How To Make Money With WordPress Direct

Chris Menser, the Founder Of Ad Grenade, writes, "Millions of people use the search engines each day looking to buy and no matter what you're selling, ebooks, software solutions or even physical products, it stands to reason that if you create an irresistible promotion and bid on targeted keywords, the money you'll bring in can be HUGE..."

But what happens if you can't afford a massive Pay-per-Click (PPC) campaign, or don't have the expertise needed to make it work?

Then what? What's the average, green-as-a-fencepost marketer do?

To answer that question, I'm going to assume that you don't have a business of your own, don't know a thing about affiliate marketing, and haven't a clue how to create and maintain a blog.

The first thing you're going to do is locate products and services that offer good commissions ($30 or more) and which use Clickbank to handle sales and commission payments.

You're going to do that by visiting CB Engine and search through the Top Ten products in all the categories and find three you want to promote through your free WordPress Direct blogs.

Two things are important here. First, the commission, which should be at least $30. Second, you want to find a high gravity figure, Gravity provides you with strong clues about the conversion ratios enjoyed by the businesses you are considering.

The conversion ratio simply means the number of sales, on average, per 100 visitors, so the higher the number, the more likely it is that your visitors will purchase the product or service being offered.

Here are a few products coughed up by CB Engine when I searched for "candles." Which one would you choose for your blog, and why?

• http://www.cbengine.com/res/stat.cfm?v=wilesma (Gravity 1.6, Commission $5.49)
  
• http://www.cbengine.com/res/stat.cfm?v=candle101 (Gravity 2.98, Commission $11.95)
  


• http://www.cbengine.com/res/stat.cfm?v=kicompany (Gravity 0.46, Commission $17.99)
  

In all honesty, I wouldn't bother with any of them, because the commissions are too low, but I decided to use candles as an example for this lens, and these are the products available.

In this particular case, I would feature Clickbank links to all three of these sites, and see to it that they were sprinkled throughout the blog. The second one offers the best conversion ratio, while the third offers the best commission, so I'd give it more weight than the other two.

Here's the ad I would place in the sidebar of my "candle" blog - the image comes from the site itself:




To market Clickbank products, you will need a Clickbank account. They're free, and you can get one here.

Creating a new blog is easy. Login to your WordPress Direct account and click on this image:



Next, choose from one of over 1,500 professional Word Press themes by using the "Install WebSite Instantly" link. (Yes, it really is that simple!)

Here are but two of the hundreds available to you:


and

...I've also scattered a few more theme images throughout this lens so you can get an idea of the incredible variety offered.

Now you must identify the domain and directory where you want to install your new blog. http://kenmcvay.com/wired2cash/, for example, and enter the FTP login information so WordPress Direct can install the blog.

You'll also have to provide an email contact address for your blog, and a password for the Administrator.

You're almost ready to create your blog, but you have a bit of homework before you do.

Once that's been done, you'll be asked to enter all the keywords needed to target your niche market. If you're selling hand-crafted candles, for instance, you might include "hand made candles, holiday candles, scented candles," etc.

These keywords are critical to the content WordPress Direct will include on your site, so it pays to do your homework before you enter them. There are two particularly effective commercial tools for doing this, Market Samurai and Ad Grenade.

Google's Keywords Tool is also effective, and has the advantage of being free of charge.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Do not enter all of your keywords into the form provided. Just enter those that reflect broad categories, like "Holiday Candles," but not "Birthday Candles." The keywords you enter first will become the categories for your blog, and presenting readers with an endless, boring list of hundreds of keywords isn't productive.

I used Google's Keyword Tool to generate a list of keywords related to "hand made candles," without requesting synonyms and received the following suggestions:

candles, soy candles, gel candles, natural candles, beeswax candles
beeswax, candle, scented candles, wedding candles, sell candles
hand made candle, handmade candles, handcrafted candles
pillar candles, jar candles, handmade candle, scented candle
decorative candles, hand poured candles, buy candles
angel wall plaque, cherub candle holders, wall cross
religious items, guardian angel figurine, cherub table lamp
angel lamp, cherub statue, chess, bath, angel statue

From this list, I would enter Hand Made Candles as my main category and place various types of candles within the "hand made candles" category. I would reserve most of these suggestions for the automated publishing modules, which we're about to address.

My visitors would see something like this in the Categories menu:

Home Made Candles
Soy Candles
Scented Candles
Beeswax Candles
Jar Candles

... you get the picture, right?

OK - you've entered the important categories, and you're ready to rock and roll... now what?

WordPress Direct offers you the opportunity to automatically include Google Adsense within your blog. All you need to do is provide your Adsense Publisher's ID in the blog's Settings Panel - the rest is done for you.

In some cases, I don't think Adsense is an attractive option, simply because the ad blocks are quite large, and come between the top article's headline and the article body. I think it's ugly, and prefer putting my own Adsense code in the sidebar, where I can control its appearance.

I also don't want my visitors to leave the site and visit my competition, but if the blog's designed solely to attract Adsense income, by all means use it.

You can also install your Google Analytics code for each blog, and let Google track your progress for you.

Click on "Check Settings & Proceed To Next Step," and your website will be created instantly!

Now comes the fun part... are you ready?

Before you can create your blogs, you will need a domain of your own, like my "kenmcvay.com," and you will need a reliable, inexpensive place to park it.

I recommend using GoDaddy.com as your domain registrar. You can get an INFO domain for next to nothing - just ignore all the upsell offers and register a plain Jane domain.

Then go to Hostgator and grab their $7.95 hosting package. If you pay 6 or 12 months in advance, you will earn a nice discount. I use Hostgator for my "actlightning.com" domain, and find their service and reliability is top notch.

