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By Jimmy D. Brown of “Small Reports Fortune”

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I’m an observer. I watch marketers and how they work.

I look at how people respond to marketing. And I’ve discovered something interesting over the years that I want to share with you as it relates to building your internet business.

Hot topics and trends come along regularly. There’s always a new “in” thing making an appearance on the radar screen. And whenever there’s a new rage, there will be marketers who jump on the bandwagon.

That can pay off big for YOU if you’re smart.

Let me explain.

What happens when a new trend or technique or tool surfaces?

*** People begin to talk about it.***

Marketers begin convincing people why they need it.
Consumers tell their stories. Discussions take place. Hype builds. Sometimes controversy breaks out. An education process unfolds.

Through it all … DEMAND increases.

Now, here’s where you come along.

You piggyback on the popularity of the latest big hit by creating a small report on the topic. You get the benefit of other marketers creating hungry leads for your offer without them even knowing it.

Let me give you an example -

EXAMPLE

When John Reese released Traffic Secrets it was a huge success.
He sold over a million dollars worth of product in one twenty-four hour period. However, at a $997.00 asking price, it was out of reach for many consumers.

But…

What if YOU had decided to write a 15 page small report entitled, “Free Traffic Secrets” and offered it for $20 … do you think you would have had any takers? Of course!

Why? Because every marketer on the planet was talking about the need for web site traffic so they could build interest in John’s course. They were creating hungry leads for your offer without them even knowing it.

All of these marketers expertly and persuasively pointed out the necessity, benefits and usages of getting web site traffic. They, in essence, would have created demand for the TOPIC of your small report.

1. Many of those that couldn’t afford John’s high-ticket product would likely buy your small report because the end result of getting site traffic was something they had been told repeatedly they needed!

2. Many of those who could afford John’s high-ticket product would also likely buy your small report because of the same reason AND they would like to know what you might offer differently than John.

Do you see how powerful this is?

Even as I type this lesson out, I have received DOZENS of emails today announcing a new co-registration product that everyone’s talking about.

I could spend a few hours this evening writing a small report on the same topic and sell it like crazy tomorrow because of everything that’s being said about the subject today.

So, what’s the lesson for you to learn here -

**The surest way to create a hot-selling small report is to pick a topic related to that which everyone is talking about.***

You know, it doesn’t matter what “market” you’re in, chances are you see the same kinds of outbreaks that I see in “internet marketing” circles …

* Major product launches
* New technologies and tools
* Fresh research
* Innovative features and improvements
* Ground-breaking news
* Hot topics of discussion
* Best-selling books
* Interest-grabbing magazine articles
* Emerging trends

The list could go on and on, right?

It shouldn’t come as a big surprise that you need to monitor what’s going on around you, specifically looking for the latest topic everyone’s talking about.

You can do this by regularly browsing 4 trend and event “hot spots”…

1. Active Forums. Find at least one ACTIVE forum related to your market and regularly visit it to look for ideas. Keyword here is “active”. The ideal forum will have a number of participants who regularly post messages.

2. News Feeds. You can begin with Google.com’s news center at http://news.google.com.
You should also look for a news feed or site that is specific to your field of interest. For example: I regularly visit http://ChristianHeadlines.com to stay on top of events related to some of my Christian sites.

3. Article Directories. Spend a few minutes at your favorite article directory, focusing specifically on the NEWEST articles posted and the TOP RECENT articles read. I regularly check http://goarticles.com.

4. Competitor’s Lists. You’ll also want to “spy” on what your competition is doing by joining their lists. When a major competitor begins highlighting certain topics in their content (I.E. “articles”) and / or releases or promotes a specific product, it’s a good indication that you should pay attention.

All of these things allow you to capitalize on the current buzz!

Create small reports based on these buzz-worthy topics.

