Today, I want to focus on email marketing.

Uh oh… am I losing you already?

I say that because my posts on email marketing are never as popular as the ones about AdSense or SEO.  Part of the reason is because most people just don’t get email marketing and would rather ignore it.

And if you are one of those people who never subscribes to email newsletters yourself, you may assume that no one will subscribe to yours.

So what’s the point of wasting time on it, right?

Six years ago, many predicted that blogging would kill email newsletters.  I hate to admit it, but I believed the hype.  Not only did I stop collecting email addresses (I was failing at email marketing anyway), but I deleted my entire list.

After all, it was costing me more money in AWeber fees than I was making from my list.  (Your monthly fee increases for every 10,000 subscribers.)

So I abandoned email.  Not to mention, SEO was much easier to master and it’s free.

Times Have Changed

Well, as I’m sure you know, SEO is getting harder to master.  Since the first big Panda update in February 2011,  Google has proven to be more unpredictable than ever.

If you want to stay afloat, it has never been more critical to master other stable marketing methods.  I’ve finally gotten better with email marketing in the last two years, and I’m going to show you an easy way to get your feet off the ground.

And for the record, email is far from dead. Anyone who says that today, just hasn’t figured out how to make it work for them.

Create an Autoresponder “Quick Tips Series”

The reason why autoresponders are less intimidating is because you can create your messages in advance and have them go out on intervals you choose (every 3 days, 7 days, 30 days, etc).

This eliminates the stress of trying to come up with fresh content every week, month, etc.  You can create a bunch of content in advance, then set it and forget it.

I prefer to setup a series of quick tips on a focused topic like I did with my beginner-friendly WP Starter Tips for WordPress.

My subscribers seem to appreciate the short, easy-to-digest emails rather than long, drawn out messages.

I have been using this strategy successfully on my flat stomach website for years, and finally decided to do the same with 2 Create a Website last month.

And to those who think email marketing is dead, the fact that my list received over 1500 subscribers in two weeks proves that people still sign up to receive emails if they believe they will fulfill a need.

It’s Not About Selling.

When you hear the phrase “the money’s in the list”, it’s easy to misinterpret that to mean you should only use an email list to promote products.

Not hardly.

In fact, most of your messages shouldn’t be promotional at all.  Just like your website, you want to build credibility with useful content, so when you do have something to sell, people will be more receptive to buy.

With my WP Starter Tips, there are very few promotional links.  On occasion, I will add a related affiliate link in one of the tips and there’s a link to my WP Starter Guide in the signature of all messages.

Other than that, I keep promotion to a minimum because I know my subscribers wouldn’t want that.

Getting Started

I’ve only used AWeber for email marketing, so that’s the company I’m most familiar with.   With a subscription, you can send an unlimited amount of autoresponder messages to your list.

In addition, you can send separate, broadcast emails to that same list.

MailChimp is another alternative.  It’s free for the first 2,000 subscribers, but it’s against their terms to use them if you are an affiliate.   When you reach 2,000 subscribers, their pricing is pretty similar to AWeber’s.

Once you’ve decided on a service to send your emails, you’re ready to begin.

Now, think of a topic in your niche where you can write enough quick tips to create an autoresponder series.  Maybe you have a site on home improvement.   You could create a series that shells out weekly tips that reveal how to save money on household repairs.

Works for Almost Any Website!

What’s cool about the “quick tip” series idea is almost anyone can apply it to their niche.  I’m sure there’s a way for you to work this strategy into your website.

Even if you have an ecommerce site and sell clothing, you could send out weekly fashion tips.  Every now and then you can include a tip that corresponds with a product you sell on your site and provide a link to it.

And to keep people coming back to your site, some of the tips can highlight important pages that relate to the tips.

The possibilities are endless, and it’s a great way to ease yourself into email marketing without enduring the stress of coming up with messages on a frequent basis.  At the same time, you’re building a list of people who trust and want to hear from you!

You’ll also be taking a step toward traffic diversity in a world of SEO uncertainty.

So tell me… Do you use autoresponders on your site?  If so, what is your strategy?

The reason it’s so strong is because it’s residual.

This is important — especially if too much of your traffic is dependent upon Google’s ever-changing algorithm!

It’s always ideal to develop residual income streams for stability.

