Looking back over the past year I am a bit shocked at what I have all done so far. I have meet some of the industries biggest bloggers while on an affiliate marketing web show called the top affiliate challenge. Because of that show I have been able to build a persona of myself of having a very honest outlook on a lot of different topics.

I have also learned a completely new industry – which is affiliate marketing – and went from not making any money at all to an amazing $2600.00 last month (not including the $750.00 of prizes I won in Market Leverages contest). I know that is not much money but – it is something – a new laptop!

I have also met some great people through different social sites and my mentor program who I value in very high regards. You guys know who you are and I wanted to say thank you for everything you have done for me.

I am looking forward to year number 2 and seeing where I end up – lets take things to the next level shall we!

When did passinate replace the expert?

When I go shopping for a new car stereo I don’t listen to the salesmen who loves the Kenwood products over the other brands but I buy from the salesmen who can tell me why Kenwood is a better product and the differences with it.

Myself, I have always been drawn to knowledge and honesty – never passion. Passion can lead to a very biased opinion in something because your head can’t get around the fact there is something that might be better.

Jut like the people who are obsessed with Chevy or Ford cars. Personally, I have driven them all (meaning different makes) and if a vehicle is good – it’s good.

I guess what I am getting at today is – why online does passion over take an expert in so many cases?

Here is another example. I don’t read a blog about SEO if the guy is passionate about SEO – I read the blog about SEO from someone who really knows about SEO and provides proof to what ever it is there posting on or a real life experience.

What are your thoughts on this and what do you prefer yourself to read – Passion or Facts?

I do however have some cool news for all of you though. First, let me ask you this! Have you ever wanted to add a logo to your site or have some very cool text buttons that will help draw your visitors to a certain link that’s on your site? If your answer is yes then today is your lucky day!

One of the nicest things I have come to respect about being a member of the PCC-Coach program is the wealth of information most of the community is willing to share with you at any given time that will help you build better landing pages and websites. One thing that is very important is having the right “Call to Action” buttons, but having the money to hire someone to make them or you can sometimes be an issue.

Luckily for all of us who are not graphic designers there is a great FREE website called Cool Text. In a nut shell, Cool Text is a website that has the software built in it that allows yu to make custom buttons and logo’s for your site. The graphics are very clean but still straight forward. If your looking for something fancy to be made for you then Cool Text might not be the right place, but if your needed a cal to action button or a fast logo made for your new niche store, then this site is perfect. Best thing, its totally free to use.

To check out Cool Text, just use the button below that I Made in under 1 minuet.

What is a Privacy Policy?

A privacy policy is a  page in your site that tells your visitors if they so choose to read the policy how any information may be used by the site owner if anything is collected. If your website does not automatically collect your visitors information for the purpose of sharing what is collected then list that as part of your policy. This comes into play for example for capturing email subscribers to your blog. A lot of surfers are scared to enter there email address anywhere because they don’t want to get spammed. Having a privacy policy will help explain to your visitors what you plan on doing with there information.

How can adding a Privacy Policy improve your blogs search Traffic?

Something as simple as a privacy policy drastically improves the quality of your blog or landing page if your doing PPC by showing the search engines that your site cares about the traffic you are getting from them and that you will not abuse or collect any information from your visitors.

Remember, search engines want quality blogs listed as part of there searches just like they want quality ads. Adding a privacy policy insures your sites get the most possible traffic they can get and they may also help improve your subscriber rates by putting a few minds at ease.

Do you have a privacy policy, if not please tell me why and your comment will also be entered in this weeks Neverblue Ads comment contest.

Twitter has become just as big as Facebook in some circles because of the fact of how users can communicate with each other fast and no matter where they are. Of coarse the topic of the day for most Twitter users has been who they are going to vote for, but for most of us it is a tool to drive traffic to our blogs.

It goes to show you how powerful tools have become that are created for bloggers or at least released to the blog sphere. We like to be able to communicate as fast as we can with either our readers or friends and the word is out now that Twitter has become more then just a blogging tool. It’s a global communication tool!

I am hoping all goes well with the US election today and congrats to the creators of Twitter for making and building a tool that has helped so many people keep in touch during this time when everyone needs to be heard.

It honestly feels great to hit this mark. I have been watching the post numbers climb over the past month and was wandering to myself what day it was going to be that I posted my 200th blog post. As it turns out, it just so happens to be November 1st today so I guess this is a great way to bring in the month – I hope!

Another very cool thing about today is I have 2 of my paintings ( I am an artist as well as an internet marketer) actually showing right now in a real life Art Gallery. I am sure some of you remember the days of my first blog called “Your World Gallery” which was my blog I started to try and get noticed as an artist and maybe sell some paintings. Well, I let that blog domain expire because it was a branding nightmare but my dream of being a real life artists who actually sells his art has become more of a reality for me and it is kind of an exciting time. I have most of my art in my gallery page so if you want to check it out go for it.