…………………….
Jimmy D. Brown is the author of “Small Reports Fortune” - if you can write 7-15 page small reports, you can earn a living online working just a few hours each week from your home.
Look for his EXCLUSIVE formula “Creating A Six-Figure Income With Small Reports” at Small Reports
…………………….

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???????? ????? ???????? clipped from www.businessweek.com According to a Rapleaf study, while both sexes still use social networking sites in huge numbers, women are the ones holding down the fort If Slide and RockYou, two of the fastest-growing Web businesses, are any barometer for the future, the Internet is going to look pink. In other words, the future of social media is going to be all about the women. So if you’re going to create the next hot Web 2.0 site and you want it to go viral, you’ll target women. It’s no shock that men and women act differently online, just as they do in everyday life. The Web is an extremely social medium, and Web 2.0 is all about being social. Traditionally, men are the early adopters of new technologies. But when it comes to social media, women are at the forefront. At Rapleaf we conducted a study of 13.2 million people and how they’re using social media. While the trends indicate both sexes are using social media in huge numbers, our findings show that women far outpace the men… Read the whole story here

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Some cynics claim that blogging is a fad and is dying off, solid data proves otherwise! And indications show that the trend is still in the very early stages of growth and is going to go ballistic!

You may be surprised to discover that blogging has in fact been around a lot longer than most people think.

Here’s a potted history:
o June 1993 Netscape begins running it’s What’s New! list of sites.
o Jan 1994: Swarthmore student Justin Hall creates first blog ever.
o April 1997: Dave Winer launches Scripting News. His company, Userland, will release Frontier, Manila and Radio Userland, all website and blog content software.
o Dec 1997: Online diarist Jorn Barger coins the term “Weblog” for “logging the Web.”
o April 1999: Programmer Peter Merholz shortens “Weblog” to “blog.”
o July 1999: Pitas launches the first free build your own blog web tool.
o August 1999: Pyra releases Blogger which becomes the most popular web based blogging tool to date, and popularizes blogging with mainstream internet users.
o Jan 2000: Boing Boing is born.

Fast forward…

o June 2003: Google launches AdSense, matching ads to blog content.
o Sept 2003: Jason Calacanis founds Weblogs, Inc., which eventually grows into a portfolio of 85 blogs.
o Dec 2004: Merriam-Webster declares “blog” the “Word of the Year.”
o Jan 2005: Study finds that 32 million Americans read blogs.
o Oct 2005: Calacanis sells his blogs to AOL for $25 million.
o Dec 2005: An estimated $100 million worth of blog ads are sold this year.

All of this took place well before most of today’s web users had actually heard the term “blog”.

In December 2007 blog search engine Technorati tracked more than 112 million individual blogs on the blogosphere, confirming that blogging has become and is set to continue as a massive, mainstream trend.

Not surprisingly, many blog owners look to converting their online journals into some form of income generator. This begs the question; Is it possible to earn money (even big money) from blogging?

Results show that as more people figure out ways to monetize their blogging activities, it is very possible to generate an income from a tightly targeted niche blog.

While many bloggers will find they can make some money from their blogs, it is a fact of life that there will be a few who just “Get It” and apply techniques which blast their blogs into money-making hyperdrive.

One such person who has done this is UK based 22-year-old Rob Benwell who claims to earn six-figures from his blogging empire.

Rob maintains that his massive success is down to five simple but little used techniques (he calls the 5 Blogging Commandments) which have literally transformed his blogs into non-stop cash machines.

1. “Most people are still on the SEO kick,” he explains. “They stuff keywords into posts and go overboard trying to fool the search engines. Blogs should be more organic and imitate nature. Google,Yahoo and MSN are looking for quality sites by real people, not someone spitting out hundreds of blogs each month filled with keywords and ads.”

2. “Every post should offer visitor value. This doesn’t mean it has to change their lives or anything. Even posts about a related article with a link or a product review are good. Blogs filled with RSS vomit don’t offer value and won’t last.”

