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Tips, Tricks,
and Tools for the Computer-related Home Business
January 2008
Published by Michelle Johanson
http://www.dataentryhomebusiness.com -
© Projects Plus LLC
In this Issue
From Michelle - There's Something for
Everyone
Your "Mom Paycheck"
Bright Ideas - Affiliate
Advertising with Google AdWords
Blue
Reviews - Paid Surveys
Take my
Latest Survey: Work at Home Hurdles
Tell a Friend
Happy
New Year
from Our Home to Yours!
One of the
highlights of 2007 for me was having a photo taken with my boys.
Below it you will see the last one we took together ten years ago
- way back in 1998.
My oldest now
towers above me. In addition to height, Ben has great depth of
heart. I am so proud of the man he is becoming. Besides the typical
teenage activities, Ben is diligently working to launch his
internet business. You'll hear more about that in an upcoming
newsletter. If he can do it - so can you!
In 2007 alone,
Jacob has grown 3 shoe sizes, 3 pants sizes and doubled his
drive for independence! He'll always be my
baby even though I
can't pick him up anymore! He was busy this summer selling lemonade
and gently used toys to the neighbors. This school year, he has
"hired" two of his friends to help him sketch and sell
custom-made drawings. I'm not sure what's next on Jacob's agenda
- but it's a guarantee he'll charm a smile and a few bucks out of you one way or another!
My kids have
always been my inspiration and motivation to do whatever it
takes to work from home. But I've been on both sides of the
fence - working outside the home and from the home while raising
kids. Either way, moms carry a heavy load and make many
sacrifices.
But kids or no kids ... I've found that there are just too many real,
profitable, and fulfilling opportunities for me to even consider
working outside the home anymore.
In 2007, I dedicated a lot
of time to exploring these opportunities. And this will be the
theme for my 2008 Keystrokes Newsletters. Look for the
new Bright Ideas section. I can't wait to
share with you many of the exciting ways I've experienced to
generate income from home. I believe there's something for
everyone!
This is YOUR year for new beginnings!
Michelle
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Your "Mom
Paycheck"
In 2006, Salary.com updated their valuation
of a stay-at-home mom's job, if they were paid, and gave them a
$2,650 annual raise! For the first time, they also established what
a mom should earn who works full time outside the home.
They found the
top ten best-matched job titles for moms to include housekeeper,
day care center teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry
machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, CEO
and psychologist. We all know there are many more!
By estimating how
many hours are worked in each role, Salary.com determined a stay-at-home mom would earn $134,121 per year if she was paid for her
hard work. A working mom, in addition to her actual salary,
would earn another $85,867 for the "mom" portion.
Our children are precious, the most
important and valuable "job" there is, with so many rewards. But
it's great to have a legitimate market value for the economic
value moms contribute.
If you want to customize your "Mom
Paycheck" based on your location, the roles you play, and how
much time you spend in those roles,
follow this link and have some fun!
P.S. What about Dads? They certainly
earn their "Dad Paycheck" too. Dads,
follow this link!
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Welcome to Bright
Ideas. This section of Keystrokes spotlights a new work
at home opportunity I've tried.
This issue's
glowing review ...
Using Google AdWords
to Make Money!
*Google is a
registered trademark of Google, Inc.
Google is
currently one of the most popular search engines in the world.
When you search the world wide web for anything at
www.google.com you will generally get hundreds if not
thousands of results to explore. The majority of those search
results are websites that are displayed for free by Google based
on criteria the webmaster's have followed in creating the site.
What is Google
AdWords?
The search
results in the right column (and sometimes a few at the very top
of the search results) are paid advertising called
Sponsored Links. People use this form of advertising, Google
AdWords, to ensure top placement of their website amongst
conceivably hundreds of thousands. In addition, they can write
their own ads in the hope of really grabbing their prospects
attention and driving more traffic to their website.
When a paid
advertisement is clicked by a user within the search results,
the person who created the ad pays Google for that click,
regardless if a sale is made. This is called Cost Per Click
Advertising or CPC.
The basic goal of
the advertiser is to convert enough of their website visitors -
who come through AdWords clicks - into paying customers. In this
way, their advertising expense (CPC) will be far less than the
profit they generate by driving traffic to their site through
AdWords.
Let's say we open
up www.google.com and type "Get Married in Las Vegas" in the
search box. At this writing, we get 249,000 results! The right
column of the screen on the first page of our results lists 8
sponsored links. If we click on one of those ads to go to that
website, that advertiser will pay Google for our click through
the AdWords program.
Are you thinking
...
"I don't have a
website or anything to sell online! How can I make money?"
The brilliant
answer ...
Advertise someone
else's website and products! It's called Affiliate Marketing.
You create AdWords advertisements for other people's websites
and products and get paid a commission from the website owner.
