Most people use the video platform YouTube for entertainment. In general, the highest viewed videos are comedy or entertainment focused videos. However, did you know that you can actually make money using YouTube?

There are three simple steps to making money using YouTube. First, you must create a video of interest to a particular special interest group, or niche. You should use the keywords to that niche in your video title in order to maximize views. Second, you must sign up as an affiliate marketer for a chosen product in that niche or you must already have a website where your product is sold. Third, you must enter a hyperlink in the video description field at the beginning and end of the description (under “more info”). Your hyperlink should take the user to a sales page where the product you are promoting can be purchased by the viewer.

The key to making money online is to drive traffic to your video. Thus, the most important elements generally are: (1) video title with searchable keywords included; (2) appropriate tags; (3) number of comments and ratings; and (4) great video content that people enjoy watching. Remember, that you are only trying to appeal to those persons who are searching the niche you are promoting.

In order to be successful making money online, you must focus on driving traffic, or views, to your video. So most of your effort should be focused on this result. Many people don’t realize the importance of spending most of your effort on marketing rather than focusing on the actual video content.

Since driving traffic, or views, to your videos and links are a key element to your success, you should employ any ethical technique you can think of to meet your objective. For example, email your friends and family members to post comments and ratings on your videos. Share your videos via social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. Post a blog entry about your video. Make a comment on someone else’s blog and include a hyperlink to your video. There are hundreds of creative techniques you can use to drive traffic so you can start making money online today.

With there being so many opportunities of making money online, it makes one wonder as to where YouTube would fit in. For those that were not prepared, YouTube was one website that took many by surprise. After Google and Yahoo, YouTube is seen as the largest search engine used to find things online. Now it may make you wonder, how is that possible? I mean after all, all YouTube does it post videos correct? Exactly it posts videos and that is exactly how you can use it to make money. What you do have to realize is that you will not be making money directly off of YouTube. You will be using it as a platform to generate money from other sources.

There are millions of websites that are currently available online which are selling a particular product or service. Even though this is the case, how comfortable does one feel paying for something that they have never seen? The unfortunate thing about Internet shopping is that it is quite difficult to put a face with a particular product. Being able to put a face with a particular product or service gives one reassurance in the sense that they know someone actually exists behind the website. This in result creates a comfort factor and automatically increases the chances of a particular person buying something from your site. Being able to give your product a face can now be achieved through using YouTube.

There are many ways through which one can use YouTube to make money. Say for example you have a business that sells a product or service but are not able to get as many sales as you would like. This is where one can easily make effective use of what YouTube has to offer. Simply design a short video promoting your website. During the video you will mention links to which the view can visit if they are interested in what you have to offer. These are usually referred to as back links. Using this technique has been proven to generate more sales of one’s business. When it comes to making the video, do remember that you do not require fancy video recording equipment. Something that is of good quality will do the trick.

The key to using YouTube is making videos for an existing business that you are trying to promote. While saying that, you can still use YouTube to make videos for a new business that you are planning to make. Making regular videos in relation to your businesses product or service creates a higher chance of people actually buying it from your website. It creates a level of comfort that some human does actually exist behind a specific website.

If you do not have your own product, there are many web stores that are offering affiliated marketing opportunities through which you can make money as well. Using the same technique that has been mentioned above, you can create YouTube videos and have back links to their website instead of your own.

Most of the “rules” about writing for ezines and newsletters apply to writing posts for your blog, but there are some important differences. Keep these 10 tips in mind and you’ll be publishing great blog content that attracts prospects and clients in your niche market.

1. Write with the reader in mind. Remember WIIFM? It’s marketing jargon for What’s In It For Me? That’s what you should be keeping in mind. Your reader will read your post looking for what’s in it for them.

2. Make it valuable and worthwhile. Don’t waste people’s time. If you don’t have anything to say, no problem, plenty other people do. So share their articles, do an interview, review a book.

3. Proof-read for typos and glaring grammatical errors. You wouldn’t go out of the house with dirty hair or missing a sock, so why would you publish spelling mistakes? Respect your readers by polishing up your stuff.

4. Keep it short and simple, sweetie. (KISS). Most people are scanners. You may have a lot to say and think it interesting, and it may be. But people are reading online and out of time. Get to the point quickly. Publishing short posts more frequently is a better format than publishing lengthy articles every few weeks.

