Here’s a list of 11 things that make my site better than most:

1. Buy The Perfect Domain

A domain name is the first thing people see when they come to your website. Actually they see it before they even come to your site, that’s why it’s so important.

Earlier this year when I start ExpertPhotography.com with my brother, I knew we had to get a good domain. The photography niche is very competitive and has a lot of people in it. One thing you will notice with all the top sites is they have great brandable domains. I started just typing domain ideas I like into my web browser and seeing if they had a site. The majority had, however when I got to ExpertPhotography it had a landing page at BuyDomains instead. BuyDomains is basically a brokering company that work on behalf of the owner to sell the domain. I contacted them and after some negotiating I bought the domain.

Great domains are not just the ones people see as an authority but also ones that hold a great brand. One thing I like to do with my domains is to make them describe what the site is about. Let me show you how this works.

• ExpertPhotography.com – It’s about being an expert at photography.
• Retireat21.com – How to retire young.
• AwesomeWeb.com – How to build awesome websites.

Here’s an example from one I came up with for a friend. He wanted to blog about outsourcing and so I came up with SaveTimeOutsource.com – it describes what the site is about in the domain, yet is short and catchy.

2. My Blog Design Is Amazing

Most new bloggers will use a premium WordPress theme, such as one from Woothemes. This is something I recommend, we did it with ExpertPhotography. However, after a while, when you start making money from your site and you want to take it to the next level, that’s when you get creative and design a site.

I’m not a designer, neither are you probably, so I would recommend you hire someone instead of yourself attempting to do it. My top tip for for creating great sites is looking at all your competitors, find out what they all do really well and put all those things together to make one really well done site.

IncomeDiary will always be a work in progress, every time I have a new idea, I get it implemented. Every time I see something isn’t working out, I get it removed.

3. I Have Guest Writers

Before I started getting people to write for me on IncomeDiary, I was publishing a post perhaps once a week, in some months I’d struggle to write just one post!

If you want to dominate in your industry, get other people to write for you. Before you do this though, I highly recommend you set high standards and pay your writers to make sure you deliver the best to your readers. Since applying this approach, we have been able to publish content nearly every day and over the last 6 months, quadrupled our traffic.

4. I Have My Own Product

If you constantly put out great free content, they will always want more. Create and sell your own eBook or course and those who want more will come and buy. This is a must have! I love promoting affiliate products but the one draw back is, your always helping another person out and that person is most likely your competitor. Having your own product means you keep everything and you get to improve your brand.

5. I Have a Mailing List

If your still not building a email list, then your leaving money on the table and your not getting as much traffic as you could get. The great thing about mailing lists is that every time you publish a blog post, you can let all those people who subscribed via email know about that new post. This brings thousands of people to my site every time I publish a post!

Try Popup Domination if you want to play ‘catch up!’

6. I Diversify My Income

If you rely on just one income stream for your website, then your not making as much money as you should! On average, you can make three times more money if you monetize your site in three different ways instead of one. There are only so many people who will pay for an advert on your site and only so much room to display ads. When I went from monetizing Retireat21 with just banner ads to diversifying my income with multiple techniques, I drastically increased my earnings.

Check out these 14 ways you can make money from your website.

7. I Have Great Hosting

I have used over a dozen hosting company’s since I started online. Always read reviews and ask friends before you get a host. The worse thing for me as a website owner is having my site offline. If you have seen The Social Network film about Facebook, your remember the scene when they talk about their server and how it can’t go offline because the second it does, people will start looking else where. The same applies for your blog, if your site is offline, people will look else where.

A few recommendations when choosing a host:

• 24/7 Live Support! This way, if you have problems, you can always reach someone to help fix it.
• A wide range of hosting offered, so as you build your online business, you can increase your hosting with little to no downtime.
• 99.9999999 up time. If they have any track record of their servers going offline, I wouldn’t recommend you use them.
• Have been around for a few years. Don’t ever go for a new company’s, this may sound mean but this is your business and you need to be sure that who you host with, will be responsible and will be sticking around.

I personally use HostGator to host IncomeDiary, I use one of their VPS’s (a type of server). It also hosts ExpertPhotography. So far, I have had very little problems with them, on the rare occasion the server goes offline, it’s always been my fault and my brother has been able to go into the live support and just ask them to reboot it.

The other day, ExpertPhotography was running slow, my brother went on their live support and asked why. They told him two wordpress plugins were slowing down the site. He removed the plugins and it went back to full speed. They help you. Personally, they are worth more to me, than I pay them.

Check out HostGator now.

8. I Have Popular Posts

This may sound like a small thing but it’s really important. When you visit a blog and you like what they have to say, the next thing you look for is a collection of all their best posts. You do this because you want more! Popular post widgets make it easy to display those posts.

On IncomeDiary, my popular posts section is custom coded and is not a plugin. On my other site, I use Woothemes and a widget they offer with their themes, allows you to display popular posts. I love that feature! Yet again, another company, going the distance with what they offer their customers.

9. I Have a Great Combination of WordPress Plugins

It’s amazing the difference a bunch of WordPress plugins can do. You can see 20 WordPress Plugins I recommend, by click here.

10. My Site Is Optimized For Search Engines

Traffic is everything, without it, what we do would be pointless. Thanks to my buddy David, we have been able to implement all of his search engine optimization tips to get my site to rank highly in Google, which has meant a 200% increase in search engine traffic, that means I get over a thousand more visitors a day.

Click here to see the blueprint we followed to get my site to rank well.

11. I Publish Great Content

Everyone when they start, they are more concerned about how their site looks. The first thing you need to think about is CONTENT! That’s why people are going to visit your website. Focus all your time on great content, that will bring traffic and then once your sites getting a decent amount of traffic, focus on making money from those visitors.

Don’t make the mistake most people make, don’t focus on monetization at the beginning. People who do that seem to only ever focus on the money and that really comes across in their content. Blog for the love of the subject, that first. The money comes naturally.

Hope you enjoy this article. Let me know what things you think you can implement after reading this post!

This March 1st, Yanik Silver will once again be hosting his famous Underground Online Seminar (Number Eight) in Washington DC. Every year Yanik invites over a dozen top internet marketers from around the world to speak about what makes them successful and how you can apply it to your own business. Only “catch” is, Yanik invites super successful ‘under the radar’ marketers that you most likely won’t have heard of, so the content is always fresh, unlike the majority of other events.

For the third year running, Yanik is giving 10 young internet entrepreneurs the opportunity to come for free, saving you the $2,000+ price tag. Scholarship winners also receive free bonuses and get plenty of opportunities to talk 1 on 1 with mega internet marketing stars.

I’ve been to 7 undergrounds, 6 in the US and I also went to the one he hosted in London UK. Instead of going to university, I have gone to the Underground Online Seminar every year since 2006. (UG2)

And boy, was that the right choice. At my first event, I had just turned 17 and was running a graphic design forum. My dad bought me a ticket so that I could go with him. This opened me up to a land of opportunities and ideas that I wouldn’t have got from going to school / college / university.

If I never went to the Underground Online Seminar each year, I doubt I’d be doing what I’m doing today. Literally, all my greatest ideas have come from this event. It could be a speaker telling the audience about how he monetizes his website, or it could be just from a conversation I had in a coffee shop with an attendee. (That was a BIG one!)

Last night I was thinking to myself, about just how unique and amazing this Young Entrepreneur scholarship opportunity is. I published a post a few weeks ago about the Scholarship Opportunity and already we have had some amazing applications but I want to get the word out even more – I know there are STARS that I have not even reached yet and it is those who I want applying for Scholarship Places.

