1. Use active words.
You see active words all the time. Think of all the action words you see in ads: buy, subscribe, download, register, call, etc. Why are they there? Because they inspire people to act, just as their name suggests.

2. Keep it short.
Notice that all of my tips here are short. They are to the point and do not have any unnecessary words. Use this philosophy in all of your calls to action. If you want to capture attention, don’t write a novel.

3. Use simple words.
Resist the urge to use complex words and sentence structures. If there is a smaller, more simple word to use, use it. The average person doesn’t read at a high level. Simple words have high conversion rates.

4. Convey urgency.
Don’t put off until tomorrow what you could do today, right? Wrong. Everyone puts things off until tomorrow. Your job is to ensure that your call to action isn’t one of them. Convey “now or never”!

5. Use buzzwords.
They might sound cheap and overused, but they work. Think of all the buzzwords you read each day: unique, innovative, award winning, exclusive, solution, leading, etc. Don’t count them out.

6. Avoid spam signals.
There’s a thin line that you need to learn to toe. Avoid any language or punctuation that will send up red spam flags. For example, avoid the use of “!!!” or “!?!”

7. Use numbers.
It seems like everyone is creating lists these days, right? Right. That’s because lists involve numbers, which are more appealing to the human eye than words. Notice the number in the title of this post.

8. Advertise the value.
You can sell anything to anyone when you know this trick: promote the value. It sounds simple, but it’s overlooked. Put yourself in their shoes and focus on what’s in it for them. Show them the value right away!

9. Be specific.
Did you know that you miss out on leads because your CTA isn’t specific enough? They want to know exactly what is going to happen when they click through. Explain the specifics of what you want them to do and what will happen after.

Are you already using some of these tips? Which tips have worked best for you?

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2011.

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How does it work? They leverage the AdSense API and split 100% of the revenue with content creators. In fact, they are the first company to do what they’re doing.

“We believe that the true value of social networking is the community, and we continue to strive to promote member ownership with our platform.”

Here are the three best things about Flixya!

1. 100% Revenue Split

Flixya is officially the first social networking platform to pay users 100% of the ad revenues from user-generated content. In the original version, the split was 50/50, but they’ve taken it up a notch (or two ).

“With the AdSense API, we have a solution that fully enables the business model we’ve long dreamed of. Very few companies online or offline can state that they are giving back 100 percent of the revenue their members earn and still remain profitable.”

So, when you create great content, you will grab plenty of traffic. When those leads click the AdSense ads on Flixya, you get 100% of the revenue. The real benefit here is that all you have to do to make money online is create and share awesome photos, articles, or videos.

This isn’t chump change either. Users have reported earning enough from Flixya to quit their 9 to 5.

2. No Landing Page Required

Possibly the biggest benefit of using Flixya to make money online is that it’s easy. Compare it to affiliate marketing. You need to do keyword research, compile a list of keywords, add them to AdWords, create a landing page, optimize the landing page, etc. There are so many steps involved with affiliate marketing.

With Flixya, all you have to do is create content you think visitors will like (this gets easier with time), upload it and then wait for the money to roll in. It saves you the trouble of creating your own website, managing your own AdSense account, etc.

3. It’s Fun

Duh! How often have you visited websites like Funny or Die and thought about how sweet it would be to work there? Flixya is a general interest website, which means you can share anything and everything. In what world is that not a fun way to make money?

“Flixya is not all about making money. Often times, our members find that sharing content is an enjoyable activity, above and beyond the added benefit of earning an income online.”

Have you tried Flixya or read about it in the news? What do you think of the way they’re using the AdSense API?

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2011.

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Tell us a little background info about yourself. Where are you from? How old are you? How long have you been making money online?
I grew up in Idaho but have lived in Arizona for the past 20 years. I’m 31 now. My first experience with making money from the internet was back in 1999 when I set up a website for a swimming pool company I was doing sales for. We almost immediately started getting leads and it worked out pretty well. I was working that job to put myself through college. Up to that point, my goal was to do 3D animation for movies or video games. After seeing the business that could be generated through a website, I changed courses and started learning about building websites and taking software engineering classes.