5. Keep it lively, make it snappy and snazzy. Even if you aren’t a natural born writer, you can write for your blog. Just write like you’re speaking to your friend…or to yourself! Remember though, get to the point quickly. Keep in mind the journalist’s rule of 5 W’s in the first paragraph: who, what, why, when and where.

6. Link often. This builds credibility and positions you as an expert in your field. People don’t have time to know what others are doing, you should tell them. Linking to other blogs and websites also helps you build a network of associates who will in turn link to your blog.

7. Use keywords often. This will help you stay on purpose, and the search engines will love your blog. Your rankings will go up. This is one of the reasons we have you write out your purpose statements before beginning your blog. The clearer you are about your purpose, the more consistently you will deliver messages that are on target. And the more often your keywords show up, the better your search engine results.

8. Write clearly (short sentences, only one concept per sentence). No double speak or jargon; no more than one idea in one sentence- don’t make your readers have to think about your meaning. Spoon feed them. Use commas and dashes liberally.

9. Write like you talk. It’s okay to use common expressions from speech.

Examples:

Go figure.

Don’t even go there…

Now, I ask you…

Gotta love it…

(And, remember the age group of your readers…)

10. Use a clear headline, and don’t be afraid to make bold statements (but don’t mislead people either). Make it snazzy and use key words. Example: Ex-Techno-Weenie Masters HTML Code

BONUS: After you write a post and BEFORE you hit the save button

Use this checklist to ask yourself a few questions as you are reading through for typos and grammar:

__ Is the topic clear to someone who only reads the headline?

__Does the lead paragraph tell who and what the story is about and why the reader should care about it?

__ Is the angle you’ve used likely to seem newsworthy?

__Would someone who knows absolutely nothing about this topic understand this post?

__ Is the post free of jargon?

__ Is it written in journalistic style and does it make an effort to be objective?

__ Have you peppered the headline and the post with keywords and phrases that will be attractive to search engines?

__ Did you remember to ask your readers a question at the end, or something to stimulate readers to comment?

__ Did you remember to write with the reader in mind, always keeping in mind WIIFT? (What’s in It for Them?)

Blogging Tips: How to Maintain a Successful Blog

So you’ve got your new blog set-up and have been writing posts everyday but still aren’t seeing any results

When getting started with blogging you have to realize that results will take time to appear, and you should write a post everyday to show the search engines that your blog is active.

This is usually where 95% of people give up, because getting results takes time and they slowly become discouraged. Blogging takes patience, and if you’re serious about your blog and take the time to promote it the work will pay off sooner than you think.

Tip #1: Maintain Primary Focus

If you want to start a successful blog, you should focus on these three core aspects.

1.) Writing blog posts

2.) Promoting your posts in forums related to your niche, social media sites, through email, article directories, etc.

3.) Networking with others that share the same interests and goals as you

You can run a very part time business by working on your blog 1 to 2 hours a day, and still make a very handsome income.

If you know you’re going to run short on time, try to complete a blog post over anything else. Use any extra time you get to promote your blog and most popular posts.

Tip#2: Face Yourself With Challenges

If you don’t challenge yourself, you may never fully reach your full potential as a blogger and entrepreneur. Challenging yourself will help you track your blog’s progress and observe how much better you get along the way.

Try a 30, 60, or 90 day blog challenge where you blog every day for the extent of the time you choose. These challenges are a great way to get you in the habit of blogging every day helping you get better every day.

You could also challenge yourself by setting goals to achieve certain rankings in the search engines, reach a certain amount of subscribers or visitors per day/week, receive a certain amount of blog comments, contribute a certain amount of guest posts, etc.

Tip #3: Monetize Your Blogging Efforts

You can monetize your blog in a number of ways, using both free and paid methods. The better the content is on your blog, the more money you are likely to make. The more money you make, the more motivated you become and the better you will do.

Blogging Monetization Methods

1.) Place ads on your blog

2.) Google AdSense

3.) Promoting other people’s products

4.) Lead Generation

5.) Guest Blogging

Tip #4: Remember to Enjoy Blogging

If blogging is going to be a part of your business then you have to treat it like it is. You have to eventually get over the struggle of sitting down and staying focused long enough to write a blog post. Blogging should be something you enjoy doing and not something you dread doing. If you don’t enjoy writing on your blog then the chances of you continuing to write don’t look very good.

