There are lots of people I follow online for various topics and reasons, but only a few I truly trust and rely on for consistent quality information and resources. Darren Rowse from Problogger.net is one of those people. I met Darren last year and spent a few minutes talking with him. He’s down to earth, really knows his stuff, and is an all around good guy. The quality of his content is the reason I bought his latest e-book ProBlogger’s Guide to your First Week of Blogging.

I bought it primarily to have new bloggers I work with read to get their feet under them, however, I’m finding it useful for even my own projects. The plan is clear, actionable and encourages forward progress one step at a time. This is due to the fact that it’s based on Darren’s own experiences of what works, what doesn’t and where newbie bloggers (or even seasoned veterans!) tend to get hung up.

Here are the major elements covered:

• Learn foundational brainstorming techniques.
• Create a content plan—and content, of course!
• Build a social media presence.
• Create practical quality assurance tools.
• Set up a publishing process.
• Master the components of a blog post.
• Develop your blog’s ongoing strategy.

This system sets you up for literally a lifetime of success blogging.

If you’ve ever considered starting a blog, this book is for you. What’s more, if you’re like me and have a list of blogs you’d like to start, this book is for you. You’ll find it a quick read with solid tips.

For those who order today, Darren is offering a 50% discount making the e-book just $9.99. After that, it will be $19.98, which is still a bargain. Check it out here: ProBlogger’s Guide to your First Week of Blogging.

Disclaimer: It should be assumed that any links in this post are affiliate links and that your purchase will result in us receiving a commission on the sale.

Branding is product or corporate identity. It can be so effective that the name or image of a brand literally goes into the language. Good branding is the marketing equivalent of search engine optimization, making a product or business highly visible. If you think a little about the brands you know best, you’ll also recognize how effective branding is as a memory trigger.

The instant information you have about brands is a “recognition” mechanism, and it’s extremely important to businesses. The “recognition effect” is the core value of branding, and it’s as valuable as real money in terms of market reach.

Typical “instant recognition” brand images include:

• Coca Cola- The world’s most famous brand, instantly recognized all over the world.
• McDonalds- The Golden Arches of the big M are now universal.
• Kangaroos- The image of Australia
• The Apple logo
• Google
• Kellogg

As you can see, these brands are so recognizable that they also attract instant attention. This is actually just part of the branding process.
The results of effective branding are:

• Knowing the brand means that consumers are more likely to pay attention to it when a new product or service is released.
• Brands usually attract repeat business.
• Brands give distributors, retailers, and service providers customers. If the local shop advertises Coca Cola, it’s a selling point for the business.

Brand mechanisms

Brands are designed to be conspicuous. The mechanics of brand design are very straightforward, but they often produce some great design concepts. The consumer brands typically use contrast, shape and colours to be as visible as possible.

Brand designs are supposed to be as unique and individual as possible. If you have a look a the major brands in particular, you’ll notice that the brand images and logos are quite unmistakable, and couldn’t possibly be confused with any other brand.

The brand designs are market researched to get consumer responses. In most cases several alternate designs are compared and the preferred designs are chosen for the public image icon. This is very much part of brand creation, and is often the basis for total redesign of brand imagery and in some cases even the products themselves.

Branding is market identity

The brand, when it comes on the market, is the impact point of the product image. It’s important to recognize that market perception of the brand governs its performance. Brands are supported by promotions, but the brand identity is the functional image of the product, service or company. Many consumer brands, in fact, are entirely dependent on branding to differentiate themselves from their competitors. They’re often very similar products, and the only functional difference to the market is the branding.

So, branding really is everything to any product. It creates an identity, a name, and an image. This really is “SEO for consumers”, and brand names are among the most searched names online. The ad images are also the recognition points in online advertising.

The keys to a good brand are:

• Individuality
• Strong visual presence
• Recognition factors
• Design values and attractiveness

Brands are literally the imagery of modern society, in phones, computers and most forms of technology. There really is no “Brand X”, for those reasons.

Guest post by James Fielding, a branding and brand management expert.

A few weeks ago I posted about some offline advertising methods for affiliate, bloggers and website owners to consider (3 Unusual Places For Affiliate, Blog or Website Advertising). The idea was to maybe get some creative juices flowing and help us think outside the norm.

Shortly after that post, I received an email from Mark over at Adzookie.com. They’re a mobile advertising company, quite different from traditional advertising methods such business cards, custom pencils, and imprinted stress balls, that has branched out into a new form of advertising. They’re turning houses into billboards. It’s the same concept as car wrapping or bus wrapping, only done on a house. Here’s a picture:

The advertising option is available to home owners (not rental or lease situations). The entire outside of the house is painted. Just the roof, windows and awnings are left untouched. The painting process takes between 3 and 5 days.

