How many of you prefer to read online product reviews of products you’re interested in buying… before you actually buy?

My guess is that the majority of you would probably answer “yes.”

I admit, I’m a nut when it comes to reading product reviews. I must have spent hours sifting through review after review from customers who bought GPS systems, before I finally decided which one I should get. I went with a Garmin nüvi 255W – the 4.3 inch Widescreen model.

The point is that many people prefer to read online reviews before they actually go ahead and buy something. It’s no surprise that there’s many product review sites for just about every product imaginable, for both physical and downloadable products.

What IS surprising is that not many people take advantage of writing online product reviews on their blogs. This is not only a great way to inform your readers, but it’s also a great way for you to earn additional income.

Have you bought any products recently? Maybe you downloaded an ebook that you found really helpful. Why not write a review about it? Chances are there may be someone looking for information regarding the ebook you just read. Maybe they’re not even aware of such an ebook even exists. This could be your chance to introduce your readers to it so that maybe it can help them too.

Let’s take this idea a step further. Writing well thought-out and unbiased reviews can be quite time-consuming, and I would know. So, it only makes sense if you’re compensated for your efforts, right?

Going back to the remarkable ebook you just read – is there an affiliate program for it? If so, include your affiliate link in your review. If you provide valuable and factual information about the ebook and focus on both the pros and cons, chances are your readers will click the link to learn more about it. If they feel it’s worth buying, you just earned a commission.

Almost every ebook or downloadable product you find nowadays will have an affiliate program of some kind.

A word of caution here: Don’t just write reviews for any ‘ole product just so you can make money. The point of writing online product reviews is to provide your own personal experience – meaning you’ve actually used the product and find it helpful, and you think others might too.

This same method can be applied to physical products as well. A majority of products can be found on Amazon or eBay. Both sites have affiliate programs, and if you refer people to products on either site, you’ll get paid a percentage of the selling price.

A great example of writing a review for a physical product can be found at this post: The Official Alibaba.com Success Guide. I wrote this post based on a book I read about entrepreneurship and finding success selling products online. The book is an excellent read and thought you (my readers) would find it interesting. As of right now, four of you felt that it was worth buying. That’s cool! Great to know at least some of you read what I say.

Granted the amount of money you can make with Amazon is mere cents, but something is better than nothing. I usually prefer to write reviews for digital products because the commission you can earn is a lot more. Of course, I’ll only write a review if I feel the product is worthy enough to promote.

Here are some other online product reviews I’ve written on this blog:

• Flip Switch Profits Review – A Free Way To Make Money Online?
• Project Payday – Earn Extra Income Online?
• Review of SFI

Hopefully you’ll have an idea of how to write product reviews. But since I’m not the best writer (by far), here’s an article on How To Write Product Reviews that Convert.

Still not convinced you should be writing online product reviews? Read Gyutae Park’s 10 Reasons Why You Should Write Product Reviews On Your Blog.

What do you think? Is writing product reviews a good idea? Do you incorporate product reviews into your blog – Why or why not?

I know it’s been awhile, but if you remember from my previous post, I told you to write down your interests and hobbies. I hope you did just that because today we’re going to take that list and narrow it down to just one interest.

This one interest will become your perfect niche. And, by perfect I mean the one niche you have a vested interest in and will make you money. I don’t know what could be more perfect than that.

There are many… literally… MANY different ways to pick a niche that is going to be profitable for you. If you’ve been a long time reader of mine, then you might remember a previous post I did about finding a profitable niche. I’m sure that post will provide some useful tips for you.

However, there’s a “scientific” approach you can take to find the perfect niche. While I was drumming up ideas for this post, it just so happened that Court Tuttle of The Keyword Academy came out with a killer post on this exact topic.

Talk about great timing.

Court provides a very detailed and mathematical approach to finding specific keywords that are going to bring in income and be profitable. As long as you don’t mind doing some simple research and crunching some numbers, this is a sure-fire way of knowing whether or not your interest could become your perfect little niche.

