Working Online Means You Need A Way To Accept Credit Card Payments

Today Debbie Dragon will be sharing with us some of her expertise on accepting payments from your clients.

I've been watching Peter's blog with interest. As an online freelance writer for more than five years, it's always great to follow the journey of new people entering the world of online businesses and blogging for money.

Whenever you enter the industry of working online, though, it's important that you understand at some point – you'll need a way to accept credit card payments from your clients. Most people rely on paypal these days as their primary way to accept payment; but there may be instances when the client refuses to use paypal for one reason or another, and it's a good idea to have a back-up plan for accepting payments. If your business explodes, and you start receiving payments regularly from clients, you may also consider other ways to accept credit card payments to reduce the fees you pay.

In the past, it was really difficult for a small business to accept credit card payments. Not only was it expensive to get set up, but the fees per transaction were quite outrageous and the typical small business owner couldn't see the benefits of it when compared to the cost of it all. Now, thanks to e-commerce and the internet, small business owners and independent contractors can easily and affordably accept credit cards from their clients.

Third Party Providers for Credit Card Processing

Paypal is your typical third party provider. These providers handle the processing of the credit card and deposit the funds into an account that you can access online. Once the money (minus the provider's fees) are deposited, you can transfer it to your normal bank account (or in some cases, withdraw it from an ATM or shop with a debit card).

Merchant Accounts Through Banks

For people who have been in business for awhile, you might consider an actual merchant account through a bank. There are both positives and negatives associated with processing credit cards with a merchant account. Advantages include the security and dependability that coems from working through a bank, and the fees are quite low if you have good credit. If you are looking to accept credit cards from clients online, or have less than great credit, you may find it difficult to get approved for a standard merchant account, however.

Getting Your Money From Credit Card Payments

No matter which way you decide to process credit card payments from your clients, you can pretty much get the payments transferred from the processor to your own bank account within a few days. The processor takes their fees from the credit card payment before passing along the balance, so you'll want to consider that when setting your rates and just charge a few dollars more to help offset the fees.

Debbie Dragon is a writer for CreditorWeb.com, where she writes about credit cards, rewards programs, credit card processing and general personal finance.

Have You Considered Forum Marketing?

When you do internet marketing, the first thing you will think is...TRAFFIC! How do I generate traffic? You know that without traffic there won't be any sales.

When there are no sales, the only thing you'll earn is a gigantic goose egg. As an Internet Marketer, you will be looking at every single method to generate traffic. There are tons of methods – pay per click, ezine ads, solo ads, joint ventures and many more. Well, in this post, as the title suggests, I am going to talk about Forum Marketing. Have you ever considered it?

I do not know why some Internet Marketers overlook the forums to get new leads. Do you know that there is a forum for almost every niche? You just visit Google.com and key in "[niche keyword] forum" in the search box. For example, if your niche is about dogs, then key in "dog forum". You will see a list of forums related to dogs.

For example, you have a product talking about dog training. You can join some forums that are related to dog training. Write a post that offers your product as a solution to their dog training problems. Then, leave a backlink to your site. This will be your forum signature. Your forum signature is the thing that will generate targeted traffic to your website. Hence, make sure you create a powerful signature.

Obviously, I am not talking about success overnight. Forum marketing takes time. First, you need to build good relationships with other forum members. Make sure they feel that they can trust you. You must follow the forum rules and avoid spamming.

Before you join a forum, it is advisable to read the forum rules. Once you are familiar with the rules, make sure you follow them. Don't straightway sell your product. Make friends with other forum members. If you know a certain thing, share with them. Then, they will begin to respect you.

Forums is all about sharing ideas and helping one another. That's why, people like those who help them. The first reason people visit forums is to ask for help. Hence, help others when they are in need of answers to their problems. However, don't give the wrong information. That's why it is advisable that you are knowledgeable of the topic.

If you are an Internet Marketer like me, then visit these forums...

- Warriorforum
- DigitalPoint Forums

By joining these 2 forums, you will make more friends and you can increase your knowledge about Internet Marketing. Furthermore, you can sell your products, domains, links and many more at Warriorforum and DigitalPoint Forums.

