Monetizing any website, is a journey. It’s unrealistic to expect that you can make one change to your website and it’s going to provide you with the best possible results. The best way to approach monetizing a blog, is to focus on helping people.

As an example, let’s use a Photography blog. People visit the blog because they want to become better photographers. To get someone to visit this blog, you need to provide them with lessons, motivation, inspiration and so on. Now, the same applies to when you monetize a website. A reader wants even better ways to improve their photography, whether that is with better equipment or with even more training, either way, there is an opportunity to make money.

If the readers want better cameras or better equipment, you can promote other companies products and receive a commission.

If the reader wants better training, or more advanced training, again, you can promote other bloggers products, or you can create and sell your own.

I often think, the best websites are the ones that you can’t even see how they make money. And by that, I mean, you can see no visible advertising. Monetization doesn’t have to be obvious, in fact, I find it converts best when no one knows it’s there at all.

Real quickly, I will tell you why we don’t sell advertising:

• Constantly adding/editing/deleting advertisers
• Ads are often ugly and take away from user experience
• They can reduce your search engine rankings and increase bounce rate
• Most importantly… it makes us less money!

Selling advertising, for us, isn’t worth it.

Over the years, we have tried over a dozen ways to make money and from our experience, making money from a blog, falls into two categories.

Making money from affiliate marketing

and…

Making money from selling our own products.

Below, I will give you a break down of both techniques, with details on how we use them here on IncomeDiary.

How to Monetize a Blog With Affiliate Marketing

Finding Affiliate Products To Promote

Keeping with the theme of Photography, finding physical products to promote such as cameras and equipment is easy. Nearly every photography related product can be found on Amazon, and Amazon have their own affiliate network called Amazon Associates. This means Amazon let’s you sell their products and you receive a commission for doing so.

When it comes to any other product you want to promote as an affiliate, I usually start by visiting their website and scrolling to the bottom to see if I can find a link for an affiliate page. If I don’t see one, I will then Google their website name + affiliate. If nothing comes up, which at least, in my experience is quite rare, I will simply move on and find something else.

To find inspiration for products to promote, you could look at either a competitors website to see what products they are promoting or you can try an affiliate marketplace such as Commission Junction which has 1000’s of different companies integrated with their service.

Promoting Affiliate Products On Your Blog

This is where a lot of people go wrong, they simply add a couple affiliate offers to their blog and cross their fingers, hoping someone will buy from them. There is a lot, a lot more to it than that!

To start with, if you already have traffic I would recommend that you check to see if any of the links on your website could be updated with affiliate links.

What we did, was we tracked our outgoing links with Google Analytics and then we could see which links were getting the most clicks and prioritize from there. This one change increased our earnings by about $50,000 a year.

Promoting Products You Use

This works because people can actively see you using the service or product. For example with IncomeSup, I recommend my hosting company, domain registrar and the blog theme we use. Using the photography niche as an example again, you could recommend the camera you use, the lens, the camera bag, memory cards and so on.

Often you go to a blog and you learn something from the author. It’s only natural that you would want to copy their success by doing what they do.

“I use this, so, so should you”.

Promoting Recommended eBooks

I have found that two things convert really well for us – the first being the ‘Offer Box’ below.

In the past I have used banners provided by affiliate managers and also had some really snazzy boxes designed however this clean, simple box with a green stop sign converts the highest.

Perhaps because it looks more like content, then an advert.

I like to promote two offers in the box, one low priced and one high price. Fortunately for my higher priced offer above, I was able to secure a $1 trial and that has seen conversions go even higher. (Top Tip: If you are promoting a higher priced offer – try and get a special rate or introductory offer to get people interested in taking action.)

The second thing that converts really well is adding a text advert at the top of my list posts, such as on our Top Earning Bloggers post. I added a link saying, “Want to follow in their footsteps? Check out this product”. This works because as they read the post the reader is highly motivated and inspired and wants to see themselves on this list one day.

Comparison and Resources Page

These pages are usually used to reinforce a recommendation I have already made. People like the element of choice but in reality, usually, one product is better than the rest.

When you put this product up against competing products, it only shows how far better it is and should give your reader the confidence to go ahead and purchase. If they don’t go with your recommendation and choose a different product, well, that’s an affiliate link as well, so you will stay make money.

You can see an example of this on our Creating a Website page.

Special Note: It is also OK to put in some comparisons that will not earn you any commissions – if you are being authentic and creating trust, which you should be, then your visitors, especially your more ‘internet marketing aware’ visitors will appreciate your ‘impartial’ approach.

Publishing content that mentions affiliate products

This has started to make me more and more money as I test different affiliate offers. There are 3 main types of blog posts that make me money. They are Interviews, Guides and Reviews.

I shall point out the advantages of each below:

Making Money From Interviews:

One of the best ways to make money promoting products with interviews is to prepare the interview to go out as the product is launched. Why? Well, if the product has just been released, no one has bought it and so you increase your odds at making sales.

Not only this, but anyone interested in the product, will look for more information on Google and social media and if your post is coming up, then they will come to your site and hopefully by from you.

I recommend you do the interview over the phone (I use Skype) and record the call and get it transcribed. You then add the call to your site as an MP3 / Podcast and add the transcription for those who prefer to read rather than listen. (The transcription also gives you lots of valuable search engine content). When conducting interviews you can also review the interviewee’s products, ask them questions about it – and then at the end of the interview you can add if you wish your own mini-review of the product and the reasons why visitors should buy it.

Typically your interview will only touch generally on the strategies the interviewee uses but done correctly your listener / reader will be left wanting more. This is when you promote the Interviewee’s product as a way for your followers to learn more. Depending on the interviewee and the product, you can easily walk away with dozens of sales and continuous future sales depending on how often future readers find the interview.

Making Money From Publishing Guides

Another tactic I use is, producing ‘How to’ or Guide Posts – just like this one.

You give away great content that really helps your readers and at the same time you promote affiliate products. Visitors can see you using the products so they can decide if it’s for them or not and those who do notice you are promoting an affiliate product don’t mind because you are helping them out for free.

Very Important: This is very important – do take the time to produce good content / how to posts. Despite what some gurus try to imply — there is no such thing as Free Money – you need to work at providing real value to your readers — do that and the money will follow via affiliate sales. So often I see bloggers making ‘half efforts’ at producing guides – frankly you may as well not bother if that is what you are going to do. Readers can tell if you know what you are talking about and if you are passionate about it, or not.

Making Money From Review Posts

Just about every post you do can be a partial review post if you are doing it correctly. This is the essential bit here — no one is really going to pay any attention to your review posts unless they respect you, believe in you, have rapport with you. In other words they feel you can be trusted. As mentioned in previous posts this is why pages such as the ABOUT PAGE and the MY STORY PAGE are so essential.

To start building that trust and rapport you must first provide good content, valuable content. So often readers tell me they cannot believe how much good content I give away for free – if you start to get comments like that then you are doing it right. Build rapport and anything your recommend will stand a far better chance of being sold.

Using Email Marketing To Drive Traffic To Increase Affiliate Sales

Email marketing is often thought of as a monetization technique. But really, it’s a traffic source. It allows you to send traffic anywhere you like. And it’s good at it.

Getting people to subscribe to your email list, is perhaps the most profitable thing you can do with your blog – especially if you then followup with quality emails, that further help your readers.

If you ask any big internet marketer, one of the main things they would tell you is that they wished they had started to build their list earlier. Done right (which means first delivering quality information — not loads of spammy offers) than email marketing to a Strong List of followers is about as close as it gets online to printing money.

Let me run you through how my email marketing funnel works:

1. Opt-in boxes are displayed through out our website – for this we offer a special free gift to entice people into signing up. We also add a well designed eCover to give even more value to this FREE product.

63.9% of IncomeDiary’s email subscribers come from our popup. The second best way we get subscribers is via our opt-in box at the bottom of our blog posts, but this converts far lower than our popup.

You would be best of focusing on these two techniques first. Here’s a good post on how we get email subscribers.

2. Visitors sign up to your email list.

3. When we have a new blog post or we find good quality offers related to our niche, we email subscribers. Sometimes we can earn thousands of dollars from just one mailing by doing this.

When it comes down to email marketing and autoresponder software, we use and recommend AWeber. If you order today you can get your first month for only $1. Apart from AWeber, you may want to consider iContact. (see, this is me, giving you a choice, I will earn either way).

Extra email marketing monetization tips:

When someone subscribes to you list, usually you offer them some sort of incentive, such as a free ebook or some kind of training. This should be monetized with affiliates products and/or it should leave them wanting even better training from you that you sell.

You should save every email that converts well for you and add it to your autoresponder list, so that new subscribers, automatically get your highest converting offers.

Increasing Your Conversions

Although the following may seem like small things, the increase in conversions can be as much as 1000% in some cases, so do pay attention.

Ask For a Coupon Code

Most companies will have the ability to create custom coupon codes, all you have to do is ask for them. These are great for increasing conversions as the coupon can make a huge difference such as making it a trial offer or get something free. People love to think they are getting a good deal.

Ask For a Special Offer

Some of my best converting affiliate links convert so well because of the special offers I am able to offer my readers. For example a $1 Trial or a Bonus offer only available to my readers.

Ask For a Higher Commission Rate

If you are doing a good job at promoting a product, it’s quite possible that you can get an even better commission rate. If it’s a digital product that you are promoting, then the cost of each customer to the seller is very low, so it’s nearly 100% profit. So they can and often are prepared to offer more than 50% commissions, because whatever they earn, is often a result of doing very little.

Some product owners are even prepared to give 100% commission rates because money is not just earned with the first sale, but future sales and let’s not forget the ability to email them promotions.

How to Monetize a Blog By Creating and Selling Your Own Digital Product

Brainstorming Products To Create

Often, coming up with a product to create is an easy task. If you’re doing a good job, your readers should be telling you what they want.

If you are stuck for ideas, take a look at your most popular posts and ask yourself, can you make a product around one of these articles? Not only has the subject proven to you to be popular but you already have a very targeted traffic source to sell too.