3. “Your blog should have people coming back again and again. RSS buttons help and an opt-in newsletter that offers more than just updates is always a good idea. The number one way to get people to come back is to give excellent, likable content.”

4. “After extensive tests I’ve seen huge differences in blogs that are kept up to date against others that don’t get new (or very few) posts. You don’t have to post every day or even every week, but make sure you don’t just set them up and forget about them because they will die off.”

5. “If you are after making the most money you can from a blog, then the most important decision you make will be the market you blog for. So make sure you research it well beforehand.”

Rob has written a step by step blueprint which lays bare everything he does to build long term, profitable niche blogs, and although from a grammatical standpoint, it could be improved, the information in this publication goes way beyond anything else that is available regarding turning a standard blog into a fully focussed cash generating mechanism.

As rough and ready as it may be, this is a great resource for any blogger who wants to earn money (dare I say big money) from their daily posts… Find out more from Rob himself by clicking on this link.

I’ve already started to make the recommend changes to my own sites.

See you at the bank!

All the best,

Dave.

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The derivation of the word blog comes from web logging, as it used to be known. It has changed a lot in its development and now blogging is a front line tool in the Internet promotion tool box. It is now used to promote products and services and presents another platform to to communicate with the visitor and develop a lasting relationship with them.

Having created the the business blog you can then monetize it as well as personalize it to your own requirements. Once created, you can make money out of the blog by syndicating it through RSS to your business website. If you have decided that you will set up a blog for business, below are a few tips on how to make it one of the more interesting and popular blogs.

1 - Your audience.
You are writing your blog post for your audience to read, so don’t forget that what you write is of interest to them. They have
searched for through a keyword, or keyword phrase, and arrived at your blog. So, make sure they are happy with what they find and even interested enough to look a little further into your blog, and maybe visit your website.

2 - Words fail - see sketch.
A large block of text can become very boring when reading, especially online. A picture or graphic or two placed within the text breaks up the strict framework of the post and keeps the reader interested through to the end. It is especially true if the picture is relevant to the subject of the post.

3 - The content needs to be relevant.
The posts made to your business blog need to be relevant to the subject of the blog. In other words the blog is set up around your niche market and with keywords and keyword phrases that are relevant to the subject. The intent is to draw traffic to your blog based on those keywords and keyword phrases. The business blog needs to create a special relationship with its visitors with the aim to sell products or services/ If you consistently write good quality posts to your blog the visitor will return for more of the “good stuff”, and will eventually trust that you know what you are talking about and buy one of your recommended products or services.

4 - Keep things simple.
The art of good communication is to keep things simple. Keep away from the technical jargon unless absolutely necessary and try to keep the sentences short and to the point.

5 - Make it interactive.
Audio and video are very good interactive methods, but all blogs come with a “comments” facility for each post made. Make sure that this feature is not turned off, and all comments must be approved before publishing them.

Before starting out with your blog you will need to do some pre-planning as to how you will personalize and monetize the blog, as well as how often you will post to it. An important fact to resolve is where will the content for each post come from. A good business blog needs a steady stream of interesting and relevant content in order to become a profitable venture - how will you complete this task? Remember that no plan is a plan to failure.

All the best.

Dave.

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Liane Bate writes:

Are you wondering what all the hoopla is about blogging? Are you wondering if it’s worth your time and energy to start one, or more than one blog? Are you curious to know if blogging is going to be the secret weapon that helps you start making money from home? Many online business owners ask these questions, so here’s a little insight into blogging that might help you build your business.

“Blogging” is a fun word, so it must be fun, right? Well, only if you really like to write something meaningful that your readers are interested in and willing to keep reading as you make more and more blog posts. The thing is, if you want to start making money from home, you have to maintain a blog to make it effective, and keep posting valuable content on a regular basis, otherwise there is no point in having a blog. (more…)

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NOW I KNOW YOU’VE HEARD ABOUT BLOGS…

You should have, you’re reading (and listening) to one now, and we’ve talked about blogs enough this past few posts. But what about a vlog, or a wiki, how about a pod?