Underground Young Entrepreneurs

To give you some examples of previous Star Scholarship winners, one of last years winners has actually been invited back by Yanik to speak at this years event — and another previous winner went on to do a Million Dollar Launch after attending Underground.

Do you think you could join them? – or do you know anyone who could? – then tell them to visit the Young Entrepreneurs Scholarship Online Application Page ASAP (applications close 25th January)

Look, for me, buying a Ticket to Underground has got to be just about one of my best business investment ever (Yanik wasn’t offering scholarships back in 2006) — so imagine the return for a Young Entrepreneur who wins a Scholarship.

If your 23 years or under, click here to submit an application for a scholarship! You have until 25th January

If your older than 24, Click Here To Secure Your Place! This is not an affiliate link, I could use one but honestly, I felt it more important to show how genuine I am about the importance of you coming to underground. If you go ahead and buy a ticket because of this post, shoot me an email and I’ll even take you out for a  steak when you are at Underground.

Frankly I could probably compile a list of a 100 Positive Things that have come out of me attending the Underground Online Seminar – but for expedience and because this is so darn important if you are serious about building a super online business, I am only going to list my three BIGGEST OUTCOMES as a result of attending The Underground Online Seminar.

(Actually as I write this I am almost scared to think how different my life would be if I had not gone to Yanik Silvers Underground Seminar)

3 World Famous Websites that the Underground Online Seminar inspired me to create:

1. Retireat21.com

Retireat21.com  was one of my first big sites. I came up with it when I was at Underground UK. I was networking (one thing that the Underground Online Seminar is amazing for) and I was talking to this guy and he says “there really isn’t much out there for young people like you to learn about how to build a business”.

Light bulb moment!

By the end of the event I had wrote a full plan for launching a website targeted at young entrepreneurs. I came up with the name Retiredat21.com when I was at Underground. In the car, I was telling my dad about it, I remember our conversation like it was yesterday. He seemed genuinely impressed by the idea but made one suggestion. Instead of Retired, make it Retire.

As the story goes, I hire a 13 year old programmer I met on a forum and the site was born months later. This site has gone on to get millions of visitors and given me a platform to launch other blogs.

2. IncomeDiary.com

This very site would perhaps not exist if it wasn’t for Underground. Back at Underground 5 (2009), Yanik did his first scholarship for young entrepreneurs. I wasn’t really involved that year but being the same ages as the winners, we hanged out. I was sitting with Alex Maroko, David Leggett and Marshall Haas. David and I were helping Alex set up his first blog.

David turns to me and says, give me your affiliate link for Hostgator, Aweber and GoDaddy. I made over $100 from doing nothing, just being at the right place at the right time.

David and I were talking about it and we came to the conclusion, that $100 was stupidly easy to make. I had recently bought the domain IncomeDiary.com off someone and felt it was the perfect opportunity to launch my own free course, helping people just like Alex, start their first blog. Everytime someone did it, I earned big.

The very first month, IncomeDiary made over $5,000. Paying for my Underground ticket, travel and expenses.

3. PopupDomination.com

Popup Domination exists because of the Underground Online Seminar. That is insane! Just think, the only thing between me creating such an awesome profitable product was me going to a seminar or not. If I had not gone, I don’t see how I would have created Popup Domination.

My friend was having a a conversation with someone who used popups on their website. He told him that they convert big time. I decided to add one to my site and after seeing the results for myself, decided to develop the product. 18 months on, it’s made well over $500,000 and is likely going to make it’s first million by the end of the year.

A million bucks because of an idea I got from listening to smart people talk at a seminar. Heck, I should listen more when people talk to me.

See you at Underground Online Seminar 8 in March!

Think for a second. Your on Google and you looking for something, for example, lets say your searching Low Alkaline Foods.

What do you want to see? An article helping you or an article that is written poorly?

Michael, that’s a silly question. Actually it’s not. Because the majority of bloggers write the crap posts and not the great posts.

Your so busy trying to make money from people, you forget the whole point of blogging. The whole point of you writing and people visiting your site is to deliver value, to help them in the way they need helped. If you article is all about you getting paid and ranking will in Google, you will not get anywhere. Google is to smart and people are quick to decide if a website looks like it’s going to help them or not.

Not only that but your most likely writing about a subject you have no right to write about. It’s like this industry, the ‘make money online’ niche. People want to make money online, they see me doing it and so they create a similar blog about how to make money from websites. The problem is, they don’t know anything about it, they probably think they do because they have installed a blog and once, one of their posts got 30 Facebook likes but the reality is, I’ve had millions of people visit my sites before I started this one and so it’s quite clear I know something. You on the other hand haven’t, this is probably your first site and you are simply re-writing things you just learned and don’t yet fully understand.

This applies to all niches, not just the make money online niche.

The above paragraph reminds me of myself and how I failed big time at school. I didn’t fail because I wasn’t clever and could not read/write. It was because I didn’t take the time to learn the subject.

The first 429 words of this article were written in under 5 minutes. That means I’m writting at a rate of around 1000 words every 10 minutes. Most blog posts are around 1000 – 2000 words long, at least the majority of the good ones. I hear university students complain that it’s going to take them forever to write 2ooo words. It’s going to take you that long because you don’t yet understand the subject. If you were told to write about your life, you could write about it at the same speed I write this post. Because you fully understand it, as you live it.

This isn’t the case with most blog owners. They don’t know enough about what they write about. The point of me telling you this is because you need to firstly know what you are talking about before you try to teach other people.

My bro is great at writing about photography. Why? Because he’s been doing it for years. If I was to spend a week with him learning how to take great shots and then try to write about the subject. It just wouldn’t happy. I won’t of grasped it. Every time I would go to write about something, I would have to firstly research and confirm what I was writing was right.

So how can you start writing successful posts?

1. Read The Introduction

The above introduction isn’t going to be read by most of you. Go back, read it. This applies to so many people it’s crazy. I have friends who start blogs and wonder why 3 months down the road, they still get 10 visitors a day and are not making any money. It’s because they suck at writing which is mostly a result of sucking at the subject they write about.

2. Work Out What You Rock At

You rock at something. I’m really good at computer games, probably because I now do it for a living as my blog is on autopilot. I’m also really knowledgeable about health and food, I’ve spent the last 2 years testing things on myself. This would work amazingly as a blog. Giving all my feedback on what’s worked and what hasn’t. The point is, I could talk about it because I’ve lived it. Find something you could write about that you have lived.

3. Learn How We Want To Read

I’m no expert at writing but I do know how to write posts that get crazy amounts of traffic. It’s simple, people want to read great content. It’s not just great content though. I find the most successful way to lay out content, is to make it easy to scan. People don’t want to read fluff, they want to see 1000 words and know instantly that the top 10 alkaline foods are. Not to read 1000 words to find out something they could of done in 100 words. However it’s not that simple…

This is how you do it. Example of part of a post:

1. Lemons are Alkaline

They have all these amazing benefits, this is also great information you may want to know.

Repeat 9 times.

So basically it’s two ways in one. One way so people can skim and find the 10 alkaline foods and another way which has more information on each food for those who want all the information. You see, for the majority of people, they just want to know which foods to buy at the super market, however, their is a percent that want more. A lot of people would think lemons aren’t alkaline and would judge your whole article on the fact that, they don’t want to take your word for it. The paragraph that comes after it explains why in fact it is and how to add it to your diet to improve your alkaline/acid balance.

4. Check Over Your Writing

I suck at spelling and grammar. But I make an effort. No doubt somewhere in this article I have made a mistake. Probably many mistakes. But I’ve made a good effort to make it easily readable.

