Beginners project - Create your newsletter and make bucks
I have created a free ebook “Making money for beginners” out of this article that you can download and redistribute.
Hi, here is the last project I have experimented, I am still working on it so part of it could still be improved.
I started this because I wanted to find a project that could be done by anybody, without investing money.
It is meant to get you started with making money, because that’s really the first big step to be successful on the internet: Get started.
With the information in this post, you should be able to make it, but of course there are parts that you can improve and also there are a few good tips to improve the full process, unfortunately I can’t reveal everything openly, so you’ll have to apply to the private section, which is FREE and will stay free, just like I did with my adult blogs project.
But don’t worry, even if you don’t join the private section, you can be successful by following all the instructions here.
So…. Here are the basic principles of the whole project :
1) Write a newsletter
2) Get subscribers
3) Send ads along your newsletter and get money.
And repeat…
Sounds simple? It is, and I already see some of you laughing “Hey that’s one of the oldest trick in the book”. Yes, exactly, and this is why it is the kind of project that can work really on the long-term.
The trick to make it successful, is to twist it with the current marketing tricks, and that’s what I will describe in this post.
But before, let me describe a bit more the 3 steps:
1) Write a newsletter
Don’t spend your time to write fully original content, you will aggregate and digest useful content that you will find elsewhere. People will like your newsletter because it will be a summary of interesting information about one subject of their interest.
2) Get subscribers
You’ll use social places to get subscribers, we’ll concentrate here on forums, even though later you can take advantage of other social medias (e.g. Facebook) to really explode your traffic, but these techniques will not be discussed here (see the private section). Anyway, since it would not work very well to directly advertise your newsletter on a forum sites, you’ll create instead a website (a blog is good), where you’ll put information about a niche. You can advertise your newsletter on your blog, as both will be related, and of course you will talk about your website on forums to get traffic. The key here is not to spam, it is to throw a link when it is relevant. On your blog, you’ll have to give an incentive to make your visitors subscribe to your newsletter… Again a little piece of useful information about the subject will be good (give a free ebook in exchange of their email).
3) Send ads
CPA networks allows you to get paid when people do some simple action like giving their zip code. The beauty of the newsletter is that you can send one offer to all your subscribers and most of them will read it, as it will come directly inside of their email box. The payout is usually quite good, and as long as you’re not flooding your subscribers with ads, they will keep on reading your newsletter.
Before going further, be sure you understand those 3 steps. If not, read again, and if you’re really stuck, ask a question in the comments of this post.
When you’re ready to start, here is the step-by-step process I followed:
I - Set your website.
a) Pick a subject
It is easier to start with one that you find interesting. Or maybe you want to start with one which is popular. I will soon write a post: The lazy and quick way to find a popular niche. Meanwhile, my advice is to start with something that inspire you.
b) Do a keywords research about your niche.
Don’t try to go too complicated yet, use one of those 3 ways :
* wordtracker: open a free account, it will be enough for a start
* adwords external keyword tool: who else better than google itself will give you the popular keywords?
* keyword elite, if you can afford it, will give you lots of keywords.
c) Create a blog, on a free blog host.
You are just starting, so you don’t want to invest money before knowing if it will generate money back.
So take some of the best keywords you have found, and open a free blog, with the keywords in the URL of your blog.
HOT TIP: if the URL is already taken, just add a number at the end.
d) Get content about your niche
For the sake of efficiency, get all your content in RSS format that you will read with Google Reader. Google Reader is a free and powerful RSS reader, so create one account and subscribe to all the feeds there. Personally, I like to do the full Google solution: Open one Gmail account for one niche, open a blogger blog, and use Google Reader, everything with the same Gmail account. And of course, when you create several blogs later, you can open one Gmail account for each niche.
* Search on “top stories” sites for content related on your niche. What is a top story site? It is a site like Digg, where you can do a search for a specific keywords, and get relevant stories for it. See below for a list of useful sites.
* For each search, get the corresponding RSS feed.
* Add the feed to your google reader.
Here are the most popular places, where you are likely to find the most interesting content. The idea is to get useful content, agregate it, maybe digest it a bit, and propose it back to save people’s time.