I don’t mention this opportunity often on my blog because most of you do not have the right audience, so signing up to resell will not be a profitable venture for you.

Why?  Because reselling costs money (a yearly fee) unlike affiliate programs.

However, I just came back from a reseller conference in sunny Scottsdale where I got to chat with other top resellers.  Most of the people earn 4 and 5 figures per month, and many of them don’t have sites that focuses on website creation.

I’ll explain more about what they do in a bit.

How Domain & Hosting Reselling Works

Before I provide more on how you can create this residual income source, let me explain how it all works.

As a domain and hosting reseller, you will receive a ready-made store that you can brand yourself.  You set your own prices for domains and hosting while earning a commission for every single product sold through your store.

So when you send someone to your store to register a domain, your commission is earned instantly and recurs with every renewal.

The reason it is so lucrative is because domains and hosting are recurring billing products.   So for every customer you recruit, you earn a percentage (roughly 25%) of every payment.  The more people who host at your store, the more you’ll make over time.

The customer, billing and technical support is handled for you.  In fact, I got to visit the call center this past week and was impressed at how focused they are on customer support. It’s good to know, my customers are in good hands.

How it Can Work For You

At the conference, I got to speak with a lot of resellers who don’t have websites like mine, but are doing extremely well.  Most people, including myself, earn enough to make a living.

Some of them hold local classes and walk people through setting up their WordPress websites and then everyone in the class buys their domains and hosting plans from their branded store.

One reseller belongs to a local association of plumbers in his hometown, and many of them need websites, but have no idea how to start.  So he sets up the websites for free and hosts them all on his reseller store.

Now he is earning a commission on the monthly hosting fees for every site.

If you think about it, everyone wants a website today, so if you know a lot of people in your personal life that need them, you could host their sites through your reseller site so you’ll earn residuals on their billing for the lifetime of their sites.

The other advantage of having your own store is you can buy your domains at very low buy rates.  I usually never pay more than $8 for a new .COM domain name or renewals.

Many popular registrars will price domains low for your first year of registration, but the renewals may be much higher.  When you have your own store, you can control your renewal pricing.

I also buy a lot of domains to use for redirection to important landing pages.  For example, WPStarterTips.com is a new domain I use to redirect to a page on my blog for my WordPress email tips.

I think this looks much cleaner than a URL shortener or redirect.

So if you register a lot of domains like I do, it may be worth signing up just to save on domain registration fees and renewals.

“Wouldn’t I Earn More as a Hosting Affiliate?”

I get this question a lot.  Since many of the popular hosting companies offer generous commissions (as much as $150 per referral), wouldn’t you make more just referring hosting plans?

You may initially, but you are not building up residuals with hosting affiliate programs.  It’s a one-time commission.

Also, if you lose the bulk of your traffic in a Google algorithm update, you’ll also lose more of your monthly affiliate income.

If this happens to you as a reseller, yes you will lose new business, but you will still earn from the people who already signed up.

So I have no regrets about reselling.  I’ve watched other Internet marketers disclose their earnings from hosting affiliate programs.  Many of them have much larger audiences than me, but my earnings are higher because of the residuals.

When You Should Resell

Reselling doesn’t make sense for everyone, and it might not make sense for you.  If you only refer a handful of people to hosting, then you will probably make more as an affiliate for one of the popular hosting companies since the commissions are so high.  So save your money.

However, if you are constantly setting up websites for people or you have access to a local group that needs an online presence – then you might want to think about reselling.

I bet many of you know tons of people who need websites right now.  You could setup WordPress sites for your customers and use your store to host them.

And finally, if you are a domainer (someone who acquires a lot of domains to resell), or you buy a lot of domains for your own personal/business use like me, it’s worth signing up just to save on domain name purchases and renewal costs.

So I hope this clarifies how you can earn as a domain/hosting reseller.  I receive a lot of questions about it so I wanted to do this post to offer some clarity.

Just remember, this is not a get rich quick program, and not ideal if you don’t have the right audience.  However, some of you may be able to take advantage of this residual opportunity if you know a lot of people who need websites.

Learn more about reselling here.  The main difference in the two packages on the site is the buy rate.  In other words, you will earn more per sale from your store with the PRO package than you would with the BASIC one.

