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How to make money online series

How to make money online series

Online Marketing Case Study:

Here at Asian American Media we want to help our readers become successful so we decided to take some time to put together a test case on one of our business models that anyone can reproduce and make a livable wage anywhere in the world within a few short months. This is not some Internet scam or get rich quick scheme, this is tried and true method of developing a semi passive income online from your home or on the road!
So what did we decide to do.. . ? We sat around and thought how was the best way to show our readers how we make a substantial monthly income and so we decided to open the doors on one of our sites currently under development and document our progress. The site we choose was…. Drum roll please!!! ToolNerds.com  our online tool review site.

Our Goal:

We are going to break down exactly how we are going to take a fresh (brand new) domain name, build it, rank it and monetize it (make money from it). We will provide links to all the tools we use and show you how to use them. We might make some videos but there are a LOT of them out there so we will probably point you to the ones we find the most useful. If you follow our steps in the end you will have a website that can make $200 – $2000 a month semi passively
There are two ways about building sites, built them yourself or outsource them. We are going to try and cover both and try and provide reliable resources for either way you choose. We are going to show you the following in simple to follow steps to help you become successful.
  • Types of monetization – this is one of the places we always start because you do not want to get a GREAT idea to find out hours later there is no way to make money at it.
  • Keyword Research – this is one of the most important steps in the process and we are going to explain how to find a good niche with low competition to start building.
  • How to have logos created – both on the cheap and a bit more expensive through crowd sourcing
  • How to get content – both self writing (the inexpensive way) and out sourcing to professional writers.
  • Search Engine Optimization – SEO as they call it in the industry – this topic can be very confusing but we are going to show you how to both do it yourself and how to outsource it.
    • On-Page SEO
    • Anchor Text – Great Article by Gotch SEO!
    • Link Building
      • Guest Posting
      • Citations
      • Context Links
      • Link Pyramids
    • Social Media Signals
  • Online Tools – These will help you do Research and Check Competition, Position, Stats
  • Outsourcing – how to find/build teams to automate this whole process

So Lets Start Making Money Online!

The first step we will cover is Types of Monetization, this article from WebsiteSetup is a great start and covers 33 ways to make money online. We personally love Affiliate Marketing, Pay Per Click, Sponsored Posts (paid Guest Posting) and build sites all the time with these methods.

How to Choose a Website Monetization Method:

When looking build out Tool Nerds we started with what we knew, we made a list of all our hobbies, skills, talents, likes and interests and wrote down about 50 different things we could build a site on. It just so happened that I was in the market for a paint sprayer and my partner had currently been looking for a multimeter so we decided to see if building a tool site would be worth the work. My partner Brian and I are pretty OCD and we both have very high standards so when we were contemplating our niche we knew we would build something highly professional with top quality graphics, writings and content, we knew we didn’t want to build what is called a micro niche site which is designed around 1 concept or product and we wanted room to grow. We decided on an overall tool site where we could keep building and growing it and were not cornered into just one tool. After we decided on a tool review/information site we started to dig into ways to make some money with it. Amazon has a great and popular affiliate program called amazon associates where you make a sliding commission based on the type of items you sell. Amazon Program Commission Fee Based on the commission table we knew we would have a niche that would have a 4% – 8% commission so we knew how much we could make per item shipped. We broke down Tool Nerds into what are called Silos, one for each tool type, the first being Paint Sprayers Reviews the other being Multimeters Reviews.   Quick Tips:
  1. build a list hobbies, skills, talents, likes and interests – you are going to be writing and / or reading a lot about the topic so its very helpful if your interested in learning more about it, it also helps if you feel you can write 20,000 – 100,000 words about it.
How to Find Reliable Manufacturers and Suppliers in Asia

How to Find Reliable Manufacturers and Suppliers in Asia

With globalization, companies from all over the world were able to reduce their costs significantly by outsourcing a lot of their manufacturing to Asia. Multinational corporations have the ability to simply send in-house employees to Chinese manufacturers and do their quality assurance that way, but for a lot of small businesses, that is simply not feasible.

So how do you compete with the multinational companies? How do you find reliable manufacturers and suppliers to completely takeover your manufacturing process? And saving hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars every year?

Introducing Alibaba

Alibaba, founded in 1999, is the largest B2B marketplace in the world, even bigger than Amazon. They have a variety of subsidiaries, but their core business is Alibaba.com where you can find manufacturers and suppliers in tens of countries around the world, even though most of them are based in Asia.

