WP-Answers is a cool new plugin that will convert WordPress into a question and answers community like Yahoo Answers. People can register and ask questions and then other members can then answer these questions to gain points. The question asker can then choose the best answer which is promoted to the top and the answerer gets extra points.

The plugin includes 6 premium themes that are fully widgetized and include a theme options panel. [ Theme Demo ]

Another really awesome part of the plugin is that it can pull questions from Yahoo answers using their API and post them on your site, any replies are also posted so your site can look busy from the start.

You can use any and unlimited search terms to add content to your site and setup to auto post them every hour, every day, etc.

There is an advertising management system included to place banner adverts and contextual adverts within the theme.

The developers have run this plugin on a number of test sites for over a year and are making up to and over $1000 per month on some sites.

Check out the full list of features.

Why YOU Want Wp Answers

Probably the biggest benefit to you adding WP Answers is... Traffic. Not only are you going to rank better for SEO (because a huge amount of people type questions into the search engines) but you're also [probably] going to get more traffic because of it.

I'm already thinking how I can implement it into my blog here.

Discount

Because I really liked the WP Answers plugin, I worked out a deal with the maker of it to give all readers of this blog a discount (and no, it's not an affiliate code or anything of that sort):

Use voucher code JV2000 and get 20% off. They also have a great affiliate system and are paying a flat 35% on any sales (potential to earn up to $87 per sale!)

EDIT: Looks like Ian Fernando also did a review on WP-Answers. Check that one out too.

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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This week in review, my arch nemesis, Mr. Green, takes the cake for awesome post.

• Plenty Of Fish Slaps Facebook In The Face With A Smelly Tuna - Ads.POF.com Rocks. Plain and simple. The team behind the system is awesome... AND willing to work with affiliates. This is a good comparison post for sure.
• Cause Marketing - This is a REALLY cool idea. Basically it shows how giving some of your profit to charity equates to higher sales. Really interesting idea to think about...
• Starting Over - This is a cool post from Shoemoney about starting over. Although the post is a bit of a advert, it still is quite inspiring and interesting to think about.
• Guide To Buying Banner Advertisements - RileyPool released a (no email opt-in required) guide to buying banner inventory. It's pretty legit from what I have checked out so far and has some good intro material. You can also check out my free affiliate marketing guide for information on this.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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My name is Travis Ketchum, I am an online marketer who runs a blog at TheCollegeStartup.com and I have a little project of my own called MyBigGive.com.

(Photo Credit: @Shoemoney Free Shirt Friday)

When it comes to marketing online or offline, the same basic goals are set to maximize the value of your business:

a) Increase Revenue
b) Decrease Cost

By aiming for both of these goals your business will be more profitable, give you more freedom and more leverage to accomplish what you want to do within your business. These goals seem simple, but as Jonathan Volk has tried to drive home, attaining these goals can involve a handful of techniques to maximize the potential.

Current Methods
When promoting an offer right now, you want to make sure that every visitor who lands on your website converts at the highest rate possible. By convert, we mean that they complete an action that you get paid for – from filling out a form, buying an item or sharing the information through Twitter, Facebook etc. Most people have a general idea as to what they think will convert at the highest rate, but the only way to capitalize on the “human factor” of consumers (read: the intangible purchasing influences) is to try as many variations on placement, colors, call to action, and product images as possible.

What other factors could influence a consumers decision to not only convert, but could influence a customer to buy a more premium version of your product? What kinds of incentives really pull the levers for people during their purchasing process? You might be surprised to see the results, and how easy it is to boost your outcome.

Cause Marketing
What is cause marketing? In a nutshell, cause marketing is a term used to describe a marketing or promotional effort that directly benefits a cause or non-profit as a result of the effort. For instance, if you have ever come across the (RED) initiative or product line you have experience first hand one of the many forms that cause marketing can take. So what can it mean for your business, and what are some real world numbers?

For our quick example we are going to use validated results from the Amazon Associate program. This affiliate program has been around for quite a while and has proven to be a successful platform for SEO traffic, and other content driven sites.