Do you have any experience with affiliate marketing? If so, to what extent?
During my last semester of college, I sold and built a pool for a guy that was running an online pharmacy. He ended up hiring me to do some web design but we soon decided that I wasn’t cut out to be a designer and was much better suited to write code. Within a couple months, I was the lead developer and the development staff that was there before me was let go. My main task at that point was to create an affiliate program and build the software. This was back in 2001 and things like DirectTrack had just started showing up on the scene. I think that building the software was probably one of the best learning experiences I’ve had as far as doing affiliate marketing.

After a year of building the affiliate software, a pharmacy ordering system, and various other little projects, I was pretty much replaced with a boxed piece of software and went back to building swimming pools while I figured out what I would do next. A few months later, I built a pool for a guy (now one of my best friends) who had several sites but knew nothing about monetizing them. He had a few CJ ads on the sites but they were only making a couple hundred a month. He offered to let me take the sites over and we’d split the revenue. After a month, the main site was making around $4,000/month and everything was looking good.

From there, it’s just been a continuous cycle of doing various affiliate sites in several different markets, depending on how the economy is. I’ve worked on finance, legal, and travel sites mostly.

What accomplishments so far are you the most proud of?
Last year, I was able to sell one off one of my affiliate sites for a pretty large chunk of cash. I used the money to pay off some debts and still have a couple years of cash in reserves. It’s really a pretty amazing feeling to put a lot of time into something that makes decent cash (enough to live off of) and then have multiple people approach you to buy it, offering as much money as you’ve made the rest of your life combined .

How did you become successful? Why did you choose this career? When did you first realize the full potential in the Internet? When did you first “hit the big time?”
I don’t think I could honestly consider myself successful until last year. Even then, my opinion of success is kind of a moving target. At this point, if I could own a bait shop next to a river, run a fishing website, and live quietly, I’d be psyched and would consider that a success. For now, I’ll take little wins like selling that site last year.

I kind of stumbled into this career. I think I finally decided to stick with it in 2004 or so. It’s been a fun but scary ride at times. I don’t think I’d trade the experience for anything, but I don’t know that it’s a permanent lifestyle for me. Sitting at a desk all day, every day isn’t really my preference.

What do you think it takes to be successful?
I really think that success is a result of luck. I know people who are awesome at what they do, work their butt off, do everything right, but still fail. For me, I’ve just been in the right place at the right time for most of my life. I’ve never had a job interview. I think that’s just being lucky.

What have been your biggest failures and frustrations?
I had a site that was making $8k a month get whacked by Google and drop to almost nothing during an update in 2005 and got lazy about looking into the penalty. If I had paid enough attention to the site and not neglected it, I could have turned that around fairly quick.

What is the single toughest problem you’ve had to face, and how did you get through it?
The toughest problem I’ve faced is scaling what I’m doing. I have a hard time trusting anyone to do work for me and have spent way more time than I should have doing my own designs, code, and everything. Looking back on it, I know I could have done better and would be more successful if I had learned earlier on to outsource some of my projects. It’s better for something to be out there only partially complete versus not out there at all. Over the past year I’ve started outsourcing quite a bit more and using people on oDesk to do quick tasks that add up to a lot of wasted time if I do them.

Is there anything that you don’t like to do, that you just hate working on?
There’s not much that I hate doing. It really comes down to what needs to be done within the amount of time I have. If something monotonous has to be done and I don’t have time for it, I hate that.

