One of the most frequent questions that we get, is “How do I get more people to my shows?”. This is a common dilemma for most hosts, whether you are novice or experienced. I am going to offer some basic tips to help you get started and I will expound on these tips and add more over the next few days.

The first tip I can offer you, is to go out and purchase the book, “Promoting Your Podcast” by Jason Van Orden. This is a great book that offers you some of the best advice for building an audience that has come along in a long time! Believe me, you’ll be glad you did!

Here are a few things that you can do right now, that won’t cost you anything, or very little to do! Don’t be afraid to try anything, as you just don’t know what will work for your particular show or niche. Just because it works for one host, doesn’t mean it will automatically work for another one!

1. Ask yourself, “Who are you?”
Reflect on some basics about yourself, your show, what drives you, what are you passionate about, what will keep you producing a show once the “new” has worn off. What resources do you have access to that others may not.

2. Brain-storm Search Engine Keywords
How will people find you on Google, Yahoo or Technorati? What tags will you use in blog posts that may enhance your search engine findability.

3. Setup a blog or web site for your show.
Domain names are very low cost nowadays and so is hosting accounts. You can easily get a free blog at WordPress.com and other places or you can setup your own. Obtain a domain name that reflects your shows name or niche as this will enhance your ability to get more listeners easily by directing them to your site.

4. Come up with a great name for your show.
Just calling it The John Doe Show, won’t go very far in bringing in listeners, unless you have a very famous name! Choose a name that reflects what your show is all about!

5. Become an authority on your niche or topic.
Make sure you know your subject matter when producing your shows. Bring in guest interviews or a co-host that may be more of an authority in your topic or niche to give your show credibility unless you really know your subject matter!

6. Regularly post in your blog details about what you are talking about in your shows.
Search engines LOVE blog posts, because of all the text they can crawl and index. The more you post, the better you can be found in search engines!

7. Use Social Media Networks for promotion.
Social Media, such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and others networks will give you the capability to reach more people that will “follow” you because of what you are talking about! Use these networks to the fullest!

8. Make cool looking business cards to pass out to everyone you meet.
Business card stock is very inexpensive to obtain and the software can be downloaded or use a template for OpenOffice or Microsoft Office and create your own snazzy looking business cards. Make sure your web site, domain name, blog site and e-mail address is on the cards, along with some brief information about your show and give them to everyone you meet! You may be surprised at the increase in listeners, especially if you pass these out at trade shows or fairs where others in your niche hang out!

9. Ask other hosts what they do to promote their shows.
Don’t be afraid to talk to other hosts and ask them what their “secrets” are for getting listeners. You may be able to offer some great ideas that they hadn’t thought of and vice versa. Also, take a minute to “trade” promos with other hosts and see if cross promoting may work for bringing in listeners.

10. Remember your download listeners.
At the beginning and ending of each show, make sure to let your listeners know where they can go to subscribe to your RSS feeds. This is a great way to get those download listeners subscribing to your your iTunes and maybe even coming in live from time to time!

I know this is a lot to digest, especially if you are just starting out. Don’t worry, it may not look like you are going to get a bunch of listeners now, but keep producing good content and stay consistent in doing your shows and before long, you will see the numbers go up!

Until next time!

Popularity: 1% [?]

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Adsense is really making a huge impact on the affiliate marketing industry nowadays. Because of this, weak affiliate merchants have the tendency to die faster than ever and ad networks will be going to lose their customers quickly.
If you are in a losing rather than winning in the affiliate program you are currently into, maybe it is about time to consider going into the Adsense marketing and start earning some real cash.

Google is readily providing well written and highly relevant ads that are closely chosen to match the content on your pages. You do not have to look for them yourselves as the search engine will be the doing the searching for you from other people’s source.

You do not have to spend time in choosing different kind of ads for different pages. And no codes to mess around for different affiliate programs.

You will be able to concentrate on providing good and quality content, as the search engines will be the ones finding the best ads in which to put your pages on.

You are still allowed to add Adsense ads even if you already have affiliate links on your site. It is prohibited, however, to imitate the look and feel of the Google ads for your affiliate links.

