Daniel Felice

Living the Internet Lifestyle

// April 14th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // General, Making Money

The more I concentrate on my internet projects, make money online and read about internet business success stories, the more I want to become a part of the internet lifestyle. Basically – I do not want to work a 9 – 5 job forever and I want the flexibility to “live” life and make money to support my lifestyle.

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to work for myself. I never wanted to be a small, tiny, non-existent employee apart of a massive global corporate world where people who are out of touch with reality make decisions that affect thousands of people – and that is what I am at the moment, just another replaceable employee working for a large firm.

I am not much of a risk taker when it comes to money, so I wouldn’t be the type to naturally just resign from my job and attempt to start an internet business without making sure I was generating enough income to survive before I left my job.

However – I am moving back to Australia in a few months and will obviously need to leave my job in Ireland to return home, so really it is a great excuse to attempt to build an internet business in the months leading up to my relocation and then concentrate on it once I return to Sydney and start to look for a job. If I am successful, then I can hold off looking for a job, and if not, then back to working 8 hours a day.

I am under no illusions of how difficult it will be starting my own internet based business – but at the same time I have had some luck with it in recent months. For one example, I have a number of freelance jobs in the next month that would make me enough money to survive on if I didn’t have my full time job wage.

To begin with, 8 hour days will seem like a dream compared to the hours that I will need to put in to make this successful. But in saying that, as I am working for myself, and with the time zone difference in Australia compared the rest of the world I can pretty much make up my own hours and decide when I want to work. Most of my freelance work so far has been in America and the UK, so being in Australia I can be more flexible with my time – and does “time” exist on the internet?

The reason for me wanting to be my own boss is so that I can do what I want, when I want. I could work anywhere in the world for months at the time, and still make the same amount of money. I can take a holiday whenever I want and still make money, I can sleep and still make money. Between freelance work and my online projects, I could make money 24 hours a day.

It sounds easy doesn’t it? To begin with I doubt it is going to be very easy. For a few years at least (unless I come across that million dollar idea pretty fast) I will be working my heart out trying to make this work – and it might fail. But I need to try. If it works and I am successful then that is my dream realised, if not then I always have my IT career to fall back on and that really isn’t so bad either.

So – the big question I need to ask myself is – should I concentrate on my online future between now until August when I go back to Australia, or should I start looking for a job now?

Faking It

// March 19th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Making Money

I have been recently been thinking about why we trust top bloggers such as John Chow, Shoemoney and the like. These guys have been telling us for years how much money they have made online, showing us their Google payments, posting how much they made from affiliate marketing and telling you how you can do the same.

What is it about these guys that makes us instantly believe what they are telling us? I know when I first starting blogging I was motivated by reading other peoples success stories. I was curious about making money online.  These guys told me how much money they were making, so I wanted to do the same and I believed them – there was no reason not to.

They told me what I wanted to hear, they showed me photos with them holding massive towers of cash. The “proof” was there.

Millions of people visit make money online websites daily to get the latest news, tips and tricks and see what their latest schemes entail. Millions of people also believe that these same people are making hundreds of thousands dollars a year blogging, developing websites, running contests and whatever else they do – and I am not doubting that they do and are successful.

However, aside from then telling us how they do it, posing with Google cheques and posting about how much money they make each month, why do we believe what they say and trust that they are telling us the truth?

If your friend tells you “I made $20,000 yesterday” would you believe him with asking for proof? At least they could show you the expensive car they brought, new kitchen, new laptop, massive 6 burner barbecue or whatever else they brought with the money they made.

If I told you I made $10,000 today from affiliate marketing would you believe me? I could edit someone else’s cheque in Photoshop and post it online, or create a new blog with the headline “How I made $10,000 in 24 hours”. I could take a screenshot of my affiliate reports and edit the figures in Photoshop. It would be very believable wouldn’t it? Why would you doubt me?

I bet if I did the above my hits would massively increase and everyone would flock to my blog to get my advice. I would be “the next online millionaire” overnight – and it all would be a lie, but who are you to doubt me? You have no proof that what I say isn’t true do you?

So why do you have so much trust in MMO bloggers? I am curious to know…

Building an Online Business can be Frustrating

// March 16th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Making Money, Project Blogger

Let’s face it. It’s no fun building a successful online biz.

• Many late nights
• Endless testing
• Frustration
• Even lost money, time

At the end of the day, you often find yourself running in circles trying desperately to find something that works.

Your goal might be $10 per day, $100 or even $1000 per day.

But, the challenge is… how do you get there?

(without waiting 2 years or burning through 3 grand on your Visa card)

About a year ago, I stumbled upon a website and read about a community of serious (and successful) Internet Marketers.

These people were actively involved in grabbing free traffic from the search engines. They exchanged ideas, strategies and had access to some power-tools to quickly build websites and blogs.