Monday I am going to be starting my blog comment contest, Neverblue Ads has sent me a bit of swag to give to my readers so we will get that going for you guys.

Growing your Knowledge = Growing your Income

You have the ability online to expand into almost every area you can possibly think of so why hold yourself back with only a few things to do at a time or only a few markets. You have your blog that you post on, you make your rounds leaving comments to help grow your readers and bring in traffic, but if your not seeing the results you want, this is a perfect time for you to grow online instead of being frustrated and learn something new and give that a try. That’s how I got into affiliate marketing in the first place. Now look at me!

If you sit back and wait for things to happen to you and your blog, nothing is going to happen.  The chances are your hosting package you have will allow you to be able to host as many domains as you want to. So, if that is the case then all you need to worry about is getting the cost of a domain name together which can be as high as $15.00 and after that your ready to move up and try something new.

What happens if you don’t know something to try?

That should be an easy question to answer but if you can’t think of how you can get the knowledge to grow your online income, here is what you do. Go to “Google Blog Search” pick a term, and research it. As a blogger you have more resources at your figure tips then the average person has who wants to make money online. You have the blogging community in your corner, they don’t!

Take advantage of your abilities of blogging, use them to your advantage and learn what you need to so you can grow.

First, if some of you recall, I made a post called “Is Entrecard Dead” a few months ago. Well, as it turns out it is almost dead. The owner of the site has put it up for sale claiming he has not got the funds to do with it what he wanted to do with it. What a pile of crap! Just another Blogrush hype type of site that is and soon will be a flash in the past that’s built only to be sold. With all the blogs out there you mean to tell me that the owner of Entrecard could not find a way to make money off of the site so he could build it. Well, my guess is he did make some money off of it and has noticed there is a drop in income so he has decided to sell it. 100k starting bid price for a dieing site and a outdated concept is way to much money in my mind.

The Rating Blog is another site/blog that has packed it in. Alan, the owner claimed he had other ventures he had going that made more money then his blog did. So he had to take a break from his blog which is to bad because I thought he was going to be a great blogger.

Here is a sure fire way for you to tell if a site is going to be good or not and if you should have any involvement in them. First, watch how they grow. You know as well as I know it takes time to get RSS readers and when you see a site like the Rating Blog for example grow to a whopping 10k in readers in 4 months, you know that site is not going to last. The blogger is just going to burn out.

Watch out for the loud mouth bloggers who sit there and scream that all these other bloggers are dumb and that they know everything and you should do what there doing if you want to make money. The Blogger Unleashed was that way, all that guy was doing was pushing BANS and products to build BANS sites, which we all know are thin affiliate sites. That’s who was telling people to build  affiliate sites and put adsense on it so in time you could make a buck a day off of each site. What a dumb ass! And even though he came out firing all his guns and his big mouth everywhere I don’t see him around anymore. he is posting on his blog but his RSS, since he has shut his mouth a bit ha stayed the same over the past 4 months. He has his following and I really feel sorry for them. While on the Top Affiliate Challenge we all had some fun ripping that guy ammo apart.

Same goes with traffic exchange sites like Entercard. Traffic Exchange sites are no different then buying most types of traffic. They are going to be very un targeted visitors that won’t do anything for you and the buzz of them will soon die off which leaves you with a bunch of wasted time. There really is to much work involved with traffic exchanges to make it worth while and when a place like Entrecard first starts up people give it a shot but soon realize they could be doing a lot more profitable stuff then sitting there surfing sites that have nothing to do with yours. Just think about it, with the system I am going to be releasing as part of my mentor program, 1 hour a day can give you enough data to build almost five profitable affiliate blogs. What would you rather have?

I have a full day, every day that I can spend working on my sites and blogging. I don’t have time to waste with traffic exchange sites like Entrecard and anyone who is serious about what there doing online, should not waste there time either.

Regardless of what you think the reason is (or know) for most beginners they focus a lot on content because that is what they are told by the pro’s in this industry. But if you learn to right a post that is keyword heavy and covers micro niche topics instead of a market niche then your traffic coming to you from the search engines can and will be endless, and a lot more regular too.

Micro niches are basically 3 or 4 words put together for a more exact search on a topic. Here is an example.

Marketing – would be a market keyword that has tons and tons of indexed pages with in Google and other search engines.

Marketing cell phones – could be considered a micro niche keyword that has a lot less search competition but still yields in some large traffic

The trick is, and I know this works because I have used this method on this blog and this concept is the bases of some of my affiliate sites, is to do research (5 to 10 minuets) before you pick your topics keyword for what ever post you’re going to write and focus on it when you right. When your done that post, build a few quick links to it to give it some authority. Three months down the road guess what your going to have, tons of site targeted traffic your going to enjoy for many, many years to come.