Wednesday, April 6, 2011

How to Use Social Networking To Draw Traffic to Your Website

Social networking websites can benefit all website owners, but especially resume writers who are looking to make a profit from visitors to their websites. This can be done one of two ways -- by selling something on the website (resume writing services, career coaching, job search packages, or affiliate products) or by relying on revenue from advertising (a handful of resume writers run websites that provide job search content supported by advertising revenue). 

If you have a website that selling products or services (as opposed to a content site that depends solely on advertising revenue), you may find it a little bit easier to use social networking sites to your advantage. This is because, if you wish, you could do product or service spotlights. Each day, week, or month, you could showcase one of the products or services that your website sells. This could either be done through status updates, Tweets, or blog posts. 

If you are using your online website to make money with advertising programs, such as affiliate programs or Google Adsense, you may need to approach social networking websites in a different matter. Since you will not necessarily have a particular product or service to focus on, you will need to approach these websites as if they were personal websites.

As with all other types of online websites, social networking websites should help to increase the number of page views your website receives. In most cases, more page views mean more clicks -- which means money for you.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Getting Ebook Ideas from Magazines (Third Part in a Three-Part Series)

This is the third post in a three-part guest series of articles by Jimmy D. Brown. This post focuses on getting e-book ideas from magazines... using Magazines.com.

After visiting the world's largest search engine and the world's largest bookstore, it's time to take a quick stop at the world's largest periodical store, Magazines.com.

You'll find every imaginable magazine listed at this site. The interesting part (and useful to you as a research tool) is this: you'll also find the COVER of usually a recent copy of each magazine.

There aren't a ton of magazines (any??) geared towards the job search, but browsing through the categories of magazines on the site, you can find some magazines that will spur some ebook ideas. For example, looking through the "Women's" category, I came across "Working Mother" with this cover tease: "Get That Job: Surprising Interview Tips." Your ebook could be on "Surprise Your Job Interviewer With Your Preparation" and it could cover how to research the interviewer and the company using free Internet resources.

Each of the "cover stories" you find represent an idea for your next ebook.

The best part about it is this: the publishers of these magazines have done the research for you! They've measured the level of interest for these ideas and found it high enough to warrant not only writing content about them, but referencing that content on the cover of the magazine!

That's your hint: People want this information.

So, there you have it in this blog series -- three "idea hangouts" where you can find ready-made, in-demand, red-hot topics for your next ebook for your job seeking clients.

Happy hunting!

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Jimmy D. Brown is the author of, "5 Keys To A Big-Profit, 
S.M.A.L.L. Reports Business."  To download your free copy, 

Friday, April 1, 2011

Using Amazon Affiliates to Generate Additional Income

A few weeks ago, I put together a five-part series on affiliate marketing for resume writers. Another source of affiliate income is with Amazon Affiliates.

I suggest you set up an account with Amazon Affiliates and build a “Recommended Resources” page on your website, featuring links to books that you’re featured in, that you’ve written, and/or that you’d recommend to clients. While this isn’t a large income source, you are doing clients a favor by offering your recommendations, and any sales you make are gravy. 

You can also use your Amazon Affiliates link to include book links and graphics in your blog posts, especially if you use Blogger. I’ve found my top two book recommendations that have led to sales are Jason Alba’s book, “I’m on LinkedIn, Now What?” and “Career Distinction,” Kirsten Dixson and William Arruda’s book on personal and career branding. 

I also used to sell a couple of copies of “The Insider’s Guide to the World of Pharmaceutical Sales,” but that hasn’t been published in a few years. 

If you have a blog geared to job seekers, I’d recommend doing regular book reviews — review books you’ve read and then include links to your Amazon Affiliate site. 

You can also excerpt your reviews on the book’s page on Amazon directly, which will help increase your “Digital Distinction” rating — and if you don’t know that that is, you should read Career Distinction.