It’s really obvious when someone hasn’t read what they have written. This spoils the article because someone is trying to read it and they keep getting stopped to work out what you meant by what you wrote. A great example of someone who needs an editor is Daily Mail Online. I read their site often, it’s a great way to distract yourself from work. Often I find myself working out what they have written, I also notice in the comments, I’m not alone in the frustration of reading their articles. I presume these articles are written by interns or outsourced to country’s where English isn’t their first language. Getting either of these people to write isn’t the problem, the problem is that the editor doesn’t take the 5 minutes to go over an article before they hit publish, that’s the problem!

5. Call It Something Exciting

When I Google, I always choose the sites that wrote top lists about the subject? Why? Because it saves me time and it’s easy to digest. You already know that because I’ve wrote over a 1000 words about it already. But the point is, 10 Top Alkaline Foods stands out more than Top Alkaline Foods. I think this is because you know what your going to get, unlike the other post which could be one of those dreadful content posts that I can’t skim.

Putting that aside, It’s also so important for marketing your article. A great title, makes people want to read. You most likely have bought a book just by judging the front cover, the same applies to a post title. Here’s a few suggestions for post titles.

• Top 20 Ways To Include More Alkaline Foods In Your Diet
• 20 Most Influential Alkaline Food Bloggers
• 10 Ways The Alkaline Diet Will Make You Healthier
• 7 Steps To Going Alkaline in 7 Days
• 4 Tip To Help You Feel Healthier Today and Every Day From Now On

Hope this gives you something to think about. Let me know in the comments how your going to improve your next blog post.

I realized, if I ever wanted to sell my online business, it couldn’t require ‘me’. Michael wasn’t for sale, just the business. That’s something a lot of top bloggers get wrong. They work on building their brand, they make it all about them and then when they lose interest, they aren’t able to do anything with their blog.

It wasn’t just so it would be easier to sell, I just didn’t want to have to focus on it, day after day.

I decided I wanted my business to run on autopilot. Basically, It had to grow month after month, with no work required from myself. So..

• I didn’t want to have to write posts
• I didn’t want to manage blog post schedules
• I didn’t want to have to work with advertisers and continually monetize my site
• I wanted to continue to get lots of traffic
• I didn’t want to have to draft emails to subscribers, do my social media etc.

So who’s now doing it and how did I achieve what I have?

1. Getting People To Write For Your Website

I didn’t want to deliver content that was less valuable than what I have published before. That wasn’t something I was prepared to do. I firstly tried guess bloggers, people I didn’t pay to write, but they got a link to their site. I got a few people ask to write but the majority were really bad. I found a couple good writers but they couldn’t prioritize me at all, which is understandable as they weren’t being paid.

I then decided to pay people to write. This has worked rather well. I have a set price and I tell my writers I want a post every Monday morning drafted so that we can schedule it during the week. I’ve had some ups and downs with this but overall it’s been quite successful, hopefully with in a month or so, I’ll have it nailed. One thing that has really helped is getting someone to manage it. My brother does this for me and it doesn’t take much of his time. If they don’t draft their post, he will get on them and make sure they do.

I have found a few good writers who don’t charge. Like I mentioned above, they can’t prioritize me. However, I think if I can get 8 good free writers, to publish one post every 2 months. It will be a day a week that I don’t have to pay for a post.

2. Publishing & Publicizing Your New Posts

A few months ago, I hired my brother to work for my business. Regular readers will be use to his blog posts. I installed a WordPress plugin called WP Editorial Calender and what it allows you to do is put blog posts in the calender and publish it at those set times. So for example, I can drag a post to a Thursday and then choose the time. By doing this we can see which posts go live when, we know posts wont conflict and we know they will automatically be published for us.

The majority of my regular readers subscribe via email for updates from the blog. Every time I publish a post, I had to draft and send the email via Aweber. Aweber rocks and does what I want it to, however, It was taking me 20 or so minutes each time to get the email out. What I decided to do, was to start using their blog broadcast function. It automatically emails your list every time a new post is published. It’s highly customizable which you will see below, I was able to make it look like I have written it, not only that, I got my web designer to design a great looking newsletter.

Every time a post is published. We automatically post a link on our Twitter feed. Details on this here.

3. Monetization & Passive Income

I knew that one thing that stressed me out and took up time was monetizing a site. If you have advertisers, you have to firstly find them, negotiate, work with them to get the deal and then they change their mind regularly, so you have to constantly, add/edit/delete the advert and sometimes, more often then not, have to start over again with the next person.

Affiliate marketing doesn’t require you. You link to a product, if a reader buys that product, you earn a commission. It’s not a guaranteed set income, however it saves you a lot of time and takes the pressure of you.

I also use a lot of space to advertise two of my products. Digital products don’t require any real support. If they don’t like your eBook, they can automatically get a refund via the merchant. Once purchased, the thank you page will notify them how to download the eBook. All very straight forward.

I do have one advertiser. Every month, he sends me a nice sum of money and he has his ad on my site. He’s been advertising since April and hasn’t been any trouble. What I recommend is go for one advertiser and charge threw the roof but at the same time, make them a priority for ad space. When I brought out my newsletter, I added his advert to it for free. Since he started advertising, the traffic has gone up a lot, the price has stayed the same. I know that money pays for my writers and It’s important he stays.

You could argue that an affiliate product could out perform an advertiser, this is true. But often, it’s not. Who knows? Who cares? It’s more important to me to diversify my income so I’m not reliant on one income stream. You can only promote an affiliate product so many times before it becomes irrelevant for a lot of readers. A great way to make adverts more relevent to readers and more successful for advertisers is by rotating 2 adverts with 2 different landing pages. This way your advertiser gets a much higher click through rate.

4. Conclusion and Moving Forward

I hope these quick tips helped. Month after month I grow my business yet I’m not around.

My main focus in 2012 is to get more writers and more blogs online. Writers are a large cost but for me it’s worth it. At least long term. Nick Tart wrote on his blog about how every new post is worth 1320 new visitors a year. For me it’s a lot more. Every time I publish a post, thousands of people rush to my site to read it. Out of all those people, I only need 3 to buy an affiliate product and I’ve made a profit on the post. Sometimes this isn’t the case but sometimes it worth a lot more. The importance of me telling you this is, you may not make your money back in the first day or even the first month but over a year, buying an article pays for its self and by not doing it, is really stupid.

INVESTMENT is king. People thought I was made spending so much on redesign after redesign, blog post after blog post. But looking back, if I didn’t do it, I’d not be reaping all the rewards I am today. An almost passive income.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below, I’d love to hear how you think the site has progressed.

Blogging is about delivering value and educating people about thing. Something I see a lot of people doing is writing with search engines in mind, writing content because they want to get it ranked in search engines, not to help readers. The same applies to those who want to make money from a blog post. If your whole aim is to make money from a post, your message often gets lost. Here’s some tips for those who want to continue to create bad posts.

Use Really Bad Grammar and Spelling

Before I say anything, I know mine isn’t that great. When I hit 20, I sort of just some how got half decent at writing. Up until then I didn’t really enjoy it and I was really bad at it. I had private English tutors for years and didn’t get any good at reading and writing until I took it seriously and that was when I started blogging.

If you want your writing to rock, know the subject and work at it! This post will probably take me a hour to write, I have blogging in my blood! If you don’t know a subject, don’t write about it. If you want anyone to take your post seriously make a big effort to write well.

Don’t Bother Styling Your Posts

The majority of people coming to your site will skim your content. This makes sense, who wants to read 2000 words to find the one line that you are interested in. Don’t make it hard for them to find that one line. Here’s how I break up my content to make it easy to skim:

• Bullet points are good for skimming.
• Each section or point needs to stand out like in this post.
• I like the number sections so people know what part of a post they are at.
• Don’t center text, it makes it hard to read.
• Don’t make your page to wide, this also makes it hard to follow and read.