No search engine tricks. No “risky” or short-lived tactics involved.

Plus, this community also pooled their resources and collectively “own” a private network of over 6,000 niche-specific, quality content blogs.

So, all members can get backlinks and syndicate content to this blog network.

When I read this, I couldn’t help but get excited.

Everyone knows that getting a large amount of quality backlinks to your website or blog is one of the big keys to dominating the search engines.

This “community” that I am talking about here is called PortalFeeder.

Once I signed up with PortalFeeder, there was a lot more included than I even imagined.

If you want to build several streams of income online and get the guidance, information, tools and resources to make it easier and faster, you really need to go see this:

Portal Feeder Priority Announcement List

I’ve been involved with PortalFeeder for over a year now and I highly recommend it. The doors are often closed and membership is limited.

Go to the website for details. Put yourself on the waiting list and be the among the first to be notified when PortalFeeder is accepting new members again.

This could be the best decision you make in 2009 to take your online business to new heights. Go and check it out now:

Portal Feeder Priority Announcement List

One last thing. The last time I checked the website, they were giving away a free copy of the PortalFeeder monthly newsletter. It’s always filled with great information. You can probably still get yourself a copy from the PortalFeeder website once you visit that link above.

How to Make Money Online with PPCKahuna

// March 14th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Making Money

You’re so inundated with all of the products that you hear about that can make you rich by making money online.  If they’re all true, then why aren’t we all rich?

Good question.  There are many ways to make money online, and there should be enough to go around for everyone.  Why, then are only some affiliates succeeding while others are failing?

Because the ones who succeed are remaining focused.  As affiliate marketers who are trying to make money online, you need to remember at all times what you’re trying to accomplish.  Those who are struggling to make money have lost their focus, and have become distracted from the core of their online business plan. 

There are many ways to make money online; try them all at once and you’re guaranteed to fail.

In short, you can lose sight of your goals.  If you’ve decided that the best way to sell your products and earn you money is through PPC advertising, then what are you doing buying software to help you with list building?  You’re splitting your focus, and your business is hurting as a result.

If you’ve decided that PPC advertising is the way to go for your online business, then concentrate on that.  Learn as much as you can about PPC advertising, buy products to maximize your PPC campaign.  Don’t get distracted by all the other forms of advertising out there until you’ve given your PPC advertising campaign the attention it deserves.

The problem that most affiliate marketers encounter when they’re starting out get distracted by the sheer amount of advertising vehicles available to them.  List building one day, SEO the next, on to PPC and so forth.  They start out trying to understand their niche, get distracted by membership sites, and then that gets put on the back burner when they get this great email about how you can make a mint on Ebay.

All of this discussion begs the question:  what is your plan to make money online?   Out of all the different methods available, what do you think will work best for you?

If you do decide that PPC advertising is the way to go, then make a commitment to do it was thoroughly as possible.  Then, when the next interesting news about a great new product comes your way, you need to stop, and evaluate whether or not it will help you meet the goals that you’ve set for yourself.  If it doesn’t, then no matter how interesting it is, walk away, because it will just distract you from your goals.

So How Does PPC Kahuna Come Into All of This?

Once you’ve decided what your goals are, and if you’ve decided that PPC advertising is the way to go, then you need to find tools to help accomplish that goal.  And PPC Kahuna has a whole offering of tools to make your PPC advertising turn clicks in to money for you.

PPC Kahuna has all of the resources to take you through the ins and outs of PPC advertising.  It helps you get started by finding your niche, picking your products, and setting up your sites.  Then you’ll also have access to the resources you need to market to your niche, develop your PPC campaign, and how to manage that campaign once it starts.

And once you’re established online and making money, PPC Kahuna can show you how to maximize your campaigns to increase your profit even more.

PPC Kahuna is unlike anything else available. It is an easy and comprehensive system that anyone can use.  It is about making real money online. 

PPC Kahuna provides you with the tools and resourced you need to make money online.  All you need to do is stay focused, and only spend time on things that will help you accomplish your goals.

I strongly urge you to check out PPC Kahuna for yourself.

PPC Kahuna – The PPC Affiliate Marketing System

// March 12th, 2009 // No Comments » // Making Money

Click Here to check Out PPC Kahuna for Yourself!

How to Grow Your Business with Twitter

// March 11th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Making Money

Everybody’s been talking about Twitter.  You can’t get through a newscast these days without someone mentioning Twitter or Tweets.  Barack Obama tweets.  But what exactly is this new social marketing tool, and how can you use it to grow your business?

 Twitter is like a blog on a microscopic scale; instead of writing whole posts and your mailing list being notified when a new post goes up, a tweet (what a Twitter post is called) can only be a maximum of 140 characters, and the people who are following you get your whole tweet at once, instead of having to go to your website.

