Erich Stauffer

Author: Erich Stauffer

  • 6 Steps to Making Money Online

    Using proven, repeatable techniques there is little risk and great rewards involved in marketing products for profit.

    When you use keywords that people are searching for, you naturally drive traffic to your site, which in turn makes you money online. But how do you find the right keywords and how do you know what people are searching for?

    There are six key steps to this process which will answer all of these questions:

    1. Find Micro-Niche Keywords – Identify a micro-niche inside a penetrable market that has profitable products that people are already selling. A micro-niche is a subset of a market niche.
    2. Verify Keyword Volume – Using WordTracker and/or the Google External Keyword Tool, make sure searches are over 80 per day and that there are under 30,000 search results overall.
    3. Verify Keyword Competition – Determine whether or not you will be able to penetrate the top 10 results in Google based on the number of top-level domains listed, their age, and number of backlinks.
    4. Produce Keyword-Rich Content – Write content for your primary landing page that also contains your primary keywords and links to sub-pages that contain longer keyword phrases.
    5. Promote Using Keywords – Write articles, blog posts, and lenses for posting on other web sites that link back to your sub-pages with your longer keyword phrases. Post at least two Youtube videos.
    6. Sell Products or the Web Site Itself – At this point, if you followed all of the steps, you should be making money online by selling products.  If not, then consider selling the domain for a profit online at Flippa or Sedo.

    The rate of success with this method is roughly 1 out of 8 and marketing and testing can take anywhere from 1 to 30 days.  Success is defined as more money coming in than is going out each month and that includes all opportunity costs (time that could have been spent making money in other activities).  Tracking is critical not only with the data of the results, but with the finances and time spent.

  • How to Find a Niche (and What to Do with it Once You Find It)

    Profit can be made from almost any niche – the key is knowing how to find it

    This is a simplified method for how to find a niche. Essentially we begin with the end in mind, knowing we’re going to need a product to sell that is currently being sold, but maybe not as well as it could be.  Maybe it’s hard to find or maybe the people who are selling it want help selling it.  That’s where you come in.  Here is an example:

    I like computer games so I use Google to search for “computer games” (without quotes, which is called a ‘broad search’), which gives me back 200 results. I then use the criteria (as mentioned in 6 Steps to Making Money Online and Research and Analysis Metrics) to narrow them down to one ‘keyword’ I’d like to use.  I then find 200 more keywords related to that one keyword and again narrow those down to 4.

    Now I have my micro-niche, which is identified by the keyword, “World of Warcraft Gold”.  I then have to see how much competition there is for that keyword and if it is a penetrable market (one that has low domain age, a small amount of back-links, and no or low directory listings). Only then can I move on to check whether or not there is something to sell.  If there is something to sell, then we ask ourselves if we would want to work for the amount of money it is offering.  If it is, then we build and start promoting.  If I don’t get traffic, I kill it and start over or sell the domain on Flippa or Sedo.

    How to Find a Niche

    Sometimes coming up with ideas for a niche is hard.  One set of advice I heard was to look in the back of magazines to see what people are selling because it means there is already a niche market for it because people are buying it.  You can also use Google Trends or Twitter Search to see what is trending right now.

    Here are some examples from ads in the back of a magazine:

    • Logo Design
    • Web Design
    • Business Plans
    • Botta Solus Watches
    • Timeshares
    • Oranges as Holiday Gifts
    • Exercise Equipment
    • Employee Leasing
    • Business Services

    Here is what is currently trending on Google Trends:

    • tom delay
    • ashley turton
    • eftps
    • bcs championship game
    • liberal smear machine
    • todd graham
    • houston livestock show and rodeo 2011
    • eftps.gov
    • ron rivera
    • www.eftps.gov

    Here is what is currently trending on Twitter Search:

    • Wojtek Wolski
    • Lionel Andres Messi
    • María Elena Walsh
    • Beth Gouveia
    • Fernanda Vasconcelos
    • Sue Sylvester
    • Great Gatsby
    • Toni Ramos
    • CHAD CHAD
    • #palabrasquedanmiedo

  • Keyword Metrics for Success

    Research and Analysis Metrics

    Micro-niches are identified as the number one keyword receiving at least 80 searches per day and websites containing that keyword being less than 30,000 globally. The key is to find that sweet spot on the matrix of high traffic and low competition. To do this, find keywords which match the following criteria:

    At least three keywords other keywords within the micro-niche with similar criteria must also be identified, if not, start over.  Top ten competition for the top four keywords has to be penetrable within the time allowed (usually no more than 30 days). Once you find five total keyword phrases you can begin to create a website, market, and begin testing.