Here is a list of different types of products I’ve seen bloggers create:

• eBooks (Traffic Domination)
• Checklists (110 Blog Post Headlines Proven To Get The Most Traffic)
• Services (Done for you blogging service)
• Consulting (Talk about how you can improve your blog)
• Membership Websites (8 Week Training Course for Launching Your First Product)
• Software (PopUp Domination)

Creating Your Product

Well, let’s assume you are creating a digital product, teaching something. And you want to deliver it as an eBook or membership website. To start with, I recommend you create an outline of everything you want to teach.

Now either decide if you want to offer it in text or video, or both.

If you decide you want to offer it as text, that’s simple enough, just get it converted to a PDF and give the customer the download link once they purchase.

If you want to do a membership site, you need to get some membership website software and install it on your blog. Now this can be quite simple, but you may have to hire a developer, depending on your ability level. If you are offering your training in video form, just upload it to AmazonS3 and insert the videos into your site.

Just in case it’s crossed your mind, if it’s a software product you plan to make. You need to find a great developer and make sure you have a budget to see the project through. If you don’t properly plan out your product, it can end up costing you a lot more than you expected!

Selling Your Own Product

You should plan to do this in two main ways, via your own website/mailing list and via affiliates.

Let’s begin with what you will do on your own website:

Firstly, you need to make your readers aware of what’s coming. You want them excited. You want them to buy the second it’s for sale.

We once launched a product and before we even announced it was on sale, two people had found the sales page and bought it. The next 98 customers signed up in under 100 minutes.

This is because we pre-sold our audience. Not only this but we added scarcity. We told everyone that, for the first day, we only were going to offer 100 accounts for sale. So they had to be quick!

To get started selling, you need three things:

1. A landing page. (Page dedicated to selling your product).
2. Merchant account. (We use Stripe and PayPal).
3. Checkout page software.

Readers visit landing page, they click the buy button, they go through the checkout page process and then pay via your merchant account.

Then once they pay, they either end up on the download page or they receive an email with a link to download the product there.

Getting Affiliates To Promote Your Product

You will earn a lot more money from affiliates promoting your product than you will earn selling it yourself.

Once you start working at this, your focus with your blog will become a lot more than a blog but rather a business. You will have assets, multiple income streams and more.

Often people think, well, if all the money is be made from creating products, then why even bother creating a blog. A blog gives you credibility, authority. Without the blog, you would find it a lot harder to sell your product and also to understand the industry you are in. At least, that’s our experience.

Take Action Today

There you have it, that’s our top two strategies for monetizing any blog or website.

If you could only take 3 things away from this post, I hope they are:

1. Using a Lightbox optin I was able to significantly increase my daily email opt-in rate (304% +). I wish I had started using it sooner.

2. Test promoting different products, one product I promote, out sells all others by at least 20 to 1 and I wouldn’t have know that if I had not switched around promotions on my site.

3. ASK! My conversions and sales continual increase because I’m always asking my affiliate managers for more, a free trial, coupon codes, different landing pages – if it’s going to make you more sales, it’s going to make them more money and so they should at least make an effort to help you.

Good luck!

Read more: ‘14 Ways to Make More Money From Email Marketing’

The post How to Monetize a Blog: The Two Main Ways We Make Money Online appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

In addition, please note that throughout this process we are not going to worry about traffic and/or marketing channels. For now, our sole focus is building our products as quickly and efficiently as possible.

We want to create quality products but quite honestly it doesn’t make sense to spend an excessive amount of time on product development before we confirm whether or not people are willing to pay for these products.

Instead we will focus on creating products that are easy to develop and do not require a high amount of capital.

These are not the only products you can offer but just remember that if it is going to take you a year to build out one of your four products then it may not be worth it. You can always add more products and/or enhance current products as your business evolves.

The goal of this article is to give you the right amount of information so you can successfully build your four products and create the funnel that brings your customer up through the value ladder. Once you have this in place you’re ready for Part 3 which focuses on driving traffic to your funnel.

How The Value Ladder Works

Initially a customer may buy a relatively low ticket item – but as your relationship with them builds and you prove that you GIVE VALUE that customer will buy further products from you, increasing in value as they go up the Value Ladder.

Every successful business has a value ladder – a starter product that leads to better and more expensive products and services as the customer / supplier relationship grows. As an example, a dentist may start out with offering a teeth cleaning service – which expands to teeth whitening and later more expensive cosmetic services.

It is also important to remember, people will pay more for the same information packaged in different ways.

For example the value of Text (PDF or book) is quite different from say Audio (CD). Book publishers regularly make best sellers available as a CD for this reason – and we as Internet Marketers can do the same.

Likewise the value of a video over an audio is usually considered greater – and going further, a workshop or live training (with essentially similar information) will be considered the most valuable of the lot

Start an Internet Business – My Example Value Ladder

My niche is publishing and writing – and the following is my product offering (and value ladder) that I use for the services I offer to people who would like to write a book and become a published author.

Remember – this is just my example value ladder – your product offering and the format of the products will almost certainly be different. The point is to have a range of products to offer your customers which increases in value.

Product #1 (Bait) – A Free mini-course that provides a specific strategy to help people struggling to complete their book. In my example I am actually going to create a video based first product because it is a medium I am comfortable with. If video is too much of a first step for you, then create a PDF or Ebook as your ‘bait’ product.

Talking of ‘bait – it is unfortunate that ‘bait’ is sometimes associated with deceit – as in ‘bait and switch’. That is not what I am referring to here – rather it is an opening offer, an incentive, to persuade buyers to try you out)

Product #2 – An elaborate detailed course that incorporates weekly coaching webinars and community membership. (That is charged for) So product 2 is the first product I charge anything – product 1 is purely about lead generation.

I appreciate not everyone is going to be comfortable with offering weekly coaching as Product 2 – so again I emphasis this is an example only.

If we take IncomeDiary as an example – the initial ‘product’ is a Free Video which explains: How one single blog post can attract 20,000 Free Visitors in a week…

This free video introduces viewers to Product No2 – Traffic Domination

The main point here, is that at the very least you need a Product 1 (Bait) and a Product 2 in your value ladder, before moving on to products 3 and 4 (Or even Products 5 or 6 if you wish)

Product #3 – A one-on-one coaching program. (I hold their hand as they write their book)

Product #4 – Ghostwriting services. (I write the book for my client)

Other examples of Products 3 and 4 could be: A seminar, Mastermind Group, a Done For You Service (example Photoblogger) Monthly Membership Site or Software (Example Popup Domination)

A few points before we discuss how to build each product. First, though your specific products will vary from the example provided above, I am using these particular examples because they are easy to build and easily scaled at a later time once we better understand the demand for each product. I recommend you utilize the same type of products:

Product #1 – Information product that can be built in a day or two.
Product #2 – Information product that can be built in a few weeks.
Product #3 – A service product that requires your time but only demands an organized scheduling system (which at first can be easily managed by you alone) and a payment process.
Product #4 – A similar service that offers more value to customers and only entails the same organized scheduling and payment system.

Secondly, products #3 and #4 actually require very little time on the front end. You simply offer it to your customers who purchased or shown interest your second product. We will discuss how to carry out the transaction when a client moves forward with a purchase for these products.

Thirdly and finally, be sure that you have your own value ladder blueprint that meets the criteria specified above. If not, take a few minutes to get this completed because you’re about to begin the building process and you’ll want to avoid taking the time to create products that you don’t end up selling. The steps offered below for each product will be operating under the assumption that you’ll be sticking to the same format as provided above. If this is incorrect and you’re offering one of your products within a different format just be sure to do the necessary research to determine the steps you need to take to take to go from idea to reality.

Start an Internet Business – Creating Information Product #1

In this value ladder example, I am creating videos to help people struggling to complete their book.

However, regardless of the medium you use the research and process are much the same. (So if your first product is an Ebook – substitute the word video for Ebook)

1.) Determine what your four to five videos are going to be about.

To do this, you’re going to develop your curriculum outline for Product #2. With this information, you can extract the key ideas and important details to include in your mini course videos for Product #1.(Essentially, in this example – Product 1 is an abbreviated version of the more comprehensive information buyers will get in Product2)

The videos I would create for the example mini-course would be as follows:
Video #1 – Developing your main idea
Video #2 – Brain dumping and creating an outline
Video #3 – Creating an outline for each chapter
Video #4 – Filling in the outline with great content

Quick Tip: If the thought of developing your course curriculum is daunting then I recommend you begin the course creation process through Udemy.

The free course Udemy offers, does a fantastic job prompting instructors to outline their course and develop the key information. Additionally, you’ll get a head start on developing Product #2.

2.) Develop an outline for each video. I personally do not recommend writing a script because I believe most potential clients want to know that they would be working with somebody that is personable and a script reader doesn’t project interpersonal skills. Each video should be approximately 3 to 7 minutes.

3.a) Set up your video capturing equipment. For the mini course I recommend you use your smart phone (yes I am assuming you have one). Do not worry about making sure these videos are over the top professional looking. The value is in the content you provide, not the lighting or audio. Just avoid anything that could cause a viewer to be distracted (i.e. dogs barking, people in the background, etc.). If you’re using your phone to record yourself, I recommend you purchase a tripod so you can be sure to keep the appropriate angle or ask a friend to help you film.

3.b) You’re going to develop Power Point, Prezi, or Keynote presentations that provide the content you need for each video. Then you’re going to use screencast software such as Jing (free) of Screenflow (for Mac) to enable you to add verbal commentary to the presentations.

These videos can serve as an extension or an alternative to the videos that show your face (some people are uncomfortable being in front of camera).

Check out the Udemy blog for tips on video creation.

Quick Tip: Be sure to include a sales pitch in your final video. Something along the lines of “Now you that you’ve completed the mini-course hopefully you’ve begun taking action and achieving your goals. If you feel like you need a bit more support then I recommend you check out my other course that offers all the information we’ve covered and more in much greater detail, just click the link in the next email you get from me to learn more.”