Therefore, join a forum related to your niche and enjoy the benefits. I am sure that as time goes by, you will see an increase in your website/blog traffic. Before I finish this post, remember one thing - PATIENCE! You need patience to see success. Good Luck in forum marketing!

Keys to Snatching Some Wikipedia Traffic

Here’s a neat little trick to start getting free traffic and also increase your inbound links and Google Page Ranking. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Make a list of all your top terms or keywords that are related to your website or blog. For example my Keywords for this site could be - Link Building, Search Engine Optimization, Online Marketing, Viral Marketing etc.

Looks like the Death Star, no?

2. Create a small section of articles on your website, or simply write articles that are related to the keywords above and make a note of their URLs. Write about 3 articles for each of these keywords. You may end up having a structure that looks something like this:

Link Building
| Article 1
| Article 2
| Article 3

Search Engine Optimization
| Article 1
| Article 2
| Article 3

Online Marketing
| Article 1
| Article 2

Viral Marketing
| Article 1
| Article 2

Important - Make sure that each article you write has good and valuable relevant content, and has links that point back to other stuff on your site. This type of internal linking will help in keeping people within your website.
3. Go to Wikipedia.org and search for these keywords. You may find many similar keywords and many keywords will have a high Google Page Rank (if you dont know what Page Rank is - look it up for now in Wikipedia itself). Briefly, Page Rank is Google’s way of ranking the popularity of websites. Read this to learn more how Google Page Rank works. Download and install the Alexa Toolbar - which will sit nicely on top of your browser area and will display the Page Rank of the page you currently are browsing. So, going back to finding your keywords on Wikipedia, many of them may have a high Page Rank. The higher the better. Why? Because, you will now post a link on this Wikipedia page to your article. And, since a Wikipedia page with a high page rank points to you, your Page Rank and popularity on Google will increase! So, the final step is...

4. On Wikipedia, click on the Edit This Page tab. Go to the portion that says:
==External links==
and add your link using the following code:
* [http://www.example.com Anchor Tag] A collection of free articles.
There’s nothing underhanded or wrong in doing this. Just make sure the articles you write are good and relevant. Do not spam Wikipedia with misdirected info and links leading to wrong and tasteless spammy articles - as its a self policing system and users will simply take down your spammy links - potentially banning your domain from Wikipedia. So, its in the best interest of everyone that you write good relevant articles and insert valuable and relevant links in the proper keyword/terms pages.

How I Accidentaly Got 70,000 Unique Visitors

How did I get 70,000 unique visitors since July, 2007? Well, a big help was Google Images. I'll give you a few tips, and I'll also give you a personal story at the end.

I just didn't know what to do with all the sheep!

1. Insert keywords into your Alt Text.

This is the most important part of image optimization and you should include a keyword or phrase that is relevant to the image and your webpage. The alt text should be inserted in the code for your image file.

Here’s an example: Alt description goes here">

2. Name your Images with Descriptive Titles.

If you have an image of Lindsay Lohan, you could use the term ‘lindsay-lohan.jpg’ to name your image, instead of simply going with the original file name which could be something like ‘b473.jpg’. I usually name my images exactly the same way as my alt text.

3. Use relevant text around your images.

It is recommended that descriptive text with your targeted keywords be placed immediately before or after the image itself. If you do a search for any term on Google Image, you’ll find that a short description of 20+ characters beneath every image. You’ll probably notice that the keyword is listed in bold as well.

4. Add images from current Google images searches which are relevant to your blog’s topic.

People who may be looking for an image often don’t just want to see it, they’re using it for something. That makes the chance that they will be interested in your website if it is relevant to that image. Use this to your advantage, but don’t overdo it.

For the first three months or so of my blog's existence I was really milking Google Images for traffic. Soon after starting my blog I put up an image of a stack of money with the keywords 'money' nearby it. Surely enough I started receiving 1000 visits a day while making a few coins a day on a regular basis (There, the cats out of the bag. No more emails asking how I got such an exorbitant amount of traffic). This is what inspired me to keep blogging, because in the start I was really just looking to make money. I learned a lot about how to get people to click on my ads, but I also rested on my laurels a little bit. All I can say is that, in order to make a living in blogging you need to prove that you belong, and you need to have an inherent love for it.