What is the future of marketing?
Honestly, I’m not sure. My best guess is that unfortunately, governments will play a much bigger part in marketing and what can be done from a marketing perspective. We’re seeing state level governments working to figure out collecting taxes on internet transactions (killing some affiliate marketing in those states) and national government dictating disclosure. Dealing with those issues is going to change the landscape as far as budgets, who can play in certain markets, and how much time people are willing to invest in playing by the rules. Rather than becoming more informed on products and making better decisions when they buy, more and more consumers will become informed on how they can buy without having to take responsibility for their purchase. It’s sad but we’ll have to adapt to that kind of mentality and cover our butts on whatever is being promoted.

What have you been up to recently? What projects are you working on?
Recently I’ve been in charge of marketing at AuthorityLabs, working on various WordPress projects, and building out some new sites to replace the revenue from what I sold last year. We have some pretty cool things coming up at AuthorityLabs and it has been a pretty fun ride over the past couple months.

What problems have you had with those new projects?
The main problems I’ve had lately is getting reliable help to keep them moving. I had a couple good people on oDesk that ended up with full-time gigs of their own that are taking up all their time now. My own stuff has ended up being neglected as a result of that.

Do you think anything particular in your past prepared you for this industry? Your education? Jobs you’ve held before?
My dad was always trying to start new companies when I was a kid, so I grew up around that kind of mentality. We were pretty much homeless for a few months and survived that. Losing everything doesn’t really scare me, but I also don’t want to have that happen to my wife and daughters. That motivates me to do whatever it takes to make things happen.

What are your greatest strengths?
My greatest strength is that I usually figure out a way to make things happen regardless of how many obstacles. It actually drives my wife nuts because she knows that if I want something bad enough, I’ll figure out how to get it, regardless of how much of a hassle it is. I see it as a game and I always want to win. I don’t see any reason to play if I can’t win.

What are your greatest weaknesses?
My greatest weakness is that I’m the slowest reader I know. I hate reading. I don’t even remember the last fiction book I read. If I spend time reading, it’s to learn more about something I want to do. It’s probably not good and I wish I could kick back and enjoy a book, but there’s only so much time out there to do what needs to be done.

What motivates you?
My wife and daughters motivate me. I started dating my wife when I was 14 and I was 18 when we got married. She’s pretty awesome to have put up with me for so long. Most people figured we wouldn’t last long. My dad even tried to bribe me to not get married. My two daughters are amazing little girls. I want them to be able to do whatever they want when they grow up and that’s a huge motivation to me.

What is the best advice you’ve been given and try to apply to your life?
My dad taught me to do things for people and not keep “score” or ask for anything in return. I think this has worked out well and I really enjoy just randomly doing things for friends and seeing them happy as a result of that.

Who has impacted you most in your career, and how?
The guy I was working for when I was selling and building swimming pools probably had the most impact. I was fresh out of high school, knew almost nothing about working in the real world, and didn’t really understand money or business very well. Between the various lessons he taught me about business and the responsibilities he trusted me with (construction superintendent at 19 years old) gave me a lot of confidence that I didn’t have before. I’m pretty sure that if I didn’t take that job, I’d be sitting in a cubicle somewhere doing accounting.

What kinds of people do you have difficulties working with? Any good stories?
I don’t work well with people who can’t figure something out on their own. I’ve had situations where people will ask me a question that would have been just as easy for them to look up themselves and I have to try hard not to call them a lazy idiot. I have very little patience for that.

What are some of your long-term goals? How much is enough? If money was no object, what would you be doing?
My long term goal really is to own a small business that isn’t necessarily reliant on the internet. Something like a bait shop near a river or lake would be awesome. Someday maybe I’ll have a barbecue restaurant. Maybe both. I wouldn’t be doing it to get rich. I just want to do something that I really enjoy that can help other people enjoy life.

Where do you want to be ten years from now?
10 years from now I want to be in a position to be doing whatever I want, whenever I want. That doesn’t mean I want to be rich. I just want to make my own rules.