    Metrics to consider are:

    • Domain age
    • # of back-links to domain
    • # of back-links to page mentioning the keyword
    • # of back-links from .gov or .edu domains
    • Exists in Yahoo! Directory?
    • Exists in BOTW (Best of the Web) Directory?
    • Exists in DMOZ (ODP) Directory?

    Need more web directories?

    If the competition has a young domain age, a low number of back-links, and does not exist in any of these directories, then the market is penetrable.  If the opposite is true, stop and start over.

    Check to see that related products are both available to be sold and are being sold by others.  If either is not true, stop and start over.

    If both of those tests pass, then make sure the products are giving a referral amount that you deem acceptable.  If not, stop and start over. Otherwise, you now have products in a penetrable micro-niche that are profitable to sell.

    Marketing and Testing

    Begin by setting up a place to place your products.  This is where your marketing efforts will point back to.  It can be a Squidoo page, Blogger, or WordPress.com or WordPress running on your own domain.

    If you are using Blogspot or WordPress, install Google Analytics to track traffic.  If using Squidoo or Hubpages, there are tracking mechanisms built into the site. You can’t manage what you are aren’t measuring so track everything you can.

    Use the following chart to give you an idea of how to setup your web site for maximum keyword use and Google dominance.

    Once you have content on your primary landing pages and sub-pages, begin to create back-links to your site by placing links to the domain, the blog posts, and the the product pages on social bookmarking, social media, and in blog comments in your related market.  Be sure to add links from .edu and .gov domains. You can search Google specifically for blogs on those domains manually by using the following syntax:

    site:.edu “post a comment” –“comments are closed” “[enter your keyword here]”

    Track the incoming page hits.  Testing for viability can begin only after your product’s page is receiving at least 200 hits per day.  If you are not getting 200 hits per day, then try these things first:

    • Increase the number of blog posts on and off the site using other services like hubpages and squidoo – then promote all of the new posts again
    • Make sure you are promoting on at least 30 different sites for each post – you can use services like ping.fm or trafficbug to assist with this task
    • Pay to have your site listed in the Yahoo! Directory
    • Pay for Google Adwords or Bing (Microsoft) AdCenter
    • Add pictures with descriptive text to get hits from search engine’s image searches
    • Add video to Youtube with links and comment on other videos in your micro-niche
    • Make sure you are posting to Twitter and Facebook regularly and engaging in conversation, not just promoting

    If after 30 days or at your own set threshold, you are still not receiving 200 hits or more per day, your product is not viable.  Consider selling your website on Flippa or Sedo.  You have just found one of your 1 in 8 failures.

    If you do have over 200 hits per day, but are not getting conversions, first try changing out your ad copy, images of the products, and/or placement of the two on the page.  If after changing all three of these variables and still your conversion rate (revenue) is below your expenses, then sell your domain and start over.  If not, you have a profitable online business.

  • Top 5 Quick and Dirty Hosted Blog Publishing Services

    Whether or not you have your own domain, sooner or later you’re going to have the need for a hosted blog platform to create more backlinks.

    Webories, the web directories web site, has two articles on hosted blog publishing services* (“Top 5 Hosted Blog Publishing Services” and “Top 5 Hosted Micro-Blogging Publishing Services”) that I would like to add to with my top 5 ‘quick and dirty’ hosted blog publishing services. Some of these are new to me, but they come recommended by The Challenge, which I also recommend for anyone starting out making money online.

    1. LiveJournal – a free blog publishing service centered around it’s users. There are paid options to make it more secure. “Discover global communities of friends who share your unique passions and interests.”
    2. Xanga – “The Blogging Community” is a free blog publishing service. It’s ad based, but paid options reduce the number of ads. You can also get a personalized URL (domain name). If you do, make sure it contains your primary keywords.
    3. Blogger – Blogger is an easy way to share your thoughts about anything. There are a host of features to make blogging as simple and effective as possible and integrating with Google Adsense is a snap.
    4. Identi.ca – Identi.ca is a micro-blogging service. Join for free to share short (140 character) notices which are broadcast to their friends and fans using the Web, RSS, or instant messages.
    5. Posterous – Posterous lets you post things online fast using email. You email us at post@posterous.com and we reply instantly with your new posterous site. If you can use email, you can have your own website to share thoughts and media with friends, family and the world. And they don’t care what anyone says, “Posterous is NOT a micro blog!”

    *A blog publishing service is inherently hosted by someone else who manages the server, its software, and its settings. It’s a kind of software-as-a-service, or SAAS thing. Blog platforms, on the other hand, is blogging software that you host on your own server or hosting company’s server. You manage the software and its settings. A good example is the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. WordPress.com is a blog publishing service while WordPress.org is a blog platform. They both use the same software – the difference is in who maintains it: you or them.

