I’m starting to have fun with making these Build a Niche Store sites and themes. The latest site I created is focused on The Incredible Hulk comics and collectibles. My first design based on IronMan, was already is a success which is showing earnings from no paid advertising. With the new Incredible Hulk movie coming out next month, we just might see another big success story for Marvel.

Still using Ian’s BANS Themes, I created the Incredible Hulk Comics site using his “baby theme“. When I first looked at his three themes, I wasn’t too thrilled about this one, but I’m actually pretty happy with how it came out. If you are already a BANS user, I recommend picking up Ian’s themes. I’m also hoping he has the time to create a new set.

I made a long screenshot and break down of the BANS Incredible Hulk Comics site and what each section of the page is made up of. The main ebay auctions are all powered and updated live from ebay, and if you select any of the links in the ebay categories section on top, it will produce results for that category within your BANS site. The navigation and content pages links on top are for pages that you create for your site visitors. The search box on the right will search through all ebay auctions and display the results on your page. Along the right hand column you can load your site up with affiliate banners or other methods of advertising. Ad spots available are 120×600, 160×600, 300×250 and a 468×60 along the bottom. Using Ian’s BANS themes, you can easily modify your design to make it however you want.

There is still one more theme in the Ian BANS theme set. I’ll be sure to create my next Build a Niche Store with that theme and will keep you updated. Look for the new theme post and site early next week.

Don’t forget to visit www.ZacJohnson.com and comment on new posts! Top Commenters are rewarded with fun prizes every month!

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I call it Hero Marketing. When you’re trying to sell to an executive, you have to realize one major thing. That executive makes his/her purchasing decisions on whether or not they’re going to get fired or not. It’s true. Ever hear the old line “Nobody ever got fired for hiring IBM?”. It’s true.

To make sales as a marketer in this arena you have to make your prospect feel like they are going to be hero. That’s the only way you’re going to ensure you get the business, especially if you’re a smaller or up and coming brand in your industry.

Say “Hello” to the newest employee of MoneyReign Inc. Today FOXY became part of the family and was rescued from Burlington, NJ animal shelter. Not only will Foxy handle MoneyReign, Inc. collections and fraud department, but she also gets paid in bones! Reena and I have been visiting a few animal shelters in the area and were just looking around to see if there were any dogs that we meant for us. After seeing a few dogs, none of them showed the love and affection we were looking for, like Super Rocky Dog! We then were looking through PetFinder and found Foxy’s profile page.

It was URGENT for Foxy to be rescued and adopted, so we sent an email over to see if we could visit her. Lorainne from the Burlington County Animal Alliance www.bcaaofnj.org, got back to us and said she would bring Foxy to us and see how everything worked out. Today we anxiously awaited fro Foxy to arrive, with no idea on how she would act or treat us.  Foxy is 5 years old and has a sad and crummy past, but her future with us is sure to be bright! To our surprise, Foxy is perfect and has shown us so much love and affection.

Don’t forget to visit www.ZacJohnson.com and comment on new posts! Top Commenters are rewarded with fun prizes every month!

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(Guest post by Miranda Marquit)

The Internet is full of ideas that purport to help you make money online. And one of the more interesting ideas for making money online is to lend your money to other people. The idea is that you can make loans to others, and then get your money back — with interest. The Internet provides a place for you to connect with those that need money, allowing you to find a wide variety of people to lend money to. The Internet is making it possible for you to more easily make money the same way other lenders do.

Microloans to those in poverty

Microloans are my personal favorite way to make money online by lending to others. This is because you can help someone in a poverty stricken area of the world get the capital he or she needs to improve his or her situation. There are many reputable organizations like Grameen Bank and Kiva that can help you find — via the Internet — entrepreneurs in impoverished countries that could use your money. It’s not a hugely sexy return, averaging about seven percent, but it is a return. And the warm feelings you get from helping someone else find a loan that they can handle (rather than leaving these folks to the mercy of usurious sharks) are priceless.

Lending to those in less “needy” circumstances

Another way to make money online through lending is by sharing your resources with the more affluent in the developed world. You lend money (at a higher rate than microloans) to someone who might want some cash for debt consolidation or a vacation. They make payments into your account, and you earn a return through interest, plus the money you lent is paid back. Programs like Prosper Lending and Fynanz (for student loans) let you use the Internet to find those that want loans, and facilitate the payments. But the risk (like the return) is higher with these programs than with microloans.