You can filter up to 200 URLs. That gives you a chance to block ads for the sites that do not meet your guidelines. You can also block competitors. Though it is unavoidable that Adsense may be competing for some space on web sites that all other revenues are sharing.

Owners of small sites are allowed to plug a bit of a code into their sites and instantly have relevant text ads that appeal to your visitors appear instantly into your pages. If you own many sites, you only need to apply once. It makes up for having to apply to many affiliate programs.

The only way to know how much you are already earning is to try and see. If you want out, all you have to do is remove the code from your site.

The payment rates can vary extremely. The payment you will be receiving per click depends on how much advertisers are paying per click to advertise with the use of the AdWords. Advertisers can pay as little as 5 cents and as high as $10-12, sometimes even more than that too. You are earning a share of that money generated.

If your results remain stagnant, it can help if you try and build simple and uncluttered pages so that the ads can catch the visitor’s eyes more. It sometimes pay to differ from the usual things that people are doing already. It is also a refreshing sight for your visitor once they see something different for a change.

Publishers also have the option of choosing to have their ads displayed only on a certain site or sites. It is also allowed to have them displayed on a large network of sites. The choice would be depending on what you think will work best for your advantage.

To get an idea if some Adsense ads you see on the search engines has your pages, try to find web pages that have similar material to the content you are planning to create and look up their Adsense ads.

It is important to note that you cannot choose certain topics only. If you do this, search engines will not place Adsense ads on your site and you will be missing out a great opportunity in making hundreds and even thousands of dollars cash.

It is still wise to look at other people’s information and format your Adsense there. Just think about it as doing yourself a favor by not having to work too hard to know what content to have.

Topic to be avoided includes gambling, firearms, ammunition, tobacco or drugs. If you are being offered more cash in exchange of doing Adsense with these kinds, it is just like signing your own termination paper.

With all the information that people need in your hands already, all you have to do is turn them as your profits. It all boils down to a gain and gain situation both for the content site owners and the webmasters or publishers.

Make other people’s matter your own and starting earning some extra cash.

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Popularity: 7% [?]

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For the last few months, Google Adsense has dominated forums, discussions and newsletters all over the Internet. Already, there are tales of fabulous riches to be made and millions made by those who are just working from home. It seems that Google Adsense have already dominated the internet marketing business and is now considered the easiest way to making money online.

The key to success with Adsense is the placing of ads on pages that are receiving high traffic for high demand keywords. The higher the cost-per-click to the advertiser, the more you will receive per click from your site. Obviously, it does not pay to target low cost-per-click keywords and place them on pages that do not receive hits.

With all the people getting online and clicking away everyday, it is no wonder why Google Adsense has become an instant hit.

For some who are just new to this market, it would be a blow to their pride knowing that their homepage is buried somewhere in the little ads promoting other people’s services. But then, when they get the idea that they are actually earning more money that way, all doubts and skepticism is laid to rest.

There are two major, and clever, factors that some successful webmaster and publishers are learning to blend together in order to make money easier using Adsense.

1. Targeting high traffic pages on your website. If you check on your logs, you will discover that many of your visitors are taking advantage of the free affiliate marketing resources and ebooks that you are offering on your site. In simple words, your ads are working effectively and are generating more clicks. It also means more money for you.

2. Placing Adsense links on pages that are producing little, or better yet, no profit. By placing Adsense on a free resources page, you will reduce the amount of potential customers being lost to other sites. Tricky, but effective nonetheless.

When learned to work effectively, these two factors are actually a good source of producing a minimal amount of revenue from a high traffic page. Many people are using this strategy to pick up some extra and cash with Adsense. This is also especially rewarding to informational sites that focus their efforts on delivering powerful affiliate link free content to their visitors. Now they can gain a monetary return on their services.

With the many techniques that people are now learning on how to make the easiest money by their Adsense, it is not surprising that Google is trying everything to update and polish their Adsense in order to maintain their good image.