  • Top 5 Places to Get Paid to Take Surveys

    How to make money online taking surveys

    A while back I wrote a post entitled 12 Ways to Make Money Online. #9 was ‘Online Surveys’, which is what I am going to be talking about today: the top 5 places to get paid to take surveys online.

    Survey Club – Take Paid Surveys online and get paid cash for surveys with No Membership Fee. Make money with Survey Club! Join our Free Paid Surveys club and get instant access to the best paid online surveys.
    Paid Surveys – Work at home, Get Paid For Your Opinion, paid surveys and online focus groups.
    Survey Scout – Take online surveys and make from $1 to $15, or more. Participate in focus groups and make up to $100 a day. Take phone surveys and you can earn as much as $10 and hour. Try new products (and keep the free products too).
    BigSpot – Join for free by completing the short sign up form. The information you provide helps us match you with survey companies that fit your profile. After joining, you’ll see a personalized list of companies that want to reward you for taking surveys. The more free survey companies you join, the more you can earn!
    Surveys 4 Checks – Members are provided with a step-by-step guide on wow to make money online taking surveys. There is no limit to how much you can make because the income is determined by you! The amount you make will depend on how much time you have to commit each day. The more surveys that you do the more money you will make.

    For more ideas on how to make money online taking surveys, check out Mooladays.

  • Don’t Forget About Weebly

    Webories, a web directories web site, has a post entitled “Top 5 Hosted Micro-Blogging Publishing Services”, but one web site they missed was Weebly.

    Weebly is a San Francisco, California based company that was founded in 2006 with the mission to help people put their information online quickly and easily. It now enables 3 million people to easily create personal sites and blogs or establish web presences for businesses, weddings, classrooms, churches, or artistic portfolios – just to name a few examples.

    In early 2007, the Weebly founding team joined a seed funding program called Y Combinator and began working full-time to make the Weebly service spectacular. Weebly was named one of TIME’s 50 Best Websites of 2007 under Web Services, and they have continued to improve Weebly’s feature set and ease of use ever since.

    Amescreative says, “Weebly is in a class by itself in many ways since it allows you to build a true website, and not just a blog, but it’s drag and drop interface can be confusing and frustrating for some. It however offers a lot of customization options if you are a programmer or going to use one to customize your site,” and goes on to compare with Tumblr, which was mentioned by Webories, “Tumblr offers a good mix with extreme ease of use for novices along with easy customization options for programmers or designers looking at it for the first time. Tumblr’s balance between these two important aspects are what make me recommend it as the best solution in most instances. If you want a more complete site, go with Weebly, and if you want to do it all yourself as a novice WordPress might be a good choice, but Tumblr is easier to use that WordPress in my opinion and while not doing everything that Weebly does, gets close.”

  • Cost Publishing Media Group Crazy about eReaders

    Cost Publishing’s media group, which consists of over sixty blogs, has just under 10% of it’s web sites devoted to the ereader market, which consists of electronic readers, or read pads and their corresponding ebooks, covers, and accessories. Some are specific to particular brands such as Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Amazon’s Kindle. Both cover the ereader devices and accessories to protect them, but one focuses on Nook covers mostly.

    It’s no wonder that Cost Publishing has decided to focus so much on the ereader market. 2010 seemed to be the year of the ereader as new models seemed to come out almost every month. Both major big-box, brick-and-mortar book stores (Borders and Amazon.com) started selling ereaders along with Target and Wal-Mart. Amazon.com reports that its Kindle is their number one selling item and it sold more in Christmas 2010 than any year before that. All of that leaves people craving information about where to buy ereaders, what they will do, and how to protect them, which is what Cost Publishing provides.

    Cost Publishing also publishes about food, health, politics, and news. According to their website, “Cost Publishing was founded in August 2008 by Erich Stauffer and Jason Cobb. The word ‘Cost’ is a contraction or portmanteau which uses the first two letters of Cobb and Stauffer’s last names. We value innovation, entrepreneurism, and intelligent design.” If their goal is to add value to the Internet community by providing guides to those seeking products and services, then they have succeeded.

  • Tools of the Trade

    These are the Windows tools I use to make web sites, which in turn makes me money online.