If you have some extra cash lying around and you want to see about earning a return on it, you can consider using the Internet to turn it into an investment. Of course, you can also visit the Web site of an online broker and set up an investment account as well.

Miranda Marquit is a freelance writer and professional blogger. On the b5media network, she writes about personal finances for Yielding Wealth.

Tags: investments, microlending, microloans, Miranda Marquit, personal finance

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It been a little over a week since my last post on using Build a Niche Store, and that’s really only because of a lack of free time on my site. Today I decided to take my existing IronManComics.net BANS site and make it look like a real site and not an out of the box BANS site. There are several ways for your to recreate your Build a Niche Store so it doesn’t look like the thousands of other stores out there. The two most popular ways, are to design and create your own template, or simply purchase one from a designer. I called onto my good friend Ian Fernando, who has been playing with BANS for some time now. Ian recently released a few BANS themes from his blog and is selling three custom themed designs for only $37. I used one of his template designs to recreate the IronMan comics store.Below you can see the original out of the box design for the IronMan comics BANS store. The only thing I had modified in the original design was the header image. The new design on the right, not only looks extremely better, but it allows for me to target to niche advertisers and fill the design with more IronMan content. I also added a few more content pages into the site since the original design. There is still a lot more than can be done to monetize the site, I will continue to add new content pages, products and find relevant advertisers for the site.

Out of the Box Design vs. Custom Design. An Amazing Difference!

Earnings Potential
After going live with the IronMan BANS site early in the month, I just didn’t have the time to work on the site like I intended to. As for promotions, the only thing I did was mention it in my previous “Focusing on a Niche Market: IronMan” post. Since then it was indexed into search engines and received some traffic here and there. Right when I had the idea to create the site, I was anxious to work on it and build it into the great resource site and work heavily on the design. Even though I hadn’t touched the site (until today), I was logging into the eBay Partner Network every once in a while and checking my stats. As of today, it looks like the site has earned $10.13 in commissions. Yes, this is nothing compared to anything in the long run… but keep in mind, this money was generated with the crappy out of the box design and with no paid promotion. If you can create a few sites that make $1 per day (like this site), you can earn a few thousand dollars a year with just 10 sites. (1 site X $1 a day = $365… multiply that by how many mini sites you can create). With a little promotion and more custom written content pages, it should perform much better.

$10.13 in Earnings with No Paid Advertising… Small, but with residual potential…

I was excited about the idea of putting together an IronMan site to take advantage of the hype surrounding the movie and it’s massive earnings potential in the beginning, but now after playing with the site and design a bit more, I’m even more so. The addition of seeing that the site is actually earning a few bucks is pretty cool too. If nothing else, it just makes for a fun side project that makes a few dollars. Depending on your niche area and interests, you should easily be able to create a few Build a Niche Store sites and earn some residual dollars. It will be interesting to see if the site can bring in any new eBay members ($25 commission) and bidding activity since it allows for a 7 (bidding) to 30 (new member) day cookie on all eBay activity.

Don’t forget to visit www.ZacJohnson.com and comment on new posts! Top Commenters are rewarded with fun prizes every month!

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The upcoming keynote speaker for AffiliateSummit West 2009 is simply everywhere! After the release of his new “101 Wines“, Gary Vaynerchuk has been on a media exposure rampage! If you’ve been paying attention, you will have seen Gary appear on mega hit shows such as “Mad Money” with Jim Cramer, “The Big Idea” with Donny Deutsch and “Late Night” with Conan O’Brien… simply amazing. Not only has Gary been an amazing online & offline success story, but he is extremely passionate about what he does. Here are videos of his latest TV appearances.

Gary Vaynerchuk on The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch - May 7, 2008

Gary Vaynerchuk on Conan O’Brien - May 12, 2008

Gary Vaynerchuk on Mad Money - May 13, 2008

How much better would you be at your business if you had the passion and drive as Gary Vaynerchuk? Watch videos and read more about Gary at his blog, GaryVaynerchuk.com.

Don’t forget to visit www.ZacJohnson.com and comment on new posts! Top Commenters are rewarded with fun prizes every month!

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Today’s Daily Flip is in audio form below. Summary: I’ve found that I do some of my best motivational work when I yell at the audience. Ok, I don’t scream at them, but I aggressively tell them about the opportunities they are missing when it comes to things like video and other online marketing things in general.

And… I like yelling at them… and they like it too.

So I’m going to do a series of audio podcasts where I yell at you. You’re going to get on Skype with me and you’re going to tell me about your business, and then I’m going to yell at you for a few minutes about how you’re missing huge opportunities and what you should be doing instead… And you’re going to like it!