In Solopod 3 we find out what these weird new terms mean to us as solo online entrepreneurs.

We also think about how your own success in life has nothing to do with luck, breeding or super-intelligence. It’s down to you making a simple choice.

All the best,

Dave.

———————-

Written transcript from Solopod 3

(more…)

 

 Solopod 3 [10:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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YES, THIS IS SLIGHTLY MORE SALES-ORIENTED THAN USUAL BUT, following Angela Booth’s great article about the five business models you can use to turn your blog into a six-figure earner, I’ve been doing a bit of research and have discovered that no other than Derek Gehl and the good folks at The Internet Marketing Center have released a brand new video and printed guide to Blogging For Dollars as the result of a year-long study into the blogging phenomenon.

Product Review:

“Blogging For Dollars” By Derek Gehl and The Internet Marketing Center

While going through Derek Gehl’s new “Blogging For Dollars” system, I was amazed just how powerful blogs really are. The amount of traffic you can drive to your website with a blog is impressive!

If you don’t have a blog yet, NOW is definitely the time to start one!

And if you want to turn that blog into a huge success, Derek and his team have invested over $79,583.28 in developing and testing his new system, “Blogging For Dollars,” and…

… Their test results were truly shocking!

Some of Derek’s clients and members of his team were scooping up handfuls of #1 rankings in the search engines — for HIGHLY competitive terms — without hiring an expensive SEO specialist.

And I’m positive that anyone can secure a top 10 position in the search engines using the advanced blogging techniques explained in this system!

Plus, by having a blog, you can drive swarms of traffic to your website, explode your sales and profits…

… OR add new streams of revenue to your existing business!

But, what I like most about this system is that it’s for both advanced users and it’s totally newbie friendly at the same time.

In fact, “Blogging For Dollars” lays out a simple plan for starting your very FIRST online business using blogs, and teaches you how to set up your FIRST blog in 45 seconds… 5 minutes if you’re slow!

Here’s a tiny sample of what you’ll learn:

* How to use blogs to dramatically increase your website traffic — and add 1,000’s of EXTRA dollars to your bottom line!

* How to rank #1 in Google, Yahoo!, and MSN — for the keywords MOST searched by your target audience!

* How Derek’s team pushed a webpage to a #2 ranking in Google for a highly competitive keyphrase — with less than 60 minutes’ effort! (And why we saw traffic and sales results in less than 14 days!)

* Which 3 critical steps you MUST follow to catapult your website to the TOP of the search engine rankings — for any keyword you choose!

* How to Attract 400% more repeat traffic than your static webpage! Since blogs take just seconds to update (from ANYWHERE in the world), it’s easy to draw visitors back again and again with fresh news and postings!

… And MUCH more!

And since blogging is the biggest trend to hit the Internet in the last 10 years, there’s more opportunity to profit from it right now than there ever will be. My prediction is we won’t see another chance like this for at least another 10 years… Which means the time to act is now!

If you want to get in on the action, and maximize your blogging profits quickly, then I highly recommend you take a look Derek Gehl’s new system right away.

“Blogging For Dollars” comes with a 96-minute instructional DVD, and an easy-to-follow guidebook containing 115 pages of every single detailed technique and strategy for generating MASSIVE profits from any blog!

Click here to get more details on the system that can help you take advantage of this incredible opportunity… Before it’s too late!

All the best,

Dave.

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Want to become an Internet entrepreneur with no cash investment? You can. This article by Angela Booth discusses five business models for your new blogging business. All have the potential to earn you a six-figure income.

Enjoy,

Dave.

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Copyright © 2006 Angela Booth

IF SOMEONE WERE TO TELL YOU that you could create a global business, completely for free, with nothing more than the tools you already have, and the investment of your time, you’d question their sanity.