    Notepad++ – If you’ve used Windows anytime in the last 25 years you know about Notepad, but don’t let the name fool you, Notepad++ is a notable improvement over Notepad, specifically for programmers. Now you might not think of yourself as a programmer, but if you’re editing HTML, CSS, or PHP you’ll find Notepad++’s code-identifying text color changes useful as well as the ability to have multiple tabs open at once (with split screen ability), and “just how you want it to act” tab spacing. It auto-indents code and can indent rows of code at once in highlighted sections. Another neat feature is the ability to search within files or folders for text, which I have used many times.
    Filezilla – The defacto standard for open-source FTP programs, Filezilla is what I use to upload files to my host. It’s not as secure as SSH secure shell, but it gets the job done for free. Filezilla’s site manager tool can save connection information, making it easy for you to manage different FTP accounts, but I tend to just use the quickconnect bar, which saves a history of your recently visited FTP sites. Individual view windows can be turned on or off in the view file menu and more customization is available in the settings menu.
    Firebug – A browser plug-in for developers that works best in Firebug, but has versions for Chrome and Internet Explorer too that don’t work as well. This program lets you highlight items inside the browsers view screen to find out information or to make temporary changes. These temporary changes allow you to preview the affects before you make the changes permanent. This is an excellent tool and a must-have for web site developers.
    Chrome – Contained within Chrome’s tools is a feature called “Chrome developer tools,” which works much like Firebug, but is built into Chrome. It allows you to browse elements on the page or make temporary changes. One nice feature is the Audit tab which lets you review things like network utilization and web page performance. A quick run of the audit tool will yield you advice (if you need it) on CSS, Javascript, cookies, and cache usage.
    Paint.Net – For advanced photo editing with layers, Paint.Net delivers as the strongest free comparison to Adobe Photoshop. It features several advanced adjustment tools including “Black and White,” “Curves,” and “Sepia.” There are also built-in effect tools ranging from artistic, to blurs, to distortion, which rival those of Photoshop. For a comparison with Paint.Net, try GIMP. Paint.Net, GIMP, and Photoshop all are made to edit raster graphics, which are like photographs and cannot scale up without losing resolution. Vector images, on the other hand, are like those used in animation and logos and use math to create lines. This allows them to scale up and down without losing resolution since its just a recalculation of the math. Vector images can only be edited with special programs like Inkscape, which is free, or Adobe Illustrator.
    Picasa – While its biggest feature is probably its photo management and gallery functions, the reason I’ve included it in this list is as a subsidy to Paint.Net and even Photoshop for specific picture editing. There are two views, “Library” and “Edit”. Inside the edit view there are three tabs, “Basic Tuning”, “Fixes,” and “Effects”. In Basic Tuning or Fixes I use the fill light command the most as I feel it does a better job than just adding brightness using Paint.Net or Photoshop. In Effects I use “Glow”, “Soft Focus”, and “Sepia” the most. Paint.Net also has a sepia effect. Use these or the “Collage” tool in the Library view to create neat pictures for your web site.
    Inkscape – A free alternative to Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape is a fully baked open-source scalable vector image editing program. It takes some getting used to if you’re used to working with raster images in layers, but once you get the hang of manipulating objects and lines and knowing when to left-click and when to right-click, you’ll be able to make some decent iconography that might save you some money over buying stock images for your web sites. And just because it is open-sourced doesn’t mean it’s not supported. There is lots of documentation, tutorials, and online forums in a community willing to share and collaborate. If you already own Adobe Illustrator this is a fine tool and also comes highly recommended.

    If I’ve missed a Windows tool that you use, please mention it in the comments and for Apple and Linux users, feel free to add your comments as well to share with all.

  • 80′s Toy The Original Roller Racer Flying Turtle

    I have been searching for the name of this triangle-shaped, red seated toy that has a handlebar underneath that you move back and forth to go forward with, but because it existed prior to the Internet, I haven’t been able to find it – until now*.

    I was searching for things like, “80s racer red sit toy handbars”, “red sit scooter”, and “red triangle scooter”, but I couldn’t find anything. I knew it was red and sort of a triangular shape. It had handlebars that were attached to the front but curved around to the sides and you put your feet up on the front part of the handlebars while holding the grips that were off to the side. To make it go, you just had to wiggle the handlebar back and forth. I never owned one, but remember seeing the commercials on TV growing up. I later found out they were made by the Mason Corporation and named Roller Racers or Flying Turtles. I’ve also heard them referred to as The Rabbit.

    The Original Roller Racer

    It’s called a “Roller Racer” and Amazon defines it as a scooter. I suppose it is, but it’s not like any other stand-up scooter. You sit very close to the ground and instead of using your feet to push you forward, you have to move the handle bars back and forth, kind of like a snake.

    One Amazon commenter said it was good for preschool children with disabilities because even, “Kids with splints or whose legs are too short can ride with their feet on the T-bar connecting the handlebars and, again, enjoy a great ride.”

    According to Wikipedia, the Roller Racer was originally sold by WHAM-O brand name, but is now sold by the Mason Corporation and is available on Amazon.

    EDIT: I’ve recently setup a whole new website for these ride-on toy scooters with one post dedicated to Roller Racers and Flying Turtles.

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