So you are interested in making money online working as an affiliate marketer, but you do not have a big bankroll.  If you are willing to put in the time and effort you can actually do very well without ever spending a dime of your own money.  When I first started out in Internet Marketing, all of my focuses were spent doing Bum Marketing.  All of my efforts were split between two different sites.  I was either making blogs on Blogger or I was making lenses with Squidoo.  Depending on what you are looking for in your efforts, both places have their ups and downs.  If you are looking to do a blog, definitely go with Blogger.  If you are looking for a more static website that you can go in and change periodically, I would suggest Squidoo.  But as far as ease of use, page rank, and functionality, here is what you will find.

Blogger.com is where I first started out with Internet Marketing.  Just starting out, Blogger is great because it is virtually foolproof.  It is really easy to use.  Point, click, drag-and-drop, and you are done.  Blogger is owned by Google, so it has a lot of built in features that you use that are incorporated into it.  In terms of pagerank, Blogger boasts a seven (on a scale of zero to ten, a seven is pretty strong).  So, if you build a nicely optimized blog with nicely researched keywords, chances are that you will be able to get your blog ranked fairly easily.  If you would like, you can set up Google Adsense on your blog, and you will be able to make the full amount from using it.  You are allowed to have affiliate links which is also a plus!

When it comes to Squidoo.com, you are looking at a totally different picture.  Like I already said, Squido lenses are more like static websites (alot of people wil even call it an article submission site on steroids).  Here, ou have a sense of community.  People vote on the popularity of your site, so it has a rank in the community.  You can mak a little money here and there witout ever setting up any affiliate links.  This is possible because every site already has ads, adsense, and other things like this built in.  THe only thing different here is that Squidoo keeps a portion of money made from these ads, and the rest is split up amongst all members (the more high ranked lenses you have, the more you make).  Just like Blogger, you can still have affiliate links. There are also hundreds of things that you can incorporate into your site to make it look more professional.

When it comes to the free sites, there are benefits and shortfalls with all of them.  These two were personal favorite of mine, and  have personally done pretty good with both.  If you are looking for more information on using these sites and monetizing them nicely, I have a couple of resources for you.  For more about Bum Marketing, I would suggest you check out the free resources that Travis Sago has put together at The Bum Marketing Method.  If you are looking for a great resource to start making money within a few weeks and you have a few dollars available to purchase a book, I would definitely check out PotPieGirl’s One Week Marketing.  Both of these resources have made me a lot of money, and they continue to do so each and every day!

I hope that this has been helpful for you!  I look forward to your questions and comments below!

Go Hard or Go Home!

Chris Jensen

Are you wondering what you need to do to improve page rank for your website?

I have been reading a lot of things in a lot of the marketing forums about what you need to do to improve page rank. I have heard that quality content is important. I have heard that unique up-to-date content is king. And finally, I have heard that you need to have quality back links. If you ask me, I would say that back links are what you need to get the page rank that you are looking for.

There are many ways to go about getting back links. You can write articles. You can submit your site to directories. You can visit forums and post with your links in your signature. You can post on other people’s blogs. The possibilities are endless. I have heard that you need thousands of back links to begin seeing an increase in your page rank.

I found a cool website that offers two free downloads. If you want to improve page rank, check out IM Wish List. Here you can download an article submitting program and they also offer a program that will submit your site to multiple directories. This is a program that is manual (meaning that you will fill out a form and then manually submit your info to hundreds of sites). There are programs that you can buy that will do all of this for you with the click of the mouse, but if you are just starting out and not wanting to spend money, these two tools will be very beneficial in helping you improve page rank.

Also, for another money making idea…

You can download this program and then sell your services to others for a fee. Many people that are already making money are always looking to outsource. Go to Warrior Forums or Digital Point forum and make posts letting people know that you will help them improve page rank by submitting their sites to ### directories for $###. You submit their sites, then you get paid.

Like I said, if you really want to improve page rank for your sites, but you do not want to spend any money. . .check out IM Wish List now~!

I look forward to hearing from you, and I really hope that you are able to find great use with these two new tools!