Make Your Post Really Short

Great things can be spoken with a very small amount of words. However, as a whole, on the internet, we want lots of great content so your 300 word article that is basically an introduction to a subject is not good enough. If your doing an article about weight gain, then don’t just talk about the subject. Give us examples of good diets, link to other great articles, is there exercises we can do that will help us build muscle mass etc. What I’m trying to say, give us the complete answer we are looking for, otherwise we will look elsewhere.

Don’t Put in Images

Images aren’t required for a post to be valuable or successful. However, have you ever heard the saying, a picture is worth a thousand words (of course you have). Well, that’s kind of true with blogging. I like using them because it helps my readers skim to the right parts of my articles and see things visually.

Give It a Crap Title

This is so silly and something I see so many people do. You want to name your post something that’s going to make them excited about the article before they go to read it. Subject lines and titles of articles are so important to the success of my blogs. Every time I email my newsletter subscribers, if I don’t use a good title, I’ll see half the amount of people open the email. The same applies to social media, if it’s a good title or shocks you, your going to click the link and find out more.

Talk About Something Completely Irrelevant

I’m not just a guy who makes money online blogging, I do lots of stuff. However, you are not interested in the majority of that “stuff”, well at least not the majority of you.

Two new games are coming out on the xBox, Call of Duty and Battlefield. I have pre-ordered both and am looking forward to playing them. However talking about them in my blog posts are not going to be helpful to the majority of you. If I give reference to them, you won’t get that reference. If I do an article about why battlefield is better than Call of Duty and I typically talk about weight loss then I’ve just alienated  the majority of my readership, thus making my post crap to them.

Don’t Bother Checking Over Your Post

I never use to look over my blog posts before I published them and because I didn’t, I would have lot’s of errors and mistakes in my posts. Mistakes are natural and that’s acceptable, but what’s not right, is not at least running over your post a couple times and trying your hardest to get those mistakes fixed. If you haven’t looked over a post before publishing it, it shows.

Don’t Explaining Yourself

Saying things and not explaining what you mean by those “things”. Let me explain myself (haha). If I was to say, “To do this, you want to start by going to your FTP and then go into your Public HTML file and upload the file there”. I’d imagine a few of you would be lost by what that means. Instead I should say, “To do this, you want to start by going to your FTP, for those who don’t know, FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, it’s used to transfers files from your hard drive to your web server. When you first login to your FTP, you should see your Public HTML folder. Open that folder and drag and drop the file you want to upload from your desktop.”

If you style a post like that properly, those who are advanced can skim it easily, those who don’t know much about the subject can read every word and complete the task.

Base Your Post on Making Money

This is a real problem for everyone. When you create a post with the intent to make money from it, your going to create a post not as good as it should be. Say for example, I want to promote some fitness equipment that gets me great abs, the best ab equipment doesn’t have an affiliate program but the second best does. I choose to promote the second best when I know it’s not as good as the best. This means I’m not helping my readers as much as I could.

What mistakes do you see bloggers making the most?

Building a mailing list is vital to any online business, everyone is doing it! You can email all your readers at any given time about anything you like.

Every time I do a new article on my blog, I email my list about it, sending thousands of people instantly to the page. Getting traffic to your website is important, what’s just as important is making sure they keep coming back, time after time. That is why I build a list!

Another bonus of building a mailing list is that you can do affiliate marketing. Say your using a great product like Popup Domination, you want to make some extra money, you email your mailing list subscribers about Popup Domination using an affiliate link. Anyone who clicks that link and buys, you will receive a commission. I do this every month and it’s probably the closest thing to money growing on trees. Here’s why:

Sending an email to your list about a product takes literally minutes. The reward is always thousands of dollars for me. If I did it 4 times in a month which isn’t much at all, that’s likely to be at least an additional $10,000 in revenue that month! Hopefully by now your excited about the idea of building a list.

Before We Start

Those who already do email marketing probably don’t need to read this bit.

Before you can start collecting emails, you need to firstly decide on how your going to collect them. There are a lot of options out there and it’s hard to decide whats the best. I’ve used a lot of different company’s and still currently use Aweber, iContact and ConstantContact.

When it comes to building your list I recommend you grab yourself an Aweber account. Aweber is an autoresponder service which allows you to collect emails, email those said people and a whole load of other options including:

• Automatically follow up with emails in a sequence. For example, day1, they receive a free ebook. Day2, they receive a email about who you are and why they should listen to you, and so on…
• Those people you email that don’t open your email, you can email those people a second time to increase the chances of getting people to click your website URL and visit your site.
• You can build as many lists as you like, for as many different websites as you like. There is no reason to have one big list.

Here are my favorite 5 ways of building a mailing list online.

1. Javascript Lightbox – Using Popup Domination

A year ago I launched a product calling Popup Domination. It works with any website and has 8 really great designs. What it does is add a little box in front of your website when someone visits your page. It looks just like the image below. You give your readers the option to sign up for your free gift and/or newsletter. This is by far the highest converting method for bloggers to build their list. Test it out and if it doesn’t do exactly that, you have 60 days to ask for a refund.

Tip: I suggest showing it 2 seconds after page load, on the second page they visit. This way if they are coming from your mailing list to check out a recent post, they won’t be hit by it every time.

2. Squeeze Pages – Created With OptimizePress

Squeeze pages are vitally important to anyone who wants to build a list! The majority of people give away something to entice people into signing up for their email list. Often that free gift is an eBook and because it’s free, a lot of people will read it. Those who love it, will want to mention it to their friends, on their Twitter/Facebook and even on their website. The problem with all other traditional email marketing tactics such as a sidebar optin or a popup, is that their is no specific place to send people to sign up for your newsletter. You would have to say, “Go to this website and look on the sidebar somewhere for somewhere to sign up for something”. It’s not very convenient. That’s when a squeeze page becomes very handy.

Using Optimizepress, you can build a page in WordPress that will be all about your free gift and it will have an optin box. This page is designed to convert because of the great designs that come with Optimizepress. I often link to this page in articles and say, “Loved this post? Then your love this free eBook I wrote”. Definitely worth doing!

3. Sidebar Optin Box – Powered By Optin Domination

Although this tactic isn’t anywhere near as powerful as the above two, it’s still important. Sometimes people will see your popup but at the time they may not know what your site is about and if they really want to subscribe. They decide to say no to your free gift and later decide, “oh no, I really wanted to sign up for that”. This is why you have a box on your website sidebar, to offer your newsletter to those who didn’t take it the first time.

Luckily for you, we have released a free WordPress plugin called Optin Domination which allows you to add a well designed optin box to your websites sidebar.

4. Refer a Friend – Using List Eruption

For those who offer a free eBook for those who sign up to your list, I recommend you also use this tool. What it does is once a reader subscribes to your mailing list, it will take you to a new page. On that page, you will get a special website URL which will work as an affiliate link. Subscribers use that link to promote to their friends and readers and get them to sign up for your course. It tracks how many subscribe and once they get 5 friends to subscribe, it automatically gives that person access to a new free gift. This is a great way to get your email list to go viral! Click here to check out List Eruption!

5. Launch Your Own Product

One of the best ways to build a list is to sell a product online. When I started Popup Domination, I had perhaps 20,000 subscribing to my list and things were going very well. But a year on, I have a much better list, a customer list. A customer list is a list of your customers email address. This type of list is worth a lot more money than a normal list because subscribers have proven they are prepared to make a purchase on the internet. Now when you email a promotion to a list like this, it’s going to make you a lot more money, in some cases I’ve seen it convert over ten times higher!

