The Problem: Most blogs in this niche are written by people attracted to the idea of making money on the internet, but their thoughts never expand beyond the initial idea to untapped markets and niches. Instead, they stick to the topic where they first heard about the concept of making money online - a make money on the internet blog. So they go out by a domain name, get a hosting account, install WordPress and start writing about making money on the internet. They talk about ways to make money online, they guest blog, they comment on every blog, they post income reports, they talk about WordPress plugins that help them make money, they push the Thesis WordPress theme and just about any other product that has a decent affiliate program. But no where along this timeline of tragedy do they stop to think about the market they're serving. Although the market is ever growing of more and more people just like them it's also not very profitable unless you're among the top names in the industry (a feat late comers will rarely - if ever - accomplish). Worse still the information they share is often times a collection of regurgitated crap that occasionally does more harm than good.

This is what I propose...

The Solution: I'm convinced that every person has a subject or passion they truly care for and know a lot about. I'm also convinced that 99.999% of the bloggers writing about making money on the internet don't truly have the collection of these traits in this subject matter (passion and true knowledge) so I propose that you do yourself a favor and quit or sell your blog. Odds are no one will buy it because it's full of useless information but with the time you can reclaim by quitting the blog you'll be thanking me later. What I suggest you do with the new found free time is to develop websites or blogs in markets and niches that you already have knowledge about and passion for. If it happens to be a niche that isn't very competitive than that's all the better. The point I'm trying to get across here is that I was the guy 2 years ago doing all the stupid things I listed above. It wasn't until I quit my blog and moved into other niches that I started earning several thousand dollars a month. The only reason why I came back to this niche is because I really enjoy the topic, I have a lot of ideas to share now that I earn thousands of dollars a month on the internet and because it directly relates to what I already do for a living.

Wrap Up:

If you are part of the problem like I outline above than I urge you to go out and explore other topics on the web. You'll be surprised by what you'll find and hopefully you'll start earning thousands of dollars a month like I did. If as a result of reading this post you do decide to go out and start websites in other topics and you eventually do achieve financial success I'd love to hear about it. If only one person abandons their pointless make money online blog and goes on to earn substantial money from another niche than I've done my job.

What do you think? Am I a jerk for calling people out like this? Do you think I'm a hypocrite because I'm criticizing people that write about a topic I cover on this blog? Whatever the case may be I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Hey everyone have fun this Thanksgiving. Make sure you find the time to take a break from the time strain of blogging / website managing duties and spend some time with your friends and families. I know I'm going to try and meet up with some more of my friends from high school again this Thanksgiving.

What are your plans?

Quick reminder - you have only 3 days left to buy my half off WordPress Themes! The themes are available for only $19.95 each or $49.95 for all three. Try them out before you buy here.

I found this random topic the other day about the World's Largest RSS button on Digg. However, after looking around Google for about 15 minutes I couldn't find the World's Largest Digg button which someone actually asked for in the comments section.

Now I don't know about you, but I always love to read stories about something that is the World's Largest. So here it is...

The World's Largest Digg Button

Click the image to see the full glory

What do you think?

If you love World's Largest (Insert anything) topics than feel free to Digg this post.

I know this is an "old" topic and I debated about whether or not I should even blog about it but I decided to anyway. So who really cares that the Adsense Referrals program was retired? Let's look at what the Adsense Referral program had to offer.

Here is what we're losing:

When a publisher that signed up for Google AdSense through your referral earns their initial $100.00 within 180 days of sign-up and is eligible for payout, we'll credit your account with $100.00.

A Google AdSense referral is counted only for publishers never previously enrolled in Google AdSense. Google AdSense referral payouts do not count towards $100.00 threshold

Ok so basically you have the potential to make $100 if someone you refer to Google Adsense makes $100 within 180 days. That may not seem like a difficult task, but even the most junior of webmasters have heard of Google Adsense and probably already have an account. Honestly, I can't remember the last person I've talked with that is in this industry that doesn't have Adsense.

Why not try referring webmasters to brand new affiliate programs instead? This way you can target all webmasters because odds are no one has heard of or let alone signed up with the new program before. With Adsense it's very hard to find someone new but if you're out their promoting new programs you'll see a lot more success.

Now is it just me or who really cares that the Adsense Referrals program was retired?

I've been reading John Chow's blog since late last year, which is longer than many people can say. He has really exploded in popularity this year and it's fun to say that I have been reading John Chow dot Com back before he was making five figures a month from blog income alone. His blog is an excellent resource for people that are interested in learning how to monetize your websites and clearly states to not rely soley on Adsense for bringing in online income.

One of the posts I highly recommend you check out is The Proper Way To Do Affiliate Marketing. I'm new to affiliate marketing, but when you think about the statement he makes in that post, "Affiliate Marketing Is All About The Presell" he's right. If you can find a way to presell your forum members on various products instead of just throwing up an affiliate banner on your website you will improve your conversions and subsequently your revenue. If you've developed a good relationship with your members, they will value your opinion on a product or service that you recommend to them. I will be testing his ideas about preselling by creating various review pages on most of my sites with affiliate links to products that I recommend to my forum members. I will post back with my results later, but in the meantime if you haven't already checked out John Chow's blog I highly recommend it, he has some great tips to make money online. If you review his blog he will link to you and send you a lot of traffic.

I took some time to file for an LLC in Washington this morning. I'm not sure about other states, but Washington's site was easy to navigate, find what I was looking for, and file to form an LLC online . I expected to spend a lot of time figuring out not only where to go to form an LLC, but how to do it; however, it turned out to be relatively easy. It was pretty expensive at $195 though, but not nearly as expensive as it would cost you to file through one of those stupid "Form a Business in 3 Steps" sites. Before I got onto the various government sites this morning I browsed around a little on Google to see if there were companies that can do most of the legwork for you and there were a ton. Every one of these sites had package deals for forming corporations with some costing as much as $399! Do yourself a favor, if you're looking to form a business in any state wether it's a sole proprietorship, partnership, LLC or whatever, avoid doing so through these sites that require you to pay them just to file the paperwork that you can easily do for yourself on your respective state's websites.

Anyway, I should be hearing back from them in 24 - 48 hours at which time I will be able to finish off the other steps to form the business. I still have to apply for a Federal Tax ID number (EIN) and fill out a few more forms, but I've been meaning to do this for a while so I'm glad it's taken care of. I wanted to get everything taken care of so that I can apply to some ad networks that require you to be a company to apply, but also to take care of all the tax stuff etc.

I'm still finishing up several different projects right now and have been really busy. Soon this will be a great source for you to learn new ways to increase your forum traffic. Head on over to my about page to read my journey as an entrepreneur.