Nevertheless, it’s true. If blogging appeals to you, you can create a viable Internet business within a few months: for free.

Blogging is a new development in online businesses. Essentially, it’s instant publishing. Because entrepreneurial blogging is so new, you have a great opportunity to build your business before others copy what you’re doing, so get started now, and start building your own online empire.

Let’s look at five business models for your new Internet blogging business. These five models can be combined if you wish – there are no rules in blogging. You can change the business model of a blog at any time, to a model which generates more income.

Each of these models has the potential to earn you a six-figure income. They are:

• Affiliate blog(s)

• Web publisher blog(s)

• Sales blog(s)

• Service blog(s)

• Blog network(s)

Let’s look at these models one by one.

Affiliate blog(s)

Many businesses develop affiliate programs, because they can recruit a sales force of thousands of people, with little expense. The appeal of affiliate programs for affiliate marketers is that you don’t need a product or service – you can start selling others’ products, on commission.

If you intend creating an affiliate blog, select the products that you’ll be selling before you create the blog. This is because you want to be sure that there is a wide range of products that you can promote. There’s nothing worse than developing a blog, and finding out that the well is dry: you’ve picked a niche where products rarely change, and in which the products are so standardized that there’s nothing new to write or podcast about.

Web publisher blog(s)

In this model, your blog is the online equivalent of a magazine. Just as a magazine has features and advertising, so does your blog. In this business model, your content is vital, because you’re counting on your content to attract advertisers.

If you choose to develop a Web publisher blog, you’ve got great models – the thousands of magazines which are published each year. Check out a couple of your favorite magazines. Usually a monthly magazine will have a theme for each monthly issue, with two or more stories devoted to this theme. The magazine publishes its editorial calendar a year in advance, so that advertisers can line up their advertising for a specific issue.

Sales blog(s)

In the sales model, you devote a blog to a single product, or range of products. When offline companies start blogs, their blogs are sales blogs – they’re using their blogs to sell their products. If you have products that you want to sell, a sales blog is an excellent business model. You could sell a product that you’ve created – an ebook, a DVD, or art work – or products that you buy from others, and resell.

If you’re already running a business, you could start an entrepreneurial blog to act as the marketing arm of the business.

On the other hand, if you don’t have a business, look into having products created for you, or buy products which you can resell on your blog. Look in your local Yellow Pages for manufacturing companies: you may be able to find products that you could resell at a profit. Of course, there are many wholesaling companies online, but the benefit of dealing with a local supplier is that you can inspect the products that you’re selling, to ensure quality. Your shipping costs will also be low, resulting in more profit for you.

Service blog(s)

While the sales blog sells products, the service blog sells services. If you have a service that you sell, then you could create a blog to generate customers for your services. Or, you could sell the services of other people, via a blog.

If you’re selling a service, you know that it’s hard to differentiate yourself from the thousands of others who are selling the same service. A blog is a way to do that. If you’re a dance coach, for example, you’ve got plenty to write about. You’ll attract lots of new business, and you can bring in additional income when you solicit your equipment suppliers to advertise on your blog.

Blog network(s)

Blog networks are groups of Web publisher blogs formed into a network. There can be half a dozen, or hundreds, depending on the ambitions and interests of the owner of the network. Blog networks usually derive their income from advertising.

If you want to develop a blog network, your aims will be to: develop a mission for the network, as well as a clear idea of where and how you’ll add blogs to the network, and where and how the revenue stream will be built.

So, there you have it. Five different business models for your blog-based Internet business. Now all you need to build your new Internet business is enthusiasm, inspiration, and time.

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Angela Booth is a copywriter and veteran career blogger. Her new ebook, Blogging For Dollars, helps you develop a lucrative blogging career, and gets you started as a blogging entrepreneur. The ebook will be available from August 2006. Read the book’s blog at http://www.dollars2blog.com/blog/

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