The possibility of adding is 2nd tier in Adsense is not impossible. With all the people spending more time in their Adsense now and still more getting into this line of marketing, there is no doubt about the many new improvements yet to be made. Imagine the smiles on the faces of the webmasters and publishers all around the world if ever they sign up for sub-affiliates and double or even triple the amount that they are already earning.

The one particularly handy money-making feature that is available with Adsense now is the ability to filter out up to 200 urls. These gives webmasters the option to block out low value offers from their pages as well as competitors to their websites. Talk about taking only those that are advantageous and discarding the ones that seem “useless”.

With Google Adsense, the possibilities are limitless. Yet there is also the possibility of someone taking advantage of the easy money process that this internet marketing is doing. If you think more about it, these negative factors may force Google to break down and thrash Adsense in the process. If that happens, people would have to go back to the old ways of internet marketing that does not make money online as easy as Adsense.

For now, however, Google Adsense is here to stay. As long as there are people wanting to earn some easy cash online just using their talents, the future ahead is looking good. Besides with all the strict guidelines that Google is enforcing over Adsense, it will take awhile for the Adsense privileges to be spammed and even terminated.

Popularity: 8% [?]

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Do you love using the internet to meet and talk to new people? If so, there is a good chance that you have heard of social networking websites before. If you have not, you will want to familiarize yourself with them because they are rapidly becoming the most popular way to communicate with others online.

If you weren’t already aware, social networking websites are website that essentially act as an internet communities. While all social networking websites have their own rules and restrictions, many websites operate in a similar way, with similar goals. Their goals are to allow internet users to connect with other internet users online, often from all around the world. What is nice about social networking websites is that they come in a wide variety of different forms. There are many websites that are considered “general,” websites. These websites do not really have any particular focus, but there are social networking websites that do have a particular focus. Those focuses often include dating, religion, and school.

If online social networking seems interesting to you, you will have to find a community to join. You can easily do this a number of different ways. By speaking to those that you know, on and offline, you could be alerted to popular social networking websites. You can also find these websites on your own by performing a standard internet search. Whether you perform your own search or rely on recommendations from others, it is likely that you will find a fairly large number of social networking websites. Just a few of those websites that may find include Classmates, Orkut, Yahoo! 360, and MySpace.

Orkut is Google’s version of a social networking website. This website was created and officially launched in 2004. Orkut has a large number of member, form all around the world. What is nice about Orkut is that the system is easy to use, that is once you get in. To protect their social networking communities, a large number of social networking websites, including Orkut, have restricted access to the site. If you are interested in joining Orkut you must know someone who is already a member and they must invite you to join the community. If you do not personally know any Orkut member, there is a good chance that you could connect with and obtain an invitation from someone you meet online.

Classmates is an online social networking website that is rapidly increasing in popularity. This website focuses on connecting long lost friends or old classmates. Classmates is free to use, but you must become a paying member to enjoy many of their member benefits. These benefits include, but are not limited to, searching for old classmates, reading their profiles, requesting more information from your classmates, or even contacting them.

MySpace is another popular social networking website that can be found online. In fact, MySpace is known as being the most popular online social networking website. They currently have over one hundred million members! MySpace, like many other social networking websites allows you to create your own profile, in fact, your own personal page. Once your page has been created, you can easily invite other members to become a member of your network and visa versa. In addition to having a traditional profile page, with your personal information, you can also display a large number of pictures, video clips, and music clips. Although there are a number of features that makes MySpace so popular, the most popular reason for its popularity is that fact that it is completely free to use.

As previously mentioned, MySpace, Classmates, and Orkut are just a few of the many social networking websites that you can find online. Additional sites include FriendFinder, Yahoo! 360, and more. To learn more about each of these sites or to join their community, you are advised to visit their online websites and request additional information. You should be able to find these websites by performing a standard internet search.

Popularity: 9% [?]

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Do you own or operate your own website? With the rising popularity of the internet, there is a good chance that you do. A large number of internet users run their own personal websites, but others run their websites as a way to make money. Of course, any website owner wishes to promote their online website, but those who rely on their websites for income are more willing to. Whichever type of website you have, did you know that you could help to promote it with online social networking websites?