Don’t choose a niche that you don’t truly enjoy learning and writing about just because it makes a lot of money. What’s the point of making a living online and having the freedom to do what you want if you aren’t actually doing what you want. You may as well go back to your day job at that point.

When it comes to finding potential consumers and directing traffic towards your business’s website, online forums can be a great platform. These are web locations where users informally interact with one another on selected topics. This is particularly why forum marketing can be beneficial, since you may be able to find a cluster of potential customers all at one place. For instance, you can look for a topic of interest related to your product and then use the top forums to market your product or services.

This may be done through social media pages, recommendations and direct interaction. When doing this, however, you must make sure that you avoid some common forum marketing mistakes.

For one, you must never market your services through guest usernames on popular forums. This may make it look like spamming, and can cause you to be banned permanently. It will also make your marketing look scattered and unconvincing. Therefore, always register yourself, preferably with your brand name, and use the same identification to post information around the forum.

Secondly, you must avoid direct and abrupt marketing. Web users today are efficient enough to distinguish good marketing strategies from fraudulent ones. If you immediately begin to use your username to post back-links and direct information about your product, it will eventually leave a negative impact on all those who come across it. Naturally, this does not make you seem like you are providing a solution, but like you are merely trying to make quick money. Therefore, make sure that you assist potential customers appropriately and make a recommendation for the product only if they genuinely seem to need it.

Moreover, you must make sure that you avoid all fraudulent strategies that might land you in trouble later. For example, it is a very common practice to make multiple accounts on forums and post information pretending to be regular users. This is likely to be eventually recognized as spamming, which can leave a lasting negative impact on your business. Therefore, make sure you only use legal and appropriate strategies for forum marketing.

Another mistake you must avoid is to try to hide negative responses. Often, negative reviews are pushed out of sight by loading a page with positive ones. A better way to deal with negative criticism is to respond to it politely and to discuss it with the customers. Instead of ignoring embarrassing complaints, assuring customers that you will take care of the problem will go a long way for the reputation of your business.

It is acknowledged to the whole world that you can easily find videos and upload videos of just about everything (crime and something illegal is not allowed, absolutely) on YouTube. But that’s all? Actually, there is still something you don’t know. That is: you can also make money on it. You know, YouTube pays money to people who have a lot of views on videos that they post. So why make some money on YouTube? Just follow 4 steps introduced in this article.

Step 1: Sign up for a free account

If you are new to YouTube, but you would like to post great videos on YouTube to earn money, the first thing you need to do is to sign up for a free account. And the basic information including a user name and password will be needed. (Just pick a cute and easy-to-remember name)

Step 2: Learn something basic to promote your account

After having your own account, you just have to learn something relevant and essential, such as the way to upload videos, title videos, promote your videos with keywords, select category, compose content, etc.

Step 3: Apply to become a partner

Once having uploaded a series of video, you can go to YouTube’s homepage to apply for a partnership.

Step 4: Making money

Once you are a partner on YouTube, you will get paid soon. That is because you are allowed to put some ads in your videos and if someone watches your YouTube videos and click the ads shared in your videos, YouTube will share earnings from that ads.

What is a troll? He is a hairy, ugly creature that lives under a bridge. Yet, there is another kind of troll; this troll is a forum group poster who makes a post that is controversial or an outright lie to provoke readers into a flame war. Every time I read a troll’s post I think “Liar, liar, pants on fire.” Sometimes I just want to scream that from the top of my lungs. What is it that makes people twist the truth to justify their own needs? The story keeps changing or the trolls say things that just don’t add up.

Why is it people can’t mind their own business. I swear that some people just want disruption and chaos. I swear they live for it. Why do they get enjoyment out of harassing people? People like this have one sole purpose and that is to create a “Flame War,” where a bunch of people are all having their say about a person or a sensitive topic. This benefits only them, so they post lies about good honest people.

They feel by baiting the topic, they will lure you in, where the group of them can pounce on you as soon as you post. Soon your name gets Googled and you are labeled a horrible person. Scam sites are popping up all over the net and instead of them posting actual statements about scams; they are posting anything and everything that destroys the reputation of good, honest people. Scam sites have quickly become a place to bash other people to benefit the owner and in the end, hard working people who are trying to make a life and career for themselves are victimized.

