Most of you know the importance of submitting your blog or website to “web directories.” These are essentially large collections of websites that offer fantastic linking value at little to no cost to the buyer. I’ve outlined some of the best free directories to submit to, as well as why you should go ahead and submit, in my “Top Five Ways to Boost Traffic To Your Blog” article, and the lesson holds true.

Despite the value of these independent directories, most experienced webmasters know that there are two directories that are miles above the rest, DMOZ and Yahoo. Just getting your website into one of these directories can increase your Google Pagerank, Search Engine Result Placement (SERP), and overall traffic. The only problem here is that getting listed in DMOZ typically takes a few years (or never happens altogether) and Yahoo charges $299 for a guaranteed listing.

What if I told you that you could get a guaranteed listing in Yahoo!’s Web Directory for FREE? Impossible? I think not. And with all of the people offering third-party “guaranteed” submissions for $50+, you have to wonder how they are doing it without paying $299 every year.

This Method is Worth Thousands
There are many people out there doing exactly what I am about to explain for “guaranteed” listing in Yahoo’s main directory for $50-$100 an entry, so it’s not hard to imagine why this method could easily be worth $1000s to some. Luckily for you, you have Jimvesting here to bail you out and teach you this all-important loophole that can get you that prized Yahoo! listing for free.

Why am I Telling You!?
If I have this valuable information, why am I willing to give it away for free? Well quite honestly, I’m tired of seeing countless people offer their services in exchange for cash payments for these directory listings. First of all, it’s really not “guaranteed” at all; it literally can’t be for anything less than $299. Also, this has the same stench that any “guaranteed” DMOZ listing does when people sucker you into buying one of those. This secret is starting to get some publicity, so it’s high time you know about it until more people hear and it no longer works.

How To Get Your FREE Guaranteed Yahoo! Directory Listing
When you browse over to Yahoo!’s main directory, you will notice that you really don’t have an option to escape without paying. There is the standard $299 listing charge, or a non-profit option which you shouldn’t be using. This is what I call, a dead end.

However, what many people fail to realize is that Yahoo! has many regional-specific directories as well. By regional, I’m of course talking about the likes of Yahoo! Canada, Yahoo! UK & Ireland, Yahoo! Asia, etc. Now if you browse by, let’s say, Yahoo! Canada’s directory, you will see quite a different story. There is still the seven day guaranteed listing available for $299, but now you will see a standard free option that includes no mention of non-profit status requirements. Because of this, any comercial website can be submitted to a regional directory free of charge!

Knowing that you can get a free listing for a commercial website at a regional Yahoo! destination, go ahead and do that. Is it really that simple? Yes! You can do this in a minute by browsing the directory to an appropriate categorty and selecting “suggest a site” to add your website or blog.

Why Does This Method Work?
Because of Yahoo!’s directory structure, it isn’t odd to see a listing from the main directory appear in a regional destination as well. Well it just so happens that the reverse is true as well! Directory submission editors have the power to bump listings across directories, based on where they are most suited to appear. What this means for you is that your website can easily be bumped from the random directory that you submit it to, over to Yahoo!’s main directory, completely free of charge. This process actually happens quite often!

The loophole exists in the fact that each regional manager has the power to transfer your web directory listing into the main directory, which holds most of the linking value. By submitting to a regional directory, you can score that prime-time feature without spending a dollar.

What Jimvesting Recommends
I know that in this example, I used Yahoo! Canada as an example. However, I think it is true that the smaller the directory you submit to is, the more likely the editors will notice your listing, approve it, and transfer it to the main directory. There are many regional directories, so go ahead and submit to one of the following: Yahoo! Canada, Yahoo! Asia, Yahoo! UK & Ireland, Yahoo! Singapore.

A Word To The Wise
This method is highly subject to abuse, so as much as I don’t like sharing this information in public, I want you to know not to go around telling everyone this method because it will become extinct. The problem in my mind is that the recent onslaught of people accepting payment to do this entirely free submission process has grown out of control, and it is entirely unfair to the public. This method was first described to me by “Snowbird” from Virtual Media Options, so pay him a visit if you appreciated this.

I hope that you all enjoyed this loophole tutorial. I am hoping that a lot of you are able to get your websites listed in the main Yahoo! web directory using this method. We don’t all have $299 to spare! Although it might be worth it in the long run, having a nice exploit to get a free guaranteed Yahoo directory listing is worth it’s weight in gold.

