How To Make Money With Pinterest

December 24, 2011 By 15 Comments

In the ever changes Internet world it seems that every single week a new Internet sensation explodes onto the market.  Well, it’s happened again with the introduction of Pinterest.

If you do not know much about it yet, don’t worry, you soon will.  It’ll be all over the news just like Facebook and Twitter.  Then the time will come when we’re sick of hearing about it.

What is Pinterest?

A social site that allows you to create boards and post pins to it.  Pins are pictures that can be extracted from any website and then added to your boards.

I know, I know, more social stuff to do and another place to waste precious time.

However, I think this is going to be useful in the make money online world.  So the biggest question and the reason you are reading my blog is to find out how to make money with Pinterest.

So How Do You Make Money With Pinterest?

Well a couple ways really.  (NOTE: I am still experimenting and will have some feedback shortly).

But, this is how I see making money with it for now.  Sine you can pin up pictures and it generates a link back to the page where you snagged the picture from you can drive sales to an affiliate page of yours.

For instance, if you have a blog that promotes Baby Grand Pianos and someone clicks through on your link from Pinterest back to your blog site and ends up buying through you, you make money.

Pretty simple, eh?

I have yet to try to send directly through an affiliate link and I suppose I’ll be trying that as well over the weekend.  I’ll keep you updated as to any results or if this will work.

Moreover it’s at least a great way to get traffic to your blog or website.  So if you need more traffic I highly suggest coming over to Pinterest and starting to post as many pictures from your websites as possible.

Some early tips for the best results with Pintrest.

I’ve already noticed with Pinterest you need to have unique pictures or inspiring pictures to get more attention.  For instance, a picture of a baby playing a piano would get more attention than a picture of a TV remote; a cute picture of two kittens playing would get more attention than a picture of a set of muddy shoes, etc.

So far the pictures I see doing well on the site are pictures of:

Landscaping

Beautiful Homes

Hot people

Unique foods (pretty cakes, etc)

Cute pets and animals

Photography studio pictures

Interesting quotes

Unique gift ideas

Hair and design

Art

I am sure there are many other categories that are being used too.  Go easy on me right now, it’s all brand new.  :)

If you own a business (whether your own personal business or an affiliate work at home style business) I think you'd do well to make money with Pinterest.

I think the gift area has some real potential to be a money maker at Pinterest unless they completely turn off any ability to link to things at some point.

I also think using their site to get traffic to places like Youtube videos and other video sites will be extremely useful.

I was checking one video still frame that was posted on Pinterest that lead back to a Youtube video about hair braiding.  This video had over 180,000 views from Pinterest alone in the last few months!  That is substantial!

If only 1% of those viewers clicked on just one of your ads that would be 1800 clicks.  I am not sure how many people click the ads from Pinterest or what they’ll go onto buy as of now.  But, I will say this, if you’re not on the site testing now you’re missing out!

On a final note if you check out the stats in Alexa for Pinterest you’ll find that so far 80% or more of the sites users are female!  So if you are promoting products that are useful to the female population you’ll probably have more success making money with it.

Another funny note by looking at Alexa keywords coming into the site is that people are having a hard time spelling it.  Just look at some of the terms people are typing in to find Pinterest:

Pintrist, pininterest, pin- interest and pintereste.  So you can see it’s so new that many people are just frantically searching to find “what the heck” it even is.

So if you’re looking to drive more traffic to you site or make money Pinterest might just be a nice free way to attract new visitors!  Go give it a try for yourself.  It’ll take a few days to get an account approved but it’s worth experimenting with (at your own risk as I am not 100% sure on their rules yet – it’s not clearly defined, but I see other people using it commercially).

 

UPDATE JAN 5 2012:

I tested posting direct affiliate links on the site for a few days.  I just used direct Amazon products.  I found that all male products did terribly.  This is about what I assumed.  Female products with bright colors did well and I actually had quite a few repins of the products I posted.  I posted about 20 pins total (nothing crazy) and made about $10.18 so far with only about 15 minutes of total work.  I expect the few pins I put up will make more money over time.

That's not awesome but what it does tell me is that from clicks on pins put on Pinterest you can make money an you can also scale it up.

What I suggest is this:  Make your own blog based on a female oriented niche market and put good pictures on it for every product you promote on the blog.  Then simply pin those images to Pinterest.  You'll want to promote as many images as possible.  The more the better.  Also note that so far brighter more vibrant colors tend to catch the female viewers eye more (at least from this experiment). 