4.) Once you have your videos then you’re ready to offer them to potential clients. There are lots of choices for video hosting – but if your budget allows a good place to start is Wistia.com.

If budget is small you can even upload each video to youtube.com but be sure to set it to “unlisted”. This will prevent the video from coming up if somebody searches your particular content area. This step is completed when you have a link for each video. The disadvantage of course is that once people know the URL of a video they can easily share with people who have not bought the product.

If however your initial product is a PDF/ Ebook then for most of us, it will be the relatively simple task of uploading via Cpanel

Again, you will wish to consider security and the best way to do that is to create a members area that requires a password. There are a lot of software options that allow you to do that – you will find some examples here. Another alternative is to use a service such as Amazon Web Services

5.) Use mailchimp.com or Aweber to create a sequence of scheduled emails. You want to set the sequence to begin immediately when a person subscribes and then provide one link per day until all the video links have been shared. Each email should summarize the purpose of the video they are about to watch in addition to a few action steps and indicators for successful completion.

6.) Offer an email that is sent no more than a day after the final video email that offers the link to your Product #2 (we will discuss where that link will come from momentarily).

Just like that you have an email based video mini-course.

Creating Information Product #2

This next product is going to take a little bit longer to create as it should cover much more detail. The good news is if you aren’t really interested in creating your own website, you don’t have to. Just be aware that when you do this you will give up potential revenue for each sale, so when the time comes to price, do so accordingly. If you are able to create your own website and you want your course available for purchase then I recommend you invest in Zippy Course software.

Assuming you’re not ready to create your own website then as stated earlier, we’re going to continue to create our course via Udemy.com. This platform is excellent for two reasons. First, it is very simple to use and second, it’s process does a great job helping the course creator stay organized and focused when developing content. Learn more about Udemy course creation here.

Quick Tip: As you develop your course on Udemy.com it is acceptable to include the videos from your mini course but be sure to add a tremendous amount of additional value. If your customer feels as though they just paid for something they’ve already seen for free you’ll lose them.

Rather than provide you with the specific steps for Product #2 I recommend you enroll in The official (produced by Udemy) guide to creating your own Udemy course, from start to finish.
Completing this free course will teach you how to create effective Udemy courses. In addition to providing you with the necessary resources and knowledge to produce your own course you’ll also gain the student perspective as well. Think about what you like and don’t like about your course as the student and create a course that takes advantages of these strengths while avoiding or improveing upon the weaknesses.

When you finish your course you’ll be able to generate a link that takes people directly to your course title page. This is the link you want to share in your final email of your Product #1 email sequence.

One Important Note: We do not recommend Udemy if ultimately you want to sell high ticket Niche Training Courses – but it is a great place to start with short training course (1 – 2 hrs) and learn the business and get experience.

Creating Information Products #3 and #4

One of my favorite parts about creating the last two products is that while the front end time for the first two products can be a bit time consuming Products #3 and #4 are really just about structuring the offer and facilitating the transaction. This only becomes complicated if you try and offer these products in a way that already has them adjusted to be scaled. In other words, if you take the time to create the automation right away then you’re going to focusing your energy on something that isn’t needed until you actually have a significant amount of customers.

What To Do Next – Based On My Value Ladder

I emphasis that the following approach is rather personal – many Internet Marketers will prefer to have a more streamlined and automated process – this is just what I do. It does not have to be what you do.

Step 1: Using your email service ( eg Aweber ) be sure to automate messages to anybody that clicks on the link that would take them to your Product #2 offering. This is pretty easy to do when using Aweber but if you find yourself struggling just check out their tutorial videos, they’re extremely helpful.

If you use Udemy.com as your course platform you may not be sure as to whether or not they actually made the purchase but to keep things simple lets assume there is interest since they at the very least clicked on the link you provided in your email that followed your Product #1: Mini-Course.

Step 2: Construct a message that says something along these lines…

“Hi Name,

So I see that you were interested in the Product #2 Course Title. Did you end up signing up? If so, I welcome your feedback. Either way, if you’re feeling like progress is slower than you were hoping don’t beat yourself up, it always is.

If you’re interested, I’d be happy to schedule a coaching call to see if we can get you on the fast track to achieving your goals.

Just reply to this email and we’ll take it from there.

Talk to you soon.

Your Name.

p.s. Just a heads up I only have limited spots to schedule coaching calls in so if you are interested try to let me know as soon as you can.”

Useful Resource: Making Money with Email Marketing and an Autoresponder Series

Step 3: Check your emails and follow up by sharing your rates. Feel free to negotiate rates as well if they respond with a no. Remember, testimonials will help your business so the more flexible you can be in the beginning the stronger you’ll be able to position yourself when you begin creating sales pages as you automate and scale (which is discussed in Part 4 of this series). If a customer responds by saying they can’t afford the product counter by offering a reduced rate in exchange for a testimonial afterwards.

Quick Tip: I recommend you use to Skype to facilitate your coaching calls. This will enable you to speak to anybody, anywhere in the world at no charge.

Step 4: When you’re on your coaching call be sure to mention that you also offer additional services. In my example the final product in my value ladder is ghostwriting. For you it may be personal mentoring or consulting or a mastermind.

Basically this final product is for the person who desperately wants to solve a specific goal but for some reason can’t seem to make it happen. Therefore, for a fee, you offer to do it for them. Same deal as step three, remember to be flexible with your rates since you are in the very beginning phases. You want to gain experience and testimonials so you can become an authority within your chosen niche.

Quick Tip: If you’re third product isn’t a call that is totally fine, just be sure to include the offer for Product #4. You do not need to include the price in the offer because again initially we’re going to focus on being flexible with these rates. We will eventually fine tune the process and begin generating consistent revenue. I appreciate this goes against the advice of most Internet Marketing Gurus – but my focus here is getting you started on the lowest possible budget.

Step 5: Whether a customer took advantage of both products #3 and #4 or just one of them, to facilitate payment create a PayPal account if you do not already have one. With your account you can easily create and send invoices. Just be sure to mention to your clients that you’ll be facilitating payment via PayPal. It is important they are able and comfortable to pay this way.

Well there you have it. A fully functioning value ladder product offering. Once each product is up and running you’re ready to move onto to Part 3 which covers driving traffic to Product #1, from there you up sell with authentic, valuable products that genuinely solve problems for people.

Before moving on to Part 3 of this series (Driving Traffic To Your Funnel) it is important to wrap up a few loose ends.

First, this process is not a perfect system by any means. However, it is an efficient approach to creating a value ladder that can begin generating revenue. Don’t invest a ton of time into something until you develop a sense of the value it brings to customers. Once you begin generating consistent revenue then you can enhance and expand upon your offerings. Moreover, when your business takes off you’ll have capital to reinvest to help scale more efficiently. Until then keep the overheard low and keep the systems simple.

Second, I understand you may not want to offer the same exact products that I used as examples. Don’t let that discourage you. Research how to develop the product you’re interested in creating and move forward. Do not become stuck in analysis paralysis.

Additionally, be sure that all of your products focus on solving the same problem. Notice that all of the products offered in the example focused on helping people finish their first draft. All four products offered different approaches and solutions to solving the same problem. Over time you can create more products and offerings based on customer feedback. Once you have your email list that began accumulating names from Product #1 you can always reach out and ask them what they need help with. Then you just build products that serve those needs.

Third, throughout this article you’ve been instructed to create a significant amount of emails to customers. If you struggle with constructing an effective message then I strongly recommend DotCom Secrets by Russell Brunson to help with the necessary copy. It provides specific scripts that you can use to maximize the impact of each email you send. You can see one of Russell’s Value Ladders below:

Fourth, this article intentionally skips the need for creating your own website. This does not mean you will not or should not have one. Instead, we will focus on different options for this in Part 3 when we assess the type of traffic we want. This information in turn will help clarify what website or webpage options makes most sense for you.

Finally, as you embark upon your product development create deadlines for yourself and stick to them. Aim to create your course in no more than one month and if possible even sooner. If you can create a course that offers an hour to two hours of amazing helpful content then publish it and offer it. You can always add to it as you go.

Shoot first, aim second.

See you in Part 3!

Author Bio: Michael Marani is a successful author, and online entrepreneur best known for The Amazon Sales Formula

The post How Do I Start An Internet Business Pt 2 – Establishing The Value Ladder appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

His website is dedicated to everything kombucha and as it turns out, he’s quite the internet marketer.

Here’s why you should listen to Dave:

In a relatively short amount of time, he’s turned a passion into profits and reaches thousands monthly by leveraging social media, blogging and eCommerce. His website getkombucha.com is ranked the #1 kombucha website, based on customers, subscribers, and positive reviews!

He’s done a great job of using the internet as a tool to build a brand and create a healthy (pun intended) passive income selling physical products.

Today, we’re going to show you exactly how he’s done it, and how you can do the same.

Meet Dave…

Dave Lindenbaum Interview

#1. You sell a physical Kombucha making kit online. There are so many things needed to start selling, where did you start and how did you prevent yourself from being so overwhelmed?

Started small… like really small!

I started out of my apartment and whoever my roommate was at the time got free rent to help me bag tea and ship, etc. The biggest “investment” was buying a logo for $55 which years later I realized resembled a cross between the HerbaLife logo and a marijuana plant!

My friend was working for breathalyzer.net and they had a Yahoo merchant account (I know! yahoo has their own shopping cart!!!).. so that’s what I went with too. I approached it from what the objective was.. which was share this incredible discovery with others. This discovery = excitement, passion and the unknown… so really share all these positive emotions with others. I’d apply all these things I was learning at the time like SEO, eCommerce, sales, marketing… so I could see what worked and what didn’t and continue to learn even as I am writing this… not too much has changed!!

2. Your standard kombucha kit has over a dozen different items, including:

• Certified lead free porcelain brewer
• Hand crafted wooden stand
• ONE Fully Grown Organic Kombucha Mushroom Culture – 6 inches in diameter
• BPA free bottles, etc.