Stay Bullish On The Net!
-Jimvesting

Be sure to give Geoff from Can’t Get Rich a visit for inspiring this method! Also, check out my birthday bash contest for a free Flip Mino and a $50 prepaid debit!

Have you ever seen an advertisement that looks like a poll asking for your opinion on a celebrity or something else current? These almost always lead right into what’s called an email or zip submit offer that actually makes advertisers money off of your information, about $1.75 per submission to be exact.

Why should we let the professionals keep a grasp on this marketing strategy? You can make $100s every day if you market polls joined with pay-per-lead advertisements. So let’s learn how you can make make money online with a smart landing page, a targeted ad and an oh-so-clever marketing campaign.

The Initial Investment

• Cheap, Affordable Web Hosting. This can be free or paid, as you won’t need very much… but might like the speed and reliability of paid services.
• Google AdWords Account. Completely free to use.
• Affiliate Marketing Network. I recommend MarketLeverage or NeverBlueAds

I would recommend that you use an attractive domain name, but you really don’t need one specifically for this money making scheme. Now that we have the small investment under control… I wanted to discuss some of the terms/phrases you will hear me use that you may not be familiar with:

Email/Zip Submit: an offer where a potential lead will enter a simple information page (either email or zip code) that the company uses for their databases and pays you in return.
CPA: cost-per-action refers to how much you are willing to pay each time someone clicks your ad. Lower is better!
Lead: A lead is a member or potential member that you get to sign up using a selected offer, and someone that you are being paid to collect data from.

Before we get started, let me discuss briefly what we’ll be doing to make money. Basically, we are going to be driving traffic to a website that appears like a poll. This should entice a particular crowd to “vote” in the poll, which will instantly redirect them to an offer you have configured to display. Once they complete the offer, you get paid. Here is an example of what I’m talking about.

Step One: Select your Niche Topic/Target Audience
You should understand that there is a certain crowd more likely to click on a poll and actually vote in it. Because of this, you’ll find that getting your niche is actually the hardest part of this process. We want a “hot topic” that is circulating in the news and that we can exploit quickly, and effectively, on our website.

In finding a niche target, I would suggest some kind of celebrity gossip or similar, because people that search for this material are generally more interested in being polled than someone looking for a new car. You should be checking out websites like the Yahoo! Buzz Index (my favorite) or a standard social networking website like Digg.com or Tehnorati.

Step Two: Selecting Your Offer to Use
Now that we have our topic, we need a well-converting offer through our chosen affiliate marketing website that converts on a lead basis (no money paid). This might be the most essential part of the plan, so let me guide you through it using Market Leverage as your affiliate network of choice.

First we need to search for either an “Email Submit” or “Zip Code Only” offer. The trick here is to make sure that both Web-based and Search-based advertising is allowed in the terms of the deal. As an example, I am using the “Pure Play” offer which gives me $2.00 CPA. In other words, every time someone completes the offer, I get $2.00!

Second, we need to take out our affiliate links to sell the product. Since we are making our own landing page in effect with a somewhat-related poll, I’d simply make it so that when someone votes, they are hitting a link that is my offer affiliate link to the offer I have chosen. They get automatically redirected to my offer, and make me some money! With Market Leverage, you will just need to take it out of the sample-code on your offer, other services offer similar solutions. You can always test that link by posting it in your browser and looking to see if it is your chosen ad campaign or not.

Since I have chosen an ad geared toward poker or gambling, I’m going to make sure that my poll has something to do with this. Perhaps somebody just won the World Series of Poker, or maybe I can turn the poll into a quiz. Either way, it should be topical so people are legitimately looking for your content.

Step Three: Building Your Webpage!
Now that we have all the setup required, we need a good landing page to set this up on that will look somewhat professional. Here is where you will need some basic HTML and/or design skills. If you don’t have a template of your own to use already for your poll/quiz landing page, click here to download the sample I’ve compiled.

Assuming you are working from my template, simply open up “index.html” with notepad or an editing software and change around each line to fit with your site. This includes the title, keywords, description, the poll question, the images and the image locations.

Once all the text is changed, all you really need to do is switch out the default image of Jamie Lynn Spears to something that you create on your own (490×225 pixels in size). This is a bit tricky if you don’t know how to use photo editing software well, but I’m sure you can find almost anybody to do it for you for no more than $1. Upload all of your files and you are all good to go!