Here are a few things I learned about getting higher Clickthrough Rates (CTRs) with Google Adsense through Google Images:



1. People looking for the image don't really care about what you have to say, so most of them will not read anything. If you want them to stay, it will have to because of something they saw. Expect low earnings from Google Images traffic.



2. Spread out your Adsense blocks and try to keep them above the image that's getting a lot of traffic. If theyre looking for an image which isn't immediately visible, they'll be swinging their mouse up and down to quickly get to the top and the bottom of the page. If you can space on the ad blocks, they're more likely to stop on one.



3. Try to get images with relevant keywords. This is the exact same as when you're trying to get traffic from Google search.



Plus, two ideas which are in a moral grey area but will probably get you more traffic:



1. Hide the image. If the visitor can't find the image, they'll be on your page longer.



2. Spell some of the keywords incorrectly, in your tags as well as your posts. You don't want to sound like an idiot, but not all typos are noticeable. Depends how much you need that traffic.

Adam Ginsberg on the Top Ways of Driving Traffic To Your Website

Adam Ginsberg gives you a list on the top ways to drive traffic to your website, as well as his personal favourites.

I'll have to admit that I do not rely on internet marketing for my income, but the trend seems to be that the more reliant you are on it, the more unethical your tactics are. Mr. Ginsberg promotes email marketing, but as long as I live I will never try that. I hate spam just as much as anyone else.

Anyways, here it is. Let me know what you think of his tactics. If you are more interested in learning how to make money on eBay, his main focus, go to adamginsberg.com.

16 Website Types to Make You Money

Thanks to Dosh Dosh for this article.

1. Affiliate Review Website. Create a website that reviews affiliate products like make money online programs, web hosting services etc. Run it on Wordpress and update it everyday with affiliate feeds or articles. How much you’ll make depends on how thick (amount of content) the website is.

2. Product Fan Blog. Create a Wordpress blog around a popular product and update everyday with news about the product. The iPhone is a good example of a hot product to choose. Traffic will be quite decent over time if the products have longevity.

3. Auction websites. Create a website that is similar to eBay to allow users to sell and buy products from each other. You will generate income by monetizing through ads and drawing a commission through each sale. You might get some steady revenue if you sell high ticket products or go niche enough to get a loyal user base.

4. Dating Websites. Dating websites are communities which allow users to register, chat with and meet other interested users. They can be easily setup with turnkey scripts although you’ll really need a customized template and some coding work done to make it competitive or attractive enough to get some users. Markus Frind is currently the biggest individual Adsense publisher and makes well over $10K a day from his free dating site, Plenty of Fish.

5. Made for Adsense Websites. These are websites with a keyword domain and they come with a bunch of pre written articles around a specific topic. Examples of common topics include acne, cancer, health and finance. These are generally boring, low maintenance sites that are plastered with contextual ads. Incredibly easy to create using the Wordpress platform.

6. Affiliate Product Website. This is a salespage which sells an electronic product like an eBook. Create the product, buy an existing one or just get someone to do it. The main way to make money is to drive or buy traffic to your salespage and make money when they buy your eBook or opt into your email list. This is an easy way to generate some real income, especially if you are have a great niche product or am skilled in promoting your personal brand and salespage.

7. Online Games/Arcade Sites. Get someone to develop an online game that is for members only and earn money by selling points, which allow users to unlock extra options within the game. Arcade sites are simply sites with a collection of flash or online games. They are monetized through display ads. Games can spread quickly if they are very well designed and appealing.

8. Forums or Social Network. Pick a topic that is able to attract a decent amount of users and create a forum or social network. Income will not come quickly and a lot of work is needed to build the community. Create a blog on the same domain and use for promotional purposes. There is a potential to earn a good amount of money when the forum gets big or popular.

9. Specialized Search Engines. Build a search tool that allows visitors find media of specific types. Include your adsense ads within the search pages. This sort of tools usually don’t do very well unless you provide additional value on top of search. Examples of things to add include ajax search, folksonomy and recommendation engines.