How do you like to spend your free time? What doe work-life balance mean to you?
I spend my free time doing barbecue, hanging out with my family, going on road trips, and just trying to explore Arizona. I love being outside and learning about history, so I try to do as much of that locally as possible. The past year or two, I haven’t had as much chance as I used to but I’m working on that. I really believe in work hard/play hard, but lately it’s been a lot of work hard and not as much play hard.

If you could go back to being 18, what different career choices would you make?
I probably would have started running some Viagra sites while it wasn’t so competitive and would have built up a big portfolio of domains and sites early on. That would have been 1998 and probably about the perfect time to start that kind of thing.

What is your greatest achievement outside of work? What are some of your unfulfilled dreams?
Staying married for over 12 years now. It hasn’t been easy but it has been amazing and these days, that’s a long time. As far as unfulfilled dreams, I want to do a cross country road trip and hit all of the lower 48 states. My dad did that on a motorcycle when he was young and it has always been something that sounds fun and would really be amazing. We live in a diverse country when it comes to geography and culture but most people never really get out of their local area or a few areas they commonly visit.

Do you have a Twitter account or Facebook “Like” page?
My twitter account is @blafrance.

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2011.

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If you are struggling to maintain, or even achieve, profitability with your online marketing you must read the free information below. 

Before you read any further please go back and read the first two components of this post.  If you have already, please read them again.

Before you can reach people at an emotional level you need to be able to understand why people react and respond the way that they do. 

In The Basics of Writing for the Web you learned these key points:

• Writing for the web is about the correct messaging.
  
• Aim to genuinely satisfy the needs of your users and convey that through your copy.
  
• Emphasize the key messages in your copy to retain reader interest.
  
• Set the right expectations about the offer, product, or service that you are presenting to your users.

All of these points speak to your desire to generate a lead, sale, e-mail sign up, or other desired action.  At the same time, these points address one predominant message: the manner in which you address your users is the key in delivering your message.

Then, in Headline Techniques you learned a few more important points:

• Your headline is tasked with creating interest in your website, product/service, or offer.
  
• Headlines are most effective when they use messaging that speaks to your users needs.
  
• Creating interest, curiosity, or excitement in your product/service or offer will cause your users to continue to read your copy.
  
• Effective headlines use approachable language and focus on the solution your user is seeking.

Again, these points (while individually important) relate to the same overall message: the manner in which you address your users is the key in delivering your message.

In this section you are going to learn the fundamentals in how to approach your users on the terms that they respond the most favourably to.  These fundamentals are culturally universal: whether someone is from Canada, the United States of America, China, or anywhere else in the world, they respond universally to emotional messaging.

If there is one thing that you take from this post, above all else, let it be this:

• People are universal in their need for personal ratification, success, and recognition amongst their peers.  Speak to them on those terms and you will other see a level of compliance far beyond what you could have expected through any means.

No matter what someone is searching for – a new car, a new video game to download, a host for their website, a new book, and so on – there is going to be that underlying need that fuels it.  With that in mind, the single most effective way to reach your users on an emotional level is to create and speak to that need within yourself.

Say you own a website dedicated to providing users with unbiased reviews of web hosts.  This in itself is providing a valuable service (assuming the reviews you post are real and not “fluff”), but you can provide further value to your users by addressing each of them in accordance to their needs.  How might you accomplish this?

Remember that there are four primary personalities that exist: the dominant individual, the cautious/reserved individual, the socially-fuelled individual, and the introspective individual.  Each of these people responds to different messaging.   You can, however, speak to each person on an individual level by providing the information they are looking for.

A dominant person tends to respond best to:

• An immediate solution to their needs.
• No drama or fluff that may make things complicated.
• The quickest, most effective solution.
• Price and features take a back seat to effectiveness and timeliness.  In other words, a dominant person doesn’t necessarily want to get bogged down with explanation of all the many features of the WIDGET they are buying.  All they want to know is that it will do the job they need done in the most effective manner.

