Content Creation

Want to make a website? Create a viral e-book? Build a newsletter mailing list? Engage in a little article marketing? Do you want to blog for a living? Then you're gonna need some content! This section is all about the written word: How to write content, how to get it written for you, and how to write headlines that drive your sales through the roof!

Content marketing gets more and more important with every Google update. You need to have original, quality content on your website to get into the good graces of Google and your target market alike.

In fact, most fast-fix methods of getting traffic to your website now will negatively affect your rankings, so you've got to pay attention to this section to build genuine authority and organic traffic for your website.

There are plenty of tips on easy ways for you to create your own content, but if that's something you aren't confident doing, that's fine too! There are also lessons on how to get content made for you.

Either way, you need to make sure you get some, and it's gotta be good, because your content is the language between you and your target market. Take a look through these lessons to find out how you can get effective content that could increase your conversions.

Market Research for Affiliate Marketers

The key to becoming a successful affiliate is conducting a bit of research before you sink time (and maybe money) into a campaign. Think what it would be like if you built a resort full of all of the trimmings: crisp white towels, Egyptian cotton sheets, 10 pools, a 5-star restaurant, and flawlessly beautiful architecture... But it's on the moon and there are no people, so you can't profit from your efforts. 

If you spend all your time building a website or a campaign where there is no market, you will come up short, and it's just not worth it. You need to figure out which topics, or "niches," are in hot demand, and then find an affiliate network with a good variety of products to promote. This will enable you to build a niche-specific website, with strong products that will be easy to promote for commissions.

One of the most important things to practice as an affiliate marketer is what's known as "keyword research." Keywords, or the terms or phrases people type into Google, can be the best way of finding out what exactly what people are looking for. If you can find some popular phrases, and convince search engines like Google that your website has relevant information about them, you'll get the rankings you need to get people to your affiliate links.

The lessons in this section will help you to find a profitable niche market, as well as good affiliate networks and products. You'll also learn a thing or two about that ever-important keyword research.

Introduction to Affiliate Marketing

New to affiliate marketing? Not sure what it's all about? Basically, it comes down to promoting products online to get a commission whenever a sale is made through your recommendation. 

You'll make a website, which isn't as hard as you might think, and then you'll place affiliate links to the products you are promoting throughout that website. Then, when someone clicks on your link and buys the product within a certain time frame, you get a commission! There's a variety of affiliate networks that you can join to find products to promote, and if you pick a topic (or "niche") that is interesting to you — first making sure with a little market research that it's also profitable  — it can be quite a lot of fun to build your affiliate website.

There's a huge range of different methods for getting visitors to your website, including signaling to search engines like Google that your website is relevant to your topic, and spreading the word on social media. Because of the variety of strategies available to you, you'll be able to find something that suits your strengths to get the ball rolling for your own affiliate website.

The goal is to be making your own money just with your own efforts and a computer, setting yourself up for some great potential income. These lessons will give you a thorough introduction, show you what affiliate sites look like, and walk you through the basics of these important affiliate marketing concepts. 

The 3 Money Mistakes Newlyweds Make

Marriage is an exciting milestone for couples, but after the cake is consumed, the guests go home and the honeymoon ends, the minutiae of paying bills and saving for the future may seem less than glamorous. Nowadays, many couples cohabitate before marriage, so they may already have joint bank accounts or even a mortgage together. Some couples wait until after the wedding to pool funds, while others choose to keep their money entirely separate.

For those who combine at least some of their finances, there are likely to be a few hiccups, especially when spouses are further along in their careers and may have money habits already ingrained. eHow talked to Susan Zimmerman, a Chartered Financial Consultant and a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist who runs Minn.-based financial planning firm Mindful Asset Planning, about potential pitfalls for newlyweds to avoid.

Treating money as a “one and done” conversation.

If you and your spouse participated in premarital counseling or signed a prenuptial agreement, you probably discussed your assets, liabilities and financial goals. But the conversation shouldn’t end there. “Couples who are anticipating a life together should look at what kinds of messages and lessons did they get growing up and were those lessons useful,” Zimmerman says. “Start by understanding that about each other.” Your financial goals and attitudes may evolve, so keep the lines of communication open and check in with each other so you’ll understand where the other person is coming from.

Hiding purchases from each other.

Zimmerman says gaps in financial knowledge can be overcome, but deceit is much worse. And it’s a lot more common than you might think: a study published on Valentine’s Day 2014 by the National Endowment for Financial Education found that one in three adults admitted to committing “financial infidelity” against a partner. “When you’ve picked up on ways you might be different and instead of talking about it, you then decide to be untruthful with each other,” Zimmerman says. “Bad habits tend to get worse, not better, because new circumstances arise.” For instance, a wife who worries her husband will disapprove of her shoe habit might order online and have the shoes shipped to her office. Or a husband might hide a gambling habit from his wife. Some couples avoid this guilt by setting a dollar amount that the other person can spend guilt-free but agree to consult each other on larger purchases.