This is so powerful that I have friends who actually make products just so that they can sell them cheap and use it as a way to build a list!

Now That You Have a List

When I first started blogging, I built a list.. for what it seemed, no reason what so ever.

I didn’t email my list for months, I simply did it because I saw other bloggers doing it and it looked “professional”. I was also 16 at the time. The first time I emailed my list, I saw quite a noticeable increase in traffic for that day! The more I emailed them, the more traffic my site got and in result, the more money my site made.

Make sure your regularly emailing your list, a minimum of once a week, if you don’t update your subscribers often, they will look else where for content!

Good luck! If you have any email marketing related questions, leave them in the comments below!

Laptop – Apple MacBook Pro

This is the new 15.4-inch MacBook Pro with state-of-the-art quad-core Intel i7 processor which delivers up to 2x faster performance (over the previous generation of MacBook Pro). New Thunderbolt technology lets you connect high-performance peripherals and high-resolution displays to a single port, and transfer files at lightning speeds. And with the new built-in FaceTime HD camera, you can make astonishingly crisp HD video calls.

As with previous models, the MacBook Pro features a precision unibody enclosure crafted from a single block of aluminum, creating a thin and light mobile computing workhorse (less than 1 inch thin and just 5.6 pounds) that’s also highly durable. It includes a 15.4-inch, LED-backlit glass display as well as a glass trackpad that features Apple’s Multi-Touch technology. And it comes standard with automatic graphics switching that provides performance when you need it and energy efficiency when you don’t. You’ll also get up to 7 hours of battery life while on the go.

This version of the 15.4-inch MacBook Pro features a 2.2 GHz Core i7 quad-core processor, 750 GB hard drive, and 4 GB of installed RAM. Other features include ultra-fast Wireless-N Wi-Fi networking, Bluetooth connectivity, an SDXC card slot, two USB 2.0 ports, and a FireWire 800 port. It also comes with the Mac OS X Snow Leopard operating system as well as the iLife software suite, which includes the latest versions of iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand.

External Screen – Apple LED Cinema Display 27-Inch

The 27-inch Apple LED Cinema Display, featuring a stunning 2560-by-1440 resolution, LED backlighting, and amazing 178-degree viewing angle. It connects to any Mac with a Mini DisplayPort connection. The universal MagSafe connector charges your Mac notebook, and three USB 2.0 ports give you room to expand. There’s also a built-in iSight camera, microphone, and 49-watt speaker system.

Keyboard – Apple Wireless Keyboard

The completely cable-free Apple Wireless Keyboard uses Bluetooth technology to connect with your Mac or iPad. So you’re free to move the keyboard just about anywhere within range and wirelessly type away. And it is slim, compact design takes less space. I use this over a wired one because I’ve already increased my number of USB ports by adding the external display, and If I go wirelessly, I can use the keyboard when I connect my computer to my TV. 

Mouse – Apple Magic Mouse

It began with iPhone. Then came iPod touch. Then MacBook Pro. Intuitive, smart, dynamic. Multi-Touch technology introduced a remarkably better way to interact with your portable devices – all using gestures. Now Apple have reached another milestone by bringing gestures to the desktop with a mouse that’s unlike anything ever before. This is the world’s first Multi-Touch mouse. This is the best way to browse your Mac without the restriction of wires. 

Printer – Canon PIXMA Wireless Inkjet All-in-One Printer

The PIXMA MG8120 possesses superior quality, functionality and versatility combined with beautiful design. The amazing feature set begins with an all-new interface that turns the top of your printer into a sleek, ultra-responsive touch panel. The Intelligent Touch System provides light-guided direction with gorgeous touch sensitive controls so only the buttons you need light up. The all new Full HD Movie Print software turns your favorite HD movie clips captured with your compatible Canon EOS Digital SLR or PowerShot cameras into beautiful prints. The scanner automatically recognizes the type of original being scanned, then scans and saves with the suitable settings. It does everything you’d expect plus more from a top quality printer. 

Digital Storage – Apple Time Capsule 2TB

Back up a lifetime s worth of memories with the Time Capsule, a wireless hard drive that works seamlessly with Time Machine in Mac OS X Leopard. Its also a full-featured 802.11n Wi-Fi base station with simultaneous dual-band support. Time Capsule works with both Mac and Windows so if you’re looking to back up multiple computers from the same office, then this is the one for you. I’ve lost a hard drive before with thousands of photos on it, so I now back up religiously and so should you. 

Cable Management – Quirky Cordies

This desktop cable management system that organizes your various computer cables while also keeping them weighted down so they don’t slide off your desk when disconnected. This playful form, small size, makes it a product you’ll love to keep on your desk. I can’t believe it took me so long to find a reasonable solution for this problem, I’m forever coming up with ingenious ways of pushing the cable up behind my computer. 

Desk – Hon Mentor Series Right Pedestal Desk

Nothing quite says successful business man like an expensive and fancy desk, and this is one of the best that we can find. Large enough to hold your laptop, screen, printer and other hardware, while the draws contain your all important files. The mahogany top and charcoal draws are made from the highest quality materials, and the actual desk linked is a little bit bigger than shown. Be careful though, this one isn’t cheap.

Chair – High Back Ergonomic Chair

Eurotech’s Ergohuman collection high back mesh ergonomic chair with headrest is designed to be the ultimate in comfort. Specifically intended for users who are in their chair for five or more hours per day, Ergohuman features exclusive flex zones that ensure constant back and lumbar support. With a wide range of ergonomic adjustments, the Ergohuman high back chair can be easily customized to fit virtually any user. Instant lift seat adjustment is controlled by a lever located beneath the right front of the seatpan, and positions seat height from 17” 21”. The mesh backrest is adjustable in both height and angle. Adjustable armrests help you keep your elbows at the proper 90 degree position while providing additional comfort and support. Chair is made of 97 recyclable parts. All Eurotech products have been certified by Greenguard as meeting the Indoor Air Quality pollutant guidelines and standards making this eco-friendly and a great chair. 

Speakers – Bowers & Wilkins Multimedia Speaker

Calling upon years of superior audio advancement, Bowers & Wilkins designed the MM-1 in such a way as to rethink the concept of “computer speakers” Rather than starting small and trying to improve the sound, they took top-notch hi-fi technology and shrunk it down to something that will fit on your desk. You’ll never believe how good your computer can sound with these incredible speakers. They’re small and expensive, but remarkably popular and that’s for a very good reason – they sound incredible. 

Lamp – Adesso Radar Desk Lamp

Each chrome finished Radar lamp has an adjustable cone-shaped shade which contains one 3 Watt LED, covered by a plastic shield. Push-button switches on/off at top end of shade, and the bulb end of the shade flares out. In addition, the shade adjusts vertically and horizontally. These architect lamps have locking joints near the base, or base pole, and at the centre, which make them customisable for whatever positioning you need them in. 

Phone – VTech Cordless Phone

A contemporary workhorse, the VTech DS6151 cordless phone comes with one handset, a digital answering system, caller ID and 2-line operation. DECT 6.0 Digital technology delivers superior sound quality, security and range, while ensuring wireless networks and other electronic devices don’t interfere with conversations. With 2-line operation, busy home office professionals can dial and receive calls on two different phone lines with one phone. Each line comes with its own mailbox, too. The phone base and handset come with speakerphones that make hands-free conversations very convenient.