How did you go about sourcing all these products, getting the best price, packaging it together and storing it?

Continuous improvement. Our brewers started out as a 5 gallon FDA bucket. I literally had my friend come visit me from NY and I had him drilling holes in all these plastic buckets! We’ve just recently upgraded our bottles. The way we grow cultures have been upgraded so that it lasts much longer when packaged long distances.

Getting help from others has also been a huge help in making this all possible. One of my mentors is an ayurvedic healer and master tea blender, he’s the inspiration behind our boosters wealth of info in tea… I trained under him for 2 years.

We also work with a non profit called ARC Southeast Industries http://www.arcselac.org/ they allowed us to scale.. but more importantly, they take so much pride in their work.. they did a way better job than I ever could. We are a sponsor of their annual walk for independence… one of the best moments of my life was when we saw that GetKombucha.com was right under CocaCola on their shirts!

Only recently we began working with a fulfillment center. This took a very long time for a lot of reasons.. we are not shipping out just tee shirts! So it had to be a group that “got us”… these guys are incredible.. They also have the proper facilities that allow us to work with them.

As for finding the best price, I really have not placed my focus too much on this because I’ve been working with the same vendors forever… and sometimes you get what you pay for. My thing though, is not to get the best price.. but to know what the price is.

Example.. I love ARC because they charge per job vs per hour. The fulfillment center works the same per shipment vs per hour and it’s much easier to quantify. You can always get a better price later when you scale.

#3. Setting up a kombucha brewer can be quite complicated, what have you done to prevent your customers making mistakes along the way?

• Insane customer support – I used to personally deliver cultures to people and then spend the afternoon showing them how to set it up. I still personally respond to every email anyone sends me. And 95% of the time the only mistake is them not believing that they can do it, but I don’t blame them.. I remember the first batch I made.. I was like wtf! it’s a science experiment gone wrong always push the envelope. I send snagit screencasts instead of typed emails.. they love this!
• Leveraged online media and technology- Took the top 50 questions I get asked most and made 50 videos answering each one. Then I hired someone on fiverr to transcribe each video…boom… a year supply of weekly videos and blog posts. This was something I sucked at and payed for dearly.
• Building a community that helps each other – This was in the form of a Facebook group and an active Facebook page.

#4. You offer free shipping throughout the US, pros/cons? How has this worked out for you?

Too soon to tell.. Just recently started doing it. We used to charge shipping upfront and then had a shopping cart abandonment program that would offer free shipping on the 3rd and final response.. so it was good leverage.

#5. We love great domains here at IncomeDiary and GetKombucha.com is a great domain. How important has it been to have such a perfect domain for your business?

Glad you like the name! I don’t think it is too important now-a-days with the updated Google algorithms. But I was really, really into seo in the early days… almost to the point that I lost focus on so many other things… I’ve had branding growing pains recently on whether to drop the .com from the name or not.

#6. You use all the social media sites. If you could only use one for your business, which would it be?

YouTube. Not for SEO, but for credibility, for trust, for teaching, for selling, for building a relationship for authority, and for transcribing into blog posts.

#7. You do a lot of YouTube videos. If there is anything we know about entrepreneurs doing videos, is that they struggle. So often I’ve seen friends shoot 10 videos before they even perfected the way they said hi. What advice would you give other business owners wanting to shoot videos, but lack the confidence to pull it off in a timely fashion?

Set yourself up to win. Use my strategy of batching the shoot over an entire weekend and you’re set up for the whole year of steady content. How would you talk if you were playing World of Warcraft with your buddy you’ve known since middle school? If you know what you are talking about, it is much easier do tons of takes.. they’re free sure you want nice production value… but do not use that as an excuse not to get going!!! Try different styles (bullet points, memorizing a script, interview techniques, etc) and see what works for you.

DECIDE VERY EARLY ON.. WHAT IS THE OBJECTIVE

#8. I love how you implement lots of the latest internet marketing tactics on your website. What has worked better then you expected and what hasn’t worked so well?

It’s not the tactic, it’s the execution. When I follow through it works or when I find the right person to execute, it works.

#9. Time machines are a real thing. You can jump in one, travel back to 2007, what would you do differently?

I’d do several things differently, for instance:

• Would have hired a better designer.
• Hired a developer.
• Hired a virtual assistant.
• Deployed a fulfillment center.
• Wouldn’t have done everything myself.
• Invested more time and money in the business and myself.
• Would have held my business in general to a higher standard.
• Networked more, purchased more programs, joined more masterminds.

#10. From what I can tell, Kombucha is your passion! What would you tell other entrepreneurs wanting to pursue a business they are passionate about?

Kombucha is not my passion. Upgrading my belief systems in what is possible from life and sharing that excitement and sense of empowerment with others is my passion. Living life on my terms to pursue many interests from playing guitar to being able to visit my family and vacation with my wife is my passion.

The only reason I still get so excited about kombucha is because I get to live vicariously through someone who has just discovered it and now is purchasing one of my kits.. that feeling is awesome. It’s like discovering your neighbor has never heard of the Beatles before, and you are the lucky one who gets to bring over Abbey Road and play it for them!

The post Brewing Online Success With Kombucha – Dave Lindenbaum Interview appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

Sure there’s color theory, setting type, and maintaining grids, but there’s so much more to consider when the device changes.

To shed some light on the do’s and don’ts of mobile app design, Tomas Laurinavicius to lay out his best practices when designing for mobile devices.

Tomas is a freelance designer and the co-author of Mobile Design Book.

Enter Tomas:

In this article I would like to share some examples of great mobile app designs. Specifically, the elements that come together to make a great app.

Launch Screen

The launch screen will be seen by every single app user and will last for a couple of seconds, however it’s crucial to make a good first impression and set some expectations.

Use a background image that tells something about the app, make it clean and well-branded. Keep the size of your launch screen to a minimum to cut down on load time.

Hyperlapse from Instagram & Yummly

Empty States

When a user first downloads your app, they won’t have any data to see. This is called an empty screen.

At this point you need to explain the purpose of your app and guide them towards using your app for the first time. Otherwise they’ll leave confused and might never come back.

Airbnb & Flipboard

Login screens

Forget usernames. Use email address instead.

Make the login process easy by giving them the option to login with existing platforms. Depending on your audience, it may be Google, Facebook, or even LinkedIn.

SoundCloud & Foursquare

Activity Feeds

When designing an engaging and immersive activity feed, consider context and use gamification principles.

Provide essential data like date, time and location if appropriate. To make it more like a game, use numbers, call to action buttons, and little icons to make the interface more appealing.

Swarm by Foursquare & Behance

Signup Screens

If your sign up process is complex, users will leave.

Simplify it as much as possible. Include only the necessary information and even suggest using other networks that store user information like Facebook or Twitter.

Spotify & Cirqle

Checkout

Checkout is a tricky feature to design in mobile apps.

It has to present a lot of information at a glance and allow some guidance towards the next step. Prioritise the data and break it down into chunks that can be presented in groups.

For example shipping address and payment information can make up two groups, pricing and discounts another group and so on. Organise your process so you don’t overwhelm your customers.

Target & Keep Shopping

Comments

Comments are good for building community or simply to show other users that your app is worth joining.

When designing comments, readability and context (i.e. profile pictures, names, and dates) are the most important factors to provide a “live” looking app community ecosystem.

Path & Tripstr

Search

Search is an essential feature for user-generated-content and other data heavy apps.

Provide context and smart suggestions to improve user experience and delight the user. Adding relevant filtering options can significantly improve the search process and lead to customer happiness.

Inbox by Gmail & Lovely

Sharing

Sharing is an important feature for any app as it allows users to spread the word about your product.

Make it easy to share your app or content from it by adding obvious sharing icons and allowing quick sharing across different networks.

Spring & Jukely

Readability

Readability is tricky on small devices. It’s easy to make type too big or too small.

Focus on contrast, type size and line-height. Ensure that your type is optimally sized and is easily legible. Black text on a white background is good.

ReadabilityTM & Feedly

Navigation

Navigation is extremely important for any kind of app.

Make it easy and understandable for different segments of your audience. Use simple copy so users are familiar with the navigation jargon from other apps. Utilize icons and negative space to give some context for your navigation and only include the necessary links.

Facebook & LinkedIn Connected

Settings

Settings screens are often overlooked because they’re not exciting, but it’ll be one of your most-used screens.

Use icons, separate different setting groups with dividers or negative space, and help users navigate quickly to decide what to do next. Also, provide quick options by using native toggle buttons so users can save taps.

Checkmark 2 & YPlan

Notifications

Notifications are the reason users keep coming back to your app.

Make these notifications obvious but not too annoying. People need to know what is going on but don’t want to be overwhelmed. Provide subtle color indicators and numbers to portray the things that are new.

Gogobot & Highlight

Messages

Messaging or chat functions are also a common feature. When designing a messaging system, it’s all about communication and context.

Optimise type size so users can read longer messages and include the date, time of posting, location and other information that’s relevant.

Messaging is all about multimedia nowadays. Provide users with an option to communicate adding photos, video, sounds, smileys and old school text.

Facebook Messenger & Path Talk

Profile

Many apps allow users to create an account and store stories or activities around that profile.

Whether it’s social media, shopping, or any other app, it’s crucial to make profile pages clear and appealing to users.

Emphasize user profile photo and their name. Also provide relevant information and stats so people can see how active or respectable the user is.

Frontback & Quora

Conclusion

As you can see from all the apps I’ve listed, there’s a lot to consider and master when designing a winning app.

While anyone can design an app, it’s important to hire a designer that has experience in the field and can apply all the knowledge and best practices.

Little things can make or break your app. Don’t risk your time and money by hiring someone who doesn’t understand the intricacies of designing an awesome app.

The post 30 Great Examples of Mobile App Design appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

Mike is I believe the Ultimate Internet Lifestyle Entrepreneur – generating a substantial 7 Figure Income each year while hanging out on the Ski Slopes or sailing in the Caribbean.

