The basic idea of the ‘content is king’ theory is that the more content you put online, the more traffic you will be able to pull to your site. This has lead blogger after blogger to post thousands of times, wasting literally hundreds of hours of time on the lowest of the low-leverage methods for creating traffic.

I would suppose that many of you have been caught in this trap, in fact I’ve been caught there myself. I’ve posted nearly 400 times on this site, and less than 20 URLs on CourtneyTuttle.com are responsible for more than 90% of my current traffic. What does that tell you about the other 380 posts?

Now some of you are going to tell me that I wouldn’t have the site authority I have without the other 380 posts and this is at least partially true. That said, I can tell you this with certainty: I could have leveraged my time a lot better during this process. My ‘content is king’ belief was directly responsible for the loss of hundreds and maybe thousands of hours of my time.

Ability to create links from other sites is king, content is but one of the king’s many tools.

More to come…

I have the luxury of having quite a few of my own sites and also having clients whose sites I watch on a weekly basis. What has this led me to discover? In most cases, ‘posting’ on a blog actually has very little to do with the traffic that reaches the blog.

Why? Well, think about it. How many of your old blog posts actually bring residual traffic? Do they bring search traffic? When you get linked to from other sites, do those links produce continuous traffic or do they simply give you a short-lived burst?

I have had the luxury of being linked to by some of the most popular blogs on the web. I’ve been linked to multiple times by Problogger, John Chow, and most of the other big names in this industry.

If I look at yesterday’s stats, how much referral traffic did I get from those links? I got 2 visitors that came from ProBlogger.net, and 0 visitors from JohnChow.com. That honestly doesn’t compare well at all with the residual search traffic that I get from Google every day.

As you might have noticed, it’s been two weeks since I last posted on this site. What have I been up to? I’ve been creating some keyword-rich landing pages (as opposed to posts) and building links (among other things that you’ll find out about very soon…). What are the results? A healthy increase in daily search traffic and more than 200 new RSS subscribers.

Interesting, isn’t it?

The more time I waste, the less money I earn because my rates are tailored to the time I need to get the job done. Tailoring my searches to my respective needs means that the results are more accurate right away, allowing me to concentrate on the writing, rather than spend time researching Google for hours.

Also, I wanted you to know that while I mention Google here, some of these search terms will also work on other search engines. I simply love Google and couldn’t imagine life without it. It is the tool I used most in my business besides my brain and my fingers.

1.) The hyphen search string

A hyphen search string will omit any word that is being placed after the actual hyphen in your search.

For example, if you were to search for Internet -marketing, the results would omit anything to do with marketing but return information related to the word Internet.

2.) The wildcard search *

To use a wildcard search insert the * symbol instead of a word. This is great for long tail searches as well as comparison searches. Examples, the search pay * will return varied results while you can do comparison search to find more detailed information like this search: [pay * per word]vs[pay * per hour]

3.) The date range search

To search for information within a specific date range, do this:

Internet marketing daterange:2008 january-2008 july

This type of research is especially important if you need relevant and updated information.

4.) The exact search

The phrase or exact search allows us to find relevant information by putting quotes “” around our search term. This will cut out all irrelevant and time wasting results. Example: “marketing blogs”

5.) Blog keyword search

If you are a niche marketer, or an assistant to a niche marketer you will find this particular tip very handy while searching for blogs to comment on.

writing inurl:blog

You can also use the search term inurl: to restrict the search to page URLs e.g. inurl:writing

6.) The filetype search

I love this search as I can find PDF’s, PPTs, spreadsheets (xls) and more with this particular search:

business filetype:pdf

7.) The safe search

The safe search excludes all adult content from the results: safesearch:online

8.) The link search

This search finds linked pages on any website. While Google does return results, you will find more up to date stuff on Yahoo for this particular search.

inlink:www.courtneytuttle.com

9.) The site search

If you want to find information on only the one website you are best off to use the following search term to find the most accurate results: site:courtneytuttle.com

While you could also do a search with the www in front of the URL, the results are often limited.

10.) The find stuff using either or results

if you need information on two words that might not even be related, you can use the OR in between. Example: marketing OR writing

11.) The definition search

The definition search is great for writers or bloggers. Whenever you don’t quite understand the meaning of a particular word or phrase you can use this search to find its definition.

define:writing

Bonus tip

Did you know that you can also use Google like a simple calculator. this is so handy when you add up all your income at the end of the month. Simple us the same symbols like you do on a simple calculator:

• + = add
• - = subtract
• / = divide
• * = multiply etc.