. Digg.com
. Ezinearticles.com (RSS with EvilRSS, see explanation below)
. Del.icio.us (RSS with feed43.com, see explanation below)
. StumbleUpon.com (RSS with feed43.com, see explanation below)
. Reddit.com
. Slashdot.org
. BlinkList.com
. Furl.net (RSS with feed43.com, see explanation below)
. Squidoo.com
. Google News
. YouTube
For some sites, like ezinearticles, the search function is a google search, so you can use a nice utility called EvilRSS. It will transform a google search into a RSS feed.
Have a look at Kebberfeg too.
It is a keyword-based RSS Feed Generator: Kebberfegg.
You enter a keyword, and will generate RSS feeds for you, really perfect for this project.
Finally, for websites that don’t propose RSS, create a RSS out of it with feed43.com.
e) Post content on your blog
Just get a bunch of interesting stories, and use it to create posts in your blog. OF COURSE, NEVER FORGET TO QUOTE YOUR SOURCES. You don’t want to steal other people’s content, you want to find the most interesting stories, take an excerpt, put it in your blog with a link to the original story.
You really want to create a blog that is an interesting place to find useful information about a particular subject on other websites.
In other word you just want to skim the cream of the milk for your reader.
f) Put a tracker on your blog
This one is really important, I always repeat it: Track everything you’re doing.
The 4 main stats you will want to know are:
. Which pages are popular: obviously, this is to help you to know what are the interests of your visitors
. How many people are visiting your website: to know if a niche is getting enough traffic or not
. From which countries are they: this will be needed for monetization, at some point your sponsors will ask it.
. Is your traffic increasing? If not, you’re not doing the good thing, try to post other kind of content.
II - Organise your list of places to promote
The best is to use a spreadsheet, do a search on discussions places that are related to your niche, and note all the results that seem good:
- search related forums on http://www.big-boards.com/
- search related forums with a Google search
- search related forums on Google Groups http://groups.google.com
- search related forums on Yahoo Groups http://groups.yahoo.com
III - Register to the forums
a) Setup your tools
There are many ways to have a form auto-fill option : Internet explorer, Google toolbar, Firefox formfiller addon, or even Roboform.
You’re going to register to several forums, so you better automate it.
b) Register on all forums (at least the most 10-15 relevant forums) - use different logins if possible, and note the important info (login, password… in your spreadsheet).
IV - Warm up
a) Start posting on the forums,
The easiest is to begin by introducing yourself, and/or answering to a few general posts. You want to be active in each forum, this is the way you will gain trust and be able to promote your blog without being a spammer. But building trust is going to be a regular job.
b) Setup a FORUM ROUTINE
List the forums to consult, one after another - do a post a day if possible to gain trust: it can be new post if it is relevant, or you can reply to discussions, or even better help other people (that’s the best to gain trust).
A second task to do every day on each forum, is to scan quickly the last posts of the forum and if you see you can post a quick answer immediately, do it, but don’t waste too much time. The best is to use a timer, at first you let yourself 10 minutes for each forum, it will take 2h if you post on around 15 forums, then every day you reduce the time by 10 sec., until you don’t need no more than a couple of minutes on each forum.
There’s a great Firefox Addon to save sessions and restore them later, it is called “Session Manager”, what I do is that the very first time I open every forum in a different tab, and save the session, then, everyday, in my routine, I just need to restore the session, and can post immediatly in each forum.
V - Build up your website
a) Setup a BLOG ROUTINE
Like for forums, you must define a routine to find some useful content to add to your blog.
Use your GoogleReader to locate very quickly interesting and relevant articles. Then post on your blog an excerpt with the link to the original website.
Do that for a while (at least 2-3 weeks), until you feel you have a good number of posts on the forums you’re member of (depends on forums, on some forums you would need 50 posts, on others only 10 are safe enough to post without being bashed). Follow your gut feeling, and if you are unsure, just delay the process from one week, and during this week, go on posting regularly both on forums and on your blog).
b) Work on creating a free product
During those first weeks, gather the most interesting articles (Keep tracks in your spreadsheet!). Once you have enough interesting material, write a document with extracts of the best tidbits. Always link to the originals. Make one PDF ebook out of the interesting stuff you’ve found. It will be the free stuff you’ll offer in exchange of emails.
VI - Start to promote
a) Create your mailing-list
That’s the tool you will use to send your newsletter.