Dyson Fan – Dyson Tower Fan

A tower fan that quietly and effectively cools an entire room without any blades? Introducing the Dyson Tower Fan, which works differently from conventional fans. The Air Multiplier uses an airfoil-shaped ramp to amplify the airflow 16 times to create a cool blast of smooth air without the unpleasant buffeting caused by spinning blades. The energy-efficient motor draws in more than 5 gallons of air per second using the same technologies used in jet engines. Air behind and around the machine is also drawn into the airflow, amplifying it 16 times for a quiet, cool breeze that will let you relax. With no awkward blades or grill to get in the way, the Tower Fan is safe around kids and pets, and it’s easy to clean too. The push-button remote lets you quickly toggle through multiple speeds. The Tower Fan oscillates with a touch up to 360 degrees to cover a whole room. 

Clock – Lime Non-Ticking Silent Wall Clock

Adorn any room with this Luminous Wall Clock! The white Arabic numerals contrast with the baby blue background for clear view and because it has all three hands, this clock will give you an accurate read on time down to the second so you don’t need to second-guess yourself. The clock’s simplicity in design offers quick and easy installation. All you have to do is insert a single AA battery (included), and the back slot makes it easy to hang. Another great thing about this clock is that it’s even easier to maintain! It’s super easy to clean because the clock is cased with a flat lens that covers and protects the face from dust and debris. The clock is silent so you don’t need to worry about the constant ticking of regular clocks when you need some peace and quiet to concentrate on your work or enjoy a full night of undisturbed sleep. Add some color in your room with a clock that’s both practical and stylish.

Whiteboard – Magnetic Dry Erase Board

Improve productivity and organization with the Board Dudes Magnetic Dry Erase Board Value Pack. The board’s 24-x-36-inch magnetic dry erase surface lets you write notes or post messages and pictures with the use of magnets. The board’s aluminum boarder provides a modern look while increasing rigidity. Ideal for home or office use, this value pack includes four dry erase markers, four photo document clips, four regular magnets, mounting hardware, an attachable tray, and one eraser.

Recliner – Modern Style Leather Recliner

This is a brand new modern recliner with tilt back functionality. This was designed to perfection and crafted to be practical and stylish in decor for your home furniture. Item may require simple assembly. It goes from a comfortable sitting position to tilt back with the pull of a lever, meaning that you can relax away from your computer chair to catch up on any reading you have to do, in style. 

TV – LG Infinia 42-Inch 1080p TV

This stunning picture is the reason you wanted HDTV in the first place. With almost double the pixel resolution, Full HD 1080p gives it superior picture quality over standard HDTV. You’ll see details and colors like never before. To build a digital network, you need digital devices. That’s obvious. But unless those devices are compatible, it won’t be much of a network. DLNA Certified devices work together. Another great thing about this TV is that it uses about 30% less energy than standard units. The Intelligent Sensor automatically optimizes the picture to the lighting and color conditions in the room for a more enjoyable viewing experience while Smart Energy Saving Features, you can conserve money and energy. Getting your LG broadband–enabled TV connected to online contest is easy when you are WiFi Ready. If you have existing wireless broadband, setting it up is simple and you don’t need to worry about messy wires.

Slingbox – Slingbox PRO-HD

Take your entire HD home theater with you wherever you go with the Slingbox PRO-HD. Connect to multiple A/V devices and tune into your favorite TV shows, sporting events, and special programming in stunning, true-to-life 1080i high definition. The PRO-HD gives you the same features and ease of use as the Slingbox SOLO, plus a high-quality HD viewing experience—anywhere in the world. Easily connect up to three of your home-theater devices to the PRO-HD and take your entire entertainment center with you—on your desktop, Mac, laptop, tablet, or mobile phone.

Wii – Nintendo Wii

If you’ve been spending hours in front a screen, but still love playing computer games, then get a Wii for the office and it’ll get you up and out of the chair and having fun. The Wii console brings a revolution of interactive gaming to people of all ages. Experience intuitive motion controls that deliver a unique social activity for the whole family. Wii gaming gets everyone off of the couch for hours of fun! Now with the addition of Wii Sport Resort and the Wii MotionPlus accessory, the Wii console bundle comes packed with software and accessories to enhance your Wii experience. 

Storage – 5-Shelf Bookcase

Display volumes of books, magazines, framed photographs, and more on this five-shelf bookcase from South Shore Furniture’s contemporary Axess collection. This bookcase is crafted out of engineered wood and recycled fiber, with a deep chocolate finish. Equipped with three adjustable shelves and two fixed shelves, the bookcase adapts to accommodate a range of storage needs. The adjustable shelves each support up to 35 pounds, while the fixed shelves each hold up to 50 pounds. With its clean lines and simple design, the bookcase fits into modern and more traditional décor alike.

Today I wanted to let you know… I’m a millionaire! Well… sort of.

I’m a millionaire just like Mark Zuckerberg is a billionaire. You see Mark founded Facebook and Facebook is worth billions so technically he’s like a billionaire?!

You see, I own IncomeDiary and a whole bunch of other websites and based on what a broker told me, I’m worth a fair chuck of change.

Websites typically sell for 12 – 18 times monthly revenue. However this isn’t the rule. If your website is an authority website, has a great brand, has real “potential”, is making a significant amount of money (lets say… at least tens of thousands of dollars a month), then well it can be pretty much any amount you money someone is willing to pay for it. In a down economy (or so the broker called it), you should expect 2 – 4 years revenue. But again, let me stress, this isn’t the rule. Some sell for a lot more.

Back to my point, based on that hooharr of a paragraph, yes my business would in fact sell for at least $1,000,000 (I’d hope significantly more), which would make me a millionaire? Right?

It’s a weird world but I wouldn’t ever consider saying that out-loud in a public places around actually people. As far as I’m concerned, you don’t have a million dollars till it’s in your bank. Having said that, I do own a website network worth a lot of money, so let me give you a few ideas on how you can do it yourself.

First however I would just like to make perhaps the most important point in setting up any business:

What is your exit plan? Who is going to buy your business and how much for?

I can’t tell you how often I ask a website owner what their Exit Plan is and they cannot give me a straight answer. Yet so many website owners just make this assumption that somehow it will just all work out fine? To put it another way, lets say today that I want to do a North American road trip from New York City to Los Angeles – do you think I would ever get to Los Angeles if I did not decide in advance that was my destination? My Exit Plan? Of course I wouldn’t make it – and nor will you either with your business if you don’t have an exit plan!

How To Build a Web Business Worth a Million Dollars

Building a massive online business is quite simple. Actually, when I go over it in my head, it seems almost idiot proof, that surely nobody could get it wrong. Of course I don’t believe that to actually be the case but I do believe online entrepreneurs who have made a few bucks online can follow in my footprints and do the exact same thing. The idea is simple, build a great website portfolio with lot’s of great websites. Here’s how:

Here’s my 6 top tips for creating a big, bad-ass, money making online business.

Outsource Everything (Not like those newbes tell you though)

Whoever is going to buy your business, they want to know that they can be relatively hands off and that you have a great team that runs everything. (If the website relies on you alone it will be difficult to sell)

So just hire lot’s of people in India to do everything right? Wrong!

Nothing against Indian Programmers or article writers – (Or indeed any non-native English Speaking teams) there are some fine ones around but my experience has been that I get a better result for some skills – hiring locally. Sure it costs me a lot more but if it gets me a better job done and adds more value to my business, that is what counts.

You will have heard me say before – “You can’t outsource Passion” – and it is true, but you will get closer to it I find with individuals who understand you and your objectives and my experience has been that I stand a better chance of that by hiring locally.

I pay my web team £45 a hour (approx $70 per hour). In the past year I have spent well over £40,000 ($64,000) on my blog network alone with them, getting them to improve sites and build new ones. Every time they do a redesign, I make more money because I learn from the past one.