Go Hard or Go Home!
Chris Jensen

Follow Me!

How are you doing? What are you doing right now? Please limit your response to 140 characters or less!

Is it just me or is Twitter just crazy? The daily growth is phenomenal. Some marketers would tell you that you can make millions by utilizing Twitter. I am still up in the air. I do see a little traffic trickle in every time I post something about my site, but I am not going to tell you that I am making millions because of it. I will admit, I just started using Twitter last month, and at the time of this post, I only have about 800 followers. I am seeing a nice return (there is no cost involved in getting traffic from Twitter, so any money made is going to be considered pure profit!)

So, the more that I tweet, and the more people that I follow, and the more followers that I get, I am getting more and more excited about Twitter everyday! I have recently become obsessed with finding applications to make Twitter easier, build more followers, and eventually get more traffic to my site. Over the last few days, I have put together a list of applications that I really like. Without further a due, here are my favorites (in no particular order).

1. TweetDeck – TweetDeck can help you organize all of your followers into different groups so that you can deal with all of the tweets that come in.

2. TweetLater – TweetLater allows you to write and program your Tweets to go out at a later date. You can also set up keywords with TweetLater.

3. SocialToo – SocialTooservice tells you who has recently started following you and who is no longer following you. You can pre-write an automatic welcome message for your new followers.

4. TwitterCounter – Check the number of people that are following you, or anybody else. You can plug in two different Twitter users and compare their stats. TwitterCounter also predicts how many followers you will have in the future. You can then post the result in a widget on your blog.

5. FriendorFollow – FriendorFollow will tell you which people you are following that are not following you back.

6. Twollow – Twollow lets you set keywords and this neat little tool will seek out people who posted the same keywords so that you can follow people with similar interests to yourself.

7. TweetStats – TweetStats figures out when you use Twitter the most. If you wish, you can share it with everybody else by tweeting about it!

8. TwiveAway – TwiveAway will help you quadruple your Twitter follower count, and build a loyal following by running your very own Twitter giveaway contest, all on complete auto-pilot!

9. Is.gd – This service will shorten any URL and so free up some characters for your main message if you wish to link out to a website or blog post.

10. TweetThis – This is a great way to tweet about links to anything that takes your fancy on the net. Post a button to your website to encourage people to tweet your articles.

Are you on Twitter? Do you use any of these Twitter Apps? Let me know what you think! I hope that these apps are useful to you. Tweet you later!

If you have any questions, please let me know! I look forward to hearing from you!

Go Hard or Go Home!

Chris Jensen

I know that I am a few days late putting this information out, but I wanted to make sure that you are aware of this.  If you are into Internet Marketing, there is a good chance that you have purchased a domain.  Yes, I know that domains are really not that expensive, but if you can get them for free, why not take advantage of it?

Starting on June 3rd and going until June 18th, NameCheap.com is running a Twitter Travel contest where they will be giving away prizes every hour.  They will be giving away three domain names every hour on the hour for two weeks. The top two players and one person at random will win $1000 each towards the vacation of their choice. Three players will win Canon PowerShot D10s.

So now you ask. . . How do I win?

You will need to sign-up for a free Twitter account and follow Namecheap by clicking here. NameCheap will be posting a trivia question every hour on the hour starting from June 3rd 11 am EST – June 18th 10 am EST. Three people who reply to the tweet with the correct answer will get a $9.69 credit to their NameCheap account.  If you have been holding out on purchasing a new domain, here is your chance!

The first person to reply to the tweet with the correct answer will receive a $9.69 credit to their NameCheap account. Two other domain winners will be picked at random, so don’t give up if you aren’t the first.  NameCheap will announce the winners and answers on Twitter. To claim the credit, you should link your NameCheap account to your twitter account (click here to find out how to do this).

I hope that this has been helpful for you!  The competition for this is pretty heavy, but just answer and even if you are not the first to answer, because of the random drawings, you still have a chance!  I look forward to your questions and comments below!

Go Hard or Go Home!

Chris Jensen