You can publish all three of your blogs to a single HostGator domain, which means you get solid value for your $7.95!

Managing the Content Software lets you tap the real power of WordPress Direct..

Although Free members have no access to this software, they have the ability to install their own automated RSS Feed, which will provide targeted topical information on a fully automated basis.

I woke up with a huge headache today. I discovered that WordPress
Direct was not offering their RSS Feed module to free members, and
that made me do some homework, so I could provide you with a simple,
free solution.

In order to provide RSS feeds to your free WordPress Direct blog,
you're going to have to do several things.

First, you're going to have to download and install "RSS Power Plus,"
a WordPress Plugin available at WordPress.com. Simply download it to
your desktop and install it into your blog's WP-CONTENT-->PLUGINS
directory and unzip it. If you're using WordPress 2.7, you can
install the plugin automatically using your blog's ADD PLUGINS
function.

Once you've installed and activated "RSS Power Plus," you'll have
to follow some fairly simple instructions to get it up and running.
Once you do, you'll be ready to search for free RSS feeds.

Finding Free feeds is easy... just Google "free rss feeds" or use
your niche keywords, as in "medical rss feeds," "marketing rss feeds"
and follow your nose.

Once you've navigated through these simple steps, your blog will
be loaded with rich, traffic-attracting content.

For this article, I went to Google and searched on "rss candle feed" and discovered a great source:

http://www.2rss.com/rss_7813.html - it offers the feed
http://www.dairtech.com/Candles/Candle-making.xml, which I have added below... it isn't a particularly good one, but it illustrates how easy it is to locate and install targeted feeds.

As your feeds are updated, your blog is automatically updated at the same time, providing more targeted keywords and phrases to feed the search engines and drive traffic to your niche "Hand Made Candle" business.

By providing your Adsense code, which you can obtain free from Google Adsense, WordPress Direct will automatically display Adsense ads on your blog - ads which will put money in your pocket even if you never sell a single candle... or, for that matter, ever intended to.

Neat, eh?

So what are you waiting for? Grab a free account right now, while you're thinking about it, while I prepare the next module!

The next Content Management Software application is "YouTube2WordPress," which pretty creates a never-ending, automatically updated flow of laser-targeted YouTube videos to your blog.

This is where all those keywords you didn't use as Categories come in handy.

When you install this module, and login to the Admiinistration system, you'll see the SET KEYWORDS button. When you click it, you'll see a form where you can enter a single keyword or phrase, assign it to a specific category, determine the search type (Relevance, popularity, rating, etc.) and whether or not you want WordPress Direct to automatically add the videos to your blog, or hold them for your personal inspection and approval.

In the Fall, for instance, you might add the keyphrase "Christmas candles" to this module, so WordPress Direct will start adding appropriate videos to your page. (Is that cool, or what?)

Video is important, not only for visual impact, but because Google and other search engines love video content. That means your blog stands a much better chance of receiving, and maintaining, a very high ranking.

Aside: You have complete control over all of the Content Software. You can decide how many videos, ads, RSS feeds, etc. are to be added for each keyword, and how often to add them.

Wow!

When you install the Answers Content Software, WordPress will search the Internet for articles addressing specific keyword-targeted questions and answers and automatically add them to your blog.

As is the case with all of the Content Software, you can chose any of the following timetables: Every 12 hours, daily, every 2 days, every 3 days, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. You can also set the number of articles you want published for each keyword.

Are you excited yet? Have you begun to see the awesome potential WordPress Direct offers for niche market domination? Can you imagine the impact of having hundreds, if not thousands of targeted articles from your blog being fed to the search engines on a regular basis?

What can I say about this one? Wow! On my WordPress Direct blog, for instance, you'll find an ad at the top of the page, above the first article. If someone clicks on that ad, and purchases the product, I get paid.

The software finds high quality, keyword-rich product information and reviews for your wordpress website to create posts and comments. (Available for Silver, Gold and Platinum members.)

HOO-RAH!

Once again, you can chose any of the following timetables: Every 12 hours, daily, every 2 days, every 3 days, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. You can also set the number of ads you want published for each keyword.

Now you understand why I am so excited about WordPress Direct! I don't have to sign up for hundreds of affiliate programs, I don't have to search for targeted ads, and I don't have to publish them - WordPress Direct does it all for me!

If I don't like a particular ad, I simply delete it. I have complete control over my sites!

The software posts automatically video content into your wordpress site, the software also checks broken videos and deletes them automatically for you. (Available to Gold and Platinum members.)

Wordpress PLR Poster Pro

PLR Poster Pro accepts text, rtf, htm, and html files and automates the process of creating tags, scheduling the dates the posts should appear, shuffle the posts, and upload them to the blog. (Available to Gold and Platinum members.)

Get this: PLR Poster Pro even submits a link to the top 30 social bookmarking sites. Instead of having a single link to each social bookmarking website, you have a link to all of them, automatically!

Are you smiling yet?

The eZinePoster is a unique product which will publish key-word rich articles to your sites.

The software does automated comment posting too, which instantly converts your sites from "Newbie Wasteland" to content-rich, interesting blogs. (Available to Gold and Platinum members.)

You can publish articles manually, of course, but you can't add the comments which will make your site look busy and professional.

Put WordPress Direct to work for you today - righ tnow - and put some cash in your jeans!

Here's an example of a niche market blog utilizing Clickbank and Amazon affiliate marketing to provide multiple income streams.

The site includes a good selection of Warhammer miniature kits and software from Amazon, and software from Clickbank. The more such links you add to your blogs over time, the more income you will be able to generate.