There were even some SEO benefits to using them.  Anytime you could create anchor text to link to your content was always a good thing.

Today, the value of tag clouds seems virtually worthless from an SEO perspective.

I personally haven’t used the widget in years, and when I did, it was only on my blog for a short time.

First of all, it isn’t the most attractive looking widget.  I grew tired of gazing at the messy block of words floating in my sidebar.

Second, most clouds end up containing very similar words (plurals, synonyms etc.)  Or we stuff so many keywords into our posts, we force the cloud to display tags that are somewhat trivial.

If I want to show my most popular content, I’d rather use a widget that lists the actual titles instead of a hodgepodge of keywords.

I still run across blogs every now and then that use tag clouds, and I often wonder how much mileage they get from them.

Even Mashable used a tag cloud long after many blogs had ditched the widget, but I see they’ve retired it now.  Perhaps they realized how to make better use of that space.  Could it be that popular blogs get more use out of the cloud more than others?

What do you think?  Do you ever use tag clouds?  Do you have them on your blog?  Why or why not?

Also, how do you ensure your audience reads your most important content?

You just can’t beat that kind of traffic.

I’m a very light Pinterest user and probably use the site less than 30 minutes per month, but continue to receive more and more followers and traffic as time goes on.

So a few days ago, I tried something new.

I noticed that someone I follow posted an image with a cute saying about natural hair, and it received quite a bit of likes and re-pins (shares).

I decided to create my own after being inspired by a teen who had severe damage from straightening her hair with relaxers.

As a result she had to cut all her hair off and decided to grow it out naturally. Unfortunately she began getting teased at school because her natural hair was not “straight and pretty” like most of her classmates.

[sigh] I can only imagine how incredibly traumatic that must be for anyone, let alone a teenager in a world where bullying is out of control and acceptance is craved.

So I fired up Photoshop and in about 3 minutes, I produced this very simple image that reflected my thoughts…

After I created the image I added it to a relevant page on NapturallyCurly.com to prepare it for pinning/sharing on Pinterest. (Photos you pin/share link back to the page where the image is located.)

Within a few days the image received over 40 likes and nearly 100 re-pins (shares) on other member’s boards.   As a result, the page the image was linked to also began getting daily traffic from those who clicked it.

Now, for you Pinterest pros out there, those stats may not be that impressive, but considering I only have 96 Pinterest followers (that number does not include followers on my individual boards) and spend so little time on the site, I would say that’s a pretty good return on investment.

Imagine if I duplicated this strategy on a regular basis.

I should also mention that traffic I receive from Pinterest shares from my own site are of decent quality.   The bounce rate is around 40% and the average visitor stays between 3 and 5 minutes.

I attribute that to…

1) My Pinterest account is very niche (boards are all natural hair focused), so I attract a more targeted following

2) The topic of hair is very visual, which is great for a site like Pinterest

Quick Example

So let’s say you have a cooking website and a Pinterest board named “Favorite Meals” where you post images of dishes you like to prepare.

You could create an image with a picture of your homemade lasagna.  Underneath the image, take the classic cliché phrase and change it up to read….

The Way to a Man’s Heart is Through My Lasagna

OK, sounds corny, I know… but you get the idea.

Next, add that image to a page on your site where you have the lasagna recipe listed.  And if you don’t have a page, create one!  Now when you pin this image to your board from that page, it will be linked to this recipe page for all your followers to view.

If this example sounds extreme to you then you probably don’t realize how truly popular Pinterest is right now.  People are claiming that Pinterest is now driving more traffic to their sites than Facebook and Twitter combined!

Twenty million (and growing) Pinterest users are pinning pictures and sharing EVERYTHING from trees, flowers, jewelry to shoes, cars, animals, houses and more.

Try It Yourself

You don’t have to be a graphics designer to create a simple image. All I did was open a blank file and use the text tool to write.

If you don’t have a graphics program, you can download Gimp or Paint.net for free. There are numerous tutorials on YouTube for how to create a basic image. I promise, it’s not hard. For Photoshop users, I have a tutorial on creating a simple image with text here.