Take the time to check out Court’s article on Analyzing the Profit Potential of an Online Market.

To better understand this, you’re going to want to associate keywords with your interests. Come up with some broad keywords that describe your interests. Take your list of interests, along with the associated keywords, and put them through the test using Court’s methodology.

I haven’t had the chance to use this myself yet, but I can assure you that I will be when I decide to start my next niche blog.

If you have any questions about Court’s method, chances are someone may have already asked it on his blog, so read through the comments first before you shake your head in confusion.

What do you think about this method? What do YOU do to find profitable niche markets?

If you read this post, then you know I promised a follow-up post to that. But, I wanted to take a break away from that and update you on my income from February.

So let’s get right to it…

Income from ReplaceYourSalary.com

• ClickBank: $63
• PayDotCom – $56.34
• Angela’s Backlinks: $3.75
• Paul’s Backlinks: $4
• Yarie: $42.67
• Google Adsense: $26.84
• SFI: $26.22
• Project Payday: $6 (commissions earned from promoting the program, not actually using it)
• AdFish – $4.80 (Newest CPA network added to income streams)

Income from Re-writing services via David Hurley’s Article PLR Service…

• Article re-writing – $35

Income from Internet Marketing Services…

• Internet Marketing – $160 (article writing, blogging, forum marketing, social bookmarking, etc.)

Total Online Income = $428.62

That wraps up my online income for last month. How well did all of you do?

When I first came online, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing or even know where to start. All I knew was that I wanted to make money online. A passion that has stuck with me even till today.

Once I was introduced to affiliate marketing, it started to make sense to me. Of course, everyone made it sound so easy. You know, the pie in the sky, hyped up promises… and so on and so forth.

I can assure you it’s not quite that easy, but that didn’t stop me from pursuing my passion and finally getting my own little slice of pie.

At the time I didn’t know anything about niches and why I should target a small niche rather than diving into a huge niche, such as the “work from home” niche. As it turns out, that’s why it’s been a struggle for me. Had I started over and did my research first, I would’ve gotten into a smaller niche where I could get my slice of the pie more quickly and maybe even get more than one slice.

But, while the “work from home” niche has its struggles, the rewards can be huge once you do gain momentum and become an authority site. Afterall, it’s one of the biggest niches on the entire internet.

I’m not going to tell you what niche you should or should not get into, but rather explain why affiliate marketing should be your choice for making money online. I believe it’s the way to go for most people… at least in the beginning.

Here’s 3 reasons why you should choose affiliate marketing:

1. You don’t need your own product – Unless you already have a solid plan in your mind from the start, a product is the furthest thing from people’s minds when they’re just looking for some extra income. This is why affiliate marketing is lucrative because it allows people to capitalize on other people’s products.
2. No special training required – One of the best things, I think, about affiliate marketing is that you can jump right into it head first without having a clue what you’re doing. That sounds like a bad thing, but when you think about it, there’s no better way to learn something than to just do it. And, affiliate marketing allows for this. You can learn while you go, and if you somehow manage to really mess up, there’s usually plenty of leeway for this and can easily be fixed.
3. Zero cost is required – Seriously, you can start making money with affiliate marketing for absolutely no money out of your pocket. Of course, there will come a time when you’ll want to setup your own website/blog, but the cost is less than $100 a year. But, that’s not necessary in the beginning, although I highly recommend it as it will help you further along from the start.

Now, rather than going for the big bucks at the beginning and picking a very competative niche, I recommend finding a smaller niche to start with. Besides, you can make a lot of money even with smaller niches, believe it or not.

What are you passionate about? Do you have a hobby?

Answering these questions will help you determine what niche you may want to get started in. It helps to like what you’re doing, not to mention being knowledgeable in that area will help tremendously.

Stay tuned as my upcoming post will detail how you can determine if the niche you want to get into will be profitable or not. You don’t want to waste your time if there’s not a big enough market in your niche. Weeding out the profitable niches from the duds will aide you in your decision.