Here’s the cool part. Adzookie.com will make the mortgage payment every month for as long as the house is painted. They estimate this to be as long as a year.

Mark mentioned that 223 home owners have contacted them so far, along with 12 businesses, 7 restaurants and 1 church.

Pretty crazy if you ask me. My wife and I were talking today about it and decided our neighbors would all hate us if we did something like this. …BUT… There’s not arguing that it’s a way to advertise that people are not currently doing. It’s sure to get media attention if it starts to take off.

One killer benefit is that to the homeowner. Imagine being able to stay in your house while you’re looking for a new job and don’t have money to make your mortgage payment. All just by turning your house into a billboard. I’m sure there are thousands out there that would take advantage of that opportunity.

What do you think about the idea? Would love to hear your comments.

Seems like every day I come across great posts and information that can help anyone wanting to make a living online get started, or take things to the next level. Quite frankly, that’s one of the reasons I probably only live up to 50% of my potential. I love new ideas, new ways of thinking about things, AND new ways to make money online! It is very easy to get mired in information collecting instead of actually DOING something. A battle I’m constantly fighting, but working to improve.

I thought rather than just continue to collect these ideas, I’d start sharing the ones that I think are worth trying, plus share my thoughts on them.

Today is a couple of guest posts from Shoemoney.com. So far it’s just two parts, but I’m guessing there will be more. The title is How To Make Your First $1000 As An Affiliate and walks you through a method for getting free traffic. The basic approach is writing articles (4 to 5 a day) around high converting keywords. You add your affiliate links in the articles along with a good call to action.

Here are links to the posts:

How To Make Your First $1000 As An Affiliate…

How To Make Your First $1000 As An Affiliate (Part 2)

I like his approach so far because it focuses on something you can start today, even if you don’t know what the heck you’re doing, it’s free, plus you can leverage an existing site or blog if you want. You don’t have to rush out and set up a new domain, hosting account, etc. Heck, you could even use a free platform like WordPress.com if you wanted to keep it ultra simple/easy.

The other thing I think is important is this is an elbow grease method. You have to commit to it, dig in and do some serious work to see the benefits. Too many of the gurus and course offerings that fill our inboxes on a daily basis are focused around push button riches and overnight success schemes. Unfortunately that’s all they are…schemes. This builds a structure and content that will actually help you rank well and provide passive income for years to come.

Check out the posts today and get started. Let me know how it goes for you.

Has it been a great year or what so far?! I’m really pumped about 2011. Some good things happening. Here is how much Blueverse.com contributed to the goal of make money blogging for March 2011:

Banners
Adsense
Reviews
Other

Total: $187.48

Top Commenters

1. Trailers and Reviews
2. Dave
3. watch tv online
4. Web Design Surrey
5. Channel Letters
6. Funny Stuff
7. Peter the accountant
8. Web Solutions
9. Alex Lim@bus KL
10. Augmentation Mamaire

Want a permanent link from Blueverse.com? Take a few minutes this month and post some comments. A little interaction is a small price to pay for a valuable link.

Thoughts and what I’m working on

An interesting month on Blueverse.com. Income more than doubled over last month. I set a goal of $150 for the month at the start of March and exceeded that. Here are some goals for April:

• $200 in income
• Add 100 inbound links
• Add 1000 visitors to the site

I’ve got a few things I’m going to use to do that, but mostly it boils down to a little good old fashioned elbow grease. I’ll report in at the start of next month to review how it’s gone.

About a year and a half ago I read a post on Ad Hustler that has stuck in my brain ever since. It’s prompted me to put together this post primarily to challenge you to think outside the box a bit for new ways to advertise your affiliate offer, product/service, blog, website, etc. All three of the places listed below are offline advertising methods.

Now before you dismiss me as an old school advertising coot, consider that an offline advertising method may just prove to be more cost effective than online advertising methods and could provide a solid amount of traffic and resulting conversions.

Here are 3 unusual places to advertise your digital wares or site:

1. Local Mobile Advertisements

Here’s a link to the post on AdHustler.com that got me to thinking about these methods: Offline Billboard To Online Affiliate Offer Case Study. In it, the author details a case study he put together with a Netflix affiliate offer. I’ll let you read the the post for the details, it’s pretty interesting. The quick summary is he spent roughly $0.001 per impression (nearly 1 million impressions total) and nearly broke even on the first month. Had he continued beyond the first month with the same offer, he would have turned a 40% profit on the second month. This is due to the setup costs. And get this, the ads ran on banners attached to the sides and backs of buses. Talk about unusual!