If you own a small local shop, or if you want to find additional ways to monetize your content online, whatever it is, you can find a supplier on Alibaba.

How to Find a Reliable Supplier?

Let’s pick a simple product just to get an idea of you’d go about finding a great supplier through Alibaba.com. For this example, we’re going to search for an iPhone case supplier and manufacturer in China.

Step 1: Search for the product

Use Alibaba’s search engine to look for the product you’re interested in sourcing from China (or any other country for that matter).

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Step 2: Using Filters

You’re going to most likely get tens of thousands of results, regardless of what type of product you’re looking for. So you want to make sure that you’re ticking the three boxes shown below:

  • Trade Assurance: this will show you suppliers that guarantee manufacturing and delivery dates
  • Gold Supplier: this will show you suppliers that have been pre-qualified and verified
  • Assessed Supplier: this will show you suppliers that have been assessed by third-party agents

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Step 3: Learn about the company

Once you’ve found a product that you may potentially be interested in, do some research on the company, check if they were submitted to an on-site quality check (information provided by Alibaba), try to do business with companies who have been operational for several years, with high transaction levels.

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Step 4: Getting in touch with a supplier

Use Alibaba’s communication system to contact some of the suppliers that you’re interested in and wait for their response. Be sure to be very clear about what it is you’re looking for, in terms of materials, products, prices, delivery dates and so on.

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Step 5: Choosing your supplier

Once you’ve chosen 2-3 people that you like, it’s probably a good idea to request a sample order, just to make sure that they’re able to fulfill and deliver exactly what you need.

And there you go! A simple 5 step process for finding and vetting a good supplier without spending a lot of money and resources. If you’re going to be doing a large amount of business volume with an overseas supplier, it’s probably a good idea to send inspectors to their facilities to do quality control for you, before everything gets shipped to the U.S.

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6 Awesome Free Stock Photos Resources for Your Website

6 Awesome Free Stock Photos Resources for Your Website

We often need good images for our website, brochures, journals and other marketing materials. Most people just go to Google, search for their image there, download it and upload them to their site. But what most people don’t realize is that this may lead to serious financial and legal problems. If you use copyright protected images on your website or blog, the photo company has all the right to sue you and ask you for a monetary compensation.

Getting free stock images for commercial use is difficult. When you search for stock photos online, you will get thousands of websites, many of which are deceptive. Even though they say it’s free, when you visit the site, you will find that you need to pay to download their images. The majority portion of the stock photo market belongs to companies such as 123RF and Shutterstock. These sites charge $20 or higher for one photo. Even when you find free stock photos, they turn out to be of low resolution and blurry. We have compiled some of the best free photo resources for your website. If you’re just about to design your first website, these are going to be super useful for you.

1. Unsplash

This site adds ten new photos every ten days which you can download for free. You will get pictures of stunning landscapes. If you scroll down the homepage, you will see anything from beautiful mountains, foggy rivers, greenery and so much more. The pictures are of very high-resolution and quality.

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2. SuperFamous

This site was founded by the Dutch artist Folkert Gorter and his friends. You will find hundreds of very high-resolution pictures taken by them. The images are perfect for desktop and laptop backgrounds or even for your web design and development projects.

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3. Picjumbo

This site is very easy to navigate. You will get incredibly high-resolution pictures, especially related to food industry. If you have a restaurant business or something related to nutrition, this site is perfect to get the right images for your website.

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4. IM Creator

IM Creator was a small library of high-quality photos. It also provides an online website building tool. The image quality that you will get from the pictures of this site are as good as some of the paid options out there.

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5. Pixabay

This site has an easy search feature and the images are great. If you are designing a website, you should visit Pixabay’s library, which is probably the best free one out there. You will get the perfect photos for your website. The site is very popular among web designers.

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6. Gratisography

It has an incredible collection of photos. It was started by the artist and web designer Ryan McGuire. The pictures are of very high quality, and you can use it for your site as well. Highly recommend it!

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You should make sure that the images you use on your website and contents are sourced properly. You must know that different types of Creative Commons licenses. Some images need licensing, whereas others need attribution. The free photo websites that we talked about today are perfect for any kind of project.