A cautious person tends to respond best to:

• The best possible solution that meets their needs.
• Budget and value are taken into heavy consideration.
• A detailed explanation of all the features of the WIDGET they are considering and how those features may be beneficial to the individual. 
• Value is more important than price.  Show a cautious individual the value in a product, and how it will meet their needs and then some, and they are just as likely to buy a more expensive WIDGET versus a less expensive one.

A socially-fuelled person tends to respond best to:

• Affirmation that other people have used the product/service with success.
• Knowing that they may be the first to try a popular WIDGET amongst their peers.
• The solution that has provided the best results for their friends/family/peer group.
• Addressing their social standing is more important than price.  A social individual places value in social positioning.  Does a popular celebrity enjoy using the WIDGET?  If so, the social person wants to know that.

An introspective person tends to respond best to:

• Recognition that the product/service will address their individual needs.
• The solution presented is what makes the most sense for them.
• A detailed explanation of how the features/benefits of said WIDGET will affect them personally.
• Personal value is more important than price.  In other words, how does the WIDGET benefit the person individually?

A great example of how to speak to all four major personality types universally is to look at how this document has been formatted: 

• A dominant person will skim the document and read the points (and perhaps read the explanation of the points if they haven’t formed their own conclusion).
  
• A cautious person will read every word of every line of every paragraph.
  
• A social person likely saw value in this document from the very first headline (and now you know why).
  
• An introspective person likely skimmed the first few headlines and then chose to continue to read based on whether or not they felt like they were being addressed specifically.

Remember, if there is one single thing that you take away from this post, please let it be this:

• People are universal in their need for personal ratification, success, and recognition amongst their peers.  Speak to them on those terms and you will see a level of compliance far beyond what you could have expected through any other means.

By creating copy that adheres to the terms your audience is expecting you will be creating successful, powerful, and engaging copy that will help generate new interest, leads, and sales for your business- whatever that business may be.

Conclusion

Knowing the secrets of how to build an empire is one step of the way.  The rest comes from actually implementing those secrets.

Up until this page I only used the word “I” once, and it was in the second paragraph of The Basics of Writing for the Web.  Do you remember what I used it for?  I used it to create an emotional appeal for you to remember something. 

The reason why I chose to omit the use of the word “I” was a simple one: I wanted you to truly feel that this post, and the information that it contains, was written for you.  The messages within this document are powerful, universal, and very effective if you choose to implement them. 

I know that there are sceptics, or people who read this document and thought “I’ve heard that before”.  To those people I have only one question: what do you have to lose by trying the suggestions in this post? 

I promise you that you will be genuinely surprised by the results of employing just one of the many suggestions you just read about.  I can make that promise because these are the very same suggestions that I followed, built upon, refined, and continue to follow today. 

The ability to influence your peers is a powerful one, and once you have refined the methods to do it, you will experience reward that is both financially significant and personally satisfying.

I truly hope that you have found value in the information that was presented to you.  If so, please e-mail me at youhaveit@cameronmartel.com and share your thoughts with me.  I want to hear about how this information impacted your business and your life. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this in its entirety. 

“We can make ourselves miserable, or we can make ourselves strong.  The amount of work required is the same.”
 Dave Tate, Champion Power Lifter.

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2011.

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© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2011.

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© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2011.

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This is a guest post by Cameron Martel, the second in a series of three. The first post can be read here.

Headline Techniques

Many marketers fail because they don’t employ basic techniques in their headlines- the same techniques you are going to learn for free in just a few moments from now.

The headline is the face of your website, product, or service.  Think of it as the initial attraction that draws the attention of the visitor and transforms them from a visitor into an interested and qualified lead.  Your headline will make or break you during the crucial first few seconds where a new visitor decides whether or not they are going to read further.

Your headline is full of opportunities.  Have you ever actually sat down and honestly gave thought to what your headline has to do for your visitors? 

Your headline has to:

• Create interest in your product, service, or offer – If there is no interest there is no reason to continue reading.
  