If you are wondering how and why you should use social networking websites to promote your online website, you are not alone. A fairly large numbers of internet users aren’t even sure what social networking sites are or how they work. Online social networking websites are like online communities. They give internet users an easy and fairly safe way to come together. Many social networking websites are designed to make it easier for you to search for and make contact with other internet users, especially those that you have something in common with.

With a fairly large number of social networking websites, including MySpace, having over a millions users, there is a good chance that you could not only make new friends, but find internet users that would be interested in visiting your online website, especially if that website is your personal website. When joining an online networking community, you should be given your own profile page. On this page you could not only describe yourself, your online website. By mentioning what your personal online webpage is all about and providing a link, you should receive a number of new visitors.

As previously mentioned, social networking websites can benefit all website owners, but especially those who are looking to make a profit with their websites. This can be done one of two ways, by selling something or by relying on revenue from advertising. If you have a website that selling products or services, you may find it a little bit easier to use social networking sites to your advantage. This is because, if you wish, you could do product or service spotlights. Each day, week, or month, you could showcase one of the products or services that your website sells. This could either be done right on your profile page or on a blog page, which is provided by most social networking websites.

If you are using your online website to make money with advertising programs, such as affiliate programs or Google Adsense, you may need to approach social networking websites in a different matter. Since you will not necessarily have a particular product or service to focus on, you will need to approach these websites as if they were personal websites. If your website discusses being a dog owner, it may be a good idea to state your love for dogs in your profile. After doing so, it would be acceptable and not necessarily considered spam to add a link to your online website. As with all other types of online websites, social networking websites should help to increase the number of page views your website receives. In most cases, more page views mean more clicks which means money for you.

As you can easily see, there are a number of different ways that you can promote your online website, no matter what type of website you have or what you use it for. By keeping the above mentioned points in mind, you should be able to see an increase in your page views, in no time at all.

Popularity: 11% [?]

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Tonight, we are approaching the end of our series with Phase 5 of our Phases of Podcasting, Getting Sponsorships and Monetizing. We have one more phase to go before the end of our series, so let’s dive into our training tonight.

Originally, the plan was to have Todd Cochrane, the CEO of Rawvoice, the company behind BluBrry, on as a guest. Due to schedule conflicts, he was unable to make it again. I have asked another from RawVoice to come on, however, he will not be able to make it until after the Holidays are over. This is perfectly understandable considering that Christmas is less than a week away!

During our training, we have covered the most important areas of podcasting and no training would be complete without knowing how to make a little money from your hobby. In order to monetize your podcast, blog or web site, you will need to have something that the readers, listeners and visitors will want to buy from you.

The easiest way to get started with monetizing, is to join a free affiliate program service. There are a few services out there such as Commission Junction, ShareASale and LinkShare. Each of these services have hundreds of businesses that offer affiliate commissions on sales of their products. You sign up for a free account, then choose the companies that you want to display 468×60 and other sized banner ads for what products and then follow the instructions to put the ads on your blogs or sites and even use these products to send people to your blogs or sites to click the ads and then start promoting these ads. The more click throughs you get, the more sales that may result, then that’s when the money comes into your PayPal or bank account.

Another such company that does this is called ClickBank. They offer a wide range of businesses and products that you can get commissions from the sales of these products and services.

Of course, you can sign up for Google’s Adsense program, but Adsense doesn’t work for every one and you have to build up to more than $100 before they cut you a check.

You can go out and talk to businesses in your local community and get them to sponsor your podcast or blog with products and services and in return, you give them advertising sending people to their web sites. Keep in mind, that this type of sponsorship doesn’t always work because the local businesses may not have a web presence or may not understand what you are trying to do with the podcasting, so they may not sponsor you at all. You may have to educate them first, before they will come around and be willing to do this type of advertising.

Speaking of sponsorships, you can sign up with a service like BluBrry from RawVoice and get a host read ad campaign that will bring in a few bucks each month, based on the number of downloads your podcast gets. The BluBrry campaigns run normally for a 90 day period and can be renewed each period after that. You hear a host read ad at the beginning of each of the Podcaster Training shows that I use as part of my monetizing campaign for my show.