I pay my brother a decent wage for his age and education. He does a lot of articles for different sites I own and that means I can spend that time I use to spend on writing, on doing other things like managing my team. If I paid $6 for a article on some forum, I would see a article written by someone most likely who’s first language is not English and doesn’t have any interest in what they are writing about. This is obvious to the reader and Google and doesn’t benefit my business in anyway. Bottom line, pay more, get someone better, it’s so worth it!

OK, I will admit there are some excellent overseas outsource teams – I have friends who swear by teams they employ in the Ukraine and also Romania and of course India – but all of them admit they had to go through a lot of teams before they found a team they could rely on. And yes, you can get let down by local teams also – it is just that my personal experience that you can manage local teams easier and while cost will almost certainly be higher the chances of getting what you want, done as you wish and to the standard you require first time is much higher!

Diversify Your Traffic Sources

One thing people buying your site will be looking at is Google Traffic. If I’m getting 1000 visitors a day from Google and that’s 60% of my traffic and then Google decides that they are going to change their algorithm and rank sites differently, then I’m screwed! Thousands of top sites have over night lost over half their traffic from Google because of something just like this. To a potential buyer, this would worry them because you are so reliant on the big G.

Here’s what you do: You drive traffic in more than 1 way. Here’s a quick check list of things you must be doing:

• Social Media
• Social Networking (network with people online so they become your friend and then make them link to you Mwahahahahah).
• Content Directory’s
• Make Your Website Sticky (so people keep coming back).

Invest, Invest, Invest!

Hand on heart, I would not be anywhere near as successful if I didn’t invest so much into my business. If your making money, forget spending it on a nice car (at least not right now) and invest it into your business. Spending $5,000 on getting some software developed could see a $50,000 return in a month. The same for so many other things. I’ve begun investing quite a lot of money into article writers, not cheap ones, but ones that know a lot about the subject that they are writing about! Content means I can get more traffic which means I’m going to make more money. Here’s a few suggestions on what you could invest in:

• New website design
• Article Writers
• Software Development
• Graphics
• Buy Other Peoples Websites
• Invest in Educational Products To Further Your Learning
• Buy Traffic
• Get a Better Computer

The list is endless. I’ve done all this and it makes your business bigger and better. Here’s the simplistic way to show you why you should invest:

Build a website, make $100 a month and do nothing new month after month and keep making $100 a month.

Month 12, your making $100

Or….

Build a website, make $100, invest the $100 into a premium theme, next month you make $120. Keep investing and investing.

Month 12 your making $340

Now imagine the increases when your making $10,000 a month and investing half of it.

Work Hard (At least at the beginning)

Entrepreneurship is about living a few years of your life like most won’t so that you can live the rest of your life like most can’t.

This means, work now, make lots of money and spending years to come in a lovely house watching your neighbor go to work every day while you live your idea of “the dream”.

I’ve always been lazy, it’s so hard to work when you don’t have to. When I lived at my parents, I was young, didn’t have to pay much rent and my lifestyle didn’t require me to earn a lot of money. I moved out, had to make more money, worked hard, got my business up to the level where it could maintain my lifestyle and then got lazy again. This is something I’ve done time after time as I have increased my spending and lifestyle. The importance here is, make sure you have the right team so you aren’t reliant on the success of your business.

Build a Network Of Websites

When you start your online business it’s vital you don’t do the following: Build lot’s of different websites.

It is not best to have 10 small websites, it’s best to have 1 massive one. Once you have achieved that, then you move on and build more sites related to that first website. This is exactly what I have done. A great example of this is TutsPlus network. They started with a blog about Freelancing, then Photoshop Tutorials, then Coding Tutorials and it just kept growing, creating new sites offering what their readers wanted to know more about. In 5 short years they are making millions because they expanded and invested.

Have The End In Mind & Work Towards It

I find this to be really vital to my success. If I didn’t have a clear understanding of where I wanted my business to go, what I wanted it to stand for and what It’s going to look like, then I wouldn’t be as successful as I am. I know that replying to negative emails won’t get me closer to my goal. There are so many things you are probably focusing on that are irrelevant to your end goal and the success of your website. Cut them out and you find you will have a lot more time to focus on the things that are import.

Just make sure you keep working towards an Exit that makes you very wealthy!

I would really love to hear about your exit plans in the comments below? Better still if you have already made a successful exit? Share the experience – and of course if you have any questions or suggestions for even more improved business clarity share that as well.

And it works pretty well for us – with minimal effort (exact match domains are extremely easy to rank) we’ve been able to rank #1 for quite a few high traffic keywords within a few weeks of getting our domains, and generate a nice extra chunk of revenue.

So let’s walk you guys through how we find exact match domains, how to monetize them, and how to rank them.

What exactly is an exact match domain?

First and foremost, an exact match domain is just a domain that matches a specific keyword exactly. So an exact match domain for Make Money Online would be www.makemoneyonline.com.

Why do exact match domains rank so well?

Well, as we talk about in the The WordPress SEO Blueprint, your domain name plays a big factor in on-site SEO. If your domain name is makingmoneyonline.com – it’s a very powerful signal to Google that your site is indeed about making money online.  And that combined with the other on-site factors that we teach in the WordPress SEO Blueprint, you will probably be able to rank your site for your keyword before you even start linkbuilding.

One of the best examples I have for exact match domains is when you google “Credit Cards”. The number one result for Credit Cards isn’t Visa, Mastercard, or American express. It’s CreditCards.com.  Imagine that – billion dollar companies unable to compete in the search engines because one site has the exact match for “credit cards”. Pretty powerful stuff.

How do I find exact match domains?

There’s been a couple of really good tools coming in and out of the marketplace – but the one that we’ve found to be the best is ExactDomainTool.com. Basically, you put in your target keywords, what kind of search volume you’re looking for, and then click “search” and it will come up with a list of available domains — .org, .net, and .com that are available for purchase.

We generally go after domains that are getting at least 1,000 exact searches a month (or domains that are based around a group of keywords that get at least 1,000 searches a month), otherwise it’s not really worth it.

.com, .net, or .org?

If an exact match domain is available in any one of these extensions, we will grab it. We avoid any other types – no .infos, .biz, .us, .co, etc. We stick to the big 3, and they all rank well.

What if no exact matches are available?

While you always want to try to get an exact match, it’s not the end of the world if you add a word to the domain. While it won’t be as effective, it will still do much better than if your keyword wasn’t in the domain at all. So for example, instead of dogtrainingtechniques.com, it would be bestdogtrainingtechniques.com or topdogtrainingtechniques.com.

You can also use hyphens in your domain name (so dog-training-techniques.com) for a similar effect.

What do I do with my exact match domains?

There are a couple of different ways you can monetize your investment in exact match domains:

SEO: Some of our domains are not really designed to sell anything at all, we just use them in our linkbuilding campaigns. So we’ll have an exact match domain, put 5-10 articles on it, build links to it to get it ranked, and then have links from that domain to our main money site. This is a powerful strategy – and it works extremely well for us.

Affiliate Offers: Some of our sites we do not use for SEO and just focus them around affiliate offers. The key here is testing. There are a lot of high traffic keywords that don’t necessarily convert very well. The key here is testing different affiliate offers to see what converts the best for your traffic. We use a product called LinkShiftr to rotate affiliate offers on these sites until we find one that converts the best for our traffic.

Adsense: This is probably your least profitable option, but I figured I’d put it here anyway – it can make you decent money if you do find some high competition exact match domains, however, I’ve always been a believer that you can make more money promoting affiliate offers than from adsense.

Listbuilding: If you get a good exact match domain that gets decent traffic, throw up popupdomination on it and give away a free ebook or ecourse related to your subject. Using exact match domains can get you a significant amount of traffic pretty fast – so make sure to capture it. You can get a lot of new subscribers pretty quickly with a popup on your site.