10. Paid Membership Site. These are membership sites which provide ongoing educational lessons on a specific topic or offer a large archive of resources, along with a forum. An example of this is the Teaching Sells website. Members will pay a fixed fee every month to maintain their membership.

11. Design/Coding Service Site. Create a website that offers customized logo or website design, alongside coding for PSD to XHTML, Wordpress and Joomla. Hire freelance coders and designers and manage them. Pay them a portion of each sale and promote your website through blogs and webmaster forums.

12. File Hosting Website. Set up a file host which allows users to upload and share their files online with other users. There’s a tremendous amount of competition in this niche so its very difficult to make some real money unless you innovate on features or market it well.

13. Web Directories. A web directory provides listings for websites and makes money from both display advertising and sale of premium listings. Most of the work needs to be focused on marketing and branding the site. Niche directories with a good reputation might find it easier to make money.

14. Online Web tool. This includes URL shorteners, spell checkers, picture editors, file converters and various webmaster tools (keyword volume, link popularity). Visitors will often return to your site to use these tools if they are comprehensive enough or if your site is well designed and genuinely useful.
15. Proxies. Proxies are websites which allow a websurfer to not only surf anonymously but bypass certain filters which prevent one from viewing a site. They are popular with the Myspace crowd and will often require a dedicated server. There are many proxies on the market but they may be worth exploring. Income is largely passive.

16. Commercial Template Sites. Basically this involves the creation of ready made website templates for sale. They can be bundled up into sales packages and traffic can be obtained through PPC advertising. If you’re not interested in producing original templates, you can run the site using affiliate feeds from the other more established template websites like Template Monster.

Make Money Blogging Part I

There are several ways to make money by blogging. Luckily, many do not find writing a blog a chore. If you can make money doing what you like, the better hope you have at maintaining it, building up your readers and increasing your revenue. There are a number of approaches to making money with your blog.

If you plan on spending a lot of time on your blog, the rewards will be greater. Therefore, you need to pick a topic you know a lot about or have an interest in. If you have a number of topics which fit this description, then pick the one which you think is the most popular to others. In this type of blog, you will be providing useful information and your personal takes on your subject. High maintenance, but high reward.

Many also choose to blog on topics which give them pay automatically. Advertisers will fork out money to get you to promote their products or services in a blog post. The more traffic your blog gets, the more the advertiser will be willing to pay you. This technique can provide you with a substantial income, but the reality is that it will be tough to simply run a blog with sponsored posts. You must already have an established blog intact in order to make a success out of your sponsored posts campaign. Sponsored posts will also likely bring down the credibility of your website if it was once a personal blog. You need to limit the number of sponsored posts you make. I’ll leave that judgment up to you. Ultimately you should not try to make a living solely on sponsored posts, but they’re a good way to make a quick buck.

Another way to generate revenue from a blog is much easier but less rewarding. With multiple blogs you can generate income with little work and no maintenance. If you create a blog with 25 keyword-filled posts on a topic, and do that for a large number of blogs, each will earn you a few bucks a month. Once they’re set up, they won’t need much maintenance. To boost your success with these, you should write about something that doesn’t need updating regularly. In other words, don’t talk about things like celebrity gossip or sports results. Here is a list of websites that will pay you for reviewing products:

PayPerPost
Blogsvertise
Review Me
Smorty
SponsoredReviews
LoudLaunch
Blogitive
BloggerWave

Which ever route you take, make sure you’re writing about stuff that you actually understand yourself. If it becomes evident that you’re just blogging for a profit, it will not bode well for creating a loyal fan base. The world of blogging has lucrative potential, and it’s up to you to fulfill it.

Stay tuned for Make Money Blogging Part II.

Increase the Number of Posts Read by a Given Visitor

Once you have got a reader visiting your site, the next step is to get them not only read one post but also multiple posts.

Here are 4 simple strategies in which you can increase the number of posts read:

1) Put 3-5 related posts linked at the bottom of each post. This way, if a reader likes a particular post, he or she is likely to reader another post about the same topic.