But it was not always this way – as Mike reveals in this interview (Podcast, Video or Transcript) it took him over 2 years to break through, quit the day job and make that 7 figure income.

In a way I find Mike’s story even more inspiring than the so called ‘over night successes” that went from nothing to Millionaires in 90 days.

Mike is now a best selling author -selling circ 500000 copies of an eBook about ABS – in English, Spanish, German and French – but as you will see in this interview, Mike was almost ready to give up not so long ago.

Props to my Dad (Barry Dunlop) for grabbing this interview with Mike when they were both in the Banff Gondola taking a ride to the top of the Canadian Rockies for the best views in Banff National Park Alberta Canada. Also I note that Mike Geary gives my friend Ryan Lee a nice thumbs up and word of thanks in the video.

Enjoy – I look forward to your comments.

To Our Success

Michael

PS: Make sure to watch the Bonus Video at the end, only 40 seconds, but it sums up rather neatly I think, what Mike Geary and the Internet Lifestyle is all about

Click Here To Listen To Mike Geary Podcast

Confessions Of An Internet Marketing Superstar

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Transcript:
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Barry Dunlop: How did you get online? What was your first effort online in business?

Mike Geary: I had a fitness background; I was a personal trainer. I was researching just some training articles online back in 2004, and I saw an advertisement on how to make money on the Internet as a fitness professional, and publishing online and doing all this Internet marketing.

So I thought about it for a while and finally bought the product. It was about a $300 product. And I’ve got to give props, it was a Ryan Lee product. Ryan Lee is a great guy, I’m good friends with him now. That’s what started it all.

That was the basic stuff of learning how to publish online and make websites and info products and build newsletter lists. All that stuff. That’s what started it, that’s what got the wheels spinning. And I immediately started writing my first product, “The Truth About Six-Pack Abs, ” which I just knew there was a demand for that because I was a personal trainer and that was 90% of the questions I would get would be about abs and weight loss.

So it didn’t work for a couple of years. I got the product done, and that was the easiest part. It took a couple of years to learn the marketing; that was the challenging part. But then it was definitely once you get over this hump and learn the marketing, then it gets easier, and that’s when my business exploded a few years ago.

Barry: So the key there, Mike, was not to give up.

Mike: Exactly.

Barry: You still had a day job then, I assume?

Mike: I had a day job for about two or three years while I was trying to build up the Internet business, and I was finally able to quit that day job when the Internet business sort of exploded.

Barry: If you were to go back to where you were at the beginning, what was the thing that made the big difference from year two to three? What was the thing that eventually made the big breakthrough? What item of knowledge did it take?

Mike: I can be honest and say that I was about to give up, after about a year. I had made the product, made the website, and I kind of had these false hopes that I would just build it and they would come. I had built the website and I would just start getting these massive amounts of sale and everything would take off.

I didn’t realize that actually you had to work really hard to drive traffic and get exposure for your site. So it took a while to learn that. And because I didn’t give up, a couple of years later things started taking off.

I think the biggest shift for me was changing my mindset. I’d love to say that is was a specific miracle technique that I learned that just exploded everything. To be honest, there were a few things, like search engine optimization, pay-per-click. There were some individual tactics that I learned, that really did take things to the next level.

But what started all that was changing my mindset about I can do this, and really thinking a lot bigger and getting that shift from thinking small and thinking about exchanging dollars for hours and thinking big and selling my product to the entire world.

Barry: And as we said earlier, something like a half a million copies have been downloaded?

Mike: Yeah. Between my English version, probably 300,000 copies. And now I have Spanish, German, and French versions too. I haven’t kept exact tabs on it, but probably close to 500,000 copies now of my product. For a self-published product.

Barry: Wow. And an important distinction to make there is – and it’s very gracious of you to say – you were almost ready to give up.

Mike: Yeah. It’s a little frustrating after a year and you’ve only made like two sales. [laughs]

Zach Johnson: How many things did you try that didn’t work? How many products did you learn about search engine optimization and you’re trying to get out there and things didn’t work? Probably took some perseverance to go through.

Mike: For that first year, year and a half, I was trying article marketing and trying a little bit of pay-per-click, and I couldn’t get it to work. Trying to get some search engine optimization. But that takes time, especially search engine optimization. And it just took some time to really learn how to get it to all come together. Make the sales copy work, get the traffic, and make it all come together and make it a success.

Because you’ve got to have every piece of the puzzle. If you can get traffic but you can’t convert it, then you’re missing a piece. If you have great conversions but you don’t know how to get traffic, you’re missing a piece. Partnerships.

Barry: Was there anybody in particular who taught you what you needed to do? Was there any material that you bought, or mentors or masterminds?

Mike: Well, for me, for the first few years, to be honest, I never went to any high-priced events, I never bought any high-priced products. I bought dozens of individual low-priced e-books to learn a lot of different skills. And a lot of those $37 or $47 e-books, I learned a lot of really cool marketing techniques. And eventually I was able to kind of put them all together and start driving a lot of traffic.

Barry: It’s a good one, Mike, because so many people talk about the Internet lifestyle and they say things like, “Hey, six weeks later I’m a millionaire!” Or this happened or that happened. So I think it’s great.

And obviously, I think there’s more encouragement for people realizing that it took longer than a few weeks to get this to work. Because sometimes it does take a year or two. But the important to persevere.

And one very important distinction that I make to people is that having a day job is still a good bet. You don’t give that up until you’re ready to give it up, because it’s important as well.

Mike: But I can say that probably the best thing I ever did was quitting my day job.

[laughter]

Mike: Once I was confident enough that I was pretty consistent and making a good income online, the day that I quit my day job was probably the best day of my life. And I can say that the next month after I quit my day job was when I finally exploded my business. My business doubled the next month after I quit.

Barry: So some people, when they’re just at that point, getting both to work. If really want to take the Internet work further, they have to give up their day job.

Mike: That’s the point. I have a friend right now who started a website and has started to do pretty well with it in the water filter business. He told me he was finally at the point where he was making as much with the website and he was with his day job.

And I told him the best thing I ever did was when I got to that point was quitting my day job, because now you’re going to have 100% mental energy on what you want to do.

Barry: And focus.

Mike: And focus. So he’s doing that right now, he’s quitting his day job and going to focus on the online business.

Zach: Tell them now much money you invested in yourself the first year, two years, in failed attempts and failed pay-per-click campaigns before you made it.

Mike: I didn’t have much money to invest.

Zach: Most people don’t.

Mike: But like I say, I did make a small investments at a time, buying a lot of $50 e-books. I wanted to keep learning. And I can say there probably wasn’t a day that went by that I wasn’t learning more, that I didn’t buy a book or….

Barry: That is an important point, which often is – you have to keep learning. The biggest and best Internet marketers that I know – you think about Mike Koenigs, Frank Kern etc – those guys are learning all the time.

Mike: They’re still learning.

Barry: They don’t give up. And that’s why they’re at the top of what they’re doing.

Mike: Even though my business does well now, I haven’t stopped and just trying to ride the coattails and never work. I’m still learning every day.

More about Mike Geary at TruthAboutAbs.com

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BONUS VIDEO
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Mike Geary – enjoying the Internet Lifestyle and a Powder Day in the Canadian Rockies (Banff)

The post Mike Geary Interview – Confessions Of An Internet Marketing Superstar appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

Lately, I’ve had the opportunity to sit down one-on-one with Michael Dunlop, founder of Income Diary, and ask him about how he makes six figures a year online.

Obviously it’s important to have an audience online and so in our first session we discussed the traffic strategies that Michael uses to attract 100,000s of visitors to his blogs. While I encourage you to read all ten traffic tips, the overwhelming message was this: simply write amazing content.

For our second interview, Michael wanted to talk about the bigger picture: how do you turn a single successful website into an online empire that you can sell for a fortune?

What You’ll Learn:

• Why invest back into your websites
• The key to ‘flow’ in the growth of your online network
• How Michael’s brother helped him discover the power of partnerships
• How to prepare your online empire to be sold

Note: if you would like some more background on how Michael Dunlop got to where he is today before we begin, take a look at “The True Story of My Overnight Success”.

Starting Your Online Empire

Every empire starts with a single building and every big online business starts with a single website.

Michael explains, “When you’ve got your core thing going really well, then you can start to look at different industries. Your next sites are only going to be successful based on the success of the first one.”

Invest back into the Business

As a child, Michael Dunlop observed how much his self-employed father had to pay in income taxes (about 50%). He also couldn’t help but notice that when his dad sold his company, the capital gains tax was much, much lower (about 10%).

That’s why Michael invests $10,000’s back into his companies. He has to pay less in taxes now and his websites, products, and customers reap the immediate benefit of his investment.

If you’re wondering how you could invest in your online business, Michael suggests, “New website design, article writers, software development, graphics, and buying other peoples websites.”

Long-Term Domain Names

Using your own name as a domain name may be a good idea if the site’s for personal use, but it’s the worst thing you can do if you want to build an online empire. Since the site’s brand revolves around you it will be difficult to bring other people on board or sell the site down the road.

A ‘.com’ domain is familiar, versatile, and international. According to Michael, having a ‘.com’ “makes a big difference when you’re selling your business.”

Image courtesy of Jjjohn

Growing into an Online Business

“I prefer to compete against myself rather than someone else.”

Michael Dunlop

Michael had some tough breaks early on in his online career. First his site was hacked, then he got banned from Adsense.

Through it all, he learned a pretty simple lesson: “You can’t keep all of you eggs in one basket.”

Today, Michael owns several successful websites across several niches.

Expand into Related Niches

Michael’s first website was devoted to graphic design. From there, he created sites that in the niches of web design, then online business, and now photography and more.

There’s flow at work here. The graphic design community Michael fostered originally was naturally also interested in web design. The web design community was naturally interested in making money from websites (online business). The photography community has ties to both design and business.