How it works
Here is a
simplified
summary. First, you must become an affiliate. It's free. You
simply sign up. I recommend
ClickBank because they have tons of websites and
products to promote and they manage all of the financial
aspects.
Second, set up
your Google AdWords account for a one time $5 set-up fee. Now
YOU are an advertiser.
Within AdWords,
set a daily maximum budget. When I set up my first campaign, I
decided to spend a maximum of $8.00 per day ... which meant I
was willing to pay about $240 per month that first month to try
out this opportunity. Because those are maximums, I didn't spend
near that much.
There is very
little risk financially because you control your spending and
can pause or discontinue your advertising at any time if it's
not working for you. In addition, Google will automatically stop
displaying your ads if you reach your daily maximum budget so
you aren't spending more than you want to each day.
The next step is
to "bid" on keywords for the advertisements you create. A
keyword is not just one word - it is whatever gets typed into
the search box. For example, let's say I've chosen to promote a
website that sells Las Vegas marriage packages and my commission
is $21.79 for every sale.
I'll bid .05
cents for the keyword Get married in Las Vegas. So when
someone types in Get married in Las Vegas at
www.google.com, up pops their search results including my ad. If
they ignore my ad - I don't pay a cent. If they click on my ad
... I owe Google a nickel for that click.
For a campaign
like this, I will have hundreds of keywords in order to display
my ad to as many people as possible, depending on what they type
into the search box.
Let's do the
math
For this Las
Vegas website/product, my ad has been clicked 89 times, so I owe
Google $4.45 (89 clicks multiplied by my bid of 5 cents each per
click).
Only one person
who clicked my ad and went to this website actually purchased
the product. So I've earned $21.79 in commission. Still,
subtracting out my AdWords expense, my profit is $17.34.
If I make only
one sale per day based on the figures above, my profit after
AdWords expense will be over $500 per month!
As I have gained
experience and added more websites and products to promote, my
profits keep increasing.
How must does
it cost?
Most of your
"expense" will be in the form of your personal time. There is a
learning curve, of 'course. You need to become proficient at
using the online Google AdWords features and functions. You need
to learn about CPC advertising, understand keywords and their
vital statistics, and write your own ads. You need to research
various websites and products and become skilled at choosing
those that will earn you a profit.
It is complicated
at first, even if you are an experienced internet marketer.
Your financial
investment? Hopefully, as you continue reading, you'll decide to
purchase a
step-by-step guide by a Certified Google Advertising
Professional. What else? Google's $5 sign-up fee and
whatever you choose to spend in AdWords CPCs until your sales
more than compensate you. Your expenses are really very minimal.
Learn how to
make the most and spend the least
In my research, I
came across lots of eBooks and websites dedicated to teaching
people how to earn affiliate income from Google AdWords. It's a
very popular topic. After making several purchases to review and
compare materials, I found most of them to be disappointing or
incomplete.
Yet, everyone
I've chatted with who has successfully implemented an affiliate
Google AdWords campaign agrees ... you should learn how to do it
from someone who is already making a profit doing it! Because
jumping into something like this blind or only half-way will
waste your time and money ...
I don't want to
write an instruction manual about it. So I'm pleased to
recommend someone else's
instruction manual, the very one I used to become a
successful AdWords Affiliate advertiser.
I highly recommend that you purchase an excellent
step-by-step guide such as this.
What I liked
about it:
-Holds you by the hand
step-by-step
-Very helpful pictures and screenshots
-Has great audio/video training both by Google and by the author
-Goes into detail about how to become an affiliate
-Goes into detail about how to choose the right website/products
to promote
-If you have questions, you can contact the author directly and
he personally responds
-In fact, I got a phone call making sure I was doing okay ...
no sales or pressure
-There's an online support forum of everyone who has purchased
and used it
-I was successful using this product and continue to refer to it
-60 day money back guarantee so there's really no financial risk
-Instant download
What I didn't
like about it:
-It's not the prettiest
eBook or website you'll ever see
-I thought the price was a little high, but it turned out to be
worth it, in my opinion, compared to other materials
-Didn't like all the hype on the website about getting rich,
although now I see the possibilities.
-You can't skip around or you'll get lost and confused. You must
read the instructions cover to cover (149 pages)
-You might be offered a ready-made website as a free bonus ...
I don't recommend it. To actually use it, you'll have to
pay for hosting upfront, and there's a lot more to deal with.
One thing at a time, okay?!
How much time
does it take?
It took me
several hours of dedicated concentration over a period of days
to get through the materials and initial set-up. Then there was
a trial and error period where I set up various campaigns and learned through experience
without making any sales.
Now that I
understand what I'm doing, it takes me four - six hours to
research a new website to promote and create an AdWords campaign
for it. After that, I spend about fifteen minutes a day logging
into my account to monitor my clicks vs. sales, and make some
tweaks if necessary. My goal has been to add another website for
promotion every couple of weeks.