Alternately, if you already have a product or service yourself, such as a network marketing company, MLM, or even an eBook or software product you own the resell rights to, then you can use these to sponsor your own shows, podcasts, or blogs and create your own advertising and keep the profits for yourself. If you are looking for something that would appeal to your listeners or readers, an eBook will almost always do the trick. Take for example a recent post I published this last week announcing the return of The Identity Theft Radio Show. I blasted a post out about the show and then turned around and posted a brand new eBook about Credit Repair with a special introductory price for my listeners and readers only! Since The Identity Theft Radio Show has been in hiatus for a while, I no longer have a way to monetize that show, so I am starting with an eBook for sale. It’s easy, didn’t cost a lot for me to obtain the rights to it and it’s affordable to most of my audience. Also, it goes along with the topic of the show and will appeal to my listeners and readers because of the content.

Now, if you were to try to sell an eBook that did not go with your podcast or blog content at all, your readers and listeners most likely, will just ignore it. It’s important that you try to match your advertising to the topic, subject or content of what you are offering.

If you are looking for eBooks and software with Master Resell Rights and Private Label Rights, I have a huge collection that I offer a number of ways at The Personal Publisher and my Membership Site. The Membership Site at http://www.twobeams.com, offers a 3 day free trial package. It’s just $4.99 per month after that and you can cancel or renew whenever you want. It has a little of everything including PLR eBooks, Articles, Software and Videos and Master Resell Rights Products too. All for instant download, even during the 3 day free trial! PLR and Master Resell Rights Products are a great, low cost way, to advertise your own products.

The last way tonight to monetize your podcast or blog, as we conclude our main topic tonight, is to get someone to sponsor your show. Some sponsorships will be in the form of cash money in exchange for advertising. A business or individual that is willing to sponsor your podcast or blog in this manner, may be looking for a one time shot on your show, podcast or blog post to advertise a product or service. They may just want to sponsor you with a little cash and ask for nothing in return! Although you won’t find this kind of sponsorship very often, this is nice when you get it!

Donations can be a form of this kind of sponsorship. You can place a PayPal Donation button on your blog and tell your listeners of your podcast that it is there. If they like what you are doing, talking about, etc. They may go to your site or blog and donate a few bucks and not ask for anything in return. Go the extra mile and offer them something for donating. Make sure what you are offering them will be worth the price of their donation. Try not to insult them by saying something like, “I’ll give you something for donating” and then don’t tell them that you are planning on sending them an eCard saying thank you!

I have placed an example of what I’m talking about on my blog. I have placed a PayPal Donation button in the sidebar and I tell my visitors that I will give them a One Year Free Membership to my PLR Week Site, a $60 Value! That value is based on the monthly membership costs around $5 a month. This places a value on their donation that even if they donate $5.00, they still get a $60 value in return for their donation.

There are a number of ways to monetize your podcast and blog. I have only covered the most popular ways tonight. If you know of a way to monetize that is working for you, please take a minute to let us know too! Leave it in the comments here or some onto the show and tell us in your own words!

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Popularity: 6% [?]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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A new consumer phenomenon is called “tagging” or “folksonomies” (short for folks and taxonomy). Tagging is powerful because consumers are creating an organizational structure for online content. Folksonomies not only enable people to file away content under tags, but, even better, share it with others by filing it under a global taxonomy that they created.

Here’s how tagging works. Using sites such as del.icio.us – a bookmark sharing site – and Flickr – a photo sharing site – consumers are collaborating on categorizing online content under certain keywords, or tags.

For instance, an individual can post photographs of their iPod on Flickr and file it under the tag “iPod.” These images are now not only visible under the individual user’s iPod tag but also under the community iPod tag that displays all images consumers are generating and filing under the keyword. Right now Flickr has more than 3,500 photos that are labeled “iPod.”

Tagging is catching on because it is a natural complement to search. Type the word “blogs” into Google and it can’t tell if you are searching for information about how to launch a blog, how to read blogs, or just what. Large and small sites alike are already getting on to the folksonomy train. They are rolling out tag-like structures to help users more easily locate content that’s relevant to them.