In the meantime, here’s some homework for you. Write down all the hobbies and interests you have on a piece of paper. You could have 1 or 15… It doesn’t matter. Jot them down and save them for my next post as you’ll be using this list to narrow down your interests and hobbies to just one that you’ll target for your affiliate marketing venture.

However, if you want to skip this and go right for the big bucks and target the “work from home” niche (the most money online is spent in this niche) just as I am, I recommend reading this post.

See you soon.

Okay, here’s a quick and easy way to earn $10. My good friend Dennis Edell is giving away $10 to ten people. One of those people can be you.

Simply head over to his blog at DennisEdell.com and leave intelligent, thought provoking comments on any of his blog posts. If you’re in his top ten commentator list at the end of March, you’ll win $10.

Easy enough, right?

Well… better head to this post to read the rules first.

I’ll warn you now that the competition will be a bit fierce. I’ll also mention that I’ll be participating as well.

Comment if you dare!

Seriously, making money online doesn’t get much easier than this right here.

Learn how to build a website and make money by monetizing and marketing it. This no-cost, step-by-step guide will show you from start to finish how to build a money making website.

From preparation, finding affiliate programs, getting a domain name and hosting, building your website, adding content and marketing your website, this guide will help you every step of the way.

At only 13 pages long, it provides simple and easy to understand instructions that you can put into practice immediately.

Experienced webmasters and marketers won’t find anything new here. Complete beginners who are looking to start their own website and start making money online will find this guide very useful.

There are two main components to building a website: A domain name and web hosting. This guide will explain the process of registering a domain name and getting web hosting. From there, you’ll learn about affiliate marketing and how to earn commissions promoting other people’s products and services.

The key ingredient to making a website profitable is building traffic to your website. This guide will explain some proven techniques to market your website and generate targeted traffic to your site.

Again, this guide is mainly to help complete beginners. So, if that’s you, I highly recommend you grab your FREE copy now. You’ll be well on your way to building a money making website within a week or less.

There is absolutely zero cost. You don’t even have to give up your e-mail address. Free meaning really free.

Download Now!

You can simply right-click on the link and choose “Save Target” to download directly to your computer.

If you read this post where I stated I’ll pay you $10 for signing up for a new website and hosting, that offer still stands if you build a website through my links in this guide. I’ll also be available to answer any questions you have about building and marketing your new website.

I’m in the business of helping people, and this one way I can do just that. Let me help you make money online starting today.

Another month has gone by. Seriously… is it going as fast as I think it is? I seem to keep losing more and more time each day and getting further behind on stuff. I apologize for the minimal amount of posts. I’m doing my best to keep up and provide quality content to you all.

Alas, another time for a blog post roundup of last month’s posts. I have some awesome posts included in this, as well as some awesome ones to come. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading them so far and have benefited from them.

I don’t take my blogging lightly. I put a lot of thought into what I’m writing and always have you, my readers, in mind. As always, your feedback is welcomed and appreciated.

Okay, without further delay let’s get started. Be sure to check out any posts you may have missed.

Affiliate Marketing is the New Job on the Market

30 Ways to Get Free Website Traffic In Minutes

Are You a Struggling Internet Marketer?

Proven Strategies to Increase Website Traffic and Generate Sales

Legitimate Worldwide Work From Home Opportunities

Are You Targeting ‘Paying’ Keywords?

How I Get Backlinks to My Blog Posts Resulting in Sales

Google Celebrates Valentine’s Day – They Gave Me $100!

The Official Alibaba.com Success Guide

I was very pleased to see the first post on this list had gotten Re-Tweeted 27 times so far. Thank you to all who spread the word to your Twitter followers.

The Twitter Tweetmeme plugin has proven to work well and makes it easy for Twitter users to Re-Tweet posts. If you’re not yet utilizing it on your own blog, you should be.

Again, thank you to all my readers!