Step Four: Setting Up AdWords for Some Cheap Traffic
I don’t want to guide you through AdWords step-by-step because that would really take an entire post to do effectively. You will find (if you haven’t used the service before) that everything is really well laid out and easy to figure out. Let’s start out by opening up a new “keyword-targeted” campaign.

Essentially, we are going to try and do a $10/day max campaign model, so there’s not a whole lot of downside risk. I can almost assure you that you will make it back if you have done this marketing strategy effectively, so don’t be too worried about the slight leap of faith you’ll need to take.

AdWords consists of three parts: headline, line one and line two. For a headline, you want something dramatic that will draw attention from a reader. It doesn’t even have to mean anything, as “The World Will Explode” is a commonly used term for success. The first description line could really be anything, but I suggest making it funny or asking a question such as “Do you want the world to explode?” Finally, the second description line should summarize what you are offering, like “Vote and win $500 or a PS3!” After you have all of your ad in place, simply use the next page to enter only the best keywords you have found that have lots of searches, with as few results as possible.

With this model, it’s not too difficult to see some immediate traffic flowing in from your small $10/day subscription. People will click different ads with different frequencies, so you should experiment to see what works best for you.

Step Five: Step Back and Watch the Money Come In!
I know that whenever I start a new campaign, I immediately install the Google Analytics traffic tracking code on my new sites to see how things are converting. I want to sleep easy knowing that people are indeed clicking and filling out my information. Admittedly, this is more of an art than anything else, and you may find yourself failing the first time around. One thing that is important is to never give up, as this will work when you use campaigns and keywords effectively. Keep at it, because there is really not a whole lot of downside risk, while just one good campaign can bring back all your failures to neutral or positive territory.

I hope that you enjoyed this lesson on making money with email and zip submits. It really is very possible to earn $100s every day using this simplified internet marketing technique. Many people think that this stuff is only for the pros, but I have just showed you how they do it, and how you can do it even better than them. Don’t be afraid to make an investment to throw your hat into the ring. It will be worth it in the end.

-Jimvesting

This is a sponsored post of the LoveClients system. My view is an honest one, and has not been swayed one way or another by the for-pay nature of the article.

Affiliate programs are a great way to make money online by referring members to well-established goods and services across the internet. Even the most inexperienced marketer can do a fairly decent job convincing members to sign up to websites using their affiliate links; this is something anyone can do.

As you well know, Jimvesting is currently bullish on making money online through affiliate programs. I feel that you can get a great recurring commission off digital sales that can supply you with predictable revenue for quite some time. I’ve already discussed a strategy of making hundreds with the TLA network, and how to properly mask those pesky referral links… so let’s explore a new program!

LoveClients is a great new company that helps smaller business owners advertise effectively on big networks. These guys are marketing professionals, and have an expertise in Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Pey Click (PPC) advertising. Their rates are affordable, their business model is professional & ethical and I can personally attest to the level of customer support they have available. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a company I’d be proud to promote in a campaign.

So this post is all about LoveClients’ new affiliate program, where you can get amazing commissions by getting them some new members signed up. While I originally intended to write this up as strictly a review, the system is so well maintained that I am going to recommending using the program yourself to make money online.

What the LoveClients Affiliate Program Has to Offer
Before you start to promote your referral link, let’s have a look at what kind of return you can expect on your leads. There are three levels of profit with LoveClients that depend on how many people you have signed up, all of which are pretty good. In each setup, you get anywhere from $50 (for 1-50 clients) to $75 (for 100+ clients) each month from each of your signups. That’s right, profit is recurring at LoveClients, and it is great.

Let’s say you get even just one client, that’s $50 a month or $600 each year, that keeps on coming until they decide to call it quits. If you’re a bit more on top of your game, let’s say you have 53 people under you, that would be $3,180 each month and $38,160 every year… from just this one program! They even give you the offer to make a whopping 20% commission on each affiliate if you prefer that route.

LoveClients Affiliate System & Tools
The affiliate backend is one of the nicest ones that I have ever seen. This alone probably influenced my view more than anything else. If I want to open up a marketing campaign, I want to be able to manage every thing easily in a professional control panel… that’s just what you get with the LoveClients Affiliate Program.

Sure, these guys are a small organization. This is why I was surprised to see such an ample system in place. I think that they went and overpaid for their software, because this is what you would expect to find from a bigger network. There are plenty of banners and different formats of links/ads to use in order to solicit some referrals from your marketing crowd, and I especially enjoyed the “Commission Alert” system feature for those more hard-core users. I don’t plan on using this, but you can actually download an application and get an alert every time someone signs up.