2) Have a listed of 'Featured Articles' or 'Most Popular Articles' in the sidebar or somewhere the reader can easily see.

3) Embed links to other posts about a similar topic. Below is an example post:

After that shocking status graph comparison yesterday, Alexa is back to normal again. The glitch lasted only for about one day. If you haven't read my post about the Alexa Shock please click HERE.

4) Have a list of previous posts listed in the sidebar of your blog. This will allow readers to read your previous articles.

Thanks to http://mmomethods.blogspot.com for this article submission.

Submit your own article and have it posted on my front page for free

Are you a money blogger? Do you want some free traffic to your blog? Do you want a link back to your site from a Page Rank 4 website? Well, I have the opportunity for you.

If you've got an article related to making money online I would be more than glad to post it here for you. It will be in my archive and thousands upon thousands of people will get to read it.

A few things you need to keep in mind before you submit:
1. I reserve the right to decline or remove the article at any point.
2. I will not post it if it is riddled with spelling errors or poor grammar. I don't mind fixing the odd typo, but please proofread.
3. One image maximum, 300 word minimum.

If you're ready to submit, contact me with the text and clearly identify what you want the title to read. Submit as many articles as you wish, but don't expect them to all be selected.

morrow0000* *= at g mail dot com
The reason my email is chopped in half is to stop spammers finding it in a search.

Website Promotion: Article Marketing

Article Marketing is one of the more rewarding free internet promotion schemes out there. Article directories are hungry for content which can be redistributed. Thousands of webmasters then take this content and place it on their website. This article can contain a link to the writer’s website, and hence you receive a free one way link.

Not everyone has the time to market through article writing, but the results seem to be visible, and secure. There is always the possibility that the person taking the article will remove your name and claim it as their own, but the hope is that a number leave your link on it. This is a good way to boost your PageRank, as your URL will virally spread around the internet.
You don’t simply want to be writing articles for the sake of increasing your PageRank. You want to give the reader a reason to read more of your material. The article should be short, simple, and informative. It must make them need more information.

In order for your article to be a success, it has to be relevant to your area. Most people don’t want to be reading piles of material, so keep it brief, and make it original. Give your own spin on the topic to show that you aren’t regurgitating information that would make them want to close your window and search it on Google. That’s good that you’ve interested them in your topic, but what use is it if they’re off on Google where your site likely isn’t at the top of the list anyways.

When you write your article – make sure the title explains exactly what you’re talking about. No cliffhangers – unless you think it’s relevant. The more keywords are in your title, the better the article will do.

There are two ways you can get your Articles, and thus your website, out there:

1. Article Directories: Sign up. Here’s a list:
www.ezinearticles.com
www.articledashboard.com
www.articlegold.com

2. Newsletters: I won’t tell you where to go for this. You’ll need to look for websites in your topic which provide newsletters, and offer to give them content. The degree of success that you will get from this will vary, but it’s worth a try. Submit a few of your ‘best’ articles to several websites and see how you do.

Once you’ve got your articles nicely polished and ready for exposure, start posting on article directories all over the internet. You’ll be earning that traffic instantly.

Money Bloggers: I'm looking for link partners

Hey money bloggers, I'm extending an offer to you to get your website on my blogroll in return for mine on yours. If you're interested leave a comment with your URL and the title of your website. I'll post your link up as soon as I see the reciporical on your website. I will delete your link if your site doesn't get updated at least once every 60 days. Your site must be primarily in English, and primarily about money and finance.

Here are a few stats about P Morrow's Online Money.

Online Since: July 12, 2007
PageRank: 4
Alexa Rank: 500,000
Technorati Authority: 80+
A link to this site would be displayed as: P Morrow's Online Money with a link to http://www.pjmorrow.com/

Making your website visible via PageRank

I have discontinued this program out of speculation that it will hurt my PageRank. For all who exchanged links with me in this program, I apologize. I recommend that you too remove the list.

Here are a few articles on how to boost your traffic:

Adam Ginsberg on the Top Ways of Driving Traffic To Your Website

Increase the Number of Posts Read by a Given Visitor

Website Promotion: Article Marketing

Ad to Content Ratio For Your Blog (and traffic tips)