A little
encouragement
Here are some
amazing statistics. Nielsen Online reports that in November
2007, for the U.S. only, Google represented 57.7% of all market
share with 4,253,794
searches! Yahoo was next at only 17.9% market share and
1,317,919 searches. To
learn more, go to
http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_071227.pdf
That means that
approximately 4.3 billion search queries were conducted at
Google, in the U.S. only, in one month! Wow! There is money
to be made on the world wide web, one way or another.
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This issue's thumbs down ... paid
surveys. I reviewed some popular paid survey sites in a
previous issue, but I regularly get questions about them. Here's
my general feedback.
I signed up with several of the most
popular AND highly rated paid survey sites. I paid for some of
the memberships and was proud to register with some that were
free!
I worked them hard for nearly a year
and had very little to show for it. In fact, unless you enjoy
filling out surveys as a hobby and any rewards you earn are just
a bonus ... my opinion is that, for the most part, paid surveys
are a waste of time. Sorry!
First of all, most of these survey
companies don't pay cash. Instead, they enter participants in
drawings and contests. Needless to say, the majority of
survey-takers get absolutely nothing in return. Some survey
companies offer points of some type that, once accumulated, can
be used to "purchase" products in their catalog or
some such thing. They make it sound great - but by the time you
accumulate enough points to buy something ... you realize it
took you six months to earn that cheap portable radio!
Very few actually cut you a check.
There are people, though not many, who can happily boast that they earn $1,000 or more annually
... and that is probably true. But the incredible amount of time
you spend trying to make a buck isn't worth the nominal result!
It takes quite a bit of time to read
and respond to all of the email messages you are inundated with
on a daily basis, especially if you sign up with lots of
companies, which is what you are told to do for your best bet at
making a little something. Not only do you feel compelled to read
all of these messages so that you don't "miss" a great opportunity,
but you are convinced that you better read them to ensure you remain
in their "active" or "top member" email list.
Even worse, these
messages are often riddled with advertisements and marketing offers.
That's where I believe these "survey" companies make a lot of their money.
And it gets worse yet! Quite
frequently you are asked to "pre-qualify" yourself for a survey
... by completing a preliminary survey for absolutely no
compensation ... except the possibility you could be advanced to
the "paid" survey. The preliminary survey may only take you one
- two minutes to complete. No harm done, right? Wrong!
The time you spend managing all of
your survey accounts; reading, responding to, and managing all
those emails; and actually completing surveys paid or otherwise
really adds up. For me, it was no less then two hours a day ...
sometimes five or even six hours if I really felt like going for
the gold.
Let's do the math using the least
amount of your time and the average maximum earnings to give us
the benefit of the doubt.
Two hours a day x 5 days a week x 52
weeks a year = 520 hours a year in the paid survey business
Though highly unlikely, if you earn
$1,000 that year, that works out to $1.92 per hour ...
oh, minus taxes, expenses, etc.
The paid survey industry has
exploded and become so highly competitive that there are
literally thousands and thousands of people participating. Your
chances of "winning" a contest or prize, being "chosen" for a
higher paying survey, and other such ridiculous notions
continues to decrease as more and more people sign up.
Can you tell I'm not a fan?!
I know that each and every one of
you have unique talents and skills that can earn you far more
than $1.92 per hour from home. It's just a matter of finding the
right opportunities and taking the initiative. Don't sell
yourself short and never give up!
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A New
Survey! "Work at Home Hurdles"
I'm sorry to say you won't be paid
for this survey! However, it's only ten questions and, as an
anonymous participant, your answers may be published in the next
issue of Keystrokes. General results will also be
published.
As always, I may address some of
your responses specifically through an article, a work at home
opportunity review, or other means.
Through these surveys we've learned
that we can teach each other, motivate each other, and gain some
great insight by sharing our hearts and minds.
Click Here to take survey
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Tell a
Friend
Please feel free to forward this
newsletter to a friend either by providing this issue's link
http://www.dataentryhomebusiness.com/keystrokes-january08.html
or by forwarding the email message you received.
Subscribe to
Keystrokes here
Until next time, God's blessings and
my good wishes to you and your family. Feel free to contact me
at
michelle@dataentryhomebusiness.com. Your feedback, good or
not, is always appreciated and your questions are welcome.
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Disclaimer
My attorney says I need to let you
know ...
All products, services, and
information provided by Michelle Johanson and Projects Plus LLC
are for educational and informational purposes only. Users of
Michelle's resources should do their own due diligence before
making any personal, business or financial decisions. Michelle
Johanson and Projects Plus LLC are not responsible for any
user's failure or success, make no representation of warranties,
and shall in no event be held liable for any loss or other
damages. Blah blah blah!
Make it a great day!
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