else.  Whatever the reason, I would be happy to help you by writing informative, quality content for your website or blog.  Whether it’s original blog posts, or articles of 500 or 750 words, I can help you so that you can focus on the technical and marketing aspect of your affiliate business.

Contact me through my website, NicheStoreContent.com to request a quote.

Read the review that was written on Soggy Dave’s Build A Niche Store Blog about my content writing service.

When I first started learning about making money online and then bought BANS and became and eBay affiliate, I had grand plans. I would simply build a few websites, starting earning thousands per month and then travel the world while money rolled in.

So how am I doing now that I have been into it for about 1 year?

Not as good as expected! When I first started there were just so many claims out that that indicated that making money online was easy. I figured that if so many people were preaching this idea, it must be true. I learned a hard lesson - They lied. Not everyone, but many people were not telling the truth about making money online. It’s not easy, it takes TONS of time and you may not earn a dime for months. That’s the reality of it. If you have never been involved in your own business, making money online may be a reality check for you. When you work outside the home for an employer, you earn a salary or wage for the hours that you put in. With online earnings, you may put in 500 hours and make $7.38. That’s the reality of it. It takes time and commitment with an eye in the distant future, not on tomorrow.

If you are the type of person to get discouraged by putting in 40 hour in a week working on your webites and seeing little or no income for quite some time, this business is not for you. On the other hand, if you know that you are going to have to work your butt off for months to see any real gains, then go for it. Just set a goal and a schedule for your work and go to it. Don’t let lack of earnings stop you because in time, the money will show up. Just devote yourself to building a good quality website with lots of informative information and you will be well on your way to making great money.