Michael gave me another example of how it could work for someone else:

When planning your online empire, think about how you could branch out from your first niche to more areas that are valuable to that community. That way, you’ll guarantee a built-in audience when you launch.

Expand Beyond Websites

An online empire can and should be more than just websites.

Michael teamed up with a software developer to make PopUp Domination, which enables website owners to customize popup boxes and increase their conversion rate. PopUp Domination has gone on to be a huge success for Michael, generating over a million dollars in revenue.

The right product can be sold across all of your websites – and it goes beyond even that. If all of Michael’s websites were to disappear tomorrow, PopUp Domination would still be being sold on the websites of others all around the world.

Brand Together

Michael’s first series of websites (the ones that were hacked) all had the word ‘Shout’ in them. Today, he’s got a series of products with the word ‘domination’: SiteProfit Domination, Blog Creation Domination, Traffic Domination, and Web Domination.

Michael told me that, “by having a well-branded network, the perceived value of the business is greater because it all comes together as one.”

The Power of Partnerships

Initially, Michael was the driving force behind all of his websites.

Today, Michael is much more focused cultivating partnerships and providing consultation while someone else takes a more active role:

Expert Photography isn’t Michael’s only big partnerships success.

PopUp Domination is also a partnership, this time with software developers. Michael says that it was as simple as having the idea and then saying, “Go build it for me. I’ll give you half of the business if you put in all the programming hours and run the business for me.”

In exchange for his partners doing the groundwork, Michael offers his expertise and his vast online network – and so far it has been paying off for all involved:

More Growth through Partnerships:

Michael’s been so impressed with his experience with partnerships that he sees more on the horizon:

The size of Michael’s blogging network is already pretty staggering. In 2011, a website broker advised him that his online business is collectively worth over $1,000,000. But as Michael continues to forge valuable assets through partnerships, he truly is building an empire.

And after he’s done that, the only thing left is to cash-in.

The End Game: Selling Your Online Empire

“The money comes at the end.”

Michael Dunlop

For Michael, the plan has always been to sell his websites. I have to admit, there’s something pretty appealing to detaching completely and having a big paycheck to show for it.

Here’s Michael’s advice on how to sell an Internet asset.

Separate Your Self

Michael built Income Diary in to what it is today by writing in-depth articles for it week after week.

But he realized that nobody would ever be interested in buying Income Diary if its success was completely reliant on him. Michael wasn’t for sale – just the business.

So he took a step back. Michael explains:

Michael did this by making his image less prominent in the site’s design and by hiring knowledgeable writers to contribute regular content (ahem). By now, more Income Diary articles have been written by other people than by Michael – and the site is in a much better position to sell because of it.

Automate Systems

Michael hasn’t totally automated Income Diary, but he’s close (he calls it an “almost passive income”). For more insight on the matter, read Michael’s 2011 article How to Autopilot Your Blog.

According to Michael, buyers like the idea of “something that just sits there and makes them money for years. Automated support. No emails.”

Who wouldn’t like that?

Last Words

Post image courtesy of Aleks Ivic.

The post Big Picture Blogging: How to Go from a Blog to an Online Empire appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

For a part-time blogger, Neil Patel is pretty successful.

Patel’s main focus is KISSmetrics, a mid-sized company that helps businesses track important online metrics. His business and marketing blog, Quick Sprout, is really more of a side project.

But that hasn’t stopped Quick Sprout from exploding in popularity and earning Patel recognition as a Top 100 Technorati Blogger. I’ll profile Neil Patel below and explain how Quick Sprout helps him earn a million dollars a year even though turning a profit was never part of the plan.

What You’ll Learn:

• The benefits of writing confrontationally
• Why SEO is becoming less important by the day
• What makes Quick Sprout’s ‘About’ page so unusual
• The one thing all of Patel’s monetization techniques have in common

Quicksprout Today

Global Alexa Rank: 8,033

Yearly Income: Over $1,000,000

Twitter Followers: 119,000 (@NeilPatel)

Facebook Likes: 45,139

Pinterest Followers: 1,865

(Stats accurate as of 9/5/2012)

Blogger Profile: Neil Patel

Content

Spill the Beans

Have you ever had a strategy that was so effective that you weren’t sure if you wanted to share it with everyone else?

Since Quick Sprout’s subject is online marketing, many of Patel’s readers are bloggers and business owners. In other words, they’re his competition.

But Patel doesn’t worry about keeping his most effective strategies highly guarded. He’ll give his readers the inside track and “lay it all out there” because, as he says, “Sooner or later people are going to know what you know, so might as well be the first one to share the information and get credit for it.”

Write like an Alpha Dog

In business negotiation, Neil Patel advocates being assertive and cutting people off in conversation in order to demonstrate that you are “the alpha male of the group.” He says it helps you come off as confident, nonchalant, and in control.

A similar principle is at work in Neil’s writing. One of his personal favorite posts starts with, “You are thinking about starting your own business because you want to be rich, right? If that isn’t the case, I’ll be the first to call you out on your bullshit.” Why so confrontational? Patel elaborates:

Writing with confrontational confidence doesn’t just attract readers, comments, and social sharing. It’s also just makes for better, more interesting writing.

Write for ROI

The most important decision a blogger ever makes is what subject to write about. Quick Sprout covers two: managing a business and online marketing.

In Patel’s Web Domination interview, he explains how he discovered that the site’s marketing content was making him more money than the business-related content. At the time he was writing about marketing only about 25% of the time, so he set out to make a change:

Depending on how you monetize your site, different categories of content will be more profitable than others. You can use Google free analytics tool or Patel’s own Kissmetrics software to determine the most profitable subject for your site… and then start churning out more of that type of content.

Driving Traffic

Give Google what Google Wants

Patel is outspoken in his belief that the best SEO is based on quality content. He discourages anyone from chasing algorithms, going gray hat, or over-optimizing. Patel elaborates:

It’s estimated that Google makes a change to its search engine once every 1.75 hours. Even if you succeed in gaming the system, it won’t last forever. Your energy would be better spent giving Google what it actually wants: authoritative websites that provide value to Google’s users.

You Can’t Rush SEO

Patel has 10 years of experience in SEO and a heaping helping of natural talent. Quick Sprout’s about page reads, “I was born with a gift, in which I am able to help websites get a ton of eyeballs through the web.” Neil Patel’s SEO consultant clients include Microsoft, TechCrunch, and Amazon.

But even he can’t get you on the front page of Google overnight.

One of Neil’s biggest pieces of advice for people hoping to get more traffic to their website is to think long-term. He advises that you pace yourself while link-building, pay more attention to monthly traffic than daily traffic, differentiate between fads and trends, and above-all be patient.

The Influence that Social Media has on Search is Growing

In a recent article, Patel told a tale of two big websites and their very different approaches to driving traffic. While About.com has become a “content farm” focused strictly on SEO, The Atlantic told their writers to stop worrying about SEO and become social media friendly. While About.com has been diminishing, The Atlantic’s web audience has grown from 500,000 monthly visitors to over 13.4 million today.

Obviously social sharing drives traffic, but it has started to play a major role in rankings as well. Google is actively counting pluses, tweets, and otherwise socializing it search rankings. So while Patel maintains that traditional SEO will always be part of the game, a site’s traffic depends increasingly on content that is socially shareable.

If you’re writing longer, better optimized posts in order to please algorithms, it’s about time you start writing to please your human audience.

Design

Patel Increases Conversion with a Hello Bar

Neil uses the sleek Hello Bar plug-in to get people to a page where he offers SEO consulting. It’s a thin, customizable pixel bar that rests at the top every page on his site and can be minimized with the click of an arrow. Other examples of bloggers using Hello Bar are Tim Ferris, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Nicholas Tart.

You can get Hello Bar for a one-time purchase of $29 or you can use it for free for up to 25 clicks a month by visiting Hello Bar’s site. Keep in mind though, the plugin will only be as effective if it’s well implemented – and for that, Quick Sprout offers a great case study in copywriting:

This short sentence piques the reader’s interest, offers specific results, generates qualified leads, and gives a clear call to action.

Quick Sprout has a Slim Header

In my blogger profile of Matthew Inman, I wrote about how The Oatmeal’s sub-70px header allows more room above the fold for content. But Quick Sprout’s header is even slimmer and simpler: it’s just four links, a search bar, and a logo.

The slim header works both aesthetically and practically, since it’s especially important for Quick Sprout to leave room above the fold since Patel is using the Hello Bar plug-in.

But more importantly, the simple design encourages conversion. Instead of overwhelming visitors with an array of choices, there are only five links to click at the top of Quick Sprout – and two of them take you to Neil’s consulting business.

Make Your About Page into Your Life Story

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An ‘about’ page is powerful. Not only is it heavily trafficked, it’s also an ideal spot to make a first impression, give people a reason to come back, and build a brand.

Quick Sprout’s ‘about’ page does all of these things, but in a highly unusual way. There’s no mission statement. There’s no call to subscribe. And most amazingly, there’s no mention of Quick Sprout at all.

Instead, there’s this self-deprecating caricature and a 2,000 word life story. By the time you’ve finished reading you don’t know the first thing about Quick Sprout, but you know everything about Neil Patel, you like him, and you trust him as an expert in his field.

Another highly unusual thing about Patel’s ‘about’ page? It has 1,405 comments – and that means it’s really making a connection with readers.

Monetization

Blogging as a Way to Attract Clients

When Neil founded Quick Sprout, he was already making a ton of money per year through companies, investments, and his consulting business. So it wasn’t about the money. In fact, Patel said in our interview that he didn’t “care to make money from it. But, funny enough, the side effect is that I actually make quite a bit of money.”

It doesn’t come from thin air. It’s just that Quick Sprout is a well-oiled lead-generating machine for Patel’s SEO consulting business. Neil explains in Web20:

A Blog is the Best Friend of the Serial Entrepreneur

Patel is so ambitious that he sees blogging as limited because a successful blog earns “probably still under a million bucks a year.” Most of us would be pretty happy with that type of income.