The affiliate program is overkill by all means. I just can’t understand why they put so much into it, but I’m going to reap the benefits.

What You Can Do to Make Money With LoveClients
So now that you have signed up for the system, it is really important that you understand how to market this. Essentially, any company with a website can stand to benefit from LoveClients… as they are providing great customer support with affordable rates and a system that is easy to use. Essentially, it is going to cost your clients $250 a month to use LoveClients’ service, and with that they’ll get a customized campaign that is all set up and funded for them to start seeing some serious traffic.

You want to play to this crowd, seeking affordable personalized advertising on the internet, and I think you can do this best by either setting up a SEO’d website targeting some relevant terms which should have low competition (experienced users only) or by advertising offline by simply informing local businesses about the service and dropping your link. You’d be surprised how many businesses are looking for exposure and are willing to pay “you” to do it for them. Don’t feel shy to handle payments, outsourcing the work to LoveCleints, and keeping a premium off the top as well as the commission fees. That’s a double commission that is easy enough to obtain.

Jimvesting’s Concerns About the System
I don’t want to get you to looking at the world through rosy-colored glasses, so let’s get real on LoveClients. While everything is professional and very easy to figure out, the $50 per sale sounds a lot worse when compared to the $250+ minimum plan purchase. LoveClients currently only offers 20% commission on the level one deal… so you have to get over 100 people before you start seeing some real gains. Granted, 20% on a $250 product is still a solid bank. I am a bit concerned at how new these guys are. But they are on the offensive in seeking out publicity… and I like the underdog.

LoveClients came to me, and that tells you something about the business. A personal touch, with a professional undertone… LoveClients has me hooked. I feel like their affiliate program is a great place to be if you are looking to see some large profits off of just a few referrals. As far as the affiliate systems go, LoveClients is a pretty good start up. The main problem is that it is a very new company, so the trust level isn’t going to be there for most people. Take a look at their services, and see if you like them!

-Jimvesting

Many bloggers nowadays offer sponsored/paid review postings as a main source of revenue for their websites. While some may label these for-money marketing “sell-outs,” I maintain that offering to accept money to write reviews is honest work. With this in mind, the problem remains the question of how much to charge for these sponsored posts on your blog?

Let me start out by saying that the rates on Jimvesting dot com are too low, I know this, and people that buy reviews from me know this. However, I feel that you should never raise your rates more than once a month… and I am more than happy to offer a deal until that point. That being said, there has been a long-going debate over whether you should under-charge or over-charge for paid plugs on your blog.

The Pros
Under-charging: Having a backlog of sponsored posts is always a good thing. Also, having a shortage of supply for advertising slots can create it’s own artificial demand that will eventually get you higher prices.
Over-charging: While you may not see as many posts, having a high rate will make sure that every post you sell will be well worth your while. You’ll be making more per post, and this may more than compensate for slower demand.

The Cons
Under-charging: While you may have high demand, you don’t want to saturate your blog with sponsored posts all the time. Sometimes its more valuable to post useful content than slowing yourself down with advertisements. Additionally, perhaps you feel underpaid; after all, you could be making more.
Over-charging: Sure, you make a great profit whenever someone orders a review… but perhaps offers are coming in too slow for your liking? We all like to make money, and artificially high prices could crush your demand a bit too much.

The problem now is for setting your prices in the first place. For those bloggers that have had the opportunity to test the waters, it’s going to be mostly intuitive whether they are under-charging or over-charging for paid reviews. If you feel demand slowing, maybe you offer a limited time deal on cheaper advertising. If the opposite, maybe you announce higher rates and take it from there. But if you really haven’t dealt with sponsored articles thus far, its a bit harder to determine what prices are appropriate.

Jimvesting’s Suggested Paid Review Rate Chart
The best metric to base your decision off in my opinion is your RSS subscriber numbers. These are typically tracker through a third party like FeedBurner, so sign up if you haven’t already. Here is a table I have drawn up for suggested advertising rates, but keep in mind that you need to have the traffic… not just the subscribers.

Please keep in mind that this table is subjective, but I do feel that you should stay inside these subscriber/price brackets if you want to get as close as possible to that all-important equilibrium pricing point. The equilibrium point will occur when the price corresponds with an equal supply and demand. This is basic economics, and this will maximize your profits if you are a for-profit blogger.