Jumping into home ownership without understanding the costs.

A growing number of couples are buying real estate before they tie the knot, and those who haven’t yet may see home-ownership as the next logical step. But just because your parents had the idyllic suburban home with the white picket fence doesn’t mean it’s right for you … right now. “Our culture has a fondness for this American dream of owning your own home, but there are real pains and consequences that come from it,” Zimmerman says. “You no longer have somebody else paying for the maintenance and care of it. We’ve seen many people get into trouble [with real estate purchases].” Just because you pay X amount in rent each month doesn’t mean you can comfortably afford the same size mortgage payment, because you’ll have property taxes, maintenance and other costs that aren’t associated with renting. Consider running the numbers with a fee-only financial advisor before you start shopping for your dream home.

How to Make the Most of a Job That’s Not A Good Fit

Does a wave of dread wash over you when your alarm goes off in the morning? Do you spend Sundays sulking about the week ahead pretty much every week? The feeling of knowing you’re spending 40+ hours a week at a job that’s not quite right for you can permeate your entire life and make you miserable, whatever the reason for the bad fit.

However, sometimes it just doesn’t make sense to make a change right away. Maybe you’re sticking it out to see if things get better, or maybe you’re worried you won’t be able to find another job at all. Maybe this really feels like the best you can find with your current skills and experience. Perhaps you are actively looking, but the job search is taking a while. Or maybe you want to develop some tenure on your resume. In any case, you need a strategy – not just to survive, but to squeeze every last drop of career value from your current situation so that when you look back later, it’ll have felt somewhat worthwhile. But how do you do that without going crazy in the meantime?

Devise your exit strategy now.
Getting a jump on getting out will give you a light at the end of the tunnel to work towards. This is the time to figure out what your next move is. Is the role itself not a good fit? Do you want to have different responsibilities? If you’re not sure what your dream job is or have any idea what kind of work you’ll find most enjoyable, take personality assessments. Research what others with similar backgrounds have done. (See also: 3 Ways to Use LinkedIn to Break Out of Your Career Rut.)

Do you love the type of work you’re currently doing, but the company culture isn’t a good fit or you’re working under someone who isn’t that skilled at managing people? Figure out where you’d really love to work, and use LinkedIn to see who in your network might know someone there, and facilitate an introduction – whether or not there’s an actual job opening.

If you’re not challenged enough at work or your skills are underutilized, consider that a blessing in disguise; use that extra brainpower to dive into your job search.

Reframe your experience.
Part of any good exit strategy is reframing your current experience in a way that benefits you later. If you’re not attempting to change roles or industries dramatically, this should be relatively easy – you already know what accomplishments will make the most sense to highlight, and you might simply say you’re looking for new challenges at a different company. If you’re moving laterally or up to a new role or industry, you’ll need to do a bit more digging and reflection to draw connections between your current role and the one you want. What responsibilities do you have that are similar, or even that simply require the same characteristics and traits? If asked why you want to make a change in interviews, you’ll need to have a very clear answer that conveys your motives effectively, so be very thorough about this. Surface only the most relevant responsibilities and accomplishments for your resume. If it’s not relevant to the job you’re aiming for, don’t include it.

Build relationships with your coworkers.
Don’t worsen a less-than-ideal job situation by burning bridges. Keep your job search private and focus on strengthening the good relationships you do have at work. Go out of your way to be friendly and polite to everyone. You want your coworkers to remember you in a good light. Your current coworkers likely won’t be at that company forever, and there’s no better job reference than from someone you worked with. You never know who will succeed, or who can be a major career connection in the future.

Work on something outside of your job.
Don’t succumb to the energy-suck that comes with not enjoying your work. Having something on the side to focus your abilities on, whether it’s a hobby, side project, or volunteer work, will lift you from your funk. Active work and interests outside of your day job may even help you expand your professional network, or help you build the skills you need to make the leap to a new type of role. Moreover, employers want to see that you’re multi-faceted with broad interests. And anything that gets you excited about working on something will help you understand and uncover what kind of job will really make you happy.

9 Mobile Apps That Can Actually Make You Money

It’s easy to mindlessly spend money on mobile shopping apps or games that allow in-app purchases, but did you know there are also smartphone apps that pay you money instead of helping you spend it? They’re unlikely to net you enough money to quit your day job (I’d be wary of apps that charge money upfront with the promise of a big pay-off later), but here’s a look at several free apps that could help you earn a little extra cash from your phone.