You too can become a search warrior

Knowing your way around the search strings will make your online life a lot easier. If you struggled up to this stage, these “shortcuts” will give you a huge advantage over your competition since you will be faster and able to find more accurate information from now on.

I know that there are many more of these search strings and if you feel like sharing, feel free to let us know which ones need to be on this list. Maybe it will become the 50 best killer research strings instead.

(original article)

But instead of writing about the various tools that can take you from a procrastinating professional to an effective and kick ass time management warrior, I rather talk about what I tried and failed with before I discovered the simple ways to control my business in the end.

I think the biggest issue we face is to have too many choices in tools to help us manage our time. It can be hard to resist the pulling forces of all the cool apps currently floating around on the Internet. So many have tremendous appeal and they offer us every imaginable ability, except they can’t make us coffee. Bummer.

My desperate search

So, in my search of trying to find the best medium to help me keep control of my ever increasing mountain of paper clutter, digital clutter and schedules, I tried just about anything out there. Leo Babauta wrote a post on 8 Simple Online Time Management Tools a while ago on Freelance Switch, but despite the shiny facade of the application mentioned I found none of them worked for me. I might mention here that I did try them all bar one or two. Not to mention the many others I discovered along the way in my search for the holy grail of time management tools.

The magic discovery

After trailing and failing with dozens of applications, ways, ideas and DMO’s, I made a miraculous discovery. In fact, if it wasn’t for this particular discovery I’d still be searching for the perfect time management tool for me.

And you know what, this tool I discovered has got to be one of the easiest, straight forward and manageable tool ever invented. Not only that, but this tool has so many uses it is a true all rounder.

This magic discovery is the one and only Moleskine. Now, before you ask “what is a Moleskine”, let me explain. The following is an excerpt from the actual slip of paper that comes with every Moleskine notebook:

Moleskine is the legendary notebook used by many European artists and thinkers for the past two centuries, from Van Gogh to Picasso, from Ernest Hemingway to Bruce Chatwin.

This trusty, pocket size travel companion held sketches, notes, stories and ideas before they were turned into famous images or pages of beloved books.

It is that easy. Since I discovered the Moleskine notebook, I quit on all the other online time management tools. To be honest, I found them time consuming, which in my eyes defeats the purpose of managing time in the first place.

Instead of spending two hours inserting schedules, reminders and contacts into the various online time management tools I spend about 15 minutes max. every Sunday evening. Not only is my week ahead clearly outlined, but I have developed a great system to keep the tool easy, fast and fuss free. And best of all, it works a treat!

Hacking your Moleskine

I basically own a Moleskine dedicated as a diary. It fits into my pocket and my hand bag and I can take it with me everywhere I go without the extra bulk, extra weight or having to be afraid to drop and break it.

To make it my own I hacked it according to the guidelines of Mike Rohde. My Moleskine Hack is the easiest time management tool I have come across in all the years I have been online.

Important aspects of taking control

Before you can use any tool to manage your time, whether it is online or offline based, you need to be clear about the work flow. The biggest setback for me in the past was my inability to keep things simple.

I overcomplicated matters and worst of all I always tried to do too many things without matching them for realistic execution.

Instead of opting to complete six major jobs in a week I now space these out. I also found it best to mix small tasks with big ones and never to include more than two major tasks every single week.

The moment I started to execute this, I finally managed to finish my to do lists pretty much every single day.

The other benefit

Ticking off your list has another major benefit. Besides getting things done, you will actually go to sleep with a sense of accomplishment rather than feeling stressed.

Keep it simple stupid

The K.I.S.S. principle applies also very well to time management. If you struggle with it, then take a step back and go easy on yourself. Release the self imposed pressures. You will soon find that you’ll actually get a lot more done once your new time management system is in place.

(original article)

Are There Really Any Methods To Make Money That Are Easy?

I have spent the last few years of my life seeking for methods that I could use to make money and actually have been able to find some easy ways to make money, in fact they are dang easy now that I think about it. The difficulty was actually in finding them, not in the actual use of the methods.