Mahalo.com
This site was founded by Jason Calacanis and is essentially a crowd sourced answer site that monetizes through advertisements and affiliate links. This site is primarily based out of organic search traffic.
Average unit price: ~$22

Jonathan Volk
You know this guy well, and while he admits that his level of involvement surrounding the Amazon Associate program has been limited, the traffic has primarily been organic search traffic.
Average unit price: ~$30

MyBigGive.com
This is one of my current projects where we allow users to pick their favorite cause before starting their shopping experience to donate 70% of the commission.
Average unit price: ~$40

So what kind of return do we realize by offering a charitable incentive for shopping through MyBigGive? The charitable factor influenced the average unit price for shoppers up 33%-81%.

While we are still tweaking the experience at MyBigGive to try and enhance these figures as much as possible, it is evident that customers are more willing to up-sell themselves when they know that a cause they truly care about is able to benefit from the transaction. You could easily integrate this model into tiered package pricing in order to up-sell customers on a more comprehensive package. Having a hard time getting buyers to convert on the 20% more expensive package? Try offering a 5% contribution to their favorite charity ONLY when they buy the larger offering. These incentives work because customers do care about giving back, and often use it to justify their own upgrades in life.

So next time you are going through the process of A/B testing your web product, landing page etc make sure you take into account the potential that cause marketing has to drive your revenue, margins, and success.

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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Some more good posts this week. Unfortunately last week, I was unable to post a week in review post because I was without computer. More on that later... So to make up for it this is a bit of a "2 weeks in review" post.

• Rather than list out every great post Ruck posted recently... let me just say, they are REALLY great posts and I HIGHLY recommend you check them out. Q&A Video, Want to be an affiliate millionaire?, Affiliate Zip Submits (GREAT POST), Staying off the email submit scrub list.
• July Posts - This is a simple "what I read in July" type of post but I found pretty much every post really interesting.
• Trick To Click - This is a great tactic that I have used before (and posted about - but I couldn't find the post...) to trick users into clicking through on your affiliate link. Worth checking out.
• How does a $40 million dollar fine sound? - In the latest internet marketing gossip, Nickycakes outlines how the owner of digital point forums used a black hat cookie stuffing method to make over $15.5 million dollars on eBay's affiliate program. Pretty interesting stuff.
• The Truth about Storm onDemand - This post convinced me to move all my 3 VPS servers and 1 dedicated server onto a one scalable web hosting solution. Once I move it all... I will be sure to post how I like it, etc.
• Demand Media - eHow.com - I really enjoyed this post because it has some great points and talks about the very successful business, eHow.com.
• The size of an affiliate's balls - Another great post on Finchsells. Some good points in this post about being a real super affiliate.
• Co-Registration - HUGE money maker - If you've never heard of coregistration... now is the time.
• $797 Profit In My First Week On Facebook Ads - You know... it's a really great feeling when you work hard to put together a great guide on Facebook Ads... and someone writes about it. Phil, the person who wrote this post, is also a member of the Facebook coaching forums and is really excelling! His family is already planning a vacation because of all the extra cash! Exciting stuff.

There are more... but I'm sure that it's enough reading material to keep ya over for a while!

Enjoy and have a great Sunday!

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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Co-Registration has and is a huge way to make money online.

What is co-registration?

Co-registration leads allow advertisers to increase the customer value and potential customer lists for their products and services by piggybacking their product or service onto registration pages owned by publishers. Since consumers must opt-in to receive the information from the advertiser during the registration process, and since the advertiser’s product or service is typically related to the subject of the publisher’s registration path, co-registration leads are of higher quality than leads obtained through other means.

Co-registration also provides publishers the ability to build a custom landing page for certain campaigns, capture the data required by the advertiser and deliver it to the advertiser without losing the surfer. This is know as "host and post".

In short, co-registration is where you get a user to sign up for your service and during their registration they are given the ability to simply click or fill our more information to sign up for another related product or service.

Let's say you own a quiz site for example. To complete a quiz and get the results of the quiz, a user has to register. During this registration process the user will see a few related offers that they simply need to "opt-in" to. This allows the otherwise free quiz site to make money (and a lot of it).

There are a TON of sites that use this format of monetization because it works.

The trouble in the past has been finding good offers that allow coreg. Until now...