Pact (available for Android and iOS): I used Pact several years ago when it first launched as Gym-Pact — collecting a dollar or so each week when I checked in from my gym. The idea is to keep people accountable for following through on healthy habits (exercising or eating healthfully) by charging them a small, predetermined amount when they fall short of their weekly goal (called a Pact). The people who actually meet their Pact get a portion of the money collected from those who don’t. It won’t make you rich, but if you already go to the gym or need a little motivation to work out or eat better, it’s worth trying. You can also schedule breaks from your Pact if needed.

Checkout 51 (available for Android and iOS): Instead of clipping coupons, new grocery receipt apps like Checkout 51 let you scan your receipts from any grocery store to get cash back on certain items (for instance, certain brands of cereal, ice cream, toiletries or cleaning products). Checkout 51 updates its offers each Thursday, and the offers are in limited supply, so don’t wait until Wednesday night to upload your receipts. So far, I've earned $17.75 and will be able to request a check once my balance reaches $20. Groupon recently released its own app called Snap by Groupon. Another grocery receipt-scanning app, Zweet, is currently only available in Canada but plans to launch in the United States soon.

gapNsnap (available for iOS only): To help retailers stay on top of inventory issues, snap and upload photos of empty shelf tags on your next shopping trip. In exchange for your “snaps,” you can earn prizes and, in some cases, money transferred to your PayPal account.

Fronto (available for Android only): Fronto places sponsored content on your Android’s lock screen and rewards you for swiping. According to the website, advertiser’s rewards range in value from a penny to as much as $2. You can redeem rewards for gift cards or money deposited into your PayPal account.

Field Agent (available for Android and iOS): According to the Field Agent website, users who've downloaded the app and filled out a profile can sign up for micro tasks (for instance, snapping a photo of a product in your local drug store or filling out a survey) that pay between $3 and $12 per task. They can later cash out via PayPal or Dwolla. I’ve downloaded the Field Agent app and filled in my profile, but the app hasn’t located any jobs near me yet. Other smartphone apps that offer payment for similar micro tasks include GigWalk and Mobee.

3 Ways to Use LinkedIn to Break Out of Your Career Rut

If you dismiss LinkedIn as just a social media network for job-seekers, you’re missing out. LinkedIn is also a great tool if you find yourself in a career rut. Here are three major ways LinkedIn can help you get un-stuck:

1. Research

If you’re stuck in a job you hate and aren't sure how to move forward in your career, researching the career paths of others can be incredibly illuminating. Understanding how someone got from point A to point B in his career might open your eyes to different ways you can move up the ladder — or closer to a career that excites you — in your own way.

Before LinkedIn, we didn't really have a way to do this, but now it’s even easier with LinkedIn’s new Field of Study Explorer. Simply select a field of study (if you’re logged in to LinkedIn, it will automatically select the field you studied in college, but you can change this under “Explore More”), and LinkedIn will tell you what others who studied that field are now doing — even where they’re living and working. It also shows you profiles of people who studied that field, starting first with your own connections and then moving on to people you don’t yet know but with whom you have connections in common. Don’t be afraid to click around and read what people have chosen to make publicly available. Reverse-engineering the career paths of others can be helpful if you’re not even sure what the possibilities are, much less how to accomplish them. 

2. Re-brand yourself

Your LinkedIn profile tells a story about you: your history and path, your skills and interests and where you might go next. If the experience section seems like just a list of jobs, your summary is where you tie everything together. It’s your opportunity to connect the dots for your reader while articulating the best of your achievements. Your summary will go through many revisions as you gain new experiences and evolve personally and professionally. Writing about yourself forces you to consider things from someone else’s perspective and think objectively about your past. This can open your eyes to new possibilities.

Don’t discount the power of a good headline, either. Most people just default to using their current position and company, but there are better ways to make a fuller, more encompassing statement about yourself professionally. And if you’re job-seeking, don’t put that as your headline! As the first thing people read about you, it positions you as a beggar — not a chooser — and makes people worry you’ll just ask them about jobs. A better option is to describe yourself as the professional you are, whether or not you have a job. If you were recently laid off from a job as a marketing manager, you might choose to use something like “Proven marketing manager with eight years of experience.”

How you choose to portray past experiences is also important. Let’s say you’re that laid-off marketing manager and you’d like to work on more digitally focused campaigns at your next job. In that case, you might highlight the digital aspects of your prior projects by pointing them out first in the experience description.

3. Reach out

What’s the point of a network if you don’t connect with others? This is where you take your research a step further and actually connect — in real life — with people in your industry or who started from the same place. There’s definitely a right and a wrong way to do this, but most people are happy to help others; they’re flattered you want their advice, and if you end up being successful, they get value from the relationship as well. Making it easy for them to say yes is the tricky part; you don’t want to burden them with a long email or ask for too much of their time. Ramit Sethi’s blog has smart advice on how to approach people the right way for mentorship.

Thinking creatively and proactively about your trajectory is a necessary part of moving forward in your professional life, and LinkedIn can be an excellent resource and tool to help you map your career.