Richard writes in with a question: “When can a person tell a blog is just about making money with affiliate sales vs. truly helping a person or business? Sometimes they sound really alike.”

This is a great question. Many bloggers–myself included–run promotions for both our own and other products on a regular basis. Some blogs are heavily promotional, with an affiliate link in nearly every post, whereas other bloggers make their money mostly through advertising and only rarely include affiliate links in their posts.

First, let’s look at things from a blogger’s perspective. Then, I’ll give you a few metrics to help you decide which marketers to follow online. (more…)

Manifest money — even huge sums! Here’s how. I smile at the delicious irony of this blog post compared to my last one. However, one of the things I enjoy most about having this blog is sharing things as I’m doing them.

It’s really easy to already be successful in some area of your life and then blog about it, looking back with rose-colored glasses and saying “This is why I am successful.” It’s much harder to blog as you go, trying things, bumping into walls and fumbling around in the dark, and risk looking like a complete fool when things don’t work out as planned. (more…)

I think some of us want to believe that somewhere out there, someone else has a life that’s “easy”.

She doesn’t have to worry about money.
He has a successful business.
She’s really popular.

If you believe that, this blog post is about to flip that belief on its head.
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Increase web site traffic with these simple tips. Traffic can really make or break your website.

If you crank out piece after piece of great content, yet no one reads it, it can be demoralizing. (This, I think, is why most bloggers quit after a few months.)

If you have a great product or service that you know can help a lot of people, but no one knows about it, and you’re on a limited budget, it can seem impossible to get your business off the ground.

I understand. I’ve been in both of those places, and in both of those cases, traffic can help. Today, I’ll take you “behind the scenes” and show you one of the big ways I grew a business in a highly competitive industry to the $1 million mark, and also how I grew this blog to one that gets massive traffic every month–in the top 0.1% of all websites by traffic, according to Alexa.

Then I’ll show you how you can do the same thing…and grow your business by leaps and bounds without killing your wallet by buying advertisements. (more…)

Starting your own business: The definitive guide. Are you hung up on the “idea phase” of starting your own business? Do you feel like none of your ideas are good enough–or do you have so many ideas and don’t know which one you should turn into a business? This post is for you!

First: I hear from many of you who have heard the advice that business should be about your “passion”. If I hear the words “find your passion” or “follow your passion” one more time, I’m going to stick a fork in the eye of the person who says it.

Starting your own business isn’t necessarily about “following your passion”, and you don’t have to “find your passion” before you start a business. Stop beating yourself up for not having a passion that people will pay you large sums of cash for, and follow this four-step process to starting your own business instead: (more…)