You will get a form script to put on your blog, so people can enter their email to get the newsletter.
You can use a free mailing-list service, I can’t give you advice on that as I am using a custom-made script (available in the private section), but if anyone knows a good one, just post it in the comments. Otherwise you might give a try with Bravenet’s free mailing-list tool.
Don’t forget to put the “subscribe to my newsletter” form on your blog, on the top, it must be visible!!!
b) Create an auto responder
This one will ask the visitor for his email to send him your free ebook. Don’t use a simple link to send your visitor to the autoresponder page, make a nice banner so people don’t miss it! Remember that your goal is to make people WANT your free ebook, so get into their shoes, and write a catchy line!
Again, I use a custom tool, which is in the private section, but you can find free auto-responders with a google search.
Don’t forget to get all the emails you gather through the auto-responder and put them in your mailing-list so people are sure to receive your newsletter.
And don’t forget to put some explicit warning that if someone wants your ebook, he will get subscribed to your newsletter. Of course he will be able to unsubscribe when he wants.
c) Check your blog before the race starts
Put some ads on your blog, a bit of extra cash is always good : Subscribe to a CPM (I use http://advertisin365.com).
And double-check that the RSS feed of your blog is working!!!
d) Follow your POST routine
When you find a good story, put it on your blog, and do a post on some of the forums like : “hey I have seen this post, what do you think? Quote an extract and put the link to your blog article.
Rotate your posts on different forums, and track your changes - after a while, when you see which forums are bringing most of the traffic, stick to them, and don’t waste your time on the others. Remember the 80/20 rule : 80% of the traffic comes from 20% of the forums.
VII - Send your newsletter
a) Subscribe to a CPA sponsor.
I can’t tell you yet the one I am using, but I will update you on this, anyway this is a step you will do much later in the process
b) Start sending your newsletter
Same as your free ebook, during your POST routine, gather the most interesting articles, create an interesting digest, but NOT TOO LONG, just keep the best of the best!!! Alternate, one week, you send your newsletter, the other week, you send a CPA offer!
See how much your mailing-list is growing. You should get new users every week. If your mailing-list user base is decreasing instead of increasing, there’s something you are doing wrong. Likely, you are sending too much ads and/or not enough quality content.
c) Count your money
See how effective your newsletter is.
It depends on all the programs, but calculate how much you are making, and compare if it is good. There are many CPA affiliates forums to compare your results with others.
The point is, if it doesn’t work, try another sponsor, try another day to send the newsletter, try try try, and when it works, keep note of it, and do it MORE
VIII - Go on, expand
a) Get reliable hosting
When your newsletter works well, pay for a host (Hostgator costs $7 a month), buy a domain. Install your blog on your hosting. Put a post on your old free blog “we let the content here but the new blog is moved to www.yournewblog….”. Go on with the same operations, but on your new blog.
The idea here is that you are going to create a “brand”, your blog, and you don’t want to rely on some free hosting, even if they are good. You want to have the property of your assets: Your domain name, your hosting.
b) Start a new blog about a new subject
At this point, with your experience, it should go faster, and when it is relevant, don’t create a new user in a new forum, but re-use one that you have already created. You already put some effort to build trust for it, but again keep it relevant!!!
c) Put effort in the most profitable
After a while, look at which of your sites is bringing the most money. Try to scale it (which means start to get backlinks - write original articles - and post more).
On the long run, you don’t want to create a thousand sites, it is more profitable if you have 10 websites which are doing well, and if you work on getting more backlinks, and also better quality content.
d) What else?
The next best improvement : Automation. This will be another story. The point of this article is to get you started, as I said, that’s the biggest difficulty most people encounter.
When you will have come to this point, you will have gained A LOT of experience.
- You’ll know (almost) everything about blogging
- You’ll be a master of RSS
- You’ll smile when you will read marketers success stories about newsletter and autoresponders - because you will know it all
- You won’t be afraid of investing money to make more money
- You’ll have enough domain names and hosting to say to your family that your job is in “the internet business”.
- You will consider writing and selling your own ebook “How anyone can make $1000 a day” 
Ok, so end of the story, hope it helps you, and don’t hesitate to leave comments if something is unclear.
Happy new year!
Tags: grayhat, monetization, online marketing, blackhat, make money, SEO