There are other options, depending on your particular locale. For instance, you could explore the new trend of paying consumers to put signs and advertisements on their vehicles. Drivertising is what it’s referred to in our area. Once you get the initial design costs out of the way, the ongoing costs for additional months decrease dramatically.

2. Postcards

There was a day when junk mail was annoying as spam is for most of us today. Anymore, I’d much rather deal with half a dozen pieces of junk mail then I would the massive amount of spam I seem to wade through every single day, even with good spam filtering in place. Along that same line of thought, things like postcards, if done well, still catch my attention and can lead to a conversion. Although many will poo poo this as too expensive or ineffective, taking the digital world to this traditional form of advertising can be very effective. A prime example is that of stock promotion. There’s a reason stock promoters exist and are paid so handsomely. Some of the best promoters still use good old fashioned mailers as a solid way to drum up business.

Getting into the direct mail affiliate marketing game is easy. You find an offer, get a quality postcard printed, buy a list of addresses, and bulk mail em. There are hundreds of places to get address lists from, and just as many vendors to use for quality card printing. You can even split test with different wording, designs, etc. by using more than one offer code or web site. Another avenue to pursue is Pay Per Call marketing. A call to action that includes a phone number can lead to solid conversions and profit.

3. Billboards & Stationary Signs

This relates to Local Mobile Advertisements, but again, can be a great way to advertise a digital web property or affiliate offer. I’ve seen a lot of billboards for companies that include a web address, but very few that are specifically advertising a web site. Again, this can be a great way to drive traffic through cheap impressions. Billboard inventory is plentiful and some great deals can be struck if you do your homework and are persistent when negotiating.

Other options are stationary signs on benches, bus stop shelters and the like. Again, impressions can be huge and the cost very cheap.

If nothing else, I hope the above gets the creative juices flowing a bit. Instead of just following the pack, think about stepping outside your comfort zone a bit and trying something completely different. There are plenty of affiliate offers, for example, that could perform well with the right creative pushing them. Things such as insurance, Netflix, and job offers would grab people’s attention. Put together a solid design, a memorable URL and a good phone number and you’re set.

If you have other Offline Advertising ideas, please share them in the comments.

I was in Borders a couple of days ago, looking for a car magazine they carry from the UK. I was pretty focused on the car section which is extensive in Borders, when my wife called my attention to a section of magazines behind me. They all dealt with marijuana…pot…weed…rollin doobies. Why she thought I needed to know about magazines covering the pot industry, I have no idea, but it got me to thinking, as a lot of things tend to do, about the Internet and web sites.

I’ve been working on a laundry list of new projects and methods for making money online through various sources. I want to diversify my income and not be dependent on just one or two key things. As part of the process, niche selection always surfaces. I tend to gravitate towards a few niches I know well and understand, but again, trying to branch out here, so I’ve been looking at adding new ones to my stable of sites and projects.

One of the problems for newbies, as well as seasoned veterans, is figuring out what niche to focus on. It can be difficult to figure out what has a shot at being successful and what to avoid. How focused to get and what may be too broad.

How in the world did weed get me to thinking about this? Good question.

If the pot industry has room for a host of different magazines, and weed seems like a pretty focused topic compared to something like making money online, perhaps there’s plenty of room for another site, service or product that has to do with your favorite niche. Even if it’s a popular one.

Sometimes I think the gurus try and scare us away from some of the super popular niches. While the intentions may be good, I’m not sure they’re always right. One of the drums they beat over and over is “avoid the make money online niche.” Sounds like solid advice…right? But what if that’s what you really enjoy? What if that’s what is going to get you up every morning excited to try new things and work hard? Does it really matter that there are already established players in that niche? Isn’t there room for someone to come along with their own voice, their own experiences, and personal take on how to go about it?

I liken it to the eye opening pot dispensaries they featured in the movie Super High Me (not a great film, but interesting nonetheless). There isn’t just one type of weed. There are hundreds, if not thousands. Different strengths, smells, cross breeds, etc. with creative names like Dubious Doobie, Mama Cita, and Hackers Hash. Now I grew up as a pretty sheltered kid, so this was all eye opening to me.

In the same way, some competition in even the most competitive of niches is good/healthy/right/etc. It does require you to focus on doing things better than your competition, but that should be the case no matter what.

If you’re looking for some niche selection help or ideas, I read a couple of great posts over on ZacJohnson.com that are worth starting with. They’re not the usual “choose something you’re good at” dribble (which actually is REALLY important by the way), but instead take things a step further by helping you evaluate competition, traffic potential, etc. Check em out here:

So You Want To Build A Niche Web Site

How To Find Hidden Niche Markets

As a side note, Zac is one of the few guys in the affiliate marketing/make money online niche that consistently produces good content. Definitely worth reading on a regular basis if you don’t already.