Part of my struggles to find easy ways to make money was that I only cared about finding ways to make money online because I knew that online methods for making money would provide me with huge amounts of leverage - how else can you make money off of people on the other side of the world?

Sorting Through The Junk Ways Of Making Money

This led me to try hundreds of different methods for making money online, most of which were a total waste of time. The methods that actually worked for me were found through trial and error - I created literally hundreds of websites and tested and tested and tested.

It time, I really found an approach that worked out great and I have been following it ever since. One of my sites has already produced close to six figures this year, and others are making me a nice residual every month. Now that I understand the process, it’s truly one of the ‘easy ways to make money’ that we have all looked for.

Learning This Approach To Making Money

To help other people to start learning this method, I have written a free report that anyone can download. It provides a basic outline of the methods I’m using and will help you to understand what you will need to do in order to use the approach. Feel free to download - enjoy making your money.

While I realize there are many online bloggers who really don’t give a rats bum about others, I find it hard to believe that most are falling into this category. As a matter of fact I have gotten to know many good and lovely people since I have been blogging. Sure, there are those who I rather never meet in person, but I never had a personal problem with any of them.

Andrew’s comment prompted me to write this post. It is about helping the less fortunate, the smaller, the newcomer. I understand we can all do our own small bits to make this world a better place and while most of us are online to earn money, it doesn’t mean we have to be neglecting other people’s needs.

I understand we are all busy. I don’t think I know anybody who doesn’t rush around getting things done, both online and offline. We consistently chase the clock with everything we do. Even on holidays.

But despite this never ending cycle we can still make room to help others, or can’t we?

To be honest, it does become harder, the bigger our business grows. I can very much understand why big name bloggers have got no time to reply to every single email they get on a daily basis. After all, many people do ask the most stupid questions too. Questions that could easily be answered by reading the actual blog or website.

However, I also understand most people are lazy, sometimes me included. If there is a fast way to gain information, we normally choose it. Therefore it is only normal to look for fast answers and what better way to get them then getting in touch with the owner of a site.

Here is the problem though. There is a distinction between asking questions and asking dumb questions. The former one is justified if the person asking is actually a regular reader of the site. By giving some of their time, they are certainly entitled to contact the owner directly if there are pressing matters.

But what happens when we get contact emails asking us to go and read a post from XYZ? I tell you how I react. If XYZ isn’t one of my readers and can’t be found in my comments, I simply hit the delete button.

Sorry, but I just haven’t got the spare time to please those who really don’t bother giving anything in return.

I’m sure big name bloggers get tons of emails like these every day. We as readers do have a responsibility too. We ought to read what the blogger has to say and search for the information on the blog, before we pester them with emails.

Blog owners spend a lot of time giving away free information that cost them a lot of time and money. I’m not kidding, I spent thousands to have the knowledge I have today and while I’m happy to help others as much as I can, there is a line between blogging about it and answering emails explaining something in detail.

For example, I receive quite a lot of emails asking me how to start a freelance writing business. If you were to read my blog, you’d have the answers pretty much all in one place, as I blog about this all the time. To explain this in an email to a new reader who just happens to feel like starting a business at the time would not only be a waste of my time, but probably of his/hers too. Since they might simply act on a whim. [Let’s face it, if they were really serious, they would read up as much as they can, before asking questions to clarify certain points.]

Writing an email like this would take me anywhere from 10 minutes to 20 minutes. Time spent I could actually earn money in my business. Now multiply this by 10, 100, 1000.

Do you get the picture?

So, before you think a blogger has been rude to you, think again. Perhaps this blogger is too busy to spend hours answering emails every single day. By the way, this isn’t meant as a ruse against Andrew. Far from it actually. His comment simply reminded me of a debate I saw on a blog many months ago.

Readers were complaining about the lack of replies they received after trying to contact big name bloggers. While I’m nowhere close to being a big name blogger, I finally understand why.

Do you?

By the way, if you want to know how to setup a money making blog, follow along with Court’s video tutorials.

(original article)

I guess, when we talk about freelance writing, rates and getting started, we can keep turning in circles, since we will never agree for sure with regards to what is right and wrong.

In the end you will have to factor in your own experience, your needs and your position in your market to determine your own rates and procedures.