In my opinion to make a fortune from Pinterest users lone you'll need a lot of Pins!  I would use this more as a means to help promote your website rather than the ultimate solution.

If you do not know how to build a blog yet go grab my free course here.

Filed Under: Affiliate Marketing, General, Increasing Traffic Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Google +1 – Will It Greatly Help Your Search Rankings In Google?

July 8, 2011 By 10 Comments

So what’s Google +1 all about?

Basically, it’s a new free service that acts somewhat like the Facebook ” Like” button.  But does anyone actually believe it starts and ends with just the social connection?

I don’t.

I believe there is more to it than just another “like” button.

In fact, Google has a lot to say about how this may affect search engines rankings, indexing and social proof of popularity.  So let’s analyze exactly what Google says about their new +1 button and then see if you think this is useless for yourself. 

(The questions and answers below are taken right from Google +1 page -(http://www.google.com/intl/en/webmasters/+1/button/index.html)

 

Does +1 affect search results rankings?

Google Says:

+1 helps people discover relevant content—a website, a Google search result, or an ad—from the people they already know and trust. Adding the +1 button to your pages lets users recommend your content, knowing that their friends and contacts will see their recommendation when it’s most relevant—in the context of Google search results.

When a signed-in Google user is searching, your Google search result snippet may be annotated with the names of the user's connections who've +1'd your page. If none of a user's connections has +1'd your page, your snippet may display the aggregate number of +1's your page has received.

So basically in the search engine listings anytime someone gives your site a +1 it will show up beside your listing (think: social proof).

Sound important yet?  Let’s look at another question on this page.

 

Does +1 affect my site’s performance in search?

Google says:

Content recommended by friends and acquaintances is often more relevant than content from strangers. For example, a movie review from an expert is useful, but a movie review from a friend who shares your tastes can be even better. Because of this, +1’s from friends and contacts can be a useful signal to Google when determining the relevance of your page to a user’s query. This is just one of many signals Google may use to determine a page’s relevance and ranking, and we’re constantly tweaking and improving our algorithm to improve overall search quality. For +1's, as with any new ranking signal, we'll be starting carefully and learning how those signals affect search quality.

Hmmm.  It looks like Google has a plan for this to affect search rankings eventually.  I’d be willing to bet they already have a framework in place for this.  Again, social proof looks like it might affect search rankings soon enough.

And finally….

 

How will the +1 button affect my traffic?

Google says:

Personalized annotations next to your page in search results may increase your site’s visibility and make your site’s snippet more compelling, which may in turn increase the odds that users will click through to your page.

It looks like having the +1 will increase visibility in the search engines and draw attention to your snippet at least in the Google search engines.

So how do you get a +1 button on your blog posts so you can reap the benefits of +1 as it gets more popular in the days to come?  Easy.  Grab a free plugin called: SEXY BOOKMARKS and simply enable the +1 button as well. 

Right now it’s still new enough that we don’t know everything.  But, read what Google is saying and determine for yourself.  If you want to read the whole page of F.A.Q. on Google’s +1 button you can read that here… http://www.google.com/intl/en/webmasters/+1/button/index.html

I don’t believe having the +1 button and getting +1’s on your site are 100% critical.  I believe this will simply be something that “helps” increase search engine rankings.  Links, optimization, keywords and good content will always be important but don’t underestimate the social elements like Google +1.

What do you think?  Are you planning on adding the +1 button?

Ohh, and don't forget to give me a +1 if you like this!  :)

Filed Under: General, Increasing Traffic, Internet marketing Tagged With: , , , , ,

Does Mobile Traffic Matter?

July 2, 2011 By 8 Comments

Over the last few years the sales of mobile devices have skyrocketed including Ipads, tablets, Iphones and Smart phones.  These devices allow users to search the Internet and visit your sites. So does mobile traffic like this matter?

Let me show you how to check the mobile stats for a particular keyword.

Watch my video below:

 

 

 

So do this in your Niche and see how much potential mobile traffic is out there in your market. If there are enough mobile monthly searches for any of your keywords make sure you install the Word Press plugin called WordPress Mobile Pack. Just do a search on this in the “Add New” section of your plugin menu and click install and then follow the directions of the plugin.

Thoughts?  Comments?  Already using mobile searched keywords?  And on a side question – how big do you think the mobile industry will become.  You already know my thoughts.