Now, here’s how to get the most out of your creation for Pinterest…

1) Create a board just for posting pictures from your site (i.e. Favorite Meals)

2) Create a message that is relevant to the images you’ve pinned on that board

3) Make the message funny, inspiring, catchy or noteworthy

4) Don’t forget to watermark it or add your website address to the image for branding

5) Ensure it’s large enough to be read easily (at least 300 pixels) and has good quality

6) Add the image to a page on your site that is relevant to the image so when pinned, it will be linked to that page from your Pinterest account

Have fun with this!  You never know what could become of your creativity.

New to Pinterest? Click here to read about how it works.

So after receiving many requests to do this video, I finally got a chance to upload the theme to see if the design converts nicely to a live platform.

After all, what’s the point of using Artisteer if the theme doesn’t work properly after uploading, right?

In the video below, you will see me create/modify a theme and upload it to WordPress from start to finish.

Here are the results — both the good and the bad…

Email subscribers can view the video here if it’s not showing in your message.

Now that my account has been upgraded, I wanted to publish a video that highlights some of the ARC features.

In addition, you’ll learn more about some of the common AdSense reports and how to maximize your earnings through Placement targeting.

You Will Also Learn…

• Why you shouldn’t block too many ads
• Info about auctions and ad pricing
• How some Publishers are also making money from CPM ads (impressions only)

Email Subscribers:  Click here to watch the video.

Well, in case you haven’t heard, Google is about to roll out a new version of their Ad Review Center (ARC).  Now you’ll have even more control over the ads that appear on your site.

If you’ve already enabled the ARC, then you can review and approve ads that appear on your pages today, but soon you’ll be able to do even more.

For example, instead of reviewing/blocking ads by group, you can review individual ads.

And for Placement-targeted ads (ads by advertisers who pay to place ads on your pages specifically), Google will show you the ads that will likely get the most number of impressions in advance.  So you’ll know which ads your readers will see most.

Accessing The New Ad Review Center

If you’re already using the ARC, the new functionality may be available now or will be available soon.

If you haven’t used this feature yet, login to your AdSense account and click the Allow & Block tab. Now opt in to sign up.

You’ll have to wait a week or so before the ARC becomes available after opting in.

Warning: Don’t Minimize Your Earnings

Remember, there are two kinds of ads that appear on your site:  Contextual and Placement.

Even though you will be able to, Google recommends not putting Placement-targeted ads on “review status” because they won’t be a part of the ad auction. 

This could potentially lower your overall earnings because you’ll have fewer ads competing for real estate on your site.

The reason this is important is because one of the biggest keys to success with AdSense is attracting Placement-targeted advertisers.  They outbid the Contextual advertisers because they want to advertise on your site specifically, thus earning you more per click.

I don’t have a very high click-thru rate with AdSense, but my sites attract a good amount of Placement advertisers and my Page RPM (revenue per page) for those ads is almost double the amount I’m earning for Contextual ads.

In English, that just means I am earning quite a bit per click for many of the ads I host, so it makes using AdSense very worthwhile and has even caused me to reconsider pricing for my 3rd party/private ads as of late.

Reminder: You can check how much you’re earning for Placement ads by viewing the Targeting Types report in the Performance Reports section.

Even though I actually use AdSense less (number of units overall) and my click-thru rates have decreased over the years (probably due to ad blindness), my Page RPM keeps increasing and continues to drive my earnings up.

So always make sure your custom channels are targeted and available to advertisers who may want to advertise on your site specifically.

Once you’re on this screen, click the name of the channel under the “Name” column and set the targeting to “yes” as indicated below.

Google wants to make sure your site is always available to Placement advertisers because that’s how you and Google will make the most money.

That is why they recommend that you not place these ads on “review status” when the new ARC rolls out.  Of course, it’s up to you, though.

Say What???

In case I’ve confused the heck out of you with the amount of detail here, don’t worry.  You don’t have to review the ads that appear on your site or even understand Placement-targeted advertising when this launches.

In fact, you don’t ever have to open the Ad Review Center if you don’t want to.

If you’re perfectly happy with how AdSense is running on your pages, then just sit back and let Google do the ad management as they have in the past.

Nevertheless, if you’re interested in having more control over the kinds of ads that show on your pages, the new Ad Review Center will be right up your alley.

And as far as Placement advertising goes, the take-home lesson is don’t “hold” those ads for review.  Wait until they are live to review them so you don’t drive down the cost of your ad space in the auction.