We typically find that once a blog breaks out of the 2,500+ subscriber range, these super-bloggers will be able to use their pricing power to basically demand revenue as they please. So I am not going to continue the list upwards from 5,000 readers.

As always, it is important to make and include an “advertise” page on your blog with a display of your stats in order to convince potential advertisers that you mean business. I would suggest the OIO Publisher plugin to manage your reviews, links, banners, etc. as it will definitely make things more organized and streamlined. You want to make advertisements as easy to order as possible, and this is the tool to do it.

Stay bullish on the net!
-Jimvesting

What would you say if I told you that you could be selling someone else’s product to thousands of people and take a cut of the profits from their hard work? This method isn’t used nearly as often as it should be, and is a completely legal and completely “whitehat” method to making fast money online.

No, I’m not going to spin you toward some eBook demanding that you pay for this information. This technique is all about using affiliate networking in your favor by setting up your own “middleman sales page” and offering rebates to your sign-ups in order to convince them to pay you, not them. With a little practice, this method can make thousands. Let me explain!

The first thing you will need is an affiliate marketing system so that you can begin collecting profit from other publishers’ products. These programs are almost always 100% free to join, and have made thousands of people rich beyond their wildest dreams.

Jimvesting’s Top Affiliate Networks:

1. ClickBank
   
2. NeverBlueAds
3. MarketLeverage
4. Commission Junction

Now that you are registered to one (or more) of these affiliate networks, it’s time to hunt for just the right offer. Fortunately for us, finding the top-paying affiliate programs through any one of these networks is easy! Search through their marketplace list and check out what each offer is providing publishers in terms of “earnings-per-click” (EPC) and then join those that convert the best. Clickbank calls this “gravity.”

Taking a look at some of the best-converting and best-earning offers available to you, go ahead and check out their sales page and see if they have an affiliate program available. If they do, make sure it is a pretty high percentage that they kick back to you on each sale. Confusing? In a nutshell, you want to promote whatever offer offers the highest affiliate commission and is also selling well (high conversion).

Once you have your offer, and have signed up for their affiliate network, it’s time to milk the offer for profit. I’m going to walk you through this method in a minute, but let’s get a hold on the basics first. So you sign up as an affiliate and are promised, let’s say, 75% of every sale. If you were selling a $100 product, you’d make $75 for every customer that used your link. Here’s where the fun part comes in! What if you offered the same $100 product for $75, so a 25% discount? You’d keep 50% of the profits, and the buyer would save 25%… it’s a win-win and it works every time!

Let’s take “Satellite TV for PC” as an example. The product is $49.95 for ordinary buyers. If you sign up as an affiliate, you keep 75% of each sale or $39.95. Knowing that you are making 75% of each sale, you could very easily entice buyers by offering them the product at a 25% rebate. Why would anyone buy a $50 item that they can get through you for under $40 from you!? So you aren’t keeping your full 75%, but you are getting 50% of the sale (or $25) on each successful commission!

All you need to do to make this work is create your own alternative sales page, and promise people the discount via PayPal with proof of purchase. Once someone buys through your referral link and emails you with their rebate request, you can just look through your records and issue them the money back.

One thing that many people underestimate is the power of forgetting. I would estimate that only about 20% of buyers actually remember to follow up and request their rebate within the allotted time. This means that you could literally start offering free products (with rebate) to people, banking on the fact that only 20% of these people will follow up on your offer. This could come back to bite you, but the more you can knock off of the retail price, the more people will be convinced to buy from you, not them.

At this point, you are probably saying to yourself, “why don’t these people just do this themselves?” While this certainly sounds right, you must remember that your typical internet user isn’t clued in to the obvious X% discount they could be getting by signing up through their own affiliate link. So capitalize on their lack of knowledge by offering them the same product, at a superior price through affiliate marketing programs.

Bottom Line: Being the middleman can certainly be a rewarding experience. I know people who have made thousands just reselling other people’s content on the internet. You can do this with more than digital goods, but I’d rather not deal with shipping costs or any of that. Sign yourself up with a nice affiliate network and start exploiting affiliate commission fees in your favor to steal sales away from the competition!

-Jimvesting

Disclaimer: Credit to Steve McGrath for identifying that offering rebates to your clients is now in violation of the updated ClickBank affiliate network Terms of Service.