 What started out as — has now become huge.  Companies like Apple, Intel, H&R Block and Zappos are all on Twitter.  As mentioned above, so is the new President of the United States. 

 So how to you leverage this zeitgeist? You need to get up and running on Twitter, asap.  And you need to build your list of followers. While that may sound like something out of a bad science fiction movie, its actually just building a list of people that want to receive your tweets, much like you built your mailing list for your blog.

 1) Import Your Contacts

When you sign up for Twitter, make sure you import all of your contacts from Gmail, Hotmail, your address book and your mailing list.

2) Write Your Profile

Make sure that your profile is complete to make is easier for people to find you, and use the same keywords in your profile that you do on your website.  Always include a link to your website (including the “http” to ensure that it’s clickable) – you’re trying to build your business, after all.  You can also personalize the colors and the sidebar of your profile page. 

3) Understand How Twitter Works

Twitter is not another marketing tool that you can out and out manipulate; it is a social marketing tool that will only be useful to you is you actually become part of the community.  It is not a place to spam, and don’t actively promote yourself. 

Build a standing in the community by replying to other tweets (retweeting), share cool stuff, and build trust, then direct your followers to a blog post, filled with useful information, and only then use that post to get followers to take action.  Trying to take people out of Twitter right away and into a sales pitch will get you labeled as a scammer.

4) Build Your Audience

To build your audience above and beyond your initial contact list, you’ll need to look both inside and outside Twitter.

Outside of Twitter, you can put a link to “Follow me on Twitter” in your email signature, forum signature, website, blog posts, and any other way that you communicate with people (where appropriate, of course – I don’t think the IRS wants to follow you on Twitter.)

Inside of Twitter, it’s all about following people.  You can find other users that you admire, and see who is following them; you can also see who is following your friends; use Twitter directories to find members who are likely to follow you; use the search feature to find profiles of people you want to follow – and follow all of them.  They will, in turn, follow you.

5) But Watch How Much You’re Following

While you’re building your following, you still need to maintain a balance between people you follow and people that follow you.  Follow too many, and you’ll be seen as a spammer; don’t follow enough, and you look elitist.  You can do this by growing slowly; don’t add 500 new friends in one day.  Add 50 at a time and give them time to start following you so the balance is maintained.

You can also use a tool like “Friend or Follow” to balance out your lists; it will tell you who is following you that you’re not following yet, and vice-versa.  It will also let you keep track of those who follow you, so you follow them and then they stop following you.  They’re most likely spammers; don’t use this tactic or you’ll get the same reputation.

6) Be Someone Worth Following

Be witty, and post useful information.  If you’ve got a niche, make sure that you’re talking to them.  If you have news, tweet it.  You can also use the tools on Twitter to take your blog posts and automatically tweet them. 

You can tell people what you do; always be upfront with people.  You just have to avoid the obvious sell, people can see that coming from a mile away.  You can promote your business and celebrate your victories (XXX is happy to get the YYY account!), but don’t try to sell anyone anything (Get all of your advertising solutions here!).

7) Follow Wisely

And, in this sense, ‘follow’ has a broader meaning.  Look to the experts in your category who are also on Twitter, and learn from them.  Find 10 to 20 users you admire that have more than 300 followers, and try to learn how they did it.  Take their ideas and make them your own.

Portal Feeder is the most powerful set of tools, resources and support to get you started making money online in 30 days.  Where you go from there is up to you.

Go to Portal Feeder today to start your most successful year ever.

Don’t Be Shy

// March 3rd, 2009 // No Comments » // Making Money, The Internet

Promoting a new blog can be a frustrating experience. There are plenty of free ways to market your new site, but unless it is ground breaking, it is very hard to get solid traffic fast.

There is no magic way to bring in the numbers, however there is something that I figured out recently that can help you on your way to increasing traffic and giving your blog exposure to a wider audience.

So you have tried forums, posted comments on other blogs, added your posts to StumpleUpon and Digg, joined Entrecard, and created a contest, but you still are not getting the amount of traffic that you are hoping for.

Have you thought about approaching other sites and asking to exchange links or write a guest post? I have – but at the time I thought that my blog wasn’t “worthy” enough to be featured on someone else’s website. I didn’t think that other bloggers would think that my posts were good enough, or that my theme wasn’t professional enough looking, or that I didn’t have a clue what I was talking about – so I didn’t.

In the past month or so, I have had a few other bloggers come to me and ask for links to be exchanged, and I even had one blogger ask me to write a guest post on their blog, so I thought that I must be at the point where I can start asking other bloggers to  swap links with. If other bloggers are asking me to assist them, then I must be at that point where I can start asking people for some help in driving traffic to this blog, and my other sites.

I have learnt that it is much easier than I first thought it would be. Of all the people I have asked for links and a mention on their blog, no one has yet turned me down. It only takes a few minutes to write an email and send it, and it in those few minutes you can attract possibility hundreds of new visitors to your blog.