So what about you?  Has the new ARC rolled out to your account yet?

Answering email is one of my least favorite tasks, simply due to the volume of messages I receive from those who want something for nothing.

I have no patience for that kind of mentality.

I’d rather spend my time helping people who genuinely want to do the work needed to succeed, not those expecting handouts.

So I was already a tad bit frustrated when I stumbled upon a message from a guy who questioned my integrity because I promote ClickBank.

His email read…

Hi Lisa,

Love your work, but was quite shocked to see that you promote a program like ClickBank.  I have been an affiliate for at least 5 years and have sent thousands of visitors to them and have not received one single sale.  I have concluded they are a scam and removed all my links.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this.  In fact, my YouTube videos on ClickBank often generate the same kinds of comments.

And quite coincidentally, as I was polishing up this post yesterday, I checked my Facebook page and Clarence Middleton posted this…

First of all, I’ve got to give props to Clarence for at least admitting he may have taken a sip of the Hater-ade.

But he’s not alone, and it’s not usually about hating.  There’s this attitude that develops with some marketers who believe…

If I can’t make money with this program then it must be a scam.

If this sounds like something you’ve said, in reality, the real problem may be one or more of the following…

• Your marketing strategy needs adjusting
• Perhaps you are promoting products that don’t align with your reader’s needs
• You need to build more targeted traffic
• You haven’t established enough credibility to convert the sales

Now, I will say this.  You have to be careful because ClickBank does have some less-than-stellar products in their marketplace.  But it’s up to YOU to ensure that the products you promote meet a certain quality standard.

My ClickBank Strategy

I’ve done very well with ClickBank over the years, and for those who call it a scam, I’ve been a member since 2000 and have never had a problem getting my payments.

I don’t promote a lot of their products (no more than 2-4 per site), but I own the ones I do promote and make sure my readers know that.

For example, I’ve had pretty good success with referring Jim Edwards’ book, How to Write and Publish Your Own eBook in as Little as 7 Days.

Take note of my very simple strategy below…

I always make it clear that I actually purchased the book by giving specific details.  Doing so will increase your conversions because it makes the review seem more believable and credible.

Knowing specific problems your audience struggles with helps too.

One reason I chose to add that last paragraph about not knowing enough to write a good book is because that’s exactly what my readers are constantly telling me via email and Jim’s book covers this issue very well.

The Concept is Actually Very Simple

As you can see, my strategy is not rocket science.  And if you talk to anyone who succeeds with affiliate marketing, I bet they will tell you they do something very similar.

In fact, the affiliates who do the best promoting my two books (Niche Website Success and WP Starter Guide) often use a very similar approach.

Most of them write reviews that are very similar to what I did with Jim’s book above.  They highlight specific, audience-relevant benefits they know will be valued.

When you have enough targeted traffic and find products that align with your visitors needs, affiliate marketing is actually not hard at all.

However, that doesn’t mean it’s not going to take work and time to promote your site and figure out how to convert your audience.

To Sum it Up

ClickBank is no more a scam than Amazon’s or Commission Junction’s affiliate program.  It’s simply an affiliate network of digital goods.  You choose the products you want to promote and if they convert, you earn a commission.

It’s as simple as that.

In 12 years, I’ve never seen any evidence of ClickBank being a scam, and it’s not fair to use that label just because something is not working for you.

By that logic, there are a lot of things I’ve encountered in my life that I could call a scam.

Pop Quiz: How many blogs are there on the internet?

a. 50 million
b. 160 million
c. a Gazillion

If you said C, you’re wrong. But don’t worry, I thought it was C, too

The actual number is unknown but back in 2010, there was an estimated 160 million blogs online.

So, if you said B, pat yourself on the back (cuz I can’t do it from here).

Take a second right now and think about what I just did. How did I get you to read past the first sentence?

That’s what this post is all about and today you’re going to learn 5 ways to open your blog posts, or fix your old posts openings and get people to read.

Just like first impressions matter in life, the first sentence of your articles are just as important. Your readers use them to determine whether the post is worth their time.

After reading this you’ll be able to literally “copy & paste” these techniques on your own posts – and hopefully see better results. Here are the 5 ways you can open your articles…. with examples.