In this post I want to show you what I deem an absolutely necessity - must haves, if you really want to be a player in your market.

What most aspiring freelance writers often forget is, not everybody needs to start out in the Internet marketing, blogging industry. Many write for industry specific markets and earn a quiet fortune along the way.

What really determines your market is your expertise in it. If you are very knowledgeable and passionate about a specific topic, then this could provide the perfect starting position for your writing business.

You could target the health niche, the sports niche, the fitness niche, or even the lawyer/attorney niche. Regardless of the market or industry, writers are needed everywhere.

Once you break into your market, it’s time to make sure you have what it takes to build your business in blocks.

I did exactly the same thing, moving ahead, step by step, until I was able to sack my boss for good. It took me a total of seven months to do this and if I was able to do this, so can you. Also, when you look at the bigger picture, what are seven months in comparison to being stuck for another twenty years in a job that sucks the life out of you?

1.) To be taken serious you need a portfolio site

I’m not kidding. A portfolio site is an absolute must if you want to play your market. It shows prospective clients just how serious you are about your business and instills a sense of professionalism.

I used to be happy with having my blog and a hire me page, thinking it was sufficient enough for my business. I did have a portfolio site too, but it didn’t list rates and only contained my story, as well as a contact me form, very basic. Then once I became involved in the thought process on whether to post or not to post my rates, I had a wake up call while reading a blog post on Copyblogger.

This post was the final straw I needed to move my business to the next level (unfortunately I can’t remember the exact post). I moved my portfolio site from using a free template to a paid one, whilst investing a couple of hundred dollars for the transition. I also paid for a logo and customizations and the result has been nothing but amazing.

Within four days of having the new site up I had a new client. It paid instantly for the make-over. Since then, I have seen a sharp rise in new clients wanting to book my services. As a matter of fact, upgrading my portfolio site was the difference between me trawling various online job sites, looking for work and being fully booked out for 6 months solid, without having to look for work.

In my case, my blog is my voice, while my portfolio site is my profile, telling clients “hey, I’m serious about this, this is my business and I treat it as such”.

2.) Consistency matters

Consistency is key when it comes to your rates. Once you have established your rates to a satisfactory level, keep them consistent. This is why you are posting your rates in the first place.

Potential clients can see whether their needs and your services provides a match or not.

Being too murky here, or swapping them around isn’t good for business. It would be like going to your deli, buying a cup of coffee for $2 today, $3.50 tomorrow and $4 next week. You certainly won’t go back there in a hurry.

If you have established long term clients, keep your rates the same. I’m not saying you can’t ask for a pay rise, but you need to know when and where and be absolute certain you provided value for money to your client before you even attempt this.

I had one specific long term client whom I worked for with beginners rates. Every week I’d write 14 articles for a set amount. I did this for 8 months. Then he asked me whether I’d be interested to do something totally different, I said yes and named my current rate. He obliged.

He could have just as easily gone to outsource this job to India for a third of what he pays me, but because he knows I’m reliable and loves my work, he chose me instead.

Another client paid me the same rates for about 7 months now. I knew I had outgrown them (the rates) some time ago, but didn’t want to lose the client. This month I finally made the plunge and asked for a pay rise. I got it.

These are typical examples that sometimes it does pay to wait. A long term client can be worth a lot, since they often send you referrals too. Having said this, I also get referrals from new clients, which is the ultimate show of trust and appreciation. These people really rock because they show me how much they really value my work, which has nothing to do with money.

3.) Go beyond the call of duty

I pride myself on doing everything I can to make life easier for my clients. This involves sending them the finished work in a easy to use format, depending on what they need it for.

I also provide extra services for which I do not charge a cent. These services are not listed on my portfolio site either, I just provide them as I can. I guess in some ways I see myself as a service warrior. In the age of lost customer service art, I do my best to help rectify this gaping hole.

For example, I gained a new blogging client a few months ago. I got booked to publish a couple of blog posts every week, which I did. But because I was able to self publish I also had full access to the site as an administrator. My client was really busy with other aspects of his business at the time (that’s why he hired me in the first place), so when I saw his massive comment backlog I offered to look after this for him, approving, replying and denying comments - no charge. A simple gesture of service, that’s all. Naturally he was delighted.

These are the little things that really matter a lot!