So if you want to be yelled at, just drop me a note. How can you resist this offer? You cannot. Contact me. You’ll need an account at Skype and a headset.

I previously wrote two posts on “Quick Tips to Improve Your Landing Page“, but what if you want to target towards specific products or services. Are you going to send traffic from your ad campaigns to your home page and hope for the best, or should you setup individual landing pages and campaigns for each product? Below I have included a few tips for you to use when building your product specific landing pages and campaigns.

1.) Don’t Sending Traffic to Your Home Page
Everyone loves to send and receive traffic to their home page. Unfortunately, when paying for search marketing, this is usually not the best scenario. When you send traffic to your home page, you are usually giving your users too many options and most will get frustrated and immediately leave. Instead of sending potential customers to your home page and offering several products, create multiple landing pages and ad groups based on different products. Not only will you provide your customers with what they are looking for, but you should also see a dramatic increase in conversions.

2.) Tell Your Customer What they Want to Hear
How many times have you gone shopping and asked a salesperson a direct question about a product, then they go on to tell you everything else about it and not what you wanted? If you are going to create landing pages to promote individual products and services, make sure you make it quick and easy for the customer to find what they need. Always provide a title, picture, description, specs, dollar amount and an easy to fund “Add to Cart” or “Buy Now” button. These are the most obvious fields everyone is looking for. If you have more in-depth information to offer, you may want to add additional pages or provide it below the actual listing.

3.) Repeat the Search Term on Your Landing Page
Sending your targeted traffic to a landing page which points them to a product or service they are searching for is excellent. Being able to further monetize that page is even better. If possible, try and incorporate the “search term” that was used in your advertisement, and have it re-appear on your landing page. Additional methods for increasing conversions and order sizes, are to include related products.

Quick Case Study:
I went to Google and did a search for “buy flip camera“. The first listing was for Amazon.com, who are one of the best (if not the best) in landing pages and converting sales. Before setting up your landing pages for product specific items, take a look at some of the big retail sites like Amazon.com, Buy.com or WalmArt.com. All of these sites are very clean and to the point, providing the buyer with the basic information they need, then more specs and user reviews when you scroll down. The call to action on all of these landing pages it to buy the product.

Amazon.com Success: Title, Product Name & Picture, Price and Add to Cart

Once you have created your product specific landing pages, continue to test and compare what’s working and what could possibly increase your conversion. Remember, if you are currently converting 3% of your customers to a buyer and can increase that 4%… you are looking at a 25% increase in sales. Your landing pages and testing are key to your success.

Don’t forget to visit www.ZacJohnson.com and comment on new posts! Top Commenters are rewarded with fun prizes every month!

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In this world, you have to give to get back. So when I started getting about 10 emails a day asking me how I make my web videos, I had two options.

1. Create a guide about how I do it and sell it for profit. Or…
2. Create a guide about how I do it and just give the darn thing away, for free.

I choose the free route. Introducing, OnlineVideoToolkit.com. A free video guide that shows you everything I know about making web videos using inexpensive equipment. I produced about 10 videos showing you all my secrets about lighting, set design, cameras to buy, clothing tips, sound, etc… It’s all there, with more to come.

I even have a contest for the launch. Want to win my Flip camera? Watch the video below. Note: The dates have been extended on this video, you have plenty of time to enter, don’t worry about it.

I hope you enjoy it!

Skellie has written yet another entertaining piece about the different kinds of freelancing arrangements that one might have been enduring/enjoying depending on one’s explanations 20 Types of Freelance Work Identified and Explained.

The one that I’ve recently experienced is the Murphy’s Law type.

The ‘everything that could go wrong, did go wrong’ gig

This project gives you nightmares. You perfected your design, only to find it looked like a Picasso painting in Internet Explorer. Your draft article got lost when your computer water-cooling system sprang a leak and started a small electrical fire. You spilled ink on your painstakingly-crafted poster concept. You deleted the wrong file, and the application broke. The frustration and disappointment makes you wish you hadn’t accepted the job in the first place. Your only goal is to get the thing over and done with.

The pros:

You learn from you mistakes.
The cons:

Sanity -2.

If you’re a freelancer or running a full-blown business, you’ll find one or a few that might strike a cord. See what freelancing situation you’re currently and you might just discover a different way of dealing with such situation and if you’re in a bad situation, you can even turn it into something more beneficial - check out these different types of freelance work.

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