Neil’s sights are set higher: “At KISSmetrics, we’re trying to become a $100 million revenue a year business… blogging alone isn’t enough.” A company like KISSmetrics is able to earn more money than a mere blog because it’s set on solving “a huge problem.”

So why does a busy many like Patel continue to maintain his blog week after week? Quick Sprout helps KISSmetrics make more money by sending it well-qualified traffic. But it also does the same thing for Crazy Egg. If Patel were to sell both companies tomorrow for $100 million, he would still have Quick Sprout – which means he would still have a powerful tool in launching, promoting, and monetizing his next startup.

The Best Revenue Streams are Recurring

All of Patel’s monetization techniques implement a flat-fee retainer. Neil explains:

CrazyEgg pricing plans range from $9-$99 per month while KISSmetrics will cost you from $29-$499 monthly. Patel’s consultant fees started at as little as $100 but now he’s worked his way up to contracts of over $100,000 per month.

Recurring income like this is the foundation of financial security and a thriving business.

The Final Takeaway

As I said at the beginning, Quick Sprout isn’t Neil Patel’s full-time employer. In fact, when we interviewed Neil for Income Diary’s Web 20 project, we mostly asked him about KISSmetrics and Crazy Egg.

Off the top of his head, Patel offered up a dissertation on everything from creating company culture to doling out stock options. We only got to talk with him for an hour, but one thing was clear: the man on the other line was staggeringly intelligent and vital.

Above all, this is why Quick Sprout succeeds. Our work is a reflection of our selves. Patel is just so experienced, so multi-talented, so dedicated, passionate, and personable… and Quick Sprout has no choice but to reflect that.

When our interview with Neil Patel was up, we had one last question for him. “Any last words?” Here’s what he had to say:

It’s all about the hustle. Move as quickly as possible and don’t let anything stand in your way.

If you mess up and you fall down, learn from your mistakes and keep on pushing forward.

The post Blogger Profile: How Neil Patel Makes Millions with Quick Sprout appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

How do artists, inventors, and entrepreneurs raise money for their big ideas?

Increasingly, the answer is crowdfunding. As the Internet becomes a faster, friendlier, and better-connected place, it has never been easier to raise large amounts of money online.

Kickstarter is the website leading the pack. Since launching in April 2009, 26 million people have joined Kickstarter, together pledging over $328 million dollars to 28,000 projects. Though it’s only available in The United States so far, Kickstarter recently announced that they’ll be expanding to the UK in fall 2012.

The site’s gaining momentum rapidly. In its first two-and-a-half years, no single Kickstarter project raised a $1,000,000. In the last six months, there have already been eight $1,000,000 projects – including one that raised $10,000,000.

Though Kickstarter bills itself as “a funding platform for creative projects,” it’s also a platform for business projects. Crowdfunding expert Scott Steinberg, says that crowdfunding is “about to grow up very fast here,” and that “inevitably, more businesses and profit-minded organizations are going to gravitate there.”

Keep reading if you want to learn how to raise money with a Kickstarter campaign of your own.

But first…

The Story of $10,000,000 Kickstarter Project

The Pebble E-Paper Watch is a “smart watch” capable of being connected to iPhone and Android devices through Bluetooth. It can alert you to incoming calls, emails, and messages with a silent vibration on your wrist or connect with your phone’s GPS to give you information about your speed and distance traveled.

The only problem with the “first watch built for the 21^st century” was that it was just a prototype – and 24-year-old founder Eric Migicovsky was having trouble attracting additional money from private investors and venture capital firms.

In April 2012, Migicovsky decided eschew traditional funding in favor of crowdfunding. Pebble Technology launched a Kickstarter campaign with the lofty goal of raising $100,000 in 38 days. They reached $100,000 just two hours after starting. Six days later, the people had already pledged $4.7 million to the project. The final tally was a whopping $10.2 million, making it the most-funded campaign in the history of Kickstarter.

Pebble’s E-Watch clearly struck a nerve with the public. The project was destined for success because the product at its heart was sleek, innovative, and useful. But the funding wouldn’t have rocketed to the stratosphere if Migicovsky and his crew hadn’t done such a fantastic job of crafting their Kickstarter campaign to begin with.

It was perfectly executed, from top to bottom. That’s why I’ll be using Pebble’s “E-Paper Watch for iPhone and Android” campaign as a case study throughout the article.

Is Kickstarter Right for You?

The first step is to have a bright idea along the lines of the Pebble E-Watch. Your project needs to be one that you would actually want to fund with your own money if somebody told you about it. This could be anything from an invention to an app to an ebook.

If you’ve read this far, I’m guessing you’ve already got a bright idea. But if you’re not sure, you don’t have much to lose. Think of Kickstarter as a way to gauge the feasibility of your idea out in public without having to invest any money up front.

Before you dive in, make sure Kickstarter is right for you by checking the requirements below. One in four project proposals are declined by Kickstarter.

Projects Must be Clearly Defined

Kickstarter only funds projects. According to them, a project is something with “a clear goal” that “will eventually be completed, and something will be produced by it.”

That means that they won’t help you raise money for anything open-ended or that requires ongoing maintenance.

Projects Must Belong to Certain Categories

Kickstarter doesn’t allow just any project to be on its site, either. Every campaign undergoes a review process and must be accepted by Kickstarter before it goes live. Yours must fall into one of these categories: Art, Comics, Dance, Design, Fashion, Film, Food, Games, Music, Photography, Publishing, Technology, and Theater.

These categories are pretty broad and there’s a good chance your idea could fall into one of them. But there are also many potential projects that don’t fit under the Kickstarter umbrella (e.g. cosmetics, health supplements, and pet supplies).

Neither does philanthropy. Kickstarter doesn’t allow project creators to raise money for a charity or a cause. And you can’t use it for personal expenses like your tuition or a new iPad.

You can see a full list of Kickstarter guidelines and restrictions here.

What If My Project isn’t Eligible?

Kickstarter is just one of many options for crowdfunding.

Indiegogo is less popular, but also less restrictive. According to Indiegogo’s “Learn More” page, “No matter what you are raising money for, you can start right now with no fee or application process.” Indiegogo is also international, so you can create and fund a project from anywhere in the world.

If you do decide to go with a site other than Kickstarter, that doesn’t mean you should stop reading here. With a few exceptions, the advice contained in this article is applicable to all crowdfunding websites, including Indiegogo, GoFundMe and GoGetFunding.

For a comparison table of crowdfunding sites, you can visit this helpful Wikipedia entry.

One Last Thing before We Begin

Don’t start a Kickstarter campaign expecting the money to flow to you effortlessly.

It will take hours of work to develop the project (you must build it, create a video, and determine the rewards) – but it will take even longer to maintain and promote the project through the funding process. Once the project is successful, your job is far from over. You must then use your newfound capital to complete the project and distribute the rewards to your backers.

Still ready to create your own campaign? Good.

Getting Started

Begin Early

You should start building your project a month in advance of when you’re planning on launching. That will give you plenty of time to fine-tune it and build up anticipation amongst your network.

You’ve also got to account for Kickstarter’s review process. According to Kickstarter Cofounder Yancey Strickley, they strive to respond to each new proposal within 24 hours. But they do get bogged down with submissions and it can take as long as a week in some cases.

Start early and you won’t have anything to worry about.

Create a Kickstarter Profile

In order to use Kickstarter, you must create a simple account. It requires only your name, email, and password and takes about 30 seconds to set up.

But if you leave it that, you’ll be represented by an amorphous blue square in all of your Kickstarter activity for the rest of your days. You’ll also miss the opportunity to make a personal connection with the Kickstarter community and to link to your website.

Many founders set up a personal account, but Eric Migicovsky decided to make a profile for his company, Pebble Technology. This has the benefit of making his project seem more official, reputable, and dependable. But it also makes it harder to create a human, emotional connection with the Kickstarter community.

How to Start Your Own Successful Kickstarter Project

Choosing a Project Image

Your project image is the single most important branding element of your project. It will be most of your backers’ first impression of your project. So try to get an eye-grabbing, iconic image that can represent your project well whether it’s small or large.

Kickstarter recommends dimensions of at least 640×480 pixels and a 4:3 aspect ratio.

Choosing a Project Title

This isn’t very different from choosing a title for a blog post. Try to include some important keywords while still striking up curiosity.

How to Set Your Funding Goal

This is one of the smallest but most difficult tasks when setting up your project. While I can’t tell you how high or low you should set your goal, I will give you a few factors that will help you make that decision for yourself.

It’s All-or-Nothing: Kickstarter uses an all-or-nothing funding model. That means that the pledges are only redeemable if you meet or surpass your goal. You can always exceed your goal, but if you come up a dollar short, you get nothing.

The Cost of Your Project: This is the single most important factor in determining your goal. You must raise enough money to advance your project and fulfill all of the rewards – or you’re doing yourself and your supporters a disservice.

The 20% Threshold: Statistically speaking, when you start your Kickstarter project it has a 56% of failing. If you don’t like those odds, don’t fret: once a project a project is 20% funded, its chance of failing drops to a measly 11.3%.

When considering your project goal, think about that 20% threshold. Will you be able to surpass it with your initial burst of funding? If the answer is yes, then you’re likely in good shape to proceed.

Setting a Project Deadline

A Kickstarter project can be last as long as 60 days, but longer isn’t necessarily better. In fact, projects lasting 30 days or less actually have a higher success rate.

Kickstarter explains why:

How to Create Effective Kickstarter Rewards

An angel investor doesn’t make an investment out of the goodness of her heart: she does it for equity in the company.

Likewise, people need an incentive to invest in Kickstarter projects. But instead of equity, they’re happy to receive rewards in exchange for their pledges.

Rewards are the engine behind every successful Kickstarter project. They are most often something tangible, like a product or memento from your campaign. But they can also come in the form of a creative experience or a collaborative role in the project.

I’m going to go into special detail about rewards for two reasons. (1) They’re the main reason crowdfunding works and (2) they’re the easiest part to mess up.

What Should Your Rewards Be?