If you are treating someone this way, I have to ask, are you proud of yourself? Do you really think that this person deserves to be humiliated and flamed on a message board and who are you to decide? Do you really know the amount of damage you are causing to this person?

Sorry but I guess I just do not understand. These people you are flaming are nothing to you. Ewww, and ahhhh and laugh all you want. I bet the one your flaming feels like this animal in a cage. People come back because they want to see the blood, the hurt, and the anger that you are causing to this person. Of course you the baiter, flamer, troll has no problem providing it. No matter how stupid it makes your victim look. It is always the same bull, Innuendo, and baiting, followed by threats of exposure. It is good for the ratings isn’t it? If this were a TV show, you’d be a smash hit.

Trolls are nothing more than cruel people who enjoy hurting others. I’m sorry Trolls but I see you as nothing more than someone who likes to stir the pot and cause trouble by twisting the story and filling it with lies to please yourself. I guess what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Someone is sure to remind me after reading this article, “Rose Desrochers don’t you feed the Trolls.” So now you know all about trolls. I guess internet trolls are really not any different than the ones that live under the bridge are they?

Your search engine ranking is affected by hundreds of different things, but relevancy is the most important.

Being more relevant to a search means your page will rank higher, it seems obvious that it doesn’t help. Instead you should focus on the top 5 search ranking factors.

1. Article title/keywords

2. Word count

3. Internal links

4. Reading length

5. Bounce rate

There are two categories of SEO ranking factors: user behaviour and article content.

It’s easy to focus on the second and often people ignore the first, dismissing it as being out of control.

Writing engaging content will keep readers sticking around longer, boosting your search rank. But that takes practice and data on your readers. Instead, focus on the article content. By using the top 5 ranking factors you can start to make the Google algorithm work for you.

1 Using keywords and titles to rank higher on Google

Think of keywords as what you’d type into Google, though remember they won’t be one word, but phrases.

Once you have found your topic, research how people search for that in Google. Use these phrases in your title, making sure it’s grammatical and interesting. You’ll see this strategy in post titles around the web.

2. How long should your blog posts be?

Longer is better. A 2,000-word article will rank higher than a 500-word article. But the doesn’t mean you should bloat out your post with fluff.

A basic structure that will help add length to your post without being fluffy is:

1. Fulfil the promise of the article right at the beginning

2. Explain what led you to the answer

3. Expand on the answer; give details

4. Justify your answer

5. Answer any follow up questions people might have

Not only will this make your article longer, it will be better and more informative.

3. Use internal links

Link between different posts on your blog. If you touch on something you’ve previously written about link your readers to that page.

Identify your favourite or best posts. Link to them constantly. This tells Google to pay attention to these more.

4. Reading duration is important

The previous ranking factors were under your control. Not so for this one.

If people stay on your post longer it says to Google this is a good answer to their search.

When you post an article, monitor the traffic and see if the reading duration makes sense for the post length. Edit it if it doesn’t.

5. Bounce rates

Bounce rate measures how many people left your site without going to a new page on it. If reading length shows how interesting one post is, bounce rate measures it for your site.

High bounce rates might be down to posts not delivering on their promise or no other relevant posts on your site.

Fix the keywords and title if you’ve got a high bounce rate because of the first. For the second, see what related topics are being searched for and write a post. Like with reading length, measure bounce rate and tinker.

6. Loading speed

How fast your site loads is an important search rank factor. Use this tool to measure loading speed and identify issues to fix.

How long does it take?

Getting to the first page of Google doesn’t happen overnight. You’ll have to be consistent and patient but follow these steps and within six months and dozens of posts you should be flying high.

Do You Have PTSD?

If you witnessed or experienced an intense traumatic experience such as an assault, natural disaster, combat, or a car accident, you may be at risk of developing PTSD. It is important to recognize early and address PTSD symptoms, so you can come to terms with a traumatic experience, start the healing process, and get your life back on the track.

How to Recognize PTSD?

The most common symptoms of PTSD include anxiety and depression. However, they are by no means the whole picture. Along with anxiety and depression, you may be re-experiencing the trauma through flashbacks and nightmares, have difficulty sleeping and concentrating, experience impulsive or self-destructive behavior, and be easily irritated.