Although tags are far from perfect, marketers should, nevertheless, be using them to keep a finger on the pulse of the American public. Start subscribing to RSS feeds to monitor how consumers are tagging information related to your product, service, company or space. These are living focus groups that are available for free, 24/7. Folksonomy sites can be also be carefully used to unleash viral marketing campaigns – with a caveat. Marketers should be transparent in who they are, why they are posting the link/photos and avoid spamming the services.

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Popularity: 6% [?]

• Wiki of the Week – iPhone Wiki, The iPhone wiki has information on unlocking, jailbreaking and activating your iPhone or iPod Touch. This wiki also has news, tips, tricks, wallpapers and more for your iPhone!

• Google Chrome – Google Chrome is not supported by Wetpaint. Since it uses the same infrastructure as Safari. Since, currently, Safari’s infrastructure doesn’t support Wetpaint – You can only use a select few editor features.

If you have any questions or comments about using Wetpaint or its features, feel free to contact me at podcast [at] buddes [dot] net. Don’t forget to check out Wetpaint Nation live every other week, next week will be the next episode – live at 7 PM EST on October 3rd, 2008.

Popularity: 12% [?]

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Adsense is considered as one of the most powerful tool in a website publisher’s arsenal. It enables a person to monetize their sites easily. If used properly, it can generate a very large and healthy income for them. However if you are not using them rightly and just maximizing the income you squeeze from it, you are actually leaving a lot of money on the table. Something all people hate doing.

How you can start earning money with Adsense can be done easily and quickly. You will be amazed at the results you will be getting in such a short period of time.

Start by writing some quality content articles which are also keyword incorporated. There are a lot of people given the gift of being good with words. Writing comes easy for them. Why not make it work in such a way that you will be earning some extra cash in the process.

There are actually three steps to put into mind before you begin writing your ads and having an effective Adsense.

Keyword search. Find some popular subjects, keywords or phrase. Select the ones which you think has more people clicking through. This is actually a keyword selector and suggestion tool that some sites are offering to those who are just their Adsense business.

Writing articles. Start writing original content with keywords from the topics that you have achieved in your search. Take note that search engines are taking pride in the quality of their articles and what you will be writing should keep up with their demands.

Quality content site. Build a quality content site incorporated with Adsense ads that is targeting the subject and keywords of your articles and websites. This is where all that you’ve done initially will go to and this is also where they will prove their worth to you.

The proper positioning of your ads should be done with care. Try to position your ads where surfers are most likely to click on them. According to research, the one place that surfers look first when they visit a certain site is the top left. The reason behind this is not known. Maybe it is because some of the most useful search engine results are at the top of all other rankings. So visitors tend to look in that same place when browsing through other sites.

Some of those who are just starting at this business may think they are doing pretty well already and thinking that their clickthrough rates and CPM figures are quite healthy. However, there are more techniques and styles to generate more clicks to double your earnings. By knowing these techniques and working them to your advantage, you will realize that you will be getting three times more than other people who have been previously doing what they are doing.

Finally, Adsense has some excellent tracking statistics that allows webmasters and publishers to track their results across a number of site on a site by site, page by page, or any other basis you wanted. You should be aware oft his capability and make the most of it because it is one powerful tool that will help you find out which ads are performing best. This way, you can fine tune your Adsense ads and focus more on the ones being visited the most rather than those who are being ignored.

Another thing you should know. Banners and skyscrapers are dead. Ask the experts. So better forget about banners and skyscrapers. Surfers universally ignore these kinds of ad formats. The reason behind this is that they are recognized as an advert and advert are rarely of any interest that’s why people ignore them.

To really start making money with Adsense, you should have a definite focus on what you wanted to achieve and how you will go about achieving them. As with any other kind of business ventures, time is needed coupled with patience.

Do not just ignore your site and your Adsense once you have finished accomplishing them. Spare some time, even an hour, making adjustments to the Adsense ads on your sites to quickly trigger your Adsense income.

Give it a try and you would not regret having gotten into Adsense in the first place.

Popularity: 4% [?]