How do I rank my exact match domains?

Fortunately for you, having the exact match of a keyword is a huge step towards easy rankings. However, you still need to have proper on-site SEO setup which means optimizing your title tags, description tags, images, etc. for your keyword. To tell you the truth, most of the time when we have an exact match domain, all we need to do is go through our The WordPress SEO Blueprint on-site SEO formula, and we are usually ranked #1 if not the top 5.

However, if you do follow our blueprint and are still not ranked #1 for your keyword, you need to get linkbuilding. I actually did a post on different ways to do linkbuilding over here: How To Get Backlinks

Go get some exact match domains and start rockin and rollin – you’ll be surprised at how fast your websites will rank (we were when we first started!)

And let me know if you have any questions in the comments section below!

One of the easiest and FASTEST ways to get exposure online is through leveraging other people’s audiences. Be it through them e-mailing their list about you, writing a blog post about you, or, as with this post, them letting you write a guest post on their blog.

I am a huge fan of guest posting, and it has done a great deal for my business — as you can see in my screenshot below — 90% of that traffic was from guest posts that I did on assorted blogs. 

So, let’s talk about guest posting – and how you can use it to help grow your online business.

How To Find Blogs to Guest Post On

The first thing you need to do is find blogs that are A) in your niche, and B) allow or want guest posts.

The best way to find blogs to guest post on (that I have found) is Technorati. Technorati is basically a huge blog directory that you can search by topic.  They have a “business” and a “blogging” section that has a lot of the top blogs – you can peruse through the list and build a list of blogs to potentially guest post on.

I went through the list of all of the blogs that were relevant to my niche, and put them all into an excel spreadsheet.

What Should You Write About?

For each blog that you’d like to post on, take a few minutes to look through their current posts. What are the most popular topics? Which topics get the most response from readers? Are there any topics that AREN’T covered, but are relevant to the audience? (i.e. Michael doesn’t really talk about SEO in his blog posts, which is why writing SEO articles was a good fit for IncomeDiary)

Take some time to look through these blogs so you can start to put together a list of post ideas that you could write about. Heck, if you’re not sure what to write, e-mail the blog owner and ask him if there’s a specific topic that he or she would love to see covered. It never hurts to ask! J

I will basically come up with a list of topics for each blog that I’m interested in, get some feedback from the blog owner via e-mail, and begin writing.

Something else to note is that the more that you interact with the blogger you’d like to guest post for, the more likely it is (unless you’re a jerk) that he will approve your post (assuming it’s well written) when he sees it come through.

As with any business relationship – the best way to connect with people is to be their friend first. So don’t approach bloggers with a “ME ME ME” attitude. Ask them how YOU can help THEM and I promise you, you will have much better results and a much higher chance of getting your blog post up on their site.

And ultimately, the more bloggers that you contact, the better chances you’ll have of getting one of your guest posts up.

10 Tips To Maximize The Value Of Your Guest Posts

1. Sell Yourself: By “sell yourself”, I don’t mean selling yourself like a streetwalker. I mean in your blog post, demonstrate to your target readers that you are credible, trustworthy, and likable. Show them that you’re a cool dude — if you did something interesting that day, start off the blog post talking about it. For example:  ”Yesterday, while I was riding on my Jet Ski…” this sentence might seem like nothing, but you’re easily demonstrating that you are a) interesting, because interesting people jet ski, obviously, and b) are at least somewhat successful, as if you were broke you wouldn’t be able to afford a jet ski. And this is all done without saying “I’m interesting and I’m successful!”. Something to think about with ANY content you write, really, not just guest blog posts.
2. Link Back To Your Stuff: It’s silly to write a blog post without sending people SOMEWHERE to learn more about you. You should always have a direct response element in your guest blog posts – and that direct response is that they go to YOUR blog. The best way to do this is to link to relevant blog posts on your blog inside of your guest post. So if I’m talking about exact match domains, I would link back to my blog post about exact match domains somewhere in my blog post. (see what I did there?)
3. Capture Clickthrough Traffic: Most blogs probably won’t let you link to a squeeze page after each blog post, however, they will almost always let you link back to your blog.  If you want to make sure you grab that traffic while it’s coming through, make sure you have PopUpDomination setup, so you can at least capture a portion of the leads that come visit your site.
4. Tell a Story: The best way to demonstrate and persuade is through the use of story. Story is an extremely powerful tool – you can use it to show your audience your credibility and trustworthiness without telling them “hey, I’m credible and trustworthy”. Story is awesome because it drops people’s defenses, and allows you to persuade them without them resisting the whole time. If you want to learn more about story in persuasion – read the book “The Story Factor” by Annette Simmons.
5. Write WELL: The easiest way to sabotage a guest posting opportunity is to write poorly. Make SURE that you have proper grammar, spell check everything, and really spend some time making sure everything sounds good and makes sense. The best way I’ve found to make sure that everything I’m writing sounds good is to read it aloud. If I can read a blog post aloud and it flows and makes sense, then I know it’s good to go. If you’re still struggling, I’d recommend reading the book “On Writing Well” by William Zinsser.
6. Write With Personality: Don’t be bland. Include your personality in your writing. If you’ve got a dry sense of humor, use it. The key here is to not be afraid to let your personality show through your writing. If your writing is bland and looks like everyone else’s stuff, you’re not going to stand out – and your blog post will not do as well.
7. Respond To Reader Comments: If your post happens to get a lot of comments and questions, make sure to respond to them! Not only does interacting with your readers help build rapport between you and them, but the blog owner appreciates it when you’re there to help beyond just writing the post. The better experience you can provide for their readers, the better off you will be (and the more likely you’ll be able to do future blog posts)
8. Write A Badass Headline: You should spend a good amount of time coming up with a killer headline for your blog post. Headlines do most of the dirty work in determining how many people end up reading your post – so make sure you spend some time on it. For some examples of headlines that work, just look at publications with large readerships like Men’s Health, MSN News, Yahoo News, and the National Inquirer. There’s a reason why the copywriters of those companies get paid the big bucks – so if you need some inspiration, look through there.
9. Use Quora or Yahoo Answers To Help Write: If you’re still struggling for writing ideas, you can use Yahoo Answers or Quora to find popular questions about the topic you’d like to write about. And then you can incorporate them, and answer them in your blog post.
10. Be Persistent: If Edison gave up after one try, would we even have lightbulbs? The point is, if your blog post doesn’t get accepted on a certain blog – it’s not the end of the world. Keep trying – keep writing good content, and keep submitting new stuff. Don’t spam blog owners or anything, but I promise you, persistence pays off.

Bonus Tip: Leveraging Guest Blog Posts for SEO

As I mentioned before, you should be including links in your content back to relevant content on your own site. This is good for general click through traffic, but it also has an added SEO benefit. One thing to keep in mind when you’re linking back to your content is using the proper anchor text. So for example, if you’re linking to something about WordPress SEO, try to use the anchor text “Wordpress SEO”. This will help tell Google what the page you are linking to is about, and ultimately help your rankings for that specific keyword.

Before You Begin Guest Posting…

Oh, and, before I go – one thing to keep in mind before you begin guest posting (especially if you’re just doing it for SEO benefit), is that you should most DEFINITELY have your on-site SEO in check. If you’re building links through guest posting, and your on-site SEO is all messed up, you’re not going to get the full value of your work. It’s like getting paid $20 an hour for a $40 an hour job.

Fortunately for you guys, we have a complete guide on how to do this over at The WordPress SEO Blueprint. I highly recommend any aspiring blogger checks it out, as I know it will dramatically increase your traffic and the value of your SEO efforts.

I hope you guys enjoyed this guest post, and let me know what questions you might have in the comments!