So don’t be shy, meet some new bloggers and just ask! All they can say is no! Try to remember one thing – every blogger was new once, and they went through exactly the same frustration that you are going through now, so most of the time they understand what you are trying to achieve and will offer their knowledge and help – all you have to do is ask.

Choosing Affiliate Ads for Your Blog: Part 2

// December 22nd, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Making Money

For those of you who read “Choosing Affiliate Ads for Your Blog” I wrote last week, I have just had another idea so I have created this post as an add on. For those of you who haven’t read it, then read it before you read this one so it all makes sense.

As you may have noticed I have changed a few of my ads around today just to try and generate some more revenue for myself as the previous ads weren’t getting any clicks, let alone making me any money.

As well as the steps I wrote in the earlier post, I also tried something I haven’t done before. It is a bit of an experiment I guess, but I thought it might be worth a shot.

I visited a few other blogs that are similar to this, but are successful. I won’t mention the names of the blogs, but if you know of a similar blog to yours that actually makes money you can do the same thing.

I went to the other blogs just to see what kind of affiliate advertising they have, just so I could get some ideas and try to figure out what I am doing wrong. I decided to click on one of the ads just to see what the landing page was like. I noticed that the advertiser had an affiliate programme so i decided to sign up and show their ads on this blog.

So the end result was that I am advertising exactly the same product as the more successful version of this blog.

I decided to do the same thing with a few other blogs that I know make good revenue each month and again I signed up to the affiliate programmes. I think all in all I signed up to 4 new programmes and now advertising the same products as the “competition”.

It will be interesting to see the results, however there is more to affiliate marketing and advertising then just showing a bunch of ads on the blog – traffic is a major part of it and I don’t think I get the traffic to make enough revenue to live off just yet. At this stage I’ll just be happy to make something!

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Choosing Affiliate Ads for Your Blog

// December 19th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Making Money

So you have a blog and want to make some money from it. Before throwing up a bunch of ads there are a few things that you should consider. You should take some time in choosing products that you advertise on your blog, remembering that if you wouldn’t buy it yourself then your readers probably won’t either.

I have always said that I would never advertise anything on any of websites that I have not tried out myself, and even more so, I wouldn’t recommend a brand, product or service if I wouldn’t use it myself.

Depending on the nature of the blog will depend on what your choose to advertise on it. If for example you have a website about beauty, then you should be advertising beauty products as that relates to your content and it is why your audience visits your blog and therefore you both share that common interest.

If you have a blog that is about everything and nothing, then it can be a little more difficult choosing ads to show on your site. This is when you have to do a little bit of research about your target audience and find out why they are visiting your blog and what content keeps them coming back.

To find out more about your audience ask yourself a few questions:

• Which search terms generate traffic? Look at your statistics and find out how your audience are finding your site through search engines.
• Which posts have received the most hits? Not only will this tell you what your audience is reading, it will also help you determine what they are interested in.
• What do you like to about? What are your own interests and what do you like to blog about? Even though your blog might not have a clear “definition”, do you tend to blog about the same topics?

With all these answers in mind you should be able to find out why your audience are visiting your blog, and what they are reading.

So for example, if your most popular posts is about sport, and your audience is finding you through search engines using search terms related to sport, then you should be concentrating on finding sport related advertising. This could include sportswear, tickets to events, merchandise, memorabilia, etc.

When selecting your ads consider how your audience will relate to the product/s being advertised and try to do a little bit of research before promoting the product. If you don’t believe in the product, or wouldn’t buy it yourself then how do you expect your audience to purchase it?

Ads for Niche Blogs

// October 15th, 2008 // No Comments » // Making Money

I have struggled to find some good advertising campaigns for this blog over the past 6 months that actually convert. Out of all of the ads on this site, only a few of them get clicks and even less convert into actual sales.

I mentioned this in another post that the reason why I think it is hard for MMO blogs to make money off affiliate ads and links is because other MMO bloggers are the ones who are visiting the site in order to learn how to make money on their own blog therefore aren’t going to click your links.

Since I have started “Project: Explore with Me” I have found so many ads that suit the niche of the site and also ones that will appeal to other users – not bloggers. The site is rarely going to be visited by bloggers so hopefully users who come to the site looking for information will click the ads which will convert to sales.

The ads I am going to put up on the site will all relate to travel and they are services/websites that I have used before or will use in the future.

I am a big advocate of recommending products or services that I have used myself or someone I know has used in the past. I don’t understand how some bloggers review and promote products that they have never tried themselves and expect people to buy them.

If you are thinking of starting an MMO blog my advice is DON’T! It is too very frustrating and difficult to make revenue; Most of the biggest money making blogs actually have nothing to do with making money online.

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