MaxBounty Introduces Co-Registration Support

MaxBounty has just introduced support for co-registration leads for affiliates and advertisers.

“Co-registration leads provide significant benefits to our publisher and advertiser partners”, says JP Sauve, MaxBounty Inc’s CEO. “Considering we’ve been providing tremendous value to these partners over the past 6 years through traditional CPA (cost-per-action) lead delivery, adding support for co-registration leads was a natural progression. We’re very excited for the new revenue streams that this will make available to our partners.”

Host And Post - Original Landing Pages

The other awesome thing about coreg is that you can make the landing page completely custom. That means you can literally tailor your landing pages to your exact marketing campaign. For those who like to split test 100's of variations, this is a great method to even out convert the original advertisers page.

I love co-reg paths and I believe we will start to see more and more offers being offered via coreg. Maxbounty is one of the first affiliate networks to incorporate this and are now adding 1-2 new coreg offers per week. Another way to put more affiliate money in your pocket!

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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Joel Comm just released a new book called "KaChing: How to Run an Online Business that Pays and Pays."

For nearly fifteen years, Joel Comm has been generating revenue on the web through a number of successful online businesses. In KaChing, he shares his five primary methods of making money online, combining traditional marketing with the new, offering detailed strategies and techniques that can be applied to any niche or market.

Topics include:

* Defining your niche and turning it into success
* Creating and profiting from original content
* Creating and selling information products (i.e. ebook, online video, DVD training programs)
* Becoming affiliates with web merchants
* Setting up membership sites
* Developing an online coaching program

Within each topic, Joel shares stories of his own success, and the book concludes with a number of case studies that span the five styles of making money online. The theme of “KaChing”–the sound made by a cash register when a sale is made–is woven throughout.

My Review

Like John Chow's book on making money online, I REALLY enjoyed reading about Joel's past and detailed path to success that this book revealed.

As an online entrepreneur, my goal is to learn about other successful entrepreneurs and glean as much wisdom about making money online as possible.

Although I have not finished the book entirely yet, there are already some great tips that I have learned already from reading Joel's book.

EDIT: I meant to finish this post because I finished reading the rest of Joel's book while on an airplane traveling to Ohio to visit some family. Unfortunately I forgot my laptop charger (which I later found right before leaving to go home...).

Here is the rest of the post:

My thoughts on Joel Comm's book. Joel has written a great comprehensive guide to getting started with your online business. The book contains a lot of great basic information and I would highly recommend it to those of you who are JUST starting out and have never made a successful web business.

Basically, this book is a complete foundations book to making money online.

Bonuses

To further sweeten the deal, Joel has contacted about 50 other people who make money online (including me) and convinced them to give away some bonuses to those who purchase his book.

You can find more details at his website
HERE.

Beyond just getting the book, you can get a TON of great information. In fact, I highly recommend everyone get it because of the bonuses...

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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Recently Shoemoney released a string of really great videos. The latest video is about when adversity strikes.

The first video, called "Weapons of marketing", was absolutely awesome. Everyone wants to sell stuff online but very few understand basic salesmanship. Shoemoney has been successful selling stuff offline and on and it really boils down to some basic understanding. This video gives you that understanding. Some GREAT nuggets of information here! [ Click here to watch the first video ]

The second video released on Monday is a cool story that he has never shared before. Its a story about how he thought his "making money online" world was coming crashing down, but instead it was just the kick in the ass I needed to implement some changes that netted me some huge profits. ($250,000+...)

On Thursday, another video is coming that is going to be even more amazing (I got a little sneak peek and... WOW, you're going to love it!).

Go check the videos out! (You need to enter your email to access the videos, but it's well worth it!)

"Real Talk"

Look, I'm sure many of you realized by now that Jeremy is going to be relaunching his Shoemoney system and this is part of that prelaunch. My job is not to "sell you" on his system but just to tell you about this amazing FREE content.

Seriously, I opt in to every single prelaunch for the amazing content that comes with it, and this is one prelauch that really will deliver content worth watching. Even if you do not decide to buy it at the end, I highly recommend you get the free content that Jeremy is providing while you can.

Jeremy is one of the most well connected, knowledgeable people in the industry so there is no doubt that you can learn something from him.

Watch the videos now.

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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