Ask a question

This is by far the simplest of them all and I use it on most of my blog posts. You can’t go a day without seeing this opening, and for good reason – because it works.

Not only does it help you get started writing, it also grabs your reader’s attention which entices them to continue reading your article. Here’s an example of this opening at work:

• “Do you ever wonder if the positioning of the elements on your website are really making any sense?” – How Effective Is Your Homepage? [Infographic] by Francisco Rosales

Start with a quote

Starting with a quote might seem like something you would do on a high school grade essay, but they’re very useful when opening blog posts, too. Quotes are great because they made “quotes” for a reason.

Maybe they inspired someone or made them think differently about a particular topic.

Whatever the reason, you should use them in your openings because they will have the same effect on your readers. If it’s a really good quote, they’ll want to know who said it, and hopefully why you’re quoting them.

• “The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.” – Simon Sinek Shares the #1 Business Principle that Changes Everything by Scott Dinsmore

Lead with a story

I love stories. We all do. That’s what we do all day long. When your best friend asks you how your day was, you don’t just say fine and keep it moving.

You tell them about that dude that cut you off while you were driving. Then you tell them how the cops pulled you over for speeding when you were just trying to catch up to the guy that cut you off, to do it back to him.

We tell stories.  That’s what we do, and they’re another great way to start your articles. They get your readers hooked and that’s exactly what we want. Here’s a quick example of storytelling at work:

• “Picture three men racing through a tall hedge maze. The first man runs off and begins following paths randomly, hoping to stumble upon the exit…” – Why Blind Obedience is Killing Your Business by Johnny B. Truant

Go against the norm

The shock and awe approach. Works like magic. You can start your blog posts by disagreeing with what is commonly accepted as the norm. This builds an instant sense of curiosity and bring up questions that your readers need answered.

Use this opening with caution. You don’t want to shock your audience with a strong statement, or build a ton of curiosity and not back it up. Your content needs to clearly explain your point of view.

• “A common misconception is that you can only make money blogging when you write about blogging or making money online. We disagree.” – How Sarai Mitnick Attracts 380k Pageviews a Month by Caleb Wojcik

Short and Direct

Short. Sweet. To the point. There’s nothing sexy about this blog opening, but it works just as well as the others. I don’t use this one as much as I should, but it does make starting blog posts a lot easier.

Simply think about the one thing you want your readers to get out of your article and just say it. Tell them from the very beginning and I bet they’ll be more interested in finding out more. Here’s how I used this opener:

• “The headline is everything.” – 5 Tips For Writing Great Headlines That Work by Hector Cuevas

How do you open your blog posts? Please share some tips with us in the comments.

However, it’s really hard to ignore a website site that generated notable traffic even before I joined.

That’s what happened with my Flat Stomach Exercises site and Pinterest — one of the fastest growing social media sites around today.

For the last three months, it has been one of my top 10 traffic sources for my Site Build It! site (see screenshot on the right), and I only became a member just a few weeks ago.

What is Pinterest?

In case you haven’t heard, Pinterest is a social media site for images that allows you to “pin” (share) photos you find on the Web.

And what’s really awesome about it is you don’t have to become a member to reap the benefits.

If someone likes your article or a photo on your site, they can simply “Pin” it using the Pinterest toolbar.  The image will be posted to their board and will link back to your website.

So even if you have no intention of getting involved with yet another social media network, at least make sure you use high quality images that are free for commercial use on your pages.

You don’t want to miss out on traffic from any of the 10 million+ monthly (and growing) Pinterest users who may decide to pin/share your content.

Why I’m Sold (For Now, Anyway)

Here’s what excites me the most about Pinterest.  I’m a busy gal and I don’t have time to devote to another social media site.  I’m sure you can relate.

However, the exposure my sites have received from the minimal amount of time and effort I’ve spent seems to be worth it so far.  Plus, it’s kind of fun to use and very relevant to my hair website since it’s a visual topic.

And what’s cool about the network is people pin all kinds of content — even YouTube videos!

Watch the video below to hear my thoughts on the growing network, and check out my Pinterest SEO strategy for my latest site.

[Email subbies: Click here to watch the video.]

And if you don’t want to hear me ramble, I wrote a more detailed article about Pinterest here.