The most effective type of reward is one that flows naturally from the completion of the project. Your campaign is at a big advantage if it will yield a product that people want (e.g. a book, album, movie, or piece of software). It just makes sense: if somebody likes what you’re planning to create, they’re going to want a piece of the final product, and they won’t mind laying down some moula to pre-purchase it.

But your campaign will be missing out if that’s all you have for rewards. Kickstarter commonly observes three other types of rewards:

• Creative collaborations: a backer appears as a hero in the comic, everyone gets painted into the mural, two backers do the handclaps for track 3.
• Creative experiences: a visit to the set, a phone call from the author, dinner with the cast, a concert in your backyard.
• Creative mementos: Polaroids sent from location, thanks in the credits, meaningful tokens that tell a story.

These types of rewards have to be unique to your project, but if you want some help getting the juices flowing I suggest you check out http://www.kickstarter.com/discover.

How to Price your Rewards

According to Kickstarter’s school, the most popular pledge amount is $25, but it’s best to offer something for everything from very small to very large budgets.

Even if your product is expensive, it’s important to create at least one reward for less than $20. Projects without a reward less than $20 succeed only 35% of the time, whereas projects that do offer a reward less than $20 succeed 54% percent of the time.

Above all, price your rewards fairly and make sure you’ll be able to fulfill them after your project is successfully funded.

Consider making the pledge cost less than the eventual cost of the product. It’s a nice way of thanking your backers for their early support and it will encourage more pledging. In Pebble’s case, the default pledge amount to receive a watch was only $115, whereas the planned retail price is $150.

Case Study in Effective Rewards: Pebble Watches

Below are lessons in rewards from Pebble’s campaign:

Format Clearly

It’s important for your rewards to be concise and easy to read. Otherwise people won’t bother to see what you have to offer.

Look at the example from Pebble’s page to the right. Notice how they use capitalization to make the reward title obvious and to get people’s attention. They then use parentheses to further distinguish between the details of the reward.

This formatting style is very effective given the limited space and options available.

Get Momentum with an “Early Bird” Reward

Pebble created a sense of urgency at the beginning of their campaign by offering a limited number of their watches for just $99. Here’s the text from the reward:

Since this reward was only available to the first 200 backers, it encouraged the first wave of people who viewed the project to act immediately (always a big plus when it comes to encouraging action online). I would guess it also contributed to the project’s virality early on, because people are more likely to talk about a purchase when they see it as a deal and because they want their friends to get the early-bird discount too.

Encourage Buying in Bulk

Offering multiples of your product is a good way to make some high-value rewards and start taking bigger bites out of your funding goal.

Pebble offered four rewards that offered discounts for people who wanted more than one E-watch: two for $240, an “Office Pack” of five for $550, a “Distributor Pack” of ten for $1,000, and a “Mega Distributor Pack” of one hundred for $10,000.

Believe it or not, they had 31 backers of the Mega Distributor Pack. So that’s over three times what they initially hoped to raise right there.

Note: According to Kickstarter’s official guidelines, projects aren’t supposed to offer rewards with bulk quantities of more than ten. It’s possible that Pebble’s Mega Distributor Pack slipped past the Kickstarter team because Migicovsky didn’t add it in until after the project had already been approved.

Offer Limited Edition, Premium Rewards

Pebble offered a prototype E-watch and early access to Pebble’s Software Development Kit to the first 100 people willing to donate $235 to their campaign. This “Hacker Special” was only available to the first 100 eager software developers.

Pebble also offered a custom-designed watch face for the first 20 people willing to lay down $1250 to receive a one-of-a-kind Pebble E-Watch. Believe it or not, even at that high price-point all 20 of the custom watches sold out.

Some backers will be looking for rewards that set make them feel special. Give them a reason to pledge by making a limited number of unique, creative, or potentially collectible rewards.

Offer a Discount Option:

Eight days before Pebble’s Kickstarter campaign was supposed to end, they decided to limit any further preorders. They already had millions of dollars and about 85,000 watches to manufacture and distribute.

But instead of shutting down the project entirely, they created a new reward for a pledge of just $1. Here’s the text from the reward:

Even though there was only a week left in the campaign at this point, this $1 reward still attracted 2,615 backers. Not only is that an extra couple thousand dollars in the bank for Pebble, they just built a healthy and well-qualified email list through Kickstarter.

Don’t Forget Shipping Costs

You should factor the price of shipping the rewards into the reward price point. Keep in mind that some backers may live outside of the country and will therefore be more expensive to ship to.

Pebble concluded each of their rewards with shipping information: “Free shipping to USA. (Add $10 for shipping to Canada, $15 for international shipping.)”

How to Tell Your Story on Kickstarter

Now comes the fun part: making a video and filling out the project description. This is your opportunity to explain why your project matters and why you need people’s help.

Make the Perfect Kickstarter Video

I’m guessing you know how important video is to increasing conversion in online sales, but the exact same is true of crowdfunding. According to Kickstarter, “projects with videos succeed at a much higher rate than those without (50% vs. 30%).”

There are no rules when it comes to video, which is part of what makes it intimidating to some people. If you’re looking to get some ideas flowing, Kickstarter spotlighted their 12 favorite videos from 2011 on their blog.

Those videos are jaw-dropping – and a big part of why their campaigns were successful – but your video can be as simple as you sitting in front of a web camera and telling your story.

On the other hand, some campaigns call for a professionally produced video. Pebble’s video clearly has extremely high production values, but don’t let that intimidate you. What makes their video effective isn’t the quality of its production; it’s the quality of its message that really matters.

Watch it below and then I’ll walk you through why it works so well.

Case Study in Effective Video: Pebble Watches

Click the Image Above to Watch the Video

Begin on a Personal Note

The first shot is of founder Eric Migicovsky introducing himself. This allows viewers to begin feeling a personal connection to the project. The human element is reinforced about fifteen seconds later when Migicovsky introduces “the dream team.”

Summarize the Project Early

Some videos spend 45 seconds dilly-dallying before they even explain what the project is all about. That’s a good way to lose a lot of people’s interest.

Before we’re 20 seconds into Pebble’s video, we know exactly what the Pebble is and whether or not we want to keep watching. You should follow suit by summarizing what your project is all about in a ten second blurb.

Tell Your Story

The story is a powerful communication tool. Pebble’s video begins to tell a story and it invites the viewer to be a part of that story’s triumphant conclusion. The most amazing part is that this takes only about 15 seconds.

Pebble used a series of images to tell the story more quickly, including screenshots of their old website and articles that had been written about them.

Get into Your Project’s Features, Advantages, and Benefits

The bulk of the Pebble video is spent communicating all of the amazing qualities of the Pebble E-Watch. Migicovsky talked later about the importance of making sure people realized how the watch could make their lives better:

Wrap it Up with a Call to Action

The Pebble video concludes brilliantly. It lets people know what stage of development the project is in and informs the viewer that they “need help” in order to bring the watch to market.

Of course, thanking your viewer at the end is a nice touch. After all, they’ve just taken time out of their day to consider funding your vision.

Still Have Questions about Video?

Video is my forte and I’ve produced a handful of videos for Kickstarter campaigns through my video production company. There’s too much that goes into a great video to cover fully here, so if you still have questions feel free to ask me a question in the comment section below and I’ll do my best to respond promptly.

Writing Your Description

This is the place where you can go into full detail about your project. Unlike with the video, there’s no time limit and people can skim through to the parts they’re interested in.

For that reason, you may as well go all-out and think of the description area as a long-form sales letter. Include all the little details about your project, where it’s at, and how you’re going to bring it into fruition. Explain exactly why you need the money and where it’s going to go.

Above all, make sure you address any concerns or objections that a potential backer may have. It’s a good idea to show a few people your project prior to launch and then pick their brain. They’ll probably have a few questions you never thought about – and you can address them there.

Case Study in Kickstarter Description: Pebble Watches

Not surprisingly, Pebble did a fantastic job with their description area. The best way to understand it is to simply go their Kickstarter page and check it out for yourself.

Direct People’s Attention to the Video

At the very top of Pebble’s description area is an image pointing up and making sure people watch the video first. This is a good idea, as your video will be the most engaging part of your message.

Put Updates to the Project at the Top

Pebble updated its description area as the project advanced. This is a good idea if there are any big updates, new rewards, or changes to the project.

If you get some great comments or media publicity, you may want to share these in an update as well.

Get into the Nitty Gritty

Pebble used over 1,200 words in its description. It went into detail about how you could customized the watch, how it actually works, what it can do, where the project’s at, what rewards they’re offering, and finally they offered a list of frequently asked questions.

Not only does a robust description area help answer people’s questions, it also shows them that you’re taking this project seriously and willing to put in the work.

Interested in a Pebble E-Watch?

You can learn more and pre-order a watch of your own at their official site.

Prepare for Launch

After you complete your description, all that’s left is filling out some account information that will allow you to get paid upon the successful funding of your project. In other words: you can breathe a big sigh of relief.

If there’s anything I missed, please feel free to let me know. Like I said, I’m happy to answer any questions in the comment section because I would truly like this to be a comprehensive Kickstarter resource. Another great resource is Kickstarter School, which the website offers to help guide project creators.

What’s Next?

So, you’ve set your funding goal, determined your rewards, and told your story. Congratulations – you’ve successful created an awesome Kickstarter project.

But if you think you’re all done, you’ve got another thing coming.

This is when the promotional work begins. Filmmaker Whitt Scott explains how he promoted his project and raised $34,133 to make a movie about throwing toilet paper rolls at houses:

Promoting and updating your Kickstarter campaign doesn’t have to be a full-time job, but it is important that you don’t expect it to be on auto-pilot from there. The more you put into these things, the more you’ll get out of them.

Once you’ve successfully funded your project, the fun begins: using your newfound wealth to bring the project to fruition and delivering the rewards to your project backers.

Best of luck and happy funding!

The post Ultimate Guide: How to Make a Successful Kickstarter Campaign appeared first on How To Make Money Online.