4 Reasons Why You Should Start Marketing to Asian Americans

4 Reasons Why You Should Start Marketing to Asian Americans

The Asian American community is the fastest growing minority in the United States and has a very significant impact on the U.S. economy. This means that as a business owner or C-level executive, you cannot afford to ignore this growing community, and more importantly, you should start thinking about positioning your marketing efforts in a way to attract potential customers in this segment of the whole American Market. Here are some of the main reasons why you should start creating tailor-made marketing campaigns to Asian Americans.

1. Fast Demographic Growth

Asian Americans are extremely diverse, coming from around 40 Asian countries, resulting in close to 6% of the entire American Population. From 2000 to 2010, the population of Asian Americans grew by roughly 46%, and that continues to grow. As they become a significant percentage of the entire U.S. population, there’s no reasons for businesses not to engage in marketing activities especially targeted at this group of individuals.

2. Entrepreneurs and Business Owners

22% of the American startups valued at over $1 billion were founded by Asian Americans. They are entrepreneurs, inventors, and create jobs for other Americans in fast-growing companies and industries. According to the U.S. Census, between 2007 and 2012, businesses owned and operated by Asian Americans, grew by nearly 25%, and registered the highest growth of sales revenue (nearly 40%).

3. Highly Educated

Asian Americans tend to have a very high level of education. By norm, the Asian culture has work ethic and formal education as two very important pillars. 42% of all adults in this segment of the population have at a minimum a college degree, which is higher than any other group of the American population. Not to mention that they tend to score the highest GPAs both in high school and college.

4. Purchasing Power

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2014 the median Asian American wage was about $74,000 per year, this is over 30% more than that of a White American. They have the greatest purchasing power of the whole American Population, which means that they’ll most definitely consume more, spend more money, invest more, this is all good for business.

If you’re not tailoring your message to this hugely important segment of the American population you’re definitely missing out. Asian Americans have the lowest rate of unemployment, great education and high purchasing power.

4 Amazing Tools to Study and Learn About Your Audience

4 Amazing Tools to Study and Learn About Your Audience

Understanding you audience is essential if you’re going to sell any product or service. You have to know exactly who your target customer is, to make you sure you’re communicating with the right people, who need and want your product. Fortunately for your, there are a variety of tools that allow you to gain a very good understanding of your audience is, or should be, and how to target that audience effectively.

These are the four most useful tools available today, which are going to help you accurately define who your target customer is, and how to sell to that same client.

1. Facebook Audience Insights

Facebook has over 1 billion active users right now on their platform; this means that they have an enormous database of people and online users. They know their names, age, date of birth, family, friends, interests, online and shopping behavior, and so much more. This essentially opens doors to incredible online advertising opportunities. Facebook knows that, and today it possesses the most powerful advertising product in the world.

As part of their ad product, they created Facebook Audience Insights, which allows you to have a very good understanding of different target groups, you can create audiences to market to. This is by far the best tool right now to research and study your audience.

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2. Alexa

Alexa.com was founded in 1996 and bought by Amazon, a while back, and it’s also a very powerful tool when it comes to studying your potential audience. Alexa is famous for its list of top sites in the world but allows you to do so much more than that.

Their paid subscription product includes tools which will help you with competitive intelligence, audience overlap, competitor keyword matrix, keyword difficulty, on-page SEO, and auditing your SEO. So Alexa.com is more than just a tool to learn more about an audience, the opportunities are endless.

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3. SimilarWeb

Similarly to Alexa, with this tool you can find out more about your competition. If you’re looking to expand to a new industry, or simply reach more people in your current market, SimilarWeb will help you understand what your competitors are doing to reach that target audience. That’s why it’s such a great tool.

You’ll be able to know where their traffic is coming for, where they’re advertising, what interests their audiences have, and so on. If you want to take your research to the next level, you may want to upgrade your account to SimilarWeb Pro or look into SimilarWeb Audience.

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4. Google Analytics

If you’re not using Google Analytics on your website, you’re missing out. Google has created one of the most powerful analytics tools in the world, and the best part about it… It’s 100% free. Installing Google Analytics on your website is pretty straight forward, and it will make you a much more skilled marketer and business owner.

You can track virtually anything, fire conversions, know what your audience is interested in, where they’re coming from, how many pages they visit, and the list goes on. This is a tool you should be actively using to gain a better understanding of who your audience is what they’re looking for.

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This is it! Four amazing tools that you should be using to find and market to your ideal audience. What other tools are you using in your business and recommend? We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

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