Filed Under: Affiliate Marketing, Increasing Traffic, Niche Research Tagged With: , , , ,

Why Isn’t My Website Making Money?

May 10, 2011 By 20 Comments

"Why isn't my site isn't making money!"

Believe it or not this is a phrase I have heard several times or at least some variation of it. But, I have an easy 5 point plan to help. This will make you money if you focus and follow through on it.

#1. TRAFFIC (If you're getting decent traffic skip this step)

If you're not getting traffic your site won't make money. Period. End of story. You must get traffic. So if you're not getting traffic determine why. This is usually the first place people make a mistake at.

Are you link building?

Are your keywords for each page ranking in the search engines? Even low volume keywords will make you money if they are targeted.

If you're pages/posts aren't ranking in the search engines you need to work on link building and making sure your content is optimized (read this post is you need help understanding link building and optimization).

Consider adding a Facebook plugin to your site so people can share your message. I like using sexybookmarks and April's Facebook Like Button. Just type those into the “add new” under your plugins area of your blog and you'll find them. I'll cover how to get people to share this more in the next bullet point.

Traffic is vital – get some.  Post more articles, press releases, tweet it, post it to Facebook, comment on other blogs.  Do whatever it takes (ethically) to go get more links and traffic.

#2. Content. (If you have good informative content – skip this step).

If you have less than 200-250 words of content on a single page start there and get at least that. I use as much content on a page as needed to get my point across.

A). Avoid selling language. Don't try to persuade them and sell heavy to your reader. Suggest and recommend but back it up with reasons and facts. No one likes the pushy sales person – so don't be that person.

B). Does your writing make sense? I ask this question because many times people hire other people to write all their posts. The person just tosses the content up on their site but, something is wrong here. Many time cheap writers are just trying to make money and could care less if you make anything.

Make sure ANYTHING you put on your site relates to your user. Ask yourself; will this benefits my reader? If not, fix it. Giving people good advice will help get clicks on your ads, and land those sales at your site.

Imagine your dog has a rare skin disease and you need a solution to help him. Then you read a really informative post why Super Anti Doggy Skin Disease Shampoo will help Fluffy's skin from itching and burning constantly. Would you take a chance on something that someone who knew what they were talking about was suggesting? I would and I do all the time.

If you're giving good information and using Facebook and Twitter plugins people will share it as well. This will help increase your traffic and pump up your sales as well in the long haul.

#3. Ad positions.

Many times especially when we are new at blogging we just use whatever layout we are giving by our theme and that's that. However, position does matter especially with Adsense (read what I've learned here and use Google's heat map).

If your site is getting traffic but your ads aren't getting clicks and you're just not making money with your website try changing things up. Experiment with different layouts. If all else fails always remember we see the top left of the screen first as most of us read left to right.

#4. Wrong products?

It pains me to say this but I can't tell you how many times someone asked me why they weren't making money and I am shocked at some of the things I see.

Promoting Netflix banners on your site about weight loss will not get you any sales. Sure every now and then you might get that lucky sale but, never anything substantial.

Give your visitors ads that make sense to them. Give them products that make sense and your reward is a lot more money in your pocket. If you're an offender of this one – don't wait, go fix it now. If you're promoting weight loss give them weight loss ads. If you're promoting peanut butter give them things based off of peanut butter. Even desert ads would work on a peanut butter site but, Netflix or anything else that doesn't apply to peanut butter, just don't do it!

#5. You're doing all this and still not making any money?

Change your ads to Adsense or vice-versa. Test, test, test! I have never built a site that didn't make me money (unless it was clearly just a demo site).

Lastly, are you really doing it and are you really focused? I'[m not trying to be evil here but I've had some people tell me how hard they were working on traffic building only to find they weren't even building links to their site.

If you're not going to do anything and you're not going to try, you're not going to make money. It may sound harsh to say something like that but I'm not in this to make you feel warm and fuzzy all over I WANT YOU T MAKE MONEY and make a bunch of it.

Sorry for the caps there but I mean that, I want you to succeed. I want you to be as rich as possible and you won't get there with smoke and sunshine. You've got to do the things that will make you money and test, test, test and keep growing.

As summer approaches do not forget this post. Stay focused and stay at this and success is there waiting for you.

Filed Under: Affiliate Marketing, Increasing Traffic, Link Building, Website Building Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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