• Develop a level of qualification for the user, and vice versa – As marketers, affiliate marketers, webmasters, and business owners, we tend to forget a key piece of the puzzle: we have to qualify ourselves to our users in the same way that they qualify themselves for us.
  
  Think of it like this: what are you so earnestly seeking online?  High-quality, qualified traffic.
  
  What is your user seeking?  Solutions that meet their immediate or future needs.  In order to determine which website, vendor, or business they will use they qualify the websites or businesses they are exposed to. 
  
• Create a compelling case for the user to continue to read your copy – Do you remember how the beginning of this document described this very section as the section where you will learn how to write “powerful and compelling” headlines?  That verbiage was chosen for a reason: it created an honest want in you to find and read this section.
  
  The same can be said for your users when they reach your website.  Ask yourself, and perhaps even your friends and colleagues, “what would I want to see in order for me to have a genuine desire to continue reading?”

Pretend you are looking to join a dating website.  Imagine what you’d be looking for in a dating site, then have a look at these headlines.  How effective or ineffective do you feel they are?

Join DATING SITE, Where Over 1,000,000 Members Have Found True Love!

Meet Local Singles on DATING SITE.  DATING SITE is Free to Try for a Limited Time!

Find Your Match at DATING SITE, Where Over 1,000,000 People Just Like You have Found Their Partners.  Read our Success Stories and Try Us for Free!

Of those headlines, which of the three did you find the most engaging?  While opinions vary, most people tend to agree that the third headline is the most effective.  Why?  Because it does what the other two fail to: it speaks to the users needs and provides an effective layer of qualification that the other two didn’t.

Once you put yourself into the mindset of your user you are able to speak to them in more effective ways.  With that in mind, what is someone looking to join a dating site seeking?  Companionship, approachability, success, affirmation of personal value, and results.  Of course that list could be wildly different depending on who you ask, but we do know one thing for sure: someone looking to join a dating website is looking to meet someone new.

With that in mind we can dissect the effectiveness of each headline.

Join DATING SITE, Where Over 1,000,000 Members Have Found True Love!

This headline is ineffective because, while showcasing the fact that DATING SITE has had success in matching couples, it doesn’t speak to the user specifically.  Instead, it sounds as if the website is bragging about its accomplishments.  The user doesn’t care about the websites accomplishments; they care about their own accomplishments.

Meet Local Singles on DATING SITE.  DATING SITE is Free to Try for a Limited Time!

This headline is ineffective because it makes DATING SITE sound expensive, and while it’s free to try for a little while, eventually the user is going to have to fork up some money to continue using it.  Why should someone get involved with a dating site for a limited time? 

Find Your Match at DATING SITE, Where Over 1,000,000 People Just Like You have Found Their Partners.  Read our Success Stories and Try Us for Free!

This headline is more effective than the other two because it uses needs-focused language (“Your match”, “Just like you”) and presents an approachable solution while simultaneously verifying past success (“Read our success stories and try us for free!”).  The user likely knows that there is some kind of cost associated with a dating website, but where this headline differs from the second headline is that this one is much more approachable in its delivery of the free trial message.

This kind of mindset can be applied to just about anything- even your pay-per-click ads!  Which one is likely more effective?

To summarize:

• Your headline is tasked with creating interest in your website, product/service, or offer.
  
• Headlines are most effective when they use messaging that speaks to your users needs.
  
• Creating interest, curiosity, or excitement in your product/service or offer will cause your users to continue to read your copy.
  
• Effective headlines use approachable language and focus on the solution your user is seeking.

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2011.

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© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2011.

• Get My Facebook Advertising Guide!
• Get My Affiliate Marketing Guide!

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2011.

• Get My Facebook Advertising Guide!
• Get My Affiliate Marketing Guide!

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2011.

• Get My Facebook Advertising Guide!
• Get My Affiliate Marketing Guide!