I’ve talked before about the power of using social bookmark sites such as stumble upon to attract viewers to your blog. Well here is a very real example!

I’ve recently launched a blog where I share my blogging mistakes and how to save money by not doing what I did (http://www.imakenomoney.com) It was recently Stumbled Upon and I was amazed at the increase in traffic!  My traffic went from 10-15 page views a day to over 300! Here is a screenshot from my Analytics account:

So I would encourage to experiement with different social networking / bookmarking sites such as the ones featured at the bottom of these posts.  Remember however the golden rule, is better to give than receive!  So make sure you giving lots of “link love” to other sites that are preferably in your niche.

I wanted to share some recent personal success with you. I have some tutorials on one of my niche websites demonstrating how to use certain features of a professional mapping program. I think we all know that tutorials, especially video tutorials are a great way to build a community, subscribers and loyal customers. These videos have previously only been offered on my website and I didn’t previously think of offering them on any video streaming sites such as Youtube, Revver or etc. However, things have been pretty slow lately so I though it wouldn’t hurt to produce and distribute them to another market segment.
One of the things I did want to be sure to do though is before I published them on Youtube was to embed in the video some kind of information to direct people to my main site. This was done so that it reduces the chances that someone will try and use the video on their site and thereby reducing the chances that my affiliate commission will be “redirected” to them.

To do this I simply added a caption at the beginning, middle and end of the video saying that for more information they should go to http://mymainsite.com

Now, the success; on Friday, I posted the first tutorial to Youtube, by Saturday I had received a sale.  By Monday, I had recieved 2 more sales. Not even a week later I have four videos on my Youtube channel that have received almost 78 views! It may not sound like much but that is 78 people seeing my tutorials and my embedded advertisement for my main affiliate site.

So if you have some tutorials sitting on your site, I’d encourage you to reproduce them for Youtube or a similar site. You might too have some fantastic results.

Well, I haven’t had a chance to release a niche secret or tip this weekend because I have been busy trying to finalize my taxes. This year was pretty hectc as I bought a house, rented a house, moved, had a baby, started a new job and started a small business.  You think I would have a hired a professional but no, I’ll tackle it myself and teach you what I’m learning…

This is my first year using a Schedule C for my Internet Marketing Business so I have been learning a lot.  I have been juggling back and forth between my tax software, TurboTax, and Google looking for questions to some specific questions about blogging for profit and income taxes.

I found a few different resources and some information I’d like to share with you:

1)  TaxGirl (Kelly Philips Erb) did a guest blog on Probloggers.net that discusses common tax dedcutions blogger’s often overlook.  She also wrote this post on 7 things bloggers should know about taxes

2)  I bought a lot of domain names this year and was wondering how those assets get treated by the IRS.  I found this article at Monkier.com discussing “Domain Names, Accountants & the IRS”

3) I learned that as 2002 Affiliate company, Regnow, no longers sends out 1099 MISC forms.  I used the reporting tools to determine how much money I earned last year and filed that under general income because I did not receive a 1099 MISC.

4) After looking and not finding one, I determined that this year I am going to develop either a GREAT Excel spreadsheet template or software program that will allow me to keep track of multi-websites, affiliate programs,  and money earned so that this time of year is not such a pain in the backside (stay tuned!).  Kind of combining a typical finance program + accounting program + program management tool all-in-one.

As I get these taxes completed (yes, honey, I’m almost done) and find more resources, I’ll add to this list.  If you know of some good resources I’m missing be sure to share them with me.

I see better than I hear.  Nothing improves the visual aspect of a blog than having a quality photograph embedded in your post.  It keeps the reader’s attention and helps to compliment great content.

I just discovered a GREAT wordpress plugin that allow you to ad free photos from flickr to your wordpress posts.  It is called Photodropper.  It ads a “Photo Dropper Browse Photos” panel below your post main text editor panel in your Wordpress Admin.  Simply type a keyword that you are looking for (Pinot Noir) and it will search the largest photo directory in the world and display photos tagged with that keyword.   You can insert a small, medium or large picture in your post (this is a medium sized picture).

For more information about the plugin please visit here:

http://www.photodropper.com/ 

Enjoy the plugin and hope that this helps you add great photos to your niche posts and blogs

photo credit: b_d_solis

My “real” job is working as a professional pilot for a local corporation. I have many aspiring pilots who come up to me asking me, “How do I get a job in corporate aviation?” The answer is easy, network. It is fairly easy with some experience to get A job. The secret to getting a GREAT job is to know someone who will recommend you . So how does this apply to niche marketing?

In order to get relevant traffic that will be interested in your content, You HAVE to network. When you think about your niche, usually a name comes to mind. Someone who is the king or queen of your niche and has a closely related website or blog. That person should know your name. You need that “someone” who is connected on higher levels of traffic.

“Okay Paul I get it, so how do I do this?”

Well, just like networking in the corporate world you need to learn how to network in the wired world. Here are some ideas:

1. Leave useful, intelligent, relevant comments on related blogs in your niche and if possible leave your URL
2. Leave useful, intelligent, relevant posts and replies to posts on related forums in your niche.  If allowed place your blog URL in your signature of your user account on that forum.  Be careful about trying deliberately to redirect traffic to your site within the post to the forum.  Some moderators will try and ban you from that forum.
3. Join MyBlogLog and join communities with related subject matter to your niche
4. Join MyBlogLog and place the recent visitors widget on your site. When you get a chance, publicly message people who visit and thank them for visiting. It is similar to thanking people for visiting your store or retail location.
5. When your site has about 20-30 good quality posts and some regular subscribers. Start very kindly contacting people in your niche about exchanging links with them.
6. Add the email addresses of people in your growing niche network to your IM (google talk, yahoo, AOL, etc.) and occasionally chat with them. Not so much that it is annoying but enough that they will begin to know you by your first name.
7. Join Blogged (a blog directory) Add your website URL to your profile. Leave good reviews of content relevant sites. People in your niche will read your review, read your profile and visit your site. Use the MyBlogLog widget to contact them
8. If you can afford it (time and money) attend affiliate and blogger conventions (pick up a copy or subscribe to Revenue). You will be amazed at how much that will help you physically connect with fellow bloggers and affiliate managers for companies in your niche. Worth every penny (and vacation time).

I am sure there are many others. There is no one proven way to network. I would love if you shared with me some ways that you have found to network.