Whatever it is you can do to make life a little easier for a client, do it. It will come back to you ten fold. I like to call this karma. Being a big believer of karma, I have to say, from where I’m standing, it really works.

What do you need?

If you are a budding freelance writer, stuck or frustrated, not knowing where to turn, let me know in the comments. While I’m far from knowing it all (I learn new things every day), I would be happy to help you as much as I can from what I have learned up until this stage in my business.

To wrap this post up, I have to honestly say; the three keys above have been the three major factors responsible for moving my business to the next level.

(original article)

In this video, we are going to talk about some of the reasons why starting a blog is a great option for individuals that are looking to create income online.

© Court’s Internet Marketing School

(original article)

It is the cheapest business on the internet that can make you the highest profit.

Lets us discuss some important benefits of affiliate marketing to affiliate marketers and merchants.

Benefits to affiliate marketer

1. No Need to create a product!

One important benefit of affiliate marketing is that you are not required create or produce any products. It is the duty of merchants to create the products. So you are only required to select the products to sell, get the affiliate links and start your business in ten minutes. You can focus on selling the product as you don´t need to do anything with the production or delivery of the products.

2. You Can Start with No Money, or with as little as $100

Another important feature of affiliate marketing is that you can start your business with little or no out of pocket expense. This is the lowest possible investment in today’s world to start a business which has a great scope in the market. If you simply don´t have any money to invest, you can always use free tools to start your business.

3. The Easiest Online Business

It is the easiest online business due to the fact that the merchants do all the hard work like making products, delivering products to consumers, handling money transactions etc. Affiliate marketers are not responsible for any of these tasks. They just need to focus on promoting their affiliate links.

4. Make Money While You Sleep

As you have your affiliate links on the website which is available on the internet all the time, you are not required to remain online to keep in touch with your customers. People can visit your site whenever they want and can visit your affiliate links. If they like the product they can easily buy it by just by clicking the given links.

Your only concern will be checking your email to see how many sales you have made from your links.

5. Penetrate Hot Markets Fast!

You can select any hot market at any time to choose the products you wish to sell. If you observe that other marketers are making money with pet care related products for instance, just register with an affiliate program to get some hot pet related products, set up an adwords campaign, and in 10 minutes, you can start to make money!

Benefits to Merchants

1) More Sales in Less Time

The products of different merchants are advertised by many affiliate marketers at the same time. The main website of the merchant is also advertising the products. If the page rank of the merchant website and his affiliate marketers are high, tons of traffic, which are your buyers, will visit the product pages. The website of every affiliate marketer will send the people to merchant websites. This results in more sales in less time.

2) Broader Market to Sell Products

Having new affiliates just expands the market of merchants. Don´t select the affiliates blindly. Do the research to check if the affiliate´s website is related to your business or not. If the affiliate marketer´s website is matching your products theme, then there are more chances of sales. The affiliate´s website will receive hits for the people who need to know about your products and they are more likely to visit your website to make a purchase.

3) Less Efforts Required

Affiliates are doing the hard work of advertising for your products. If your affiliates are doing good work then you don´t need to spend extra time and money for advertising. Just concentrate on improving the quality of your products and launching new products.

Affiliate marketing can provide the easy, fast and reliable money to affiliate marketers. At the same time it gives more sales in less time and money to the merchants.

While we have written extensively about a lot of different techniques that can be used by people that are trying to start a blog, I still don’t feel like we have an efficient road map that can be followed by anyone. I also see a lot of people struggle with their blogs. I believe that most people don’t make much at all through blogging, even though it can be very lucrative. Something is definitely missing…

For that reason and after a lot of thinking on my part, I have decided to release a 50+ part series of videos that will walk you through starting a blog for profit. I couldn’t be more excited because I know that this series will be the most useful project I’ve published until this point!

I’ll be covering everything including choosing a profitable topic, setting up a blog, designing the blog properly, using plugins to increase the power of the blog, writing content that will grab people’s attention, making money with a blog, and more. I’ll be using screen-casts so that you can watch me work and get a better idea of what you need to do.

This post will be added to my Court’s Best Work section at the top of the sidebar, and any video posts included in the project will be linked to here. To make sure you don’t miss the videos, you can subscribe to my RSS feed. The first video post will be published tomorrow so stay tuned!!

~ Court

(original article)