Nevertheless, sometimes the signs and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder can be subtle and hard to recognize. This can lead to being incorrectly diagnosed and not receiving the appropriate treatment while experiencing symptoms you don’t understand and suffering alone.

Emotional Withdrawal and Social Anxiety as Less Obvious PTSD Symptoms

Your fear of coming in contact with anything that will remind you of a trauma may result in difficulties in communicating and interacting with people. Also, feelings of detachment from others, social withdrawal, and isolation may be a sign of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Other atypical signs of PTSD may include drug and alcohol abuse, eating disorders, rapid weight loss, and severe migraines.

These symptoms don’t have to occur right after you survived trauma. Sometimes, people develop PTSD symptoms weeks or even months after a traumatic experience.

PTSD Treatment

The main goal of PTSD therapy is to improve your symptoms, teach you skills to manage them, and restore your self-esteem. It is most likely that a combination of medication and psychological therapies will be used to treat your PTSD. The majority of PTSD treatment options stem from cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), with the aim to change the upsetting thought patterns that are disturbing your day-to-day life.

The most common CBT practices used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder involve prolonged exposure therapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), cognitive processing therapy, and stress inoculation training. EMDR therapy must be administered by someone who has received the proper training in this type of treatment. This is a more specialized treatment method and can be highly effective.

Severe trauma can stay with you throughout your life. It is like having your brain scarred by the event. Like most scars we endure, we learn to live with them and eventually ignore them and sometimes forget we even have them. Proper treatment puts the traumatic event where it belongs… in the past, so you aren’t constantly dealing with it in the present. This allows the individual to live a more normal, healthy, and productive life.

If you have a blog then you know you always need content. This is one of the biggest problems that bloggers face. You know you want to get 5 or 7 posts out a week, but what can you possibly talk about? You’ve talked about everything already! Sometimes, you just need a little friendly advice. Below are ten tips I use to create constant content:



1. Blog Post Inspiration: Find a popular blog post (video posts are great for this) and then review or dissect it on your blog. This way you create content and you might be able to siphon from traffic from the popular blog post.



2. Interviews With Bloggers: People who have blogs like to inject themselves into the online world. They also like links back to their website. Email some of your favorite bloggers and ask if they would like to do an interview. Those who “get it” will jump at the opportunity/

3. Comment Thoughts: Pick a good comment from your blog and share your thoughts about it. Besides creating content you will also be engaging your web visitors. This might make people more likely to leave good quality comments so they can be featured in a future post.



4. How-To: This is simple and straight forward. Do you know how to do something? Then break it down step by step on your blog.



5. List: Much like this article you can create lists on your blog. Some of my most popular blog posts were the most ridiculous lists like; Five Craziest Toilets and Five Manliest Cats.



6. Rants: If you see something that irritates you make a mental note about it. Then when you sit down to make a blog post – let out all your irritation. Be as scathing as possible, really get into to. If you find it is a bit too much you can go back and edit, but the key is to just let your natural vitriol take control.



7. Facebook Statuses: This is a somewhat unique idea. Go into Facebook and find a couple statuses you can share your thoughts about. They can be statuses you find hilarious, annoying or completely inappropriate. I’d stress that you keep them anonymous though!

8. Today’s Tweets: Same as above but use Tweets. You could even combine this with lists so you could share your 10 favorite tweets every Monday morning. There is 1/7th of your content creation taken care of.

9. Reviews: You can review anything! You can review music, TV, Movies, restaurants, service you received at a store and etc… This way you get your content, but you also might get lucky and rank on the first page of Google for a popular TV show or album review. I got thousands of visitors when I made my Eminem: Recovery review.



10. Self Analysis: This can be a tough one because not everyone enjoys putting themselves out there. This can be very helpful for content as well as your personal development. Treat every Friday as your own therapy sessions; share your successes, failures, fears and dreams. Set some goals one Friday, and see if you reach them by the next. This can be pretty scary putting yourself out there, but it can be a day every week you don’t stress about content.

If you use the above 10 methods you should have no problem creating content. With all of the free blogs out there you have no reason not to be building your brand online. Take advantage of the power of blogs and start producing your content right now.